The Indians of North America / [Anon].

  • George Mogridge
Date:
[1843?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Indians of North America / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    62/312 page 50
    twist of sinews. Seldom had its twang been heard, without an enemy or a buffalo falling to the earth ; and rarely had that lance been urged home, without finding its way to some victim’s heart. Austin. I thought he was a bold fellow. Hunter. He had a costly shield of the hide of a buffalo, stiffened with glue and fringed round with eagle quills and antelope hoofs; and a quiver of panther skin, well filled with deadly shafts. Some of their points were flint, and some Avere steel, and most of them were stained with blood. He carried a pipe, a tobacco sack, a belt, and a medicine bag; and in his right hand he held a war club like a sling, being made of a round stone wrapped up in raw hide and fastened to a tough stick handle. Austin. What sort of a pipe was it? Basil. What was in his tobacco sack ? Brian. You did not say what his belt was made of. Hunter. His pipe Avas made of red pipe-stone, and it had a stem of young ash, full three feet long, braided Avith porcupine quills in the shape of animals and men. It was also ornamented with the beaks of Avoodpeckers, and hairs from the tail of the white buffalo. One thing I ought not to omit; on the lower half of the pipe, which Avas painted red, were notched the snows, or years of his life. By this simple record of their lives, the red men of the forest and the prairie may be led to something like reflection. “We are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow,” Job viii. 9.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3