La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

222 TONJY AND THE IROQUOIS. [1880.of the long arched structure; and, as to each firethere are two families, the place is somewhat crowdedwhen all are present. But now there is breathingroom, for many are in the fields. A squaw sitsweaving a mat of rushes; a warrior, naked excepthis moccasins, and tattooed with fantastic devices,binds a stone arrow-head to its shaft, with the freshsinews of a buffalo. Some lie asleep, some sit staringin vacancy, some are eating, some are squatted inlazy chat around a fire. The smoke brings water toyour eyes; the fleas annoy you; small unkemptchildren, naked asyoung puppies, crawl about yourknees and will not be repelled. You have seenenough ;you rise and go out again into the sunlight.It is, if not a peaceful, at least a languid scene. Afew voices break the stillness, mingled with thejoyous chirping of crickets from the grass. Youngmen lie flat on their faces, basking in the sun; agroup of their elders are smoking around a buffaloskinon which they have just been playing a game ofchance with cherry-stones. A lover and his mistress,perhaps, sit together under a shed of bark,without uttering a wcarcL Not far off is the graveyard,where lie the dead of the village, some buriedin the earth, some wrapped in skins and laid aloft onscaffolds, above the reach of wolves. In the cornfieldsaround, you see squaws at their labor, andchildren driving off intruding birds; and your eyeranges over themeadows beyond, spangled with theyellow blossoms of the resin-weed and the Rudbeckia,