Page:The life and adventures of James P. Beckwourth, mountaineer, scout, pioneer, and chief of the Crow nation of Indians (IA lifeadventuresof00beckrich).pdf/16

12 some curious sort among Indians. Altogether, when I recall my own experiences and adventures on different occasions in the West and on the frontier during and after the War of the Rebellion, I cannot find that it was much less interesting, varied, or striking than that of Beckwourth, the one great difference being that it was less bloody, albeit there was no lack of sanguinary occurrences in the guerilla country at the time of the Battle of Murfreesboro, &c., about which place, and Nashville, I then passed the winter.

If a man like Beckwourth had been intelligent enough to take an interest in folk-lore—that is to say, in Indian traditions, superstitions, and observances—or a student of nature in its varied forms, one can imagine what an extraordinary book he might have written. As it was, only the most startling incidents of battle and murder remained in his memory. The nomadic Indians among whom he lived are the most savage and brutal of their kind. The Algonkin and other tribes of Canada, which include the Chippewas, are of a different sort. They represent a decayed civilization, so to speak—that is, a state of society which, though essentially savage, was, two centuries since, strangely developed as regards social relations—the administration of justice, and the culture of myths. But the "horse Indians" of the Plains, though they have, as recent researches establish, much that is peculiar and recondite in their cult, are still, on the whole, extremely wild and rough. What may be deduced is that Beckwourth's narrative, making every allowance for exaggeration and falsehood, reflects very truly the real spirit of life as it was among those aborigines with whom he lived. The anecdotes which I have here selected abundantly prove this.

My own honest opinion of the work is that it is true in the main, simply because it was impossible for its hero to have lived through the life which other sources prove that he experienced, and not have met with quite as extraor-