INDIANS OF THE COUNTRY. 93 



CHAPTER X. 



Indians of the country — habits or the comanches and kioways — similarity 



BETWEEN THEM AND THE ARABS AND TARTARS PREDATORY EXCURSIONS INTO 



MEXICO WAR IMPLEMENTS — INCREDULITY REGARDING THE CUSTOMS OF THE 



WHITES METHOD OE SALUTING STRANGERS DEGRADED CONDITION OF THE 



WOMEN AVERSION TO ARDENT SPIRITS PRAIRIE INDIANS CONTRASTED WITH 



INDIANS OF THE EASTERN STATES BUFFALOES PROBABLE CONDITION OF THE 



INDIANS UPON THE EXTERMINATION OF THE BUFFALOES PERNICIOUS INFLUENCES 



OF TRADERS SUPERSTITIONS OF THE NATIVES. 



The country over which we passed is frequented by several tribes of 

 Indians, who follow the buffalo, and subsist almost exclusively upon 

 the uncertain products of the chase. The Witchitas, Wacos, Kechies, 

 and Quapaws, all resort to the country about the Witchita mountains, 

 where a few years since they had their thatched villages and corn-fields, 

 but they have recently removed near the white settlements. The 

 Witchitas and Wacos, as before stated, are now living upon Rush creek, 

 while the Kechies and Quapaws are upon Chouteau's creek, an affluent 

 of the Canadian. The Witchitas and Kechies each number about one 

 hundred warriors; the Wacos about eighty; and the Quapaws only about 

 twenty five. They all use the horse in their hunting and war expedi- 

 tions, and are possessed of a good supply of these animals. The history 

 of the Quapaws, a minute remnant of what was once a large and 

 powerful nation of Indians, called the " Arkansas," but now only num- 

 bering a very few lodges of miserable half-starved beggars, is truly 

 melancholy. Father Charlevoix, in his " Historical Journal of a Voyage 

 down the Mississippi," speaks of visiting them, and found them at that 

 time very numerous and warlike. He says of them : " The Arkansas, or 

 Quapaws, are reckoned to be the tallest and best-shaped of all the 

 savages of this continent, and they are called, by way of distinction, 

 * the fine men.' " He describes them as occupying at the time of his 

 visit four villages, one of which was upon the Mississippi, a short dis- 

 tance above the mouth of the Arkansas. They were, according to him, 

 composed of the confederated remnants of several ruined nations. 



In the time of Du Pratz these Indians had all moved up the Arkan- 

 sas, and were living about twelve miles from the mouth of White river ; 

 they were then quite numerous, and he compliments the7n by saying 



