170 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



impatient at any interruption, of present gratification, and incapable of discerning, as 

 he did, the terrible, inexorable destiny toward which they were slowly advancing. 



In this unequal and pitiable struggle to preserve the inheritance and nationality o^ 

 his people, his troubled and unhappy career drew slowly to its close. The keen and 

 subtle intellect, that resolute soul which, David-like, unpanoplied, without arms or 

 armor, save the simple ones that nature gave, dared encounter the Goliaths of the 

 young republic, were dimmed and chilled at last. Advancing years and unfortunate 

 excesses had accomplished their legitimate work.* The end to that clouded and 

 melancholy career was fast approaching. But until the close, when death was im. 

 niinent, he had no concern or thought which did not affect his people. He visited 

 them from cabin to cabin, repeating his warnings and injunctions, the lessons of a 

 life devoted to their interests, and bade them a last and affectionate farewell. He 

 died calmly, like a philosopher, in the arms of the noble Christian woman who has 

 made this society the custodian of his sacred relics. He was a phenomenon, a genius, 

 with all the frailties and all the fascination which that word implies — in natural 

 powers equal to any of the civilized race. 



Granted that he was vain ; granted that he sometimes dissembled like one of our 

 modern statesmen ; granted that toward the close of his unhappy life he partook too 

 often of that Circean cup which has proved the bane of so many men of genius of 

 every race, we cannot change our estimate of his greatness ; he remains still the con- 

 summate orator, the resolute, unselfish patriot, the forest statesman centuries in ad- 

 vance of his race; the central figure in that little group of aboriginal heroes which 

 stands out in lurid relief on the canvas of American history. 



He has been fitly called "The last of the Senecas." 



RED JACKET (FROM ALOFT). 



BY WALT WHITMAN. 



{Impromptu, on Buffalo City's commemoration of, and monument to, the old Iroquois orator, 



October 9, 1884.) 

 Upon this scene, this show, 

 . Yielded to-day by fashion, learning, wealth, 

 (Nor in caprice alone — some grains of deepest meaning,) 

 Haply, aloft (who knows?), from distant sky-clouds' blended shapes, 



As some old tree, or rock, or cliff, thrill'd with its soul, earth direct — a towering human form, 

 Produced of Nature's sun, stars, 



In hunting-shirt of film, arm'd with the rifle, a half-ironical smile curving its phantom lips, 

 Like one of Ossian's ghosts looks down. 



Camden, N. J., October 9, 1884. 



ANECDOTE OF RED JACKET, PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND DRESS. 



October 27, 1878. — Spent most of the day in the cabin and on the grounds of Ruth 

 Stevenson, which latter were the site of one of the villages belonging to the extinct 

 Kah-kwahs or Neutrals, and are rich in relics of that lost people. Ruth said that her 

 step-father, Red Jacket, scarcely ever smiled, although far from being a morose man. 

 His forehead was bald; back from the middle of the crown the hair was thick and 

 long, reaching down below his shoulders. This he invariably wore in the form ot a 

 single braid. It was Ruth's office to braid the old man's locks every morning. Form- 

 erly they took their meals squatted on the floor, and, when the weather was warm, 

 on the grass under the trees. They were often surprised at such times by white 

 visitors. 



*My friend Hon. Lewis F. Allen criticises this expression, claiming that, while Red Jacket drank 

 deeply at times, it was only occasional and never when public affairs demanded his attention, that the 

 opprobrious word drunkard could not justly be applied to him. Consult Stone's Life of Red Jacket; 

 also publications Buffalo Historic;*! Society, vol. 1, p. 351 (Hon. Orlando Allen). 



