Forest and Stream. 
A Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun. 
Terms, $4 a Year. 10 Ore. A Copy. 
Six Months, f3. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 1896 
I 
VOL. XLVL— No. 13. 
No. 318 Broadway, New Yors. 
For Prospectus and Advertising Rates see Page v. FOREST AND STREAM'S INDIANS 
The Forest and Stream will shortly re- 
move to new offices in the New York Life 
Building, No. 346 Broadway, entrance on 
Leonard Street. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press 
on Tuesdays. Correspondence intended for 
publication should reach us by Mondays and 
as much earlier as may be practicable. 
Forest and Stream Water Colors 
f 
I i ami ^UA,ain TTaivi v^uiuxa g 
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% and beautiful reproductions of original water colors, ^ 
H painted expressly for the Forest and Stream. The 
^ subjects are outdoor scenes: 
1 
"He's Got Them" (Quail Shooting:). 
]| Jacksnipe Coming In. 
% Vigilant and Valkyrie. Bass Fishing at Block Island. 
It The plates are for frames 1 4 x 1 9 in. They are done in Ijj 
|| twelve colors, and are rich in effect. They are furnished || 
& to old or new subscribers on the following terms : ^ 
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H Forest and Stream 6 months and any two of the pictures, $3. ^ 
Price of the pictures alone, $1.50 each ; $5 for the set. iji 
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SNAP SHOTS. 
One point in the argument made by Mr. J. Russell 
Reed before the Massachusetts legislative committee on 
game, the other day, was that of the obligation which 
rests upon a State to deal justly with sister States. Every 
market open in seasons which are' closed in other States 
offers inducements to law violations there. Massachu- 
setts is morally bound to consider not only her own game 
supply and the effect upon it of a Boston market, but the 
supply also of New Hampshire and Maine and of every 
other State whose game may be killed for the supply of 
Boston dealers. 
We print in another column some particulars respect- 
ing President Cleveland's nomination of an United States 
Fish Commissioner. The selection appears to be a ques- 
tionable one for the interests of fishculture. The only 
known instance of Mr. Brice's connection with fishculture 
was his selection of a site for the Fort Gaston, Cal. , hatch- 
ing station, which because of its inaccessibility has proved 
to be useless except for stocking with trout the immediate 
waters upon which it is located. The reasons which may 
have guided President Cleveland in his choice are not 
known to us; but he appears to have been moved by a de- 
termination to take the Fish Commission out of the 
hands of "the scientists"— that is to say, of the people 
who might be expected to know something of the work 
of fishculture and its administration. 
A goodly proportion of the deer killed in Ontario are 
killed in the water where they have been driven by 
hounds. In his annual report on the game interests of 
the Province, Chief Warden Pmsley points out that this 
mode of deer killing made easy is rapidly depleting the 
stock, and that it would be wise to forbid hounding, at 
least for a term of years. However much opinions may 
differ respecting the merits of hounding, we may note as 
a sign of the times a steady growth of sentiment against 
killing deer in the water. 
The treatment given the Sportsmen's Exposition by the 
daily press was as a rule inefficient and inadequate. 
Here was a vast assembling of objects which were full of 
interest to tens of thousands, as shown by the attendance, 
and yet no New York paper thought it worth while to 
give an intelligent description of any single feature of the 
show. 
The Forest and Stream will very shortly remove to 
new and handsome offices in the New York Life Building, 
No. 346 Broadway, corner of Leonard street. This is two 
blocks north of the present location. The offices will be 
on the eighth floor, reached by the elevator at the Leonard 
street entrance. 
As the time for the Sportsmen's Exposition drew near 
the Forest and Stream set to work to devise some ex- 
hibition, apart from its own special space, which should 
have an interest outside of the trade in sporting goods 
and should prove attractive to the general public. The 
matter was one requiring some thought, and it was not 
easy to settle on material which should be an attraction, 
and at the same time instructive, and yet which should 
in no degree bear the character of an advertisement. 
It was at length decided to try to bring on to New York 
a family of Indians and to reconstruct here a little camp, 
which should reproduce the Indian camp of twenty-five 
years ago among the buffalo -eating people. To the ac- 
complishing of this we gave no little time and effort. It 
was necessary first to secure the assent of the Indians to 
come, and then to obtain from the Government permis- 
sion for them to leave their reservation and visit New 
York for this purpose. It was necessary, also, to secure 
from the older people in the tribe the primitive imple- 
ments, which had been preserved from the old days when 
their use was common, but which have now been sup- 
planted by white man's utensils, and finally it was neces- 
sary to transport the party to New York and to superin- 
tend the erection of the camp. 
All this was done, and successfully done. The Forest 
and Stream Indians were the attraction of the show. 
This was recognized by exhibitors before the show 
opened, as well as by the first of the public who attended; 
the daily newspapers, which are quick to know a good 
thing when they see it, realized that this was the "fea- 
ture" on which they could "spread." They did spread: and 
to-day there is perhaps not a better known man in New 
York than Bear Chief; and as one walks by his side while 
taking him about to see the sights of what he calls "this 
place of many houses," one hears the policemen, the cab 
drivers and many of the passers-by say to each other, 
"That is Bear Chief." 
So the most novel and interesting part of the entire ex- 
hibition made by the Forest and Stream was the group 
of Blackfeet Indians, brought on from the Blackfoot 
reservation in Montana, to show the American sportsmen 
of to-day how the primitive American hunter lived. The 
party consisted of Bear Chief, the council chief of the 
tribe; White Antelope Woman with her little daughter 
Natoye (Blessed), and Wm. Jackson, the interpreter. 
Bear Chief was a brave warrior in the old days when 
warriors had a place on the plains. He has counted coup 
upon his enemy many times; his wives have often 
trimmed his clothing with the scalps of enemies, torn 
from their heads with his own hand. 
White Antelope Woman is of the purest Blackfoot race, 
the descendant of a line of chiefs. In the literature of a 
few years ago she would have been called an Indian 
princess. Her mother is a medicine woman and has 
secret powers. She can see visions and dream dream s; she 
is a doctor and can do many mysterious things. 
Wm. Jackson, the interpreter, is a good prairie man 
and served well from 1874 to 1879, during the last days of 
the plains wars, with such generals as Custer, Terry and 
Miles. He was with Reno on the eventful day of the 
Little Horn fight, and for twenty-four hours after that 
battle he lay hidden in the brush surrounded by hundreds 
of fierce savages. 
In its exhibit at the Sportsmen's Exposition, held in 
New York in 1895, Forest and Stream showed the arms 
and implements of the primitive American hunter, and 
traced bis evolution from, the stone-armed savage, whom 
the white men found when they first reached these shores, 
to the Indian of later days, equipped with the most im- 
proved weapons of modern warfare. These implements 
and this evolution were interesting, but it is more inter- 
esting still to see the living Indian again occupying his 
lodge, armed and equipped as he was in former times, 
and engaged in 'the same pursuits which occupied him 
during the buffalo days, before he had become the ward 
of the nation, a reservation Indian,; and a hard-working 
tiller of the soil and grower of cattle. 
It is through just this transition that Bear Chief has 
passed. Twenty years ago he was a fierce warrior, a 
buffalo killer. He wore the clothing of the savage, and 
except in the bitterest winter weather he was always ab- 
sent from the camp, either in pursuit of food or on the 
war path. As a hunter and as a warrior he was success- 
ful beyond his fellows. 
The same qualities which gave him preeminence in the 
savage pursuits of the old days have pushed him to the 
front in these more peaceful times. When the buffalo 
disappeared, and it became evident that if a man would 
not work neither should he eat, Bear Chief recognized the 
changed position and made up his mind that he would 
work. For years he has been the most industrious man 
on his reservation, and now he is one of the wealthiest. 
It is he who raises the best crops, it is he who has the fat- 
test cattle, his horses are the fastest, and his success in 
this respect has not been without its influence on his fel- 
low tribesmen. They have seen that as of old he was 
successful in war, so now he is successful in peace, and so 
strongly have they been impressed by this that they elec- 
ted him head council chief of the Piegan tribe of the 
Blackfoot nation. This is a fine tribute to Bear Chief, but 
it is more than that. The election to this chieftainship of 
the man most noted in the tribe for industry is convinc- 
ing evidence of the good sense of the Piegans, and shows 
how completely they have accepted the idea of civiliza- 
tion, and have come to realize that labor is necessary to 
success and to life. 
In the skin lodge with its crossing lodge poles, in the 
sweat-house'standing near, and the drying scaffold hung 
with meat, were seen three of the characteristic features 
of the old-time Indian camp, the camp which in reality 
we can never again see. It had been intended to have 
these Indians occupied in their old-time pursuits, the man 
manufacturing or repairing his arms, and the woman 
dressing hides or making moccasins or other skin cloth- 
ing. This idea could not be carried out. On the first day 
Bear Chief set out to make some arrows, and did make 
some sinew bowstring, but after that the people were so 
anxious to be presented to him and to ask him questions 
that he had no time for work. 
Bear Chief is mentioned more than once in Mr. Grin- 
nell's "Blackfoot Lodge Tales," and much detailed in- 
formation about the Piegans and their ways of life in old 
times is to be found in that volume and in "The Story of 
the Indian" by the same writer. In both these books, too, 
are accounts of the wonderful practices of women who 
had the same mysterious powers that the Two Bear 
Woman possesses. 
In securing the equipment for this camp Mr. Jackson, 
who had the matter in charge, scoured the whole Piegan 
camp for old-time implements and articles. It was the 
aim to show here only the genuine things, those which 
had been in use in the old days, and if a few articles were 
unobtainable and had to be made, they reproduced with 
exact fidelity the implements of long ago. A successful 
effort was made to give to the sons of civilization some 
notion of the life which the sons of nature used to lead. 
One of the most realistic things in the exhibit was the old 
goblet made of mountain sheep horn from which the 
baby and others drank. 
It is impossible to give here a complete description of 
this little camp and the implements found in it. The 
family occupied an old-fashioned cowskin tepee, in which 
a fire burned on the ground, and were dressed in the 
ornamented skin clothing of primitive times. In and 
about the lodge were the implements of ancient times, 
bows and arrows, a lance and shield, all of them weapons 
of war. Fleshers, hide scrapers, parfleches, ladles and 
spoons made of buffalo horn, and stone hammers, are 
tools for women's use. Scattered about were hides. 
Hung up at the back of the lodge were various 
sacred bundles which contained the medicine of the 
Raven Carriers and the ghost dance medicine. Here, 
too, was the Thunder Pipe, the original one given cen- 
turies ago by the Thunder to a poor Blackfoot man, and 
handed down in the tribe ever since. The story of how 
this pipe was first obtained is told in "Blackfoot Lodge 
Tales." The sweat lodge with its painted buffalo bull's 
skull stood at the end of the space furthest from the tipi; 
the tripod which supported the warrior's arms was Jclose 
to the lodge; some dried meat was hanging up. There 
were the fresh-killed heads and skins of mountain sheep 
and mountain goats; there were bone and stone tanning 
implements, relics of the Baker massacre, and a host of 
other interesting things. 
Of all this interesting exhibit, the most interesting to 
many people was the little child Natoye (Blessed), dressed 
in buckskin and beads, and her clothing hung with tiny 
woman's implements. She is the most cheery, good- 
natured, courageous child .that ever was, and she won all 
hearts by her smiles and her cunning ways. 
It is not too much to say that it is largely due to the 
Forest and Stream Indians that the Sportsmen's Ex- 
