Wi-jun-jon did not take his companion’s counsel. He would bravely see what was about to engulf his people. So he journeyed to see cities and guns and balloons and other wonders. I would see him again in the spring.
It was a cold and hard winter—many in the city took influenza. I was feverish, but only in my desire to paint. Mr. Chouteau purchased a steamboat for the American Fur Company, and I spent many evenings there planning for our expedition in the spring. I heard rumors of Wi-jun-jon. He had made his speech to the President. He had visited the theatre, he had ridden a balloon in Philadelphia.
He returned on the first of April taking up residence in the ship’s hull—overseeing the trade goods, which were destined for his people. I was greatly curious to see him, but he did not put on deck until we had cast away.
He was indeed a sorry spectacle. Puss in boots.
The President had presented him with a military costume—broadcloth of the finest blue trimmed with lace of gold; on his shoulders were mounted immense epaulettes; his neck was strangled with a shining black stock; and his feet were pinioned in a pair of waterproof boots, with high heels. He walked uneasily—“stepping like a yoked hog.”
Washington had crowned him with an immense beaver hat, which flashed a broad silver lace band, and was surmounted by a huge red feather, some two feet high. His coat collar, stiff with lace, came higher up than his ears, and over it flowed, down towards his haunches, his long Indian locks stuck up in rolls and plaits with red paint. He wore a large silver medal on a blue ribbon about his neck, and across his right shoulder a wide belt to support a broad sword. He wore white kid gloves to carry his two prize possessions—in his right hand a blue umbrella and in his left a large ladies’ fan.
He saw me and smiled, mistaking my laughter for good cheer. He strutted up to me stiff as a cob on a spindle. He demonstrated the final mark of his metamorphosis. He had been taught to whistle, “Yankee Doodle.” I knew I would have to paint him. I had made a sketch in the fall, but there would have to be two facing plates in my book. I completed both paintings during the two thousand mile trip to the Yellowstone.
He disembarked among his people and began to tell them of the wonders he had seen, while I began taking in wonders of the grizzly bear and the geyser. I will have to rely on my Assiniboine informants for the first part of my tale; although I was there at the end.
The Assiniboine listened with great interest until the tally stick was thrown in the Missouri. The rest was clearly fiction. The whites are great liars, he had caught their sickness. Despite growing disbelief, Wi-jun-jon continued his tale—flying like a bird over Philadelphia. The chiefs after three nights began to shun him. He lost his political eminence, but the gossiping members of the tribe were open to him. Each night the campfire circle and wigwam fireside audience grew.
He divided his bounty among his relatives. His laced frock was converted into a much-admired pair of leggings for his wife (which were topped by silver lace garters courtesy of the beaver hat!). His white linen shirt somehow found its way to a young woman, who had listened to his stories with an extreme wide-eyed interest. His pantaloons, blue and white with gold lace trim, were the next to go—razored into leggings for another “catch crumb.” The umbrella alone remained after this disassemblage (the fan having been spirited away by a jealous wind).
Despite his grave demonstrations with the umbrella his stories continued to be disbelieved. He seemed however content to lecture and had an inexhaustible source. He had visited seventy-four gun ships, seen the great council house of the white men (Congress), he had seen the patent office with its wondrous and curious machines and this he averred to be the greatest medicine place on earth.
However his audience grew and not only Assiniboine. Nearby Mandans and Cree came. Translators whispered in the echoes of his whispers. Sometimes gifts were left.
In some his tales induced an excitement. Their lives had lost some of their sheen. Particularly the young boys about to become braves and the middle-aged men and women, who were finding themselves “in the midst of the forest dark” as Dante says. Many enjoyed working to the accompaniment—braves would dehair buffalo for their par flèche shields, oil their rifles, fletch their arrows.
As the crowds grew so did talk among the chiefs. The only similar phenomena was the Bull Dance of the Mandans. And after the dance did not the elusive herds come near the Mandan villages? Perhaps Wi-jun-jon’s tale would draw these wonders. They had never seen a steam boat until Wi-jun-jon brought one. Perhaps his lies were creating these things. After much consultation the chiefs decided to honor him as a medicine man.
The chiefs so hailed him. Now his tales were no longer mere amusements, but medicine. Some openly hailed him as the greatest of medicine for the wonderful alacrity with which he created his lies. That he should be the greatest of medicine, and that for lying, merely, rendered him a prodigy in mysteries that commanded not only respect, but at length (when he was more maturely heard and listened to) admiration, awe, and at last dread and terror; which altogether must needs conspire to rid the world of a monster, whose more than human talents must be cut down to less than human measurement.
That Wi-jun-jon should be killed was decided in a secret council, but the method of killing a man so full of medicine required divine inspiration. An ordinary bullet would not kill such a great liar.
One of the braves obtained his dream and set off for the Fort at the mouth of the Yellowstone. There he obtained, by stealth (according to the injunction of his dream), the handle of an iron pot. He went into the woods and spent a whole day straightening and filing it to fit into the barrel of his gun. Then he returned to the Fort concealing the gun in his robes. He came behind Wi-jun-jon, while the latter was speaking to the Trader. He put the rifle to the back of Wi-jun-jon’s head and pulled the trigger. Troops rushed in and seized the wizard-killer—carting him off to the Stockade.
Here is where I will end my tale of Wi-jun-jon in my book for his death shows the imprudence of actually telling all you know, but I will tell the tale to the end for you, W.O., so that I am relieved of its burden.
I was among the Minnetaree when I heard of the death of the “traveled Indian.” I set forth, at once, by canoe. I had grown fond of Wi-jun-jon during the trip from St. Louis. I had often thought of him in his newfangled duds whistling “Yankee Doodle” and the “Washington Grand March.” I arrived in his village three days after his corpse had been tightly wrapped and put on its platform—such is the Sioux tradition—corpses remain elevated until they have decomposed and are suitable for burial. There were many people and much silence and much looking at Wi-jun-jon’s platform. I sought an audience with his brother or his squaw to pay my respects, but their grief was too great to permit visitors. I resolved to spend the night there and perhaps present the family with my sketches on the morrow.
I ate with Baptiste Vian, a Métis fur trader. We sat quietly telling each other our exploits and other lies. The campfires were ill-fed, and for the most part the Indians sat silently. A rattling sound came from Wi-jun-jon’s sky grave and a medicine man walked from there to the center of the camp. He took a long draw on his pipe and exhaled a streamer of smoke in each of the cardinal directions, then to the zenith and the nadir. Someone else walked from the grave poles; although it was too dark to see his features. This person sat where the medicine man had stood, and for a long time there was total silence and a mood like those evoked in the volume of poetry recently published by Mr. Poe. Then the whisper began. A hoarse voice began to tell of the wonders of an Indian newspaper. I knew that the Cherokee Sequoyah had developed an alphabet for his people, and that four years ago there had indeed been a Cherokee newspaper. The voice continued, on how as he went down river to Mississippi the Talking Leaves was the only source of news. To learn of the world they had to learn Cherokee and that the paper was prospering under the editorship of Sequoyah’s son Tsu-sa-le-tah. The voice continued (as I continued to try and make out the speaker) on the wonder of a newspaper, how it unified and ordered