Chapter 15
The Western Mountains, 4 K
(The Rockies, MT, ID, WY, SD, ND, 1372)
As we entered the village, the people seemed quite friendly and tried to talk to us. Their language sounded rather nasal and was full of choking or gagging sounds. None of us could make it out. They switched to making gestures with their hands and arms and led us to understand that they wanted us to wait with them until someone came from another camp. They called themselves Ga-i-gwu or Ka-i-gwu, the sound was somewhere between a “g” and a “k.” They wore their hair long and used body and face paint sparingly. They wore deerskin and used plains oxen robes when it was cool. They served us something of a feast, followed by the ubiquitous nawak’osis. They again tried to use the signal communication system in combination with their words, but we couldn’t quite get what they were saying.
The following day, the one we were waiting for arrived, and everything became clear. He could speak Siksika. It seems that Juchi’s group had encountered elements of their tribe some distance to the east and a little south. Juchi had already recruited them and had left one of my mapmakers to guide them east in the late summer. Word had been sent to the mapmaker that we were here, and he would no doubt be on his way to meet us. The whole tribe was planning to join us, so taken were they with the horses. Late in the evening, Pesequan rode into camp. He had been fairly close when he heard we had come and quickly hurried to meet us. Juchi had followed the Absaroke upstream and had run into some villages belonging to a tribe that called itself Na-i-shan-dina. They spoke a language that Japasa, the Tsattine accompanying Juchi, could understand. They told him there were more of their bands to the southeast and a great tribe to the west farther upriver which they called the Beshiltcha. They would do whatever the Beshiltcha did. Juchi decided to continue along the Absaroke and found the Beshiltcha who proved to be the Ka-i-gwu. They called the Na-i-shan-dina, the Tagui. He brought along one of the latter to act as interpreter through Japasa, a fortunate move since they had a very strange language. He had continued stopping at the main Ka-i-gwu villages along the river up to a large lake, which seemed to be its source.
It seems the Absaroke River’s lower half contained huge bottoms with vast herds of game. They had also found coal along one north-flowing river that joined the Absaroke River. The bottoms narrowed about midway into a long canyon, and there were rapids, but then it opened up again for most of the rest of the river until it entered its source mountains to the southeast. The going was quite rough along that part, but the scenery and the lake were beautiful. They had also found hot springs and hot mud and intermittent springs that gushed hot water high into the air at regular intervals. Juchi had decided to continue southwest to a great salt-water lake the Ka-i-gwu had told him about. There were also a couple of tribes along the way for possible recruitment. Pesequan was going to lead the Ka-i-gwu and any others Juchi sent along back up the Absaroke River, since there was so much game, and it was a fairly easy way, except for the bears. I was surprised that they had such an easy run of it, since the land south of our river looked so bleak, but the bears, we knew all about and traded stories. It turned out Juchi had a lot more trouble with them. They had lost a horse and one of the men. Abishabis, a Kensistenoug, was mauled, but not too seriously. That was fortunate—for he was Juchi’s brother-in-law. I made a quick copy of Pesequan’s map, figuring I could try to reconcile it with mine later.
I decided that it was too soon to turn back east, so we would continue along our river to its source. Pesequan showed us where three rivers join to form ours, and we were told that the westernmost one was the longest. The eastern branch actually joined the main river below where the other two joined. But it and the middle branch drained the same mountains as the Absaroke River. Pesequan stayed with us while we were among the Ka-i-gwu, and the one that spoke Siksika, Guipago, agreed to go with us. He told us that there were other tribes to the northwest and the west of them, but they were not often in contact because of the high mountains between them. I asked if there were any passes through the mountains, and he said there were, but they were not easy. After a few days of slogging through the marsh all the beaver dams had made out of our river’s upper reaches, we all agreed a mountain pass sounded interesting.
While it hadn’t seemed a steep trek, it was obvious that we were at a much higher altitude than our Ordu’s camp. Not only were the nights quite chilly for high summer, but also we all tired more easily. We abandoned our river in a ridgeline and moved west along a maze of creeks dotted with extensive beaver handiwork, finally reaching the higher, drier ground leading into the pass. The pass wasn’t particularly difficult, and we found ourselves following a creek down from the pass into a narrow valley whose river flowed northwest. We followed it for a while and ran into a group of natives who were returning from a hunt. Guipago went up to them, spoke to them for a while, and then returned to us. He said that they were Tagui, not their sometime allies, but a similar people who had also come from the north and lived in brush lodges along the rivers and hunted game. He seemed rather contemptuous of them, but I let it pass. As we drew closer, Nitsiza said that they looked like his people. He went up to them with me in tow and began speaking to them in his language. They understood him with some difficulty and me with even more, but we were able to communicate. They called themselves Dine instead of Tinneh, and their legends did place them in the north originally. We explained our mission and, after looking over our weapons and horses, proclaimed themselves ready to join. We told them to get their people and follow the Ka-i-gwu down the Absaroke River in the late summer. We had to explain to them just where the Absaroke River was, of course.
They urged me to come to their village and speak to their chief. It took the rest of the day to reach it, and Guipago had a point, the houses did look like piles of brush. The people were a little taller than the Ka-i-gwu. They wore their hair long with a leather band around their forehead, to keep it out of their eyes. They wore no feathers or other adornments except earrings and dressed simply in leather. The chief explained that they had no organization beyond the village and his authority was limited. He would send runners to the other nearby villages and tell them of our proposal, but he could make no promises. I thanked him and urged him to send any who were willing to join us down the Absaroke River in the late summer. I made sure he knew which river I meant.
Our trip to the village had led us to a river flowing west through a broad valley. We continued along this river and came upon a few more Dine villages where we repeated our pitch with varying results. Eventually, we came upon a different sort of people. Guipago called them the Grass House people and did not appear to think much of them, either. He did know a little of their language and was able to interpret for us. We were brought before their chief.
Their chief was wearing a headdress of ermine skins, rather crudely put together and wore a necklace of bear claws. Otherwise he looked just like the Ka-i-gwu chief, same clothes, same body and face paint. They also passed around the nawak’osis. Guipago told us that the Grass House People ranged far to the south almost to the Great Salt Lake. They were greatly scattered into small bands like the one we were visiting. I repeated our offer of horses and peace in exchange for confederation, adding that their neighbors, the Ka-i-gwu, would be leaving their old haunts and joining us in the east. The chief was surprised and asked Guipago if it was really true. He confirmed it, of course. Next the chief, whose name was Uriewiki, wanted to know what we meant by confederation. I hated to think how all this was being translated by Guipago. It took quite some time to explain the concept, but it helped when I mentioned that one of my colleagues was even now presenting the same proposal to their fellow tribesmen in the south. He decided he would confer with his fellows and go along with their decision. Meanwhile, he agreed to help us get to another tribe to the north although they were enemies. He fervently hoped I would convince them to go east also.
The next morning, we were presented with Trehero. He would guide us to the enemy. Along the way, we tried to learn each other’s language. I discovered that his people call themselves the Nomo, while the more southerly bands call themselves the Newe. We went north up the valley to another larger river, which also flowed north for a while before sharply turning west. We followed this river westward. The going was very rough. We were constantly scrambling up and down tree-covered slopes. The footing was so uncertain that we often had to dismount and lead our horses. Below us, the river we followed was often a churning, foaming rush carving its path through solid rock. Only rarely could we get down to the river. Nights were remarkably cold for summer, and then the days were sometimes quite hot. If it rained toward evening, it would turn to snow after dark, and all would be frozen the next morning. The trees gradually changed from spruce, fir, and pine to all fir, then all pine. The pine was a very fragrant one with an almost copper-colored bark. After a few days of this, we arrived at a different-looking village. There were either conical or pyramidal earth-covered mounds scattered along an open area between a creek leading to the river we were following and the forest carpeting the mountain we had just descended. There was only a scattering of people in the village, and these were startled to see us approach from the woods. Trehero went ahead with his arms outstretched to show he wasn’t armed, and we followed slowly a little behind.
The men in the village had fled, but only to come back armed. They hesitated, then listened to Trehero and finally put away their weapons, welcoming us to the village. It seemed the majority of the band was fishing at a temporary settlement on the river since the salmon were running. They sent someone for their chief, who was supervising or participating in the effort. The people wore clothes of deer and rabbit skin, but also used cedar bark. The women wore hats that looked a bit like baskets. I was surprised that none of these fishing people thought to use fish skin for clothes like their counterparts across the Great Sea. The mounds proved to be pit houses. One entered them from the smoke hole on a notched log, which was imbedded in the ground and at a slight angle. The pit was about four feet deep, and the roof was of layers of wood covered with pine needles, grass, and earth. The houses were quite large, easily accommodating a few families.
At length, the chief came in and Trehero acted as interpreter. The tribe was called the Nimipu, and the chief was named Ollikut. We endured the nawak’osis, and then I presented him with the usual offer of confederation or complete merger, as they wished, in return for our advances and help. He explained that he could only speak for his own band, and, frankly, he wondered how useful the horses were in the mountains. I explained that the horses had gotten us through to him, none the worse for wear, and could prove essential to them should the salmon run fail as it inevitably did on occasion. They would find the horse would greatly improve their hunting success. He agreed that I had a point and for his part would prefer the confederation offer since he didn’t want to leave his beautiful mountains. I had my own thoughts about that, but I readily agreed and suggested he contact the other bands and perhaps a number of their young men could accompany me back. He sent out runners to the neighboring villages and suggested that I go with him to a more centrally located village where several of the chiefs might be able to meet me.
The next day, we set out along the river (at least the river was often in view). Ollikut was impressed by the way the horses were able to handle most of the climb, and when one of the men set off after and bagged a deer—he was even more impressed. He was also interested in our iron arrow points, and our long-range bows. Five days later, we arrived at a village near where another smaller river joined the one we were following (I had named the latter the Nimipu River, since they lived along most of it), which turned sharply north. We were shown to a very ample pit house in which there was a large gathering of very dignified-looking men. We were served roast salmon and some sort of cooked tuber, then the nawak’osis was passed around, and finally we got around to talk. They listened to my proposal, faithfully passed on by Trehero. Ollikut then spoke in favor, reminding them of the great hardship they had suffered the last time the salmon run had failed, and telling them about what he had seen of the horses’ capabilities. While the young men who accompanied me would be missed during the fishing season, it was also true that they ate the most anyway.
As usual, they all took turns commenting, and Trehero did his best to keep up with the commentary. Most seemed to favor the confederation idea, but a few were puzzled about why we would want to help them, wondering if perhaps it was all a clever trick. I reminded them that if a reasonable number of their young men accompanied us, they would far outnumber us, and if we meant ill, they would surely be able to punish us. We simply wanted to bring peace and security to our new land. Almost all of them were in favor of confederating and urged me to wait a while, and they would send young men from most of the villages. I asked if the Great Sea was nearby, but they said it was still far away, over mountains and dry plains and more mountains. I asked about the people between them and the sea. They said there were some people to the north of them called the Salst, to the west one found their relatives, except that they had pointed heads! That wanted some looking into, but it was late summer, and I couldn’t afford to tarry long enough to look in on these people. I asked the Nimipu if they would invite their neighbors to join us, after their young men returned next summer. They readily agreed to do so, if all was as we promised. These people were no fools.
I asked our hosts if there was an easier way south and west than the way we came, and they suggested we ascend along a very large river a little to the west. It drained a large plain in the south, where one could find Trehero’s people. First, we would have to cross this river I had named for our hosts. To that end, I looked it over and found it was too deep to ford and too swift to swim. This brought us to their boats. I suppose my experience with the Anishinabe should have given me more faith in the things, and these looked more substantial, being carved out of a whole tree, but they didn’t look very stable at all. Still, there was no other way across, so we got our hosts to ferry us across the river two at time with our horses swimming behind, held with long tethers. I figured if they were too close behind and pulled suddenly, the boat would quickly flip over. We made it across safely, and one of the Nimipu told Trehero that I would probably like the boats of the coastal Salst. They were huge and could carry the horses aboard. How was that possible? I wanted to know. It seemed that there were huge trees on the coast because it rained all the time, and the locals carved them into huge boats. It was necessary in any case because they used them on the sea. My informant had no idea if they traded with anyone across the sea, but he did know that they hunted sea creatures. I wondered just how seaworthy these “huge” ships were and was sorely tempted to find out, but it would have to wait for another time.
While we waited for the young volunteers to drift in, I went over to look at the other river we would be following. It took most of the day to reach it. We scrambled up one pine-covered ridge, moved across a saddle to another, and there, far below, was the river. It appeared greenish where it wasn’t white. I couldn’t see anything that approximated easy going anywhere near this river. Our hosts admitted that the easy part was well up the river, so I asked if there was an easier way to get to the easy part, and they agreed on what would surely be an easier route. They suggested we follow the stream that joined their river just as it turned north. Near its source, it opened up quite a bit, and we could cross the ridgeline to the east and follow the river on the other side of the ridge down a broad valley to the easy part of the other river. They called the other river the Kimooenim, so I kept the name, figuring I couldn’t think of anything pleasant to call it at this point.
After a very unpleasant cold night above the Kimooenim, we returned to the Nimipu. The young men were still trickling in. I decided that rather than wait, I’d have a look at the new proposed route, just in case it was even worse. The route was a bit of a scramble up a pine-covered slope, but not bad, and there was even a bit of a waterfall the first day. Late the second day, the canyon did open up into a pleasant valley leading up to something of a plateau. The pines thinned out and grassland took over. That same gray-green pungent grass predominated here. I decided to stay here and sent one of the Nimipu back to guide the others here when they were ready. I also sent along a note to Ussu telling him to move everyone within three days of getting my note. Any stragglers would have to take their chances.
Meanwhile, I decided to look around a bit after resting the horses a day. Pine-covered mountains on the west and south and northeast hemmed in the plateau, but the southeast was still open over a gentle slope. Over the slope, I found a herd of the plains oxen and another river. It was well dammed up by beavers, no doubt making the land near it marshy. The aspens along the river had been thinned out by all the construction or flooded out by its resulting lakes. I could see that the river flowed south, and the plateau seemed to continue in that direction out of sight. For demonstration purposes, I went down and bagged a few of the oxen for the Nimipu. They were very impressed with the ease of the hunt and immediately set to work on the carcasses. There were only about a dozen in my company, so they set up poles to dry out strips of the meat over low fires and prepared the rest for us to eat. They were particularly pleased that I didn’t want the skins, and they prepared them for curing also.
I took a couple of the men with me and went over to have another look at the Kimooenim River, for my map. We went back to the western end of the grassland, and then plunged up the slope of a ridgeline. Once across the ridge, there was a moderate slope in which two small rivers drained a wooded valley. They seemed to flow south or southwest. Continuing west, the slope rose a bit, then plunged down dramatically to the still-churning river far below. I looked for a vantage point so I could get a good view of the river and finally had to climb a tree. As far as I could see in both directions, the river flowed through a steep canyon. I decided we had made the right choice after all. We spent the night in the more sheltered valley, and while cold, it wasn’t as windy. The next day, we moved south along the valley, swerving east to avoid another deep canyon made by a smaller river and finally climbed up another slope. At the top of the slope, I could see a large stretch of grassland to the south, but I knew it wasn’t the one where I had left the rest of the men, for that was farther east. We descended to the plateau and moved eastward across it to another ridgeline, crossing it at a pass carved out by a small stream. We camped on the plain on the other side and the next day returned northward to our camp.
We got several more of the oxen and one of the bears, and just as the last of the meat had been dried, Ussu came up with the rest of the men and the volunteers. There were at least three hundred of the latter. A small group of them was from the Salst tribe, which had been trading with the Nimipu, when word came of our offer. They came along to see if there was anything to it and were very impressed by the horses. We bagged a few more of the oxen so everyone would have a good meal before we started out. The next day, we started south. On the third day, the valley narrowed into a canyon, but we managed to scramble along it for the rest of that day and most of the next until we stumbled out into the plain again. Actually, the plain sloped gently down to a midsized aspen-lined river along which we could see a settlement of the Nomo. I sent Trehero ahead to reassure them about our intentions, for we surely looked like a very serious Nimipu raiding party.
We were received nervously, but they had heard by now of our offer, and some of their young men were getting ready to go east with the Ka-i-gwu in the late summer. Perhaps some would want to accompany us instead. I was not at all loathe, but did not want to wait around, so I told them we would be following the Kimooenim upstream and any recruits could join us along its banks. They had their own name for it, of course, and they said it was about a day’s walk to the south. We had arrived at the village late in the day, so I sent some of the men to bring in some game, since we were, after all, among “confederates,” and it wouldn’t do to eat all their food. The men bagged a good number of the ubiquitous oxen, making quite a feast for our hosts. This was politic since my entourage outnumbered the village.
We crossed the river (which I named the Nomo River) in the morning and, joined by a handful of their men moved south, reached the Kimooenim late in the day near a waterfall. We followed the river upstream moving first southeast, then east, then south, then east, then north, east again, and finally northeast. The country around the river reminded me of the upper reaches of our Mongol River. The banks sloped up either gently or dramatically to a higher plain, dotted sparingly with buttes of varying sizes and shapes. On both sides we could see tree-covered mountains in the distance. Once we turned north, the mountains were much closer on the south side of the river. Besides the grayish green grass, which was more like a shrub here, there was also a blue-green grass that grew in tufts and occasionally there would be a few flowers, generally white, yellow, or blue in color. We also encountered some forbs and other brush. About midway on the course of this river, we came upon a truly spectacular waterfall. The major fall was over two hundred feet, and there were also smaller falls leading to the main one. The Nomo called them Pah-Chu-Laka, which meant something like “thrown waters leaping.” I hadn’t been naming waterfalls, but I went ahead and put their name down for it, in part to make up for using the Nimipu name for a river that was obviously just as much theirs. We were joined by small groups of men almost every day along the way. While everyone had brought along enough dried fish for a month’s journey, I always had a few outriders on our northern flank looking for game. They were usually successful, bringing in oxen, deer, or antelope almost every day. We followed the river upstream about twelve hundred li over eighteen days, passing first Nomo and then Dine villages.
Above another falls, the river turned east and disappeared into the mountains. We left it and moved northeast into the hills and out of the grassland. At least the forest wasn’t all pine as it had been in the west. Here there were mostly fir trees with spruce, hemlock, and larch to keep it interesting. Trehero was leading us to a pass through the mountains south of the Absaroke River, so we wouldn’t be going back along ground already covered by Juchi. Two days after leaving the river, we turned sharply east, then southeast along a wooded valley. The second day, we found ourselves climbing up across a saddle between two mountains and on the other side descended to a large patch of grassland totally surrounded by mountains. Cutting through the plain was a wide, island-filled river flowing south. Our guides insisted it was the very Kimooenim we had left four days before. We had taken a short cut. I tried to get an idea from them how I could connect the two river segments on my map, but I couldn’t vouch for that segment until many years later. We followed the river upstream, past a line of very high mountains all with rugged snow-covered peaks, reaching its apparent source, a fair-sized lake dotted with a few tree-covered islands and teeming with waterfowl, the next day. To the west of the lake, the shore was covered with trees going partway up the lower slopes of the line of high mountains. The slopes were quite steep, and in fact the mountains seemed to rise very steeply from the plain. To the east, the mountains were lower, snowless and thinly treed, except for bare patches on the highest ones. The Nomo called the western range Teewinot, which meant something like “mountain with many peaks.” They considered this area the top of the world. I thought it would be impolite to tell them about the very high land west of the old Khanate. Besides, I had never been there, so I couldn’t be certain it was any higher. In any case, this was a beautiful spot, and I have never forgotten it. Also, the hunting was quite good in the little plain, mostly elk, oxen, and antelopes. Still, I imagined (as I later confirmed) winter would be quite long and very cold on that high plain.
Here we came to the need to make a choice. I emphasized the need to stay near water, but my guides were of two minds. One group wanted to turn east and follow a river southeast, then swing north and follow one of the tributaries of the Absaroke River to the latter to get back to the Mongol. They admitted they had never been that way but had heard about it. The other group wanted to go north to the lake that was the source of the Absaroke, pick up a river that rises in the hills east of it and follow it to the same spot in half the time, without making a long trek through a semidesert with rarely enough water this time of year and most of that bad. They also had never been their way. To save everyone’s face, I asked if all agreed that the second way was shorter. They did, so I opted for that route.
We went around to the north side of the lake and continued upstream along a river that emptied into it. At one point, there was steam rising from the river and on looking into it, there seemed to be a hot spring emptying into it somewhere. The whole river wasn’t hot, just this one part. The river split to pass on both sides of a small hill, so we took the northern end, which turned out to drain a fairly high mountain. We crossed it and continued around the foot of the mountain, crossing another river, and coming up to the shores of a small lake. This deflected us eastward, across yet another river and through a small pass between two hills. Once through the pass, we could see a spur of a very large lake to the north. I went up a hill for a better look and could see that it was indeed a good-sized lake also dotted with a few islands and teeming with waterfowl, like its counterpart three days to the south. We went around the southern end and camped midway up its eastern shore.
The next day, I sent most of the men out to hunt waterfowl, and, while our Nomo “guides” looked for the pass we were supposed to follow east, I went around the lake to look at the Yellow Canyon Pesequan had told me about. It would also give me a chance to make sure his map and mine meshed. I wanted to get back by evening, so I took a few horses with me and hurried along around the lakeshore. There were a few small clear spaces, but mostly the terrain was open wood consisting primarily of fir trees. All around were rugged bare or snow-capped mountain peaks, with trees covering the lower slopes. Quite a few streams flowed into the lake, but I only found one that flowed out of the lake. It was on the north shore, and Pesequan had done a good job of indicating it. His rendering of the east shore of the lake was not very accurate, but that was because he had passed along the west shore and it was a big lake. There was a fair amount of steam or mist visible beyond the western shore of the lake, no doubt the hot springs Pesequan had mentioned, and that might also have made his mapping more difficult. I followed the river downstream to the northwest. A steaming creek among others joined it. I could hear the falls before I could see them, and as I turned eastward with the river, I could see the mist rising. I moved along the rim of the canyon for a better look. It was an impressive sight, the falls dropped at least a hundred feet into the canyon, but the canyon walls were not yellow. As I went farther along the rim, I heard another roar from a waterfall. Continuing along, I found the highest falls I had ever seen. The drop was at least three hundred feet into a long deep canyon. This time the canyon walls did look yellow, especially in the sunlight. It was quite rugged here; Juchi’s party must have had quite a climb up to this level. The yellow was from sulphur, whose smell was noticeable in this area. It was past midday, so I couldn’t tarry and enjoy the sight. I collected some of the sulfur, then hurried back arriving at camp late in the day to a feast of waterfowl. The “guides” had returned and were certain they had found the right path.
We set out early, quickly climbed the low hills east of the lake, and soon picked up a small stream. It led us to a small river, which was, indeed, flowing east. Two days later, we were descending out of the trees into another plain covered with the gray-green pungent grass. Soon, the river we were following was joined by another river from the south, and then after passing between two buttes it turned generally northeast. We followed it through increasingly arid land for three days. Along this difficult stretch, the pungent grass gave way to scrub especially a particularly offensive-smelling one with small spiky leaves. The river became increasingly less potable as alkaline streams joined it. There were also quite a few dry streambeds, and almost no game, just a few antelope. On the third day, we came upon large north-flowing river, which while an improvement on the one we had been following, was also quite silty. On crossing it we could see more clear streams were joining it from the east. They were draining a pleasant-looking row of mountains.
I didn’t want to go back north to the Absaroke River since it would take me out of the way, so I decided to continue east and try to pick up another east-flowing river to lead us to the Mongol. I had marked the mouths of many rivers that emptied into it from the west and was sure I could find one of them. The hunting was better on this side of the river, so we camped for a day along a clear stream and bagged a fair number of the oxen so everyone could eat their fill for a change. The next day, I decided to send one of my mapmaker apprentices, Shingabaossin, to follow the river we had just crossed north to the Absaroke River so we would have a better picture of this country. I sent about fifty of the Nimipu with him along with both of the Siksika, Iron Arrow and Felt Lodge, so they could get back home and help with hunting along t