Indian Princess
The bodies of the women and children were lying in burning heaps among the wreckage of tipis
and scattered belongings, smoke trailing towards the electric blue sky like an offering to the gods.
Crackling skin sizzled and popped as the corpses blackened and began to turn into glowing tangles of
limbs and skulls. The aroma of cooked flesh had attracted the attention of a pack of coyotes now sitting
on the ridgeline, waiting for dusk for their chance to reap the benefits of human violence against
humans. At least the coyotes eat what they kill.
Besides the sound of the burning
bodies and the whistle of the wind in the grass, there was a horrible quiet
sitting like a fog over the death scene. The raiders had already gone, stealing
anything of value and killing all the men by battle one by one, then taking
just one of the women with them, laying her over the hindquarters of the horse
of her kidnapper with his hand clinched in her hair as she screamed and kicked
hopelessly, she was taken to the Ute camp to prepare for trade.
Stretched
across fifty yards of long, yellow late-season grass, the now-destroyed Paiute
campsite originally hosted seventeen members in ten tipis that were easily
taken apart and relocated closer up the canyon where the cold blazing winter
winds would be blocked by the vermillion cliffs outside of the new Mormon
settlement named Escalante. It was September, so the small band of family
members in this camp were beginning to prepare for the long harsh desert
winter. There were three new babies this year; which was a blessing of
abundance that the tribe cherished greatly. The mothers of these three babies
born in 1844 were two sisters and a cousin, each had their own tipi with beds
that had been dug out and filled with hot stones to provide radiant heat through
the night so that their babies would always stay warm. The youngest mother was
only 17 when she gave birth in February. The elder women had worked all night
in the willow birth hut with her to produce her first born, while the father
ran up and down the bluff to give the infant strength while bearing the stress
of birth. He had shunned the beaver meat, face paint and the affections of his
lover and refused to ride the tribe’s best horse until he knew that his child
would survive the first month of life.
She had already made the cradleboard
for her infant long before the labor pains began. Carved dolls and thatched
toys she had crafted over the months of waiting that were lined up on the
hearth of the tipi were now scattered on the ground and trampled by horse.
Paiutes were known to be devoted parents, and the tradition of nurturing the
vulnerable infants of the tribe was second nature, especially with the wisdom
and additional help provided by the elder mothers of the group. The young
mother was so grateful to the spirit for giving her life, and for bringing more
joy to her small band of family comprised of her grandparents, parents, a
brother and sister, three uncles and their wives and two cousins. They had
banded together, branching off from another larger family camp and had been
ranging the valley here since the young mother was an infant herself. There was
abundance in their unspoken territory, and there was understanding and deep
love for the rhythm of and beauty of nature, that it provides you with all you
need, but only if you knew where to look and who to respect. The Paiute had
known for many hundreds of years how to live off the land as foragers and
hunters. Part of the wisdom was shown in the investment made on their infants.
Great care went into new life. She carried her infant daughter everywhere she
went, rocked her and swaddled her in skin rags and bathed in yucca soap. Paiute
mothers were known for their attentiveness towards their infants, and this
young mother was no different with her tenderness and attention.
Her aunt and uncle had gone for the
day to scout out a suitable site for winter camp. It had been a walk that
started in the morning, and wrapped up in the afternoon, scaling down from the
canyon, turning the corner over the ridge, they observed the unusually large
amount of smoke trailing into the sky where their camp was. Running, both
feared the worst had happened while they were away. The looked at the horizon
and scanned the valley for lingering danger as they approached home and hoped
they were not walking into a trap. The degree of destruction became
horrifyingly clear the closer they got. Weeping and crying out for their
family, the couple searched the burning homes and turned over the bodies of
their loved ones, each time screaming and sobbing at the utter devastation of
this atrocity. Was there any life left? The wind was beginning to pick up as
they made their way through the encampment looking for any survivors. There was
so much death. She saw one of the babies still in his cradleboard, his face caved
in and gaping sideways from a blow against the ground, and was partially burned
in the pile of bodies. Where were the other two babies?
Her uncle was the one who found her
body in one of the partially unburned tipis. She was found curled up in the
corner, blood from her fatal neck wound spilled onto the ground, but she wasn’t
burned. She was lying next to a large reed basket that had somehow remained
undisturbed in the fracas and her baby’s body was still nowhere to be found. He
heaved a wail to the heavens so loud that even the coyotes wondered if maybe
another human was going to be added to the dinner menu. But he wasn’t dying. He
was living the nightmare of carrying her limp body out of the tipi and bringing
her to her aunt, who was there when she was born, who also now began wailing
upon seeing what had happened to their sweet, precious niece. She was the one
who had made the string beads for the young mother, which were now lying on the
ground in a pool of blood. This loss was massive, and their grief was
unfathomable.
But in the grass, suddenly they heard
a whimper…then a thin string of grunts and gurgles off in the distance, about
thirty paces away from the camp. The aunt and the uncle ran to the sound of a
baby in the grass and found Waddie still strapped to her cradleboard the only
baby left alive, probably on accident or a result of quick thinking on the part
of her mother to stash her at a distance while the raiders were preoccupied.
The fussing of a hungry baby became large lusty cries as the sun set over the cliffs
of Escalante that echoed through the hills and over the stream but there was no
mother anymore to calm her. The mother who would have nursed her for years to
come was never going to feed or care for her again. All that this little baby
ever knew was suddenly ripped from her and now she was alone.
There was a settlement not far from
the burned out camp. The couple, in their grief and with much reluctance
decided to walk over to the homestead and ask the Mormons if they could keep
the infant warm for the night while they salvage their camp and figure out how
to proceed now that their family has been wiped out. The baby was still so
small, they were worried she wouldn’t survive the night without food and
shelter. The Mormonee, as the Paiute called them, were living in a home built
on what used to be prized hunting land. The pale skinned pioneers, husband and
wife, had been commanded by God to build their home on this spot next to the
trilling river. They had been living on that site for three years before the
Paiute couple approached them, trying to grow a decent crop of corn for market.
A large field had been plowed, but never sowed as the climate wasn’t
cooperating with the notion of farming like he had farmed in Missouri- the
desert was different.
Sunset had settled in on the house.
It was a small Victorian home with two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room,
which was considered large and spacious compared to the other hand-built
ramshackle houses of the older, lesser fortunate settlers scattered against the
west side of the basin loosely into what was considered a small town. Henry had
it shipped by train in a kit and had several of the local Indians help him set
it up. There was even a nice porch on the front where Mrs. Hinman could be seen
sitting in the evenings with her knitting. The couple could see the lantern
lights inside the home and hoped the occupants would be amenable to helping out
a baby in need. Having observed the pale foreigners from a distance for the
better part of a year, they knew the couple was childless and not too
impoverished. The wee girl was likely very hungry and dirty, and she was still
crying loudly, surely alerting the settlers to their presence long before they
approached the plank porch. Both were so exhausted and wracked with grief as
they knocked on the door. Greeted by the wife- with blonde hair tied back into
a knot, not worn loose and free like the Paiute, she instantly fixed her eyes
on the infant and let out a gasp. The couple lowered their heads and together set
the squalling seven month old survivor of a horrifically violent massacre on
their porch and stepped back into the switch grass.
“Waddie.” The uncle gestured to the
little baby. He didn’t speak their words, but he wanted them to know the name
she had been given.
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