and befriending the Aboriginal Peoples of the Plains gave Thompson an advantage over other explorers like the Americans Lewis and Clark.
5
The Plains
A Peigan war chief knelt beside an earthen pit already dug atop a dry, grassy knoll, not far from Gady’s camp. His name was Kootanae Appee, meaning Kootenay Man. He had a high forehead, an aquiline nose, and dark eyes that defined a face both honest and fierce. He stood nearly six and a half feet tall. Lean and agile, he was built for fighting. But on this day his thoughts were far from fighting. He was seeking solitude to reconnect with his spirit. As was his custom, he had ridden far from his village and climbed a distant hill. Here, he would catch a hawk whose feathers would adorn his new headdress.
Using the age-old method, he lay face up in a pit dug like a shallow grave. He reached out for the stack of branches and laid them across the opening. Then he pulled dry grasses and leaves atop the branches, completely concealing his presence. Lastly, he placed a freshly killed rabbit, impaled on a stick, on top of the leaves and rested it just above his chest. When the shadow of the hawk appeared, Kotanae Appee would be very still. When the rabbit moved, he would reach out and grab the great one by both legs then beat the struggling predator against the ground until its vicious beak and talons were no threat. Meditating and softly chanting, he would lie patiently for many hours, until his feathered quarry descended.
There were few trees about, so David searched the grass for dried buffalo dung in place of firewood for their camp. He followed a trail of droppings to the base of a grassy knoll.
Above, a hawk circled excitedly in the blue sky, then descended, wings tucked, into a dive. David recognized the behaviour. He had seen these airborne predators hunting the prairie grasses for small game many times before. He waited expectantly for the hawk to sweep up again, carrying some luckless gopher or rabbit in its talons, but strangely, the bird never reappeared. David meandered back to camp, stooping occasionally to add another dried chip to his armload.
They had travelled twenty-four kilometres a day, giving the horses plenty of rest and time to graze the nutrient-rich grasses. They hunted, but game was unusually scarce and the men were hungry. Gady could not explain why there were no buffalo or elk.
Within a month the small trading party could see the glimmering white tips of the distant Rocky Mountain Range. As they trekked closer, the mountains rose into immense snow-topped masses, piercing the clouds and forming what David thought must be an impassable wall. A few kilometres beyond the Bow River they met the first Peigan people. Unknown to Gady or his men, scouts had been watching the traders for several days before they finally approached with a dozen warriors on horseback with their quivers full of arrows.
Fortunately, their welcome was friendly. They told Gady to camp where he stood and that they would return with fresh meat. “We must look a sight,” said Gady. “They know we haven’t eaten anything worth spit in weeks.” That evening the Peigan and Hudson’s Bay men feasted on fat cow buffalo and talked well into the night. The Peigan wanted news of other tribes – their numbers, was there disease? Were they at war? Gady told them all he knew, which wasn’t much.
In the following days the traders were taken to the Peigan’s main camp, where they traded ammunition and tobacco for choice fox and beaver skins. David was lodged in the tent of a grey-haired elder named Saukamappee. The old man was solemn, but mild-spoken. His tall frame was still strong and remarkably supple. Strangely, Saukamappee was pleased to hear the Hudson’s Bay men had found no game. “That means a plentiful winter,” he reasoned, “because the buffalo have stayed too long on the Missouri grass and will be hungry for new grass near our mountains.”
The old man was pleased even more when he found David could speak the language of the Cree. He asked David about his father and mother and their country. David explained he never knew his father, and that his mother had given him away to a school where he and other boys were raised to help navigate ships that crossed the great oceans, but he had instead been sent here to trade furs.
The old man nodded. “I am not a Peigan,” he said, smiling after a long silence, “but a Cree of the Pasquiaw River near what you call Cumberland House. I too, came here as a young man. I came with my people to help our friends, the Peigan, in war. My name, Saukamappee, means ‘young man.’ I have not returned to the country of my people since. It warms me to speak with you in the tongue of my mother, which I had almost forgotten.”
David told the old man what he knew about the Cree near Cumberland House. He mentioned the names of some of the elders there, but Saukamappee knew none of them. “I see I am now a stranger in the land of my father,” he said, and then began to tell David about his years with the Peigan. The old man was fond of speaking in his native language. Nearly every evening he related the events of his life to David.
“All these plains are now shared by three tribes,” he told his eager young audience. “The Peigan, the Blood, and the Blackfoot. We speak the same language and help each other in war. But it was not always so. In the past, this country belonged to the Kootenay in the north, to the Salish in the west, and to the Shoshoni and their allies in the south. They were many more than us, and they were our enemies, especially the Shoshoni, who would attack the small hunting camps of the Peigan, killing everyone. Then the Peigan sent messengers to my people asking for help, so I came with my father and twenty other Cree warriors to the Peigan. I was proud to be included in the great war tent when we feasted and made war speeches and danced. The Peigan were much pleased that we had guns from the white men.
“One day our scouts told us they had seen a large camp of the Shoshoni not far from us. They were many.” Saukamapee opened and closed the fingers of both hands, then held up one finger signifying that each finger was worth ten. He then slowly and sombrely stretched open both hands three times and one hand once. Three hundred and fifty. David nodded and waited intently for the old man to continue.
“When we went to fight them,” Saukamappee said gravely, “our war party stood opposite facing the enemy. The enemy danced and shouted war cries and then they crouched behind their large shields. We did the same, but we had fewer shields, so two warriors knelt behind one shield. Then the arrows came. Their bows were not as long as ours but were made of better wood, and their arrows shot between us and sometimes went right through our shields, wounding us. Our arrows did not pierce their shields, but stuck in them.
“We became afraid that we would lose and had fear they might bring horse warriors. Back then my people had never seen a horse but had heard how the Shoshoni could ride them swift as deer and how they used stone clubs to smash the heads of many warriors who could not run from them. But we were fortunate because they had no horses, and they had not yet traded with the white man so the Shoshoni and the Kootenay did not have guns.
“Our war chief told those of us with guns, of which I was one, to lay between our shields. We had ten guns and each of us had thirty balls and powder. The chief told us to shoot, but we said we must be closer, so we moved to where their arrows could easily kill us. But when a Shoshoni warrior stepped from behind his shield to fire his arrows, in the way they always do, we fired, and our bullets never missed.
“We killed and wounded many that way until they began to crawl away and hide from the guns. Our chief signalled and we ran after them, killing them before they could run away. We now wanted scalps to honour our battle. Some brave Shoshoni stayed and fought but there were five or six of us, all trying to get the scalp of one of them, and it was soon over and only a few scalps had been taken., Then some of our warriors began scalping the dead ones, but these scalps were poor trophies and had no value to me. Taking a scalp captures the soul of the enemy, but only for the one who kills him. So I took no scalps because I did not know which ones I had killed with my gun. I was unhappy because my wife’s father wanted scalps to honour his medicine bag and to give to his ancestors.
“After the victory feast the chief