The Yellowstone Tragedy – Legends of America (original) (raw)
Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park by Kathy Alexander.
By Charles M. Skinner, 1896
Although the Indians feared the geyser basins of the upper Yellowstone country, believing the hissing and thundering to be voices of evil spirits, they regarded the mountains at the head of the river as the crest of the world, and who so gained their summits could see the happy hunting-grounds below, brightened with the homes of the blessed. They loved this land where their fathers had hunted, and when they were driven back from the settlements, the Crow Indians took refuge in what is now Yellowstone Park.
Even here, the soldiers pursued them, intent on avenging acts that the red men had committed while suffering under the sting of tyranny and wrong. A mere remnant of the fugitive band gathered at the head of that mighty rift in the earth known as the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone — a remnant that had succeeded in escaping the bullets of the soldiery, — and with Spartan courage, they resolved to die rather than be taken and carried away to pine in a distant prison.
They built a raft and laced it on the river at the foot of the upper fall, and for a few days, they enjoyed the plenty and peace that were their privilege in former times. A short-lived peace; however, one morning, they are aroused by the crack of rifles — the troops are upon them.
Boarding their raft, they thrust it toward the middle of the stream, perhaps with the idea of gaining the opposite shore, but if such is their intent, it is thwarted by the rapidity of the current. A few among them had guns that they discharged with slight effect at the troops, who stood wondering on the shore. The soldiers didn’t fire but watched, with something like dread, the descent of the raft as it passed into the current and, with many a turn and pitch, whirled on faster and faster. The death song rises triumphantly above the lash of the waves and that distant but awful booming that is to be heard in the canon. Every red man had his face turned toward the foe with a look of defiance, and the tones of the death chant had, in them, something of mockery no less than hate and vaunting.
Yellowstone Falls, Wyoming
The raft was then between the jaws of rock that yawned so hungrily. Beyond and below were vast walls, shelving toward the floor of the gulf a thousand feet beneath — their brilliant colors shining in the sun of the morning that sheds as peaceful light on wood and hill as if there were no such thing as brother hunting brother in this free land of ours. The raft was galloping through the foam like a racehorse, and, hardened as the soldiers were, they could not repress a shudder as they saw the fate the Indians had chosen for themselves. Then the brink was reached. The raft tipped toward the gulf, and with a cry of triumph, the red men were launched over the cataract into the bellowing chasm, where the mists weep forever on the rocks and mosses.
Compiled and edited by Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated March 2023.
Also See:
Historical Accounts of American History
Native American Mythology & Legends
About the Author: Charles M. Skinner (1852-1907) authored the complete nine-volume set of Myths and Legends of Our Own Land in 1896. This tale is excerpted from these excellent works now in the public domain.