I have just been totally blown away reading THE LIFE AND TIMES OF NAT LOVE by Nat Love (1905).
He recounts an adventure where he was captured by Yellow Dog Indians, in a fierce gun battle in which he was injured; shot through the chest and thigh and who was taken to their camp, treated, healed. He says of these Indians :
"Yellow Dog's tribe was composed largely of half breeds, and there was a large percentage of colored blood in the tribe, and as I was a colored man they wanted to keep me, as they thought I was too good a man to die."
He continues:
"I very soon learned their ways and to understand them, though our conversation was mostly carried on by means of signs. They soon gave me to understand that I was to marry the chief 's daughter , promising me 100 ponies to do so, and she was literally thrown in my arms; as for the lady she seemed perfectly willing if not anxious to become my bride. She was a beautiful woman, or rather girl ; in fact all the squaws of this tribe were good-looking, out of the ordinary, but I had other notions just then and did not want to get married under such circumstances , but for prudence sake I seemed to enter into their plans, but at the same time keeping a sharp lookout for a chance to escape."
Eventually, Nat Love makes good his escape by stealing the fastest pony the Indians possessed and riding it all night, bare back, one hundred miles back to his home range in Texas. He also writes:
"It was a mystery to them how I managed to escape death with such wounds as I had received, the marks of which I will carry to my grave and it is as much a mystery to me as the bullet that struck me in the breast just over the heart passed clear through, coming out my back just below the shoulder. Likewise the bullet of in my leg passed clear through, then through my horse, killing him.
"Those Indians are certainly wonderful doctors, and then I am naturally tough as I carry the marks of fourteen bullet wounds on different parts of my body , most any one of which would be sufficient to kill an ordinary man, but I am not even crippled ...
"They named me the Buffalo Papoose..."
P. 98-105
Sunday, May 28, 2017
DEADWOOD DICK
I have just been totally blown away reading THE LIFE AND TIMES OF NAT LOVE by Nat Love (1905).
He recounts an adventure where he was captured by Yellow Dog Indians, in a fierce gun battle in which he was injured; shot through the chest and thigh and who was taken to their camp, treated, healed. He says of these Indians :
"Yellow Dog's tribe was composed largely of half breeds, and there was a large percentage of colored blood in the tribe, and as I was a colored man they wanted to keep me, as they thought I was too good a man to die."
He continues:
"I very soon learned their ways and to understand them, though our conversation was mostly carried on by means of signs. They soon gave me to understand that I was to marry the chief 's daughter , promising me 100 ponies to do so, and she was literally thrown in my arms; as for the lady she seemed perfectly willing if not anxious to become my bride. She was a beautiful woman, or rather girl ; in fact all the squaws of this tribe were good-looking, out of the ordinary, but I had other notions just then and did not want to get married under such circumstances , but for prudence sake I seemed to enter into their plans, but at the same time keeping a sharp lookout for a chance to escape."
Eventually, Nat Love makes good his escape by stealing the fastest pony the Indians possessed and riding it all night, bare back, one hundred miles back to his home range in Texas. He also writes:
"It was a mystery to them how I managed to escape death with such wounds as I had received, the marks of which I will carry to my grave and it is as much a mystery to me as the bullet that struck me in the breast just over the heart passed clear through, coming out my back just below the shoulder. Likewise the bullet of in my leg passed clear through, then through my horse, killing him.
"Those Indians are certainly wonderful doctors, and then I am naturally tough as I carry the marks of fourteen bullet wounds on different parts of my body , most any one of which would be sufficient to kill an ordinary man, but I am not even crippled ...
"They named me the Buffalo Papoose..."
P. 98-105