They trotted off again, stopping often, but after a while disappeared; we saw them again some hundreds of yards farther on, when, becoming suddenly alarmed, they bounded off until out of sight. They did not trot or run irregularly as our Virginian Deer does, and their color was of a brownish cast, whilst our common Deer at this season is red. Could we have gone ashore, we might in all probability have killed one or two of them. We stopped to cut wood on the opposite side of the river, where we went on shore, and there saw many tracks of Deer, Elk, Wolves, and Turkeys. In attempting to cross a muddy place to shoot at some Yellow-headed Troupials that were abundant, I found myself almost mired, and returned with difficulty. We only shot a Blackburnian Warbler, a Yellow-winged ditto, and a few Finches. We have seen more Geese than usual as well as Mallards and Wood Ducks. This afternoon the weather cleared up, and a while before sunset we passed under Wood's Bluffs,[1] so called because a man of that name fell overboard from his boat while drunk. We saw there many Bank Swallows, and afterwards we came in view of the Blackbird Hill,[2] where the famous Indian
- ↑ Wood's Bluff has long ceased to be known by this name, but there is no doubt from what Audubon next says of Blackbird Hill, that the bluff in question is that on the west or right bank of the river, at and near Decatur, Burt Co., Neb.; the line between Burt and Blackbird counties cuts through the bluff, leaving most of it in the latter county. See Lewis and Clark, ed. of 1893, p. 71, date of Aug. to, 1804, where "a cliff of yellow stone on the left" is mentioned. This is Wood's Bluff; the situation is 750 miles up the river by the Commission Charts.—E. C.
- ↑ Blackbird Hill. "Aug. n [1804]. … We halted on the south side for the purpose of examining a spot where one of the great chiefs of the Mahas [Omahas], named Blackbird, who died about four years ago, of the smallpox, was buried. A hill of yellow soft sandstone rises from the river in bluffs of various heights, till it ends in a knoll about 300 feet above the water; on the top of this a mound, of twelve feet diameter at the base, and six feet high, is raised over the body of the deceased king, a pole about eight feet high is fixed in the centre, on which we placed a white flag, bordered with red, blue, and white. Blackbird seems to have been a person of great consideration, for ever since his death he has been supplied with provisions, from time to time, by the superstitious regard of the Mahas." ("Expedition of Lewis and Clark," by Elliott Coues, 1893, p. 71.)
"The 7th of May (1833) we reached the chain of hills on the left bank; … these are called Wood's Hills, and do not extend very far. On one of them we saw a small conical mound, which is the grave of the celebrated Omaha chief Washinga-Sabba (the Blackbird). In James' 'Narrative of Major Long's Expedition,' is a circumstantial account of this remarkable and powerful chief, who was a friend to the white man; he contrived, by means of arsenic, to make himself feared and dreaded, and passed for a magician. … An epidemical smallpox carried him off, with a great part of his nation, in 1800, and he was buried, sitting up right, upon a live mule, at the top of a green hill on Wakonda Creek. When dying he gave orders they should bury him on that hill, with his face turned to the country of the whites." ("Travels in North America," Maximilian, Prince of Wied.)
Irving, in chap. xvi. of "Astoria," gives a long account of Blackbird, based on Bradbury and Brackenridge, but places his death in 1802, incorrectly; and ends: "The Missouri washes the base of the promontory, and after winding and doubling in many links and mazes, returns to within nine hundred yards of its starting-place ; so that for thirty miles the voyager finds himself continually near to this singular promontory, as if spell bound. It was the dying command of Blackbird, that his tomb should be on the summit of this hill, in which he should be interred, seated on his favorite horse, that he might overlook his ancient domain, and behold the backs of the white men as they came up the river to trade with his people."
