Yesterday was a low day...took care of the laundry and groceries, did some housekeeping. Today, we went to the Big Hole Battleground National Park. The ride out was beautiful. Very isolated. Very "Little House on the Prairie" When we got there, there was a guy working on a buffalo hide.....scraping the fur off. We talked with him and he even let me try it! It's confirmed....I am not squaw material...they had to work too hard!! I came away with a mass about the size of a silver dollar and he let me keep it, too! He told us that the buffalo didn't go any further east than the Rockies, so the Indians on the other side would travel into Montana for buffalo, stay maybe a year and then leave. Each buffalo hide only weighs about 5 pounds and they used 10 to cover their teepees. That way, a horse could easily carry the teepees and all belongings. One hide would work to cover a person and, of course, they were warm. The fur is really soft...not as much as, say, a rabbit, but very soft.
It took 2 antelope hides to make a woman's outfit and we got to feel that, too. It was kind of like a thin chamois cloth.
The Nez Perce tribe was brutally hunted down and attacked at 3:00AM. The soldiers were told to shoot low into the teepees and in that way killed many in their sleep.They didn't care who they killed...men, women or children. It makes me so sad. We watched a 26 min. video on it and it made me cry to see the awful way we whites have treated them. I just don't get how it was decided to take away land from people that had lived there and thrived.What was left of the tribe kept moving, trying to avoid the soldiers and some did make it up to Canada. As Chief Joseph said on his surrender "I will fight no more forever". I guess that's kinda me....I am not a fighter and I abhor violence of any kind.
We decided to have lunch in the little (very little) town of Wisdom. (cool name). It was a great little cafe that even had sweet potato french fries! On the way out of town, we stopped and paid our respects in the town's cemetery. Lots of really old headstones and being Memorial Day weekend, it seemed fitting.
Lisa is doing Ok, though she did ask me today when she was going back to school. We are all doing better with being in close quarters.....learning to lean left when someone is going right or needs into a cabinet....stepping into the bathroom to let someone by,..that kind of thing. I still very much miss my house and all my land, but life changes and you just have to flow with it.
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