The following is a the third part of a transcript of stories told by Dr. Pius Moss, an Elder of the Arapaho Tribe on the Wind River Reservation. We have tried to preserve word usage and terminology as much as possible. --The Editors
So, those men left the camp...went west through Casper... then on up toward the Wind River country...came into the Hudson area (Hudson, Wyoming)...then cut across, northwesterly until he came into the Hot Springs area. He brought his men to the hills south of Hot Springs. When he overlooked the area, he noticed a big camp of Shoshone in the valley there. The Shoshone were having somewhat of a pow-wow. A celebration with lots of dust...horse races. He told his men, "Well, this is what I came for. I will now prepare myself to go down to see my friend, Chief Washakie." Now, Chief Washakie and Chief Black Coal were friends, but the tribes were bitter enemies. These two men were friends...one for one tribe and one from the other.
Now he prepared himself. Put on clean clothes, combed his hair, put on a traditional wrap on one side of his braid and then the traditional braid on the other....denoting that he was a Chief. So he told his men, "Give me enough time to go into camp and then enough time for me to come out into the open. If you see someone coming out into the open, waving a buffalo robe, that's a signal coming from me for you to come down. There will be no danger for you to come down.
There are two meanings as far as cleaning up is concerned. Combing his hair, putting on clean clothes. In case that he did meet death in the camp, he'd be properly dressed when death occurred. In that, as far as the Great Spirit receiving him in a clean manner, clothing and otherwise. So he left his gun, he left his knife, everything that concerned being on the warpath the left. He went down to the camp clean. He walked down. He left his horse. When he got to the camp, very close no one noticed him. When he got within the bounds of the camp, that's when the young people noticed him...that he was not one of them. So right away they got around him and they wanted to kill him. But he kept making the sign that meant, "I want to see my friend the Chief." So one of the young people took note of that and summoned Chief Washakie. About that time, the treat to Chief Black Coal was just about to be exercised...to kill him. Chief Washakie, realizing this, told the young people, "Whoever touches this man will have to answer to me." So then, the young people, hearing that, dispersed.
That's when the treaty began between these two friends...two Chiefs. The treaty was on the terms of Chief Black Coal, asking Chief Washakie if he could bring his tribe to live under the protection of his wing. So, Chief Washakie allowed that. In the course of the treaty, Chief Washakie said, "Your tribe will utilize the area east of the spring, clean on to the eastern end of the reservation. And my tribe, the Shoshones, will utilize west of the spring to the mountain and on up to the Crowheart country...Dubois country." So that was the treaty made by these two men. Now, in the treaty it also stated that any Arapahos coming into the Shoshone area would not be molested. The same way with the Shoshones coming into the lowlands of the Arapaho area. They would not be molested or harmed.
That's how the treaty was made and that's how it stands to this day. There was no Congressional action or anything like that. Just two men...their word was their bond and that bond was recognized by the tribal members of both Chiefs. That was the beginning of the Arapahos living in the Wind River Country.
©The Wyoming Companion
from Dream's Archives
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