The Blank Pages of History

Evolving Moloch recently tweeted an account of the Bloody Falls Massacre of 1771, a historical event in which a group of (mostly) Chipewyans attacked a group of Copper Inuit in modern Nunavut, Canada.  The event was witnessed by Samuel Hearne, who was travelling with the Chipewyans at the time, and who left us a written description of the massacre.  His account reads:

"By the time the Indians had made themselves thus completely frightful, it was near one o'clock in the morning of the seventeenth; when finding all the Esquimaux quiet in their tents, they rushed forth from their ambuscade, and fell on the poor unsuspecting creatures, unperceived till close at the very eves of their tents, when they soon began the bloody massacre, while I stood neuter in the rear.

In a few seconds the horrible scene commenced; it was shocking beyond description; the poor unhappy victims were surprised in the midst of their sleep, and had neither time nor power to make any resistance; men, women, and children, in all upward of twenty, ran out of their tents stark naked, and endeavoured to make their escape; but the Indians having possession of all the landside, to no place could they fly for shelter.  One alternative only remained, that of jumping into the river; but, as none of them attempted it, they all fell a sacrifice to Indian barbarity!

The shrieks and groans of the poor expiring wretches were truly dreadful; and my horror was much increased at seeing a young girl, seemingly about eighteen years of age, killed so near me, that when the first spear was stuck into her side she fell down at my feet, and twisted round my legs, so that it was with difficulty that I could disengage myself from he dying grasps.  As two Indian men pursued this unfortunate victim, I solicited very hard for her life; but the murderers made no reply till they had stuck both their spears through her body, and transfixed her to the ground.  They then looked me sternly in the face, and began to ridicule me, by asking if I wanted an Esquimaux wife; and paid not the smallest regard to the shrieks and agony of the poor wretch, who was twining round their spears like an eel!  Indeed, after receiving much abusive language from them on the occasion, I was at length obliged to desire that they would be more expeditious in dispatching their victim out of her misery, otherwise I should be obliged, out of pity, to assist in the friendly office of putting an end to the existence of a fellow-creature who was so cruelly wounded.  On this request being made, one of the Indians hastily drew his spear from the place where it was first lodged, and pierced it through her breast near the heart.  The love of life, however, even in this most miserable state, was so predominant, that though this might justly be called the most merciful act that could be done for the poor creature, it seemed to be unwelcome, for though much exhausted by pain and loss of blood, she made several efforts to ward off the friendly blow.  My situation and the terror of my mind at beholding this butchery, cannot easily be conceived, much less described; though I summed up all the fortitude I was master of on the occasion, it was with difficulty that I could refrain from tears; and I am confident that my features must have feelingly expressed how sincerely I was affected at the barbarous scene I then witnessed; even at this hour I cannot reflect on the transactions of that horrid day without shedding tears."

Read enough about the past, and after a while you stop being surprised by such things.  Wikipedia says that Hearne's original manuscript is lost, and the version that survives is possibly embellished.  If true, then I suspect that embellishment lies less in the levels of violence and butchery depicted, and more in the description of brave Hearne heroically standing up to the Chipewyan man, demanding a mercy kill.  That sounds like maybe what Hearne had -wished- had happened.

But it does bring to mind another account, very similar, also of a fight between two Indian groups as witnessed by a lone white guy.  During the 1850's—I'm not certain of the date—Texas Ranger Nelson Lee witnessed a skirmish out on the open plains between the Comanche (who were holding him captive) and the Apache.  He later wrote a book about the experience:

"In the afternoon of the third day we struck a wide rolling prairie.  Dividing it nearly in the center was a high, smooth ridge—its summit reached from both sides by an easy, gradual ascent.  As we crossed the prairie and approached this ridge, our scattered cavalcade extended, perhaps, a quarter of a mile, moving forward, carelessly, and in no order whatsoever.  I was at the extreme rear, by the side of the Spotted Leopard, and surrounded by the pack mules.  As the foremost horsemen reached the height they halted suddenly, making hurried signs, while two or three of the braves galloped back down the slope, riding eagerly to and fro among their brethren, as if urging them to push forward without delay.  The whole band, thereupon, dashed up the hill, except the Spotted Leopard and myself, who remained with the mules in the rear, and on reaching the summit deployed into line.  By this time I had heard the cry of 'the Apaches, the Apaches,' and knew at once there was hot work near at hand.

As yet, however, I had seen nothing of an enemy, and only drew the inference there was one present from the cries I had heard, and the general commotion that prevailed.  In the course of two or three minutes after our line formed on the ridge, the air was rent with the noise of the war whoop, and up the opposite ascent, at full speed, came the Apaches in solid body, like a black cloud.  As they approached, a shower of arrows were discharged from both lines, when they rushed upon each other in a hand to hand encounter.

From the position I occupied I had a fair, unobstructed view of the battle.  It was fierce and terrible.  The horses reared, and plunged, and fell upon each other, their riders dealing blow for blow, and thrust for thrust, some falling from their saddles to the ground, and others trampling madly over them."

... and so on.  Lee's description of this skirmish is memorable not so much for the encounter itself, but for the observation he makes of it afterward:

"The Comanches lost in this battle seventeen warriors; the Apaches, probably, as many more.  Had the combatants belonged to a civilized people, who keep a record of their wars, it would have furnished a thrilling page of history; but thousands of such sanguinary struggles take place on the lonely prairies, of which the world knows not.  That same season, however, they buried the tomahawk and danced the pipe dance, and henceforward were at peace."

Comments like that get to the heart of the difficulty in trying to reconstruct the history of nations which lie far beyond the frontier.  Because it is true—and ought to be obvious—that history happens regardless of whether anyone around bothers to write it down.  Or: if someone does write it down, but their writings later get lost.  Richard Miles, in Carthage Must Be Destroyed, describes how when Gustave Flaubert wrote his novel Salammbô, set in ancient Carthage,

"One critic indignantly wrote, 'How do you want me to be interested in this lost war, buried in the defiles of sands of Africa . . . ?  What is this to me, the duel between Tunis and Carthage?  Speak to me rather of the duel between Carthage and Rome!  I am attentive to it, I am involved in it.  Between Rome and Carthage, in their fierce quarrel, all of future civilization is already in play.'  The point was that any aspect of Carthaginian history that was not associated with Rome was of no real interest or importance for an educated audience." (p. 10)

Flaubert published Salammbô in 1862, but nothing has changed.  The written history of the Apaches begins in 1541 when Coronado met them and called them "Querechos," and it becomes more detailed after 1598 when the Spanish founded New Mexico.  Over the centuries, Apaches fought with Spaniards, Pueblos, Wichitas, Tonkawas, Jumanos, Comanches, and others.  And yet if you happen upon a book about "the Apache Wars" in almost any bookstore, it will most likely begin its narrative around 1849.  Why?  Because that's when the war began between the Apaches and the United States.  "What is this to me, the duel between Apache and Jumano?  Speak to me rather of the duel between Apache and Rome America!"

Or consider this.  Medieval Persian folklore includes mention of two outstanding conquerors who invaded Iran from opposite directions: Eskandar of Rum, and Afrāsīāb of Turan.  Eskandar is known to be Alexander the Great ("Rūm" = "Rome" i.e. Greece).  But who on earth is this Afrāsīāb person?  "Turān" is the old Persian name for the Central Asian steppe.  But we know nothing of the Achaemenids' dealings with the people on their eastern borders; almost all of our knowledge comes from Greek writers who focused on the western portion of the empire.  Some think that Afrāsīāb is a fictional character (like another villain of the Shahnameh: the demon-king Zahhāk, who derives from the mythical dragon Aži Dahāka).  But I think it's also possible that he was a real person—perhaps some Scythian warlord—who fought against Persia and was remembered for it in Persian mytho-history.

A good comparison here is with Attila the Hun, another would-be conqueror from the steppe.  Like Afrāsīāb, Attila was remembered and commemorated in the folk traditions of the local people—in this case, Germanic poems like Widsith, the Nibelungenlied, and the Poetic Edda.  The difference is that in Attila's case, we also have contemporary, reliable historical accounts which historians can use to corroborate (or not) the references to Attila in poetry: no need to uselessly speculate on who this mysterious "Atli" figure was or whether he existed.  No such corroborating witness exists for Afrāsīāb.  So we can't even know if he was real or mythical.

A modern Persian wanting to learn about the earliest history of his or her civilization is much better served by reading Herodotus than Ferdowsi.  Likewise, a modern Greek is going to get much better information about earliest Greece from the records of the Egyptians and Hittites than from the poetry of Homer.  Adopting a discerning eye towards different sources of historical evidence often means that the most accurate and reliable history of a culture doesn't come from that culture at all, but from outsiders—this is a point which modern commentators of Native American history often don't want to accept.  Who knows the most about the early Alaskan Tlingit?  People who can read Russian, that's who.

The flipside, however, is that when documentation for a period is sparse, people can start to confuse lack of evidence for lack of incidence: "we don't know a lot about the eastern Persian Empire, so not a lot must have happened."  But that's not going to be the perspective of someone from ancient Persia—certainly not if they're from one of the eastern satrapies after their village has been sacked.  To assume that everything of significance that happened in Persia happened with Greece is to make the same mistake as that critic ("What is this to me, the duel between Iran and Turan?").  Modern histories of Persia ignore Afrāsīāb; they can only go where the evidence takes them.  But the Shahnameh apparently puts Afrāsīāb on roughly the same level as Eskandar—that fact might (might!) be a clue that something big did happen out on the eastern Persian frontier, which could be compared to Alexander's invasion.  Maybe.  The record is silent.

[Ehsan Yarshater's article over on Encyclopedia Iranica says that if Afrāsīāb represents a historical figure, he was more likely from the Parthian period, and not from the earlier Achaemenid period.  But that makes little difference to my point—it's not like we know a lot about the eastern border of the Parthians, either.]

This kind of stuff, by the way, is why I am initially skeptical towards theories like Mark van de Logt's, which says* that the monstrous beasts from Caddo mythology are symbolic representations of the wrath inflicted upon the Caddos by the entrada of Hernando de Soto in 1541-2.  I'm not skeptical of the idea that some real history (including the conquistadors) is contained in Caddo mythological stories—this is almost certainly the case.  But I am skeptical of the idea that anything of note that was remembered by the Caddos centuries after the fact must have involved the Spaniards in some way.

The oral traditions of the Caddos no doubt does contain encoded memories of events from early Caddo history... but just what is that "Caddo history"?  Surely it isn't limited to their interactions with Europeans, any more than Carthage's history was limited to its interactions with Rome.  For every "Eskandar" in the guise of a Spanish cavalryman from the south, was there also an "Afrāsīāb" in the guise of an Osage warchief from the north?  Probably.  Which of the two would have left a stronger impression on contemporary Caddos, to later become immortalized in myth?  I don't know.  The De Soto expedition is just one page from the early history of the Caddo.  All of the other pages are blank.  But the contents of those blank pages are surely under no obligation to only contain material that seems important to us ("What is this to me, the duel between Caddo and Osage?").  The historic Caddos had other priorities.

[* - I should make it clear that I have not actually read van de Logt's book, and therefore my criticisms of it are unfair and founded upon total ignorance.  When I do read it—and I intend to—he may very well end up convincing me.]

One can assume a priori that the Caddos' northern border—like the Persians' eastern border and the Carthaginians' southern border—was a busy place.  But those parts of the world, in those periods of history, have gone dark.  They weren't dark to the people who were there, but they're dark to us.  For this reason, I am grateful for all the brief little flashes of light that illuminate the darkness: such as Miguel's map of Quivira, or Saukamappee's reminiscences of the Blackfoot-Shoshone war.

Trying to reconstruct the history of the frontier-beyond-the-frontier is a tricky business.  Sometimes you get lucky, like with the Kiowas (on whom more in a future post): where written history, oral history, archaeology, linguistics, and winter counts all come together to form a coherent picture of the Kiowa past which reaches back a thousand years.  And sometimes you get unlucky, like with the Arapahoes, who are invisible to the archaeological record and whose early history is a giant mystery.  And then there are enigmas, like the Suhtai, on whom all a person can really do is guess.  All of this is of course highly relevant to any attempt at making a map of peoples who lived beyond the reach of recorded history.  Crumbs...

And as for the Bloody Falls Massacre: the Wikipedia article tells me that "in 1996, Dene and Inuit representatives participated in a healing ceremony to reconcile the centuries-old grievance."  I can't really argue with that, I suppose.  Healing is good, reconciliation is good.

But it is hard to hold a healing ceremony for a massacre that nobody remembers.  Did you take notice of the fact that it has a name: "the Bloody Falls Massacre"?  Why?  Who named it that?  Do you suppose it would it have a name, or be remembered at all, among the Chipewyans, still to this day, after 248 years, if no one had been there to write it down?  Perhaps... but I'm inclined to think likely not.  It was just one raid, after all.  One among thousands of sanguinary struggles that took place on the lonely tundras, of which the world knows not.