considerable
anxiety on his part. Nothing was said to me about it but I could see
that the old chief feared my escape and that the tribe would be made
to suffer some punishment at the hands of the whites for my captivity.
I had always considered myself as an Indian captured from some other
tribe and could not yet think it possible that I was one of the pale
faces.

With the return of Summer the tribe again sought the Northern regions
and I had almost forgotten the affair at the trading post. The old
chief, Owash-kah-ke-naw, appeared to have taken a great liking to me
and in September of that year (1851) he gave me his youngest daughter,
Tefronia (Tame Deer) to be my squaw. She was then nineteen and a
handsome Indian woman. My own name in Copper-Head language is
Owah-owah-kish-me-wah. By this squaw I have two children, Tefronia, a
girl now over five years of age, and Tululee, a boy over two years
old.

After marrying his daughter I was kept by the old chief around the
village and was not allowed to join any expeditions in the lower
country. Three years passed in this manner and my girl was born. The
tribe once more moved farther south and the old chief become anxious
about my being claimed by the whites. One day he told me that if I
went south with the tribe I must be tattooed, so that I could be
identified by them in case I should be carried off by the traders
under pretence that I was of white parentage. I did not consent to
this but was then told that there was no choice left me as it was the
will of the chief that it should be done.

Next day I was seized by two men of the tribe and made to lie on my
back along a log. I was next bound down so that I could neither move
my head, body, hands or feet. My breast was bared and one of the
Indians came forward to do the work of tattooing.

First he took a sharp knife and made some light incisions down my
breast so that small strips of skin were cut. These he peeled off and
threw on one side. My agony was intense but I did not wish to be
considered a coward so I held my tongue, though the pain made me bite
my lips till the blood came; other similar strips were next taken off
at the distance of about an inch, but parallel with the first marks. I
now suffered tortures and was racked with an intense thirst. The
attendant Indians brought me water and poured it into my mouth and
over my head to keep me from fainting.

Parallel strips were now cut at right angles to the firs