Note 281 — THE MISSOURI RIVER JOURNALS

Blackbird Hill. "Aug. 11 [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 upright, 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."