How to Travel With a Salmon and Other Essays

How to Play Indians

Since the future of Native American culture at present seems dire, the sole possibility for the young brave bent on improving his social position is to appear in a Western movie. To assist him in this endeavor, we offer some essential guidelines, tips on correct behavior in both war and peace situations, to help him qualify as "movie Indian," thus providing as well a solution to the problem of underemployment among members of this beleaguered minority.

Before Attacking

1. Never attack immediately: make yourself visible at a distance a few days ahead of time, producing easily observed smoke signals, thus giving the stagecoach or the fort ample time to send word to the Seventh Cavalry.

2. If possible, appear prominently in small groups on the surrounding hills. Set up sentinels on totally isolated peaks.

3. Leave clear traces of your progress: hoofprints, smoldering campfires, feathers, and amulets allowing identification of tribe.

Attacking the Stagecoach

4. In any attack on a stagecoach, always follow the vehicle at a short distance or, better still, ride alongside it, to facilitate your being shot.

5. Restrain your mustangs, notoriously faster than coach horses, so you won't outstrip the vehicle.

6. Try to stop the coach single-handed, flinging yourself on the harness, so you can be whipped by the driver and then run over by the vehicle.

7. Never block the coach's advance in a large body. The driver would stop at once.

Attacking an Isolated Farm or a Circle of Covered Wagons

8. Never attack at night when the settlers might not be expecting you. Respect the tradition that Indians attack only in daytime.

9. Insist on making your presence known by giving the coyote cry, thus revealing your position.

10. If a white man gives the coyote cry, raise your head immediately to offer him an easy target.

11. Attack by circling the wagons, but never narrow your circle, so that you and your companions can be picked off one by one.

12. Never employ all your men in a circle, but progressively replace those that fall.

13. As you lack stirrups, manage somehow to entangle your feet in the reins, so that, when you are shot, you are dragged after your mount.

14. Use rifles, bought illegally, whose operation is unfamiliar to you. Take a considerable amount of time loading them.

15. Don't stop circling the wagons when the good guys arrive. Wait for the cavalry without riding out to confront it, then scatter at the first impact in total disorder to allow individual pursuit.

16. In preparing to attack an isolated farm, send only one man to spy on it at night. Approaching a lighted window, he must observe at length a white woman inside, until she has become aware of the Indian face pressed against the pane. Await the woman's cry and the exit of the men before attempting to escape.

Attacking the Fort

17. First of all, turn the horses loose at night. Do not steal them. Encourage them to disperse over the prairie.

18. In using a ladder during the assault, climb up it one man at a time. First allow your weapon to appear, then your head, slowly, and emerge only after the white woman has indicated your presence to a marksman. Never fall forward, inside the fort, but always backward, toward the exterior.

19. In shooting from a distance, assume a clearly visible position on the top of a peak, so that you can fall forward, to be shattered on the rocks below.

20. In the event of a face-to-face confrontation, wait before taking aim.

21. In the same situation, never use a pistol, which would resolve the confrontation at once. Only naked steel.

22. In the case of a sortie on the part of the whites, never steal the weapons of the slain enemy, only his watch. Wait in wonderment, listening to its tick, until another enemy arrives.

23. On capturing an enemy, do not kill him immediately. Tie him to a stake or confine him to a tent, awaiting the new moon, by which time others will come to free him.

24. In any event, you can be certain that the enemy bugler will be killed the moment the signal of the Seventh Cavalry is heard from afar. At this point the bugler inside the fort always stands up and returns the signal from the highest turret of the fort.

Further Instructions

25. In the event that the Indian village is attacked, rush from the tents in total confusion. Run around every which way, trying to collect weapons previously left in places of difficult access.

26. Check the quality of the firewater being sold by the peddlers: the sulfuric acid-to-whisky ratio must be three to one.

27. In the event of a train's passing, make sure there is an Indian hunter on board and ride alongside the train brandishing rifles and emitting cries of greeting.

28. In leaping from a roof to seize a white man from behind, always hold your knife in such a way that he is not immediately wounded but is allowed to engage in hand-to-hand struggle. Wait until the white man turns around.

1975