Here Miller depicts an entertainment of the sort that occurred at the rendezvous. A Snake Indian family has invited one of the trappers to their lodge for a feast, and the trapper is in the process of smoking and telling some adventure, “partly by his limited knowledge of the Indian Language, and by signs.” Miller points out the woman with the baby seated to the trapper’s right: she “watches his every movement with intense interest;–she has no doubt often heard of the extravagant generosity of these reckless fellows, and worships him accordingly.” The trapper is well outfitted, with a knife in his belt, a powder horn over his shoulder, and his rifle on the ground beside him.
Miller reported that he was invited to a similar feast but was worried that he would be served dog meat. “Now in the course of time we had made some efforts to get rid of foolish prejudices, of one kind or another,” he wrote, “but here was one ‘that fire would not melt out of us.’” He consulted an “old ‘Bourgeois’ Trapper,” who advised that he should not turn down the hospitality and offered a solution for his dilemma.
He then called a Trapper, who in consideration of our promising to give him a paper of vermillion [one ounce] would arrange the matter;–on the day appointed, the vermillion was forthcoming. We sat by the trapper at the feast who eat [sic] our share, seemed to enjoy it too;–and the etiquette appeared satisfactory to our hosts, in every respect. (Ross, 1968, text accompanying plate 143)
The artist; William T. Walters, Baltimore, MD; present owner by gift