The romance was pure BS and the language thing caught my attention too. We’re a couple hours away from the Wind River rez and when we’ve been down there for the elk hunting none of the NA speak their own language. “Too hard.” they all say.
And they all had a lifetime to learn...not a couple weeks.
Interesting what the locals on the rez had say. That doesn’t surprise me, though. Thanks for sharing that.
Plus, no written language in 1883! It was the most preposterous thing imaginable to think that a young 18 year old woman could be fluent in a couple of weeks and her new husband spoke perfect Queen’s English. At least they could have found an Indian actor who spoke English with a heavy accent or could fake it.
We visited the Bison Range in western Montana last week (northwest of Missoula). The history of the place is most amazing. As usual, the white man granted the Kootenai and Salish tribes a HUGE reservation, then they took a big chunk of it back to create the Bison Range around 1904. A bit later, they started a lottery to give rez land to whites settling in the area. It was such a tragic story (one of thousands). Interestingly, the confederate tribes kept working on getting the land back and the deal was executed THIS year! The Bison Range is now once again fully managed by the Confederated Tribes of Kootenai and Salish.
The Bison Range was a federal Wildlife Refuge and the federal web site is still up. It makes NO reference to the history of the refuge. You have to go the CTKS site to learn about the history of the Bison Range.
An aside — we live in Kootenai County, Idaho.
Another aside...I camped in the Wind Rivers in the 70s with my then-girlfriend who was the most hardcore camper I’ve ever known. We were snow camping in late fall on an exposed rock outcrop looking over a huge lake. A storm blew in and we were watching lightning strike the mountain on the opposite side of the lake. Not only was it colder than heck it was scary as hell watching that lightning not that far off while we were camped on a rock outcrop. That relationship lasted another six months, but it didn’t work out.