Smoke Signals01

 

WAUPACA RECORD

January 19, 1911

 

SMOKE SIGNALS OF INDIANS

How the Redman Communicated With His People and Warned Them of Danger

 

            The traveler on the plains in the early days soon learned the significance of the spires of smoke that he sometimes saw rising from a distant ridge or hill and answered from a different direction.  It was the signal talk of the Indians across miles of intervening ground, a signal used in rallying the warriors for an attack or warning them for a retreat.

            The Indian had a way of sending the smoke up in rings or puffs knowing that such a smoke column would at once be noticed and understood as a signal, and not mistaken for the smoke of some camp-fire. He made his rings by covering the little fire with his blanket for a moment and allowing the smoke to ascend, when he instantly covered the fire again.  The column of ascending smoke had said to every Indian within thirty miles, “Beware! An enemy is near!”  Three smokes built close together meant “Danger.”  One smoke merely meant “Attention.”  Two smokes mean “Camp at this place.”

            Frequently at night the settler or the traveler saw fiery lines crossing the sky, shooting up and falling, perhaps taking a direction diagonal to the lines of vision. He might guess that these were the signals of the Indians, but unless he were an old-timer he might not be able to interpret the signals.  The old-timer and the squaw-man knew that one fire-arrow, an arrow prepared by treating the head of the shaft with gunpowder and fine bark, meant the same as three columns of smoke puffs.  “An enemy is near.”  Two arrows meant “Danger.”  Three arrows, “The danger is great.”  Several arrow indicated “The enemy is too powerful for us.”