Friday, November 29, 2013

Update on Mah-za-pa-mee


The Indian romance of Mah-za-pa-mee first appeared in the St Louis Beacon.

Knew that already, but here's what I somehow missed before now, an early reprint in a "western" literary journal edited by James Hall.

As shown in the 3rd edition of Henry R. Wagner's The Plains and the Rockies, revised by Charles L. Camp, Mah-za-pa-mee was reprinted from the St Louis Beacon in the July 1831 issue of the Illinois Monthly Magazine.

From The Plains and the Rockies
When Dale Morgan examined the files of the St. Louis Beacon (in Lib. Cong., and St. Louis Publ. Lib.) he found the Cooke story on Hugh Glass, essentially corresponding to Chapters 19 and 20 of this book [Scenes and Adventures in the Army], in the Beacon for Dec. 2 and 9, 1830, and entitled "Some incidents in the life of Hugh Glass, a hunter of the Missouri River," signed "Borderer", and dated "Missouri River, Nov. 1830." Other articles written evidently by Cooke, and corresponding to Chapters 8 and 10 of his book, appear under the titles : "A tale of the Rocky Mountains" ("Sha-wa-now"), and "Mah-za-pa-mee"; Beacon Jan. 13, and Feb, 17, 1831. The latter was reprinted in the Illinois Monthly Magazine July 1831, pp. 456-463 and again, in part, in the Military and Naval Magazine (quoted in the National Intelligencer, Oct. 8, 1835). Cooke's marriage at St. Louis was noted in the Beacon at this time, (Morgan). This material was again published, in the Southern Literary Messenger, together with nearly all the rest of what eventually became the book.

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