WHEN THE TREE FLOWERED

An Authentic Tale of the Old Sioux World

By

JOHN G. NEIHARDT

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

New York—1951

Copyright, 1951, by John G. Neihardt

All rights reserved—no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper.

First Printing

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

WHEN THE TREE FLOWERED

I
“I Used to Be Her Horse”

A one-room log cabin, with an indolently smoking chimney, squatted in sullen destitution a hundred yards away. Before the door a ramshackle wagon stood waiting for nothing with its load of snow. Down yonder in the brushy draw an all-but-roofless shed stared listlessly upon the dull February sky. With a man-denying look, the empty reservation landscape round about lay hushed and bluing in the cold.

Raising the flap of the tepee, with its rusty stovepipe thrust through its much-patched canvas, I stooped in a puff of pleasant warmth and entered, placing my last armload of cottonwood chunks behind the sheet-iron stove.

The old man threw back his blankets and sat up cross-legged upon the cowhide robes that served for bed, his gray hair straggling thinly to his shoulders about an aquiline face that had been handsome, surely, before time carved it to the bone.

“Palamo yelo, Kola,” he said cheerily, as he fumbled in his long leather tobacco sack; “Thank you, friend. Now we can be warm and smoke together. You shall be my grandson, Wasichu[1] though you are; for it is no man’s fault how he is born, and your heart is as much Lakota[2] as mine.

“It will be good to remember, as you wish. The story that I have will make me young again a little while, and you shall put it down there in your tongue as I could say it if your tongue were mine. Too many snows are heavy on my back, and when I walk, as you have seen, I am like an old three-legged horse, all bone and hide and always looking for the grass that used to be.”

Eagle Voice chuckled at his picture of himself.

“But it is only my body that stoops, remembering the mother ground,” he continued, “for I can feel my spirit standing tall above the snows and grasses that have been, and seeing much of good and evil days. There are battles to be fought, and ponies to be stolen, and coups to be counted. And there is happy hunting when the bison herds were wide as day, and meat was plenty, and the earth stayed young. That was before the rivers of Wasichus came in flood and made it old and shut us in these barren little islands where we wait and wait for yesterday. And there are visions to be seen again and voices to be heard from beyond the world. And far away on the other side of the great water towards the sunrise where I went when I was young, there are strange things to be remembered, strange ways, strange faces. And yonder there is a woman’s face, white and far away; and if it is good or bad I do not know. I remember, and am a boy in the night when the moon makes all the hills and valleys so that he wants to sing; but something afraid is hiding in the shadows.”

The old man lit the pipe and his lean cheeks hollowed with a long draw upon the stem. The brooding face went dim behind a slowly emitted cloud of smoke, to emerge presently, shining with a merry light.

“Washtay!” he exclaimed, with a look of triumph; “Lela washtay!”

“What is very good, Grandfather?” I asked.

“It is what I see clearer than all the rest,” he answered, passing the pipe to me; “and that is very strange, for many things were bigger long ago.”

He thought awhile, a slow smile spreading until, with a look grotesquely young, he fell to giggling like a mischievous boy. Then his face went sober, and fixing serious eyes upon me he said with great dignity and deliberation:

“It is just a little girl I see, my grandson. I used to be her horse.”

His only response to my laughter was a deeper crinkling about the mock-serious eyes.

“Yes, I used to be her horse, and I will tell you how it was.”

It might have seemed that he had changed the subject abruptly when he began again, talking eagerly; but I knew that I had only to wait for the connection.

“In the old days, before the hoop of our people was broken, the grandfathers and grandmothers did not just sit and think about the time when things were better, even if they were old as I am. Maybe a man was so bent and stiff that he could not hunt or fight any more and maybe he could hardly chew his meat; but he had happy work to do, because there were always little boys who had to learn how to be good hunters and brave warriors; and he would teach them and tell them stories that were teaching too. When I listened to my grandfather I used to think and think about how tall men were when he was young. I remember the first bow and arrows he made me and how he taught me to grasp the bow—like this; and put the arrow on the string—like this; and pull with the fingers—like this; and let the arrow fly—so—whang! And I remember the day when I came home with my first kill, and he laughed hard and said he could see already that I was going to be a great hunter and a great warrior. I wondered why he laughed, but I thought maybe it was because he was so glad.

“It was just a little bird, but it was a bison bull anyway, and I was more surprised than my grandfather was. For I had been shooting at rabbits in the brush along the creek for a long time, and even when I hit them, they would just wiggle their white rumps at me and hop away. When my grandmother saw the bird, she did not laugh at all. She just said, ‘hm-m-m,’ high up in her nose, like that; for she was even more surprised than my grandfather. Then she told my mother we would have to make a victory feast for this young man; and it was so, because grandmother said it. She invited some old women and old men to come over and eat; and when they came into our tepee and saw the little bird lying there, they all said, ‘hm-m-m,’ high up in their noses. And while we were eating they made me stand up and tell just how I did it; and so I did, like a great warrior making a kill-talk after a victory. Then the women all made the tremolo with their hands upon their mouths—so—and the men cried, ‘hi-yay-ay.’

“And maybe there was an old grandmother who was getting fat and heavy because she could not chop much wood any more or carry much water; but she could peg down green hides and tan them with ashes, and sit down and beat them until they were very soft. And her hands were never still, for there were always moccasins to make and warm things of deer-hide for the winter, all fine with beads and porcupine quills.

“Or maybe there was meat to be cut in long thin strips and hung on the drying racks—such thin strips that it was just like unwinding a bundle of meat, around and around. The women used to hold their strips up, to see whose was longest; and the strips my grandmother cut were always a little thinner and longer than the others.

“And maybe there was going to be a new baby in a tepee, and it would need a good start in this life; for it is not easy to live on this earth. So the parents would think of two women who were good and wise and nobody could say anything bad about them. They would be grandmothers, for who can be wise and young too? And the parents would ask these old women to come over and help the baby. So they would come when it was the right time. And when the baby was brought forth in this world, the first grandmother would cut and tie the cord. Then she would clean out the baby’s mouth with her forefinger, and when she did that her good spirit would get into the baby so that it would be like her.

“Then the second grandmother would take some of the inside bark of the chokecherry that had been soaked and pounded soft, and with this she would wash the baby; and if it was a girl she would say to it: ‘I am a good woman; I have worked hard; I have raised a family; and I always tried to get along with everybody. You must always try to do the same way.’ After that she would make it dry and rub it all over with grease and red paint, because red is a sacred color. Then she would take some soft powder that she had made by powdering dry buffalo chips and she would put this in a piece of hide that had been tanned very soft and fasten it around the baby’s rump, so that it could be kept dry and clean.

“And always there were little girls who had to learn how to be good women; and a grandmother would teach them, because she had been a woman so long that she knew how better than her daughters did; and, anyway, everything was done better when she was young.

“The first thing this grandmother gave to a little girl was a deer-hide pouch with everything in it that a woman needs to make a home—a knife, an awl, a bone needle, and some fine sinew for sewing. And she would say, ‘You must always keep this with you whatever happens and never let it go if you want to be a real woman and good for something. With this you can always make a home.’ It was the way a grandfather gave a little boy a bow and arrows, a knife, and a rawhide rope for taming horses.

“And when a little girl was still so little that she could not yet do much with a knife or needle, the grandmother would teach her the rolling game. There was a stick about as long as my finger with three short twigs on one end so that it would stand up; and the little girl had to roll a small round stone at this to knock it over. It was very hard to do, and she had to keep on trying and trying, so that she learned to be patient like a good woman.

“Then when the little girl was big enough, her grandmother taught her how to make a tepee cover out of hide, and how to set it up with the tepee poles fixed together at the top just so; and how to set the smoke-flap at the peak to suit the wind and make a fire burn without smoking the people out; and how to take the tepee down quickly and put it on a pony-drag in a hurry, if there should be an attack and the women had to run away with the children and the ponies while the men were fighting.

“The little girls used to get together and play village, with their tepees all set in a circle, just right, with the opening to the place where you are always looking [the south]; and there were buckskin dolls stuffed with grass for children; and the little boys played they were chiefs and councilors and warriors. Of course, there had to be horses.”

The old man sat chuckling for a while before he continued.

“I think I was about eight years old that time, and I was getting big fast, for my grandfather would let me have some sharp arrows if I would be careful, and I had killed a rabbit already—maybe two. Many of our people were camped not far from the soldiers’ town on Duck River [Fort Laramie]. It was summer, and there was big trouble coming. The old people were all talking about the bad Wasichus and how they were crazy again because they had found gold in our country; and they wanted to make a road through it and scare all the bison away, and then maybe we would all starve. It was the time just before Red Cloud went to war, and the people were camped there waiting to see what would happen.

“We little Oglala boys were playing killing-all-the-soldiers; but we got tired doing that, because nobody wanted to be a soldier, and we had to kill people who were not there at all. And one of the boys said, ‘Let us quit killing soldiers. They are all dead anyway, and they are no good. The Miniconjou girls and boys have got a village over there. Let us charge upon them and steal all their horses!’ So we all cried, ‘hi-yay,’ and began to get ready for the charge with our bows and blunt arrows and old sunflower stalks for spears.

“And when we had crawled up on our bellies as close to the village as we could get without being seen by the enemy, we leaped up and cried ‘hoka-hey’ all together and charged on the village.

“It was a big fight, a big noise. We could have won a victory, because we all said that one Oglala boy was better than two or three Miniconjous; but some of the bigger boys over there got after us, and we had to run.

“And while I was running, I looked back over my shoulder to see how big a boy was chasing me. And it was not a big boy or even a little boy. It was a girl—a pretty little girl—but she looked terrible with her hair all over her head in the wind she made with her running; and she was yelling and swinging a rawhide rope while she ran. I was longer legged than she was, but she caught me around the neck with her rope anyway. Maybe all at once I wanted to be caught. And she said, ‘You bad boy! You are just a shonka-’kan [horse], and you are going to pull my tepee.’

“So I let her lead me back to her village; and all the Miniconjou boys poked their fingers at me and yelled and wanted to charge me and coup me; but she picked up a stick and yelled back at them, ‘You leave my horse alone or I will hit you.’ And, of course, if I was a horse I wasn’t a warrior any more.

“So I got down on my hands and knees and she hitched the drag-poles on me and packed her tepee on them. And when I snorted and pranced, she petted me on the rump and sang to me, so that I was as tame as the other little boys who were being horses too and helping to move camp away from the enemy country.”

For a while, Eagle Voice seemed to have forgotten me, gazing over my head with a faraway illuminated look. Then he spoke slowly in a low voice as though talking to himself:

“Tashina Wanblee [Her Eagle Robe]. She was a pretty little girl. I liked to play over there; and she said I was the best horse she ever had.”

Then, becoming aware of me again, he continued, chuckling: “But one day I got tired of playing horse; so I stood up on my hind legs and I said: ‘When I get just a little bigger I am going to marry you, and you are going to be my woman.’ And she stuck her tongue out at me and said: ‘You are only a shonka-’kan. Go and eat grass!’”

The old man’s laughter trailed off into silence and the boy look went away.

II
When the Hundred Died

“—And what became of the little girl, Grandfather?” I asked at length. “Did you marry her when you got a little bigger?”

For some time the old man had seemed unconscious of me as he sat there studying the ground, blowing softly now and then upon an eagle-bone whistle suspended from his neck by a rawhide thong. He fixed a squinting, quizzical gaze upon me and said: “That is a story, Grandson, and so is this whistle. I can hear it crying across many snows and grasses. Why are Wasichus always in a hurry? It is not good.”

Then he lapsed into meditation as before, blowing softly now and then upon the wing-bone, polished with the handling of many years.

“Sheetsha!” he said at last in an explosive whisper.

“What is bad, Grandfather?” I asked.

“I was thinking of all that is gone,” he answered, the meditative mood still strong upon him. “When I was a boy I heard the old people tell about a great wichasha wakon [holy man] who did wonderful things; and his name was Wooden Cup. He had a vision of the Great Mysterious One, and that is how he got this power. He could make fire with his fingers, just by touching the wood; and he could see far off into the days that were going to be when babies that were not yet born would be walking with their canes. He saw it and he said it. A strange people would come from the sunrise, and there would be more of them than the bison. Then the bison would turn to white bones on the prairie. The mother earth would be bound with bands of iron. The sacred hoop of our people would be broken by the evil power of the strangers, and in that time we would live in little square gray houses, and in those houses we would starve. He said it, and we have seen it. I will not live in them, for the Great Mysterious One meant all things to be round—the sky and the prairie, the sun and the moon, the bodies of men and animals, trees and the nests of birds, and the hoop of the people. The days and the seasons come back in a circle, and so do the generations. The young grow old, and from the old the young begin and grow. It is the sacred way.

“My daughter in the little gray house yonder is good, but her heart is half Wasichu. She feeds me of the little that she has, and her man brings me wood. They say it is warmer in there; but I was born a Lakota, and I will die in a tepee. It would be well if my young bones had been scattered on the prairie to show where a warrior fell and to make a story, for it is not good to grow old.”

For a while the bone whistle called plaintively to him as from a great distance, and he listened, staring at the ground.

“I think I did not believe what Wooden Cup said,” he continued; “for I was young and the world was new. There was strangeness everywhere so that maybe something wonderful was going to happen. I remember, before I had sharp arrows for my bow, the way I would be in a valley all alone, and there would be no sound, and all at once the hills would be wrinkled grandfathers looking down at me and saying something good that I could almost hear.

“When we were camped near the soldiers’ town on Duck River that time, I heard the old people talking about the iron road the Wasichus were making all along Shell River [Platte]. And there was a long high dust of Wasichu wagons full of people always going and going to the sunset. It was part of what Wooden Cup saw. Little boys talked about it, and they said afterwhile all the bad Wasichus in the world would be yonder where the sun goes down; or if there were any left when we got big, we would just kill them all, and then everything would be the way it was when our grandfathers were boys.

“I remember there was a big meeting at the soldiers’ town [Fort Laramie] the day before we broke camp and went north to fight. It was the day more soldiers came to steal the road up Powder River if our people said, ‘no.’ I can see Red Cloud talking to the people and the Wasichu chiefs who came from the Great Father in Washington. They came to ask for the road through our hunting country; but the soldiers came to take it. When I remember, Red Cloud is standing on a high place made of wood, and he is taller than a man. I cannot hear his words, but he is very angry at the Wasichu chiefs. The men cry, ‘how,’ and ‘hoka-hey,’ and the women make the tremolo. We are going to fight, and I am scared; but I am glad too.

“So our people broke camp and we traveled fast with Red Cloud until we came to the Powder River country. There many others came to us. Much of what I remember about that time is like something I have dreamed, but some of it is clear; and I have heard much that is like remembering. But I can see my father going away with a band of warriors; and I can see them riding on a hill into the sky, until the sky is empty and the hill looks afraid. I can see warriors coming back, and my father is among them. They are driving many mules that they had taken from the soldiers, and some big Wasichu horses. I can see the warriors riding about the circle of the village with Wasichu scalps on their coup sticks. I can see my father making a kill-talk, and I can hear the drums beat between his tellings of brave deeds, while the people cry out to praise him. And while I listen, far away now, I can see Wasichu wagons burning yet and the people in them dying on the road that was not theirs.

“The big sun dance that summer made the hearts of the people strong to fight and die; and my heart was strong too. When I got a little bigger I would be a great warrior like my father. The little boys played killing Wasichus harder than ever; and we had victory dances and made kill-talks about the brave deeds we were going to do.

“Then it is winter. The snow is deep and heaped along the creek. The wind howls in the night, and the smoke whirls round inside the tepee. Maybe it is afraid to go out there. I crawl deep under the buffalo robe, for there are angry spirits crying in the dark.

“Then there are nights when the wind is dead and something big is crawling close outside without making any noise. If I peek out through the tepee flap, the stars are big and sharp, and everything is listening. Trees pop in the cold. It is the Moon of Popping Trees [December].

“That was the time when the hundred soldiers died. Lodge Trail Ridge is steep and narrow where it goes down to Peno Creek. It is near to where the soldiers built their town of logs, and that is where they died. I heard it told so often that when I think about it I must tell myself it was my father who was there and I was just a little boy at home with my mother.

“We had our village where Peno Creek runs into the Tongue, and Big Road was the leader of our band. The day was just coming when our warriors rode away to fight the soldiers and many others rode with them—Cheyennes, Arapahoes. They rode up Peno Creek; and when the sun was halfway up the sky, they stopped where the Wasichu road came down the steep, narrow ridge to the ford.

“It was a good place to fight; so they sent some warriors up the road to coax the soldiers out of their town; and while those were yonder, we hid in the gullies and the brush all along the sides of the ridge. No, I was just a little boy at home, but so our warriors did.

“And when they had waited and waited, there were shots off yonder and the sound of horsebacks riding fast. It is our warriors coming back. I can see them there at the top of the hill, and they have stopped to shoot at the soldiers. Then they turn and gallop down the ridge.

“The road is empty. It is still. We hear iron hoofs yonder. Now the soldiers come out of the sky up there. They stop and look. Now they are riding two together down the ridge, walking their big horses. There is a long blue line of them. Their breaths are white; their horses’ breaths are white. They are looking here and looking there, and they are seeing nothing. They are listening and listening. They are hearing their saddles whine. They are hearing iron hoofs on the frozen road. Maybe a horse shakes its head, and they hear the bridle bit.

“It is still. There is no sound in the gullies and the brush. We are holding our ponies’ noses so that they cannot cry out to the big Wasichu horses.

“The first soldiers are at the bottom of the ridge.”

Eagle Voice paused. Leaning forward tensely, with a hand at his brow, he gazed beyond the tepee wall, listening open-mouthed and breathless.

“What do you see, Grandfather?” I urged.

He threw both hands aloft and in a high excited voice, cried:

“Yonder! He is standing up! He is waving a spear! It is the Cheyenne, Little Horse! Hoka-hey! Hoka-hey! It is a good day to die! It is a good day to kill and die! Poof!” He clapped his hands like gunshots. “The brush and the gullies are alive! There is noise everywhere—cries everywhere. We are swarming up along the sides of the ridge. The arrows are a cloud. They are grasshoppers clouding the sun. The soldiers’ horses are feathered. They are screaming in the evening that the arrows make. They are crowding back up the hill in the smoke of the guns. Saddles are empty; feathered soldiers are falling. They are fighting hard and falling, full of arrows, and the kicking horses upon them are sprouting feathers.

“They are all dead at the ford.... Halfway up the ridge they are dead.... They are huddled together fighting at the top with the dead around them—and they are dying. A great cry goes up and they are covered with warriors swarming in.

“It is over.”

The old man strove to light his pipe, his bony hands trembling as with palsy. I steadied the bowl and held a lighted match to it. “Thank you, Grandson,” he said, in a voice gone thin and quavering on a sudden. For some time he sat studying the ground through the slowly emitted smoke. Then, handing the pipe to me, he continued. His voice had lost its former tone of harsh immediacy and seemed weary with its burden of dead days remembered.

“There was a dog—a soldier-chief’s dog. He was tall and thin and long-legged, and he was crying and running towards the soldiers’ town. Somebody shouted: ‘Let him go and tell the other dogs back there!’ But many bow-thongs twanged, and he went down rolling in a cloud of feathers.

“A storm was coming on. The sun was covered, and the wind came very strong and very cold.

“I remember when the warriors came back to the village. The night was cold and dark and the wind was howling. There were many voices shouting louder than the wind out there, and the sound of many hoofs. When I ’woke, I thought the soldiers had come to kill us all when our warriors were away, and I was afraid. But my mother said: ‘It is our people, and they have killed many enemies. Do you not hear them singing?’ She stirred the fire and fed it, so that it would be bright and warm for my father. Then she went out into the dark full of shouting and singing and the wind; and I listened and was afraid again, for I could hear women’s high voices mourning.

“But my father was not dead. There was one at his head and one at his feet when they brought him in and laid him on a robe beside the fire. His face looked queer when he smiled at me, and it was not the war paint. He was almost somebody else. His hands and feet were frozen and there was an arrow deep in his hip—a Cheyenne arrow. When they cut it out, he grunted but he did not cry. He shivered and shivered by the hot fire until a wichasha wakon came and made sacred medicine. Then it was morning and my mother was still sitting there beside my father, and he was sleeping.

“There was mourning in many of the lodges—high, sharp voices of the women crying for those who died in the battle and the wounded who died coming home. Oosni! Lela oosni! It was cold, very cold.”

For some time the old man sat with his eyes closed and his chin on his chest. At length he said, as though muttering to himself:

“They all died, a hundred soldiers died in the country that was ours. But the forked-tongued ones who sent them did not die. I think they are living yet.”

III
The New Medicine Power

“We have lost Tashina somewhere, Grandfather,” I said.

The remark, dropped into a long-sustained silence, fell like a pebble upon empty air. The old man’s eyes remained closed and the sharply cut features expressed nothing but age. At length his face came alive with a slowly spreading smile, and he looked at me with gentle, grandfatherly eyes.

“The pretty little girl is not lost,” he said. “There is a long road, and she is yonder. But when we get there she will not be playing with her tepee, and I shall never be her horse again.

“That time when the hundred died, the Miniconjous were camped up the creek from us, and our mothers would not let us leave our village to play. ‘If you do not stay at home, and if you are not good,’ they would tell us, ‘the bad Wasichus will get you.’ So I did not see her then; and when the big trouble was over for a little while, her band was far away.

“I think the soldiers who were left in the town they built on Piney Creek were cold and hungry all that winter. If they wanted wood, they had to fight to get it. Our warriors burned their hay, and if they wanted brush to feed the mules and horses, they had to fight and die. If they wanted water from the frozen creek, they had to give some blood for it.

“More soldiers came with oxen pulling their wagons. Then the snow was deeper and deeper on the road, and there were no more wagons. Always there were hungry wolves about the soldiers’ town. Our younger men were the wolves.

“Before the snow melted, my father was not sick any more and he could ride a horse and fight. But his hip was not good, and I can see him walking on one side with his hand on the other leg.

“The grass came back. It was summer, and the hearts of our people were strong because they knew the Wasichus could not steal the road to where the yellow metal was—the stuff that always makes them crazy. There was a big sun dance that made our people new again. Then it was the Moon When Cherries Blacken [August], and there was another big fight. We call it the Attacking of the Wagons. It was bad. I saw it from a hill, and I was only nine years old; but after that I think I was never all a boy any more. I saw, and when I sit and think, I see it all again; but I have heard much too, and part of what I see I must have heard.

“There were many camps along the valley of the Tongue, for many more of our own people had come to us, and many more of our friends, Cheyennes, Arapahoes. Everybody was talking about rubbing out the soldiers’ towns, the one on the Piney and the one on the Big Horn too; then the buffalo would not go away, and we could be happy again.

“Our band and many others moved up Peno Creek and camped not far from where some Wasichus and soldiers had a camp on the Little Piney. They were sawing trees to make the soldiers’ town stronger, and getting wood for winter too. We were going to attack this camp so that the soldiers would come out of their town. Then we would rub them out, as the hundred were rubbed out, and after that we would burn their town.

“It was in the cool dark before daybreak when our warriors began riding away from our village, and my father rode with them. I remember how big and bright the Morning Star was—big and bright and still, just waiting up there for something that it knew would happen. It was going to be a hot day. There was no wind, no cloud. I can hear men singing low as they ride away, and dogs barking. It is still again, and the star is waiting. It makes me a little afraid the way it looks and waits and is so still; but I am glad too and I want to sing.

“Then the star is gone and the sun is big and hot.

“Many of the women began going to a ridge where they could see what would happen, and where they would be close enough to take care of the horses for their men. Many of the older men went with them. Little children stayed with their grandmothers, but I was good with horses already, so I went along with my mother and grandfather. We were waiting on the north side of the ridge where the Wasichus could not see us, and there was a crowd of warriors waiting there too and in the gulches on both sides of us. They were naked and painted for battle, and they were waiting for our warriors over there on the other side of the Wasichu camp to start the attack. That is where my father was. Some of the warriors were lying on the top of the ridge looking over; and some of us little boys sneaked along in the grass on our bellies to see what they were looking at. Nobody noticed us because everybody was excited. I crawled up beside a big man lying on his belly with his chin on his arms so that he could see through the grass. He turned his head and looked hard at me, and he was a Cheyenne. I thought he was angry and was going to make me go back; but he just grinned at me and said: ‘How, cousin! Where’s your gun?’ I showed him the bow and sharp arrows my grandfather made for me, and he said: ‘Hm-m-m! Washtay!’ Then he went on looking through the grass. I felt big and brave, for it was just like being a warrior already.

“The Big Piney was there below us; then there was a prairie, and beyond that we could see the trees along the Little Piney where the Wasichu camp was; and beyond that were mountains. Down there in the middle of the prairie there was a little ring made of wagon boxes where the Wasichus kept their mules at night, so that our warriors could not drive them off. There were two tents beside the ring, and we could see two or three soldiers walking around. There were some thin smokes rising straight up off yonder where the camp was in the trees. That was all there was to see. The prairie and the hills around and the trees over there and the mountains yonder looked asleep in the bright sun.

“Then there were cries away off yonder and the sound of singing. Some of our warriors over there were galloping in single file down a hill towards the Little Piney where the Wasichu camp was, and I tried hard to see if my father was one of them, but they were too far away. Gun smoke puffed from the brush and it was a cloud before the boom came. Some Wasichus began running out of the trees towards the ring of wagon boxes in the middle of the prairie. They would stop to shoot, and run again. There were not many and they looked very small. The big Cheyenne jumped up and all the others did too, shouting to each other and running back to their horses; and I ran with them.

“The people were all mixed up, and I could not see my mother and grandfather, but I was not afraid. I felt big inside of me and all over me, with horses crowding and squealing, and men mounting and shouting to each other. Then they were swarming over the hill, all singing together, and I sang too as loud as I could sing. Everybody crowded up the hill, and I crawled through the people’s legs to see.

“It is still down there now. Some of our warriors are coming up out of the Little Piney. Our men have stopped down there by the Big Piney below us. I wonder what they are waiting for. Away off yonder some of our people are chasing mules. In the little ring of wagon boxes a few Wasichus are standing and looking around. On the hill over towards the sun there are many of our people waiting too. They say that is where Red Cloud was.

“Looking glasses are flashing over by the Little Piney. They are singing again below us. Some of the warriors break away from the crowd and gallop out on the prairie. Over by the Little Piney others are galloping. They circle around the ring of boxes, hanging on the sides of their horses, getting closer and shooting arrows from under the horses’ necks. One is very brave and he is closer than the others. There is a puff of smoke from the ring, and his horse turns into a dust cloud before the boom comes.

“Then the singing and the shouting and the sound of horses’ hoofs are like a big wind coming up all at once and thunder in the wind. They are coming from over by the sun; they are coming from the Little Piney; our men are swarming up out of the creek valley below us. There is dust, dust, and thunder in it and singing over it like a high wind blowing. The horses and men are floating in it. It is closing in over the prairie, but the ring of boxes looks empty and is still.

“No! It is not empty and still. It puffs smoke all around and goes out in a cloud and a roar. The cloud gets higher and does not go away. The roaring does not stop. It is like a great blanket ripping. There is smoke whirling all around it, and horses’ heads and men’s heads and war bonnets are flying in it.

“They are trying to ride over the boxes. The horses will not go.

“Now they are all coming out of the smoke and circling away from it towards the creek valley below us and the Little Piney yonder. Many of them are riding double.

“All at once it is still down there again. The smoke spreads and the sun shines in. Many horses are down and some are kicking and trying to get up, and some are dragging themselves along. When one of them screams, it is thin and far away, but it fills the big empty place because it is so still out there.

“Everything is holding its breath and looking.

“Now some warriors are going back with their horses on the run, and you can hear their death-songs. They are riding two and two and hanging low on their horses’ necks. They are going back for their dead and wounded brothers out there. A great high sound goes up from the women on the hills. They are making the tremolo and singing, for those are very brave men.

“There is shooting from the ring of boxes. Some horses go down and some are dragging their riders, but others go on at a run. Two and two the riders lean and lift the wounded ones, where arms are held up among the dead horses; two and two they lean and lift the dead, and gallop away. They are very brave, and the voices of the women are one great voice on the hills.

“Looking glasses are flashing over there. The warriors are singing again, and they are coming back. They are coming from the Little Piney and from over by the sun. They are galloping up out of the valley below us, whipping each other’s horses and riding fast. Hoka-hey! Hoka-hey! This time they will go over and the Wasichus will be rubbed out.

“The ring of boxes is a cloud of smoke with thunder ripping in it. It is the same as before. Dust and smoke and horses whirling in it, and a great noise floating high above it like a kind of cloud.

“They are closer than before. They are going over now and it will be finished.

“No! They cannot go over. They cannot make the horses go, and they are coming out of the smoke, circling back towards the creeks. Many, many are riding double.

“It is still again out there, and the smoke begins to get thin. The women on the hill over by the sun have seen, and you can hear them mourning. It is like a little wind high up in pine trees. Now our own women have seen, and they are crying and mourning. I am crying too—because I want to kill Wasichus and I cannot.

“There are many more horses down now, scattered around the ring of boxes. Some of our men are lying at the top of the creek bank below us, shooting with guns and bows at the Wasichus. Fire arrows are falling in the ring, and the mule dung there begins to burn and smoke.

“There is not much shooting from the boxes when the brave ones ride back to save the wounded that are left out there and to pick up the dead. Maybe the Wasichus are getting tired; maybe they are blinded by the mule dung smoking, I do not know. The women are not making the tremolo now. The hills are sending forth a great voice, but it is a voice of sorrow for their men and boys down there.

“We waited. What could we do if the horses would not go over? The ring was little, the Wasichus were few, we were many; but we could not go over. Our people had never seen anything like it before. The Wasichus did not shoot and then wait to load their guns. They kept on shooting—br-r-r-r—just like tearing a big blanket all around the ring. It was some new medicine power they had, and it made their few like many. Afterwards we learned about the new guns that were loaded from behind, and that is why they could shoot so fast. It was the first time they had such guns, and we could not understand.

“The sun was high and hot, and we were waiting. The prairie was asleep. The dung smoke rising from the ring of boxes looked sleepy too, and that was all that moved down there. The dead horses scattered around looked lazy, all stretched out and resting in the hot sun.

“Afterwhile we could see some horsebacks galloping both ways from the hill over towards where the sun comes up. Maybe Red Cloud was telling the warriors what to do. Then, as far as we could see, everything was waiting and sleeping under the high sun.”

For some time Eagle Voice waited too, his eyes closed, his chin on his chest. I put a chunk of cottonwood in the sheet-iron stove, and still he sat motionless. It seemed that he had lost interest in his story, or had fallen asleep.

“And then what happened?” I asked at length.

“I was thinking about my father,” he said, looking through me and far away. “I was thinking how young he was then. If he could come back now, he would be like my grandson.” Then he fell to brooding again with his chin on his chest.

“And did the horses go over at last?” I urged.

He came slowly out of his daydream, as though reluctant to continue.

“It was the new medicine power,” he said, “and they were afraid; but our warriors were very brave. They had gone away from the creek valley below us, and only a few were lying along the top of the creek bank, waiting for something.

“Then there was a great wind of singing all at once over to the right towards where the sun goes down. They were coming out of a draw there, all afoot and packed together like a wedge pointed at the ring of boxes; and it was a death-song they were singing all together! I have seen a mountain meadow full of flowers high up in the Pa Sapa [the Black Hills], and their war bonnets were like that meadow walking in a wind, and the wind was a death-song. It was long ago and I am old, but I see it and hear it yet. The high sun stared; the hills listened, the ring of boxes slept in the drowsy dung smoke.

“They did not hurry; but they came and came, swaying together in the wind of singing that they made—a loud wind dying, a low wind rising—loud and low, loud and low.

“Some horsebacks charged from over by the Little Piney, and a great cry went up from the women on the hills. And then—the ring of boxes was a whirling cloud again with that ripping thunder in it.

“They were coming faster now and we could hear their singing high above the thunder. We could see the point go dull and sharpen again, go dull and sharpen, until it was hidden in the whirling smoke. Then there was nothing to hear but the voices of the women like one great voice.

“Now our warriors would go over, and it would be finished. They had given themselves to death, and what could stop them? They would go over now, and it would be finished at last.”

The old man sat tense and breathless for a moment, peering narrow-eyed through and beyond the tent wall. Then the look of battle left his face and his eyes returned to mine. “It was the new medicine power,” he said wearily, “and it was stronger than ours. When they came out of the smoke, fleeing back towards the draw, they were like that blooming meadow in a hailstorm. Many, many were carrying their comrades on their backs, the wounded and the dead.”

IV
Wandering to Mourn

“We all went away from the hill back to our camp on the Peno,” the old man continued, “and I heard them say the soldiers were coming from their town. But they did not follow us. Maybe if they had followed we could have rubbed them out like the hundred on the ridge, for the anger of our people was as strong as their sorrow, and the village was full of mourning.

“When they carried my father into our lodge and laid him on a buffalo robe, his face was a stranger’s and it made me afraid. His war paint was all smeared with the sweat and dust of the battle. His eyes were empty and his mouth was still open for the song he was singing to death when it took him, and the blood was black on his chest.

“My grandmother and grandfather came to mourn with my mother and me; and two good old women came also. It was the way they would come to help a baby get started right to live in this world, and now they came to help him go away to the world of spirit. They washed him all clean and rubbed his body with sacred red paint. Then they unbraided his hair and combed it, and when it was all clean and shiny, they braided it again very carefully and tied an eagle feather in it for spirit power. And when this was done, they painted his face, with a young moon on his forehead, blue for the west where it would lead him. There all the days of men have gone, and the black road of trouble ends. The grass is green forever there and the sky is always blue and men and animals are happy together. There nothing is afraid and no one is old. Then they dressed him in a fine buckskin dress that my grandmother had made for him; tanned very soft, it was, and beautiful with beadwork and porcupine quills. And when I looked at him I was not afraid any more; but I cried hard when they wrapped him in a buffalo robe and tied it tight about him with thongs until he was only a bundle, for I would never see his face again in this world, and the land of spirit was very far away.

“It made me cry harder to hear my mother and grandmother mourning. I can hear my mother saying like a song: ‘He was so good to us and he always brought us plenty of meat and always gave to the old people too. And now we are all alone.’ And I can hear my grandmother singing a low sleepy song to him now and then, as though he were a baby, and I can hear her saying: ‘I fed you at these breasts when I was young and you were little. Now my breasts are dry and you have gone away, my son, and I want to go too.’ I can see my grandfather with tears shining on his cheeks in the firelight, and I can hear him singing a low song for courage over and over, so that his son would still be brave.

“Afterwhile I cried myself to sleep; and it was morning.

“Then some people came and my grandfather told them he wanted to give everything away. So the criers went about the village calling out to all the people:

“‘Gray Bear’s son is going on a long journey and will not come back. His mother will not see him again in this world, and his woman is left alone. Let the needy come to Gray Bear, for now he has no son and he wants to give away the little he has left.’

“So people came to our lodge, mourning with us; and when they went away, we had nothing but sorrow. Only one horse we kept, my father’s buffalo-runner, and that was for him to ride on his long journey.

“Then when the day was going to the spirit land, some friends came leading a pony with a drag. When they had placed my father on the poles we started away towards the hills. Behind the drag was my grandfather leading the buffalo-runner; then my grandmother, then my mother, and I followed her; and behind us were relatives and those who had the gifts that made us poor. And as we walked we wept.

“I remember how a big flock of crows saw us coming up a little valley, and rose with many voices of mourning and fled from us, still crying far off; and how the hills looked down at us, all listening and sorry.

“Then we came up out of the valley where the shadows were growing, and in the low sunlight on a hilltop was a new scaffold that our friends had made that day. The four standing poles were stripped of bark, and the story of my father’s deeds was painted on them, to tell how brave he was.

“They unhitched the pony and leaned the drag against the scaffold. Then two men climbed up and pulled the bundle to the top and tied it down with thongs against the winds. And when this was done, they led the buffalo-runner under the scaffold, with his face towards the setting sun; and just before they shot him, he lifted up his head and sent forth a great, shrill neigh, as though he were calling to my father away off yonder.

“The people all went away in the twilight, and the night up there was big and still and starry; so big and still that it did not seem to know about my father and our weeping and moaning there by the scaffold. Only the coyotes heard us; and when they raised their high sharp song of sorrow and ceased, the night was bigger and stiller than before, and nothing cared.

“I remember my grandfather standing still and dim and tall against the stars, facing the end of earthly days with his hands held high. Sometimes I could hear him praying aloud to Wakon Tonka, then for a long while he would just stand there holding up his hands. When I heard him asking for ‘the strength to understand and the eyes to see,’ I forgot to cry with wondering how strong I’d have to be. Maybe the buffalo-runner could understand because he was so strong; maybe he had the eyes to see; and maybe that was why he called so loud towards where the sun goes down. Maybe a buffalo bull, a very big one, could understand everything. Then I got to wondering what it would be like if I were strong as a big buffalo bull and had the eyes to see into the land of spirit. How blue would the sky be and how green the grass? If there were never any clouds, how could it rain and keep the grass from getting yellow? What was my father doing now, and had he caught his buffalo-runner yet?

“Then all at once I wasn’t there on the hill any more, and I could see.

“It was a wide land, wider than many looks could reach across, and yet I saw it all together; and what was far away was near too, because of the clear light that lived everywhere. Many smokes rose straight like slender trees from many hoops of people living in green valleys by bright streams. And while I looked and looked, there was a kind of singing everywhere, although everything was still. Then all at once a great happy neighing filled the world, and there was a horseback coming on a green, green hill that lived high up in the blue, blue sky; and I saw it was the buffalo-runner that came prancing and nickering, and on his back was my father smiling down at me, and his face was all shining. Then he leaned to hold a hand for my foot, and I mounted behind him, light as a feather, and the buffalo horse leaped into a run that was like floating, and when he neighed it was laughter. Buffalo beyond counting raised their noses from the glowing grass and lowed softly as we passed, and the elk were glad to see us and the deer and antelope danced with joy.

“Then when we had come to the high green hilltop living in the happy blue, the horse stood floating, and I heard my father saying: ‘You must go back to your mother now and take care of her and tell her not to cry any more. Always be good to old people and bring them tender meat that they can chew. And never be afraid of anything.’ And when I put my arms around his waist, trying to hold on a little longer, there was nothing in my arms, and the hill went dark; and I awoke, lying beside the scaffold in the cold starlight.

“My grandfather lay sound asleep there where he had been praying; and my mother and grandmother were sleeping too, worn out with weeping. There was a low streak of day far off, and the big morning star was looking down at me, very kind with something that it knew, for what it knew was good.

“I was glad the old ones were resting, and I did not feel alone or afraid, because my father was just a little sleep away. And while I sat there looking at the star, I thought of many great deeds that I would do, for I would be as brave as my father and as good to all the old people. I was almost a chief already in my thinking before the streak of day had widened and the star died. Then all the hills around stood up to stare upon the scaffold with sad looks, and I began to cry again.

“Some relatives came with the sun to take us back to the village, and there was a sweat bath ready for my grandfather and me. And while we were being cleansed and rubbed with sacred sage, some women were taking care of my mother and grandmother, washing the tears from their faces and combing and braiding their hair. Then they fed us, and we ate.

“And when we had eaten, there were two good old men and two good old women who came to teach us, the men for the men and the women for the women. And they taught us, being wise, for they had lived much and wanted nothing any more. It was a good time to become better people, they said, for now we had nothing left but the spirit. We should stay there four days after the village moved away, and those four days we should lament and pray. But there were others who had lost everything, and they were mourning too. We should remember to be kind to them and to try to help them in their sorrow, and that would make our spirits stronger. Then after four days, we could leave that place and wander alone, the four of us; and while we wandered we should mourn less and less, but keep on praying. And always we should be up to see the morning star, for that would give us wisdom.

“So the village moved away from that place of death, and only those who mourned were left; and we were all kind to each other, sharing much sorrow and a little meat.

“And when the fifth day came, we caught one of the old horses that had been left behind, a lame old grandfather horse who was always looking at the ground. And we made a drag for him and on it we put a smoke-blackened piece of an old tepee that was left behind because it was no good any more. Then we began wandering alone out into the hills towards where the sun comes up, because there were no soldiers over there.

“We had no gun, but I had my bow with the sharp arrows. It was my second bow and it was still a little too strong for me. My grandfather had said it would make me grow faster so; but that was why I had never killed anything bigger than a rabbit. I could not pull it far enough to kill.

“My grandfather felt bad when we began to wander, and he got sicker until he could hardly walk. So we camped by a water hole and made a shelter with the old piece of a tepee, so that he could rest and get well. Of course, my mother and grandfather could not talk to each other, because he was her man’s father, but my mother was good to him anyway. She would hunt turnips and berries, and when she had cooked these, she would put them where he could get them. If they wanted to say something to each other, they would tell my grandmother and she would say it. The little dried meat we had was gone, and we got very hungry eating wild turnips and buffalo berries.

“We did not forget to pray, but it seemed Wakon Tonka did not hear us. I roamed far from our camp looking for a rabbit that I could kill; but I could not find one sitting; and when I would came back with nothing, my mother and grandmother would be crying, because they were thinking how it was before my father went away.

“Then one day when I was far from camp looking for meat, I came to a water hole with deer tracks all around it; and all at once my heart grew strong, for there was a clump of brush just a little way from the hole, and I knew what I would do. I did not say anything about this at home, and I think I hardly slept at all that night.

“Something ’woke me when it was still dark. The morning star was just beginning to look over the world, and I asked it to help me. The others were still asleep, and I started for the water hole where the deer tracks were. There was a long valley, and afterwhile there was a gulch to the right. Up that gulch and over a ridge there was another valley. To the left a long way up that valley was the hole with the deer tracks, over at the bottom of a ridge to the right, and close by was the brush. I was running fast before I knew it; but I made myself go slower because I could not shoot straight out of breath. It was hard to keep from running, but I came to the place when there was just a little streak of day far off. The star looked happy, waiting for something good to happen.

“It was very still, because the wind was waiting for the sun; but when I wet my finger in my mouth and held it up, I could feel the air breathing a little towards the water hole; and that was good. Then I went into the brush, standing so that I could see the hole, and began to pray hard, just whispering so that only Wakon Tonka could hear me, and I said: ‘Grandfather, send me a deer and make me strong to pull this bow and guide my arrow when I shoot. You see that we are poor, for we have given everything to the needy. My mother is crying, and the old people are crying, and we are all hungry. I have been a little boy long enough, and you must make me strong. You can do anything.’

“When I had said this over and over, I got to thinking of my dream there by the scaffold, and how he told me to take care of my mother and be good to old people. While I thought about this, I could feel myself growing stronger and stronger. And when it was just getting daylight, all at once there was a deer with a fawn coming down to the water hole.

“I held my breath and waited until they put their noses in the water. The smaller one had its side towards me, and it was the one I wanted, because maybe I could drag it home, and also the meat would be very tender for my sick grandfather.

“Maybe it was the dream that made me strong. I took a big breath and pulled quick and hard. Maybe Wakon Tonka pulled a little too. The string came back almost to my shoulder. Whang!

“I ran out of the brush and danced and yelled and yelled, until the hills across the valley yelled back, cheering me for what I had done. The arrow went deep just behind the shoulder. I had a deer! I had a deer!

“Then I quit yelling, because the fawn began to look so big I wondered how I was going to get it all the way home. I had my knife yet, because I was so proud of it that I kept it hidden when we were giving to the needy. I could cut off a hindquarter and carry that; but I wanted to show the whole deer all at once. So I began dragging it down the valley by the heels. But it was getting bigger and bigger, and when the sun looked over at me, I was all out of breath and had to sit down on it and pant. Then when I had my breath back, I began dragging again. But the sun was getting hotter and the deer was getting bigger. Pretty soon it would be as big as a buffalo, and I could never get it all over the ridge into the next valley.

“I looked around with a forked mind, wondering what to do, and there were some stunted trees standing low down on the side of the ridge I had to cross. I would cut the deer up and put the pieces in a tree, all but one hindquarter, where my mother and I could find them. So that is what I did.

“The sun was getting high when I sneaked up to the camp through some brush because I wanted to surprise my people. And when my mother and grandmother saw me there, panting and all bloody with the meat on my shoulder, they just stared awhile with their mouths open. Then my grandmother began jumping up and down like a little girl, crying: ‘O see what our grandson has brought us! O see what our big grandson has brought us!’ Then my grandfather sat up; and when he saw, he clapped his hands, crying, ‘hiyay! hiyay!’ And my mother laughed with joy. It was the first time since my father went away.

“So my mother sliced the meat and roasted it over a low fire, and we feasted. But before we ate, my grandfather raised his hands towards where the sun goes down, and made an offering, like this: ‘Grandfather, Great Mysterious One, behold me! You have sent our boy a deer and made us happy. Remembering all living things that are in need, this I offer to you that my people may live and the children grow up with plenty.’ Then each of us cut off a little piece of meat and tossed it over the shoulder. It was the first bite to the Spirit that gave. I did not make mine very big, for I could feel teeth inside of me, I was so hungry. While we ate I had to tell how I did it, and I told everything but the dream; for if I told that, maybe I would lose my new medicine power.

“When my mother and I brought the rest of the meat home, we feasted again; and when we were full, we sang. Then my grandfather blew a big breath and said: ‘I think this is going to make me well again.’ And so it was.

“I did not sleep for a long while that night, thinking about what I had done and all I was going to do. Sometimes I could hear my mother crying a little so as not to waken anybody, and my grandmother moaning in her sleep. It made me feel stronger than ever to hear this.

“It is a long way back to where we have been, and I am weary. You will come again tomorrow.”

V
Was the Great Voice Angry?

It was apparent from a distance that Eagle Voice was up and waiting. A thin stem of smoke from a well-established fire stood tall and straight above the tepee, blooming flatly aloft in the glittering, knife-edged air of the clear morning.

As I stooped through the flap, the sudden friendly warmth seemed to radiate from the old man’s happy face. “How, my grandson,” he said merrily. “The Grandfather has sent us a good day, and I am glad to see you.”

The pipe was ready and we smoked awhile in silence.

“That was very tender meat we had yesterday,” he said at length, with a mock-serious crinkling about his eyes. “I think it was the best meat I ever ate. It sent me a good dream last night, and I think I am getting younger. If only I had enough of it, maybe I could turn into a boy!

“Yes, it made my grandfather well again, and after that we did not lack meat, for he was a better hunter than I was, even with my new medicine power! In those days I thought he was almost as old as the hills, but I can see now that he would have to be my younger son if he came back.

“So we wandered while the young moon came and grew and died, praying much and mourning less and less; and always we were up to see the morning star. Who sees the morning star shall see more, for he shall be wise. The people were still good in those days before the sacred hoop was broken; but the time of wandering alone with the spirit, mourning and praying, made them better. It was like dying with the dear one and coming back all new again and stronger to live. Now, when somebody dies, we don’t go anywhere. We just sit where we are and feel bad, and we don’t get along with each other any more, for we have forgotten how to learn.

“Afterwhile it was getting to be the time to make winter meat, and we wanted to be ready for the big buffalo hunt; so we went back to our village in the valley of the Tongue.

“Everybody was happy to see us again. The people sang welcoming songs when we entered the hoop and circled the village from left to right, as young men ride after a victory. My grandfather walked first, leading the horse with the drag, and behind the drag was grandmother, then my mother, and I was last. The old grandfather horse was very tired, but he lifted his head and nickered to the singers, for he was happy too.

“When my mother and grandmother had set up the old smoke-blackened piece of a tepee for a shelter, many people came to us with food, and we feasted together. And while we feasted, there was a big giving of gifts until we were not poor at all. There was a tepee of buffalo hide made double against the coldest winter and the hottest summer, and the deeds of my father were painted on it. Our new horses were staked all around us, whinnying with joy, and none of them was old. We all had new buckskin dresses; my grandfather had a good gun with plenty of powder and lead; and there was nothing lacking in the tepee that women need to make a home. But the best gift of all was the horse I got for myself. He was not too young, not too old either, and I called him Whirlwind because he could run so fast. It was Looks Twice who gave the gift with a speech that made me proud, for he was my father’s brother-friend, and he carried my father dead out of the battle. Brother-friends do not have the same mother and father, but they are closer than common brothers, because they are just like one man, and if one of them is in trouble, the other must help, even if he knows he will die. Maybe that horse had some spirit power from my father, for sometimes when I was riding alone, all at once I would be back in the dream that came to me by the scaffold, and Whirlwind would be the buffalo-runner floating.”

The animated expression suddenly left the old man’s face, and for some time he sat looking at the ground, blowing softly on his eagle-bone whistle. A chuckle signaled his return from the remoteness of the inner world.

“I was thinking,” he said with the crinkled look, “about stealing my grandfather’s pipe that time; and this is how it was. I knew I had to be a great warrior and a great hunter so that everyone would praise me, and I had a good start already with the fawn. I thought and thought about it. Maybe in the big hunt we were going to have I could sneak out among the hunters when everybody was excited, and nobody would notice; and maybe there would be a lame cow and I could kill her. Or it would be a calf anyway, maybe one that had lost its mother in the dust. I was not very sure about the cow; but the more I thought, the more I knew I had to have that calf; and it came to me that I’d better get Wakon Tonka to help me. I would dedicate a pipe to the Great Mysterious One and make a sacred vow the way I had heard them tell real warriors did. Then maybe I would get that calf. I was already feeding enough old people for ten calves when it came to me that I had no pipe.

“That was when I made a mistake. I said to myself: ‘It will be all right to take grandfather’s pipe, because I am doing this for very old people who have hardly any teeth at all; and anyway he has two pipes now.’ I did not ask for the pipe, because I knew he would not let me have it. So I just took it when nobody was looking, and rode far out to where there was a tall, pointed hill, standing all alone above the little hills that sat around it.

“When I tied Whirlwind to some brush and climbed to the top, I saw that some black clouds were coming up over towards where the sun goes down, and it was that way I had to look when I made my offering. I did not know just how to do it, but maybe it would be all right anyway. So I held the pipe up and cried out in a loud voice: ‘Tonka schla, Wakon Tonka! You see me here and you know I must get a calf for the old people, because they can hardly chew. I give you this pipe, and if you send me a calf, I will dance the sun dance, just as soon as I get big enough.’

“When I said this, all at once there was a big thunder off there—boom-m-m how-ow-ow oom-m-m ow-ow!

“I dropped the pipe and ran as fast as I could down the hill. Some of me almost got there before I did, because I stumbled and rolled part of the way. Then I rode home as fast as Whirlwind could go, because the big voice sounded angry, and I was frightened.

“When I got home I did not say anything to anybody. And afterwhile grandmother said: ‘I wonder what is wrong with our boy. He looks queer.’ And my mother said: ‘He does look queer. Maybe he ate too much.’ Then my grandfather looked hard at me and said: ‘Maybe he has been smoking my pipe, for I see it is not here.’ And when he kept on looking hard at me for a while, I had to tell him; but I did not tell everything. I just said I took it because I had to make a vow so that we would get plenty of meat in the hunt.

“I thought he was getting ready to be angry, he looked so hard at me. Then he said, ‘hm-m-m,’ high up in his nose, and his eyes looked as though he might be going to laugh; but he didn’t. My mother and grandmother didn’t say anything. They just tried to look sad down their noses.”

After chuckling awhile over the memory, the old man continued: “If I had been a Wasichu boy, I think they would have whipped me; but Lakotas never hurt a child. They were good in those days before the sacred hoop was broken. It was the sacred way they lived in the hoop that made them good and taught the children; and I will tell you how that was.

“There were seven teoshpaiay [bands], seven council fires, and one of them was my people, the Oglala. They were all Lakota and had the same tongue, but they did not all say things in the same way, and when we got together, sometimes we boys would mock each other, because our way of speaking was the best. Each teoshpaiay was a hoop by itself, and could go anywhere it pleased, for it had its own tepee okige, the highest tepee where its chief lived, and its own tepee iyokihe, the next highest tepee, where its councilors made the laws for the people.

“When all the seven teoshpaiay, or most of them, came to live together, they would camp in a great hoop, which was more sacred than any of the smaller hoops that made it. And if there were laws to be made for all the hoops to obey or something to decide for all of them, then each teoshpaiay would bring its council tepee to the center of the great hoop; and with all these tepees they would make a big place for all the councils and chiefs to meet as one, and this they called tepee-thrown-over-together. It had no roof, only walls, because it was not needed very long.

“And it was here that four were chosen to be chiefs above all others—one wichashita nacha, who is highest, and three nacha, who were next.

“Also each hoop had its own akichita, and they were the keepers of all the laws. They were like relatives of the thunder beings, and theirs was the power of lightning. Nothing could stop them; and if any man broke a law, they took care of him, even a brother or a father. If the chief himself broke a law, the akichita could throw him out of the tepee okige, and a better man would be chosen. If any should go on a war party or a hunt when the council said, ‘no,’ the akichita could whip them and cut their tepees in pieces. And if any fought the akichita, they would be killed. If you broke a law, it was like breaking the sacred hoop a little; and that was a very bad thing, for the hoop was the life of the people all together.

“If an akichita did some bad thing or did not do what he ought to do, then the wichasha yatapika could throw him out before all the people; and it was better to die than to see shame in every face. Even little boys could mock such a man and no one would stop them. For the wichasha yatapika [men whom all praise] were stronger at last than all others except Wakon Tonka; and yet they did not make the laws. They chose the chiefs and the councilors and the akichita from among themselves; and any man could become one of them, but it was not easy, and it took a long time.

“It was like this. Maybe I am a young man and I think to myself that I want to be a chief sometime. I don’t say anything to anybody about this, but I know what I must do. First, I must be very brave. I have to kill an enemy, I have to count coup so many times, and I have to get a scalp. Nobody can say I was ever afraid. But that is only the beginning. I must never break any laws, I must be good to everybody in the hoop, so that afterwhile people notice this and talk about it until everybody is saying it. And that too is only the beginning, although it takes a long time. I must be very generous and always see that old people and the needy have meat. I do not do this once or twice. I keep on doing it until everybody notices and talks about it, and then I keep on doing it.

“Maybe some old men and women are sitting around under a sun-shade made of boughs. They are talking about the old days when everything was better. And, afterwhile, one of them, who can see a little better than the others, squints at a hilltop, and says: ‘A horseback is coming over there, and he is bringing something. I wonder who it is.’ Then they all squint at the horseback coming, and when he is closer, another one says: ‘Why, that is Gray Bear’s son, Eagle Voice, and I think he is bringing some meat.’ Then they all cry out together, ‘hi-yay!’ Because people have been talking about me, and the old ones know I will come to them first with the tenderest pieces. But if I am somebody else, and a stingy fellow, then the old people will say, ‘heh-heh-heh,’ and look down their noses. And if that is what old people say about me, I am never going to be a wichasha yatapika, even if I have killed a hundred enemies.

“After people have noticed these things for a long time, even the wichasha yatapika begin to talk about me in their meetings, and at last they say: ‘This young Eagle Voice ought to be one of us.’ So they have a big feast and a ceremony at the center of the hoop, with all the people sitting around. And before they take me to be one of them, the people are asked to say any evil thing they may know about me. But all the people cry out together, ‘hi-yay, hi-yay,’ and not even a jealous one can say anything bad at all. So they make me a man whom all praise, and before all the people they teach me what I must do, and they say I do not belong to myself any more, but to the people. Then I take the pipe they offer and smoke it; and that is a sacred vow.

“Now I am a wichasha yatapika, and I can be an akichita, or a councilor, or even a chief, if I keep on being brave enough and generous enough and good enough. It is hard to be any of these, but it is hardest of all to be a chief, because he must be wachin tonka [great minded] standing above himself, as he stands above others.

“When they make him a chief, they will say: ‘Maybe your favorite dog will come home with an arrow in him. You will not be angry, but hold fast to your pipe and remember the laws. Maybe some mangy dog will water your tepee in the dark [malicious gossip]. You will have neither eyes nor ears, but you will look into your heart, and go ahead. If anything you have is better for another than for you, it will be his. You do not belong to yourself.’

“I will tell you a little story to show how it was in the old days before the sacred hoop was broken. Once there was a great chief, a wichashita nacha, and although he was still strong like a bear, he was not young any more; and the people listened to his words for he was wise. This old chief had taken a young woman who was very good to see, and he was so fond of her that people talked about it and smiled behind their hands; but they felt kind when they smiled. And I think the young woman liked the chief because he was so good to her, but maybe she was only proud because his power was so great. And afterwhile there was a young warrior who was very brave, and also very good to see; and these two looked upon each other until they could see nothing else at all. So they ran away together far from the village; and the people talked and talked, wondering what the chief would do. And this is what he did.

“When he had called an akichita, he said: ‘Go find this man and woman wherever they are and bring them here to me.’ It was done as he had spoken. And when at last the two stood before him in the tepee okige, for they had hidden far away to be alone together, they were so afraid that they could hardly stand. But the old chief smiled at them and said: ‘Sit down beside me here, and do not be afraid. No law is made against your being young, and, if there were, I broke it long ago.’

“So the young woman sat upon his left, and on his right the other. And when the three had sat thus very still for a long while, just looking at the ground, the old chief spoke to the akichita: ‘Bring here to me my best buffalo runner, the young sorrel with the morning star on his forehead.’ And when this was done, he took the end of the horse’s lariat and placed it in the hands of the young man on his right. Then he said: ‘Give me my bow and arrows yonder’; and these also he placed in the young man’s hands.

“Then he turned to where the young woman sat weeping with her face in her hands, and what he did then was very hard for him to do.

“They tell it he was very gentle while he undid the long braids of the young woman, who was weeping harder now. And when her hair was hanging all loose down her back and she was just a girl again, he took a comb and combed it gently. Over and over he combed it, until it was all smooth and shining like the bend of a crow’s wing in the sun. Then with great care he parted it and braided it again, doing this very slowly. And when the braids were tied, he took the woman’s hand and placed it in the hand of him who sat upon the right. ‘Go now,’ he said, ‘and be good people.’ Some tell it there were tears upon his face, but others that he kept them in his breast. I do not know.

“All this was many snows ago, before the sacred hoop was broken, and when people still were good.”

VI
Chased by a Cow

The old man chuckled after one of his long silences. “Yes,” he said, “I wondered if the great voice was angry when it called to me on the pointed hill. But my grandfather was not angry about the pipe, and maybe the great voice was not either. I thought and thought about this. Maybe that was the only voice Wakon Tonka had, and it only sounded angry because it was so big. Maybe it was cheering me for making the offering.

“Everybody was getting ready for the big hunt, and something wonderful was going to happen. I might even get a cow, a lame one; and then everybody would praise me. Anyway, it would be a calf—one that got lost, maybe in a draw to one side away from the herd. When I had killed it, I would find my mother and grandmother, and they would come and butcher it. Then we would pack the meat on Whirlwind, and when we came into the village with the meat, people would notice and my grandmother would tell the other old women: ‘See what my grandson did, and he is going to give it all to the old people.’

“The scouts had gone out to look for a bison herd over towards where the sun comes up, and one day the criers went about the village, calling: ‘Make moccasins for your children! Look after the children’s moccasins!’ And that meant to be ready, for we were going to move. Then early next morning the criers went around, calling: ‘Councilors, come to the center! Councilors, come to the center and bring your fires!’ They did this because in the old days a long time ago, the people had no matches or flint and steel. They could make fire another way in dry rotten wood by rubbing sticks together, but that was hard and could not always be done. Fire was sacred then, and had to be kept alive when the people moved. Then when they camped again, everybody came to the center and got fire for their own tepees. They did not have to do it this time, but it was part of living in a sacred manner, and that was good for the people.

“When the councilors had brought their fires to the center, the criers shouted to the people: ‘Take it down! Take it down!’ And the women all began taking down the tepees and packing everything on pony-drags. Then when everything was ready we began moving towards where the sun comes up, for that way the scouts had gone. First were the six councilors on foot; then came the chiefs with the criers behind them, then the akichita, and after them were the people with the loaded pony-drags. If there were enemies to be feared, there would be riders out there on our flanks and some ahead and behind; but there was no enemy to fear the way we were going; and we were so many that no band of Crows would attack us moving.

“There were four teoshpaiay going together on this hunt, one after the other in a long line; and it makes me feel good to remember how it looked. The akichita were not very strict before we came near the bison, and the children could play along the way. Maybe the girls would pick pretty flowers or dig up some wild turnips, or there might be a clump of rabbit berry bushes looking smoky with the berries getting red in them, like sparks; or, if it was late enough, plums might be getting good to eat, and the children would pick them while the people were passing. The bigger boys could play ‘throwing them off their horses.’ That was a rough game, but it was good for boys because it helped them to be brave warriors later on. They would divide up into little bands and charge each other, wrestling from the horses’ backs, and sometimes a boy would get hurt. I was not big enough yet for that game, but I had a good time on Whirlwind, and sometimes I would get on a high place and see all the people traveling in a sacred manner. They were happy, and you could hear them singing here and there along the line. Maybe a drag pony would lift his head and neigh because the singing of the people made him want to sing too; and then the other ponies would lift their heads and sing down along the line.

“That was the next time I saw Tashina. I was riding up and down the line with some other boys; and when we came to where the Miniconjou were, I heard somebody cry out: ‘Shonka ’kan! Shonka ’kan! Come and pull my tepee!’ And it was Tashina looking up at me. I was getting to be a big boy, for I had mourned and wandered, and I had killed a deer. Also I was going to kill a bison cow pretty soon, or anyway a calf. So I was too big to play with girls any more, and I did not say anything back. I wanted to talk to her, because I liked her; but I just made Whirlwind prance and rear. And when I rode away, I could see her sticking her tongue out at me and I heard her cry: ‘Yah! Yah! Go and eat grass! Go and eat grass, Shonka ’kan sheetsha [bad horse]!’”

With a chuckle the old man went into one of his reveries, gazing at me with eyes that saw what wasn’t there. “She was a pretty little girl,” he said, more to himself than to me; “a very pretty little girl.” Then the focus of his gaze shortened to include me, and he continued:

“It was a time for the people to be happy, so we traveled slowly. And when the sun stood high above us, it would be time to rest awhile and let the ponies graze. The councilors would choose a place where there was water and good grass. Then the criers would call out to the people: ‘Take off your loads and rest your horses! Take them off and rest your horses.’ And if wild turnips were growing there, they would say: ‘Take your sticks and dig some turnips for yourselves!’ And the women would do this while the ponies drank and grazed and the councilors sat on a hillside watching the people. And when they had smoked together maybe two or three pipes, it would be time to move again, and the criers would call: ‘Now put on your loads! Put them on!’ And we would move, as before, until the sun was getting low.

“By that time the councilors would know a good place to camp for the night where there was plenty of wood, water, and grass, and the criers would tell the people to make camp.

“We were all camped the sacred way, in a big hoop of four hoops with the opening towards where you are always facing [the south], and the tepee-thrown-over-together was in the center. The drags were all outside the circle, and, all around, the horses were grazing with the horse guards watching them. Smokes were standing above the tepees, for it was morning and the people were eating.

“Then there was a crier shouting: ‘They are returning! The scouts I have seen. They are returning!’ And all the people came out of the tepees to look. Three horsebacks were coming over the hill towards where the sun comes up, and they had something good to tell, for as they galloped down the hillside we could hear them singing together.

“When they had entered the hoop where you are always facing, they turned to the left and rode single file about the circle from left to right, looking straight ahead and saying nothing; and the people waited and were still. And when they had come again to the opening, they turned to the right and rode towards the center where the councilors and chiefs were waiting in the tepee-thrown-over-together. And as the riders came near, a crier spoke for the scouts, calling to the chiefs and councilors: ‘Come forth and make haste! I have protected you, and you shall give to me in return.’

“Then the chiefs and councilors came forth, and the scouts sat down in front of them, facing the tepee, and all the people crowded around to see and hear.

“Then the chief filled a pipe and lit it; and when he had presented it to the Six Powers, first to the four quarters of the earth, then to the Great Mystery above, and last to the ground, which is the mother of all living things, he placed it on a buffalo chip in front of him, with the stem towards the scouts. There was bison hide on the mouthpiece of the pipe, and it was sacred; for it was through the bison that Earth, the mother of all, fed the people, and whoever smoked the pipe was nursing at his mother’s breast like a little child. The chip was sacred too, for it meant the bison. They were the life and shelter of the people’s hoop, and when they died, the sacred hoop was broken.

“Then the chief spoke to the scouts: ‘The nation has depended upon you. Whatever you have seen, maybe it is for the good of the people you have seen it.’ And when he had said this, he offered the pipe to the scouts. They took it, smoking in turn, and that was a sacred vow that what they told would be the truth.

“Then the chief spoke again, and said: ‘At what place have you stood and seen the good? Report it to me and I shall be glad. You have been raised on this earth, and every corner of it you know. So tell me the truth.’

“The first scout was so anxious to tell that he forgot the sacred rules and held up his thumb to the Great Mysterious One. But before he spoke, the chief shook his head and said: ‘Hunh unh! The first finger! The first finger for the truth!’ So the first scout raised his first finger and said: ‘You know where we started from. We came to a hill yonder, and there in the next valley we saw some bison.’

“The chief stood up when he heard this, and said: ‘Maybe you have seen more farther on. Report it to me and I shall be glad.’ And the second scout raised his first finger, saying: ‘Beyond this hill there is another, and there we saw a small herd grazing in a valley.’ And the chief spoke again: ‘I shall be thankful if you will tell me more of the good that you have seen.’ And the third scout said: ‘From still another hill farther on, there we saw a big herd grazing in a valley and on the hillsides.’

“Then the chief spoke again, saying: ‘Maybe you have not told me all the good that you have seen. Tell it now, and all the people will be glad.’ When he had said this, the scouts forgot the rules and all began talking together: ‘There is still another hill! Wasichu! Wasichu! There was nothing but bison all over the prairie! More than many looks could see! Wasichu! Wasichu!’

“When they said that, they did not mean white men. They meant very, very much of something, more than could be told or counted, like a great fatness. Then the chief cried out: ‘Hetchetu aloh! [So be it].’ And all the people shouted, ‘hi-yay, hi-yay,’ and the grazing horses out yonder, hearing the people, sent forth voices, neighing for gladness; and dogs raised their snouts and howled.

“Then the criers went forth and the people were still to hear them: ‘Many bison I have heard! Many bison I have heard! Your knives you must sharpen! Your arrows make sharp. Make ready, make haste, your horses make ready! We shall go forth with arrows. Plenty of meat we shall make!’

“I had already sharpened my arrows so often that if I sharpened them much more, I wouldn’t have any left. While the people were all getting ready for the big killing of meat, the council sent for certain young men who were being noticed by the people, and to these the chief said: ‘Good young warriors, my relatives, your work I know is good. What you do is good always. So today you will feed the helpless and the old and feeble. Maybe there is an old woman or an old man who has no son. Or there may be a woman who has little children but no man. You will know these and hunt only for them. Today you belong to the needy.’ This made the young men very proud, for it was a great honor.

“Then as the people were taking their places for going to the hunt, the criers shouted: ‘Your children, take care of them! Your children, take care of them!’ After that the children must stay close to their parents and not run around, for they might scare the bison; also, they might get hurt.

“Then we started off towards the big herd. First went the three scouts, riding abreast to show the way. Then came the councilors and the chiefs with the criers; and after them came all the akichita riding twenty abreast, and next were all the hunters, four or five abreast. If any hunter rode ahead of the akichita, he would be knocked off his horse and he would get no meat that day. Also, he would see shame in all eyes. The killing was for the nation, and everyone must have the same chance to kill. After the hunters were the women and older men, who would follow up and butcher the kill. Each hunter knew his arrows by the marks, and so he claimed his meat. And if two should claim a kill, then an akichita could decide between them or have the meat divided.

“We did not stop to rest that day, and when the sun was getting high, we began to see bison. Sometimes they were scattered out and sometimes there were small herds, but nobody was allowed to shoot at them or to cry out in a loud voice. They might get frightened, and the running fear might spread like fire in dry grass, until the big herd yonder caught the fear and started running. It was hard for the younger hunters riding behind the akichita up there; but no one pulled a bow or raised a voice; and all the children kept close to their mothers with the drags in the rear.

“The sun was high and had started down a little, when we saw that those ahead up yonder had stopped on a ridge to look. And while they were looking, voices came running all along the line down to us: ‘Many bison they have seen! Make ready, make haste! Make ready to follow with your knives! They are going to charge!’

“Then just when the voices had come running back to us, we could see the hunters and akichita up yonder splitting into two big bands; one to the right and one to the left.”

With a hand at his brow the old man peered narrow-eyed at the head of the column on the ridge that was a lifetime away. Then, clapping his hands high above his head, he cried: “They are charging over the hill! They are all charging! The hunters and akichita are charging! Hoka-hey! hoka-hey!

“Everybody was excited, and the people were hurrying towards the hunt, except the very old ones and the women who stayed back to take care of the drag ponies and the children and to set up the tepees; for that was a good place to camp and there would soon be plenty of meat to dry and many hides to tan.

“Nobody was noticing me, and there were no akichita around there, so when I saw the hunters charge I charged too—not towards where the hunters had gone, but away from the people to the right where there was a big patch of buffalo berry bushes to help me. When Whirlwind and I got behind them, we started on the run towards where there was a break in the ridge ahead, to the right of where the hunters went over. While we were crossing the valley, my calf grew so fast that when I rode into the ravine, it wasn’t a calf at all any more, but a big fat cow, and maybe even two cows.

“The ravine was full of thunder that was coming from a rolling storm of dust ahead. And when we got close over there and stopped to look down, we were a little scared. Whirlwind snorted and wanted to go back, but I had made an offering and I had to do something.

“Dust and thunder, dust and steady thunder with bull voices roaring in it! And wherever the dust blew thinner in the wind or lifted a little, there were backs, backs, backs of galloping bison bobbing up and down; bison beyond counting and more and more. And here and there over to the left I could see horsebacks charging in and out along the flanks of the herd, killing and killing, lost in the dust and appearing, lost and appearing. And while I looked, a big man on a big Wasichu horse that he must have taken from the soldiers came charging out of the dust. He was after a big bull with only a spear. Just as he was coming in front of me, he rode close and leaned far over. Then I saw him drive the spear with both hands in behind the bull’s front leg. I forgot that I should not be where I was, and I yelled and yelled; but the man did not know I was there. I could see that his mouth was wide open and I knew he was shouting for a kill, but he did not make any sound in the steady thunder. Then the bull stopped and turned and charged the horseback; but the man did not run away. He was very brave. Also he knew how to handle his horse, and the horse was wise too. They dodged and reared and circled until the man got hold of his spear again. Then with both hands he drove it deeper and pried it back and forth. The bull’s mouth gushed blood, and when he started running again, he wabbled; and I could see the man prying the spear back and forth until the dust hid them.

“Just then, right down there not far away, a cow came loping with my calf! I did not wait. I charged. It is not easy to put an arrow where you want it from a galloping horse’s back and the horse all excited. I was yelling, ‘yu-hoo,’ already, because I had one arrow sticking in the calf’s hump and was pulling the bow for another try at the right place behind the front leg, when Whirlwind squealed and reared and wheeled away. For a long time after that it made me feel a little better when I blamed him for running away with me just as I was really getting my calf. But I was as scared as he was when I saw the cow charging us, and I did not look around until we were far up the side of the ridge. By that time the cow was loping back to find her calf.

“When I got Whirlwind to stand still, I was a little scared yet, and I was ashamed too. Nobody but the cow saw me running away, but Wakon Tonka could see everything, and I had made an offering. So I thought, there are plenty of calves, and when Whirlwind is not afraid any more I will charge again. Maybe it will be better next time.

“But that part of the herd was getting thinner as it passed to the right, and I could see more and more hunters among them, killing and killing. Sometimes I could even hear their cries above the rumbling sound when they killed: ‘Ohee! Yuhoo!’ Then I said to myself, ‘If I go down there now they will see me and the akichita will get me.’ So I did not go down. Anyway, it was good to watch the hunters killing, and that is what I did. Afterwhile, when the dust and rumbling had passed, I could see the people yonder scattered in spots all over the prairie butchering the kill. That made me very hungry, so I galloped down there where the grass was beaten to dust; and wherever I came to a butchering they would give me something to eat—a chunk of liver, maybe with gall poured over it, or a piece of the strip of fat that runs along the backbone. It is good raw, but it is even better roasted a little. By the time I found my grandmother and grandfather, they had a fat cow all cut up on the stretched-out hide. They told me to ride over to a draw and to get some dry brush; and when I got back, my grandmother made a little fire. Then she roasted pieces of fat hump meat, and some old people came over to help us eat it.

“When the sun was getting low people were going back to camp with their horse-loads and drag-loads of meat and hides; and they kept on coming in with their loads long after it was dark. Before the feasting began, all the councilors and chiefs went into the tepee-thrown-over-together, and people came from all over the village with gifts of the best meat. This is how they gave thanks for good leading. Then the councilors cried, ‘hiya-hiya,’ and sang all together to the bringers of food. And when the councilors had eaten awhile, the criers went about the village again, calling: ‘All come home, for it is more than we can eat. Come home! There is plenty for all!’ Then the people came with their cups and crowded about the tepee-thrown-over-together that all might have some of the councilors’ meat; and after that the feasting began—feasting and dancing all night long. I can see the circle of the village yet with all the fires and the happy people feasting and singing. It makes me want to sing, too, for that is the way the Grandfather meant we should live. It was the sacred way and it kept the people good.

“That was near the Rosebud River, and it was a big killing; for we stayed there and killed until there was plenty for all. We had no hunter in our tepee, but the chosen young men offered us more than we could use, and my father’s brother-friend, Looks Twice, took care of us. He brought the meat to my grandparents; but I know now that he was thinking most of my mother, because he wanted to be my father; and afterwhile he was.

“Next day there were drying racks all over the village, and I can see the stripped red meat turning brown in the bright sunlight, and the brown turning black. And I can see the happy women sitting in little circles with their sharp knives, unwinding the chunks of meat in their laps. They are joking and laughing and holding up their strips of meat to see whose is thinnest and longest. And outside the village raw hides are pegged out everywhere, and the old women are scraping and beating them for the soft tanning that made them good to wear and to sleep in on the coldest night.

“But I kept thinking and thinking about the calf I did not kill and of the way I got chased by the cow. If it had only been a bull I might have felt better. It helped a little to blame Whirlwind for running away; but then I would remember the big voice that called to me on the pointed hill when I offered my grandfather’s pipe, and I began to feel sure the voice was angry at me.

“Some of us boys made a war-game of sneaking up to the racks at night and stealing meat without getting caught. It was like going on the war-path for enemy horses. We had war councils out in the brush before we went and kill-talks around the fire if we got back safe with the meat. That was fun; but I kept thinking and thinking about the angry voice, and I was not quite happy. I wanted to try for a calf again, but I was afraid to try because I kept hearing the great voice scolding me for stealing the pipe from my grandfather.

“When my grandmother noticed how I was acting, she said: ‘I wonder what is the matter with our grandson. He looks queer and he does not say anything.’ Then my mother looked at me and said: I think he has been eating too much again. He is always eating.’”

VII
Going on Vision Quest

After putting a chunk of cottonwood in the sheet-iron stove, I sat waiting for the old man to emerge from a reverie that he seemed to be inducing with faint, dreamlike tones from his eagle-bone whistle. Finally, as he had given no indication of emerging, I broke the silence: “Are you sure now that the great voice was not scolding you?”

He peered squintingly at me for a while, and said: “I am very old, and I have learned so many things that I do not know much any more. Maybe I was wiser before my ears were troubled with so many forked words.

“In the old days, it was from the seven tepees and the seven council fires that our teaching came. It was older than the oldest grandfather could remember his grandfather telling him; and more and more grandfathers before that until it was old as hills, old as stars.

“The wisdom of the teaching was from vision and the vision was from Wakon Tonka: The people could not do anything right unless the Great Mysterious One helped them; and for this they prayed and made sacred songs and dances, and had a sacred way for doing everything. When a boy was just beginning to be a man, he had to go on vision quest; for what he saw would show him the good road and give him power, so that his life might be a story good to tell. I was thinking of my vision when you bothered me.”

He was silent again while he filled his pipe and lit it. Then, drawing hollow-cheeked upon the stem, he smoked awhile and brooded in the little cloud he made.

“Dho!” he said at length, uttering with explosive force the syllable of emphasis on something said or thought. “Dho!” Passing the pipe to me, he resumed aloud the tenor of his brooding. “It is so! Are the people good, and do they get along together any more? The hoop is broken and the people have forgotten. There is no voice on any hill to tell them, and they have no ears to hear.

“The hoop was breaking even then when I was happy and a boy; but then I did not know it, for the world was still as big as day, and Wakon Tonka could be found on any hill, and something wonderful could happen.

“After the Attacking of the Wagons the soldiers went away and our warriors burned their towns. And when the grass was new again there was a treaty with the Father in Washington. He said our land would be ours and no Wasichu could ever come there. You can see his tongue was forked. Red Cloud was not with us any more. The Great Father made an Agency for him on the North Platte. And that was bad; for many of our people went down there to eat Wasichu food, and take the many presents the Great Father gave them. And these they traded for the minne sheetsha [bad water, whiskey] that made them crazy, so that they forgot the Mother of all and the bison and the sacred hoop.

“But our Bad Face band that had been Red Cloud’s people would not go. Big Road was with us, and Little Hawk and Black Twin. Also Crazy Horse was ours; and now I see that he was greatest of them all. Sometimes some of our young men would go down there to get new guns and lead and powder, and what they told, the people talked and talked about it, and some of it I heard; but it was like a story. I think there were fifty lodges of us, and we lived the old way in the bison country of the Tongue and the Powder and the Rosebud; and with us were the Miniconjous and the Sans Arcs. I remember how they said the loafers and Wasichus at the Agency made fun of us and called us the wild Lakota; but they were the foolish ones. The hoop we lived in had grown smaller, but it was not broken yet, and the voices of the seven tepees were not still.

“I was getting stronger fast and I think it was about the time when Red Cloud made the treaty that I got my first calf. The treaty was just something people said, a little thing a long way off that maybe was not so; but the calf was very big. I gave the meat to old people, and they praised me, so that my grandmother and my grandfather and my mother were proud of me.

“There were more snows and grasses and I was getting tall when I heard Looks Twice telling my mother about Red Cloud’s long journey to see the Great Father and of the strange things that he saw in the world of the Wasichus where the sun comes from. Looks Twice was my father then, and my grandparents did not live with us, but he took care of them, and he was good to me and taught me many things about hunting and war.

“What he told about Red Cloud was like an ohunka story the old folk tell only at night, and it is wonderful to stay awake and listen, but only little children must believe it. There were so many Wasichu towns yonder where the Great Father lived and the sun comes from that they could not be counted; and so big they were that a horseback could ride and ride and always stay in the town. And in those towns the Wasichus were as many as the bison when they follow the grass all together. And the tepees were made of stone, tepee on top of tepee, so that if you would see the top, you must look far up and then look again, and sometimes after that, again. And there was more and more about the great medicine power of the Wasichus. There were big iron horses breathing smoke and fire, and there was a gun so long and heavy that maybe a hundred men could not lift it, and when it shot, there was a great thunder cloud full of lightning, and the whole sky was full of thunder. And the story got bigger, the more it was told; for on the other side of a great water that was like all the prairie without grass, there were more and more Wasichus, more and more towns of stone.

“I could look around and see the world was just as it always was. Maybe Red Cloud was getting to be a Wasichu with a forked tongue like all the others. People said he had worn Wasichu clothes yonder and looked foolish. He was not ours any more and we did not like him.

“I think I was about thirteen winters old, and I was a big boy. You can see that I was tall before so many snows bent me down, and then I was almost a man. I could swim farther under water than most boys, and when we played throwing-them-off-their-horses, only an older boy could throw me off. I liked to fight, and I wanted to go to war; but Looks Twice, who was my second father, said I would be ready after another snow and that I ought to go on vision quest first. It made me feel bad when he went with a war party against the Shoshonis and told me to stay at home and look after the horses. And I felt worse when he came back with a scalp on his coup-stick and some more good horses. He always took me hunting with him, and I could kill a cow, but it was not easy for me yet, and he would come and finish killing one that was getting away from me. Sometimes he could shoot an arrow clear through a cow if the point did not strike a bone.

“Of course, I played all the games with the other boys, but we all wanted to go to war, and we would get tired playing. In the winter before the deep snow had covered the ice, we would play chun-wachee-kyapi [make-the-wood-dance]. We had short round pieces of wood with sharp points on them [tops], and when we wrapped them with a long piece of sinew and threw them, they would spin on the ice, and we tried to break the dancing woods of the other boys by making ours dance against theirs. Or we would get tired doing that and maybe play ice-mark. We would fasten pieces of hard rawhide on our moccasins, then run and slide to see who could slide farthest. Or we would make little sleds with two buffalo ribs fastened together, with two feathers to guide them; and these we would throw on the ice to see whose would go farthest. We called this huta-nachuta, but I never knew why. Then maybe if we got tired doing that we would have a war, dividing up and fighting with blunt arrows; or maybe we would put mud balls on willow sticks and throw them at each other. Sometimes we would have very hard fights, and boys would get hurt; but they did not care.

“There was another game that showed how brave we were. It could be played with dry sunflower seeds or pieces of dry rotten wood that would keep on burning without a flame. A boy would hold out his hand and they would put the burning piece on the back of it. If his hand shook or he made a face or brushed the piece off, he lost the game and some other boy tried it. Sometimes when a boy was very brave this made a big sore, and he was very proud of it.

“When the snow was deep and it was very cold, it was good to lie back against the tepee wall with the wind outside sending forth a voice like a bull, and listen to the men telling stories about war and hunting and brave deeds. They would come over to eat and smoke, and sometimes they would stay so long I did not know when they went. If they got to arguing about something, I would just roll up—and go to sleep; then it would be morning and they would not be there. I was hungry for the stories, but they made me want to go out and do something that would make a story with me in it.

“We had been camping on the Greasy Grass. The tender grasses had appeared and were a handbreadth high in the valley; and the tops of the hills were greening a little. Then my grandfather came over and talked about me with my new father; and they said it was time for me to seek a vision. So my new father caught a couple of his best horses—both of them young—and took them as a gift to an old wichasha wakon [holy man], whose name was Blue Spotted Horse. When the old man had accepted the gift for what he was going to do, my father and grandfather took me over to his tepee. He could not see very well, and he was so old that he had something like new moons in his eyes. He looked at me a long while, and it made me feel queer, because I thought it might be a ghost behind me that he was seeing. Afterwhile he said: ‘Let a sweat-lodge be prepared for this young man, and when he has been cleansed, bring him here, and I will teach him.’

“So there were two friends who made a sweat-lodge for me with willow boughs bent over like a cup upside down, and over this they fastened rawhide. At the opening of the lodge they set a stick with a piece of red cloth at the top for a sacred offering to the Spirit. Then they heated rocks in a fire, and when they had put these in the center of the little lodge, they poured water on them, and I had to go into the steam and close the flap tight. I felt like crying when I was in there again, because the other time was when my father went away and I saw him in my dream under the scaffold. Afterwhile they told me to come out. Then they rubbed me with sacred sage until I was dry and felt good all over. After that they gave me a buffalo robe to put around me and took me back to Blue Spotted Horse, and went away.

“I felt queer again and a little scared while I sat there all alone with the old man in his tepee, and maybe a ghost behind me that he was seeing. When he had looked at me that way for a long time and I wanted to get up and run away, he said: ‘This is a sacred thing you are doing, and if the heart is not good something very bad will happen. But do not be afraid, for I have seen into your heart. Already you have fed old people, and you want to be a man they all praise. While you were in the sweat-lodge your father came to me, and he will help you on the hill. So do not be afraid, and I will teach you.’

“Then he filled a pipe and lit it; and after he had presented the stem to the four quarters of the world and the Great Mysterious One above and Maka, the mother earth, he held the stem to me and I touched it with my mouth. When I did that, I could feel a power running all through me and up my backbone into my hair.

“Then he taught me what I must know to go on vision quest. I did not learn it all then, but I heard it again when I was older, and this is what he told me.

“There is a great hoop; and so big it is that everything is in it, for it is the hoop of the universe, and all that live in it are relatives. When you stand on a high hill and look all around, you can see its shape and know that it is so. This hoop has four quarters, and each is sacred, for each has a mysterious power of its own, and it is by those powers that we live. Also each quarter has its sacred objects and a color, and these stand for its power.

“First is the place where the sun goes down. Its color is blue like the thunder clouds, and it has the power to make live and to destroy. The bow is for the lightning that destroys, and the wooden cup is for the rain that makes live.

“Next is the place where the great white giant lives, and its color is white like the snows. It has the power of healing, for thence come the cleansing winds of the winter. The white wing of the goose stands for that wind of cleansing and a sacred white herb for the healing.

“Next is the place whence comes the light, where all the days of men are born; and its color is red like the sunrise. It has the power of wisdom and the power of peace. The morning star stands for wisdom, for it brings the light that we may see and understand; and the pipe is for the peace that understanding gives.

“Next is the place of the summer, and the color of it is yellow like the sun. Thence comes the power to grow and flourish. The sacred staff of six branches is for the power to grow, and the little hoop is for the life of the people who flourish as one.

“Then at the place whence comes the power to grow, a road begins, the good red road of spirit that all men should know; and it runs straight across the hoop of the world to the place whence comes the power of cleansing and healing, to the place of white hairs and the cold and the cleansing of old age.

“And then there is a second road, the hard black road of difficulties that all men must travel. It begins at the place whence come the days of men, and it runs straight across the hoop of this world to the place where the sun goes down and all the days of men have gone and all their days shall go; far beyond is the other world, the world of spirit. It is a hard road to travel, a road of trouble and need. But where this black road of difficulties crosses the good red road of spirit at the center of the hoop of the world, that place is very holy, and there springs the Tree of Life. For those who look upon the Tree, it shall fill with leaves and bloom and singing birds; and it shall shield them as a sheo [prairie hen] shields her chickens.

“While Blue Spotted Horse was telling me this, he drew the hoop and the roads with his finger in the ashes by the fire, and I could see it all as from a high place, like a picture.

“Then he told me how I must pray on the hill. Always before I pray I must lift both hands high with my pipe in the right, and send forth a voice four times—‘hey-a-hey, hey-a-hey, hey-a-hey, hey-a-hey!’ First I should pray at the place where the sun goes down; then at the place whence come the cleansing and healing; next where the light comes from and the days of men begin; and after that where lives the power to grow; and I should ask each power in turn to help me.

“Then I must walk the red road of spirit to the center of the hoop of the world, and there I must present my pipe and pray for help to Wakon Tonka. And when I have done this, I must remember the ground, the mother of all, who has shown mercy to her children; I must lean low and present my pipe to Maka, the earth, the only mother, and ask her to help me; for my body is hers and I am her son.

“When I have done all this, I have only begun; for after I have rested awhile, I must do it all over again. I must walk the black road to the sundown and pray; then back to the holiest place in the center; then up the red road to the quarter of cleansing, and pray; then back again to the center and over the black road to the light and the beginning of days. I must pray there, and return; and last, I must walk the red road to the place where lives the power to grow. And when I have returned to the holiest place at the center and prayed, I can rest awhile and think hard about what I am doing.

“I cannot eat anything while I am on the hill, but I can have some water; and I must stay awake as long as I am able. Afterwhile I shall be crying, but I must keep right on, for that is when the praying begins to have power.

“Then Blue Spotted Horse taught me a prayer that I must offer to Wakon Tonka at the center of the hoop, and I said it after him six times. There is great power in that prayer, and I could feel it even then when I was a boy. Maybe you will learn it, Grandson, Wasichu though you are, and it will help you to find the good red road and to do what you must do in this world. But when I had said it six times, all at once I was afraid; for what would happen if I could not remember it all!

“I did not say anything about this, but Blue Spotted Horse looked hard at me awhile; and then he smiled, just like my own grandfather, and he said: ‘Do not be afraid, Grandson, for Wakon Tonka will remember all that you forget. There is one, there is no other, and all things are in Wakon Tonka. The powers are only the ways the one makes all things live. Take this pipe; hold fast to it and never let it go, for on this will you depend. Now you will go forth to the hill, and do as I have taught you. I will be with you there unseen; and when your prayers are heard, I will send the friends to bring you here. To me alone the vision shall be told.’

“He looked so kind when I took the pipe that I was not afraid of him at all. So I said: ‘Palamo yelo, tonka schla—thank you, Grandfather.’ And as I got up and went forth into the slanting day I felt lighter on my feet than I had ever felt before.”

VIII
“Hold Fast; There Is More!”

“Dho!” said Eagle Voice musingly, as he came slowly out of his inner solitude; “I felt queer and light when I left the wakon’s tepee, and wherever I looked there was a strangeness like dreaming; and the sun was getting low.

“The two friends were waiting there with a sorrel horse all saddled and painted in a sacred manner for me. On his forehead was a thin new moon, because he was facing the world of spirit where the new moons lead; on his rump was the morning star to shine from behind me upon the dark road ahead; on his left flank was the sacred hoop; and on his right flank was the white wing of the goose.

“The friends did not say anything. They just took hold of me and set me in the saddle; and then we started for the hill of vision. The one who walked ahead to show the way was carrying the offerings for where the sun goes down—the bow and wooden cup—, and for the place of cleansing—the white wing and the herb. The other walked behind me with a morning star made of rawhide for where the light and the days of men are born; the hoop and staff for where the growing power lives. I held the pipe; and I was holding it very tight with both hands in front of me, for on that must I depend. It was a sacred, fearful thing that I was doing, and although my legs were getting long there was still a little boy inside me. I did not look where we were going. I just looked hard at the pipe, and held it tight. There were four painted strips of skin hanging from the stem, blue, white, red, and yellow for the quarters and the powers. Also from the stem a long wing feather of an eagle hung, and that was for the Great Mysterious One. Last, upon the mouthpiece was the bison hide, and that was for the breast of Maka where all that live, with legs or wings or roots or fins, are little children nursing. I did not understand it all till I was older, but I could feel the power in the pipe.