A TALK WITH LITTLE BEAR
The term Paint Rocks will convey various meanings to the average reader.
A description seems in order to make more plain what these rocks are
like.
Just imagine a stream of clear, pure water running through a canyon,
small and narrow, with a smooth-surfaced rock face, cut by the water
when the earth and stone were young and tender, on which one could
write as on a black-board in a school room. Here the Sheep Eaters
came to record their history. Here father and son came to write the
traditions of their tribe; and here came that old squaw, whose name
in her own tribe, as translated by the Crow chief, Pretty Eagle, was,
"Under-The-Ground." Emblems, original with their tribe, were cut with
the obsidian arrowhead in irregular semicircles. The outlines of men
and women were about three feet in height. In some places the storms,
the wind and the water, had erased parts of the engraving. In other
places hunters had built their smoking camp-fires against the face of
the rock and blurred the markings, or had wantonly fired bullets into
the faces and destroyed the work of the Indians.
As I was getting my camera arranged to get a picture of one group, an
old Indian came riding up the creek on a pinto pony. Soon came dogs, and
squaws dragging their tepee poles, and without so much as a "How," they
began tearing off their packs and setting up their lodges. The packs
consisted of old kettles, stale meat, old elk skins made into robes,
parflesakes filled to the brim with pemmican, made of elk fat, choke
cherries, and jerked elk half dried and half horsehair. Several young
puppies, too young to walk, were tied with soft thongs just under the
fore legs of the ponies.
Within half an hour the whole Little Basin was filled with the smell of
spoiled meat and musty old blankets, spread in the sun to dry, and the
whole camp looked like the dump ground of a small town.
The old chief turned the entire care of the horses, dogs, provisions and
camp over to the squaws, and while they were busy, he came slowly toward
the camera, watching every move I made in trying to get a picture of the
Paint Rocks. He was about five feet tall, heavy set and rather dark. His
good, round head well set on fine shoulders, was covered with long,
heavy hair, carefully braided in small braids, which hung below his
waist. At intervals these braids were cemented with some wax and painted
red and green, which gave them the appearance of being bound with
straps. The sternness of his large mouth, square chin, and heavy jaw was
relieved by the large, brown eyes. Three scars on his face told of a
battle fought many years ago, as also did the knife scar on his breast
and the old gun-shot wound. On his wrist were brass wristlets, and
three missing finger joints told of mournings for his dead. A medicine
bag and a half dozen elk teeth swung at his throat; these and beaded
moccasins and leggings showed him to be a chief. An Indian he was all
through.
As I turned to look at him he straightened himself to his full height,
and I had taken him in from head to heel when he put his right arm out
in front of him closed his hand, and gave it three rapid motions up and
down, which, in sign talk, is "How do you do." Quick as a flash I
straightened my arm out, laying my thumb across my little finger, made a
half curve, out from the body inward, then an angling sweep down, which
means "Good." A twinkle came in his eye, and he answered by giving me
the same sign.
I knew him, but twenty years had passed over his head since I last saw
him, and it was twenty-eight years since he and Sitting Bull fought a
duel with knives, on the Big Horn.
I gave him a challenge and called him a Sioux, which is done by
straightening the fingers of the right hand, laying the thumb close
into the palm, making a rounded curve outward, then a quick sweep across
the throat. He found and gave me the answer "No." Then he came very
close to me, and when he saw the powder in my face, he gave a grunt of
satisfaction.
I took off my glove and held out my hand. He grasped it quickly and said
in the Crow language, "Long time ago," then paused--"long--time--ago,
many moons, you heap good to me and my braves."
"How many moons?" I asked.
He stopped and his mind was busy running over the many years, many
camp-fires, the wrongs he had sustained from the British Government
which compelled them to leave their homes and come to the United States.
With a sigh he held up one hand, and with the other hand pulled down
three fingers, saying, "Ten, ten, ten."
I gave him the sign of correct, then his face brightened, and as the
boys gathered around us, he said, "Do you know who it is?"
"Yes," I replied, "I know you, you are Little Bear, the chief of the
Cree Nation." He held up his hands and began making rapid signs. "It was
you," he said, "who were our friend when our braves were arrested for
killing buffalo on Razor Creek."
"Yes," I replied.
"We never forget our friends," said he. He then gave me a beautiful
peace pipe. The stem was two feet long, with animals engraved on it; and
the bowl was made from Minnesota pipe-stone rock, inlaid with silver.
Our camp fire was going, and we all sat around it and smoked the pipe of
peace, which is done as follows: The pipe is filled with the bark of a
red willow, and when lighted is handed to the highest or head chief. He
takes one or two long whiffs; then, as he raises his head and blows the
smoke in clouds toward the heavens and the Great Spirit, he passes the
pipe to his guest on the right. This is continued until the pipe is
empty, and all is done with the greatest reverence toward the Great
Spirit.
After the peace smoke, Little Bear, with his squaw and his son, took
dinner with us. We had fresh venison, potatoes, onions, hot pancakes and
maple syrup, canned pineapple and coffee. Little Bear ate a hearty
dinner and said it was good, and to meet friends made him very happy.
After the meal I took some pictures of the rocks, and Little Bear asked
me what I wanted them for. I told him those marks were a history of an
ancient tribe of people.
"Yes," he said, "many, many, moons. Our tribe knew nothing of them.
Long, maybe so, heap years, much old squaw live with Mountain Crows.
Crows call her 'Under-The-Ground.' She tell much of little folks way up
mountain. Much eat Big Horn sheep. Much pray sun and heap Great Spirit.
Old squaw say, little squaw much good face, all time good, bucks no
fight, yes."
I told him I had been upon the Medicine and Bald mountains and had seen
their shrine wheel, and where they had lived in the Big Horn mountains.
I told him I had also been far up Clark's Fork, where their sheep pens
were, "Yes," I said, "they are all gone. Great chief, Pretty Eagle, and
I were old friends, and he told me all about the little Indians, their
bows and arrows, and many things the old squaw had told him about their
lives on the mountains; but Sheep Eaters, all gone now."
"Ugh," he replied, "by and by, maybe so, Crees all gone, Crows all. Heap
bad for Injins."
I told him it would be a long time before that happened, and that some
day perhaps the Government would let the Crees come and live with the
Crows, on the beautiful Little Horn.
"Yes," he said, "that would be very nice. If the Great Father at
Washington would only say the word, we would come and work very hard. We
do not like our reservation in the north-west. It is too cold and the
land is poor and the Red Coats are not good to Injins."
When our visit was over and the Indians were preparing to move, I turned
the camera on the camp. A squaw who was watching me, gave a grunt,
turned her back, and ran; and the others, alarmed scattered like dry
leaves before a wind. They did not return until I had taken the camera
down and put it away. Little Bear explained that they were afraid,
because they thought the camera a bad spirit.
As the little band moved off toward the north, Chief Little Bear came
and grasped my hand and said, "You have always been my friend,
good-bye."
As they rode away with all their worldly goods packed on a few poor
cayuses, I could not help contrasting their present condition with that
of thirty years ago. Then the red man owned the country. The plains, the
rivers, the trees were his; and his, too, were the wild horse, the
buffalo, the elk, the deer, and the fish. Self reliant, free, happy, he
was then; today, a beggar. Everything taken from him, his tribal
relations broken, left alone. The hardest stroke of all was to have the
tribal relations broken, and to be forced under the control of the hated
and despised pale face. Happy indeed were the Sheep Eaters never to have
been driven from their mountain home and never to have known the power
of the pale face!