THE HOLY LODGE
I
Europe has two groups of languages, the Aryan and the Basque, but the
North Americans had ten, with hundreds of tribal dialects. Only the
nations on the northwest coast had a trade jargon to unite their
isolated villages.
The Indian of the hunting tribes made his whole life the exercise of
a religion expressed in endless ceremonial, even the songs and dances
being forms of prayer. The song was derived from the notes of birds
and beasts, the ritual and the dance were a careful mimicry of the
wild creatures, and the whole art of pantomine gave to the Indian
extraordinary expressiveness, variety, and grace in gesture. So
North America had what Europe lacked, the basis for a language of
signs, in universal use, breaking down tribal barriers, welding all
nations into one brotherhood. The population was so small, its
tribes were so far apart, that war was informal, a hunting for
trophies to please the girls, not a campaigning for conquest; but the
sign talk made an immense telegraphy which carried news from hill to
hill across the wilderness, scout's warning to the home camp, signal
of tribe to tribe guiding the hunt, as well as an instrument in
diplomacy, a vehicle for treaties.
So far back as they remembered their life, Rain had instructed Storm
in the ways of her people, and they could spend hours together
conversing in the hand talk without one spoken word. Their first
earthly meeting occurred on a dark night when the fire was out; but
when they had light to see by, they talked as deaf and dumb folk do
among ourselves. Even when Storm learned Blackfoot, they would
revert to the graceful, happy game, as one might turn for fun from
prose to poetry.
Think, then, of Storm on his knees enjoying a bright fire, and the
haggard priestess sitting up affronted because he had bedded No-man
down on the other side of the tipi. "That thing, No-man," she sig-
naled, "profanes my lodge. Chuck him out!" No-man! Such was the
name which Thunder Feather had called the white man Hunt-the-girls,
her daughter's enemy.
"Don't fuss," he answered, "here's your soup all steaming, and I'm
Old Squaw who smacks the children to make them good inside. You
shan't have any soup until you agree to be good."
Rain wanted that soup.
No-man did not want soup. He was Hiram J. Kant, a free-born American
citizen, what had a right to die if he pleased.
"Not at all," said Storm. "You got no right to sneak out of a fight."
"What fight?"
"I'm Rain's husband."
"Some liar," said No-man with admiration.
"You're going to fight me, Hiram," Storm added, "knives, guns, or
teeth, but you'll fight."
"Eh?" The American became quite cheerful with something to look
forward to.
"Gimme that soup!"
Both patients were acutely disagreeable. Rain determined to finish
murdering No-man the moment she felt well enough, while the trapper
had but one motive for living, a duel with his nurse. Moreover, all
three of them had to be fed. So the nurse went hunting with No-man's
gun or Rain's arrows daily to get meat, just at the height of the
season when the animals were either in love or looking after their
children. No-man wanted rainbow trout, Rain said fish were unclean.
Storm could not catch them anyway, and only the little fishes enjoyed
the joke. The camas lilies made the pastures blue as a sunlit lake,
and Rain turned rabid vegetarian, but Storm had never learned to use
the rooting stick, shaped like a packing needle. The bulbs came up
in broken bits. As to the cooking of them in a grass-lined pit, with
a fire on top, that really needs a bit of practice, and Rain's
explanations in the hand talk were merely an aggravation of his
worries. His nursing was rough, his surgery a peril, his hunting a
failure, his cookery a besetting sin, his housekeeping an outrage on
decency, and in short his conduct of affairs most stimulating. Both
patients in self-defense made hasty convalescence.
The worker, arraigned by his conscience and condemned by his fellows
as a failure, sees but one side of life, while on the other spirits
invisible may be praising his service as one of immortal beauty. The
wise women, Catherine and Thunder Feather, saw the excellence of
Storm's deeds, but also the error in his thoughts which brought his
work to naught. He supposed his honor to demand a duel with No-man,
while Rain's desire was wholly set on murder, and the trapper lived
but for the single motive of a fair fight to the death with his only
friend. Such thoughts were not curative to the sick or helpful to
the nurse, but liable to end in some unpleasantness. Catherine and
Thunder Feather prayed for help to Hiawatha.
He came, not to Rain's tipi, but to her place of sacrifice, that hill
which like an altar stood in the middle of the Apse of Ice. He
called the children to him, and when they arrived borne, in their
dream, through the hush of the night, they found him. Remote and
spectral under the moonlight, the walls went up to spires of frosty
silver, and at their feet five glaciers crouched, half seen through a
veil of mist.
"May the Light defend us," said Hiawatha, "from spiritual perils and
in earthly danger."
Rain sat on his right hand, Storm on his left, their hearts at rest.
"I come to tell you about certain angels."
The story-teller's duty is to amuse and interest the folk, setting
forth real and golden truth, not of events as though he were
historian, not of philosophy as though he were a scholar, not of
religion as though he were a priest, but of human character,
adventure, humor, tragedy, and fun. He is the jester in a fool's
cap, motley, and bells, but it would be a poor joke to trap the
unwary reader with a sermon. That would be dishonest and the book a
swindle.
Yet I did love Hiawatha's sermons, sitting with Rain and Storm to
listen, moved as they were moved, crying a little at times or
laughing with them, resolved as they were resolved to be more kindly,
not quite such a prig, forgiving as they forgave a fallen enemy, and
living as they lived on this earth the life immortal.
We are so busy gabbling and fussing that our guardian angels cannot
get a word in edgeways unless we are asleep. And then we don't
remember. The soul remembers. I deem the world would all go mad but
for the good things which happen in the night, while the bodies of
the dream-folk rest.
So Hiawatha's sermons shall make a separate volume, a better one than
this, and for the time it is enough to specify that through this
teaching Rain and Storm forgave No-man his trespass, hoping to be
for-given some of their own pet sins.
Long after his children had gone back to their lodge, the Guardian
Spirit of the New Race sat by the altar fire peering into the future,
the great and terrible days to come. He saw his people play the Game
of Life not for the zest of it, but for greed of the counters. In
that game, as seen from the spirit planes, the winner is he who gives
away the counters, the piteous loser he who stakes his soul to get
them, but presently leaving the table, finds his gains no longer a
currency in regions where a million of them will not buy so much as a
drop of water.
II
When Rain was well enough she made clothes for No-man, but would not
as yet speak to him or go near him. Storm was the nurse. He did the
hunting also, but his wife sun-dried the meat and dressed the skins.
He fished, but she did the cooking; he dug wild vegetables which his
wife prepared and stored. When the berry season came he thrashed the
sarvis, cherry, and cranberry bushes, while Rain sifted, cured, and
stored the fruit for winter. She had many a hard day's work besides
to entertain the clients, who came hundreds of miles for healing or
for counsel. They had to be fed, bedded down, and listened to for
patient hours far into the night.
When there was time, the day's work finished and the gear repaired,
if light enough remained of a summer evening, Storm read the Bible
spelling it out laboriously and aloud in English, then translating
phrase by phrase into his broken Blackfoot and the sign talk.
As rendered, it was something of this kind:
"Jesus went up to the medicine lodge."
Rain could see the camp of the Jews: herders watching their pony herd
up on the prairie, and down in the meadow, miles wide and miles long,
was the ring of the tribal tipis, in one immense ellipse. There the
squaws were busy flenching skins, or sitting in a merry group to
piece together the covering of a lodge. The little naked Jew boys
chased and roped dogs or went on a make-believe buffalo hunt shooting
with blunted arrows. The little girls were moving a doll's camp, or
cooking a let's-pretend feast. Out in the open arena stood a row of
society lodges for the Pharisee, Sadducee, and Scribe societies where
they painted themselves and dressed for ceremonials. The Crazy Dogs,
or camp police, were called the "Roman soldiers," much too stuck-up
to mix with the other societies.
In the very middle was the medicine lodge, an enclosure of sheltering
branches which sloped all inward towards the sacred lodge pole.
Close by was the booth where the sacred woman fasted, and there was a
shelter with a sweat lodge for the three high priests.
"Jesus went up to the medicine lodge, and found a lot of dog-faced
persons who sold birds and trade goods for sacrifice to the
Sun-Spirit."
"Shame! Shame!" cried Rain.
"So He threw them out, and pitched the trade goods after them."
"Of course," said Rain, approving heartily.
"He said the holy tipi is a place for prayer, but you have made it an
All-Thieves-Society Lodge.
"Then a lot of blind and lame Indians came to the medicine lodge for
help. So He mended them.
"But when the big chiefs and medicine men saw that----"
"I see," said Rain. "If He mended the poor people for nothing, they
wouldn't have to pay all their ponies and robes to be cured by the
medicine men. He was spoiling the medicine business. Of course they
didn't understand that He was really Morning Star, the only Son of
the Big Spirit. Nobody except Scarface could ever scout the way for
the people over the terrible Wolf Trail. O Scarf ace, Star of the
Daybreak, Christ our Chief, lead us through the darkness upon that
Path of Stars."
On the other side of the hearth fire, No-man lay in torment, half mad
with pain, disturbed all day and far into each night by the tireless
labor and worship. After a couple of months his nerves were torn to
rags. He became hysterical. One morning, while Rain was down at the
bathing place, and Storm spelling out an epistle to the people of
Salonica, the patient called a halt.
"Say," he drawled, "see here. Whar I was brung up, 'way East, my
folks they got religion. They took it bad, at one of them camp
meetings, whar more souls is made than saved. See?
"They was mean as snakes to start with, an' if they lost five cents
they raised the death wail. But when they got Religion the way
they'd slander the unconverted neighbors and whine about their own
souls! I cleared. You couldn't see my tail for dust.
"I'm shorely disabled, and heap sick, but I'm what's left of a man,
and you're a white-livered skunk with cold feet, which daresn't meet
me, either with knives, guns, or teeth."
There was just enough truth in No-man's words to stab, to torture,
sufficient injustice to enrage Storm almost to the point of murder.
And he had fallen so far short of his own ideals. A fugitive from
justice because he was afraid to face the gallows; an outcast of the
master race contented in his shame to be a sham Indian among savages;
a frontiersman, but so poor a specimen compared with this wounded
trapper; a Christian yet angry, jealous, full of spiritual pride
mixed up with devilish hatred. He doubted if he was really fit to
live.
His heart cried, "Is this man right? Am I unfit to live?"
No-man got to his knees unsteadily and swayed with weakness as he
took up the weapon and loaded. His head swam. He fumbled with
tremulous fingers, muttering that there wasn't room for two men in
Rain's tipi. Then he turned himself round, confronting Storm, who
sat with the Book clasped in his hands.
"Whar's yo' gun?"
"My gun?"
Storm's mind flashed back to his interview with a real bear, a much
more formidable enemy than this, and how his faith proved then of
better avail than any medicine iron.
"Perhaps," he thought more cheerfully, "if I hadn't been no good at
all, that grizzly would have got me."
"Oh," he said, "that's all right, Hiram. One gun is enough. We'll
draw lots, if you like, or you can have first shot. It's all the
same to me."
"Huh!" the Trapper snorted. "Play-acting, eh?"
"Oh, yes," Storm sighed. "I'm just trying to play at being a man.
That's all. Shall we draw lots?"
But if the trapper waited for that, the pain would master him. He
hesitated.
"All right," said Storm. "Fire!"
"Of all the cold-blooded frawgs!"
"You'll need a touch of bear oil on that lock, Yank. It's 'ard on
the draw."
Storm wanted that minute. He hoped it wasn't cowardly. Just one
minute before--to serve in this life, or in another world?
"Oh, well," he said out loud, "it doesn't really matter. Aim low."
"I'm going to call your bluff!" cried No-man, and took aim. "Damn
you! I'll call your bluff!"
"Too low," said Storm, "Hiram, that gun kicks!"
It did!
The recoil knocked the invalid head over heels against the wall of
the tipi. Then he looked at the slow-drifting smoke as it swept
upwards, and from behind came Storm's rather hysterical chuckle.
"You'll catch it, Yank! A bullet hole through the skin of the lodge,
a leak just over where she sleeps!"
No-man scrambled back to some sort of posture for defense, but when
the smoke cleared he saw Storm still sitting, the Book clasped in his
hands, a broad grin on his face.
"Still acting!" the trapper sneered, "showing off to yourself, eh?
Of all the humbugs! Of all infernal hypocrites! I'll make you own
to the sham! I'll----"
"Call my bluff!" cried Storm, exulting. "Try again. Aim lower. Ask
Him to help. I always have to, 'cause I'm such a rotten bad shot."
"Ask the Devil!" cried No-man, wild with rage.
"Friend of yourn?" asked Storm, then with biting sarcasm: "Ask him
then! You couldn't hit me with the muzzle against my ribs!"
"What'll you bet?"
"My burning-glass. You has always envied that."
"Agin what?"
"Your soul, Yank. My burning-glass to your soul, you daren't fire!"
"Done!"
Beside himself, cursing, raving, the trapper loaded, reviling the
powder, wad, ramrod, gun, himself, and the Devil, then with a burst
of frantic blasphemy, he advanced the weapon against Storm's ribs,
and let fly. The lock snapped in the pan.
"You'd really ought," said Storm, "to have primed that pan. Why,
Hiram, you didn't stand no chance."
The trapper flung the weapon out through the door of the tipi. "I
ain't no crawler. And if you thinks you've won my soul, you're away
off. It's done lost."
Storm laughed gayly. "That's all right, partner," said he; "we'll
catch it!"
"Well"--No-man smiled at last--"it's up to you. You won. And I
shorely loves the way you acts."
"Found! The very first thing is loving your enemy, specially when
you hates him like poison as you does me. Shake 'ands on it."
Shamefacedly No-man shook hands with Storm.
"Mush. I'm getting mushy," said the trapper to himself. "Softer
than a woman, plumb unmanly believing of things which ain't so.
Sick, of course. But this man isn't no hypocrite. He don't scare
none. He don't preach. His medicine is powerful strong too, by the
way he's healing this yer wound. Now, if I don't roll my tail down
to the nearest white men and have a fortnight's drunk--why, dammit,
they'll have me saved. I'm off!"
He went, his hosts proclaiming so frequently and with such insistence
how greatly they were relieved at his departure, that one might even
think they needed some persuasion of proof they did not miss the
fellow at all. Of course he had to earn his living as a trapper, and
naturally must sell the season's takings, but why not trade with Two
Bits? News came by various clients at the lodge that No-man was here
or there, in all sorts of scrapes, trying to get himself killed in
the most lunatic adventures among hostile tribes, yet with a charmed
life. He hunted Death, so of course Death had to run away; always
does if you chase him. He was trying to find a white man's camp and
get a proper drunk, or so he told the Indians. Why was it, they
wanted to know, that when by accident he came on a white man's
trading camp, he ran away? Was he afraid of his own tribe, or was he
ashamed to meet them? And why was it that, when the women made eyes
at Hunt-the-girls, he always fled from the camps?
Then, dreading the very sight of the priestess, horribly afraid lest
Storm should unman him altogether by making a Christian of him, the
trapper came back to the tipi because he was lonely, homesick, hungry
of heart, and desolate.
Always after that, when he went away for a season's trapping, No-man
was full of pomp and ostentation to himself, as well as towards his
hosts, about the big drunk he would have in the spring at the nearest
trade house, how he was hitting civilization, what presents he was
taking to the folks down East. Young America always proposes to do
things, whereas the other white men are grown-ups content to let the
accomplished deed speak for them. Still, it pleased the exile to
dream ahead, and he found in that a satisfaction which would never
come from a drunk realized, a visit to the civilization which he
dared not face, a return to the home love he never would know again,
or any other fair-appearing dead-sea fruit, which in his mouth would
change to ashes. Rain said she hated the very sight of No-man, Storm
proclaimed him a nuisance; yet they saw through him, their hearts
ached because of the tragic emptiness of the life he faced with such
gay valor, and when they expected his return to this, his only home,
they certainly looked forward to his gossip.
While that sort of thing continued through six years, they might have
realized, had they thought of it, how No-man would hardly be silent
among the Indians. He had to make some sort of face, put up
something, anything for appearances. Craving for sympathy,
affection, respect, or even enmity, he could claim attention only in
one way. He had no strength to boast of, no wealth to display, or
power, or virtue, fame of deeds, or other merit save this: that his
home was the sacred tipi, that his friends were the holy woman of the
Blackfeet, and her husband the medicine man, Storm. He boasted of
Rain's oracles and her miracles of healing as though they were given
under his management. More and more the mountaineers and the warrior
hordes of the plains regarded the sacred lodge as a place of
pilgrimage. Yearly the Apse of Ice became more central to that
Indian world which was swept by mysterious pestilence, ravaged by
hopeless wars, appealing for guidance, and getting fire water.
III
As the work increased a guest lodge was set up for the use of the
Indian pilgrims, who hunted and cooked for themselves. Only No-man
was admitted to the sacred tipi, where his visits formed a pretext
for a bit of meat now and again which Rain and Storm would share
without too much offense to Hiawatha. Of course they knew that they
were doing wrong--so much the better fun. Early in their life
together the Spirit Guide showed them the life of an Indian tribe as
seen from the astral plane. The slaughtering of the buffalo, the
dressing of meat, and the feasting was all done in a cloud, a fetid
mist caused by the fumes of blood. "Poor things," said Hiawatha, as
he watched, "if they do not hunt they will lose their training for
war, and the other tribes will rub them out. They eat flesh, they
are strong, they have the intellect which leads them to slaughter and
despoil their enemies, to lie, to steal, to cheat. Only the blood
fumes cloud their intuition, fog their conscience, and take away from
them that foreboding which warns the animals when there is danger.
That Veil of Blood is the heaviest of all the seven which shut men
out from Vision."
Of course that was all very true; but, on the other hand, the camas
bulb is sweet enough to cloy, and though there is a great variety of
wild vegetables and fruits, they are not an exciting diet. As to
rainbow trout, they are very shy of holy anchorites.
But that was not the worst. Bears are unscrupulous: at certain
seasons also vegetarians because meat is rather scarce. When Rain
caught a grizzly raiding the holy tipi, her thrashings tickled him so
nicely that he would fetch his wife to share the fun. The wood rats,
a special nuisance in that district, the porcupines, squirrels,
chipmunks, polecats, all shared Rain's views on diet, treating her
supplies as a public larder. So great was their enthusiasm that she
and Storm were like to starve to death, rather than relinquish their
principles, but for the pilgrims who brought offerings of dried
fruits or vegetables.
Had there been seeds to start a garden without any birds or bears to
inspect the produce, had there been eggs, milk, cheese, honey,
groceries, or cereals, there were no merit in a meatless regimen; but
housekeeping at the holy tipi was not without its worries.
Still, it is a verity that with rare exceptions prophets, seers,
hermits, saints, monks, some sorts of clergy, all kinds of people as
a whole who visit the spirit-realms must abstain from eating any
creature which is able to look them in the eyes. The most carnal
among us observe that rule with regard to dogs, cats, and horses.
Howbeit when No-man came on a visit, his fleshly lusts were a very
good excuse for a lapse from grace which the anchorites were depraved
enough to enjoy. It was he who contrived the animal-proof cavern
with a rock door which finally solved the problem of the vegetarian
larder.