In their hours for eating, the Sioux accommodate themselves to
circumstances. If food be plenty, they eat three or four times a day; if
scarce, they eat but once. Sometimes they go without food for several
days, and often they are obliged to live for weeks on the bark of
trees, skins, or anything that will save them from dying of famine.
When game and corn are plenty, the kettle is always boiling, and they
are invariably hospitable and generous, always offering to a visitor
such as they have it in their power to give.
The stars were still keeping watch, when Harpstenah was called by her
mother to assist her. The father's morning meal was prepared early, for
he was going out to hunt. Wild duck, pigeons, and snipe, could be had in
abundance; the timid grouse, too, could be roused up on the prairies.
Larger game was there, too, for the deer flew swiftly past, and had even
stopped to drink on the opposite shore of the "Spirit Lake."
When they assembled to eat, the old man lifted up his hands--"May the
Great Spirit have mercy upon us, and give me good luck in hunting."
Meat and boiled corn were eaten from wooden bowls, and the father went
his way, leaving his wife and daughter to attend to their
domestic cares.
Harpstenah was cutting wood near the lodge, when Cloudy Sky presented
himself. He went into the teepee and lighted his pipe, and then, seating
himself outside, began to smoke. He was, in truth, a sorry figure for a
bridegroom. Always repulsive in his looks, his present dress was not
calculated to improve him. He wore mourning for his enemy, whom he
had killed.
His face was painted perfectly black; nothing but the whites of his eyes
relieved the universal darkness. His blanket was torn and old--his hair
unbraided, and on the top of his head he wore a knot of swan's down.
Every mark of grief or respect he could have shown a dead brother, he
now assumed in honor of the man whom he had hated--whose life he had
destroyed--who had belonged to the hateful tribe which had ever been the
enemy of his nation.
He looked very important as he puffed away, now watching Harpstenah, who
appeared to be unconscious of his presence, now fixing his eyes on her
mother, who was busily employed mending mocassins.
Having finished smoking; he used a fan which was attached to the other
end of his pipe-stem. It was a very warm day, and the perspiration that
was bursting from his forehead mingled with the black paint and slowly
found its way down his face.
"Where is your husband?" at length he asked of the mother.
"He saw a deer fly past this morning," she replied, "and he has gone to
seek it, that I may dry it."
"Does he come back to-night?"
"He does; he said you were to give a medicine feast to-morrow, and that
he would be here."
Harpstenah knew well why the medicine feast was to be given. Cloudy Sky
could not, according to the laws of the Sioux, throw off his mourning,
until he had killed an enemy or given a medicine dance. She knew that he
wanted to wear a new blanket, and plait his hair, and paint his face a
more becoming color. But she knew his looks could not be improved, and
she went on cutting wood, as unconcernedly as if the old war chief were
her grandfather, instead of her affianced husband. He might gain the
good will of her parents, he might even propitiate the spirits of the
dead: She would take his life, surely as the senseless wood yielded to
the strength of the arm that was cleaving it.
"You will be at the feast too," said Cloudy Sky to the mother; "you have
always foretold truly. There is not a woman in the band who can tell
what is going to happen as well as you. There is no nation so great as
the Dahcotah," continued the medicine man, as he saw several idlers
approach, and stretch themselves on the grass to listen to him. "There
is no nation so great as the Dahcotah--but our people are not so great
now as they were formerly. When our forefathers killed buffaloes on
these prairies, that the white people now ride across as if they were
their own, mighty giants lived among them; they strode over the widest
rivers, and the tallest trees; they could lay their hands upon the
highest hills, as they walked the earth. But they were not men of war.
They did not fight great battles, as do the Thunder Bird and
his warriors."
There were large animals, too, in those days; so large that the stoutest
of our warriors were but as children beside them. Their bones have been
preserved through many generations. They are sacred to us, and we keep
them because they will cure us when we are sick, and will save us
from danger.
I have lived three times on earth. When my body was first laid upon the
scaffold, my spirit wandered through the air. I followed the Thunder
Birds as they darted among the clouds. When the heavens were black, and
the rain fell in big drops, and the streaked lightning frightened our
women and children, I was a warrior, fighting beside the sons of the
Thunder Bird.
Unktahe rose up before us; sixty of his friends were with him: the
waters heaved and pitched, as the spirits left them to seek vengeance
against the Thunder Birds. They showed us their terrible horns, but they
tried to frighten us in vain. We were but forty; we flew towards them,
holding our shields before our breasts; the wind tore up the trees, and
threw down the teepees, as we passed along.
All day we fought; when we were tired we rested awhile, and then the
winds were still, and the sun showed himself from behind the dark
clouds. But soon our anger rose. The winds flew along swifter than the
eagle, as the Thunder Birds clapped their wings, and again we fought
against our foes.
The son of Unktahe came towards me; his eyes shone like fire, but I was
not afraid. I remembered I had been a Sioux warrior. He held his shield
before him, as he tried to strike me with his spear. I turned his shield
aside, and struck him to the heart.
He fell, and the waters whirled round as they received his body. The
sons of Unktahe shouted fearful cries of rage, but our yells of triumph
drowned them.
The water spirits shrank to their home, while we returned to the clouds.
The large rain drops fell slowly, and the bow of bright colors rested
between the heavens and the earth. The strife was over, and we were
conquerors. I know that Unktahe hates me--that he would kill me if he
could--but the Thunder bird has greater power than he; the friend of the
'Man of the West' [Footnote: Thunder is sometimes called the Man of the
West.] is safe from harm.
Harpstenah had ceased her work, and was listening to the boaster. "It
was all true," she said to herself; "the fairy of the water told me that
he had offended her race. I will do their bidding. Cloudy Sky may boast
of his power, but ere two nights have passed away, he will find he
cannot despise the anger of the water spirits, nor the courage of a
Dahcotah woman."