his lariat and crawled into the hillside cave to get pups. He felt
about in the darkness, got the rope about a pup’s hind feet and
dragged it out. They knocked it in the head and he went back after
another one. This time, either a pup or an old wolf bit his hand. He
retreated. Outside he got a forked stick. With this projecting out in
front of him, he returned to the attack upon the wolves. The forked
end got engaged in the hair and skin of the wolf. The youth twisted
and tugged, backing out and dragging after him the snarling and
snapping animal. The brother stood with his rifle poised and ready
to shoot. Limbs of brush diverted his aim, and the bullet crashed
into the head of the other boy. The shocked and weeping brother put
the dead body upon a horse and took it to their home lodge. People
flocked there to see and to hear.
“You killed him in anger,” somebody accused.
“No, it was an accident,” he sobbed out. And he explained how it had
occurred.
A group of warrior policemen went with him out to the wolf’s den.
There he rehearsed for their observation all of the incidents of the
happening. They became fully satisfied that he had no intention to
kill his brother, that it truly was entirely accidental. The youth
was released with no penalty whatever.
As we were camped one time on the upper Powder river, when I was
about thirteen years old, Wolf Medicine and other men loaded their
pack horses with buffalo robes and other skins and went to the trader
post at the southward (Fort Laramie) for buying some supplies. They
got tobacco, caps, powder, lead, sugar, and goods of that character.
Wolf Medicine brought a sack of flour. Our women were just then
learning how to make bread. Wolf Medicine’s wife knew how to make it
so it tasted good. He was a little chief of the Elk warriors, and he
wanted to give them a feast. He said to his wife:
“Make plenty of bread. I shall invite all Elks to come.”
“How,” she assented, and she went immediately at mixing flour and
water. Then: “Oh, I have no soda.”
A young woman there said: “My mother has soda. I will go and get
some.” She went to her home lodge and told her mother. This woman
rummaged among her packages, looking into one after another. “Here it
is,” she finally announced. The young woman took the white powder to
the wife of Wolf Medicine. As the good cook proceeded with her work,
her proud husband went out to the front of his lodge and stood there
calling:
“All Elk warriors, come. Wolf Medicine has a feast of bread.”
That brought them in droves. The wife engaged some helpers. They
fried many slices of bacon and they boiled a great potful of coffee.
When the food was being eaten everybody said: “Wolf Medicine’s wife
can make good bread.” The hearts of the husband and the wife were
made glad by the compliments showered upon them.
[Illustration: A CHEYENNE SWEAT LODGE]
[Illustration: A CHEYENNE WOMAN TANNING]
After the feast, Wolf Medicine brought a supply of tobacco. The
assemblage was converted into a grand smoking party. They passed the
pipe and chatted and told stories. After a while somebody said: “I
feel sick. My stomach pains me.” Just then the neighbor woman came
running and screaming:
“I gave you the wrong powder! It is the wolf poison!”
The commotion aroused and brought the whole population of the camp.
The victims were wallowing and groaning. An old man herald went
among them calling out: “Make yourselves vomit.” Some already had
done this, others began at once to gag their throats with fingers
poked into them. Two men, Old Bear and White Elk, did not do this.
Instead, they took doses of gunpowder in water. Both of these men had
convulsions and were sick a long time, but they finally recovered
full health. All of the others got relief soon after the gagging and
vomiting. One of them was my father. As a test, some remnants of
bread was given to two dogs. Both of the dogs went into convulsions
and died. The woman who had provided the supposed soda was not
punished. On the contrary, she was for a long time afterward so
distressed in mind that people sympathized with and tried to console
her.
A certain half-Sioux-half-Cheyenne man was married to a Cheyenne
woman and they lived with our tribe. He killed one of our Cheyennes,
served his exile term of four years and returned to a small village
of Cheyennes where were his relatives. That was considered right, but
his next movement was considered not right. He went to visit another
Cheyenne village where were many relatives of the man he had killed.
Warning was sent to him not to come there, that he would be killed,
but he heeded not the notice, or he designed to show special bravery
that might win a good standing. Two Cheyenne men accompanied him to
the visited camp.
The three companions went from lodge to lodge, being received
courteously and fed at the various stopping places. A brother of the
man who had been killed sat in his own lodge, there meditating and
saying nothing to anybody. He kept beside him a loaded rifle. From
time to time, as the three men moved among the lodges he watched them
from the interior of his tepee. People began to taunt him:
“You are afraid.”
“No, I will kill him today.”
The Sioux-Cheyenne walked at all times between the two Cheyenne
companions when the three went from any one lodge to another. But as
they were passing across one open area the middle man stopped and
bent himself forward to tie a loose moccasin string. In a moment
the bang of a rifle shot rang out from the watcher’s tepee. The
half-Sioux pitched headfirst to the ground. His death was regarded
by all as an earned infliction. The chiefs agreed: “He ought not to
have come so soon to this place where are his victim’s relatives. His
slayer did right.”
An Ogallala Sioux man had one of our women as his wife. They lived
with our people. The couple had much domestic trouble. It was said
the husband grossly abused his wife. The matter came to a climax as
our Cheyennes were camped on the Giving White Medal river. I was a
baby or a small child, and my knowledge of it comes only from hearsay
stories. But in later times I knew the people involved.
The maltreated wife had two brothers, Dirty Moccasins and Tall White
Man--not the present old man Tall White Man, but another Cheyenne
dead many years ago. These two brothers decided to end the continual
humiliation of their sister. They got their bows and arrows and went
man-hunting. Each of them sent an arrow through the body of the
offending Sioux and put out the lights of his life. They were not
banished. Besides their having the natural sympathy of the people,
the dead man was a Sioux, not a Cheyenne. Nevertheless, ever after
that, Dirty Moccasins smoked only a deer bone pipe and Tall White Man
used always a little stone one. For many years I saw him as a scrawny
and feeble old man smoking the tiny short-stemmed stone pipe.
The Sioux and his wife had a ten-year-old daughter. When she grew to
womanhood she married a Cheyenne man named Elk Creek. This couple
had three daughters, grandchildren of the Sioux killed by the two
brothers. One of these grandchildren married Round Stone, another
married a Fort Keogh soldier named Thompson, the third is the wife of
Willis Rowland, our present interpreter at the Lame Deer agency.
I heard a story about two Sioux in a Sioux camp who quarreled
concerning the ownership of a horse. One of them had possession
of the animal. The other sat in his lodge and brooded over what
he regarded as a wrong done to him. He planned an unusual mode of
carrying out revenge. He went to a Cheyenne camp near by and inquired
there for a medicine man. A Cheyenne led him to a certain lodge.
“I have important business,” the Sioux announced. “Come out where
nobody can hear us.”
The three went out of the camp, to a hilltop. The young Cheyenne
served as negotiator between the Sioux and the medicine man.
“I want him to kill a Sioux,” the visitor proposed.
There was some exchange of talk about the compensation to the
medicine man. Finally, an agreement was reached. The medicine man
received a blanket, some moccasins and clothing, some food and a
keen-bladed and sharp-pointed sheathknife. A day was consumed in
settling the conditions. While this was going on, the Sioux camp
moved away and was set up elsewhere. The angry Sioux and the medicine
man followed them. The lodge of the enemy was pointed out. The
medicine man drew the figure of a man upon the outside wall of the
lodge. At the right place he made a special picture of the heart.
Then he told the angry Sioux:
“Take this knife. At dawn tomorrow morning you must stab the heart
picture I have drawn. Then bring to me the knife.”
The commanded procedure was carried out. The wielder of the weapon
was astonished when blood flowed freely from the stabbed picture
heart. He ran away and told the medicine man, told him of the blood
and returned to him the knife.
“Good. He will die tonight,” came the assuring declaration.
As the medicine man went back to the Cheyennes he congratulated
himself on the clever trick he had played upon his confiding
employer. “Good knife, good blanket, good clothing, all for me,” he
chuckled. But: That same night the enemy Sioux man actually became
ill. He vomited blood, and before morning he was dead. I do not
like that kind of medicine actions. Such use of the powers makes bad
Indians.
The warrior days of a Cheyenne man began at the age of about sixteen
or seventeen, or sometimes a little earlier for such activities
as were not very difficult or risky. They ended somewhere between
thirty-five and forty, according to particular circumstances. The
regular rule was, every man was classed as a warrior and expected to
serve as such until he had a son old enough to take his place. Then
the father retired from aggressive fighting and the son took up the
weapons for that family. If a man came into early middle age without
any son, he adopted one. If he had more than one son, he might allow
the additional one or more to be adopted by another man who had none.
By following this system, all of the offensive fighting was done
by young men, mostly the unmarried young men. The fathers and the
older men ordinarily stayed in the background, to help or to shield
the women and children. Or, if it was practicable, the fathers and
old men and women followed out the young warriors and stayed at a
safe distance behind, there to sing cheering songs and to call out
advice and encouragement. If a warrior’s father or some other old
person put himself unnecessarily forward in a battle he was likely
to be criticised for his needless risk, and also the young warriors
felt aggrieved at his taking from them whatever of honors might be
gained in the combat. In general, the young men were supposed to
be more valuable as fighters and less valuable as wise counselors,
while the older men were estimated in the opposite way. It was
considered as being not right for an important older man to place
himself as a target for the missiles of the enemy, if he could avoid
such exposure. Even in a surprise attack upon us, it was expected
the seniors should run away, if they could get away, while the more
lively and supposedly more ambitious young men met the attack.
Our war chiefs--that is, the three leading chiefs and the
twenty-seven little chiefs of our three warrior societies--were
more useful as instructors in quiet assemblage than as directors
of operation in times of battle. There were frequent gatherings of
the warrior societies, each in its own gathering, where the chiefs
exchanged ideas about methods of combat and about daily care of the
personal self, and where the listening young warriors learned their
lessons. If some aggressive war was contemplated, these chiefs agreed
upon the plans. But when any battle actually began it was a case
of every man for himself. There were then no ordered groupings, no
systematic movements in concert, no compulsory goings and comings.
Warriors of all societies mingled indiscriminately, every individual
went where and when he chose, every one looked out for himself only,
or each helped a friend if such help were needed and if the able
one’s personal inclination just then was toward friendly helpfulness.
The warrior chiefs called out advice, perhaps a reminder of some
rule of action theretofore discussed in the gatherings, or perhaps
some special suggestion that exactly fitted the immediate situation,
such as, “Yonder is one whose horse is down; go right in after him.”
Ordinarily the advice of the chiefs was heeded. But the obedience was
a voluntary one. In battle, the chiefs had not authority to issue
commands that must be obeyed.
Special war parties made up of members of some certain warrior
society often went out seeking conflict with the enemy. The warrior
societies competed with each other for effectiveness in this kind of
activity, as well as in all other activities regarded as commendable.
At times, the members of some certain warrior society would be
selected by the tribal chiefs to do all of the tribal fighting in
some case where the opposition was looked upon as being not great
enough to make necessary the use of the entire tribal military
forces. If this appointed segment of our fighters did well they were
acclaimed. If they did not do well, especially if other warriors had
to go to their assistance, the original combatants were discredited.
Ordinarily, whatever warrior society was on duty as camp policemen
had also the duty as special camp defenders. It was their business
to be the first ones out to meet any attack upon the camp. Members
of the other societies added their help if necessary, refrained from
doing so if they were not needed. If the enemy onset was sufficient
to render needful the resistance of all of the warriors in the camp,
all of them were called by the heralds of the tribal chiefs. In cases
of extreme danger, even the old men and some of the women might use
whatever weapons they could seize and wield.
The Sioux tribes had ways closely resembling those of the Cheyennes.
We traveled and visited much with them, particularly with the
Ogallalas, sometimes with the Minneconjoux. The Sioux tribal
governments were almost the same as ours. Each of them had numerous
tribal chiefs, each had various warrior societies and chiefs of
them. Their warriors dressed for death in battle, all of their
people dressed for death in time of peace, according to the same
customs among us. Their warrior training by precept and by discipline
was similar to our system. They fought their battles as a band of
individuals, the same as we fought ours, and the same as was the way
of all Indians I ever knew. They had war dances and medicine dances
differing only a little from our ceremonies of this kind. So when
white people learn the ways of the Cheyennes they have learned also a
great deal of the ways of the Sioux and of other Indians in this part
of the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Smoky Hill river (?).
IV
_Worshiping The Great Medicine._
I made medicine the first time when I was seventeen years old (1875).
It was during the month of May, I believe, although we did not divide
the years into months or weeks as the white people later taught us
to divide them. Our family was in a camp of fourteen or fifteen
lodges of Cheyennes in the hills at the head of Otter creek, a stream
flowing into the eastern side of Tongue river. The main camp of the
tribe was on Powder river, east of our location.
To “make medicine” is to engage upon a special period of fasting,
thanksgiving, prayer and self denial, even of self torture. The
procedure is entirely a devotional exercise. The purpose is to subdue
the passions of the flesh and to improve the spiritual self. The
bodily abstinence and the mental concentration upon lofty thoughts
cleanses both the body and the soul and puts them into or keeps them
in health. Then the individual mind gets closer toward conformity
with the mind of the Great Medicine above us.
I said to my father: “All during my boyhood and youth the Great
Medicine has been good to me. I have fond parents and kind brothers
and sisters. I have had plenty of food and have had no bad sickness.
No bullet nor arrow has hit me. No serious injury of any kind has
fallen upon me. I ought to do something to show my gratitude for all
of these favors.”
“Yes, my son, you owe a debt for them,” my father agreed.
Red Haired Bear, a good medicine man or spiritual adviser, was in our
small camp. His wife was my mother’s sister. I went to him.
“I want to make medicine,” I told him. “I think I have lived in a way
good enough to render me worthy. I want to become still better. I
want to thank the Great Medicine and ask His continued favor. I want
to become able to kill all enemies I may meet and to be shielded from
their assaults upon me. I do not want to die in any manner until I
reach old age. I wish you would help me.”
“How,” he responded encouragingly. “What number of days do you think
you can endure?”
“The whole four days,” I replied confidently.
“How,” he glowed. “I will help you.”
He warned me it was a difficult undertaking for any young man.
He urged me to be brave. He said the bravest ones always got the
greatest spiritual benefit. I asserted myself as feeling equal to any
distress that might come to me.
“That is good,” he cheered me on. “You shall have the strongest of
trials. You shall stay out one night without any shelter, the next
night you may have a little cone tepee, the third night you may build
for yourself a willow dome lodge.”
This proposition put a check upon my eagerness. I had not thought
of being unprotected from bad weather during any part of the time.
It occurred to my mind that a rainstorm might interfere with the
devotions. Even with a little cone tepee over me, a strong wind might
upset the entire programme. My medicine might be broken by accidents
like these. I asked if a willow dome lodge could be used during the
entire procedure.
“How. It shall be as you desire.”
He started me out to cut willow wands for making the medicine lodge.
He told me I must get seventeen of them, each a clean and strong
and long piece of pliable green wood. I carefully gathered them,
selecting and rejecting. I tied them into a pack bundle. Throwing
the bundle upon my back and taking a crowbar in my hands, I carried
the burden far up a gulch and into the timber at the hilltop. I
chose a spot for the lodge and put down my load. With the crowbar I
punched in the ground sixteen holes around a circle about eight feet
in diameter. Into these holes I set upright sixteen of the wands.
I then bent their tops across, pairing them and tying together
the pairs. The skeleton dome was completed by weaving through the
coupled tops the seventeenth strand, this running from east to west.
I returned then to Red Haired Bear for further instructions.
“Get a buffalo head,” he ordered me.
I searched the neighborhood until I found one. Under his directions
I heaped up dirt into a low mound about eight feet due east from
where was to be the eastern entrance opening of the lodge. Upon this
mound was placed the buffalo head, it being set to face toward the
lodge. I cleared off all grass and twigs to make a clean path between
the buffalo head and the lodge opening. I gathered armfuls of sweet
sagegrass and spread it as a carpet upon the floor of the enclosed
circle. The two of us returned then to Red Haired Bear’s lodge.
The medicine man painted my whole body. Red clay mixed into water,
in a dish, was used for most of the painting. Four times he took
portions of the powdered red earth, each separate time casting the
portion upon the water’s surface and uttering low prayers as he
stirred it into solution. After having put the red coloring upon the
entire surface of my skin he got out from his medicine bag a package
of pulverized black earth. Four different casts and four separate
stirrings into water were made likewise with this coloring material.
With the black paint he made first a circle about my face, including
the forehead, the chin and the cheeks. Black wristlets and black
anklets were next formed. On the middle of my breast he painted a
black sun. On my left shoulderblade he put a black moon.
My director then offered a prayer:
“Great Medicine Above: You see Wooden Leg. He wants to be a good man.
Look upon him and favor him. Make him brave and wise and kind. Make
him generous to his people, to all Indians, even to his enemies if
they come peaceably and in need. Help him to defeat all enemies who
may beset him, and shield him from their efforts to take his life.
Guide him so that he may be rich in food and skins and horses. Help
him to find a good wife. Give to them many children. Keep them all in
good health and make them live a long time.”
He prayed also to the ground spirits. As he prayed to the Great
Medicine he looked upward, and as he addressed the spirits below he
looked down toward the ground. When the prayers were ended we walked
together to the medicine lodge I had built in the hilltop forest.
We sat down there beside the slender path I had made to connect the
buffalo head and the entrance to the lodge. He talked to me:
“This is going to be a hard trial for you, the hardest trial you ever
have had. Throughout four days you will have neither food nor water.
Your desires will distress you. Other distresses may be piled upon
these. You may retreat now and postpone it to another time if you
want to do so. What say you?”
“I dread it,” I confessed, “but I know it will not kill me. I do not
want to wait. I want to go on right now. I shall keep my courage from
failing by fixing my thoughts upon being a good man.”
“That is good,” he cheered me. Then he added: “Be brave.”
The medicine man prayed again for me. He looked again upward and
again downward, going through the same prayer for the below spirits
as he had made to the Above Spirit. The praying was of the same kind
as he had uttered just after the painting preparations, but he added
some other solicitations for my welfare.
After this prayer had ended I crept in upon the sagegrass floor of
the skeleton willow dome. He covered the frame all over with many
buffalo robes we had brought. Not even a faint ray of light could get
inside. He then went away to our camp.
I now was alone. For a little while I just sat there in the
darkness--complete darkness, although it was about the middle of
the afternoon. I was naked, except for the breechcloth and a buffalo
robe. I had a supply of kinnikinick, some matches, and my medicine
pipe that had been given to me by my father. I loaded and lit the
pipe for a thoughtful smoke. The flash of the match dazzled my eyes.
Time dragged along. I could not smoke continuously, so I just sat
there and meditated, or tried to do so. I did not know when the sun
went down nor when darkness came. It began to seem rather lonely.
I grew sleepy, so I stretched myself out with the robe about me
and drifted into a doze. But every little sound startled me. I sat
up and had another smoke. Soon I had another, and then another. I
slept again, this time more soundly. I had not the least notion as
to how long I remained asleep. It seemed I had been there more than
a day and night, that the medicine man had forgotten me. I listened
intently to every slight rustle in the surrounding forest. My prayers
all had been in thoughts, not in spoken words. I almost wished for
some disturbing intrusion to break up the entire proceeding. Noise of
a horse’s footsteps fell into my ears. Closer, closer, very close.
“Hey, Wooden Leg!” It was the voice of Red Haired Bear. “One day has
passed. It now is noon.”
He dismounted and opened slightly the entrance covering. The light
blinded me for a moment. Gradually he opened it wider, finally
throwing it altogether aside. He allowed me to go outside for a few
minutes, then I had to return to the interior.
“Let us smoke together,” he invited.
He sat just outside and I sat just inside. My smoking equipment was
brought into use. He pointed the stem and sent a puff to each of the
four principal directions, then to the above, to the below and to the
buffalo head. We passed the pipe back and forth in many exchanges,
until one loading of it was exhausted. He prayed again for me. Then
he admonished me:
“The next day will be more difficult. But, be not afraid. The Great
Medicine sees you.”
He shut up the lodge, mounted his horse and went away.