Seated around the campfire in my tepee while a cold rain sifted through
the canvas, Two Moons became reminiscent. His mother and brother were
called Two Moons, meaning two months—in the Indian tongue, Ish-hay-nishus.
His mind seemed to travel back to his boyhood days, for he started right
in by saying: “When a Cheyenne boy wants to marry a young woman it takes a
long time for them to get acquainted with each other. When he wants to
marry a girl or have her for a sweetheart he tells another fellow with
whom he is acquainted, and who is also acquainted with the girl, and this
young man goes and tells her, the same as a white man writes to the young
lady on paper. And this Indian friend brings them together; this Indian
goes and tells the girl that the boy wants to be a sweetheart to her, and
the girl will say, ‘Well, I will think it over.’ And then she thinks it
over, and finally says if he comes to see her some time in the day or
night then she will believe that he is a sweetheart of hers. So then the
young man goes to the young girl, and talks to her, and they make up their
minds to get married. They get married after this fashion: the young man
may go to the tent of the girl at night and the girl may come out, then
the boy will take the girl away to his home. So then the next morning the
young man’s folks and family bring their presents. They take two or three
horses, good horses, and load these horses up with good stuff, clothes,
shawls, necklaces, bracelets, and moccasins. Then they take the girl back
to her home. The girl’s family divides up the presents after they get
home.”
“There is another way: When an old man and woman decide they want a
grandchild, they tell their son they are going to buy a certain girl and
he must marry her. Then another Indian goes and tells the girl’s family
that they would like to trade for the girl, and if it is all right he goes
back and the boy’s people load up some horses with goods, and take them
over to the girl’s folks. And then they take her back and give her to the
boy’s family. The bride was bedecked with brass rings which were taken
from the tepee, but they used other rings for engagement rings after the
white man came.”
In speaking of death, Two Moons said: “If the person who dies has a mother
or father or friend, they all cry, and all the things that belonged to the
boy they give away to other people. They dig a grave in between the rocks
and put the body in the ground and cover it up with dirt and rocks. They
always dig a grave for a person who dies whether they have friends or
folks. The old people believed there was a man came on earth here and
some of his children had done a lot of crime and fooling with him, and
they talked of his going up to heaven, and living there and looking down,
and that is where we will all go when we die. Also the old people
believed that that man said: ‘There will be a kind of cross light up in
the sky, which will mark the path for souls on the road.’ ‘High White Man’
is our name for God. And it was the son of High White Man who told this,
and who created us and made everything.”
“The first time the Indian saw a locomotive, he called it the Iron Horse,
and the railroad was called the Iron Road. The old people first saw what
they called white men, and they called the white man a Ground Man. I was
so young then that I did not know anything at that time. I saw some men
driving an ox team, or carrying packs on their backs and walking. When I
got older most of the people knew that these white men were good. The
first time they saw a white man they called him Drive-a-Wagon. They did
not know what they were hauling, but found out afterward that it was sugar
and coffee. I remember how pleased I was when I first saw sugar and
coffee. When I was a boy the Indians used to get the grains of coffee and
put it in a bucket and boil it, and it would never cook at all. Finally a
white man came along and took the coffee and put it in a bucket and put it
on the coals without any water, and stirred it until it turned brown, and
then he took it off and mashed it up between two stones, and that was how
we learned to make coffee. I like it, and have always liked it.”
“The white man is to blame for the driving away of the buffalo.” (It will
here be observed that the Indian cannot talk very long at a time without
this ever recurring subject being forced to the front.) “After the white
man had driven the buffalo away, a great council among the Indians was
held; all the tribes possible were called to this big council on the
Platte River. All the different tribes were there. A white man came
there and brought a lot of stuff, such as clothes, plates, guns, coffee
grinders, knives, blankets, and food, and gave them to the Indians. They
also brought shoes. This man said that he wanted some Indians to go to
Washington. They went down the Missouri River. They went by ox team from
the Platte River to the Missouri, and then by ship down the Missouri
River. These men were gone to Washington for a year; they came back about
the middle of the summer. The President told the Indians they were his
grandchildren, and thus the Indians called the President their
grandfather. Grandfather told them that a white man would come and live
with them, and that for fifty-five years they would get clothes and food.
I was nine years old when they held the council and ten years old when
they came back. From the time of the council the old people settled down
in the Black Hills and in the south and quit running around. From that
time all the Indians became friends of the white man, and the white man
bought the buffalo hides and other skins. After they settled down
everything went along all right until I was fifteen years old, and then
the whites came in and there was a fight between the whites and Cheyennes
and some other tribes of Indians. I do not know what happened, but some
Cheyennes went over to the white man’s camp on Shell River, and the white
men started to fire at the Indians. That was the cause of the trouble
that year. Later the Comanches and Apaches and Kiowas fought among
themselves, and came north to fight the Cheyennes. We called them the
Texas Indians. Then the wars between the tribes and the hostilities
between the Red and White grew less and less. There was a man named
Honey;—the Indians called him Bee—he told the Cheyennes they must not
fight. In the numerous battles in which I was engaged I received many
wounds. I was wounded by the Pawnee Indians in a fight with them, by an
arrow; wounded again at Elk River in the Yellowstone, when I was shot
through the arm by a Crow of the Big Horn. I was wounded again on the
Crow River in Utah in a fight with the United States soldiers, when I was
shot through the thigh. I had my horse shot through the jaw in a fight
with the Crows, but to-day I am a friend of all the tribes; once I was
their enemy. I was told by General Miles at Fort Kearny that we must not
fight any more, that it was the orders from Washington. I remember
General Miles well. I know him and I am a friend of his. When General
Miles told me what I ought to do, it was just as though he put me in his
hand and showed me the white man and the Indian, and told us we were all
to be good friends, so that is the reason General Miles’ name is a great
name among the Cheyennes as well as the whites. And your coming among us
is just like General Miles; you are helping the Indians and can help them.
They need help for they are all poor. After the Indians settled down and
General Miles had told us what the Great Father at Washington wanted, and
after I had succeeded in settling the Indians, the order came from
Washington that we should take up land and call it a claim. So I looked
all around for land on which to settle; then I went over to Tongue River
on the Rosebud so that my family and children could be reared and have a
home. All that I have told you is true. General Miles told me that when
I settled down and took this land, there might be some people who would
come along and try to cheat us out of our land, but not to pay any
attention to them, that it was our land. There are a great many people
settled in Montana in the land that belonged to the Indians. These people
are raising lots of cattle and ought to be good to the Indian. I have
been on this land for over twenty years, but we are not yet accustomed to
the white man’s food: we love the meat yet, and we long for the buffalo.
There is a great deal of land leased by cattle men in Montana, and the
money ought to go to buy more cattle for the Indian, and clothes for our
children. I like to tell the truth just as I have seen it with my own
eyes, and I will have another good story for you to-morrow night. I am
getting old, but when I begin to talk about the old times I think I am
young again, and that I am the biggest of them all.”
[Custer Scouts]