thirty in all, young men, except three or four crippled old warriors
who wanted to feast. These were too old to work much, but my father
made them welcome.
The huskers came into the field yelling and singing. We had, indeed,
heard their yells long before we saw them. I think young men all sing
and yell, just because they are young.
My sister and I were already seated at one side of the corn pile, and
the other women joined us. The young men sat down on the opposite side,
and the husking began.
I saw that Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing sat just opposite me. Next to him was
a young man named Red Hand, with grass plumes in his hair. These meant
that he had been in a war party and had been sent out to spy on the
enemy. I saw Red Hand looking at me, and I was glad that I was wearing
my elk teeth dress. “He is a young man,” I thought, “not a boy, like
Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing.”
The huskers worked rapidly, stripping off the dry husks with their
hands. The big fine ears they braided in strings, to save for seed.
Smaller ears they tossed into a pile. Big as our corn pile was, it was
husked in about four hours.
[Illustration]
My mothers then served the feast. The huskers were hearty eaters; for,
like all young men, they had good appetites; but we had a big feast of
meat, and even they could not eat all. It was not polite to leave any
of the food, and some had brought sharp sticks on which they skewered
the meat they could not eat, to take home with them.
The feast over, the huskers went to another field, singing and yelling
as they went.
We women had now to busy ourselves carrying in our corn.
We loaded our two pack horses with strings of braided ears, ten strings
to a pony. The smaller ears we bore to the village in our baskets, to
dry on our corn stage before threshing.
In midafternoon there were a few strings of corn still left, and I was
laying them by for the next trip when I heard steps. I looked up and
saw Red Hand coming, leading his pony.
Red Hand did not speak, but he laid my strings of corn on his pony and
started for the village. “He wants to help me take home my corn,” I
thought. A young man did thus for the girl he admired. “Red Hand is
brave, and he owns a pony,” I said to myself; and I forgot all about
Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing.
My father returned with the pack horses just as Red Hand was starting
off; and I was stooping to fill my basket, when suddenly there came a
sound, _poh-poh-poh_, as of guns; then yells, and a woman screamed.
Small Ankle sprang for his war pony, which he had left hobbled near the
husking pile.
Our corn fields lay in a strip of flat land skirted by low foot hills;
and now I saw, coming over the hills, a party of Sioux, thirty or
more, mounted, and painted for war. At the edge of the hills they
checked their ponies, and those who had guns began firing down into our
gardens. Many of the Sioux were armed with bows and arrows.
On all sides arose outcries. My brave father dashed by with his ringing
war whoop, _ui, ui, ui_;[22] and after him Red Hand, lashing his pony
and yelling like mad. Red Hand had thrown away my strings of corn, but
I was not thinking of my corn just then.
[22] ṳ ï (pronounced like ōō ēē, but quickly and sharply)
Women and children began streaming past our field to the village. Brave
young men rode between them and our enemies, lest the Sioux dash down
and cut off some straggler. Two lads, on swift ponies, galloped ahead
to rouse the villagers.
Meanwhile my father and others were fighting off the Sioux from the
shelter of some clumps of small trees that dotted the flat: Our enemies
did not fight standing, but galloped and pranced their horses about on
the hillside to spoil our aim.
[Illustration]
Suddenly a Sioux warrior, in trailing eagle-feather bonnet, and mounted
on a beautiful spotted pony, dashed down the hillside toward us, waving
his bow over his head; and from our side I saw Red Hand, gun in hand,
riding to meet him.
As they drew near one another the Sioux swerved, and an arrow, like a
little snake, came curving through the air. Red Hand’s pony stumbled
and fell, the shaft in its throat; but Red Hand, leaping to the ground,
raised his gun and fired. I saw the Sioux drop his bow and ride back
clinging desperately to his pony’s mane. Red Hand put his hand to his
mouth and I heard his _yi-yi-yi-yi-yah_,[23] the yell that a warrior
made when he had wounded an enemy.
[23] yĭ yĭ yĭ yĭ yäh´
On the side toward our village other cries now arose, for the warriors
were coming to our help. The Sioux fled. Our men pursued them, and at
nightfall came back with one scalp.
All that night we danced the scalp dance. A big fire was built. Men and
women painted their faces black and sang glad songs. Old women cried
_a-la-la-la-la!_[24] Young men danced, yelled and boasted of their
deeds. All said that Red Hand was a brave young man and would become a
great warrior.
[24] ä lä lä lä lä´
[Illustration]
The next day I was coming from the watering place with my kettle. Just
ahead of me walked Waving Corn, a handsome girl two years older than I.
Red Hand passed by; shyly I looked up, thinking to see him smile at me.
He was smiling at Waving Corn.
[Illustration]
THIRTEENTH CHAPTER
MARRIAGE
And so I grew up, a happy, contented Indian girl, obedient to my
mothers, but loving them dearly. I learned to cook, dress skins,
embroider, sew with awl and sinew, and cut and make moccasins, clothing
and tent covers. There was always plenty of work to do, but I had time
to rest, and to go to see my friends; and I was not given tasks beyond
my strength. My father did the heavy lifting, if posts or beams were
to be raised. “You are young, daughter,” he would say. “Take care you
do not overstrain!” He was a kind man, and helped my mothers and me
whenever we had hard work to do.
For my industry in dressing skins, my clan aunt, Sage, gave me a
woman’s belt. It was as broad as my three fingers, and covered with
blue beads. One end was made long, to hang down before me. Only a very
industrious girl was given such a belt. She could not buy or make one.
No relative could give her the belt; for a clan aunt, remember, was not
a blood relative. To wear a woman’s belt was an honor. I was as proud
of mine as a war leader of his first scalp.
I won other honors by my industry. For embroidering a robe for my
father with porcupine quills I was given a brass ring, bought of the
traders; and for embroidering a tent cover with gull quills dyed yellow
and blue I was given a bracelet. There were few girls in the village
who owned belt, ring and bracelet.
In these years of my girlhood my mothers were watchful of all that I
did. We had big dances in the village, when men and women sang, drums
beat loud, and young men, painted and feathered, danced and yelled to
show their brave deeds. I did not go to these dances often, and, when
I did, my mothers went with me. Ours was one of the better families of
the tribe, and my mothers were very careful of me.
I was eighteen years old the Bent-Enemy-Killed winter; for we Hidatsas
reckoned by winters, naming each for something that happened in it. An
old man named Hanging Stone then lived in the village. He had a stepson
named Magpie, a handsome young man and a good hunter.
One morning Hanging Stone came into our lodge. It was a little while
after our morning meal, and I was putting away the wooden bowls that
we used for dishes. The hollow buffalo hoofs hung on the door for
bells, I remember, rattled clitter, clitter, clitter, as he raised and
let fall the door. My father was sitting by the fire.
Hanging Stone walked up to my father, and laid his right hand on my
father’s head. “I want you to believe what I say,” he cried. “I want my
boy to live in your good family. I am poor, you are rich; but I want
you to favor us and do as I ask.”
He went over to my mothers and did likewise, speaking the same words to
both. He then strode out of the lodge.
Neither my father nor my mothers said anything, and I did not know at
first what it all meant. My father sat for a while, looking at the
fire. At last he spoke, “My daughter is too young to marry. When she is
older I may be willing.”
Toward evening Hanging Stone and his relatives brought four horses and
three flint-lock guns to our lodge. He tied the four horses to the
drying stage outside. They had good bridles, with chains hanging to the
bits. On the back of each horse was a blanket and some yards of calico,
very expensive in those days.
Hanging Stone came into the lodge. “I have brought you four horses and
three guns,” he said to my father.
“I must refuse them,” answered Small Ankle. “My daughter is too young
to marry.”
Hanging Stone went away, but he did not take his horses with him. My
father sent them back by some young men.
The evening of the second day after, Hanging Stone came again to our
lodge. As before, he brought the three guns and gifts of cloth, and
four horses; but two of these were hunting horses. A hunting horse was
one fleet enough to overtake a buffalo, a thing that few of our little
Indian ponies could do. Such horses were costly and hard to get. A
family that had good hunting horses had always plenty of meat.
After Hanging Stone left, my father said to his wives, “What do you
think about it?”
“We would rather not say anything,” they answered. “Do as you think
best.”
“I know this Magpie,” said my father. “He is a kind young man. I have
refused his gifts once, but I see his heart is set on having our
daughter. I think I shall agree to it.”
Turning to me he spoke: “My daughter, I have tried to raise you right.
I have hunted and worked hard to give you food to eat. Now I want you
to take my advice. Take this man for your husband. Try always to love
him. Do not think in your heart, ‘I am a handsome young woman, but this
man, my husband, is older and not handsome.’ Never taunt your husband.
Try not to do anything that will make him angry.”
I did not answer _yes_ or _no_ to this; for I thought, “If my father
wishes me to do this, why that is the best thing for me to do.” I had
been taught to be obedient to my father. I do not think white children
are taught so, as we Indian children were taught.
[Illustration]
For nigh a week my father and my two mothers were busy getting ready
the feast foods for the wedding. On the morning of the sixth day, my
father took from his bag a fine weasel-skin cap and an eagle-feather
war bonnet. The first he put on my head; the second he handed to my
sister, Cold Medicine. “Take these to Hanging Stone’s lodge,” he said.
We were now ready to march. I led, my sister walking with me. Behind
us came some of our relatives, leading three horses; and, after them,
five great kettles of feast foods, on poles borne on the shoulders of
women relatives. The kettles held boiled dried green corn and ripe corn
pounded to meal and boiled with beans; and they were steaming hot.
There was a covered entrance to Hanging Stone’s lodge. The light was
rather dim inside, and I did not see a dog lying there until he sprang
up, barking _wu-wu!_ and dashed past me. I sprang back, startled.
Cold Medicine tittered. “Do not be foolish,” called one of our women
relatives. Cold Medicine stopped her tittering, but I think we were
rather glad of the dog. My sister and I had never marched in a wedding
before, and we were both a little scared.
[Illustration]
I lifted the skin door—it was an old-fashioned one swinging on thongs
from the beam overhead—and entered the lodge. Hanging Stone sat on
his couch against the puncheon fire screen. I went to him and put the
weasel-skin cap on his head. The young man who was to be my husband was
sitting on his couch, a frame of poles covered with a tent skin. Cold
Medicine and I went over and shyly sat on the floor near-by.
The kettles of feast foods had been set down near the fireplace, and
the three horses tied to the corn stage without. Hanging Stone had
fetched my father four horses. We reckoned the weasel cap and the war
bonnet as worth each a horse; and, with these and our three horses, my
father felt he was going his friend one horse better. It was a point
of honor in an Indian family for the bride’s father to make a more
valuable return gift than that brought him by the bridegroom and his
friends.
[Illustration: Plate II.—“I put the weasel-skin cap on his head.”]
As we two girls sat on the floor, with ankles to the right, as Indian
women always sit, Magpie’s mother filled a wooden bowl with dried
buffalo meat pounded fine and mixed with marrow fat, and set it for my
sister and me to eat. We ate as much as we could. What was left, my
sister put in a fold of her robe, and we arose and went home. It would
have been impolite to leave behind any of the food given us to eat.
Later in the day Magpie’s relatives and friends came to feast on the
foods we had taken to Hanging Stone’s lodge. Each guest brought a gift,
something useful to a new-wed bride—beaded work, fawn-skin work bag,
girl’s leggings, belt, blanket, woman’s robe, calico for a dress, and
the like. In the evening two women of Magpie’s family brought these
gifts to my father’s lodge, packing them each in a blanket on her back.
They piled the gifts on the floor beside Red Blossom, the elder of my
two mothers.
Red Blossom spent the next few days helping me build and decorate the
couch that was to mark off the part of our lodge set apart for my
husband and me. We even made and placed before the couch a fine, roomy
lazy-back, or willow chair.
All being now ready, Red Blossom said to me: “Go and call your husband.
Go and sit beside him and say, ‘I want you to come to my father’s
lodge.’ Do not feel shy. Go boldly and have no fear.”
So with my sister I slowly walked to Hanging Stone’s lodge. There were
several besides the family within, for they were expecting me; but no
one said anything as we entered.
Magpie was sitting on his couch, for this in the daytime was used as
white men use a lounge or a big chair. My sister and I went over and
sat beside him. Magpie smiled and said, “What have you come for?”
“I have come to call you,” I answered.
“_Sukkeets_—good!” he said.
Cold Medicine and I arose and returned to my father’s lodge. Magpie
followed us a few minutes later; for young men did not walk through the
village with their sweethearts in the daytime. We should have thought
that foolish.
And so I was wed.
[Illustration]
FOURTEENTH CHAPTER
A BUFFALO HUNT
My young husband and I lived together but a few years. He died of lung
sickness; and, after I had mourned a year, I married Son-of-a-Star, a
Mandan. My family wished me to marry again; for, while an Indian woman
could raise corn for herself and family, she could not hunt to get meat
and skins.
Son-of-a-Star was a kind man, and my father liked him. “He is brave,
daughter,” Small Ankle said. “He wears two eagle feathers, for he has
twice struck an enemy, and he has danced the death dance. Three times
he has shot an arrow through a buffalo.” It was not easy to shoot an
arrow through a buffalo and few of my tribe had done so.
Spring had come, and in the moon of Breaking Ice we returned to
Like-a-Fishhook village. Our hunters had not killed many deer the
winter before, and our stores of corn were getting low. As ours was
a large family, Son-of-a-Star thought he would join a hunting party
that was going up the river for buffaloes. “Even if we do not find much
game,” he said, “we shall kill enough for ourselves. We younger men
should not be eating the corn and beans that old men and children need.”
Small Ankle thought the plan a good one. I was glad also, for I was to
be one of the party. Corn planting time would not come for a month yet;
and, after the weeks in our narrow winter quarters, I longed to be out
again in the fresh air.
There were ten in the party besides Son-of-a-Star and myself:
Crow-Flies-High, Bad Brave, High Backbone, Long Bear, and Scar, and
their wives. Scar was a Teton Sioux who had come to visit us.
My tribe now owned many horses, and fewer dogs were used than when I
was a little girl. A party of buffalo hunters usually took both hunting
and pack horses; but our village herd was weak and poor in flesh after
the scant winter’s feeding, and we thought it better to take only dogs.
There was yet little pasture, and the ground was wet and spongy from
the spring thaws. Only a strong, well-fed pony could go all day on wet
ground.
I took three of our family dogs. On the travois of two I loaded robes
for bedding, the halves of an old tent cover, moccasins for myself and
husband, an ax, a copper kettle and a flesher for dressing hides. My
third dog dragged a bull boat, bound mouth down to the travois poles.
We planned to return by way of the river, in boats.
We were clad warmly, for the weather was chill. All had robes. I wore a
dress of two deer skins sewed edge to edge; the hind legs, thus sewed,
made the sleeves for my arms.
[Illustration]
I had made my husband a fine skin shirt, embroidered with beads. Over
it he drew his robe, fur side in. He spread his feet apart, drew the
robe high enough to cover his head, and folded it, tail end first, over
his right side; then the head end over his left, and belted the robe in
place. He spread his feet apart when belting, to give the robe a loose
skirt for walking in.
We all wore winter moccasins, fur lined, with high tops. The men
carried guns. Buffalo hunters no longer used bows except from horseback.
We started off gaily, in a long line. Each woman was followed by her
dogs. Two women, having no dogs, packed their camp stuff on their backs.
We made our first camp late in the afternoon, at a place called
Timber-Faces-across-River. There was a spring here, of good water.
Crow-Flies-High and Bad Brave went hunting, while we women pitched
our tent. We cut forked poles and stacked them with tops together
like a tepee. We covered this frame with skins, laced together at
the edges with thongs. A rawhide lariat was drawn around the outside
of the cover; and small logs, laid about the edges, held the tent to
the ground. We could not use tent pins, for the ground was frozen.
We raised an old saddle skin on the windward side of the smoke hole,
staying it with a forked pole, thrust through a hole in the edge. We
were some time building, as the tent had to be large enough for twelve
persons.
We finished just at dusk; and we were starting a fire inside, when the
two hunters came in. Each packed on his back the side and ham of an
elk they had killed. Bad Brave had laid a pad of dry grass across his
shoulders that the meat juice might not stain his robe.
It was getting dark, and, while we women gathered dry grass for our
beds, the two hunters roasted one of the sides of meat. They skewered
it on a stick and swung it from the drying pole. Standing on each side,
the two men swung the meat slowly, forth and back, over the fire.
We were all hungry when we sat down to eat. The fresh roasted ribs of
the elk were juicy and sweet, and with full stomachs we felt sleepy,
for the day’s march had been long. We gladly spread our robes and crept
into our beds, first covering a coal with ashes for the morning fire.
[Illustration]
Next morning we had struck our tent and loaded our dogs before the sun
was well up. We took only the tent cover, leaving the poles. Three
of our men went ahead to hunt. The rest followed more slowly, not to
tire our dogs. Now and then we stopped to rest and eat from our lunch
bags. These were of dried buffalo heart skins. Every woman in the party
carried one of them tucked under her belt. We had been careful to fill
our bags with cooked meat, from our breakfast.
My husband walked at my side if he talked with me. At other times he
went a little ahead; for, if enemies or a grizzly attacked us, he would
thus be in front, ready to fight, giving me time to escape.
Our trail led along the brow of the bluffs overlooking the Missouri.
There was a path here, fairly well marked, made by hunting parties, and
perhaps by buffaloes.
Our second camp was at a place called the Slides; for, here, big blocks
of earth, softened by the spring rains, sometimes slide down the bank
into the river. We found a spring a little way in from the river, with
small trees that we could cut for tent poles.
[Illustration]
Our tent was hardly pitched when Son-of-a-Star and Scar came in to say
they had killed a stray buffalo not far away. They had packed part of
the meat to camp on their shoulders, and Son-of-a-Star had cut out the
buffalo’s paunch and filled it with fresh blood. While the two hunters
went back for the rest of the meat, I put on my copper kettle and made
blood pudding. It was hot and ready to serve by the time they came
back. I had stirred the pudding with a green chokecherry stick, giving
it a pleasant, cherry flavor.
We were a jolly party as we sat around the evening fire. The hot
pudding felt good in our stomachs, after the long march. My good dogs,
Knife-Carrier, Took-a-Scalp, and Packs-a-Babe, I had fed with scraps
of meat from the dead buffalo, and they were dozing outside, snuggled
against the tent to keep warm. _Okeemeea_,[25] Crow-Flies-High’s wife,
fetched in some dry wood, which she put on the fire. A yellow blaze lit
up the tent and a column of thin, blue smoke rose upward to the smoke
hole.
[25] O kēē mēē´ ä
Crow-Flies-High filled his pipe and passed it among the men. Hidatsa
women do not smoke.
In the morning, on the way up, we had forded a stream we call Rising
Water creek. My leggings and moccasins were still wet; and, as I was
wringing them out to dry over the fire, I said to High Backbone’s
wife Blossom: “That creek is dangerous. As I was fording it to-day, I
slipped in the mud and nearly fell in; but I once got a good dinner out
of that mud.”
“How did you get a dinner out of mud?” asked Blossom.
“I will tell you,” I answered. “I was a young girl then. My tribe
had come up the river to hunt buffaloes and we had stopped at Rising
Water Creek to make fires and eat our midday meal. It was summer and
the creek was low, for there had been little rain. Some little girls
went down for water. They came running back, much frightened. ‘We saw
something move in the mud of the creek,’ they cried. ‘It is alive!’
“We ran to the bank of the creek and, sure enough, something that
looked as big as a man was struggling and floundering in a pool. The
water was roiled and thick with mud.
“We could not think what it could be. Some thought it was an enemy
trying to hide in the mud.
“A brave young man named Skunk threw off his leggings, drew his knife,
and waded out to the thing. Suddenly he stooped, and in a moment
started to land with the thing in his arms. It was a great fish, a
sturgeon. It had a smooth back, like a catfish. We cut up the flesh and
boiled it. It tasted sweet, like catfish flesh. I do not remember if we
drank the broth, as we do when we boil catfish.”
[Illustration]
“I have seen those fish,” said Bad Brave. “Sometimes when the Missouri
falls after the spring floods, one of them will be left stranded on the
sand; but I never knew one to be seen in Rising Water creek. I know
that turtles are found there, the big kind that fight.”
“I have heard that white men eat turtles,” said Long Bear’s wife. “I do
not believe it.”
“They do eat turtles,” said High Backbone, “and they eat frogs. A white
man told me. I asked him.”
“_Ey!_ And such unclean things; I could not eat them,” cried Bird Woman.
“There are big turtles in our Dakota lakes,” said Scar. “They are so
big that they drag under the water buffaloes that come there to drink.
I once heard a story of a magic turtle.”
“Tell us the story,” said Son-of-a-Star.
“A brave young Dakota led out a war party, of six men,” began Scar.
“They came into the Chippewa country and wandered about, seeking to
strike an enemy. They found deserted camps, sometimes with ashes in the
fire pit still warm; but they found no enemies.
“One day they came to a beautiful lake. On the shore, close to the
water, was a grassy knoll, rising upward like the back of a great
turtle.
“The leader of the party had now begun to lose heart. ‘We have found no
enemy,’ he said. ‘I think the gods are angry with us. We should return
home. If we do not, harm may come to us.’
“‘Let us rest by this knoll,’ said one. ‘When we have smoked, we will
start back home.’
“They had smoked but one pipe when the leader said, ‘I think we should
go now. There is something strange about this knoll. Somehow, I think
it is alive.’
“There was a young man in the party, reckless and full of life, whom
the others called the Mocker. He sprang up crying, ‘Let us see if it is
alive. Come on, we will dance on the knoll.’