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[Illustration: PEOPLE LOOKING FROM THE LODGES]
_WHEN BUFFALO RAN_
_BY GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL_
_Copyright, 1920, by
Yale University Press._
_First published, 1920._
_Table of Contents._
Introduction: The Plains Country
The Attack on the Camp
Standing Alone
The Way to Live
Lessons of the Prairie
On a Buffalo Horse
In the Medicine Circle
Among Enemy Lodges
A Grown Man
A Sacrifice
A Warrior Ready to Die
A Lie That Came True
My Marriage
_List of Illustrations._
People Looking from the Lodges
Hunting in the Brush along the River
My Grandmother Lived in Our Lodge
My Grandfather ... Long before Had Given up the Warpath
I Killed Many Buffalo and My Mother Dressed the Hides
Holding the Pipe to the Sky and to the Earth
"Do Not Go, Wait a Little Longer"
Watch the Men and Older Boys Playing at Sticks
_The Plains Country._
Seventy years ago, when some of the events here recounted took place,
Indians were Indians, and the plains were the plains indeed.
Those plains stretched out in limitless rolling swells of prairie until
they met the blue sky that on every hand bent down to touch them. In spring
brightly green, and spangled with wild flowers, by midsummer this prairie
had grown sere and yellow. Clumps of dark green cottonwoods marked the
courses of the infrequent streams--for most of the year the only note of
color in the landscape, except the brilliant sky. On the wide, level river
bottoms, sheltered by the enclosing hills, the Indians pitched their
conical skin lodges and lived their simple lives. If the camp were large
the lodges stood in a wide circle, but if only a few families were
together, they were scattered along the stream.
In the spring and early summer the rivers, swollen by the melting snows,
were often deep and rapid, but a little later they shrank to a few narrow
trickles running over a bed of sand, and sometimes the water sank wholly
out of sight.
The animals of the prairie and the roots and berries that grew in the
bottoms and on the uplands gave the people their chief sustenance.
In such surroundings the boy Wikis was born and grew up. The people that he
knew well were those of his own camp. Once a year perhaps, for a few weeks,
he saw the larger population of a great camp, but for the most part half a
dozen families of the tribe, with the buffalo, the deer, the wolves, and
the smaller animals and birds, were the companions with whom he lived and
from whom he learned life's lessons.
The incidents of this simple story are true.
The life of those days and the teachings received by the boy or the girl
who was to take part in it have passed away and will not return.
_The Attack on the Camp._
It is the first thing that I can recollect, and comes back to me now
dimly--only as a dream. My mother used to tell me of it, and often to laugh
at me. She said I was then about five or six years old.
I must have been playing with other little boys near the lodge, and the
first thing that I remember is seeing people running to and fro, men
jumping on their horses, and women gathering up their children. I remember
how the men called to each other, and that some were shouting the war cry;
and then that they all rode away in the same direction. My mother rushed
out and caught me by the hand, and began to pull me toward the lodge, and
then she stopped and in a shrill, sweet voice began to sing; and other
women that were running about stopped too, and began to sing songs to
encourage their husbands and brothers and sons to fight bravely; for
enemies were attacking the camp.
I did not understand it at all, but I was excited and glad to hear the
noise, and to see people rushing about. Soon I could hear shooting at a
distance. Then presently I saw the men come riding back toward the camp;
and saw the enemy following them down toward the lodges, and that there
were many of these strangers, while our people were only a few. But still
my people kept stopping and turning and fighting. Now the noise was louder.
The women sang their strong heart songs more shrilly, and I could hear more
plainly the whoops of men, and the blowing of war whistles, and the reports
of guns.
Presently one of our men fell off his horse. The enemy charged forward in a
body to touch him, and our few men rushed to meet them, to keep them from
striking the fallen one, and from taking the head. And now the women began
to be frightened, and some of them ran away. My mother rushed to the lodge,
caught up my little sister, and threw her on her back, and holding me by
the hand, ran toward the river. By this time I was afraid, and I ran as
hard as I could; but my legs were short and I could not keep up, even
though my mother had a load on her back. Nevertheless, she pulled me along.
Every little while I stumbled and lost my feet; but she dragged me on, and
as she lifted me up, I caught my feet again, and ran on.
Before long I began to tire, and I remember that I wanted to stop. In after
years mother used to laugh at me about this, and say that I had asked her
to throw away my sister, and to put me on her back and carry me instead.
She used to say, too, that if she had been obliged to throw away either
child I should have been the one left behind, for as I was a boy, and would
grow up to be a warrior, and to fight the enemies of our tribe, I might
very likely be killed anyway, and it might as well be earlier as later.
When we reached the river, my mother threw herself into it. Usually it was
not more than knee-deep, but at this time the water was high from the
spring floods, and my mother had to swim, holding my sister on her back,
and at the same time supporting me, for though I could swim a little, I was
not strong enough to breast the current, and without help would have been
carried away.
After we had crossed the river and come out on the other side, we looked
back toward the village, and could see that the enemy were retreating. They
might easily have killed or driven off the few warriors of our small camp,
but not far from us there was a larger camp of our people, and when they
heard the shooting and the shouting, they came rushing to help us; and when
the enemy saw them coming, they began to yield and then to run away. Our
warriors followed and killed some of them; but the most of them got away
after having killed four warriors of our camp, whose hard fighting and
death had perhaps saved the little village.
After the enemy had retreated, my mother crossed the river again, being
helped over by a man who was on the side opposite the camp, and who let us
ride his horse, while he held its tail and swam behind it.
In the village that night there was mourning for those who had lost their
lives to save their friends. Their relations cried very pitifully over the
dead; and early the next day their bodies were carried to the top of a hill
near the village, and buried there.
After the mourning for the dead was ended, the people had dances over the
scalps that had been taken from the enemy, rejoicing over the victory. Men
and women blackened their faces, and danced in a circle about the scalps,
held on poles; and old men and old women shouted the names of those men who
had been the bravest in the fight. We little boys looked on and sang and
danced by ourselves away from the circle.
It was soon after this that my uncle made me a bow and some blunt-headed
arrows, with which he told me I should hunt little birds, and should learn
to kill food, to help support my mother and sisters, as a man ought to do.
With these arrows I used to practice shooting, trying to see how far I
could shoot, how near I could send the arrow to the mark I shot at; and
afterwards, as I grew a little older, hunting in the brush along the river,
or on the prairie not far from the camp with the other little boys. We
hunted the blackbirds, or the larks, or the buffalo birds that fed among
the horses' feet, or the other small birds that lived among the bushes and
trees in the bottom. If I killed a little bird, as sometimes I did, my
mother cooked it and we ate it.
[Illustration: HUNTING IN THE BRUSH ALONG THE RIVER]
This was a happy time for me. We little boys played together all the time.
Sometimes the older boys allowed us to go with them, when they went far
from the village, to hunt rabbits, and when they did this, sometimes they
told us to carry back the rabbits that they had killed; and I remember that
once I came back with the heads of three rabbits tucked under my belt,
killed by my cousin, who was older than I. Then we used to go out and watch
the men and older boys playing at sticks; and we had little sticks of our
own, and our older brothers and cousins made us wheels; and we, too, played
the stick game among ourselves, rolling the wheel and chasing it as hard as
we could; but, for the most part, we threw our sticks at marks, trying to
learn how to throw them well, and how to slide them far over the ground.
[Illustration: WATCH THE MEN AND OLDER BOYS PLAYING AT STICKS]
I remember another thing--a sad thing--that happened when I was a very
little boy.
It was winter; the snow lay deep on the ground; a few lodges of people were
camped in some timber among the foothills; buffalo were close, and game was
plenty; the camp was living well. With the others I played about the camp,
spinning tops on the ice, sliding down hill on a bit of parfleche, or on a
sled made of buffalo ribs, and sometimes hunting little birds in the brush.
All this I know about from having heard my mother tell of it; it is not in
my memory. This is what I remember: One day, with one of my friends, I had
gone a little way from the camp, and down the stream. A few days before
there had been a heavy fall of snow, and after that some warm days, so that
the top of the snow had melted. Then had come a hard cold, which had frozen
it, so that on the snow there was a crust over which we could easily run.
As we were playing we went around the point of a hill, and suddenly, close
to us, saw a big bull. He seemed to have come from the other side of the
river, and was plowing his way through the deep snow, which came halfway up
to the top of his hump. When we saw the bull we were a little frightened;
but as we watched him we saw that he could hardly move, and that after he
had made a jump or two he stood still for a long time, puffing and blowing,
before he tried to go further. As we watched him he came to a low place in
the prairie, and here he sank still deeper in the snow, so that part of his
head was hidden, and only his hump showed above it. My friend said to me,
"Let us go up to this bull, and shoot him with our arrows." We began to go
toward him slowly, and he did not see us until we had come quite close to
him, when he turned and tried to run; but the snow was so deep that he
could not go at all; on each side it rose up, and rolled over, away from
him, as the water is pushed away and swells out on either side before a
duck that is swimming. My friend was very brave, and he said to me, "I am
going to shoot that bull, and count a coup on him"; and he ran up close to
the bull, and shot his blunt-headed arrow against him, and then turned off.
The bull tried hard to go faster, but the snow was too deep; and when I saw
that he could not move, I, too, ran up close to him, and shot my arrow at
him, and the arrow bounded off and fell on the snow. Again my friend did
this, and then I did it; and each time the bull was frightened and
struggled to get away: but the last time my friend did it the bull had
reached higher ground, where the snow was not so deep, and he had more
freedom. My friend shot his arrow into him, and I was following not far
behind, expecting to shoot mine; but when the bull felt the blow of the
last arrow, he turned toward my friend and made a quick rush; the snow was
less deep; he went faster; my little friend slipped, and the bull caught
him with his horns and threw him far. My friend fell close to me, and where
he fell the snow was red with his blood, for the great horn had caught him
just above the waist, and had ripped his body open nearly to the throat.
I went up to him in a moment, and, catching him, pulled him over the smooth
crust, far from the bull; but when I stopped and looked at him, he was
still, his eyes were dull, and he did not breathe; he was dead.
I did not know what to do. I had lost my friend, and I cried hard. Also, I
wished to be revenged on the bull for what he had done; but I did not wish
to be killed. I covered my friend with my robe, and started running fast to
the camp, where I told my mother what had happened. Soon all the men in the
camp, and some of the women, had started with me, back to where the bull
was. My friend's relations were wailing and mourning, as they came along,
and soon we reached his body, and his relations carried him back to the
camp. Two of the men went to where the bull stood in the snow and killed
him; and after he was dead I struck him with my bow.
_Standing Alone._
Always as winter drew near, the camps came closer together, and the people
began to make ready to start off on the hunt for buffalo. By this time food
was scarce, and the people needed new robes; and now that the cold weather
was at hand, the hair of the buffalo was long and shaggy, so that the robes
would be soft and warm, to keep out the winter cold.
I remember that before the tribe started there used to be a great ceremony,
but I was too young to understand what it all meant, though with the others
I watched what the old men did, and wondered at it, for it seemed very
solemn. There was a big circle about which the people stood or sat, and in
the middle of the circle there were buffalo heads on the ground, and before
them stood old men, who prayed and offered sacrifices, and passed their
weapons and their sacred implements over the skulls, and then people
danced; and not long after this the women loaded their lodges and their
baggage on the horses, and put their little children into the cages on the
travois, or piled them on the loaded pack horses; and then presently, in a
long line, the village started off over the prairie, to look for buffalo.
Most of the way I walked or ran, playing with the other little boys, or
looking through the ravines to try and find small birds, or a rabbit, or a
prairie chicken. Sometimes I rode a colt, too young yet to carry a load, or
to be ridden by an older person, yet gentle enough to carry me. In this way
I learned to ride.
When buffalo were found, the young men killed them, and then the whole
camp, women and children, went out to where the buffalo lay, and meat and
hides were brought in to the camp, where the women made robes, and dried
meat. Food was plenty, and everybody was glad.
My grandmother lived in our lodge. She was an old woman with gray hair, and
was always working hard. Whenever there were skins in the lodge she worked
at them until they were tanned and ready for use. Often she used to talk to
me, telling me about the old times; how our tribe used to fight with its
enemies, and conquer them, and kill them; and how brave the men always
were. She used to tell me that of all things that a man could do, the best
thing was to be brave. She would say to me: "Your father was a brave man,
killed by his enemies when he was fighting. Your grandfather, too, was
brave, and counted many coups; he was a chief, and is looked up to by
everyone. Your other grandfather was killed in a battle when he was a young
man. The people that you have for relations have never been afraid, and you
must not be afraid either. You must always do your best, because you have
many relations who have been braves, and chiefs. You have no father to tell
you how you ought to live, so now your other relations must try to help you
as much as they can, and advise you what to do."
[Illustration: MY GRANDMOTHER LIVED IN OUR LODGE]
She used to tell me of the ancient times, and of things that happened then,
of persons who had strong spiritual power, and did wonderful things, and of
certain bad persons and animals, who harmed people, and of the old times
before the people had bows, when they did not kill animals for food, but
lived on roots and berries. She told me that I must remember all these
things, and keep them in my mind.
Sometimes my grandmother had hard pains in her legs, and it hurt her to
walk, and when she had these pains she could not go about much, and could
not work. When this happened, sometimes she used to ask me to go down to
the stream and fetch her a skin of water; and I would whine, and say to
her, "Grandmother, I do not want to carry water; men do not carry water."
Then she would tell us some story about the bad things that had happened to
boys who refused to carry water for their grandmothers; and when I was
little these stories frightened me, and I would go for the water. So
perhaps I helped her a little in some things after she was old. Yet she
lived until I was a grown man; and so long as she lived she worked hard;
except when she had these pains.
Sometimes my mother and some of her relations would go off and camp
together for a long time; and then perhaps they would join a larger camp,
and stay with them for a while. In these larger camps we children had much
fun, playing our different games. We had many of these. Some, like those I
have spoken of, we played in winter, and some we played in summer. Often
the little girls caught some of the dogs, and harnessed them to little
travois, and took their baby brothers and sisters, and others of the
younger children, and moved off a little way from the camp, and there
pitched their little lodges. The boys went too, and we all played at living
in camp. In these camps we did the things that older people do. A boy and
girl pretended to be husband and wife, and lived in the lodge; the girl
cooked and the boy went out hunting. Sometimes some of the boys pretended
that they were buffalo, and showed themselves on the prairie a little way
off, and other boys were hunters, and went out to chase the buffalo. We
were too little to have horses, but the boys rode sticks, which they held
between their legs, and lashed with their quirts to make them go faster.
Among those who played in this way was a girl smaller than I, the daughter
of Two Bulls--a brave man, a friend to my uncle. The little girl's name was
Standing Alone; she was pretty and nice, and always pleasant; but she was
always busy about something--always working hard, and when she and I played
at being husband and wife, she was always going for wood, or pretending to
dress hides. I liked her, and she liked me, and in these play camps we
always had our little lodge together; but if I sat in the lodge, and
pretended to be resting longer than she thought right, she used to scold
me, and tell me to go out and hunt for food, saying that no lazy man could
be her husband. When she said this I did not answer and seemed to pay no
attention to her words, but sat for a little while, thinking, and then I
went out of the lodge, and did as she said. When I came in again, whether I
brought anything or not, she was always pleasant.
Once, when we were running buffalo, one of the boys, who was a buffalo,
charged me when I got near him, and struck me with the thorn which he
carried on the end of his stick, and which we used to call the buffalo's
horn. The thorn pierced me in the body, and, according to the law of our
play, I was so badly wounded that I was obliged to die. I went a little way
toward the village, and then pretended to be very weak. Then my companions
carried me into the camp, and to the lodge, and Standing Alone mourned over
her husband who had been killed while hunting buffalo. Then one of the
boys, who pretended that he was a medicine man, built a sweat lodge, and
doctored me, and I recovered.
_The Way to Live._
I must have been ten years old when my uncle first began to talk to me.
Long before this, when he had made a bow and some arrows for me, he had
told me that I must learn to hunt, so that in the time to come I would be
able to kill food, and to support my mother and sisters. "We must all eat,"
he had said, "and the Creator has given us buffalo to support life. It is
the part of a man to kill food for the lodge, and after it has been killed,
the women bring in the meat, and prepare it to be eaten, while they dress
the hides for robes and lodge skins."
My uncle was a brave man, and was always going off on the warpath,
searching for the camps of enemies, taking their horses, and sometimes
fighting bravely. He was still a young man, not married; but was quiet and
of good sense and all the people respected him. Even the chiefs and older
men used to listen to him when he spoke; and sometimes he was asked to a
feast to which many older men were invited.
All my life I have tried to remember what he told me this first time that
he talked with me, for it was good advice, and came to me from a good man,
who afterwards became one of the chiefs of the tribe.
One day, soon after he had returned from one of his warpaths, he said to
me, early in the morning: "My son, get your bow and arrows, and you and I
will go over into the hills, hunting. We will try to kill some rabbits, and
perhaps we may find a deer."
I was glad to go with my uncle; no grown man had ever before asked me to go
with him, and to have him speak to me like this made me feel glad and
proud. I ran quickly and got my bow, and we set out, walking over the
prairie. We walked a long way, and I was beginning to get tired, when we
came to a place where we started first one rabbit and then another, and
then a third. I shot at one, but missed it; and my uncle killed all three.
After this we went up to the top of a high hill, to look over the country.
We saw nothing, but as we sat there my uncle spoke to me, telling me of the
things that he had done not long before; and after a time he began to tell
me how I ought to live, and what I ought to do as I grew older.
He said to me: "My son, I am going to tell you some things that will be
useful to you; and if you listen to what I say, your life will be easier
for you to live; you will not make mistakes, and you will come to be liked
and respected by all the people. Before many years now you will be a man,
and as you grow up you must try more and more to do the things that men do.
There are a few things that a boy must always remember.
"When older people speak to you, you must stop what you are doing and
listen to what they say, and must do as they tell you. If anyone says to
you, 'My son, go out and drive in my horses,' you must go at once; do not
wait; do not make anyone speak to you a second time; start at once.
"You must get up early in the morning; do not let the sun, when it first
shines, find you in bed. Get up at the first dawn of day, and go early out
into the hills and look for your horses. These horses will soon be put in
your charge, and you must watch over them, and must never lose them; and
you must always see that they have water."
"You must take good care of your arms. Always keep them in good order. A
man who has poor arms cannot fight."
"It is important for you to do all these things. But there is one thing
more important than anything else, and that is to be brave. Soon you will
be going on a warpath, and then you must strive always to be in the front
of the fighting, and to try hard to strike many of the enemy. You must be
saying all the time to yourself, 'I will be brave; I will not fear
anything.' If you do that, the people will all know of it, and will look on
you as a man."
"There is another thing: if by chance you should do anything that is great,
you must not talk of it; you must never go about telling of the great
things that you have done, or that you intend to do. To do that is not
manly. When you are at war you may do brave things, and other people will
see what you have done, and will tell of it. If you should chance to
perform any brave act, do not speak of it; let your comrades do this; it is
not for you to tell of the things that you have done."
"If you listen to my words you will become a good man, and will amount to
something. If you let the wind blow them away, you will become lazy, and
will never do anything."
So my uncle talked to me for a long time, and just as he had finished his
talking, we saw, down in the valley below us, a deer come out from behind
some brush, and feed for a little while, and then it went back into another
patch of brush, and did not come out again.
"Ah," said my uncle, "I think we can kill that deer." We went around a long
distance, to come down without being seen to where the deer was, and we had
crept up close to the edge of the bushes before the deer knew that we were
there. When we reached the place we walked around it, he on one side and I
on the other; and presently the deer sprang up out of the bushes, and my
uncle shot it with his arrow; and after it had run a distance it fell down,
and when we got to it, was dead. I also shot at it with one of my
sharp-pointed arrows, but I did not hit it. After we had cut up the meat of
the deer, and made it into a pack, done up in the hide, we started back to
the camp. I felt proud to have gone on a hunt with a man and to be carrying
the rabbits.
As we walked along to the camp that night, my uncle told me other things.
He said: "Always be careful to do nothing bad in camp. Do not quarrel and
fight with your fellows. Men do not fight with each other in the camp; to
do that is not manly."
You see, my uncle thought that I was now old enough to be taught some of
the things a man ought to do, and he tried to help me; for my father was
dead, and I had no one else to teach me. The words he spoke were all good
words, and I have tried always to remember them.
The white people gather up their children and send them all to one place to
be taught; but that is not the way we Indians do. Nevertheless, we try to
teach our children in our way; for children must be taught, or they will
not know anything, and if they do not know anything they will have no
sense, and if they have no sense they will not know how to act.
When our children are small, the mother tries to keep them from making a
noise. It is not fitting that young children should disturb older people. I
am telling you about the way I was taught in the old times, when there were
but few white people in the country.
Because we have no schools, like the white people, we have to teach our
children by telling them what to do; it is only in this way that they can
learn. They have lived but a short time, and cannot know much. We older
ones, after we have lived many years, and have listened to what our fathers
and brothers have taught us, know a good many things; but little children
know nothing. We want them to be wise, so that they may live well with
their people. But we want them to be wise also, so that when they are the
chiefs and braves of the tribe they may rule the people well. We remember
that before very long we ourselves shall no longer be here; and then the
ones who are caring for the people's welfare will be these children that
now are playing about the camps. Their relations, therefore, talk to the
children, for they want their lives to be made easier for them; and they
want also to have the next generation of people wise enough to help all the
people to live. The men must hunt and go to war; the women must be good
women, not foolish ones, and must be ready to work, and glad to take care
of their husbands and their children. This is one of the reasons why we
like to have them play at moving the camp, harnessing the old dogs to the
travois, pitching the lodges, making clothing for the dolls; while the boys
play at hunting buffalo and at making war journeys against their enemies.
All are trying to learn how to live the life that our people have always
lived.
My grandfather was an old man, who long before this had given up the
warpath. He spent most of his time in the camp, and he used to make
speeches to the little and big boys, and give them much good advice. Once I
heard him talk to a group of boys playing near the lodge, and this is what
he said: "Listen, you boys; it is time you did something. You sit here all
day in the sun, and throw your arrows, and talk about things of the camp,
but why do you not do something? When I was a boy it was not like this;
then we were always trying to steal off and follow a war party. Some of
those who did so were too little to fight; but we used to follow along, and
try to help. In this way, even though we did nothing, we learned the ways
of warriors. I do not want you boys to be lazy. It is not a lazy man who
does great things, so that he is talked about in the camp, and his name is
called aloud by all the people, when the war party returns."
[Illustration: MY GRANDFATHER ... LONG BEFORE HAD GIVEN UP THE WARPATH]
_Lessons of the Prairie._
Once when I was a little older, I was out on the hills one day, watching
the horses. They were feeding quietly, and I lay on a hill and went to
sleep. Suddenly I was awakened by a terrible crash close to my head, and I
knew that a gun had been fired close to me, and I thought that the enemy
had attacked me and were killing me, and would drive off the horses. I was
badly frightened. I sprang to my feet, and started to run to my horse, and
in doing this I ran away from the camp, but before I reached the horse I
heard someone laughing, and when I looked around my uncle sat there on the
ground, with the smoke still coming from his gun. He signed to me to come
to him and sit down, and when I had done so, he said:
"My son, you keep a careless watch. You do not act as a man ought to do.
Instead of sitting here looking over the prairie in all directions to see
if enemies are approaching, or if there are any signs of strange people
being near, you lie here and sleep. I crept up to you and fired my gun, to
see what you would do. You did not stop to see where the noise came from,
nor did you look about to see if enemies were here. You thought only of
saving your body, and started to run away. This is not good. A warrior does
not act like this; he is always watching all about him, to see what is
going to happen, and if he is attacked suddenly, he tries to fight, or, if
he cannot fight, he thinks more of giving warning to the people than he
does of saving himself."
When my uncle spoke to me like this he made me feel bad, for of all people
he was the one whom I most wished to please, and with him I wished to stand
well. I considered a little before I said to him: "I was trying to run to
my horse, and if I had got him I think I should have tried to reach the
camp, and perhaps I should have tried to drive in some of the horses; but I
was badly frightened, for I had been asleep and did not know what had
happened."
"I think you speak truly," said my uncle, "but you should not have gone to
sleep when you were sent out here to watch the horses. Boys who go to sleep
when they ought to be looking over the country, and watching their horses,
or men who get tired and go to sleep when they are on the warpath, never do
much. I should like to have you always alert and watchful."
I made up my mind that I would hold fast to the words which my uncle spoke
to me, and after this would not sleep when I was on herd.
It was not long after this that my uncle again told me to get my arrows,
and come and hunt with him. He told me also to take my robe with me, and
that we would go far up the river and be gone one night. I was glad to go,
and we started.
All through the day we traveled up stream, going in low places, and
traveling cautiously; for, although we were close to the camp, still my
uncle told me no one could be sure that enemies might not be about, and
that we might not be attacked at any time; so we went carefully. If we had
to cross a hill, we crept up to the top of it, and lifted our heads up
little by little, and looked over all the country, to see whether people
were in sight; or game; or to see what the animals might be doing.
Once, when we stopped to rest, my uncle said to me: "Little son, this is
one of the things you must learn; as you travel over the country, always go
carefully, for you do not know that behind the next hill there may not be
some enemy watching, looking over the country to see if someone may not be
about. Therefore, it is well for you always to keep out of sight as much as
you can. If you have to go to the top of the hill, because you wish to see
the country, creep carefully up some ravine, and show yourself as little as
possible. If you have to cross a wide flat, cover yourself with your robe,
and stoop over, walking slowly, so that anyone far off may perhaps think it
is a buffalo that he sees. In this respect the Indians are different from
the white people; they are foolish, and when they travel they go on the
ridges between the streams, because the road is level, and the going easy.
But when they travel in this way everyone can see them from a long way off,
and can hide in the path, and when they approach can shoot at them and kill
them. The white people think that because they cannot see Indians, there
are none about; and this belief has caused many white people to be killed."
As I walked behind my uncle, following him over the prairie, I tried to
watch him, and to imitate everything that he did. If he stopped, I stopped;
if he bent down his head, and went stooping for a little way, I also
stooped, and followed him; when he got down to creep, I, too, crept, so as
to be out of sight.
That day, as the sun fell toward the west, my uncle went down to the river,
and looked along the bank and the mud-bars, trying to learn whether any
animals had been to the water; and when he saw tracks he pointed them out
to me. "This," he said, "is the track of a deer. You see that it has been
going slowly. It is feeding, because it does not go straight ahead, but
goes now in one direction, and then in another, and back a little, not
seeming to have any purpose in its wandering about, and here," showing me a
place where a plant had been bitten off, "is where it was eating. If we
follow along, soon we will see its tracks in the mud by the river." It was
as he had said, and soon, in a little sand-bar, we saw the place where the
animal had stopped. "You see," he said, "this was a big deer; here are his
tracks; here he stopped at the edge of the water to drink; and then he went
on across the river, for there are no tracks leading back to the bank. You
will notice that he was walking; he was not frightened; he did not see nor
smell any enemies."
Further up the river, on a sand-bar, he showed me the tracks of antelope,
where the old ones had walked along quietly, and other smaller tracks,
where the sand had been thrown up; and these marks, he said, were made by
the little kids, which were playing and running.
"Notice carefully," he said, "the tracks that you see, so that you will
remember them, and will know them again. The tracks made by the different
animals are not all alike. The antelope's hoof is sharp-pointed in front.
Notice, too, that when his foot sinks in the mud there is no mark behind
his footprint; while behind the footprint of a deer there are two marks, in
soft ground, made by the little hoofs that the deer has on his foot."
We kept on further up the river, and when night came we stopped, and sat
down in some bushes. All day long we had seen nothing that we could kill;
but from a fold in his robe my uncle drew some dried meat, and we built a
little fire of dried willow brush, that would make no smoke, and over this
we roasted our meat, and ate; and my uncle talked to me again, saying: "My
son, I like to have you come out with me, and travel about over the
country. You have no father to teach you, and I am glad to take you with
me, and to tell you the things that I know. It is a good thing to be a
member of our tribe, and it is a good thing to belong to a good family in
that tribe. You must always remember that you come of good people. Your
father was a brave man, killed fighting bravely against the enemy. I want
you to grow up to be a brave man and a good man. You must love your
relations, and must do everything that you can for them. If the enemy
should attack the village, do not run away; think always first of defending
your own people. You have a mother, and sisters, who will depend on you for
their living, and for their credit. They love you, and you must always try
to do everything that you can for them. Try to learn about hunting, and to
become a good hunter, so that you may support them. But, above all things,
try to live bravely and well, so that people will speak well of you and
your relations will be proud.
"You are only a boy now, but the time will come when you will be a man, and
must act a man's part. Now your relations all respect you. They do not ask
you to do woman's work; they treat you well. You have a good bed, and
whenever you are hungry, food is given you. Do you know why it is that you
are treated in this way? I will tell you. Your relations know that you are
a man, and that you will grow up to go to war, and fight; perhaps often to
be in great danger. They know that perhaps they may not have you long with
them; that soon you may be killed. Perhaps even to-night or to-morrow,
before we get back to the camp, we may be attacked, and may have to fight,
and perhaps to die. It is for this cause that you are treated better than
your sisters; because at any moment you may be taken away. This you should
understand."
After we had eaten it began to grow dark, and pretty soon my uncle stood up
and tied up his waist again, and we set out once more, going up the river.
I wanted to ask my uncle where we were going, but I knew that he had some
reason for moving away from the camp, and before I had spoken to him about
it we had gone a mile or two, and it was quite dark, and we stopped again
in another clump of bushes. Here we sat down, and my uncle said to me: "My
son, here we will sleep. Where we stopped and ate, just before the sun set,
was a good place to camp, but it may be that an enemy was watching from the
top of some hill, and may have seen us go into those bushes. If he did,
perhaps he will creep down there to-night, hoping to kill us; and if there
were several persons they may go down there and surround those bushes. I
did not want to stop there where we might have been seen, and so when it
grew dark we came on here. We will sleep here, but will build no fire."
The next morning, before day broke, my uncle roused me, and we went to the
top of a high hill not far off. We reached it before the sun rose, and lay
on top of it, looking off over the prairie. From here we could see a long
way. Many animals were in view, buffalo and antelope, and down in the river
bottom a herd of elk. For a long time we lay there watching, but everywhere
it was quiet. The animals were not moving; no smokes were seen in the air;
birds were not flying to and fro, as if waiting for the hunter to kill a
buffalo, or for people to fight and kill each other, when they might feed
on the flesh.
After we had watched a long time, my uncle said: "I see no signs of people.
Let us creep down this ravine, and get among the bushes, and perhaps we can
kill one of these elk." We did as he had said; and before very long had
come near to the elk. Then he told me to wait there. I stopped and for a
few moments I could see him creeping up nearer and nearer to the elk.
Presently they started and ran; and one cow turned off to cross the river,
and as she was crossing it she fell in the water.
My uncle stood up and motioned to me to go down to where the elk lay. We
met there and cut up the elk, and my uncle took a big load of meat on his
back, and I a smaller load, and we started back toward the village.
As we were returning, he spoke to me again, saying: "I want you to remember
that of all the advice I give you the chief thing is to be brave. If you
start out with a war party, to attack enemies, do not be afraid. If your
friends are about to make a charge on the enemy, still do not be afraid.
Watch your friends, and see how they act, and try to do as the others do.
Try always to have a good horse, and to be in the front of the fighting. To
be brave is what makes a man. If you are lucky, and count a coup, or kill
an enemy, people will look on you as a man. Do not fear anything. To be
killed in battle is no disgrace. When you fight, try to kill. Ride up close
to your enemy. Do not think that he is going to kill you; think that you
are going to kill him. As you charge, you must be saying to yourself all
the time, 'I will be brave; I will not fear anything.'
"In your life in the camp remember this too; you must always be truthful
and honest with all your people. Never say anything that is not true; never
tell a lie, even for a joke--to make people laugh. When you are in the
company of older people, listen to what they say, and try to remember; thus
you will learn. Do not say very much; it is just as well to let other
people talk while you listen. If you have a friend, cling close to him; and
if need be, give your life for him. Think always of your friend before you
think of yourself."
That night we reached the camp again. My uncle left the meat that he had
killed at my mother's lodge.
_On a Buffalo Horse._
I had lived twelve winters when I did something which made my mother and
all my relations glad; for which they all praised me, and which first
caused my name to be called aloud through the camp.
It was the fall of the year, and the leaves were dropping from the trees.
Long ago the grass had grown yellow; and now sometimes when we awoke in the
morning it was white with frost; little places in the river bottom, where
water had stood in the springtime, and which were still wet, were frozen in
the morning; and all the quiet waters had over them a thin skin of clear
ice. Great flocks of water birds were passing overhead, flying to the
south; and many of them stopped in the streams, resting and feeding. There
were ducks of many sorts, and the larger geese, and the great white birds
with black tips to their wings, and long yellow bills; and the cranes that
fly over, far up in the sky, looking like spots, but whose loud callings
are heard plainly as they pass along. Often we saw flocks of these walking
on the prairie, feeding on the grasshoppers; and sometimes they all stopped
feeding and stuck up their heads, and then began to dance together, almost
as people dance.
We boys used to travel far up and down the bottom, trying to creep up to
the edge of the bank, or to the puddles of water, where the different birds
sat, to get close enough to kill them with our arrows. It was not easy to
do this, for generally the birds saw us before we could get near enough;
and then, often, even if we had the chance to shoot, we missed, and the
birds flew away, and we had to wade out and get back our arrows.
One day I had gone with my friend a long way up the river, and we had tried
several times to kill ducks, but had always missed them. We had come to a
place where the point of a hill ran down close to the river, on our side,
and as we rounded the point of this hill, suddenly we saw close before us
three cranes, standing on the hillside; two of them were gray and further
off, but one quite near to us was still red, by which we knew that it was a
young one. I was ahead of my friend, and as soon as I saw the cranes I drew
my arrow to its head, and shot at the young one, which spread its wings and
flew a few yards, and then came down, lying on the hillside, with its wings
stretched wide, for the arrow had passed through its body. I rushed upon it
and seized it, while the old cranes flew away. Then I was glad, for this
was the largest bird that I had ever killed; and you know that the crane is
a wise bird, and people do not often kill one.
After my friend and I had talked about it, I picked up the bird and put it
on my back, holding the neck in one hand, and letting the legs drag on the
ground behind me; and so we returned to camp. When we reached the village
some of the children saw us coming, and knew me, and ran ahead to my
mother's lodge, and told her that her boy was coming, carrying a great
bird; and she and my sisters came out of the lodge and looked at me. I must
have looked strange, for the crane's wings were partly spread, and hung
down on either side of me; and when I had nearly come to the lodge, my
mother called out: "What is the great bird that is coming to our lodge? I
am afraid of it," and then she and the children ran in the door. Then they
came out again, and when I reached the lodge, all looked at the bird, and
said how big it was, and how fine, and that it must be shown to my uncle
before it was cooked. They sent word to him, asking him to come to the
lodge, and soon he did so, and when he saw what I had killed, he was glad,
and told me that I had done well, and that I was lucky to have killed a
crane. "There are many grown men," said he, "who have never killed a crane;
and you have done well. I wish to have this known."
He called out in a loud voice, and asked Bellowing Cow, a poor old woman,
to come to the lodge and see what his son had done; and he sent one of the
boys back to his lodge, telling him to bring a certain horse. Soon the boy
returned, leading a pony; and when Bellowing Cow had come, my uncle handed
her the rope that was about the pony's neck, and told her to look at this
bird that his son had killed.
"We have had good luck," he said; "my son has killed this wise bird; he is
going to be a good hunter, and will kill much meat. In the time to come,
after he has grown to be a man, his lodge will never lack food. His women
will always have plenty of robes to dress."
Then Bellowing Cow mounted her horse and rode around the village, singing a
song, in which she told how lucky I had been; that I had killed a crane, a
bird that many grown men had not killed; and that I was going to be a good
hunter, and always fortunate in killing food. My uncle did not give the
bird to Bellowing Cow; he kept it, and told my mother to cook it; and he
said to her: "Save for me the wing bones of this bird, and give them to me,
in order that I may make from them two war whistles, which my son may carry
when he has grown old enough to go to war against his enemies."
I was proud of what had happened, and it made me feel big to listen to this
poor old woman as she rode through the village singing her song.
What he did at this time showed some things about my uncle. It showed that
he liked me; it showed that he was proud of what I had done; and it showed,
too, that he was a person of good heart, since he called to see what I had
done a poor old woman who had nothing, and gave her a horse. It would have
been as easy for him to have called some chief or rich man who had plenty
of horses, and then sometime this chief or rich man would have given him a
horse for some favor done him.
I had killed the crane with a pointed arrow, of which I had three, though
in my hunting for little birds I still used blunt arrows. My uncle had made
me another bow, which was almost as large as a man's bow; and I was
practicing with it always, trying to make my right arm strong, to bend it,
so that it might send the arrow with full force.
The next summer, when the tribe had started off to look for buffalo, I
spoke one night to my uncle, as he was sitting alone in his lodge, and said
to him: "Father, is it not now time for me to try to kill buffalo? I am
getting now to be a big boy, and I think big enough to hunt. I should like
to have your opinion about this." For a time he sat smoking and
considering, and then he said: "Son, I think it is time you should begin to
hunt; you are now old enough to do some of the things that men do. I have
watched you, and I have seen that you know how to use the bow. The next
time that we run buffalo, you shall come with me, and we will see what we
can do. You shall ride one of my buffalo horses, and you shall overtake the
buffalo, and then we shall see whether you are strong enough to drive the
arrow far into the animal."
It was not long after this that buffalo were found, and when the tribe went
out to make the surround, my uncle told me to ride one of his horses, and
to keep close to him. As we were going toward the place where the surround
was to be made, he said to me: "Now, to-day we will try to catch calves,
and you shall see whether you can kill one. You may remember this, that if
you shoot an arrow into the calf, and blood begins to come from its mouth,
it will soon die, you need not shoot at it again, but may go on to overtake
another, and kill it. Then, perhaps, after a little while you can chase big
buffalo. One thing you must remember. If you are running buffalo, do not be
afraid of them. Ride your horse close up to the buffalo, as close as you
can, and then let fly the arrow with all your force. If the buffalo turns
to fight, your horse will take you away from it; but, above all things, do
not be afraid; you will not kill buffalo if you are afraid to get close to
them."
We rode on, and before the surround was made we could see the yellow calves
bunched up at one side of the herd. My uncle pointed them out to me, and
said, "Now, when the herd starts, try to get among those calves, and
remember all that I have told you."