Soon after breakfast mother sometimes began her beadwork. On a bright,
clear day, she pulled out the wooden pegs that pinned the skirt of our
wigwam to the ground, and rolled the canvas part way up on its frame of
slender poles. Then the cool morning breezes swept freely through our
dwelling, now and then wafting the perfume of sweet grasses from newly
burnt prairie.
Untying the long tasseled strings that bound a small brown buckskin bag,
my mother spread upon a mat beside her bunches of colored beads, just as
an artist arranges the paints upon his palette. On a lapboard she
smoothed out a double sheet of soft white buckskin; and drawing from a
beaded case that hung on the left of her wide belt a long, narrow blade,
she trimmed the buckskin into shape. Often she worked upon small
moccasins for her small daughter. Then I became intensely interested in
her designing. With a proud, beaming face, I watched her work. In
imagination, I saw myself walking in a new pair of snugly fitting
moccasins. I felt the envious eyes of my playmates upon the pretty red
beads decorating my feet.
Close beside my mother I sat on a rug, with a scrap of buckskin in one
hand and an awl in the other. This was the beginning of my practical
observation lessons in the art of beadwork. From a skein of finely
twisted threads of silvery sinews my mother pulled out a single one.
With an awl she pierced the buckskin, and skillfully threaded it with
the white sinew. Picking up the tiny beads one by one, she strung them
with the point of her thread, always twisting it carefully after every
stitch.
It took many trials before I learned how to knot my sinew thread on the
point of my finger, as I saw her do. Then the next difficulty was in
keeping my thread stiffly twisted, so that I could easily string my
beads upon it. My mother required of me original designs for my lessons
in beading. At first I frequently ensnared many a sunny hour into
working a long design. Soon I learned from self-inflicted punishment to
refrain from drawing complex patterns, for I had to finish whatever I
began.
After some experience I usually drew easy and simple crosses and
squares. These were some of the set forms. My original designs were not
always symmetrical nor sufficiently characteristic, two faults with
which my mother had little patience. The quietness of her oversight made
me feel strongly responsible and dependent upon my own judgment. She
treated me as a dignified little individual as long as I was on my good
behavior; and how humiliated I was when some boldness of mine drew forth
a rebuke from her!
In the choice of colors she left me to my own taste. I was pleased with
an outline of yellow upon a background of dark blue, or a combination of
red and myrtle-green. There was another of red with a bluish-gray that
was more conventionally used. When I became a little familiar with
designing and the various pleasing combinations of color, a harder
lesson was given me. It was the sewing on, instead of beads, some tinted
porcupine quills, moistened and flattened between the nails of the thumb
and forefinger. My mother cut off the prickly ends and burned them at
once in the centre fire. These sharp points were poisonous, and worked
into the flesh wherever they lodged. For this reason, my mother said, I
should not do much alone in quills until I was as tall as my cousin
Warca-Ziwin.
Always after these confining lessons I was wild with surplus spirits,
and found joyous relief in running loose in the open again. Many a
summer afternoon a party of four or five of my playmates roamed over the
hills with me. We each carried a light sharpened rod about four feet
long, with which we pried up certain sweet roots. When we had eaten all
the choice roots we chanced upon, we shouldered our rods and strayed off
into patches of a stalky plant under whose yellow blossoms we found
little crystal drops of gum. Drop by drop we gathered this nature's
rock-candy, until each of us could boast of a lump the size of a small
bird's egg. Soon satiated with its woody flavor, we tossed away our gum,
to return again to the sweet roots.
I remember well how we used to exchange our necklaces, beaded belts, and
sometimes even our moccasins. We pretended to offer them as gifts to one
another. We delighted in impersonating our own mothers. We talked of
things we had heard them say in their conversations. We imitated their
various manners, even to the inflection of their voices. In the lap of
the prairie we seated ourselves upon our feet, and leaning our painted
cheeks in the palms of our hands, we rested our elbows on our knees, and
bent forward as old women were most accustomed to do.
While one was telling of some heroic deed recently done by a near
relative, the rest of us listened attentively, and exclaimed in
undertones, "Han! han!" (yes! yes!) whenever the speaker paused for
breath, or sometimes for our sympathy. As the discourse became more
thrilling, according to our ideas, we raised our voices in these
interjections. In these impersonations our parents were led to say only
those things that were in common favor.
No matter how exciting a tale we might be rehearsing, the mere shifting
of a cloud shadow in the landscape near by was sufficient to change our
impulses; and soon we were all chasing the great shadows that played
among the hills. We shouted and whooped in the chase; laughing and
calling to one another, we were like little sportive nymphs on that
Dakota sea of rolling green.
On one occasion I forgot the cloud shadow in a strange notion to catch
up with my own shadow. Standing straight and still, I began to glide
after it, putting out one foot cautiously. When, with the greatest care,
I set my foot in advance of myself, my shadow crept onward too. Then
again I tried it; this time with the other foot. Still again my shadow
escaped me. I began to run; and away flew my shadow, always just a step
beyond me. Faster and faster I ran, setting my teeth and clenching my
fists, determined to overtake my own fleet shadow. But ever swifter it
glided before me, while I was growing breathless and hot. Slackening my
speed, I was greatly vexed that my shadow should check its pace also.
Daring it to the utmost, as I thought, I sat down upon a rock imbedded
in the hillside.
So! my shadow had the impudence to sit down beside me!
Now my comrades caught up with me, and began to ask why I was running
away so fast.
"Oh, I was chasing my shadow! Didn't you ever do that?" I inquired,
surprised that they should not understand.
They planted their moccasined feet firmly upon my shadow to stay it, and
I arose. Again my shadow slipped away, and moved as often as I did. Then
we gave up trying to catch my shadow.
Before this peculiar experience I have no distinct memory of having
recognized any vital bond between myself and my own shadow. I never gave
it an afterthought.
Returning our borrowed belts and trinkets, we rambled homeward. That
evening, as on other evenings, I went to sleep over my legends.