Wakon Tonka: The people could not do anything right unless the Great
Mysterious One helped them; and for this they prayed and made sacred
songs and dances, and had a sacred way for doing everything. When a boy
was just beginning to be a man, he had to go on vision quest; for what
he saw would show him the good road and give him power, so that his
life might be a story good to tell. I was thinking of my vision when
you bothered me.”
He was silent again while he filled his pipe and lit it. Then, drawing
hollow-cheeked upon the stem, he smoked awhile and brooded in the
little cloud he made.
“_Dho!_” he said at length, uttering with explosive force the syllable
of emphasis on something said or thought. “_Dho!_” Passing the pipe
to me, he resumed aloud the tenor of his brooding. “It is so! Are the
people good, and do they get along together any more? The hoop is
broken and the people have forgotten. There is no voice on any hill to
tell them, and they have no ears to hear.
“The hoop was breaking even then when I was happy and a boy; but then I
did not know it, for the world was still as big as day, and Wakon Tonka
could be found on any hill, and something wonderful could happen.
“After the Attacking of the Wagons the soldiers went away and our
warriors burned their towns. And when the grass was new again there
was a treaty with the Father in Washington. He said our land would be
ours and no Wasichu could ever come there. You can see his tongue was
forked. Red Cloud was not with us any more. The Great Father made an
Agency for him on the North Platte. And that was bad; for many of our
people went down there to eat Wasichu food, and take the many presents
the Great Father gave them. And these they traded for the _minne
sheetsha_ [bad water, whiskey] that made them crazy, so that they
forgot the Mother of all and the bison and the sacred hoop.
“But our Bad Face band that had been Red Cloud’s people would not go.
Big Road was with us, and Little Hawk and Black Twin. Also Crazy Horse
was ours; and now I see that he was greatest of them all. Sometimes
some of our young men would go down there to get new guns and lead and
powder, and what they told, the people talked and talked about it, and
some of it I heard; but it was like a story. I think there were fifty
lodges of us, and we lived the old way in the bison country of the
Tongue and the Powder and the Rosebud; and with us were the Miniconjous
and the Sans Arcs. I remember how they said the loafers and Wasichus at
the Agency made fun of us and called us the wild Lakota; but they were
the foolish ones. The hoop we lived in had grown smaller, but it was
not broken yet, and the voices of the seven tepees were not still.
“I was getting stronger fast and I think it was about the time when Red
Cloud made the treaty that I got my first calf. The treaty was just
something people said, a little thing a long way off that maybe was not
so; but the calf was very big. I gave the meat to old people, and they
praised me, so that my grandmother and my grandfather and my mother
were proud of me.
“There were more snows and grasses and I was getting tall when I heard
Looks Twice telling my mother about Red Cloud’s long journey to see the
Great Father and of the strange things that he saw in the world of the
Wasichus where the sun comes from. Looks Twice was my father then, and
my grandparents did not live with us, but he took care of them, and he
was good to me and taught me many things about hunting and war.
“What he told about Red Cloud was like an _ohunka_ story the old folk
tell only at night, and it is wonderful to stay awake and listen, but
only little children must believe it. There were so many Wasichu towns
yonder where the Great Father lived and the sun comes from that they
could not be counted; and so big they were that a horseback could ride
and ride and always stay in the town. And in those towns the Wasichus
were as many as the bison when they follow the grass all together.
And the tepees were made of stone, tepee on top of tepee, so that
if you would see the top, you must look far up and then look again,
and sometimes after that, again. And there was more and more about
the great medicine power of the Wasichus. There were big iron horses
breathing smoke and fire, and there was a gun so long and heavy that
maybe a hundred men could not lift it, and when it shot, there was a
great thunder cloud full of lightning, and the whole sky was full of
thunder. And the story got bigger, the more it was told; for on the
other side of a great water that was like all the prairie without
grass, there were more and more Wasichus, more and more towns of stone.
“I could look around and see the world was just as it always was. Maybe
Red Cloud was getting to be a Wasichu with a forked tongue like all
the others. People said he had worn Wasichu clothes yonder and looked
foolish. He was not ours any more and we did not like him.
“I think I was about thirteen winters old, and I was a big boy. You can
see that I was tall before so many snows bent me down, and then I was
almost a man. I could swim farther under water than most boys, and when
we played throwing-them-off-their-horses, only an older boy could throw
me off. I liked to fight, and I wanted to go to war; but Looks Twice,
who was my second father, said I would be ready after another snow and
that I ought to go on vision quest first. It made me feel bad when he
went with a war party against the Shoshonis and told me to stay at home
and look after the horses. And I felt worse when he came back with a
scalp on his coup-stick and some more good horses. He always took me
hunting with him, and I could kill a cow, but it was not easy for me
yet, and he would come and finish killing one that was getting away
from me. Sometimes he could shoot an arrow clear through a cow if the
point did not strike a bone.
“Of course, I played all the games with the other boys, but we
all wanted to go to war, and we would get tired playing. In the
winter before the deep snow had covered the ice, we would play
_chun-wachee-kyapi_ [make-the-wood-dance]. We had short round pieces of
wood with sharp points on them [tops], and when we wrapped them with
a long piece of sinew and threw them, they would spin on the ice, and
we tried to break the dancing woods of the other boys by making ours
dance against theirs. Or we would get tired doing that and maybe play
ice-mark. We would fasten pieces of hard rawhide on our moccasins, then
run and slide to see who could slide farthest. Or we would make little
sleds with two buffalo ribs fastened together, with two feathers to
guide them; and these we would throw on the ice to see whose would go
farthest. We called this _huta-nachuta_, but I never knew why. Then
maybe if we got tired doing that we would have a war, dividing up and
fighting with blunt arrows; or maybe we would put mud balls on willow
sticks and throw them at each other. Sometimes we would have very hard
fights, and boys would get hurt; but they did not care.
“There was another game that showed how brave we were. It could be
played with dry sunflower seeds or pieces of dry rotten wood that would
keep on burning without a flame. A boy would hold out his hand and they
would put the burning piece on the back of it. If his hand shook or he
made a face or brushed the piece off, he lost the game and some other
boy tried it. Sometimes when a boy was very brave this made a big sore,
and he was very proud of it.
“When the snow was deep and it was very cold, it was good to lie back
against the tepee wall with the wind outside sending forth a voice like
a bull, and listen to the men telling stories about war and hunting
and brave deeds. They would come over to eat and smoke, and sometimes
they would stay so long I did not know when they went. If they got to
arguing about something, I would just roll up--and go to sleep; then
it would be morning and they would not be there. I was hungry for the
stories, but they made me want to go out and do something that would
make a story with me in it.
“We had been camping on the Greasy Grass. The tender grasses had
appeared and were a handbreadth high in the valley; and the tops of the
hills were greening a little. Then my grandfather came over and talked
about me with my new father; and they said it was time for me to seek
a vision. So my new father caught a couple of his best horses--both of
them young--and took them as a gift to an old _wichasha wakon_ [holy
man], whose name was Blue Spotted Horse. When the old man had accepted
the gift for what he was going to do, my father and grandfather took me
over to his tepee. He could not see very well, and he was so old that
he had something like new moons in his eyes. He looked at me a long
while, and it made me feel queer, because I thought it might be a ghost
behind me that he was seeing. Afterwhile he said: ‘Let a sweat-lodge be
prepared for this young man, and when he has been cleansed, bring him
here, and I will teach him.’
“So there were two friends who made a sweat-lodge for me with willow
boughs bent over like a cup upside down, and over this they fastened
rawhide. At the opening of the lodge they set a stick with a piece of
red cloth at the top for a sacred offering to the Spirit. Then they
heated rocks in a fire, and when they had put these in the center of
the little lodge, they poured water on them, and I had to go into the
steam and close the flap tight. I felt like crying when I was in there
again, because the other time was when my father went away and I saw
him in my dream under the scaffold. Afterwhile they told me to come
out. Then they rubbed me with sacred sage until I was dry and felt good
all over. After that they gave me a buffalo robe to put around me and
took me back to Blue Spotted Horse, and went away.
“I felt queer again and a little scared while I sat there all alone
with the old man in his tepee, and maybe a ghost behind me that he was
seeing. When he had looked at me that way for a long time and I wanted
to get up and run away, he said: ‘This is a sacred thing you are doing,
and if the heart is not good something very bad will happen. But do not
be afraid, for I have seen into your heart. Already you have fed old
people, and you want to be a man they all praise. While you were in the
sweat-lodge your father came to me, and he will help you on the hill.
So do not be afraid, and I will teach you.’
“Then he filled a pipe and lit it; and after he had presented the
stem to the four quarters of the world and the Great Mysterious One
above and Maka, the mother earth, he held the stem to me and I touched
it with my mouth. When I did that, I could feel a power running all
through me and up my backbone into my hair.
“Then he taught me what I must know to go on vision quest. I did not
learn it all then, but I heard it again when I was older, and this is
what he told me.
“There is a great hoop; and so big it is that everything is in it, for
it is the hoop of the universe, and all that live in it are relatives.
When you stand on a high hill and look all around, you can see its
shape and know that it is so. This hoop has four quarters, and each is
sacred, for each has a mysterious power of its own, and it is by those
powers that we live. Also each quarter has its sacred objects and a
color, and these stand for its power.
“First is the place where the sun goes down. Its color is blue like the
thunder clouds, and it has the power to make live and to destroy. The
bow is for the lightning that destroys, and the wooden cup is for the
rain that makes live.
“Next is the place where the great white giant lives, and its color is
white like the snows. It has the power of healing, for thence come the
cleansing winds of the winter. The white wing of the goose stands for
that wind of cleansing and a sacred white herb for the healing.
“Next is the place whence comes the light, where all the days of men
are born; and its color is red like the sunrise. It has the power of
wisdom and the power of peace. The morning star stands for wisdom, for
it brings the light that we may see and understand; and the pipe is for
the peace that understanding gives.
“Next is the place of the summer, and the color of it is yellow like
the sun. Thence comes the power to grow and flourish. The sacred staff
of six branches is for the power to grow, and the little hoop is for
the life of the people who flourish as one.
“Then at the place whence comes the power to grow, a road begins, the
good red road of spirit that all men should know; and it runs straight
across the hoop of the world to the place whence comes the power of
cleansing and healing, to the place of white hairs and the cold and the
cleansing of old age.
“And then there is a second road, the hard black road of difficulties
that all men must travel. It begins at the place whence come the days
of men, and it runs straight across the hoop of this world to the place
where the sun goes down and all the days of men have gone and all their
days shall go; far beyond is the other world, the world of spirit. It
is a hard road to travel, a road of trouble and need. But where this
black road of difficulties crosses the good red road of spirit at the
center of the hoop of the world, that place is very holy, and there
springs the Tree of Life. For those who look upon the Tree, it shall
fill with leaves and bloom and singing birds; and it shall shield them
as a _sheo_ [prairie hen] shields her chickens.
“While Blue Spotted Horse was telling me this, he drew the hoop and the
roads with his finger in the ashes by the fire, and I could see it all
as from a high place, like a picture.
“Then he told me how I must pray on the hill. Always before I pray I
must lift both hands high with my pipe in the right, and send forth a
voice four times--‘_hey-a-hey, hey-a-hey, hey-a-hey, hey-a-hey!_’ First
I should pray at the place where the sun goes down; then at the place
whence come the cleansing and healing; next where the light comes from
and the days of men begin; and after that where lives the power to
grow; and I should ask each power in turn to help me.
“Then I must walk the red road of spirit to the center of the hoop of
the world, and there I must present my pipe and pray for help to Wakon
Tonka. And when I have done this, I must remember the ground, the
mother of all, who has shown mercy to her children; I must lean low
and present my pipe to Maka, the earth, the only mother, and ask her to
help me; for my body is hers and I am her son.
“When I have done all this, I have only begun; for after I have rested
awhile, I must do it all over again. I must walk the black road to the
sundown and pray; then back to the holiest place in the center; then up
the red road to the quarter of cleansing, and pray; then back again to
the center and over the black road to the light and the beginning of
days. I must pray there, and return; and last, I must walk the red road
to the place where lives the power to grow. And when I have returned to
the holiest place at the center and prayed, I can rest awhile and think
hard about what I am doing.
“I cannot eat anything while I am on the hill, but I can have some
water; and I must stay awake as long as I am able. Afterwhile I shall
be crying, but I must keep right on, for that is when the praying
begins to have power.
“Then Blue Spotted Horse taught me a prayer that I must offer to Wakon
Tonka at the center of the hoop, and I said it after him six times.
There is great power in that prayer, and I could feel it even then when
I was a boy. Maybe you will learn it, Grandson, Wasichu though you are,
and it will help you to find the good red road and to do what you must
do in this world. But when I had said it six times, all at once I was
afraid; for what would happen if I could not remember it all!
“I did not say anything about this, but Blue Spotted Horse looked hard
at me awhile; and then he smiled, just like my own grandfather, and he
said: ‘Do not be afraid, Grandson, for Wakon Tonka will remember all
that you forget. There is one, there is no other, and all things are
in Wakon Tonka. The powers are only the ways the one makes all things
live. Take this pipe; hold fast to it and never let it go, for on this
will you depend. Now you will go forth to the hill, and do as I have
taught you. I will be with you there unseen; and when your prayers
are heard, I will send the friends to bring you here. To me alone the
vision shall be told.’
“He looked so kind when I took the pipe that I was not afraid of him at
all. So I said: ‘_Palamo yelo, tonka schla_--thank you, Grandfather.’
And as I got up and went forth into the slanting day I felt lighter on
my feet than I had ever felt before.”
VIII
“_Hold Fast; There Is More!_”
“_Dho!_” said Eagle Voice musingly, as he came slowly out of his inner
solitude; “I felt queer and light when I left the _wakon’s_ tepee, and
wherever I looked there was a strangeness like dreaming; and the sun
was getting low.
“The two friends were waiting there with a sorrel horse all saddled and
painted in a sacred manner for me. On his forehead was a thin new moon,
because he was facing the world of spirit where the new moons lead; on
his rump was the morning star to shine from behind me upon the dark
road ahead; on his left flank was the sacred hoop; and on his right
flank was the white wing of the goose.
“The friends did not say anything. They just took hold of me and set
me in the saddle; and then we started for the hill of vision. The one
who walked ahead to show the way was carrying the offerings for where
the sun goes down--the bow and wooden cup--, and for the place of
cleansing--the white wing and the herb. The other walked behind me with
a morning star made of rawhide for where the light and the days of men
are born; the hoop and staff for where the growing power lives. I held
the pipe; and I was holding it very tight with both hands in front of
me, for on that must I depend. It was a sacred, fearful thing that I
was doing, and although my legs were getting long there was still a
little boy inside me. I did not look where we were going. I just looked
hard at the pipe, and held it tight. There were four painted strips
of skin hanging from the stem, blue, white, red, and yellow for the
quarters and the powers. Also from the stem a long wing feather of an
eagle hung, and that was for the Great Mysterious One. Last, upon the
mouthpiece was the bison hide, and that was for the breast of Maka
where all that live, with legs or wings or roots or fins, are little
children nursing. I did not understand it all till I was older, but I
could feel the power in the pipe.
“The sun was shining bright and level across the world, getting ready
to go under, when we came to the hill standing high and alone, with
shadows gathered around it like a blanket and die last of day upon its
head. I felt an aching in my breast, for it was like the time we took
my father to the scaffold on the hill.
“When we came to the top I could see that the friends had prepared
the place for me. It was flat, and they had dug a hole there as deep
as to my waist, and round about it sacred sage was scattered. Then,
with the hole for center, they had made a circle, maybe fifteen steps
across, and at each quarter a stick was set, each with the proper color
on it--blue, white, red, yellow. There were strips of painted rawhide
for the black road and the red; and where these crossed at the holiest
place in the center the two friends put me down. Then when they had
placed the offerings at the proper quarters, they left a skin-bag full
of water, and went away down the hill leading the horse. They did not
say anything to me, and they did not look back. It was the way they
would have done if I were dead up there and lying on a scaffold.
“With my robe about my shoulders, I stood in the hole up to my hips,
holding the pipe in front of me. I watched the round red sun slip
under. A thin new moon appeared low down and like a ghost. It looked
lost and lonely yonder going to the spirit world. Some wolves mourned.
I remembered I had heard the criers calling to the people that the
village would move next day. The stars got brighter. The night was big
and empty when the wolves were still. The thin new moon touched the
edge of the world and sank. All at once I wanted to get out of the
hole and run and run back to my people before they went away. Then I
remembered my pipe. I must hold fast to it. On it must I depend. So
I held it as tight as I could, and right away I could feel the power
running all through me again, up my back and into my hair. I remembered
the _wakon_ said he would be with me, and that my father would help
me on the hill. I could almost hear him saying, ‘Never be afraid of
anything.’
“Then all at once everything was different, and I felt like praying.
So I threw back my robe and started naked for the quarter of the
sunset where the bow and cup were hanging; and as I went, the world
was a great shining bubble and in the midst of it the pipe and I were
floating. At the blue quarter I raised both hands with the pipe in my
right and cried out to the power that makes live and destroys, the
power of the rain and the lightning. Four times I cried, ‘_hey-a-hey_.’
Between the cries I waited and listened, but it was so far out yonder
that no voice came back. And when I cried, ‘Lean close and hear and
help me,’ there was nothing.
“I walked backward to the center and waited there awhile with my face
to the white quarter, where the goose’s wing and the white herb hung.
Then I went there, and, as before, I raised my hands and the pipe,
crying out four times and asking the power of cleansing and healing to
hear and help me. But the world was a big, empty bubble, and no voice
came back. At the red quarter of the morning star and the sunrise,
where the light is born and the days of men begin, I cried out four
times and asked for help; but there was nothing. At the yellow quarter,
where the sacred hoop and tree were set, I called upon the growing
power for help. The voice I sent forth went far, so far it could never
return, and there was stillness. When I stood in the hole at the most
sacred place in the center and raised my face and my hands and the
pipe, and prayed the prayer Blue Spotted Horse had taught me, there was
nothing. And there was nothing when I leaned with my face and my hands
and the pipe on Maka’s breast and asked the mother of all to help me.
“I prayed around the hoop again and again, but still there was nothing.
So I stood in the hole for a while and thought hard about what I was
doing. It was not easy to find a vision, and I must try and try until
I found it--like getting the first deer or the first bison calf, only
harder, maybe. Pretty soon I was not thinking about the vision at
all. I was in the brush by the waterhole and the deer was coming down
with the fawn to drink. The cow was chasing Whirlwind and me up the
hillside. I was coming into the camp with the haunch of the fawn on my
shoulder. My grandmother was jumping up and down crying: ‘Oh, see the
vision our grandson has brought us!’ Only it was not my grandmother,
but the _wakon_ looking that queer way at me. ‘If the heart is not good
something very bad will happen.’
“My head jerked, and at first I did not know where I was. Then I
remembered my pipe and held it tight and began my praying all over
again. I did that all night long, advancing to each of the quarters in
turn and back to the center. I did not rest long there, because I had
to stay awake as long as I was able. I got so tired and sleepy that
sometimes I would forget what I was saying; then I would remember the
old _wakon’s_ eyes with the new moons upside down in them and the queer
look, and then I would hold my pipe as tight as I could, and go ahead.
Sometimes the coyotes would mock me when I waited and listened between
cries, but that is all there was.
“The night was like always, until all at once there was the morning
star out yonder and a pale streak of day beneath it. It was looking
at me the way it did when I ’woke beside my father’s scaffold. I
remembered how I tried to hold him fast in the dream, but he melted
away and the buffalo-runner too.
“When I got back to the center that time I was crying a little, and
when I put my hands and my pipe and my face on Maka’s breast and asked
for help, I cried harder, because I was sad for my father, and the
grass on my face was soft like my own mother’s breast when I was little.
“When I looked again the sun was shining. Something was happening away
off yonder. There was a big whirling cloud of dust, and things were
flying around in it. Then I saw that the cloud was full of coup-sticks
with scalps on them, and they were flying about in the cloud and the
cloud was the whirling dust of many hoofs in a battle.
“I looked until it was not there any more. Then there was a voice above
and behind me that said, ‘Hold fast to your pipe, for there is more.’
When I turned to see whose voice that was, it was an eagle soaring low
and looking back at me until it was not there.