Shinbone had come home from a war party with blackened face and taken
the rank of chief. No wonder, the people were saying. Had not the
Thunder-bird adopted him when as a young man he prayed and thirsted for
a revelation? Men must undergo suffering if they wanted supernatural
blessing so that they could become great men among their people. Of all
the Crow chiefs, only Drags-the-wolf had been in luck: him the Moon
visited as he was peacefully slumbering in his tent and granted him
invulnerability and coups. The other distinguished warriors had had to
mortify their flesh in order to gain favor.
That spring the herald proclaimed that Red-eye was going to hold a
Sun Dance. He had lost a brother and was hungering for revenge. What
surer way to attain it than to fast and dance before the sacred doll
till it became alive and showed him a scalped Dakota in earnest of
victory and vengeance? But Red-eye’s announcement was a signal for
all the ambitious youths to plan for a public mortification of their
flesh at the same time in the hope of winning supernatural favor. So,
while the pledger of the ceremony was dancing up and down with his gaze
riveted on the holy image in the rear of the lodge, a dozen young men
were undergoing torture for their own ends. Some were dragging through
camp two buffalo skulls fastened to a stick thrust through holes cut
in their backs. Others—and Takes-the-pipe among them—decided to swing
from the lodge poles. So he begged Sharp-horn to pierce the flesh above
his breasts, run skewers through the openings, and tie the rods to
ropes hung from a pole. Thus attached he ran back and forth till he had
torn out the skewers. Yet when he had fallen to the ground faint and
bloodstained no vision came for all his pains.
He wanted to become a chief like Shinbone, so he went on a mountain
peak to fast. Without clothes save his gee-string and a buffalo robe,
he slept there overnight. He awoke early, the sun had just risen. He
took a piece of wood and put on it his left forefinger. “Sun,” he
cried, “I am miserable. I am giving you this. Make me a chief!” With a
huge knife he hacked off the first joint. The blood began to flow. He
lost consciousness. When he came to, it was evening. His finger ached.
He tried to sleep, but the pain and cold kept him awake. Of a sudden
he heard a man clearing his throat and a horse’s neighing came closer
and closer. A voice behind him said, “The one whom you wanted to come
has arrived.” He turned about. He saw a man on a bay horse; his face
was painted red and he wore a shirt with many discs cut out from its
body, yet hanging from it as though by a thread. From the back of his
head rose a chicken-hawk feather. The rider said, “You are miserable. I
have been looking for you for a long time but could never quite reach
you. I will adopt you as my child. Look! I am going to run.” He began
to gallop; the dust flew to the sky. Then the trees and shrubs all
about turned into Piegans began shooting at the horseman. Arrows came
whizzing by him and bullets flew round him and the enemies were yelling
after him, but he wheeled round unscathed. With his spear he knocked
down one warrior and counted coup on him. He rode up to Takes-the-pipe:
“Though you fight all the people of the world, dress as I do and you
need have no fear of death before you are a chief. That man I struck is
a Piegan; you have seen his country, go there, I give him to you. As I
am, so shall you be; arrows will not hurt you, bullets you can laugh
at. You shall be like a rock. But one thing you must not do: never eat
of any animal’s kidneys.”
When Takes-the-pipe got back to his people, he was very glad. Two
things remained to be done before he might call himself chief: one was
to lead a victorious war party, the other to cut a picketed horse.
His vision enabled him forthwith to play a captain’s part. He shot a
chicken-hawk and took one of its feathers to be worn at the back of
his head on his expeditions. He prepared a shirt like the one he had
seen and a spear that resembled exactly that borne by his patron. Then
he gathered his war party. His sisters and other Sore-lip women made
moccasins galore for him. He set out in the dead of night. For several
days they traveled north and west. On the Missouri they ran into a few
Piegans in a hunting-lodge. They killed them all and took their scalps.
Thus they could return with blackened faces. One of the enemies had a
thumbless hand, so the year was known ever after as “the winter when
they killed the thumbless man.”
V
He had been wounded in the knee. He could not understand it. He had
been promised that his body would be like stone. He had worn his
feather at the back of his head, as in every fight since the time of
his vision, yet his kneecap had been shattered in a skirmish with the
Dakota. And it was an ugly injury. Red-eye had salved it with bear
root, but the cure-all had failed. Bullsnake, foremost of doctors,
blessed by the buffalo, had waded into the river to wash his knee, but
all in vain; he remained crippled. Then he knew that he had unwittingly
broken his guardian spirit’s rule; there had been a feast before the
fatal battle and then he must have eaten of the forbidden food.
Soon there came surety. In a dream appeared the man on the bay horse
and said: “I told you not to eat kidney, you have eaten it. You shall
never be chief.” Takes-the-pipe had now struck many coups and captured
guns and carried the captain’s pipe. His record surpassed that of any
man of his age, but he lacked the honor of cutting a picketed horse.
How could he ever gain it now? Horse-raiders started on foot, and he
could only painfully limp across the camp.
Young women, drawn by his fame, often visited him in his tent, but
their attentions soon palled on him. His mother tried to console him.
“Of all the young men you are the best-off; you have struck more coups
than the rest and own plenty of horses; the young women are crazy about
you. You ought to be the happiest man in camp.” But he would watch the
bustle of preparations for new raids that he could not join; he would
ride about of an evening and chance upon the foot-soldiers setting
out from their trysting-place, and would look after them, wistful and
envious and sick at heart.
Sharp-horn, the aged sage, advised him to go for another vision;
possibly the guardian spirit would relent. So Takes-the-pipe started
out on horseback and rode far away towards the mountain where he had
prayed before. At the foot he hobbled his horse and painfully climbed
to the summit. He lay down, with outstretched arms, facing the sky.
“Father,” he wailed, “I am miserable, take pity on me.” He lay there
during the night but at the first glimmer of dawn there was still no
message from the mysterious powers. All day he stayed about the jagged
bowlders without drink or a morsel to eat.
Long after nightfall a muffled tread became audible and as it came
closer it was the tramp of a buffalo. Then a bull was standing over
him, scenting his breath and caressing his naked breast with shaggy
fur. At last he spoke in Crow. “I will adopt you my son. I have seen
you suffering from afar. What other Indians have prayed for shall be
yours. Look at the inside of my mouth.” He looked and there was not a
tooth to be seen. “So long as you have teeth, my son, you shall not
die. You shall marry a fine, chaste, young woman and beget children and
see your grandchildren about you. When you die you shall be so old
that your skin will crack as you move from one corner of the lodge to
another.”
But Takes-the-pipe shook his head and said, “Father, it is not because
I crave old age that I am thirsting; I want to be a chief like
Shinbone.”
“My son, what you ask is difficult. As I hurried to you from my home, I
overtook another person traveling towards you; perhaps you will still
be able to get what you desire.” Takes-the-pipe sat up to ask further
counsel, but the bull was gone and nothing but a bleached buffalo skull
was gaping at him in the gloaming.
All next day he fasted and prayed on his peak, addressing now the Sun,
then the Thunder, then again the Morningstar. His throat was parched
when he lay down at dark in his old resting place. He did not know
how, but of a sudden the darkness was lifted and the hilltop shone
with a gentle radiance. An old woman was standing at his feet, resting
on a digging-stick; she wore a splendid robe with horsetracks marked
on it in porcupine-quill embroidery. “My child,” she said, “you have
not called me, nevertheless I am here. I heard your groans and started
towards you but another person passed me on the road. I am the Moon.
When children fall sick, doctor them with this root; their parents will
give you horses. I will make you the wealthiest of all the Crows.”
But Takes-the-pipe shook his head and answered, “Grandmother, I am not
suffering to gain wealth, I want to become a chief like Shinbone.”
“My dear child, you are asking for something great. As I came hither,
I saw another person starting to come here. Perhaps he has more power
than I, and can grant your wish.” He was eager to ask her more, but
her form faded into nothing and only the sheen of the waning crescent
remained visible.
Another day he fasted and drank no water. He was now very weak, so that
he dragged himself about with the aid of a cane. Was there no power
to help him in his distress? Night came as he lay wailing and peering
into the darkness, when a handsome young man stood before him. “I was
sleeping far away, you have roused me with your lamentations,” he said.
“I have come to help you. You shall be my son. Do you recognize me?
I am the Tobacco your old people plant every year. So long as they
harvest me, the Crow shall be a great tribe. They have forgotten the
way to prepare the seed, their crops will be poor. I will show you how
to mix it before planting. Then you will make your tribe great and
teach others and receive all sorts of property in payment.”
And Takes-the-pipe answered; “Father, I am not suffering in order to
plant tobacco and gain property, I want to be a chief like Shinbone.”
Then the man replied, “My son, everything else in the universe is easy
for me, only what you ask for is hard. That one who used to be your
father is very strong. ‘Don’t eat kidney,’ he said. You have eaten it.
I cannot make you chief. Listen, my son. All things in the world go by
fours. Three of us have come to help you. We have been powerless. A
fourth one is coming, perhaps he can do it.”
The next day Takes-the-pipe could hardly crawl on all fours. His head
swam. He seized his knife and chopped off another finger joint on his
left hand. Then holding aloft the bleeding stump he cried, “Fathers, I
am giving you this. Make me a chief!”
Suddenly a huge figure came panting toward him, shaking a rattle and
singing a song. “I am the last,” said a big bear; “though I am heavy
and slow, I have arrived.”
Takes-the-pipe called out to him joyfully, “Father, I knew you were
coming. Cure my knee so that I can go out to cut a picketed horse and
become a chief.”
“My son, the one who used to be your father is very strong. He does not
want you to be a chief. Well, I too am strong. If you are a man, I can
help you. If you are faint-hearted, I am powerless.”
“Father,” said Takes-the-pipe, “make me great; make me greater than
other men, and if I die what matters it?”
“My son, there are many chiefs in camp; of _your_ kind there shall
be but one. Tell me, have you ever seen the whole world?” Without
waiting for an answer, the bear lifted him up. Mountains and streams
and prairies and camps came into his vision. The berries were ripe and
the Crow camp loomed in sight and the Tobacco society were harvesting
the precious seed. Far away were hostile lodges. Then the leaves were
turning yellow and the enemy were setting out to raid Crow horses.
One Crow all alone was riding towards them. “My son, do you see that
horseman with trailing sashes? They were trying to hold him back, he
has broken loose. He could not be a chief; he wants to die. He is a
Crazy Dog. He speaks ‘backward’; he cares little for the rules of the
camp. Where there is danger, he is the foremost. Dress like him, act
like him, and you shall be great. The people will speak of you so long
as there are Crows living on this earth. This I will give you if your
heart is strong.”
“Thanks, father, thanks! What you have shown me is great; I will do it.
I wanted to live and be a chief. It cannot be. There is no way for me
to live; I shall die as a Crazy Dog.”
Then the bear vanished.