Hanabi and her friends went to work to make me some better clothes.
Very soon they had a fine suit ready.
The trousers part was made somewhat like the chaps worn by cowboys,
being open in front, with no seat; but on the sides they had
wedge-shaped strips that ran up and fastened to the belt. These
leggings fitted pretty tight, but there was a seam about as wide as
my hand that could be let out if necessary. They gave me a pair of
new moccasins that came up to my knees. They also made me another
overshirt, or “mother-hubbard,” out of fine smoked buckskin; it fitted
me better than did my first one. The sleeves came down a little below
my elbows and had a long fringe from the shoulders down; it was also
fringed around the neck and the bottom; and to touch it up more, they
had stitched beads in heart and diamond shapes over the breast. The
clothes were all very fine; but when I got them on, I looked a good
deal like a squaw papoose. I didn’t care much, though, for the
clothes fitted me pretty well and they were warm and comfortable.
Mother also made me a hat out of muskrat skin. It ran to a peak and had
two rabbit tails sewed to the top for tassels. With my new clothes on,
I was better dressed than any other kid in camp.
[Illustration: Indian camp by a river.
_Lee Moorhouse_]
We now started for the elk country. When we got there, the Indians
killed about one hundred elk and a few bear; but by that time it
was getting so cold that we set out for our winter quarters. After
traveling a few days we reached a large river, called by the Indians
Piatapa, by the whites the Jefferson River; it is now in Montana. Here
we pitched camp to stay during the “snowy moons.”
Most of the buffaloes by this time had left for their winter range;
but once in a while we saw a few as they passed our camp. The Indians
did not bother them, however, because we had plenty of dried meat, and
for fresh meat there were many white-tail deer that we could snare by
hanging loops of rawhide over their trails through the willows. There
were also a great many grouse and sage hens about in the brush. I have
killed as many as six or seven of these a day with my bow and arrows.
Winter passed away very slowly. Nothing exciting happened until along
towards spring; then one day we had a terrible fracas. Washakie had
gone up the river a few miles to visit another large Indian village for
a day or two. While he was away, pretty nearly all the camp got into a
fight.
We had a fishing hole close to camp where the squaws and papooses would
fish. Mother and I had been down there with the others fishing through
this hole in the ice, and when we had caught a good string of fish
mother took what we had to the tepee. She told me not to stay long.
As soon as she had gone, a girl, a little larger than I, wanted to
take my tackle and fish in my hole. I let her have it, and she caught
several fish. Then I heard mother call me and I asked the girl to give
me back my pole so I could go home, but she would not do it. I tried
to take it from her, but she jerked it away and hit me over the head
with it, knocking me to my knees. I jumped up and gave her a whack that
knocked her down; when she got up she let out some of the awfulest
yelps I ever heard. Then she put for home as fast as she could go,
yelling and screaming. I knew something else would happen pretty quick;
so I gathered up what fish the other papooses hadn’t run away with and
hiked for home too. Just as I got inside the tepee, the girl’s mother
came rushing up with a big knife in her hand. “Give me that little
white devil!” she screamed. “I’ll cut his heart out!” She started for
me, but mother stopped her, and shoved her back out of the tepee.
They made such a racket that the whole camp gathered around to see
the fun. The squaw hit mother over the head with the knife; and when
I saw the blood fly, I grabbed a stick and struck the squaw over the
head, knocking her down. Another squaw grabbed mother and I sent her
spinning. Then others mixed in and took sides and soon the whole bunch
was yelling and fighting fit to kill. One boy grabbed my stick, but I
gave him a kick that settled him. Then Hanabi took the stick from me:
but I ran into the tepee and grabbed my bow and arrows. I was so mad
I would have made a few “good squaws” in quick time; but a big Indian
jerked my bow from me and broke the string. I guess it was best that he
did. More Indians rushed up and stopped the fight; but not before a lot
of them went off howling with sore heads. That night Washakie came home
and held a big council. I don’t know what they said, but the next day
two or three families left our camp and went to join another band.
[Illustration: The seed gatherers of Western desert tribes.
_Bur. Am. Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution_]
Everything now passed along very well for a time. I helped mother carry
wood and water. The boy papooses made fun of me, calling me a squaw
for doing it, because carrying wood and water was squaw’s work. I told
mother that I would break some of their necks if they didn’t stop it.
“Oh, let them alone,” she said, “they are bad boys.”
But one day we were getting wood, and having cut more than we could
carry in one trip, I went back for it when a boy ran up to me and said,
“You’re a squaw,” and spit at me. I threw down my wood and struck out
after him. He ran yelping at every jump, expecting me, I guess, to kick
his head off. But Washakie happened to see us and called to me to stop.
It was lucky for that papoose that he did. I went back and got my wood
and took it to the tepee.
Washakie wanted to know what it was all about. I told him what the boy
had done. He said he did not want to start another camp fight, but he
did want me to take my own part. He said that he had been watching how
things were going, and he was glad to say that, so far as he knew, I
had never started a fuss. He did not think that I was quarrelsome if I
was let alone. He was glad, he said, to see me stand up for myself;
for if I was cowardly the papooses would give me no peace.
One day I heard an Indian talking to Washakie and telling him it was
not right for him to let me do squaw’s work; it would set a bad example
for the other boys. Washakie replied that he thought it was a good
example, and if some of the older ones would take it, it would be
better for their squaws.
“We burden our women to death,” he said, “with hard labor. I did not
think so much about it until Yagaki came. I see now how much he helps
mother and how much hard work she has to do. Yagaki appears to be
happier helping mother than he is when playing with the other boys. I
believe that she would have gone crazy if it had not been for him, her
troubles over the loss of father and my brothers were so great. I do
believe that the Great Spirit sent the little white boy to her.”
I think myself that if anything had happened to me, it would have
killed mother. She was very proud to have me with her. She would say
to Washakie, “Yagaki is a smart boy. He asks me questions that I can
hardly answer. One day he asked me why the Indians did not haul and
cut the wood for their women. His father does that for his mother. He
thinks that the Indians ought to pack the meat, too, and take care of
their own horses, or send the boys to do it. If the women tanned the
hides and made the moccasins and clothes for the family and did the
cooking, it was their share of the work.”
I heard all this talk going on one night when they thought I was
asleep. Washakie agreed with most of what his mother said, but of
course they couldn’t change the Indians’ way of doing things.
[Illustration: “She used to tell me her troubles.”]
CHAPTER SEVEN
MY INDIAN MOTHER
My Indian mother was as good and kind to me as any one could be, but
she did not seem to realize that there was another loving mother miles
and miles away whose heart was sorrowing because of my absence. To her
mind must have come many times these words of the old song: “Oh, where
is my wandering boy tonight?”
My Indian mother would often ask me a good many questions about my
white mother. She asked me if I did not want to go home. I told her
that I should like to see my folks very much, but if I went home they
would keep me there, and I did not want to herd sheep. I told her that
I would rather play with white boys than with Indian boys, but that I
liked my bow and arrows, and father would not let me have these at home
because I would be shooting at the cats and chickens all the time. “I
like my pony too, and I could not take him home,” I said, “and I love
you too. If I went away you could not go with me; so taking it all
around I should rather stay with you.”
This always seemed to please her; for her face would light up and
sometimes a tear would steal down her brown cheeks, and then she would
grab me and hug me until you could hear my ribs crack.
Often she would tell me about her troubles. Her husband had been shot a
few years before in the knee with a poisoned arrow by the Crow Indians.
He lived a little over a year after the battle, but he suffered greatly
before he died. Soon after his death her two boys named Piubi and Yaibi
went out hunting mountain sheep. While they were climbing a steep hill,
a snowslide crashed down and buried them in the deep gorge at the
bottom of the canyon. Here they lay until late in the following spring.
The Indians tried to find their bodies by pushing long sticks into the
snow, but they could not locate them.
But their mother would not give up the search. She told me how she
would go out every day and dig in the snow with a stick in the hope of
finding her boys, until she got so sick that Washakie and some other
Indians brought her home, where she lay for two months very near death
from sorrow and exposure.
As soon as she could walk she went up to the snowslide again. The
warmer weather by this time had melted some of the snow, and she found
the body of one of her boys partly uncovered. The wolves had eaten off
one of his feet. She quickly dug the body out of the snow, and near by
she found the other boy. She was too weak to carry them back to the
tepee, and she couldn’t leave them there to be eaten by the wolves, so
she stayed all night watching over them.
The next morning Washakie found her lying on the snow beside the bodies
of her children. He took them up tenderly and carried them back to the
village. The poor old mother was very sick after that. During this
sickness and delirium of grief, she dreamed that her youngest boy came
back to her, and he was white. This dream put into her mind the strange
notion that she wanted a white papoose.
She was just getting well when the band of Indians she was with came
into the settlement where I lived and found me. When they found that I
could talk the Indian tongue, they decided that I was just the boy for
the chief’s mother. They asked Washakie about it. He would not let them
steal me, but he said that if they could lure me away from home, it was
all right with him. So they set to work, as I have told, and succeeded
in tempting me to go away with them.
My old mother also told me many things that happened when she was a
little girl. She said that her father was a Shoshone, and her mother a
Bannock. She said she was sixty-two “snows” (years) old when I came.
She had had four children, three boys and a girl. When the girl was
seven years old, she was dragged to death by a horse. Her two sons were
killed by the snowslide, so Washakie and I were the only ones she had
left.
[Illustration: Death’s Canyon, Teton Range, Jackson’s Hole, Wyoming;
snow slide in ravine at left.
_J. E. Stimson_]
Her life, she said, had been filled with sorrow, but she was having
better times now than she had ever had before. If I would stay with
her, she would be happy once more. She said she had fifteen head of
horses of her own. When she died she wanted Washakie and me to divide
them between us. She also wanted me, when she died, to bury her as the
white folks bury their dead, as she thought that way was the best.
She certainly was good to me, watching me night and day and doing
everything she could for my comfort, and I tried to be good and kind
to her in return, but sometimes, boylike, I forgot. One night I was
playing with the Indian boys. Our game was killing white men. With
our bows and arrows, we would slip up to the bunches of brush and shoot
at them. If we clipped off a twig with the arrow, that was a scalp. We
would stick it in our belts and strut about like big Injuns.
While our fun was on, I heard mother call, “Yagaki, come in and go
to bed.” I paid no attention so she came out and said, “Why didn’t
you come when I called you?” “I didn’t want to go to bed,” I answered
sulkily. With that she grabbed me by the collar and jerked me toward
the tepee. I begged and promised, but she kept me going till she got me
inside; then she flung me down on a pile of blankets.
“Washakie,” she said, “you must do something with this boy. He won’t
mind me.” With that she left the tent and I heard her crying outside.
The chief looked at me a minute, then he said quietly: “What is the
trouble between you and mother?”
“Well, she won’t let me play,” I said; “she makes me come in every
night before dark. The other boys stay out; I don’t see why I can’t.”
“Mother knows why,” he said. “You should be good to her and mind her;
she is good to you--better than she ever was to me.”
Mother had come in again. “Yagaki,” she said, “you must not stay out
after dark. Those papooses might kill you. They have been trained to
think it is an honor to kill a white man. If they could do it without
being seen, they would just as soon put an arrow through you as not. I
know what is best for you, Yagaki. You must come when I call.”
I always obeyed her after that, and we got along very well. She was a
dear old mother to me.
[Illustration: “I went flying toward the creek.”]
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE CROWS
As winter began to break up we got ready to move to the spring hunting
grounds, but when we rounded up our horses we found that about fifty
head of the best ones were missing. The Crow Indians had stolen them.
Our Indians found their trail and followed them, but the Crows had
so much the start that our braves could not overtake them. We never
recovered our animals. Among the lost horses were six that belonged
to mother and eleven of Washakie’s horses. My little pinto was not
missing, for I had kept him close to camp with the horses we had used
during the winter.
Our Indians were angry. They declared that they would get even with
the Crows before another winter had passed. And I suppose they did it,
for the two tribes were constantly stealing from each other. The Crows
would steal every horse they could from the Shoshones; and our Indians
would do the same with them. It was as fair for one tribe as it was for
the other. They would fight, too, every time they met. Each tribe was
always on the watch to get the advantage over the other; so we were in
a constant state of excitement, and war dances were going on all the
time.
When we left our winter camp, we started south. After two days’ travel,
we joined another large Indian camp, and kept with them during our
wanderings the rest of the summer.
For three or four more days we all traveled south again. The game was
plentiful here, elk, deer, antelope, and buffalo, so we camped for
several days and stocked up with fresh meat. Then we took up the trail
again, this time going east till we came to a beautiful lake that was
fairly alive with fish. Oh, how I did catch them!
[Illustration: Elk in their mountain home.
_American Museum of Natural History_]
It was a great game country, too. We could see buffaloes at any time
and in any direction that we looked. There were herds of antelope over
the flats. I had great fun running them. Washakie said that I was
riding my horse too much, that he was getting thin. He told me to turn
the pony out, and he would give me another horse. I was very glad to
let my little pinto have a rest and get fat again.
The horse that Washakie gave me was a pretty roan, three years old,
and partly broken. When the chief saw how well I managed my new horse,
he said that I might break some other young horses for him to pay for
the roan. That just suited me, for I liked the excitement of training
wild horses. The Indian ponies were small, especially the colts that
he wanted broken. I wanted to get right at it, but he said that I must
wait till they got fat, so that they could buck harder.
At this time we were not far from the Crow country. There was a dispute
between the tribes about the boundary line that divided our hunting
grounds from theirs. One day some of our hunters came rushing to camp
badly scared. They said that the Crows were right on us. I never saw
such excitement in my life. Everybody in camp was running about and
talking excitedly. The bucks were getting ready to fight; the horses
were rounded up and driven into camp. It was a great mixup--horses,
squaws, dogs, papooses, tepees, and bucks all jumbled together.
The War Chief ordered the young warriors to go out and meet the Crows.
The old men were left to guard camp. I started to get my horse.
“If I am going to fight,” I said, “I want my pinto pony.”
Mother stopped me, “Here, you little dunce,” she said, “you are not
going to fight. You couldn’t fight anything. I don’t believe there is
going to be a fight anyway. I have had too many such Crow scares.”
I wondered whether the Crows had wings like the crows in our country.
She said that they were Indians like the Shoshones.
[Illustration: A Crow encampment (Crow Agency, Montana).]
By this time the squaws had everything packed and ready to fling on
to the horses that were standing about with their saddles on. The old
bucks were gathered in small groups here and there talking all at
the same time. But the excitement soon passed over; for the warriors
came back after a little while to tell us that it was not Crows at
all but a herd of buffaloes that had caused the scare. I was rather
disappointed, for I wanted to see some fun. I began to think that they
were cowards--the whole bunch of them. But they were not. The next day
a band of about fifty young warriors left for some place. I could not
find out where they were going, but they seemed to mean business.
For a while after this scare everything passed off peacefully. We
fished and chased antelope, and one day I went with Washakie up into
the mountains to kill elk. We had not gone far till we saw a large herd
of these animals lying down. Leaving our horses, we crept up close to
them. Washakie had a good gun, and at his first shot he hit a big cow
elk. She ran about a minute before she fell. The chief told me to slip
up and shoot her in the neck with my arrows till she was dead, then to
cut her throat so that she would bleed freely; and to stay there till
he came back. Well, I crept up as close as I dared, and shot every
arrow I had at her. Then I climbed a tree. I guess she was dead before
I shot her, but I was not sure, for I was afraid to go up near enough
to see. Washakie followed the herd that ran down the canyon.
I stayed up the tree for some time, then came down quietly and went up
to the elk and threw sticks at her, but she did not move, so I plucked
up courage and cut her throat. She had been dead so long that she did
not bleed a bit.
[Illustration: A Crow Indian tepee.]
I waited and waited for Washakie to come back. After a while I began to
get scared. I thought that the bears would smell the elk and finding
me there would eat me up, so I put off to where we had left our horses;
but I could not find them. Then I started back to the elk, but I could
not find it. I was so bewildered that I did not know what to do. The
timber was thick, and I was getting more scared all the time. I tried
again to find our horses and failed. By this time the sun had gone
down, and it was very gloomy among the trees. I climbed another tree
and waited for a long time. I was afraid to call for fear of bringing a
bear on to me.
Afterwards, I learned that I had not left the elk long before Washakie
came and took the entrails out of it, and as he did not see my horse,
he thought that I had gone to camp. Before following the elk, he had
tied my horse to a tree, but it had broken loose and run away. When
Washakie reached camp, some Indians told him that they had seen my
horse loose with the saddle on. He did not know what to do. Mother was
frantic. She started right out to hunt me, and a big band of Indians
followed her.
A little while after dark I heard the strange noise they were making.
I thought the Crows were after me; so I kept quiet, but pretty soon
I heard some one calling--“Yagaki! Yagaki!” Then I knew that it was
one of our Indians, so I answered him. In a little while there was a
crackling of brush right under my tree.
“Where were you?” he shouted.
“Here I am,” I said.
“What were you doing up there?” he asked.
“Looking for my horse.”
“Well, you won’t find him up there,” he said. “Come down here.”
I minded him in a hurry.
“Now, get on behind me,” he said; “the whole tribe is looking for you,
and your poor mother is nearly crazy about you. It would be better for
her if some one would kill you, and I have a notion to do it. It would
save her lots of trouble.”
When he got out of the timber, he began to halloo just as loud as he
could to let the rest know that I was found. Then I could hear the
Indians yelling all through the woods. We reached camp before mother
came in, and I wanted to go back to look for her, but Hanabi would not
let me. She said that I might get lost again; that I had given mother
trouble enough for one night.
It was not long before mother came. She grabbed me in her arms and
said, “Yagaki, Yagaki, where have you been? I was afraid a bear had
eaten you.” She talked and cried for almost an hour. She blamed
Washakie for leaving me alone and said that I should never go off with
him again; she would keep me close to her.
The next morning I went with mother and another squaw to get the elk.
Washakie asked me if I thought I could find it. I told him that I knew
I could, so we started and I led them right to it. As we were skinning
the elk, mother said that I had spoiled the skin by shooting it so
full of holes. But the meat was fat and tender.
About ten days after this our band of young warriors came back. They
had captured thirty-two head of horses, but one of our Indians had been
killed in the skirmish they had with the Crows. One of the band told me
all about their raid. He said that they went over to the headwaters of
the Missouri River--Sogwobipa, the Indians called it. There they found
a small band of Crow Indians, but the Crows had seen them first, and
were ready for them. Just after dark our Indians tried to run off a
band of Crow horses they had seen, but they were met with a shower of
arrows and a few bullets which killed one of their party and wounded
five or six of their horses. One horse was so badly crippled that he
could not travel, so the rider jumped on to the horse belonging to the
dead Indian and they all broke back as fast as their horses could carry
them. They were chased by the Crows all night, but they finally made
their escape.
[Illustration: Headwaters of Missouri River, Montana. The Gallatin,
Jefferson, and Madison rivers join here to make the Missouri River. The
country around these rivers was a great hunting ground in the early
days for Shoshones, Crows, Nez Percé, Selish, and other Indian tribes.
_Albert Schlechten, Bozeman, Mont._]
A few days after this as they were going through a range of mountains,
they came suddenly upon a small band of Crows, killed two of them
and took all their horses. They thought the whole tribe of Crows was
following them, so they made a bee line for home. I thought it was
pretty rough for about fifty to jump on a few like that, kill some and
rob the rest of their horses. I think that Washakie did not like it
either. When I told him that it was not fair, he said it was too bad,
but that the Crows would have treated us just the same.
The Indians were uneasy. They felt sure that the Crows would follow
and attack us any minute, so we kept a strong guard out all the time.
Washakie thought it best to get a little farther from the border line
and in a more open country where they could watch the horses better.
The Indians did not appear to value their own lives so much as they did
their horses.