Chapter IV: Part 4

Two youths, brothers, found one time a wolf’s den. One of them took his lariat and crawled into the hillside cave to get pups. He felt about in the darkness, got the rope about a pup’s hind feet and dragged it out. They knocked it in the head and he went back after another one. This time, either a pup or an old wolf bit his hand. He retreated. Outside he got a forked stick. With this projecting out in front of him, he returned to the attack upon the wolves. The forked end got engaged in the hair and skin of the wolf. The youth twisted and tugged, backing out and dragging after him the snarling and snapping animal. The brother stood with his rifle poised and ready to shoot. Limbs of brush diverted his aim, and the bullet crashed into the head of the other boy. The shocked and weeping brother put the dead body upon a horse and took it to their home lodge. People flocked there to see and to hear.

“You killed him in anger,” somebody accused.

“No, it was an accident,” he sobbed out. And he explained how it had occurred.

A group of warrior policemen went with him out to the wolf’s den. There he rehearsed for their observation all of the incidents of the happening. They became fully satisfied that he had no intention to kill his brother, that it truly was entirely accidental. The youth was released with no penalty whatever.

As we were camped one time on the upper Powder river, when I was about thirteen years old, Wolf Medicine and other men loaded their pack horses with buffalo robes and other skins and went to the trader post at the southward (Fort Laramie) for buying some supplies. They got tobacco, caps, powder, lead, sugar, and goods of that character. Wolf Medicine brought a sack of flour. Our women were just then learning how to make bread. Wolf Medicine’s wife knew how to make it so it tasted good. He was a little chief of the Elk warriors, and he wanted to give them a feast. He said to his wife:

“Make plenty of bread. I shall invite all Elks to come.”

“How,” she assented, and she went immediately at mixing flour and water. Then: “Oh, I have no soda.”

A young woman there said: “My mother has soda. I will go and get some.” She went to her home lodge and told her mother. This woman rummaged among her packages, looking into one after another. “Here it is,” she finally announced. The young woman took the white powder to the wife of Wolf Medicine. As the good cook proceeded with her work, her proud husband went out to the front of his lodge and stood there calling:

“All Elk warriors, come. Wolf Medicine has a feast of bread.”

That brought them in droves. The wife engaged some helpers. They fried many slices of bacon and they boiled a great potful of coffee. When the food was being eaten everybody said: “Wolf Medicine’s wife can make good bread.” The hearts of the husband and the wife were made glad by the compliments showered upon them.

After the feast, Wolf Medicine brought a supply of tobacco. The assemblage was converted into a grand smoking party. They passed the pipe and chatted and told stories. After a while somebody said: “I feel sick. My stomach pains me.” Just then the neighbor woman came running and screaming:

“I gave you the wrong powder! It is the wolf poison!”

The commotion aroused and brought the whole population of the camp. The victims were wallowing and groaning. An old man herald went among them calling out: “Make yourselves vomit.” Some already had done this, others began at once to gag their throats with fingers poked into them. Two men, Old Bear and White Elk, did not do this. Instead, they took doses of gunpowder in water. Both of these men had convulsions and were sick a long time, but they finally recovered full health. All of the others got relief soon after the gagging and vomiting. One of them was my father. As a test, some remnants of bread was given to two dogs. Both of the dogs went into convulsions and died. The woman who had provided the supposed soda was not punished. On the contrary, she was for a long time afterward so distressed in mind that people sympathized with and tried to console her.

A certain half-Sioux-half-Cheyenne man was married to a Cheyenne woman and they lived with our tribe. He killed one of our Cheyennes, served his exile term of four years and returned to a small village of Cheyennes where were his relatives. That was considered right, but his next movement was considered not right. He went to visit another Cheyenne village where were many relatives of the man he had killed. Warning was sent to him not to come there, that he would be killed, but he heeded not the notice, or he designed to show special bravery that might win a good standing. Two Cheyenne men accompanied him to the visited camp.

The three companions went from lodge to lodge, being received courteously and fed at the various stopping places. A brother of the man who had been killed sat in his own lodge, there meditating and saying nothing to anybody. He kept beside him a loaded rifle. From time to time, as the three men moved among the lodges he watched them from the interior of his tepee. People began to taunt him:

“You are afraid.”

“No, I will kill him today.”

The Sioux-Cheyenne walked at all times between the two Cheyenne companions when the three went from any one lodge to another. But as they were passing across one open area the middle man stopped and bent himself forward to tie a loose moccasin string. In a moment the bang of a rifle shot rang out from the watcher’s tepee. The half-Sioux pitched headfirst to the ground. His death was regarded by all as an earned infliction. The chiefs agreed: “He ought not to have come so soon to this place where are his victim’s relatives. His slayer did right.”

An Ogallala Sioux man had one of our women as his wife. They lived with our people. The couple had much domestic trouble. It was said the husband grossly abused his wife. The matter came to a climax as our Cheyennes were camped on the Giving White Medal river. I was a baby or a small child, and my knowledge of it comes only from hearsay stories. But in later times I knew the people involved.

The maltreated wife had two brothers, Dirty Moccasins and Tall White Man--not the present old man Tall White Man, but another Cheyenne dead many years ago. These two brothers decided to end the continual humiliation of their sister. They got their bows and arrows and went man-hunting. Each of them sent an arrow through the body of the offending Sioux and put out the lights of his life. They were not banished. Besides their having the natural sympathy of the people, the dead man was a Sioux, not a Cheyenne. Nevertheless, ever after that, Dirty Moccasins smoked only a deer bone pipe and Tall White Man used always a little stone one. For many years I saw him as a scrawny and feeble old man smoking the tiny short-stemmed stone pipe.

The Sioux and his wife had a ten-year-old daughter. When she grew to womanhood she married a Cheyenne man named Elk Creek. This couple had three daughters, grandchildren of the Sioux killed by the two brothers. One of these grandchildren married Round Stone, another married a Fort Keogh soldier named Thompson, the third is the wife of Willis Rowland, our present interpreter at the Lame Deer agency.

I heard a story about two Sioux in a Sioux camp who quarreled concerning the ownership of a horse. One of them had possession of the animal. The other sat in his lodge and brooded over what he regarded as a wrong done to him. He planned an unusual mode of carrying out revenge. He went to a Cheyenne camp near by and inquired there for a medicine man. A Cheyenne led him to a certain lodge.

“I have important business,” the Sioux announced. “Come out where nobody can hear us.”

The three went out of the camp, to a hilltop. The young Cheyenne served as negotiator between the Sioux and the medicine man.

“I want him to kill a Sioux,” the visitor proposed.

There was some exchange of talk about the compensation to the medicine man. Finally, an agreement was reached. The medicine man received a blanket, some moccasins and clothing, some food and a keen-bladed and sharp-pointed sheathknife. A day was consumed in settling the conditions. While this was going on, the Sioux camp moved away and was set up elsewhere. The angry Sioux and the medicine man followed them. The lodge of the enemy was pointed out. The medicine man drew the figure of a man upon the outside wall of the lodge. At the right place he made a special picture of the heart. Then he told the angry Sioux:

“Take this knife. At dawn tomorrow morning you must stab the heart picture I have drawn. Then bring to me the knife.”

The commanded procedure was carried out. The wielder of the weapon was astonished when blood flowed freely from the stabbed picture heart. He ran away and told the medicine man, told him of the blood and returned to him the knife.

“Good. He will die tonight,” came the assuring declaration.

As the medicine man went back to the Cheyennes he congratulated himself on the clever trick he had played upon his confiding employer. “Good knife, good blanket, good clothing, all for me,” he chuckled. But: That same night the enemy Sioux man actually became ill. He vomited blood, and before morning he was dead. I do not like that kind of medicine actions. Such use of the powers makes bad Indians.

The warrior days of a Cheyenne man began at the age of about sixteen or seventeen, or sometimes a little earlier for such activities as were not very difficult or risky. They ended somewhere between thirty-five and forty, according to particular circumstances. The regular rule was, every man was classed as a warrior and expected to serve as such until he had a son old enough to take his place. Then the father retired from aggressive fighting and the son took up the weapons for that family. If a man came into early middle age without any son, he adopted one. If he had more than one son, he might allow the additional one or more to be adopted by another man who had none. By following this system, all of the offensive fighting was done by young men, mostly the unmarried young men. The fathers and the older men ordinarily stayed in the background, to help or to shield the women and children. Or, if it was practicable, the fathers and old men and women followed out the young warriors and stayed at a safe distance behind, there to sing cheering songs and to call out advice and encouragement. If a warrior’s father or some other old person put himself unnecessarily forward in a battle he was likely to be criticised for his needless risk, and also the young warriors felt aggrieved at his taking from them whatever of honors might be gained in the combat. In general, the young men were supposed to be more valuable as fighters and less valuable as wise counselors, while the older men were estimated in the opposite way. It was considered as being not right for an important older man to place himself as a target for the missiles of the enemy, if he could avoid such exposure. Even in a surprise attack upon us, it was expected the seniors should run away, if they could get away, while the more lively and supposedly more ambitious young men met the attack.

Our war chiefs--that is, the three leading chiefs and the twenty-seven little chiefs of our three warrior societies--were more useful as instructors in quiet assemblage than as directors of operation in times of battle. There were frequent gatherings of the warrior societies, each in its own gathering, where the chiefs exchanged ideas about methods of combat and about daily care of the personal self, and where the listening young warriors learned their lessons. If some aggressive war was contemplated, these chiefs agreed upon the plans. But when any battle actually began it was a case of every man for himself. There were then no ordered groupings, no systematic movements in concert, no compulsory goings and comings. Warriors of all societies mingled indiscriminately, every individual went where and when he chose, every one looked out for himself only, or each helped a friend if such help were needed and if the able one’s personal inclination just then was toward friendly helpfulness. The warrior chiefs called out advice, perhaps a reminder of some rule of action theretofore discussed in the gatherings, or perhaps some special suggestion that exactly fitted the immediate situation, such as, “Yonder is one whose horse is down; go right in after him.” Ordinarily the advice of the chiefs was heeded. But the obedience was a voluntary one. In battle, the chiefs had not authority to issue commands that must be obeyed.

Special war parties made up of members of some certain warrior society often went out seeking conflict with the enemy. The warrior societies competed with each other for effectiveness in this kind of activity, as well as in all other activities regarded as commendable. At times, the members of some certain warrior society would be selected by the tribal chiefs to do all of the tribal fighting in some case where the opposition was looked upon as being not great enough to make necessary the use of the entire tribal military forces. If this appointed segment of our fighters did well they were acclaimed. If they did not do well, especially if other warriors had to go to their assistance, the original combatants were discredited. Ordinarily, whatever warrior society was on duty as camp policemen had also the duty as special camp defenders. It was their business to be the first ones out to meet any attack upon the camp. Members of the other societies added their help if necessary, refrained from doing so if they were not needed. If the enemy onset was sufficient to render needful the resistance of all of the warriors in the camp, all of them were called by the heralds of the tribal chiefs. In cases of extreme danger, even the old men and some of the women might use whatever weapons they could seize and wield.

The Sioux tribes had ways closely resembling those of the Cheyennes. We traveled and visited much with them, particularly with the Ogallalas, sometimes with the Minneconjoux. The Sioux tribal governments were almost the same as ours. Each of them had numerous tribal chiefs, each had various warrior societies and chiefs of them. Their warriors dressed for death in battle, all of their people dressed for death in time of peace, according to the same customs among us. Their warrior training by precept and by discipline was similar to our system. They fought their battles as a band of individuals, the same as we fought ours, and the same as was the way of all Indians I ever knew. They had war dances and medicine dances differing only a little from our ceremonies of this kind. So when white people learn the ways of the Cheyennes they have learned also a great deal of the ways of the Sioux and of other Indians in this part of the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Smoky Hill river (?).

IV

_Worshiping The Great Medicine._

I made medicine the first time when I was seventeen years old (1875). It was during the month of May, I believe, although we did not divide the years into months or weeks as the white people later taught us to divide them. Our family was in a camp of fourteen or fifteen lodges of Cheyennes in the hills at the head of Otter creek, a stream flowing into the eastern side of Tongue river. The main camp of the tribe was on Powder river, east of our location.

To “make medicine” is to engage upon a special period of fasting, thanksgiving, prayer and self denial, even of self torture. The procedure is entirely a devotional exercise. The purpose is to subdue the passions of the flesh and to improve the spiritual self. The bodily abstinence and the mental concentration upon lofty thoughts cleanses both the body and the soul and puts them into or keeps them in health. Then the individual mind gets closer toward conformity with the mind of the Great Medicine above us.

I said to my father: “All during my boyhood and youth the Great Medicine has been good to me. I have fond parents and kind brothers and sisters. I have had plenty of food and have had no bad sickness. No bullet nor arrow has hit me. No serious injury of any kind has fallen upon me. I ought to do something to show my gratitude for all of these favors.”

“Yes, my son, you owe a debt for them,” my father agreed.

Red Haired Bear, a good medicine man or spiritual adviser, was in our small camp. His wife was my mother’s sister. I went to him.

“I want to make medicine,” I told him. “I think I have lived in a way good enough to render me worthy. I want to become still better. I want to thank the Great Medicine and ask His continued favor. I want to become able to kill all enemies I may meet and to be shielded from their assaults upon me. I do not want to die in any manner until I reach old age. I wish you would help me.”

“How,” he responded encouragingly. “What number of days do you think you can endure?”

“The whole four days,” I replied confidently.

“How,” he glowed. “I will help you.”

He warned me it was a difficult undertaking for any young man. He urged me to be brave. He said the bravest ones always got the greatest spiritual benefit. I asserted myself as feeling equal to any distress that might come to me.

“That is good,” he cheered me on. “You shall have the strongest of trials. You shall stay out one night without any shelter, the next night you may have a little cone tepee, the third night you may build for yourself a willow dome lodge.”

This proposition put a check upon my eagerness. I had not thought of being unprotected from bad weather during any part of the time. It occurred to my mind that a rainstorm might interfere with the devotions. Even with a little cone tepee over me, a strong wind might upset the entire programme. My medicine might be broken by accidents like these. I asked if a willow dome lodge could be used during the entire procedure.

“How. It shall be as you desire.”

He started me out to cut willow wands for making the medicine lodge. He told me I must get seventeen of them, each a clean and strong and long piece of pliable green wood. I carefully gathered them, selecting and rejecting. I tied them into a pack bundle. Throwing the bundle upon my back and taking a crowbar in my hands, I carried the burden far up a gulch and into the timber at the hilltop. I chose a spot for the lodge and put down my load. With the crowbar I punched in the ground sixteen holes around a circle about eight feet in diameter. Into these holes I set upright sixteen of the wands. I then bent their tops across, pairing them and tying together the pairs. The skeleton dome was completed by weaving through the coupled tops the seventeenth strand, this running from east to west. I returned then to Red Haired Bear for further instructions.

“Get a buffalo head,” he ordered me.

I searched the neighborhood until I found one. Under his directions I heaped up dirt into a low mound about eight feet due east from where was to be the eastern entrance opening of the lodge. Upon this mound was placed the buffalo head, it being set to face toward the lodge. I cleared off all grass and twigs to make a clean path between the buffalo head and the lodge opening. I gathered armfuls of sweet sagegrass and spread it as a carpet upon the floor of the enclosed circle. The two of us returned then to Red Haired Bear’s lodge.

The medicine man painted my whole body. Red clay mixed into water, in a dish, was used for most of the painting. Four times he took portions of the powdered red earth, each separate time casting the portion upon the water’s surface and uttering low prayers as he stirred it into solution. After having put the red coloring upon the entire surface of my skin he got out from his medicine bag a package of pulverized black earth. Four different casts and four separate stirrings into water were made likewise with this coloring material. With the black paint he made first a circle about my face, including the forehead, the chin and the cheeks. Black wristlets and black anklets were next formed. On the middle of my breast he painted a black sun. On my left shoulderblade he put a black moon.

My director then offered a prayer:

“Great Medicine Above: You see Wooden Leg. He wants to be a good man. Look upon him and favor him. Make him brave and wise and kind. Make him generous to his people, to all Indians, even to his enemies if they come peaceably and in need. Help him to defeat all enemies who may beset him, and shield him from their efforts to take his life. Guide him so that he may be rich in food and skins and horses. Help him to find a good wife. Give to them many children. Keep them all in good health and make them live a long time.”

He prayed also to the ground spirits. As he prayed to the Great Medicine he looked upward, and as he addressed the spirits below he looked down toward the ground. When the prayers were ended we walked together to the medicine lodge I had built in the hilltop forest. We sat down there beside the slender path I had made to connect the buffalo head and the entrance to the lodge. He talked to me:

“This is going to be a hard trial for you, the hardest trial you ever have had. Throughout four days you will have neither food nor water. Your desires will distress you. Other distresses may be piled upon these. You may retreat now and postpone it to another time if you want to do so. What say you?”

“I dread it,” I confessed, “but I know it will not kill me. I do not want to wait. I want to go on right now. I shall keep my courage from failing by fixing my thoughts upon being a good man.”

“That is good,” he cheered me. Then he added: “Be brave.”

The medicine man prayed again for me. He looked again upward and again downward, going through the same prayer for the below spirits as he had made to the Above Spirit. The praying was of the same kind as he had uttered just after the painting preparations, but he added some other solicitations for my welfare.

After this prayer had ended I crept in upon the sagegrass floor of the skeleton willow dome. He covered the frame all over with many buffalo robes we had brought. Not even a faint ray of light could get inside. He then went away to our camp.

I now was alone. For a little while I just sat there in the darkness--complete darkness, although it was about the middle of the afternoon. I was naked, except for the breechcloth and a buffalo robe. I had a supply of kinnikinick, some matches, and my medicine pipe that had been given to me by my father. I loaded and lit the pipe for a thoughtful smoke. The flash of the match dazzled my eyes. Time dragged along. I could not smoke continuously, so I just sat there and meditated, or tried to do so. I did not know when the sun went down nor when darkness came. It began to seem rather lonely. I grew sleepy, so I stretched myself out with the robe about me and drifted into a doze. But every little sound startled me. I sat up and had another smoke. Soon I had another, and then another. I slept again, this time more soundly. I had not the least notion as to how long I remained asleep. It seemed I had been there more than a day and night, that the medicine man had forgotten me. I listened intently to every slight rustle in the surrounding forest. My prayers all had been in thoughts, not in spoken words. I almost wished for some disturbing intrusion to break up the entire proceeding. Noise of a horse’s footsteps fell into my ears. Closer, closer, very close.

“Hey, Wooden Leg!” It was the voice of Red Haired Bear. “One day has passed. It now is noon.”

He dismounted and opened slightly the entrance covering. The light blinded me for a moment. Gradually he opened it wider, finally throwing it altogether aside. He allowed me to go outside for a few minutes, then I had to return to the interior.

“Let us smoke together,” he invited.

He sat just outside and I sat just inside. My smoking equipment was brought into use. He pointed the stem and sent a puff to each of the four principal directions, then to the above, to the below and to the buffalo head. We passed the pipe back and forth in many exchanges, until one loading of it was exhausted. He prayed again for me. Then he admonished me:

“The next day will be more difficult. But, be not afraid. The Great Medicine sees you.”

He shut up the lodge, mounted his horse and went away.

Fitful slumbers, prayers, smoking, efforts at meditation, these alternated in my quiet activities. I was hungry and thirsty, especially thirsty. My body was hot. My heart was heavy. My ears constantly were listening, listening, to every faint whisper of Nature. All of the time appeared to be night, the blackest of night. Suddenly there came a stamp--stamp--stamp. Then:

“Boo-o-o-o! Boo-o-o-o!”

A buffalo bull! The animal snorted, stamped and bellowed again. It surely would charge upon my lodge and tear it to pieces, I thought. I did not move, but I prayed earnestly: “Great Medicine, shield me. I have tried to be a good young man. You have been kind to me in past times. Be kind to me now.” I heard the threatening beast move away. It did not return.

Hours, hours, hours. I did not know whether it was day or night. I heard a horse coming. That was a welcome sound. I was all attention.

“Hey, Wooden Leg!”

“Hey!”

“Two days have passed,” Red Haired Bear informed me. “The sun now is far toward the west on your third day.”

Again he opened my dark retreat, gradually letting in more and more light. Again we smoked together. I told him of the buffalo bull. He listened with evident great interest.

“That is a good sign,” he comforted me. “No buffalo ever will harm you. You and all other Cheyennes will get plenty of meat and skins from them. The bull was your friend, telling you all this.”

Another prayer went from the medicine man to the Above and to the below. After a short allowance of time for me outside, he put me again into the enclosure and shut tightly the small hole.

“Be brave,” were his parting words.

“Yes,” I replied. But I was not sure.

Hot, thirsty, yet more hot and more thirsty. I prayed particularly for strength of body and firmness of heart to carry me through to the end of the trial. I loaded my pipe for a solacing smoke. But it was not a solace. The heat burned my already parching tongue. I tried to sleep. Maybe I did sleep. I do not know. I made attempts to meditate quietly. I do not know whether I actually was thinking or was following dreams racing through my mind. All I could be sure about was that I either was sitting down or lying down all the time. I heard something that cleared my mind at once. My mother brought wood and stones and placed them out by the buffalo head. She did not speak nor make any sign of recognition, but I knew it was my mother. It seemed I could look right through the robes and see her there. After she had deposited her burden she went away.

Oh, how lonely I was! I loaded and lit my pipe. No, it was not good. My mouth and throat were burning. Water! Water! But: “The Great Medicine sees me,” I kept thinking. My thoughts whirled and chased each other rapidly in circles. I dreamt that I heard the footsteps of a horse.

“Hey, Wooden Leg!”

“Hey!”

“This is the day.”

Happiness almost filled my heart. The only hindrance was in the thirst and the hot body. After I had been let out we smoked together. It was a torture to my tongue, but I did not complain. We went then to my father’s lodge in the camp. My father called out invitations to old men friends. They came and sat in a circle upon the robes spread over the lodge’s floor. I sat with them, by the side of my father. My mother brought a bucketful of water and set it off a little distance in front of me. I suppressed a strong desire to plunge my face into it, but I could not keep my eyes from staring at it. The medicine man sprinkled red powder upon the surface of the water, four small scatterings in four separate places. He passed his hands to and fro over it and prayed. It seemed I never in my life had heard so long a prayer. When it was ended he said to me:

“Wooden Leg, you have been four days without water. Now you may drink four sups.”

I seized the sides of the bucket. The four sups were four long-drawn mouthfuls. The water rumbled through my bowels. After a few minutes I was told, “Now you may have more, but do not take all you want.” I drank slowly, but I drew in big mouthfuls and took many of them. Not long afterward I was allowed to apply myself a third time at the bucket.

My mother brought a potful of buffalo meat she had been boiling. All of the guests were given portions of it. A piece was put upon a tin plate and set before me. It looked good enough to grab and swallow immediately. But I waited for advice. My adviser did not long detain me.

“Wooden Leg, you have been four days without meat. Take four sliced-off bites, one for each day of the fast.”

I selected a long chunk from the plate. I stuck the end of it far into my mouth, and with a sheathknife I cut it off. The chewing was vigorous, and I soon had it swallowed. The chunk was pushed a second time into my mouth and its end cut off there. A third and a fourth mouthful were taken in the same manner. After a few minutes, more meat was allowed to me. Then still more, all I cared to eat. It was the best meat I ever tasted.

The old men joined in asking me:

“Tell us of your experience.”

I told them--told them particularly of the coming of the buffalo bull. They complimented me, said I was brave, said the Great Medicine was my friend, assured me that no buffalo ever would harm me. Their approval and their assurances made me glad. My heart was like the sun coming up on a summer morning.

All of these old men, some of their wives, my father and mother and the medicine man went with me to my medicine lodge. We were to have a sweat bath worship together. My mother carried a bucketful of water for sprinkling upon the hot stones inside the lodge. The medicine man piled the stones into a cone heap. He leaned sticks of wood up the sides of this stone structure and set a fire to going among them. The other men stripped themselves to breechcloth and crept into the lodge. When the stones had become well heated by the wood fire over them the medicine man passed them to one of the men inside. They were handled with forked sticks and were piled into a pit some of the men had made in the center of the lodge’s earth floor. When the pit was filled with the hot stones the medicine man set inside the bucketful of water. He himself then crept in, on hands and knees as we all had done. One man remained outside to close the opening, to ventilate temporarily when we might require, to wait upon us in whatever way our needs might demand. Not any of the women went into the lodge. Twelve men were in there.

At the left inside of the entrance sat the medicine man. I was next at his left side. My father was third, at my left. The other men were seated on beyond, the row extending around the circle. All had backs to the wall. We had smoked together while the stones were being heated, but the pipe now had been placed outside. Its bowl rested on the ground beside the buffalo head and its stem projected upward past the nose and eyes of the hallowed object. A good spirit influence was coming from the nostrils of the head straight along the clean path and into the lodge. No knowing and worshipful Indian ever crossed that path. Such act would cut off the steady flow of healing virtue.

The medicine man opened the interior proceedings with another prayer for my welfare. Once more he pleaded with the Great Medicine to make me good and generous, to give me success in hunting, to protect me from enemies and to enable me to kill them. Once more he asked that I might get a good wife, might have many children, and that myself and all of my family might keep good health and live to advanced years. He beseeched again that I might gather together many horses and not lose any of them. I believed his prayers would be heard. My hopes were high. My trust in the Being Above was strong.

Water was squirted upon the hot stones in the central pit. The medicine man first gave each one in the lodge a drink of water. He took into his own mouth a chew of herb. After its mastication he supped and squirted four successive mouthfuls of water. Between the acts were short prayers. Thus he released from the stones the vitality put into them by the burning wood that had got it from the sun, the material representative of the Great Medicine. The stones hissed their protests as the water compelled them to release into the air the spiritual curative forces. Our bodies were enveloped by the steam wherein floated the vital energy. The vivifying and purifying influence soaked into our skins. Bad spirits were driven out of us and drowned in the water that dripped from us. The medicine man repeated from time to time the sprinkling of water upon the protesting stones.

The soft whisperings of an eagle wing bone flute came into my ears. The sound seemed to come from the roof and from other points in the utterly dark interior of the lodge. After a few of the gentle blasts, I felt the instrument being placed in my hands. My father put it there. It now was mine, to keep. It was to be worn about my neck, suspended at the mid-breast by a buckskin thong, during all times of danger. If I were threatened with imminent harm I had but to put it to my lips and cause it to send out its soothing notes. That would ward off every evil design upon me. It was my mystic protector. It was my medicine.

After an hour or more together in the devotional dome, all of us went to our respective lodge homes. There my father presented me also with a shield of rawhide taken from the rump of a buffalo bull. The hair had been removed and the piece of skin had been dried rapidly before a fire, to make it extremely tough. It was covered with antelope buckskin sewed in place. The cover had medicine designs drawn in color upon its surface. This shield would turn off any bullet or arrow or other missile coming toward me. My father made it. He delivered it into my left hand.

My second medicine experience took place a month or so after that first one. Black White Man, a medicine man, took me through it. This time the plan was for but two days of self denial and worship. I made the dome lodge according to the same rules as had governed in making the first one, which was the regular way of making them. Black White Man painted me in the same way and with the same ceremony used by Red Haired Bear. I had the same kind of harassing sensations while alone, but they covered only two days instead of four. The resumption of water and food was carried out in a manner exactly like had been done in the previous proceedings. The sweat bath devotions had a like preparatory programme and followed a course like that of the other one and of all such affairs entered upon among the Cheyennes. But during this second time of spiritual upbuilding there was one intervening incident that marked it as different from all others.

During the last part of my lonely vigil--I learned afterward it was during my second night--my quietude was broken by the tread of horses, many horses. I heard men talking. Gabble-gabble-gabble. It was not Cheyenne talk. It was not Sioux. This being the case, the horsemen necessarily must be enemies, either whites or Indians. It seemed now that the bellowing buffalo bull of my previous experience had been but a tame threat. It appeared I surely would be discovered or already had been discovered, by the gabbling strangers. It seemed that death threatened me. My hair raised itself and I could feel it standing upright. My heart thumped. It throbbed and pounded the inner wall of my breast. To my senses its noise was so boisterous as to notify the intruders and all the rest of the world that a human being frozen by fright awaited the fatal blow. I did not move--perhaps was not able to move. But I could think. I centered my thoughts upon whispering over and over, “The Great Medicine sees me.”

“Hi-ye-e-e-e!” The war-cry!

“Bang! Bang! Bang-bang!” Rifle shots.

The horses near me clattered away. One of them bawled as if wounded by a bullet. The strange voices went out of my hearing. Other voices shouted. These were Cheyennes. I heard Cheyenne women and children crying as they ran past my retreat. But I could do nothing but just sit there with my buffalo robe over my head. The commotion gradually died down. My pious meditations were much disturbed by the alarming turmoil. I could not keep myself from wondering what had happened. I wondered if the Cheyennes had been driven from their camp and had left me there alone. This thought chilled me. But I stayed, waiting, waiting. Many hours later Black White Man came.

“They were Crows trying to steal our horses,” he explained. The raiders had been repulsed, but one of our Cheyennes had been killed. “It shows that the Crows never can hurt you,” the medicine man assured me.

For a third season of warrior discipline I went one morning at dawn to the top of a hill. There I fasted, prayed, meditated and dreamed all day. During the day I saw the lodges taken down and the whole camp move away down the valley. But I had to stay. When the sun had set I started out afoot to follow the trail of my people. I drank water along the way, but I got no food until my arrival at the home lodge at the end of my journey of ten or twelve miles.

Another disciplinary means for subduing the flesh was to stand upright all day, from sunrise to sunset, on a hill. The devotee did not move during that time except to keep his face turned at all times toward the sun. He might keep his eyes closed or shaded, but his countenance had to be presented ever toward the venerated token of the Great Medicine’s existence. He prayed or otherwise kept his thoughts fixed on a high plane. This system of self denial was varied by the attitude taken. One might stand all day or sit in one position all day or lie down during all of the time. But the attitude assumed at the beginning must be kept to the end. My all-day supplications were made while sitting down.

Standing upright in water from sunrise to sunset was one way of putting the body under the rule of the spirit. The water had to be up to the neck or the upper breast. Not any drink of it was taken. It was not permissible to move the body except for keeping the face toward the sun. The bodily torture incident to the full standard Great Medicine dance--what the white people call the sun dance--was the most severe test of hardihood, so it was looked upon as the highest form of self scourging. I never undertook this extreme step.

Women did not make medicine by feats of endurance. Such was for men only. Sometimes two men would go together for the all-day hilltop fast or for some other similar performance. Ordinarily, though, only one man made up the vigil. I like best the solitary way. I think it is better to be alone at such times. At any of the occasions observable it was permissible for onlookers to view the act. Such scrutiny might aid greatly in spurring on to full compliance with the rules. Payment to any medicine man helper was due. This might be such as was agreed upon in advance--often paid in advance--or it might be in the form of subsequent free gifts to him. The standard fee was a horse.

Our tribal Great Medicine dance was a ceremony of one, two or three days, the period depending upon immediate conditions. In times before mine the full period had been four days, but in my time three days was the maximum. It was not held at any regular time. Once every two or three years was the usual custom. It would be held, though, in successive years if the tribe was having misfortune or if enough special devotees wanted to undergo the trials. The summer season was the special time. The prime purpose was to ask the Great Medicine’s favorable attention to the tribe as a whole, not to any particular persons. The prayers were for good grass, new colts in the horse herds, plenty of berries and roots, many children, success in hunting game and in repelling enemies.

The Cheyennes and the Arapahoes had their two Great Medicine ceremony dances together on one occasion when I was about twelve years old (1870). We were south of the mountains beyond the headwaters of Powder river. The two tribes camped as one, in one great camp circle, but all of the Cheyenne lodges were at one side of the camp and all of the Arapaho lodges at the opposite side. Each tribe had its Great Medicine lodge at its own side of the combined camp. I went back and forth looking on at both of them. The other people of both tribes did the same. I was not quite old enough during our free roaming days to take a part in the important tribal affairs. I merely looked, listened, kept quiet and thought about them. This double sacred dance of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes was for only one day. During that one day all of the participants and many other people took neither food nor water. After sunset they had a great feast. That was the regular way--the participants took neither food nor water while the ceremonies were being carried out, one, two, three or four days.

Special invocation dances were held irregularly, often several times during one season. One or several or many persons would perform the rites. At a buffalo dance the intent was to obtain the aid of the Great Medicine in our efforts at getting the meat and skins of these animals. Deer dances, elk dances, antelope dances, were engaged upon by individuals, by parties or by the tribe. The object was to enlist spiritual forces to help us in gathering meat and skins. Berry dances, by few or by many people, had a like incentive. Always the dances were in summer, none of them in winter. Always there was self denial in various forms, sacrifices were made in various ways. At times the self denial was carried to the point of bodily torture. That was our way of paying in advance for the favors asked. That was all we could do by way of payment.

The spirits of animals joined themselves often to assist or to hinder human beings. Sometimes one would give its medicine to a man, at other times some animal would break a man’s medicine, or would try to do so. At my father’s lodge an old man, Pockmarked Nose, told of a certain experience that came to him. My father afterward told me.

Pockmarked Nose went one time with a young man to hunt buffalo. They were on horseback and were leading pack horses to bring back the meat and skins. They traveled up and down hills and over the level plains. Finally they found a band of buffalo. They got themselves ready and charged into the band. The young man had a bow and arrows, Pockmarked Nose had a flintlock gun. He killed a buffalo. Just afterward a shot came from somewhere aside and another buffalo went down. That shot from aside puzzled the two hunters, but they rode on. Each time the old man or the young man killed a buffalo the shot from aside brought down another to match it. But, who was doing this shooting? Was it a friend or an enemy? They could not see anybody. When six buffalo lay dead on the plain the old man applied himself at discovering the identity of the third hunter. Far off, on a slight elevation of the land, stood a dimly outlined human figure. Pockmarked Nose rode toward it.

Was it the Above Spirit, the Great Medicine? Or was it a below spirit? Or was some powerful medicine man playing tricks? Pockmarked Nose did not know, and he never did find out to his satisfaction. The stranger had a wooden gun. He said: “Come, I give you this medicine gun. It never fails to kill.” Pockmarked Nose took and kept the offered gun. I do not know what use he may have made of it.

My father himself saw a marvelous example of the spirit powers regularly belonging to the deer tribe. When he was a young man he and a companion were hunting near the medicine water[11] not far from the present town of Sheridan, Wyoming. They saw bubbles coming up and bursting upon the water’s surface. They went up close, to learn what was causing this agitation. As they peered down into the deep but clear lake they saw there a deer moving about and quietly grazing along the bottom. While they were watching the animal it stopped grazing and floated slowly up to the water’s surface. My father killed it with an arrow. He skinned it, cut the meat from the bones, wrapped the skin about the meat and loaded the bundle upon his packhorse. At his home lodge he stood out and called the names of various friends. He invited them:

“Come, feast with me. Good deer meat.”

But when he shouted these words the flesh and the skin all jumped together and formed again the same live deer he had killed. The animal went running away. It ran back to the medicine water, plunged into it and disappeared. My father searched for it, but he could not see it. He told me he did not understand how a deer could do such things except it were by the help of the Great Medicine.

Three of our medicine men invited some of us young men into a tepee on one certain occasion when I was about fourteen or fifteen years old. They said, “We will show you how to make the winter go away so that the grass may grow, for the good of the young colts coming to our herds.” Just at that time there was a big snowstorm making the people and the horses shiver. But the three medicine men went confidently at their ceremonies.

They sent a young woman out to gather some certain kind of sprigs of vegetation. It was not tobacco, but pretty soon the medicine men had it changed into tobacco. They formed a circle with us, loaded the pipe, and soon it was passing from one to another. To each of us in turn they said: “Draw in only a little of the smoke, but draw it in slowly and deeply. Hold it there a short time, then let it flow out from wide-open lips, not in puffs from firm lips.” We did as they directed. While the smoking was being done the three old men made prayers. After a while one of them said: “Look outside.” We looked. The storm had quit, the sky had cleared, the ground was wet but bare of snow, green grass was peeping up everywhere.

Every Indian had, or tried to have, some special medicine or spirit power of his own, to bring him good fortune or to shield him from harm. He had some object or objects that held this helpful influence, or he had certain ways of doing certain acts, or he had both of these aids. I had my special protective possessions and my particular methods of using them. It was considered not prudent to reveal these things, and I never have done so, except in some features that I could not keep secret.

A powerful spirit man during my boyhood was one whose name originally was Walks Above the Earth. He was known as a man whose mind was at all times on spiritual things, who gave little or no thought to ordinary earthly matters. His name got changed, though, in his later life. This came about because of his choice of a mule for his riding animal. One time when he and Little Chief were approaching a Sioux camp somebody remarked, in derision, “Here comes that crazy Cheyenne on his mule.” That fixed upon him the name Crazy Cheyenne on a Mule. This afterward was shortened to Crazy Mule.

He had a variety of medicine powers. He put himself through many trials, so the spirits helped him. One time, when we were in camp far up the Powder river, he had four Cheyennes go up close to him and shoot at him, each in successive turn. They sent four bullets directly at his body. He was standing with his back against a tree. After the four shots had been fired he stooped forward and pulled off his moccasins. From them he poured out the four bullets. I saw this. I was eight years old. I saw him do the same feat at a time when our tribal camp was pitched on the Rosebud valley, just below where the present Forsythe road forks to go to Lame Deer and to Ashland. At another time he showed his powers when the tribe were on upper Lame Deer creek. This was just before our warriors joined the Ogallala Sioux to fight the soldiers in the fort[12] at the south of us.