Chapter XIV: A Buffalo Hunt 127 (2)

Soon a little column of smoke would rise toward the smoke hole, and my father would call, “Up, little daughter; up, sons! Get up, wives! The sun is up. To the river for your bath! Hasten!” And he would go up on the roof to look if enemies were about and if his horses were safe. My mothers were already up when I crept from my bed still sleepy, but glad that morning had come.

But if the weather was cold, we did not go to the river to bathe. An earthen pot full of water stood by one of the posts near the fire. It rested in a ring of bark, to keep it from falling. My mothers dipped each a big horn spoon full of water, filled her mouth, and, blowing the water over her palms, gave her face a good rubbing. Red Blossom washed my face in the same way. I did not like it very much, and I would shut my eyes and pucker my face when I felt the cold water. Red Blossom would say, “Why do you pucker up your face? You make it look like a piece of old, dried, buffalo skin.”

Her face washed, Red Blossom sat on the edge of her bed and finished her toilet. She had a little fawn-skin bag, worked with red porcupine quills. From this bag she took her hairbrush, a porcupine tail mounted on a stick, with the sharp points of the quills cut off. She brushed her hair smooth, parting it in two braids that fell over each shoulder nearly hiding her ears. Red Blossom was no longer young, but her black tresses had not a grey hair in them.

She now opened her paint bag, put a little buffalo grease on her two fingers, pressed the tips lightly in the dry paint, and rubbed them over her cheeks and face. She also rubbed a little red into the part of her hair.

Meanwhile, the pot had been put on the fire. We Indians did not eat many things at a meal as white men do. Usually, breakfast was of one thing, often buffalo meat dried, and boiled to soften it. When a buffalo was killed, the meat was cut into thin slices, and some parts, into strips. These were dried in the open air over the earth lodge fire or in the smoke of a small fire out-of-doors. For breakfast, a round earthen pot was filled with water, dried meat put in, and the water brought to a boil. Red Blossom used to lift out the hot meat slices on the point of a stick, laying them on a bit of clean rawhide.

A rough bench stood back of the fireplace, a cottonwood plank, with ends resting on two blocks chopped from a tree trunk. My grandmother Turtle sat on this bench to eat her meals. My two mothers sat beside her, or on the floor near the meat they were serving. My father ate sitting on the edge of his couch. A wooden bowl, heaped with steaming meat, was set before each. Our fingers did for forks.

Boiling the meat in water made a thin broth which we used for a hot drink. It was very good, tasting much like white man’s beef tea. We had no cups; but we had big spoons made of buffalo horn, and ladles, of mountain-sheep horn. Either of these did very well for drinking cups. Sometimes we used mussel shells.

A common breakfast dish was _mapee[5] naka-pah_,[6] or pounded-meal mush. From her cache pit Red Blossom took a string of dried squash slices. She cut off a length and tied the ends together, making a ring four or five inches in width. This ring and a double handful of beans she dropped in a pot of water, and set on the fire. When boiled, she lifted the ring out with a stick, with her horn ladle mashed the softened squash slices in a wooden bowl and put them back in the pot.

[5] mä pēē´

[6] nä kä päh´

Meanwhile Strikes-Many Woman or old Turtle had parched some corn in a clay pot, and toasted some buffalo fats on a stick, over the coals. Red Blossom now pounded the parched corn and toasted fats together in the corn mortar, and stirred the pounded mass into the pot with the squash and beans. The mess was soon done. Red Blossom dipped it into our bowls with a horn spoon.

We ate such messes with horn spoons or with mussel shells; for we Hidatsas had few metal spoons in those days. There was a shelf, or bench, at one side of the room, under the sloping roof, where were stored wooden bowls, uneaten foods, horn spoons, and the mussel shells that we used for teaspoons. When I was a little girl, nearly every family owned such shells, worn smooth and shiny from use.

After breakfast, unless it was in the corn season, when they went to the field, my mothers tidied up the lodge. They had short brooms of buckbrush. With these they swept the floor, stooping over and drawing the broom with a sidewise motion. As my father stabled his hunting ponies in the lodge at night, there was a good deal of litter to be taken out. Red Blossom used to scrape her sweepings into a skin basket, which she bore to the river bank and emptied.

Other tasks were then taken up; and there were plenty of them. Moccasins had to be made or old ones mended. Shirts and other garments had to be made. Often there were skins to be dressed or scraped. Leggings and shirts were embroidered usually in winter, when the women had no corn to hoe.

There was a good deal of visiting in our lodge; for my father was one of the chiefs of the village, and always kept open house. “If a man would be chief,” we said, “he should be ready to feed the poor and strangers.” A pot with buffalo meat or corn and beans cooking was always on the fire in my father’s lodge. His friends and the other chief men of the village often came in to talk over affairs. A visitor came in without knocking, but did not sit down until he was asked.

Friends of my mothers also came in to sit and chat; and they often joined my mothers at whatever task they might be doing. Red Blossom would set a bowl of food before each. What she could not eat the guest took home with her. It was impolite to leave any uneaten food, as that would mean, “I do not like your cooking; it is unfit to eat.”

My mothers were neat housekeepers and kept the ground about the lodge entrance swept as clean as the lodge floor; but many families were careless, and cast ashes, floor sweepings, scraps of broken bones and other litter on the ground about their lodges. In time this rubbish made little piles and became a nuisance, so that people could hardly walk in the paths between the lodges.

The Black Mouths then went through the village and ordered the women to clean up. The Black Mouths were a society of men of about forty years of age. They acted as police and punished any one who broke the camp laws.

These clean-ups were made rather often; in summer, perhaps twice a month. They were always ordered by the Black Mouths.

I remember one morning, just after breakfast, I heard singing, as of a dozen or more men coming toward our lodge. I started to run out to see what it was, but my mothers cried, “Do not go. It is the Black Mouths.” My mothers, I thought, looked rather scared. We were still speaking, when I heard the tramp of feet. The door lifted, and the Black Mouths came in.

They looked very terrible, all painted with the lower half of the face black. Many, but not all, had the upper half of the face red. Some had eagles’ feathers in their hair, and all wore robes or blankets. Some carried guns. Others had sticks about as long as my arm. With these sticks they beat any woman who would not help in the clean-up.

I fled to my father, but I dared not cry out, for I, too, was scared.

“One of you women go out and help clean up the village,” said the Black Mouths. They spoke sternly, and several of them at once.

Like all the other women, my mothers were afraid of the Black Mouths “We will go,” said both, and Red Blossom caught up broom and skin basket and went out.

The Black Mouths went also, and I followed to see what they did. They went into another lodge not far away. I heard voices, then the report of a gun, and a woman screamed. After a time, the Black Mouths came out driving before them a woman, very angry, but much frightened. She had not moved quickly enough to get her basket, and one of the Black Mouths had fired his gun at her feet to frighten her. The gun was loaded only with powder.

After they had made the rounds of the village, the Black Mouths returned to the lodge of their “keeper,” a man named Crow Paunch. Soon we heard singing and drumming, and knew they were singing some of the society’s songs.

When they had sung three or four times, there was silence for a while, as if a pipe were being passed. Then all came out and made the rounds a second time, to see if the work of cleaning was done and to hurry up the laggards. The village was all cleaned before noon; but some of the women got their work done sooner than others.

After the clean-up the village children came out to play in the spaces between the lodges, now swept clean and smooth. It was in these smooth spaces that the boys liked to play at throw sticks, light willow rods which they darted against the ground, whence they bounded to a great distance.

SIXTH CHAPTER

CHILDHOOD GAMES AND BELIEFS

White people seem to think that Indian children never have any play and never laugh. Such ideas seem very funny to me. How can any child grow up without play? I have seen children at our reservation school playing white men’s games—baseball, prisoners’ base, marbles. We Indian children also had games. I think they were better than white children’s games.

I look back upon my girlhood as the happiest time of my life. How I should like to see all my little girl playmates again! Some still live, and when we meet at feasts or at Fourth-of-July camp, we talk of the good times we had when we were children.

My little half sister was my usual playmate. She was two years younger than I, and I loved her dearly. She had a pretty name, Cold Medicine. On our prairies grows a flower with long, yellow root. In old times, if a warrior was running from enemies and became wearied he chewed a bit of the root and rubbed it on his eyelids. It made his eyes and tongue feel cold and kept him awake. The flower for this reason was called cold medicine. When my father spoke my sister’s name, it made him think of this flower and of the many times he had bravely gone out with war parties.

For playgrounds my little sister and I had the level spaces between the lodges or the ground under the corn stage, in sunny weather; and the big, roomy floor of the earth lodge, if it rained or the weather were chill. We liked, too, to play in the lodge in the hot days of the Cherry moon; for it was cool inside, never hot and stuffy like a white man’s house. In the fall, when the air was frosty, the sun often shone, and we could play in the big yellow sunspot that fell on the floor through the smoke hole.

We liked to play at housekeeping, especially in the warm spring days, when we had returned from winter camp and could again play out-ofdoors. With the help of the neighbors’ children, we fetched long forked sticks. These we stacked like a tepee frame and covered with robes that we borrowed. To this play tent we brought foods and had a feast.

Sometimes little boys joined in our play; and then it was like real housekeeping. We girls chose each a little boy for husband. To my little husband I said, “Old man, get your arrows, and go kill some buffaloes. We are hungry. Go at once!”

My little husband hastened to his mother and told her our needs. She laughed and gave him a boiled buffalo tongue; or perhaps pemmican, dried meat pounded fine and mixed with marrow fat. This and the foods which the other little husbands fetched us, we girls laid on fresh, clean grass that we pulled. Then we sat down to feast, the little girls on one side of the fireplace, the little boys on the other, just as we had seen men and women sit when they feasted. Only there really was no fireplace. We just made believe there was.

In summer, my little sister and I often went to the river for wet clay, which we modeled into figures. There is a smooth, blue clay found in places at the water’s edge, very good for modeling. We liked best to make human figures, man, woman, or little child. We dried them in the shade, else the sun cracked them. I fear they were not very beautiful. When we made a mud man, we had to give him three legs to make him stand up.

I had a doll, woven of rushes, that Turtle made me. It really was not a doll, but a cradle, such as Indian women used for carrying a small child. In winter I had my deer-skin doll, with the beads for eyes. My grandmother had made me a little bed for my dolls. The frame was of willows, and it was covered with gopher skins, tanned and sewed together. In this little bed my sister and I used to put our dollies to sleep.

We had a game of ball much like shinny. It was a woman’s game, but we little girls played it with hooked sticks. We also had a big, soft ball, stuffed with antelope hair, which we would bounce in the air with the foot. The game was to see how long a girl could bounce the ball without letting it touch the ground. Some girls could bounce it more than a hundred times. It was lots of fun.

We coasted in winter, on small sleds made of buffalo ribs; but coasting on the snow was rather for boys and older girls. There was another kind of coaster that we girls liked. A buffalo skin has the hair lying backwards, towards the flanks. I would borrow a skin of my mothers and tie a thong through two of the stake holes at the head or neck, to draw it by. Such a skin made a good coaster even in summer on a steep hillside; for, laid head forward, it slid smoothly over the soft grass.

Girls of thirteen or fourteen were fond of playing at “tossing in a blanket,” or “foot-moving,” as we called it. There were fifteen or twenty players. A newly dried skin was borrowed, one that was scraped clean of hair. There were always holes cut in the edges of a hide, to stake it to the ground while drying. Into each hole a small hard wood stick was now thrust and twisted around, for a handle.

Along the ditch at the edge of the village grew many tall weeds. The players pulled armfuls of these and made them into a pile. They laid the hide on this pile of weeds; and, with a player at every one of the stick handles, they stretched the hide taut.

A girl now lay downward on the hide. With a quick pull, the others tossed her into the air, when she was expected to come down on her feet, to be instantly tossed again. The game was to see how many times she could be tossed without falling. A player was often tossed ten or more times before she lost her balance. Each time, as she came down, she kept turning in one direction, right or left. When at last she fell, the pile of weeds saved her from any hurt.

We called the game _eetseepadahpakee_,[7] or foot-moving, from the player’s habit of wriggling her feet when in the air. We thought this wriggling, or foot moving, a mark of skill.

[7] ēēt sēē pä däh´ pä kēē

But, if my mothers let me play much of the time, they did not forget to teach me good morals. “We are a family that has not a bad woman in it,” they used to say. “You must try hard not to be naughty.”

My grandfather Big Cloud often talked to me. “My granddaughter,” he would say, “try to be good, so that you will grow up to be a good woman. Do not quarrel nor steal. Do not answer anyone with bad words. Obey your parents, and remember all that I say.”

When I was naughty my mothers usually scolded me; for they were kind women and did not like to have me punished. Sometimes they scared me into being good, by saying, “The owl will get you.” This saying had to do with an old custom that I will explain.

Until I was about nine years old, my hair was cut short, with a tuft on either side of my head, like the horns of an owl. Turtle used to cut my hair. She used a big, steel knife. In old times, I have heard, a thin blade of flint was used. I did not like Turtle’s hair cutting a bit, because she _pulled_.

“Why do you cut my hair, grandmother?” I asked.

“It is our custom,” Turtle answered. “I will tell you the story.”

“Thousands and thousands of years ago, there lived a great owl. He was strong and had magic power, but he was a bad bird. When the hunters killed buffaloes, the owl would turn all the meat bitter, so that the Indians could not eat it, and so they were always hungry.

“On this earth then lived a young man called the Sun’s Child; for the sun was his father. He heard how the Indians were made hungry, and came to help them.

“The owl lived in a hollow tree that had a hole high up in its trunk. The Sun’s Child climbed the tree, and when the owl put his head out of the hole, he caught the bird by the neck.

“‘Do not let the Sun’s Child kill me!’ the owl cried to the Indians. ‘I have been a bad bird; now I will be good and I will help your children.

“‘As soon as a child is old enough to understand you when you speak to him, cut his hair with two tufts like my own. Do this to make him look like an owl; and I will remember and make the child grow up strong and healthy. If a child weeps or will not obey, say to him, “The owl will get you!” This will frighten him, so that he will obey you.’”

It was thus my mothers frightened me when I was naughty. Red Blossom would call, “O owl, I have a bad daughter. Come.”

“I will be good, I will be good!” I would cry, as I ran to my father. I knew he would not let the owl hurt me.

My old grandfather, Missouri River, taught me of the gods. He was a medicine man and very holy, and I was rather afraid of him. He used to sit on the bench behind the fire, to smoke. He had a long pipe, of polished black stone. He liked best to smoke dried tobacco blossoms which he first oiled with buffalo fat.

One day, as he sat smoking, I asked him, “Grandfather, who are the gods?”

Missouri River took a long pull at his pipe, blew the smoke from his nostrils, and put the stem from his mouth. “Little granddaughter,” he answered, “this earth is alive and has a soul or spirit, just as you have a spirit. Other things also have spirits, the sun, clouds, trees, beasts, birds. These spirits are our gods. We pray to them and offer them food, that they may help us when we have need.”

“Do the spirits eat the food?” I asked. I had seen my grandfather set food before the two skulls of the Big Birds’ ceremony.

“No,” said my grandfather, “They eat the food’s spirit; for the food has a spirit as have all things. When the gods have eaten of its spirit, we often take back the food to eat ourselves.”

“How do we know there are gods, grandfather?” I asked.

“They appear to us in our dreams. That is why the medicine man fasts and cuts his flesh with knives. If he fasts long, he will fall in a vision. In this vision the gods will come and talk with him.”

“What are the gods like?” I asked.

“Like beings that live on this earth. Some are as men. Others are as birds, or beasts, or even plants and other things. Not all the gods are good. Some seek to harm us. The good gods send us buffaloes, and rain to make our corn grow.”

“Do they send us thunder?” I asked. There had been a heavy storm the day before.

“The thunder bird god sends us thunder,” said my grandfather. “He is like a great swallow, with wings that spread out like clouds. Lightning is the flash of his eyes. His scream makes the thunder.

“Once in Five Villages,” my grandfather went on, “there lived a brave man who owned a gun. One day a storm blew up. As the man sat in his lodge, there came a clap of thunder and lightning struck his roof, tearing a great hole.

“This did not frighten the man at all. Indeed, it angered him. He caught up his gun and fired it through the hole straight into the sky. ‘You thunder bird,’ he shouted, ‘stay away from my lodge. See this gun. If you come, I will shoot at you again!’”

My grandfather paused to fill his pipe. “That was a brave man,” he said as he reached for a coal. “Perhaps the thunder bird loves brave men, and did not harm him. But it is not well to provoke the gods. My little granddaughter should never laugh at them nor speak of them lightly.”

My grandfather spoke very solemnly.

SEVENTH CHAPTER

KINSHIP, CLAN COUSINS

We Hidatsas do not reckon our kin as white men do. If a white man marries, his wife is called by his name; and his children also, as Tom Smith, Mary Smith. We Indians had no family names. Every Hidatsa belonged to a clan; but a child, when he was born, became a member of his mother’s, not his father’s clan.

An Indian calls all members of his clan his brothers and sisters. The men of his father’s clan he calls his clan fathers; and the women, his clan aunts. Thus I was born a member of the _Tsistska_[8], or Prairie Chicken clan, because my mother was a _Tsistska_. My father was a member of the _Meedeepahdee_,[9] or Rising Water clan. Members of the _Tsistska_ clan are my brothers and sisters; but my father’s clan brothers, men of the _Meedeepahdee_, are my clan fathers, and his clan sisters are my clan aunts.

[8] Tsïst´ skä

[9] Mēē dēē päh´ dēē

These relations meant much to us Indians. Members of a clan were bound to help one another in need, and thought the gods would punish them if they did not. Thus, if my mother was in need, members of the _Tsistska_ clan helped her. If she was hungry, they gave her food. If her child was naughty, my mother called in a _Meedeepahdee_ to punish him, a clan father, if the child was a boy; if a girl, a clan aunt; for parents did not punish their own children. Again, when my father died, his clan fathers and clan aunts it was, who bore him to the burial scaffold and prayed his ghost not to come back to trouble the villagers.

Another clan relative is _makutsatee_,[10] or clan cousin. I reckon as my clan cousins all members of my tribe whose fathers are my clan fathers. Thus, my mother, I have said, was a Prairie Chicken; my father, a member of the _Meedeepahdee_, or Rising Water, clan. Another woman, of what clan does not matter, is also married to a _Meedeepahdee_; her children will be my clan cousins, because their father, being a _Meedeepahdee_, is my clan father.

[10] mä kṳt´ sä tēē

Clan cousins had a custom that will seem strange to white people. We Indians are proud, and it makes our hearts sore if others make mock of us. In olden times if a man said to his friend, even in jest, “You are like a dog,” his friend would draw his knife to fight. I think we Indians are more careful of our words than white men are.

But it is never good for a man not to know his faults, and so we let one’s clan cousins tease him for any fault he had. Especially was this teasing common between young men and young women. Thus a young man might be unlucky in war. As he passed the fields where the village women hoed their corn, he would hear some mischievous girl, his clan cousin, singing a song taunting him for his ill success. Were any one else to do this, the young man would be ready to fight; but, seeing that the singer was his clan cousin, he would laugh and call out, “Sing louder cousin, sing louder, that I may hear you.”

I can best explain this custom by telling you a story:

Story of Snake Head-Ornament

A long time ago, in one of our villages at Knife river, lived a man named _Mapuksaokihe_,[11] or Snake Head-Ornament. He was a great medicine man. In a hole in the floor of his earth lodge, there lived a bull snake. Snake Head-Ornament called the bull snake “father.”

[11] Mä pṳk´ sä ō kēē hĕ

When Snake Head-Ornament was invited to a feast, he would paint his face, wrap himself in his best robe and say, “Come, father; let us go and get something to eat.”

The bull snake would creep from his hole, crawl up the man’s body and coil about his neck, thrusting his head over the man’s forehead; or he would coil about the man’s head like the headcloth of a hunter, with his head thrust forward, as I have said.

Bearing the snake thus on his head, Snake Head-Ornament would enter the lodge where the feast was held and sit down to eat. The snake, however, did not eat of the food that Snake Head-Ornament ate. The snake’s food was scrapings of buffalo hides that the women of the lodge fed him.

When Snake Head-Ornament came home, he would say to the bull snake, “Father, get off.” And the snake would crawl down the man’s body and into his den again.

Snake Head-Ornament fasted and had a vision. In the vision his gods, he thought, bade him go to war. He made up a war party and led it against enemies on the Yellowstone river. The party not only killed no enemies, but lost three of their own men; and they thought Snake Head-Ornament was to blame for it. “You said your prayers were strong,” they said; “and we have lost three men! Your gods have not helped us.”

Snake Head-Ornament thought his gods were angry with him; and when he came home he went about crying and mourning and calling upon his gods to give him another vision. “Pity me, gods,” he cried, “make me strong that I may bring home scalps and horses.” He was a brave man, and his bad fortune made his heart sore.

In those days, when a man mourned he cut off his hair, painted his body with white clay, and threw away his moccasins. He also cut his flesh with a knife or some sharp weapon. Now when a man sought a vision from the gods, he wept and mourned, that the gods might have pity on him; and for this he went away from the village, alone, into the hills. So it happened, that Snake Head-Ornament, on his way to the hills, went mourning and crying past a field where sat a woman, his clan cousin, on her watch-stage. Seeing him, she began a song to tease him:

He said, “I am a young bird!”
If a young bird, he should be in his nest;
But he comes here looking gray,
And wanders about outside the village!

He said, “I am a young snake!”
If a young snake, he should be in the hills among the red buttes;
But he comes here looking gray and crying,
And wanders aimlessly about!

When the woman sang, “He comes here looking gray,” she meant that the man was gray from the white-clay paint on his body.

Snake Head-Ornament heard her song; but, knowing she was his clan sister, he cried out to her: “Sing louder, cousin! You are right; let my ‘fathers’ hear what you say. I do not know if they will feel shame or not, but the bull snake and the bald eagle both called me ‘son’!”

What he meant was that the bull snake and the bald eagle were his dream gods. That is, they had appeared to him in a dream, and promised to help him as they would a son, when he went to war. In her song, the woman taunted him with this. If she had not been his clan cousin, he would have been beside himself with anger. As it was, he but laughed and did not hurt her.

But the woman had cause for singing her song. Years before, when Snake Head-Ornament was a very young man, he went out with a war party and killed a Sioux woman. When he came home the people called him brave, and made much of him; and he grew quite puffed up now that all looked up to him.

Not long after, he was made a member of the Black Mouth society. It happened one day, that the women were building a fence of logs, set upright around the village, to defend it from enemies. Snake Head-Ornament, as a member of the Black Mouths, was one of the men overseeing the work. This woman, his clan cousin, was slow at her task; and, to make her move more briskly, Snake Head-Ornament came close to her and fired off his gun just past her knees. She screamed, but seeing it was Snake Head-Ornament who had shot, and knowing he was her clan cousin, she did not get angry. Nevertheless, she did not forget! And, years after, she had revenge in her taunting song.

• • • • •

Young men going out with a war party had to take much chaffing from older warriors who were clan cousins. My brother was once out with a party of fifty, many of them young men. They were fleeing from a big camp of Sioux and had ridden for two days. The second night one of the younger men, a mere lad, fell asleep as he rode his pony. An older warrior, his clan cousin, fired a gun past the lad’s ear. “Young man,” he cried, “you sleep so soundly that only thunder can waken you!” The rest of the party thought the warrior’s words a huge joke.

EIGHTH CHAPTER

INDIAN DOGS

In old times we Indian people had no horses, and not many families of my tribe owned them when I was a little girl. But I do not think there ever was a time when we Hidatsas did not own dogs. We trained them to draw our tent poles and our loaded travois. We never used dogs to chase deer, as white men do.

Our Hidatsa dogs—the breed we owned when I was a little girl—had broad faces, with gentle, knowing eyes; erect, pointed ears; and tails curling, never trailing like a wolf’s tail. They had soft silky hair, gray, black, or spotted red or white. All had stout, heavy legs. I think this sturdiness was because we saved only dogs of stout build to drag our travois.

The Teton Sioux, who lived south of us, owned dogs like ours, but of slenderer build and legs. They liked these dogs, I think, because they were speedier; for the Sioux were hunters, always moving from place to place.

Almost every family in Like-a-Fishhook village owned two or more dogs; and, as there were about seventy lodges in the village, our dogs made a large pack. The dogs knew every man and child in the village, and being, besides, well trained, seldom bit anyone. But they were quick to wind a stranger. A visitor from another tribe was sure to be beset by a troop of dogs, growling and barking at his heels.

The dogs had one habit I liked. Every evening about bedtime—and bedtime for a little Indian girl was early—some dog was sure to start up, _wu-wu-wu!_ And all the others would join in, even the little puppies. I used to lie in my bed and listen to them.

About midnight, the barking would start up again, especially if there was a moon, and again a little before daylight; but I was usually asleep at these hours.

In daytime lookouts were always on the roofs of some of the lodges watching if enemies or buffaloes were about. If they saw our hunters, with meat, coming home over the prairie, these lookouts would cry out, “_Hey-da-ey!_”[12] And the dogs, knowing what the cry meant, would join in with “_wu-u-u-u_.”[13] They liked fresh buffalo meat no less than the Indians.

[12] He̱y dä e̱y´

[13] Wṳ-ṳ-ṳ

But the greatest excitement was when enemies were seen. The lookouts then cried, “_Ahahuts[14]—they come against us!_” Warriors, on hearing the cry, seized weapons and ran out of their lodges, yelling shrilly. The chiefs sprang for their ponies, twisting lariats into the ponies’ mouths for bridles. Medicine men chanted holy songs, and women ran about calling to their children. But above all rose the barking of the dogs, every beast joining in the hubbub.

[14] A hä hṳts´

One day, after the midday meal—I think I was then eight years old—old Turtle went down to the river and fetched an armful of dry willows. They were about four feet long and as thick as a child’s wrist; some were forked at the top. She set them in a circle, with tops together like a tepee, at one side of the lodge entrance near the place where the dogs slept.

“What are you doing, grandmother?” I asked.

Turtle did not answer my question. “I want to get some dry grass,” she said. “Come and help me.”

We went out to a place in the hills where was some long, dead grass. Turtle pulled a big armful, piling it on her robe which she spread on the ground. She drew the corners of the robe together, slung the bundle over her shoulder and we came back to the village.

She laid the grass thickly over the sides of the little tepee, leaning chunks of wood against it to keep the grass in place. She left a door, or opening, in front; and she even bound a stick over the door, like the pole over the door of a hunting lodge. Last, she put grass inside, as if for a bed.

“Grandmother, what _are_ you doing?” I begged; but she led me into the lodge, telling me nothing.

I was awakened early the next morning by dogs barking on the roof. As I lay listening, I thought I heard a faint whining outside. It seemed to come from the place where the little grass tepee stood.

I fell asleep, and awoke a second time to see Red Blossom fanning the fire with a goose wing. Breakfast was soon ready, of fresh boiled buffalo meat. The hunters had come in only the night before, and they had brought a fresh side-and-ribs for a present to my father.

After the meal I saw Turtle gather up the scraps of meat into a wooden bowl. “Come,” she said, leading me out of the lodge.

She stopped before the tepee, and thrust the bowl of scraps within. Again I heard the faint whining. I dropped to my knees and looked in. There I saw our best dog, the pet of us all; and beside her lay four little puppies.

“_Eh, sukkeets!_”[15] I cried, “Oh, good!” And I drew the puppies out one by one, to cuddle them. The mother dog whined, and raised her eyes to me. She was a gentle dog and did not snap at my hand.

[15] sŭk´ kēēts

I do not know whether I or the puppies’ mother cuddled them more, the next few days. One puppy I came to love dearly. He was a wriggling little thing, with a bob tail for all the world like a rabbit’s, except that it hung down. There were ten or more bobtailed dogs in the village all of them born so. My puppy was black, so I named him _Sheepeesha_,[16] or Blackie.

[16] Shēē´ pēē shä

It must have been a funny sight to see me take my puppy out for a walk. Stooping, I would lay the puppy between my shoulders and draw my tiny robe up over his back; and I would walk off proud as any Indian mother of her new babe. The old mother dog would creep half out of her kennel, following me with her gentle eyes. I was careful not to go out of her sight.

When the puppies were ten days old my grandmother brought in some fresh sage, the kind we Indians use in a sweat lodge. She laid the sage by the fireplace and fetched in the puppies, barring the door so that the mother dog could not come in. I could hear the poor dog whining pitifully.

“What are you going to do, grandmother?” I asked.

“I am going to smoke the puppies.”

“Why, grandmother?” I cried.

“Because the puppies are old enough to eat cooked meat, for their teeth have come through. The sage is a sacred plant. Its smoke will make the puppies hungry, so that they will eat.”

While she was speaking, she opened my little pet’s jaws. Sure enough, four white teeth were coming through the gums.

Turtle raked some coals from the ashes, and laid on them a handful of the sage. A column of thick white smoke arose upward to the smoke hole.

My grandmother took my puppy in her hands and held his head in the smoke. The poor puppy struggled and choked. Thick spittle, like suds, came out of his mouth. I was frightened, and thought he was going to die.

“The smoke will make the puppy healthy,” said Turtle. “Now let us see if he will grow up strong, to carry my little granddaughter’s tent.”

She lifted the puppy, still choking, from the floor, and let him fall so that he landed on his feet. The puppy was still young and weak, and he was strangling; but his little legs stiffened, and he stood without falling.

“Hey, hey,” laughed my grandmother. “This is a strong dog! He will grow up to carry your tent.” For in old times, when traveling, we Hidatsas made our dogs drag our tents on poles, like travois.

Turtle tried the other three puppies. One, not as strong as the rest, fell on his side. “This dog will not grow up strong,” said my grandmother. “I will give him to my neighbor, who asks for one.”

She now lifted a clay pot out of the ashes, and from it poured something into a flat bowl; corn mush, I think it was, boiled with buffalo fats. She set the bowl before the puppies. They quickly lapped up the mush, with funny red tongues. My little black puppy even gulped down a lump of fat.

Turtle laughed. “I told you your puppy is strong,” she cried. “He will soon grow up to carry your tent. But to grow, our puppies must be fed. It will be your work to feed them. See they do not starve.”

But, if I had to feed the puppies, my grandmother also helped. Indeed, the whole family watched to see that they had enough. If fresh meat was brought in, we always boiled some and gave to the puppies. We did not give them raw meat. “It is not good for puppies. It will make them sick,” said Turtle.

But, as the puppies grew up, we began to feed them raw meat. My grandmother sometimes boiled corn for them, into a coarse mush. They were fond of this. As they grew older, any food that turned sour or was unfit for the family to eat was given me for my doggies. They ate it greedily. It did not seem to harm them.

Sometimes a deer or elk was killed, that was poor in flesh. Such a carcass was cut up and given to the dogs of the village, and of course mine got their share.

When several buffaloes were killed, the hunters often could not carry all the meat home, and took only the best cuts. The next day any one who wanted, could go out and take the cast-away pieces for her dogs. Then, there were parts that we always threw away or gave to the dogs. The tough, outside meat of a buffalo’s hams we cut off and saved for the dogs. The inside meat, next the bone, we thought our very best. Hunters were fond of roasting it before the fire, on two stones.

Even in famine times we did not forget our dogs; but we sometimes had only soft bones to give them that had been broken for boiling. The dogs gnawed these, and so got a little food.

We Hidatsas loved our good dogs, and were kind to them.

NINTH CHAPTER

TRAINING A DOG

Autumn twice came around, and my puppy had grown into a romping dog. In the moon of Yellow Leaves, my tribe went again into winter camp. We returned to Like-a-Fishhook village rather early in the spring. Patches of snow lay on the ground, and the ice was still firm on the Missouri when we crossed. We reached the village in midafternoon.

My father had two pack horses loaded with our stuff and our dogs dragged well-laden travois. While my mothers were unpacking, my father made a fire. He drew his flint and steel, and with a bit of soft, rotten wood for tinder struck a spark. In olden times the Hidatsas made fire with two sticks. “I saw very old men make fire thus, when I was a lad,” my grandfather once told me. I never saw it done myself.

Small Ankle wrapped the spark, caught in the tinder, in a little bunch of dry grass, and waved it in the air until the grass was ablaze. He had raked together some bits of charcoal in the fireplace and on them laid a few dry-wood splinters. To these he held the burning grass and soon had a fire.

There was a little firewood in the lodge, left from the previous autumn, but not enough to keep the fire going long. As my mothers were still unpacking, my father offered to go out and get wood for the night. Getting wood, we thought, was woman’s work; but my father was a kind man, willing to help his wives.

From the saddle of one of his horses Small Ankle took a rawhide lariat, and to one end fastened a short stick. There were some cottonwoods under the river bank, not far from the village. Into one of the largest trees Small Ankle threw his lariat until the stick caught in some dead branches overhead. A sharp pull broke off the branches. My father gathered them up and bore them to the lodge.

There were logs and dead wood lying along the river, but they were wet with the snows. My father knew the dead branches in the trees would be dried by the winds. He wanted dry wood to kindle a quick fire.

The next morning after we had eaten, Red Blossom took her ax, and, dragging a travois from its place against the fire screen, led the way out of the lodge. Strikes-Many Woman followed her. Our biggest dog, lying outside, saw them coming. He got up, shaking himself, wagging his tail, and barking _wu-wu-wu!_ Our dogs were always ready to be harnessed. They liked to go to the woods, knowing they would be fed well afterwards.

This, our best dog, was named _Akeekahee_,[17] or Took-from-Him. He belonged to Red Blossom. A woman owning a dog would ask some brave man of her family to name him for her; and Red Blossom had asked my grandfather, Big Cloud, to name her dog. Once an enemy had stolen his horse, but Big Cloud gave chase and retook his horse from that bad enemy. For this, he named the dog Took-from-Him.

[17] Ȧ kēē´ kä hēē

My mothers harnessed their dogs, four in number and started off. They returned a little after midday; first, Red Blossom, with a great pack of wood on her back; after her, Strikes-Many Woman; then the four dogs, marching one behind the other, Took-from-Him in the lead. Each dog dragged a travois loaded with wood.

My mothers dropped their loads before the lodge entrance. The dogs were unhitched; and, while old Turtle fed them, Strikes-Many Woman carried the wood into the lodge and piled it by the corral, where it was handy to the fire.

I was eager to have my dog broken to harness and begged my grandmother to make a travois for him. “I will,” she said, “but wait another moon. Your dog will then be fed fat, after the long winter. A dog should be two years old, and strong, when he is broken. To work a dog too young or when he is weak will hurt his back.”

A month after this, my mothers came home one afternoon from woodgathering, dragging each a cottonwood pole about eight feet long. They peeled these poles bare of bark, and laid them up on the corn stage to dry.

“What are the poles for?” I asked.

“They are for your travois,” said my grandmother. “Your dog _Sheepeesha_ is now old enough to work; and my little granddaughter, too, must learn to be useful.”

I was ready to cry out and dance, when I heard these words of my grandmother; and I thought I could never, never wait until those poles dried. The heavy ladder we used for mounting the stage lay on the ground when not in use. I was too little to lift it, to climb up to the poles; but I went every day to stand below and gaze at them longingly.

One afternoon my grandmother fetched the poles into the lodge. “They are dry now,” she said. “I will make the travois frame.”

With her big knife she hacked the greater ends of the poles flat, so that they would run smooth on the ground. The small ends she crossed for the joint, cutting a notch in each to make them fit. She bound the joint with strips of the big tendon in a buffalo’s neck that we Indians call the _eetsuta_[18]. These strips drew taut as they dried, making the joint firm.

[18] ēēt sṳ´ tä

Turtle now drew a saddle, or cushion, over the poles just under the joint, sewing it down with buckskin thongs. This saddle was to keep the dog from fretting his shoulders against the poles.

The hoop for the basket was of ash. My father webbed it. He cut a long, thin thong from the edges of a hide, and soaked it to make it soft. Taking some wet paint in his palm, he drew the thong through it, thus painting it a bright red. He laced the thong over the hoop and my grandmother bound the basket in place.

The harness was of two pieces: a collar, to go around the dog’s neck; and a breast thong, that was drawn across his chest and through a loop in the saddle, was lapped once or twice around one of the travois poles, and was finally carried under the dog’s body to the other pole, where it was made fast.

I could hardly wait to eat my breakfast the next morning, for my mothers had promised to take me with them to gather wood. “And we are going to begin training your dog to-day,” they told me.

I knew a dog should be fed before he was harnessed, and I saved half my breakfast meat to give to mine. Owning a dog, and invited to go with my mothers to get wood, I felt that in spite of my girlish years I was almost a woman now.

Breakfast ended, Red Blossom fetched the new travois and laid it on my dog’s back. He looked up, puzzled, then sank to the ground and lay wagging his tail from side to side, sweeping a clean place in the dust. Red Blossom bound the collar about his neck, and drew and fastened the breast thong. While she was doing this I gently patted my dog’s head.

“_Nah!_” said Red Blossom, “Come!” But my doggie was a bit frightened. He twisted about, trying to rid himself of the travois, but only hurt himself. He looked up at me and whined. Red Blossom tied a thong to his collar and put the end in my hand. “Lead him,” she said. “He will follow the other dogs.” She led off, Strikes-Many Woman behind her, and the dogs followed after, in a line.

I tugged at my dog’s thong, pursing my lips and making a whistling sound, as Indians do. My doggie understood. He rose to his feet, and, seeing the other dogs moving off, followed after the last one.

We thus came to the woods, about a mile and a half from the village. The dogs sank in their tracks, to rest. My mothers searched about for dead-and-dry wood, which they cut into lengths of two feet or more, and piled them in the path near the dogs.

When they had enough wood cut, my mothers lifted each travois by its basket, and turned it so that the dog’s nose was pointed toward the village; and they loaded each travois with a double armful of wood, bound to the basket with two thongs. My two mothers then lifted each a load to her own back, and started to the village.

I did not carry any load myself, as my shoulders were not strong enough for such heavy work; but I led my dog. Not a very big load was put on him, as it was his first. I called to him, tugging gently at the thong. Seeing the other dogs ahead, he followed willingly.

Old Turtle awaited us at the door. “Grandmother,” I cried joyfully, “my dog has brought home a load of wood. He did not try to run away.” Turtle laughed, and helped me unload.

That evening I was sitting by the fire with my good dog, for Red Blossom had let me bring him into the lodge. Now and then I slipped him a bit of meat I had saved from my supper. My father had laid some dry sticks on the fire, and the blaze flickered and rose, flickered and rose, making post and rafter yellow with its light. Small Ankle sat on his couch smoking his pipe. Suddenly I heard the clitter of the hollow hoofs as the lodge door was raised and let fall again. I looked up. Coyote Eyes, a Ree Indian, was coming around the screen.

“_Hau!_”[19] cried my father, making a place for him on the couch. Small Ankle was a polite man. He handed his pipe to the Ree, who took big pulls, blowing the smoke through his nostrils.

[19] Hau (How)

Coyote Eyes gave the pipe back to my father. “That is a fine dog you have,” he said to me. “I know a story of my tribe about two dogs.”

Being but a little girl, I did not think it proper for me to talk to a stranger, but my father answered for me, “What is the story?”

“In the beginning, my tribe came out of a cave in the earth,” said Coyote Eyes. “They journeyed until they came to the Missouri river. ‘Let us go up this river,’ they said, ‘and find a place to build our villages.’ They were weary of journeying.