Chapter XIV: A Buffalo Hunt 127 (3)

“They had two dogs in the camp. One was black; his name was Death. The other was white, and her name was Sickness. These dogs were asleep when the tribe broke camp the next morning. The people were in such haste to be off that they forgot to waken the dogs.

“The third day after, they saw two great fires sweeping toward them over the prairie. The women cried out with fear. All thought that they should die.

“When the fires came near, the people saw that they were the two dogs, Death and Sickness.

“‘Do not fear,’ said the dogs. ‘Our hearts are not all evil. True, we will bite you, because you forgot us; but we will also live with you and be your friends. We will carry your burdens; and when we die, you shall eat us.’

“The dogs grew old. The white one died, and her skin became the squash. Now our squashes are of different colors, white, gray, yellow, spotted, just as are dogs. These squashes we eat. Also we Rees eat dog meat; for, before he died, the black dog said, ‘You shall eat my flesh.’

“And to this day, when our Ree people sicken and die, they say, ‘We are bitten by Sickness and Death.’”

My father smiled. “We Hidatsas do not eat dogs,” he said; and then to me, “Little daughter, it is bedtime.”

I did not always obey my mothers; for, like all little girls, I was naughty sometimes, but I dared not disobey my father.

I put my dog out of the lodge, and went to bed.

TENTH CHAPTER

LEARNING TO WORK

My mothers began to teach me household tasks when I was about twelve years old. “You are getting to be a big girl,” they said. “Soon you will be a woman, and marry. Unless you learn to work, how will you feed your family?”

One of the things given me to do was fetching water from the river. No spring was near our village; and, anyhow, our prairie springs are often bitter with alkali. But the Missouri river, fed by melting snows of the Montana mountains, gave us plenty of fresh water. Missouri river water is muddy; but it soon settles, and is cool and sweet to drink. We Indians love our big river, and we are glad to drink of its waters, as drank our fathers.

A steep path led down the bank to the watering place. Down this path, the village girls made their way every morning to get water for drinking and cooking. They went in little groups or in pairs. Two girls, cousins or chums, sometimes swung a freshly filled pail from a pole on their shoulders.

But there were few pails of metal in my tribe, when I was a little girl. I used to fetch water in a clay pot, sometimes in a buffalo-paunch lining skewered on a stick; but my commonest bucket was of a buffalo heart skin. When my father killed a buffalo, he took out the heart skin, and filled it with grass until it dried. This he gave to Red Blossom, who sewed a little stick on each side of the mouth; and bound a short stick and sinews between them for handle. Such a bucket held about three pints. It was a frail looking vessel, but lasted a long time.

We girls liked to go to the watering place; for, while we were filling our buckets, we could gossip with our friends. For older girls and young men it was a place for courtship. A youth, with painted face and trailing hair switch, would loiter near the path, and smile slyly at his sweetheart as she passed. She did not always smile back. Sometimes for long weeks, she held her eyes away, not even glancing at his moccasins. It was a shy smile that she gave him, at last. Nor did she talk with her love-boy—as we called him—when others were about. We should have thought that silly. But he might wait for her at sunset, by her father’s lodge, and talk with her in the twilight.

But I had other tasks besides fetching water. I learned to cook, sweep, and sew with awl and sinew. Red Blossom taught me to embroider with quills of gull and porcupine, dyed in colors. Sometimes I helped at harder work; gathered drift wood at the river, dressed or scraped hides, and even helped in our cornfield.

I liked to go with my mothers to the cornfields in planting time, when the spring sun was shining and the birds singing in the tree tops. How good it seemed to be out under the open sky, after the long months in our winter camp! A cottonwood tree stood at a turn of the road to our field. Every season a pair of magpies built their nest in it. They were saucy birds and scolded us roundly when we passed. How I used to laugh at their wicked scoldings!

I am afraid I did not help my mothers much. Like any young girl, I liked better to watch the birds than to work. Sometimes I chased away the crows. Our corn indeed had many enemies, and we had to watch that they did not get our crop. Magpies and crows destroyed much of the young corn. Crows were fond of pulling up the plants when they were a half inch or an inch high. Spotted gophers dug up the roots of the young corn, to nibble the soft seed.

When our field was all planted, Red Blossom used to go back and replant any hills that the birds had destroyed. Where she found a plant missing, she dug a little hole with her hand and dropped in a seed, or I dropped it in for her.

It was hard work, stooping to plant in the hot sun, and Red Blossom never liked having to go over the field a second time. “Those bad crows,” she would groan, “they make us much trouble.”

My grandmother Turtle made scarecrows to frighten away the birds. In the middle of the field she drove two sticks for legs, and bound two other sticks to them for arms; on the top, she fastened a ball of cast-away skins for a head. She belted an old robe about the figure to make it look like a man. Such a scarecrow looked wicked! Indeed I was almost afraid of it myself. But the bad crows, seeing the scarecrow never moved from its place, soon lost their fear, and came back.

In the months of midsummer, the crows did not give us much trouble; but, as the moon of Cherries drew near, they became worse than ever. The corn had now begun to ear, and crows and blackbirds came in flocks to peck open the green ears for the soft kernels. Many families now built stages in their fields, where the girls and young women of the household came to sit and sing as they watched that crows and other thieves did not steal the ripening grain.

We cared for our corn in those days, as we would care for a child; for we Indian people loved our fields as mothers love their children. We thought that the corn plants had souls, as children have souls, and that the growing corn liked to hear us sing, as children like to hear their mothers sing to them. Nor did we want the birds to come and steal our corn, after the hard work of planting and hoeing. Horses, too, might break into the field, or boys might steal the green ears and go off and roast them.

A watchers’ stage was not hard to build. Four posts, forked at the tops, upheld beams, on which was laid a floor of puncheons, or split small logs, at the height of the full grown corn. The floor was about four feet long by three wide, roomy enough for two girls to sit together comfortably. Often a soft robe was spread on the floor. A ladder made of the trunk of a tree rested against the stage. The ladder had three steps.

A tree was often left standing in the field, to shade the watchers’ stage. If the tree was small and more shade was wanted, a robe was stretched over three poles leaned against the stage. These poles could be shifted with the sun.

Girls began to go on the watchers’ stage when about ten or twelve years of age, and many kept up the custom after they were grown up and married. Older women, working in the field and stopping to rest, often went on the stage and sang.

There was a watchers’ stage in my mothers’ field, where my sister, Cold Medicine, and I sat and sang; and in the two weeks of the ripening season we were singing most of the time. We looked upon watching our field as a kind of lark. We liked to sing, and now and then between songs we stood up to see if horses had broken into the field or if any boys were about. Boys of nine or ten years of age were quite troublesome. They liked to steal the green ears to roast by a fire in the woods.

I think Cold Medicine and I were rather glad to catch a boy stealing our corn, especially if he was a clan cousin, for then we could call him all the bad names we wished. “You bad, bad boy,” we would cry. “You thief,—stealing from your own relatives! _Nah, nah_,—go away.” This was enough; no boy stayed after such a scolding.

Most of the songs we sang were love-boy songs, as we called them; but not all were. One that we younger girls were fond of singing—girls, that is, of about twelve years of age—was like this:

You bad boys, you are all alike!
Your bow is like a bent basket hoop;
Your arrows are fit only to shoot into the air;
You poor boys, you must run on the prairie barefoot, because you
have no moccasins!

This song we sang to tease the boys who came to hunt birds in the near-by woods. Small boys went bird hunting nearly every day. The birds that a boy snared or shot he gave to his grandparents to roast in the lodge fire; for, with their well-worn teeth, old people could no longer chew our hard, dried buffalo meat.

Here is another song; but, that you may understand it, I will explain to you what _eekupa_[20] means. A girl loved by another girl as her own sister was called her _eekupa_. I think your word “chum,” as you explain it, has nearly the same meaning. This is the song:

“My _eekupa_, what do you wish to see?” you said to me.
What I wish to see is the corn silk peeping out of the growing ear;
But what _you_ wish to see is that naughty young man coming!

[20] ēē´ kṳ pä

Here is a song that older girls sang to tease young men of the Dog Society who happened to be going by:

You young man of the Dog Society, you said to me,
“When I go east with a war party, you will hear news of me how
brave I am!”
I have heard news of you;
When the fight was on, you ran and hid;
And you still think you are a brave young man!
Behold, you have joined the Dog Society;
But I call you just plain _dog_!

Songs that we sang on the watchers’ stage we called _meedaheeka_,[21] or gardeners’ songs. I have said that many of them were love-boy songs, and were intended to tease. We called a girl’s sweetheart her love-boy. All girls, we know, like to tease their sweethearts.

[21] mēē dä´ hēē kä

At one side of our field Turtle had made a booth, diamond willows thrust in the ground in a circle, with leafy tops bent over and tied together. In this booth, my sister and I, with our mothers and old Turtle, cooked our meals. We started a fire in the booth as soon as we got to the field, and ate our breakfast often at sunrise. Our food we had brought with us, usually buffalo meat, fresh or dried. Fresh meat we laid on the coals to broil. Dried meat we thrust on a stick and held over the fire to toast.

Sometimes we brought a clay cooking pot, and boiled squashes. We were fond of squashes and ate many of them. We sometimes boiled green corn and beans. My sister and I shelled the corn from the cob. We shelled the beans or boiled them in the pod. My grandmother poured the mess in a wooden bowl, and we ate with spoons which she made from squash stems. She would split a stem with her knife and put in a little stick to hold the split open.

I do not think anything can taste sweeter than a mess of fresh corn and beans, in the cool morning air, when the birds are twittering and the sun is just peeping over the tree tops.

ELEVENTH CHAPTER

PICKING JUNE BERRIES

June berry time had come. I was now fourteen years, old and had begun to think myself almost a young woman. Some of the young men even smiled at me as I came up from the watering place. I never smiled back, for I thought: “My father is a chief, and I belong to one of the best families in my tribe. I will be careful whom I choose to be my friends.”

A little north of my father’s, stood the earth lodge of Bear Man’s family. Bear Man was an eagle hunter. He had magic snares of sacred hemp plant which he tossed into the air as he prayed to the eagle spirits. After doing so he was sure to catch many young golden eagles at his eagle pit. We thought him a great medicine man.

Bear Man had a son named Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing, a straight-limbed, rather good-looking lad, a year older than myself. Bear Man’s father died, and Bear Man cut off his long hair in mourning. Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing made a switch of his father’s hair, tastefully spotting it with little lumps of spruce gum mixed with red ochre. He looked quite manly, I thought, wearing this switch, in spite of his fifteen years.

My father’s earth lodge and Bear Man’s both faced eastward, with the lodge of Blue Paint’s family standing between; but, as I stood at my father’s lodge entrance, I could see the flat top of Bear Man’s lodge over Blue Paint’s roof. Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing had joined the Stone Hammer Society a short while before, and had begun to paint his face like a young man. He would get up on his father’s roof, painted, and decked out in hair switch, best leggings, and moccasins, and sing his society’s songs. He had a fine voice, I thought; and when I went out with my buck-brush broom to sweep the ground about our lodge entrance, Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing would sing harder than ever. I thought perhaps he did this so that I would hear him. I was too well-bred to look up at him, but I did not always hurry to finish my sweeping.

There had been plenty of rain, and the June berry trees were now loaded with ripe fruit. We Indians set great store by these berries, and almost every family dried one or more sackfuls for winter. June berries are sweet, and, as we had no sugar, we were fond of them.

We were sitting one evening at our supper. Red Blossom had gone into the woods earlier in the day and fetched home some ripe June berries which we were eating. Perhaps that is why we ended our meal with our kettle half-full of boiled meat. “We will save this meat until morning,” Red Blossom said. “We must breakfast early, for Strikes-Many Woman and I are going with a party to pick June berries. Our daughter may go with us, if she will.”

I was quite happy when I heard this. I had seen my two mothers getting ready their berry sacks; and, looking over to the bench where they lay, I now saw that a small sack had been laid out for me.

Red Blossom dipped her fingers into the kettle for a lump of fat and continued: “The mother of that young man, Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing, said to me to-day, ‘If your daughter goes berrying to-morrow, my son wishes to go with her. He will take his bow and keep off enemies.”

I did not blush, for we Indian girls had dark skins and painted our cheeks; but I felt my heart jump. I looked down at the floor, then got up and went about my work, humming a song as I did so; for I thought, “I am going berrying in the morning.” I felt quite grown-up to know that a young man wanted to go berrying with me.

We were off the next morning before the sun was up. I walked with my mothers and the other women. The men went a little ahead, armed, some with guns, others with bows. Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing walked behind the men. On his back I saw a handsome otter-skin quiver, full of arrows. I felt safer to see those arrows. Enemies might be lurking anywhere in the woods, ready to capture us or take our scalps. We Indian women dared not go far into the woods without men to protect us.

At the woods the men joined us, and our party broke up into little groups, the older men helping their wives, and the younger men their sweethearts. I made my way to a clump of June berry trees bent nearly to the ground with fruit. I did not look to see if Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing was following me. I thought, “If he wants to help me, he may; but I shall not ask him.” I spread a skin under the branches, and I was looking for a stout stick when I saw my boy friend breaking off the laden branches and piling them on the skin, ready to be beaten.

I sat on the ground and with my stick beat off the berries. Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing fetched me fresh branches, and in an hour or two I had enough berries to fill my sack. Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing’s arrows lay at my feet. Once, when a near-by bush stirred, my boy friend leaped for his bow and laid an arrow on the string; but it was the wind, I guess.

All the time that we worked together Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing and I spoke not a word. Older couples, I knew, talked together, when they thought of marrying; but I was a young girl yet and did not want to be bothered with a husband.

When my sack was filled, I tied it shut and slung it on my back by my packing strap. Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing laid some sweet smelling leaves under the sack that the juices from the ripe berries might not ooze through and stain my dress.

I am sorry to say that I am not sure I even thanked Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing for all he did to help me.

I walked back to the village with the women as I had come. Ahead of us walked a young woman named Pink Blossom, with her chin in the air as if she were angry. The older women, coming after her, were laughing and slyly jesting with one another. I asked my mothers what it was all about.

It seems there was an old man in our party named Old Bear, whose wife had died. He wanted to marry again and smiled at Pink Blossom whenever she passed him; but she did not like Old Bear, and she turned her eyes away whenever he came near.

When she came to the June berry woods, Pink Blossom set her sack under a tree, while she picked berries. Old Bear saw the sack. He folded his robe under his arm into a kind of pocket, picked it full of berries, and emptied them into Pink Blossom’s sack.

This vexed Pink Blossom. She went to her sack and poured Old Bear’s berries out on the ground. “I do not want that old man to smile at me,” she told the other women.

It was because the women were laughing at her and Old Bear, that Pink Blossom walked ahead with her chin in the air. The others were having a good deal of fun with one another at her expense.

“I think Pink Blossom did wrong to waste the berries,” said one, a clan cousin. “If she did not want them herself, she should have given them back to Old Bear, for him to eat.”

“Old Bear’s is a sad case,” said Elk Woman. “But I knew a man in a worse case.”

“Tell us of it,” said Red Blossom.

“Years ago,” said Elk Woman, “I went berrying with some others on the other side of the Missouri. In the party was a young man named Weasel Arm. He was a good singer, and he liked to sing so that his sweetheart could hear his voice. His sweetheart was also in the party. Weasel Arm helped her fill her sack; and when she went back with the other women and they were waiting for some that had not yet come in, Weasel Arm lay down on the grass a little way off and sang, beating time on the stock of his gun.

“As he lay there he heard some one riding toward him, but thought it was one of his party. It was a Sioux; and right in the midst of the song—_poh!_—the Sioux fired, wounding Weasel Arm in the hip. Luckily the wound was slight, and Weasel Arm sprang for the near-by woods. The Sioux dared not follow him, for he saw that Weasel Arm had a gun.”

“I do not think Weasel Arm’s case as sad as Old Bear’s,” said one of the women. “Weasel Arm was wounded in his body, but Old Bear is wounded in his heart.”

Elk Woman laughed. “Have no fear for Old Bear,” she said. “He is an old man and has had more than one sweetheart. His heart will soon heal.”

“But I am sorry for the spilled berries,” she continued. “Pink Blossom should not waste good berries, even if Old Bear does look like an old man.”

All laughed at this but Pink Blossom.

“I knew a young woman who once wasted good rose berries, just as Pink Blossom wasted the June berries,” said Old-Owl Woman.

“Tell us the story,” said one of my mothers.

“When I was a girl,” said Old-Owl Woman, “Ear-Eat, a Crow Indian, married Yellow Blossom, a Hidatsa girl. They went to live with the Crows, but after a year they came back to visit our tribe at Five Villages.

“It was in the fall, when the rose berries are ripe. Now the Crow Indians like to eat rose berries, and gather them to dry for winter as we dry squashes. We Hidatsas eat rose berries sometimes, but we never dry them for winter. We think they are food for wild men.

“Ear-Eat was riding in the woods near our villages, when he found a thicket of rose bushes bending over with their load of ripe berries. ‘_Ey_,’ he cried, ‘how many berries are here! I never saw it thus in our Crow country.’ And he got off his horse and began to pick the berries.

“He had no basket to put them in, so he drew off his leggings, tied the bottoms shut with his moccasin strings, and, when he had filled the leggings with berries, he slung them over his horse’s back like a pair of saddle bags.

“He rode home happy, for he thought, ‘My wife will be glad to see so many berries.’

“When Yellow Blossom saw her husband riding home without his leggings, and with the tops of his moccasins loose and flapping, she could hardly believe her eyes. As she stood staring, Ear-Eat got off his horse and handed her his bulging leggings. ‘Here, wife,’ he cried, ‘look at these fine berries. Now we shall have something good to eat.’

“The village women, hearing what Ear-Eat said, crowded close to look. When they saw that his leggings were filled with rose berries, they cried out with laughter.

“Yellow Blossom was angry. ‘You are crazy,’ she cried to her husband. ‘We Hidatsas raise corn, beans, sunflower seed, and good squashes to eat. We are not starving, that we must eat rose berries.’

“‘The Crow Indians eat rose berries,’ said Ear-Eat. ‘My mother used to dry them for winter food.’

“His words but vexed Yellow Blossom more.

“‘I am a Hidatsa woman, not a Crow,’ she cried. ‘We Hidatsas are not wild people. We live in earth lodges and eat foods from our gardens. When we go berrying we put our berries into clean baskets, not into our leggings.’ And she turned the leggings up and poured the rose berries out on the ground.”

We all laughed at Old-Owl Woman’s story.

“We had other use for rose berries when I was a girl,” said Red Blossom. “If a young man went at evening to talk with his sweetheart, he put a ripe rose berry in his mouth to make his breath sweet.”

“I wonder if Old Bear put a rose berry in his mouth,” said Old-Owl Woman.

“I think he put two rose berries in his mouth,” said Red Blossom, smiling.

All laughed again but Pink Blossom; she walked on, saying nothing.

TWELFTH CHAPTER

THE CORN HUSKING

After the June berry season came choke-cherries. We did not gather so big a store of these, but they were harder to prepare for drying. I can yet see old Turtle, with her gnarled, wrinkled fingers, plying the crushing stones. She dropped three or four cherries on a round stone and crushed them with a smaller stone held in her palm. The pulp she squeezed through her palms into lumps, which she dried in the sun.

And then came the corn harvest, busiest and happiest time of all the year. It was hard work gathering and husking the corn, but what fun we had! For days we girls thought of nothing but the fine dresses we should wear at the husking.

While the ears were ripening my sister and I went every morning to sit on our watch stage and sing to the corn. One evening we brought home with us a basketful of the green ears and were husking them by the fire. My father gathered up the husks and took them out of the lodge. I wondered why he did so.

“I fed the husks, daughter, to my pack horses,” he said, when he came back. “To-morrow I go hunting to get meat for the husking.” He had brought his hunting pony into the lodge, but he had penned his pack horses for the night under the corn stage.

My two mothers, I knew, were planning a big feast. “We have much corn to husk,” they said, “and we must have plenty of food, for we do not want our huskers to go away hungry.”

Small Ankle left us before daybreak. He returned the fourth day after, about noon, with two deer loaded on his pack horses. “One is a black-tail,” he told us when he came in the lodge, “a buck that I killed yesterday in some bad lands by the Little Missouri. He was hiding in a clump of trees. As I rode near, he winded me and ran out into the open. I checked my pony, and the buck stopped to look around. I fired, and he fell; but, when I got off my horse, the buck rose and tried to push me with his horns. I killed him with my knife.” A wounded black-tail often tried to fight off the hunters: a white-tail hardly ever did so.

The next morning we women rose early, and with our baskets hastened to the cornfield. All day we plucked the ripe ears, bearing them in our baskets to the center of the field, where we laid them in a long pile. That night my father and Red Blossom slept on the watchers’ stage, to see that no horse broke in and trampled our corn pile. There was not much danger of this. Around the field ran a kind of fence, of willows, enough to keep out the ponies.

The rest of us returned to the lodge to make ready for the feast the next day. Turtle fetched out three great bundles of dried buffalo meat and piled them on the puncheon bench with the freshly killed deer meat. Our three kettles were scoured and set by, ready to be taken to the field.

At nightfall Bear’s Tail went around the village to lodges of our relatives and friends, and invited the young men to come to our husking.

I was too excited that night to sleep much. Early in the morning my sister and I rose and went to the river for a dip in its cold waters. After a hasty breakfast I put on my best dress, of deer skin, with hoofs hanging like bangles at the edge of the skirt and three rows of costly elk teeth across the front. Cold Medicine helped me paint my face, and was careful to rub a little red ochre in the part of my hair.

The sun was just coming over the prairie when we started for the field. We had loaded our kettles and meat on two pack horses, and old Turtle led the way. My father and Red Blossom had risen early and eaten breakfast, and now had a brisk fire going. We put our kettles on, after filling them with water. In one we put dried, in another fresh, meat; the third kettle we filled with green corn, late planted for this purpose. The meat and corn were for our feast.

The sun was three hours high when the huskers came. They were about thirty in all, young men, except three or four crippled old warriors who wanted to feast. These were too old to work much, but my father made them welcome.

The huskers came into the field yelling and singing. We had, indeed, heard their yells long before we saw them. I think young men all sing and yell, just because they are young.

My sister and I were already seated at one side of the corn pile, and the other women joined us. The young men sat down on the opposite side, and the husking began.

I saw that Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing sat just opposite me. Next to him was a young man named Red Hand, with grass plumes in his hair. These meant that he had been in a war party and had been sent out to spy on the enemy. I saw Red Hand looking at me, and I was glad that I was wearing my elk teeth dress. “He is a young man,” I thought, “not a boy, like Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing.”

The huskers worked rapidly, stripping off the dry husks with their hands. The big fine ears they braided in strings, to save for seed. Smaller ears they tossed into a pile. Big as our corn pile was, it was husked in about four hours.

My mothers then served the feast. The huskers were hearty eaters; for, like all young men, they had good appetites; but we had a big feast of meat, and even they could not eat all. It was not polite to leave any of the food, and some had brought sharp sticks on which they skewered the meat they could not eat, to take home with them.

The feast over, the huskers went to another field, singing and yelling as they went.

We women had now to busy ourselves carrying in our corn.

We loaded our two pack horses with strings of braided ears, ten strings to a pony. The smaller ears we bore to the village in our baskets, to dry on our corn stage before threshing.

In midafternoon there were a few strings of corn still left, and I was laying them by for the next trip when I heard steps. I looked up and saw Red Hand coming, leading his pony.

Red Hand did not speak, but he laid my strings of corn on his pony and started for the village. “He wants to help me take home my corn,” I thought. A young man did thus for the girl he admired. “Red Hand is brave, and he owns a pony,” I said to myself; and I forgot all about Sacred-Red-Eagle-Wing.

My father returned with the pack horses just as Red Hand was starting off; and I was stooping to fill my basket, when suddenly there came a sound, _poh-poh-poh_, as of guns; then yells, and a woman screamed. Small Ankle sprang for his war pony, which he had left hobbled near the husking pile.

Our corn fields lay in a strip of flat land skirted by low foot hills; and now I saw, coming over the hills, a party of Sioux, thirty or more, mounted, and painted for war. At the edge of the hills they checked their ponies, and those who had guns began firing down into our gardens. Many of the Sioux were armed with bows and arrows.

On all sides arose outcries. My brave father dashed by with his ringing war whoop, _ui, ui, ui_;[22] and after him Red Hand, lashing his pony and yelling like mad. Red Hand had thrown away my strings of corn, but I was not thinking of my corn just then.

[22] ṳ ï (pronounced like ōō ēē, but quickly and sharply)

Women and children began streaming past our field to the village. Brave young men rode between them and our enemies, lest the Sioux dash down and cut off some straggler. Two lads, on swift ponies, galloped ahead to rouse the villagers.

Meanwhile my father and others were fighting off the Sioux from the shelter of some clumps of small trees that dotted the flat: Our enemies did not fight standing, but galloped and pranced their horses about on the hillside to spoil our aim.

Suddenly a Sioux warrior, in trailing eagle-feather bonnet, and mounted on a beautiful spotted pony, dashed down the hillside toward us, waving his bow over his head; and from our side I saw Red Hand, gun in hand, riding to meet him.

As they drew near one another the Sioux swerved, and an arrow, like a little snake, came curving through the air. Red Hand’s pony stumbled and fell, the shaft in its throat; but Red Hand, leaping to the ground, raised his gun and fired. I saw the Sioux drop his bow and ride back clinging desperately to his pony’s mane. Red Hand put his hand to his mouth and I heard his _yi-yi-yi-yi-yah_,[23] the yell that a warrior made when he had wounded an enemy.

[23] yĭ yĭ yĭ yĭ yäh´

On the side toward our village other cries now arose, for the warriors were coming to our help. The Sioux fled. Our men pursued them, and at nightfall came back with one scalp.

All that night we danced the scalp dance. A big fire was built. Men and women painted their faces black and sang glad songs. Old women cried _a-la-la-la-la!_[24] Young men danced, yelled and boasted of their deeds. All said that Red Hand was a brave young man and would become a great warrior.

[24] ä lä lä lä lä´

The next day I was coming from the watering place with my kettle. Just ahead of me walked Waving Corn, a handsome girl two years older than I. Red Hand passed by; shyly I looked up, thinking to see him smile at me.

He was smiling at Waving Corn.

THIRTEENTH CHAPTER

MARRIAGE

And so I grew up, a happy, contented Indian girl, obedient to my mothers, but loving them dearly. I learned to cook, dress skins, embroider, sew with awl and sinew, and cut and make moccasins, clothing and tent covers. There was always plenty of work to do, but I had time to rest, and to go to see my friends; and I was not given tasks beyond my strength. My father did the heavy lifting, if posts or beams were to be raised. “You are young, daughter,” he would say. “Take care you do not overstrain!” He was a kind man, and helped my mothers and me whenever we had hard work to do.

For my industry in dressing skins, my clan aunt, Sage, gave me a woman’s belt. It was as broad as my three fingers, and covered with blue beads. One end was made long, to hang down before me. Only a very industrious girl was given such a belt. She could not buy or make one. No relative could give her the belt; for a clan aunt, remember, was not a blood relative. To wear a woman’s belt was an honor. I was as proud of mine as a war leader of his first scalp.

I won other honors by my industry. For embroidering a robe for my father with porcupine quills I was given a brass ring, bought of the traders; and for embroidering a tent cover with gull quills dyed yellow and blue I was given a bracelet. There were few girls in the village who owned belt, ring and bracelet.

In these years of my girlhood my mothers were watchful of all that I did. We had big dances in the village, when men and women sang, drums beat loud, and young men, painted and feathered, danced and yelled to show their brave deeds. I did not go to these dances often, and, when I did, my mothers went with me. Ours was one of the better families of the tribe, and my mothers were very careful of me.

I was eighteen years old the Bent-Enemy-Killed winter; for we Hidatsas reckoned by winters, naming each for something that happened in it. An old man named Hanging Stone then lived in the village. He had a stepson named Magpie, a handsome young man and a good hunter.

One morning Hanging Stone came into our lodge. It was a little while after our morning meal, and I was putting away the wooden bowls that we used for dishes. The hollow buffalo hoofs hung on the door for bells, I remember, rattled clitter, clitter, clitter, as he raised and let fall the door. My father was sitting by the fire.

Hanging Stone walked up to my father, and laid his right hand on my father’s head. “I want you to believe what I say,” he cried. “I want my boy to live in your good family. I am poor, you are rich; but I want you to favor us and do as I ask.”

He went over to my mothers and did likewise, speaking the same words to both. He then strode out of the lodge.

Neither my father nor my mothers said anything, and I did not know at first what it all meant. My father sat for a while, looking at the fire. At last he spoke, “My daughter is too young to marry. When she is older I may be willing.”

Toward evening Hanging Stone and his relatives brought four horses and three flint-lock guns to our lodge. He tied the four horses to the drying stage outside. They had good bridles, with chains hanging to the bits. On the back of each horse was a blanket and some yards of calico, very expensive in those days.

Hanging Stone came into the lodge. “I have brought you four horses and three guns,” he said to my father.

“I must refuse them,” answered Small Ankle. “My daughter is too young to marry.”

Hanging Stone went away, but he did not take his horses with him. My father sent them back by some young men.

The evening of the second day after, Hanging Stone came again to our lodge. As before, he brought the three guns and gifts of cloth, and four horses; but two of these were hunting horses. A hunting horse was one fleet enough to overtake a buffalo, a thing that few of our little Indian ponies could do. Such horses were costly and hard to get. A family that had good hunting horses had always plenty of meat.

After Hanging Stone left, my father said to his wives, “What do you think about it?”

“We would rather not say anything,” they answered. “Do as you think best.”

“I know this Magpie,” said my father. “He is a kind young man. I have refused his gifts once, but I see his heart is set on having our daughter. I think I shall agree to it.”

Turning to me he spoke: “My daughter, I have tried to raise you right. I have hunted and worked hard to give you food to eat. Now I want you to take my advice. Take this man for your husband. Try always to love him. Do not think in your heart, ‘I am a handsome young woman, but this man, my husband, is older and not handsome.’ Never taunt your husband. Try not to do anything that will make him angry.”

I did not answer _yes_ or _no_ to this; for I thought, “If my father wishes me to do this, why that is the best thing for me to do.” I had been taught to be obedient to my father. I do not think white children are taught so, as we Indian children were taught.

For nigh a week my father and my two mothers were busy getting ready the feast foods for the wedding. On the morning of the sixth day, my father took from his bag a fine weasel-skin cap and an eagle-feather war bonnet. The first he put on my head; the second he handed to my sister, Cold Medicine. “Take these to Hanging Stone’s lodge,” he said.

We were now ready to march. I led, my sister walking with me. Behind us came some of our relatives, leading three horses; and, after them, five great kettles of feast foods, on poles borne on the shoulders of women relatives. The kettles held boiled dried green corn and ripe corn pounded to meal and boiled with beans; and they were steaming hot.

There was a covered entrance to Hanging Stone’s lodge. The light was rather dim inside, and I did not see a dog lying there until he sprang up, barking _wu-wu!_ and dashed past me. I sprang back, startled. Cold Medicine tittered. “Do not be foolish,” called one of our women relatives. Cold Medicine stopped her tittering, but I think we were rather glad of the dog. My sister and I had never marched in a wedding before, and we were both a little scared.

I lifted the skin door—it was an old-fashioned one swinging on thongs from the beam overhead—and entered the lodge. Hanging Stone sat on his couch against the puncheon fire screen. I went to him and put the weasel-skin cap on his head. The young man who was to be my husband was sitting on his couch, a frame of poles covered with a tent skin. Cold Medicine and I went over and shyly sat on the floor near-by.

The kettles of feast foods had been set down near the fireplace, and the three horses tied to the corn stage without. Hanging Stone had fetched my father four horses. We reckoned the weasel cap and the war bonnet as worth each a horse; and, with these and our three horses, my father felt he was going his friend one horse better. It was a point of honor in an Indian family for the bride’s father to make a more valuable return gift than that brought him by the bridegroom and his friends.

As we two girls sat on the floor, with ankles to the right, as Indian women always sit, Magpie’s mother filled a wooden bowl with dried buffalo meat pounded fine and mixed with marrow fat, and set it for my sister and me to eat. We ate as much as we could. What was left, my sister put in a fold of her robe, and we arose and went home. It would have been impolite to leave behind any of the food given us to eat.

Later in the day Magpie’s relatives and friends came to feast on the foods we had taken to Hanging Stone’s lodge. Each guest brought a gift, something useful to a new-wed bride—beaded work, fawn-skin work bag, girl’s leggings, belt, blanket, woman’s robe, calico for a dress, and the like. In the evening two women of Magpie’s family brought these gifts to my father’s lodge, packing them each in a blanket on her back. They piled the gifts on the floor beside Red Blossom, the elder of my two mothers.

Red Blossom spent the next few days helping me build and decorate the couch that was to mark off the part of our lodge set apart for my husband and me. We even made and placed before the couch a fine, roomy lazy-back, or willow chair.

All being now ready, Red Blossom said to me: “Go and call your husband. Go and sit beside him and say, ‘I want you to come to my father’s lodge.’ Do not feel shy. Go boldly and have no fear.”

So with my sister I slowly walked to Hanging Stone’s lodge. There were several besides the family within, for they were expecting me; but no one said anything as we entered.

Magpie was sitting on his couch, for this in the daytime was used as white men use a lounge or a big chair. My sister and I went over and sat beside him. Magpie smiled and said, “What have you come for?”

“I have come to call you,” I answered.

“_Sukkeets_—good!” he said.

Cold Medicine and I arose and returned to my father’s lodge. Magpie followed us a few minutes later; for young men did not walk through the village with their sweethearts in the daytime. We should have thought that foolish.

And so I was wed.

FOURTEENTH CHAPTER

A BUFFALO HUNT

My young husband and I lived together but a few years. He died of lung sickness; and, after I had mourned a year, I married Son-of-a-Star, a Mandan. My family wished me to marry again; for, while an Indian woman could raise corn for herself and family, she could not hunt to get meat and skins.

Son-of-a-Star was a kind man, and my father liked him. “He is brave, daughter,” Small Ankle said. “He wears two eagle feathers, for he has twice struck an enemy, and he has danced the death dance. Three times he has shot an arrow through a buffalo.” It was not easy to shoot an arrow through a buffalo and few of my tribe had done so.

Spring had come, and in the moon of Breaking Ice we returned to Like-a-Fishhook village. Our hunters had not killed many deer the winter before, and our stores of corn were getting low. As ours was a large family, Son-of-a-Star thought he would join a hunting party that was going up the river for buffaloes. “Even if we do not find much game,” he said, “we shall kill enough for ourselves. We younger men should not be eating the corn and beans that old men and children need.”

Small Ankle thought the plan a good one. I was glad also, for I was to be one of the party. Corn planting time would not come for a month yet; and, after the weeks in our narrow winter quarters, I longed to be out again in the fresh air.

There were ten in the party besides Son-of-a-Star and myself: Crow-Flies-High, Bad Brave, High Backbone, Long Bear, and Scar, and their wives. Scar was a Teton Sioux who had come to visit us.

My tribe now owned many horses, and fewer dogs were used than when I was a little girl. A party of buffalo hunters usually took both hunting and pack horses; but our village herd was weak and poor in flesh after the scant winter’s feeding, and we thought it better to take only dogs. There was yet little pasture, and the ground was wet and spongy from the spring thaws. Only a strong, well-fed pony could go all day on wet ground.

I took three of our family dogs. On the travois of two I loaded robes for bedding, the halves of an old tent cover, moccasins for myself and husband, an ax, a copper kettle and a flesher for dressing hides. My third dog dragged a bull boat, bound mouth down to the travois poles. We planned to return by way of the river, in boats.

We were clad warmly, for the weather was chill. All had robes. I wore a dress of two deer skins sewed edge to edge; the hind legs, thus sewed, made the sleeves for my arms.

I had made my husband a fine skin shirt, embroidered with beads. Over it he drew his robe, fur side in. He spread his feet apart, drew the robe high enough to cover his head, and folded it, tail end first, over his right side; then the head end over his left, and belted the robe in place. He spread his feet apart when belting, to give the robe a loose skirt for walking in.

We all wore winter moccasins, fur lined, with high tops. The men carried guns. Buffalo hunters no longer used bows except from horseback.

We started off gaily, in a long line. Each woman was followed by her dogs. Two women, having no dogs, packed their camp stuff on their backs.

We made our first camp late in the afternoon, at a place called Timber-Faces-across-River. There was a spring here, of good water. Crow-Flies-High and Bad Brave went hunting, while we women pitched our tent. We cut forked poles and stacked them with tops together like a tepee. We covered this frame with skins, laced together at the edges with thongs. A rawhide lariat was drawn around the outside of the cover; and small logs, laid about the edges, held the tent to the ground. We could not use tent pins, for the ground was frozen. We raised an old saddle skin on the windward side of the smoke hole, staying it with a forked pole, thrust through a hole in the edge. We were some time building, as the tent had to be large enough for twelve persons.

We finished just at dusk; and we were starting a fire inside, when the two hunters came in. Each packed on his back the side and ham of an elk they had killed. Bad Brave had laid a pad of dry grass across his shoulders that the meat juice might not stain his robe.

It was getting dark, and, while we women gathered dry grass for our beds, the two hunters roasted one of the sides of meat. They skewered it on a stick and swung it from the drying pole. Standing on each side, the two men swung the meat slowly, forth and back, over the fire.

We were all hungry when we sat down to eat. The fresh roasted ribs of the elk were juicy and sweet, and with full stomachs we felt sleepy, for the day’s march had been long. We gladly spread our robes and crept into our beds, first covering a coal with ashes for the morning fire.

Next morning we had struck our tent and loaded our dogs before the sun was well up. We took only the tent cover, leaving the poles. Three of our men went ahead to hunt. The rest followed more slowly, not to tire our dogs. Now and then we stopped to rest and eat from our lunch bags. These were of dried buffalo heart skins. Every woman in the party carried one of them tucked under her belt. We had been careful to fill our bags with cooked meat, from our breakfast.

My husband walked at my side if he talked with me. At other times he went a little ahead; for, if enemies or a grizzly attacked us, he would thus be in front, ready to fight, giving me time to escape.

Our trail led along the brow of the bluffs overlooking the Missouri. There was a path here, fairly well marked, made by hunting parties, and perhaps by buffaloes.

Our second camp was at a place called the Slides; for, here, big blocks of earth, softened by the spring rains, sometimes slide down the bank into the river. We found a spring a little way in from the river, with small trees that we could cut for tent poles.

Our tent was hardly pitched when Son-of-a-Star and Scar came in to say they had killed a stray buffalo not far away. They had packed part of the meat to camp on their shoulders, and Son-of-a-Star had cut out the buffalo’s paunch and filled it with fresh blood. While the two hunters went back for the rest of the meat, I put on my copper kettle and made blood pudding. It was hot and ready to serve by the time they came back. I had stirred the pudding with a green chokecherry stick, giving it a pleasant, cherry flavor.