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By |
George Bird Grinnell |
The Plains Country. |
Seventy years ago, when some of the events here recounted took place, Indians were Indians, and the plains were the plains indeed. |
Those plains stretched out in limitless rolling swells of prairie until they met the blue sky that on every hand bent down to touch them. In spring brightly green, and spangled with wild flowers, by midsummer this prairie had grown sere and yellow. Clumps of dark green cottonwoods marked the courses of the infrequent s... |
In the spring and early summer the rivers, swollen by the melting snows, were often deep and rapid, but a little later they shrank to a few narrow trickles running over a bed of sand, and sometimes the water sank wholly out of sight. |
The animals of the prairie and the roots and berries that grew in the bottoms and on the uplands gave the people their chief sustenance. |
In such surroundings the boy Wikis was born and grew up. The people that he knew well were those of his own camp. Once a year perhaps, for a few weeks, he saw the larger population of a great camp, but for the most part half a dozen families of the tribe, with the buffalo, the deer, the wolves, and the smaller animals ... |
The incidents of this simple story are true. |
The life of those days and the teachings received by the boy or the girl who was to take part in it have passed away and will not return. |
The Attack on the Camp. |
It is the first thing that I can recollect, and comes back to me now dimly -- only as a dream. My mother used to tell me of it, and often to laugh at me. She said I was then about five or six years old. |
I must have been playing with other little boys near the lodge, and the first thing that I remember is seeing people running to and fro, men jumping on their horses, and women gathering up their children. I remember how the men called to each other, and that some were shouting the war cry; and then that they all rode a... |
I did not understand it at all, but I was excited and glad to hear the noise, and to see people rushing about. Soon I could hear shooting at a distance. Then presently I saw the men come riding back toward the camp; and saw the enemy following them down toward the lodges, and that there were many of these strangers, wh... |
Presently one of our men fell off his horse. The enemy charged forward in a body to touch him, and our few men rushed to meet them, to keep them from striking the fallen one, and from taking the head. And now the women began to be frightened, and some of them ran away. My mother rushed to the lodge, caught up my little... |
Before long I began to tire, and I remember that I wanted to stop. In after years mother used to laugh at me about this, and say that I had asked her to throw away my sister, and to put me on her back and carry me instead. She used to say, too, that if she had been obliged to throw away either child I should have been ... |
When we reached the river, my mother threw herself into it. Usually it was not more than knee-deep, but at this time the water was high from the spring floods, and my mother had to swim, holding my sister on her back, and at the same time supporting me, for though I could swim a little, I was not strong enough to breas... |
After we had crossed the river and come out on the other side, we looked back toward the village, and could see that the enemy were retreating. They might easily have killed or driven off the few warriors of our small camp, but not far from us there was a larger camp of our people, and when they heard the shooting and ... |
After the enemy had retreated, my mother crossed the river again, being helped over by a man who was on the side opposite the camp, and who let us ride his horse, while he held its tail and swam behind it. |
In the village that night there was mourning for those who had lost their lives to save their friends. Their relations cried very pitifully over the dead; and early the next day their bodies were carried to the top of a hill near the village, and buried there. |
After the mourning for the dead was ended, the people had dances over the scalps that had been taken from the enemy, rejoicing over the victory. Men and women blackened their faces, and danced in a circle about the scalps, held on poles; and old men and old women shouted the names of those men who had been the bravest ... |
It was soon after this that my uncle made me a bow and some blunt-headed arrows, with which he told me I should hunt little birds, and should learn to kill food, to help support my mother and sisters, as a man ought to do. With these arrows I used to practice shooting, trying to see how far I could shoot, how near I co... |
This was a happy time for me. We little boys played together all the time. Sometimes the older boys allowed us to go with them, when they went far from the village, to hunt rabbits, and when they did this, sometimes they told us to carry back the rabbits that they had killed; and I remember that once I came back with t... |
I remember another thing -- a sad thing -- that happened when I was a very little boy. |
It was winter; the snow lay deep on the ground; a few lodges of people were camped in some timber among the foothills; buffalo were close, and game was plenty; the camp was living well. With the others I played about the camp, spinning tops on the ice, sliding down hill on a bit of parfleche, or on a sled made of buffa... |
As we were playing we went around the point of a hill, and suddenly, close to us, saw a big bull. He seemed to have come from the other side of the river, and was plowing his way through the deep snow, which came halfway up to the top of his hump. When we saw the bull we were a little frightened; but as we watched him ... |
I went up to him in a moment, and, catching him, pulled him over the smooth crust, far from the bull; but when I stopped and looked at him, he was still, his eyes were dull, and he did not breathe; he was dead. |
I did not know what to do. I had lost my friend, and I cried hard. Also, I wished to be revenged on the bull for what he had done; but I did not wish to be killed. I covered my friend with my robe, and started running fast to the camp, where I told my mother what had happened. Soon all the men in the camp, and some of ... |
Standing Alone. |
Always as winter drew near, the camps came closer together, and the people began to make ready to start off on the hunt for buffalo. By this time food was scarce, and the people needed new robes; and now that the cold weather was at hand, the hair of the buffalo was long and shaggy, so that the robes would be soft and ... |
I remember that before the tribe started there used to be a great ceremony, but I was too young to understand what it all meant, though with the others I watched what the old men did, and wondered at it, for it seemed very solemn. There was a big circle about which the people stood or sat, and in the middle of the circ... |
Most of the way I walked or ran, playing with the other little boys, or looking through the ravines to try and find small birds, or a rabbit, or a prairie chicken. Sometimes I rode a colt, too young yet to carry a load, or to be ridden by an older person, yet gentle enough to carry me. In this way I learned to ride. |
When buffalo were found, the young men killed them, and then the whole camp, women and children, went out to where the buffalo lay, and meat and hides were brought in to the camp, where the women made robes, and dried meat. Food was plenty, and everybody was glad. |
My grandmother lived in our lodge. She was an old woman with gray hair, and was always working hard. Whenever there were skins in the lodge she worked at them until they were tanned and ready for use. Often she used to talk to me, telling me about the old times; how our tribe used to fight with its enemies, and conquer... |
She used to tell me of the ancient times, and of things that happened then, of persons who had strong spiritual power, and did wonderful things, and of certain bad persons and animals, who harmed people, and of the old times before the people had bows, when they did not kill animals for food, but lived on roots and ber... |
Sometimes my grandmother had hard pains in her legs, and it hurt her to walk, and when she had these pains she could not go about much, and could not work. When this happened, sometimes she used to ask me to go down to the stream and fetch her a skin of water; and I would whine, and say to her, "Grandmother, I do not w... |
Sometimes my mother and some of her relations would go off and camp together for a long time; and then perhaps they would join a larger camp, and stay with them for a while. In these larger camps we children had much fun, playing our different games. We had many of these. Some, like those I have spoken of, we played in... |
Once, when we were running buffalo, one of the boys, who was a buffalo, charged me when I got near him, and struck me with the thorn which he carried on the end of his stick, and which we used to call the buffalo's horn. The thorn pierced me in the body, and, according to the law of our play, I was so badly wounded tha... |
The Way to Live. |
I must have been ten years old when my uncle first began to talk to me. Long before this, when he had made a bow and some arrows for me, he had told me that I must learn to hunt, so that in the time to come I would be able to kill food, and to support my mother and sisters. "We must all eat," he had said, "and the Crea... |
My uncle was a brave man, and was always going off on the warpath, searching for the camps of enemies, taking their horses, and sometimes fighting bravely. He was still a young man, not married; but was quiet and of good sense and all the people respected him. Even the chiefs and older men used to listen to him when he... |
All my life I have tried to remember what he told me this first time that he talked with me, for it was good advice, and came to me from a good man, who afterwards became one of the chiefs of the tribe. |
One day, soon after he had returned from one of his warpaths, he said to me, early in the morning: "My son, get your bow and arrows, and you and I will go over into the hills, hunting. We will try to kill some rabbits, and perhaps we may find a deer." |
I was glad to go with my uncle; no grown man had ever before asked me to go with him, and to have him speak to me like this made me feel glad and proud. I ran quickly and got my bow, and we set out, walking over the prairie. We walked a long way, and I was beginning to get tired, when we came to a place where we starte... |
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