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He said to me: "My son, I am going to tell you some things that will be useful to you; and if you listen to what I say, your life will be easier for you to live; you will not make mistakes, and you will come to be liked and respected by all the people. Before many years now you will be a man, and as you grow up you mus... |
"When older people speak to you, you must stop what you are doing and listen to what they say, and must do as they tell you. If anyone says to you, 'My son, go out and drive in my horses,' you must go at once; do not wait; do not make anyone speak to you a second time; start at once. |
"You must get up early in the morning; do not let the sun, when it first shines, find you in bed. Get up at the first dawn of day, and go early out into the hills and look for your horses. These horses will soon be put in your charge, and you must watch over them, and must never lose them; and you must always see that ... |
"You must take good care of your arms. Always keep them in good order. A man who has poor arms cannot fight." |
"It is important for you to do all these things. But there is one thing more important than anything else, and that is to be brave. Soon you will be going on a warpath, and then you must strive always to be in the front of the fighting, and to try hard to strike many of the enemy. You must be saying all the time to you... |
"There is another thing: if by chance you should do anything that is great, you must not talk of it; you must never go about telling of the great things that you have done, or that you intend to do. To do that is not manly. When you are at war you may do brave things, and other people will see what you have done, and w... |
"If you listen to my words you will become a good man, and will amount to something. If you let the wind blow them away, you will become lazy, and will never do anything." |
So my uncle talked to me for a long time, and just as he had finished his talking, we saw, down in the valley below us, a deer come out from behind some brush, and feed for a little while, and then it went back into another patch of brush, and did not come out again. |
"Ah," said my uncle, "I think we can kill that deer." We went around a long distance, to come down without being seen to where the deer was, and we had crept up close to the edge of the bushes before the deer knew that we were there. When we reached the place we walked around it, he on one side and I on the other; and ... |
As we walked along to the camp that night, my uncle told me other things. He said: "Always be careful to do nothing bad in camp. Do not quarrel and fight with your fellows. Men do not fight with each other in the camp; to do that is not manly." |
You see, my uncle thought that I was now old enough to be taught some of the things a man ought to do, and he tried to help me; for my father was dead, and I had no one else to teach me. The words he spoke were all good words, and I have tried always to remember them. |
The white people gather up their children and send them all to one place to be taught; but that is not the way we Indians do. Nevertheless, we try to teach our children in our way; for children must be taught, or they will not know anything, and if they do not know anything they will have no sense, and if they have no ... |
When our children are small, the mother tries to keep them from making a noise. It is not fitting that young children should disturb older people. I am telling you about the way I was taught in the old times, when there were but few white people in the country. |
Because we have no schools, like the white people, we have to teach our children by telling them what to do; it is only in this way that they can learn. They have lived but a short time, and cannot know much. We older ones, after we have lived many years, and have listened to what our fathers and brothers have taught u... |
My grandfather was an old man, who long before this had given up the warpath. He spent most of his time in the camp, and he used to make speeches to the little and big boys, and give them much good advice. Once I heard him talk to a group of boys playing near the lodge, and this is what he said: "Listen, you boys; it i... |
Lessons of the Prairie. |
Once when I was a little older, I was out on the hills one day, watching the horses. They were feeding quietly, and I lay on a hill and went to sleep. Suddenly I was awakened by a terrible crash close to my head, and I knew that a gun had been fired close to me, and I thought that the enemy had attacked me and were kil... |
"My son, you keep a careless watch. You do not act as a man ought to do. Instead of sitting here looking over the prairie in all directions to see if enemies are approaching, or if there are any signs of strange people being near, you lie here and sleep. I crept up to you and fired my gun, to see what you would do. You... |
When my uncle spoke to me like this he made me feel bad, for of all people he was the one whom I most wished to please, and with him I wished to stand well. I considered a little before I said to him: "I was trying to run to my horse, and if I had got him I think I should have tried to reach the camp, and perhaps I sho... |
"I think you speak truly," said my uncle, "but you should not have gone to sleep when you were sent out here to watch the horses. Boys who go to sleep when they ought to be looking over the country, and watching their horses, or men who get tired and go to sleep when they are on the warpath, never do much. I should lik... |
I made up my mind that I would hold fast to the words which my uncle spoke to me, and after this would not sleep when I was on herd. |
It was not long after this that my uncle again told me to get my arrows, and come and hunt with him. He told me also to take my robe with me, and that we would go far up the river and be gone one night. I was glad to go, and we started. |
All through the day we traveled up stream, going in low places, and traveling cautiously; for, although we were close to the camp, still my uncle told me no one could be sure that enemies might not be about, and that we might not be attacked at any time; so we went carefully. If we had to cross a hill, we crept up to t... |
Once, when we stopped to rest, my uncle said to me: "Little son, this is one of the things you must learn; as you travel over the country, always go carefully, for you do not know that behind the next hill there may not be some enemy watching, looking over the country to see if someone may not be about. Therefore, it i... |
As I walked behind my uncle, following him over the prairie, I tried to watch him, and to imitate everything that he did. If he stopped, I stopped; if he bent down his head, and went stooping for a little way, I also stooped, and followed him; when he got down to creep, I, too, crept, so as to be out of sight. |
That day, as the sun fell toward the west, my uncle went down to the river, and looked along the bank and the mud-bars, trying to learn whether any animals had been to the water; and when he saw tracks he pointed them out to me. "This," he said, "is the track of a deer. You see that it has been going slowly. It is feed... |
Further up the river, on a sand-bar, he showed me the tracks of antelope, where the old ones had walked along quietly, and other smaller tracks, where the sand had been thrown up; and these marks, he said, were made by the little kids, which were playing and running. |
"Notice carefully," he said, "the tracks that you see, so that you will remember them, and will know them again. The tracks made by the different animals are not all alike. The antelope's hoof is sharp-pointed in front. Notice, too, that when his foot sinks in the mud there is no mark behind his footprint; while behind... |
We kept on further up the river, and when night came we stopped, and sat down in some bushes. All day long we had seen nothing that we could kill; but from a fold in his robe my uncle drew some dried meat, and we built a little fire of dried willow brush, that would make no smoke, and over this we roasted our meat, and... |
"You are only a boy now, but the time will come when you will be a man, and must act a man's part. Now your relations all respect you. They do not ask you to do woman's work; they treat you well. You have a good bed, and whenever you are hungry, food is given you. Do you know why it is that you are treated in this way?... |
After we had eaten it began to grow dark, and pretty soon my uncle stood up and tied up his waist again, and we set out once more, going up the river. I wanted to ask my uncle where we were going, but I knew that he had some reason for moving away from the camp, and before I had spoken to him about it we had gone a mil... |
The next morning, before day broke, my uncle roused me, and we went to the top of a high hill not far off. We reached it before the sun rose, and lay on top of it, looking off over the prairie. From here we could see a long way. Many animals were in view, buffalo and antelope, and down in the river bottom a herd of elk... |
After we had watched a long time, my uncle said: "I see no signs of people. Let us creep down this ravine, and get among the bushes, and perhaps we can kill one of these elk." We did as he had said; and before very long had come near to the elk. Then he told me to wait there. I stopped and for a few moments I could see... |
My uncle stood up and motioned to me to go down to where the elk lay. We met there and cut up the elk, and my uncle took a big load of meat on his back, and I a smaller load, and we started back toward the village. |
As we were returning, he spoke to me again, saying: "I want you to remember that of all the advice I give you the chief thing is to be brave. If you start out with a war party, to attack enemies, do not be afraid. If your friends are about to make a charge on the enemy, still do not be afraid. Watch your friends, and s... |
"In your life in the camp remember this too; you must always be truthful and honest with all your people. Never say anything that is not true; never tell a lie, even for a joke -- to make people laugh. When you are in the company of older people, listen to what they say, and try to remember; thus you will learn. Do not... |
That night we reached the camp again. My uncle left the meat that he had killed at my mother's lodge. |
On a Buffalo Horse. |
I had lived twelve winters when I did something which made my mother and all my relations glad; for which they all praised me, and which first caused my name to be called aloud through the camp. |
It was the fall of the year, and the leaves were dropping from the trees. Long ago the grass had grown yellow; and now sometimes when we awoke in the morning it was white with frost; little places in the river bottom, where water had stood in the springtime, and which were still wet, were frozen in the morning; and all... |
We boys used to travel far up and down the bottom, trying to creep up to the edge of the bank, or to the puddles of water, where the different birds sat, to get close enough to kill them with our arrows. It was not easy to do this, for generally the birds saw us before we could get near enough; and then, often, even if... |
One day I had gone with my friend a long way up the river, and we had tried several times to kill ducks, but had always missed them. We had come to a place where the point of a hill ran down close to the river, on our side, and as we rounded the point of this hill, suddenly we saw close before us three cranes, standing... |
After my friend and I had talked about it, I picked up the bird and put it on my back, holding the neck in one hand, and letting the legs drag on the ground behind me; and so we returned to camp. When we reached the village some of the children saw us coming, and knew me, and ran ahead to my mother's lodge, and told he... |
He called out in a loud voice, and asked Bellowing Cow, a poor old woman, to come to the lodge and see what his son had done; and he sent one of the boys back to his lodge, telling him to bring a certain horse. Soon the boy returned, leading a pony; and when Bellowing Cow had come, my uncle handed her the rope that was... |
"We have had good luck," he said; "my son has killed this wise bird; he is going to be a good hunter, and will kill much meat. In the time to come, after he has grown to be a man, his lodge will never lack food. His women will always have plenty of robes to dress." |
Then Bellowing Cow mounted her horse and rode around the village, singing a song, in which she told how lucky I had been; that I had killed a crane, a bird that many grown men had not killed; and that I was going to be a good hunter, and always fortunate in killing food. My uncle did not give the bird to Bellowing Cow;... |
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