American Indian life. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ to do this, the grass was sprouting. I did not expect to live so long, yet to-day I am eating cherries. Well, I will see whether I can achieve what I wish.” When they went hunting the next time, he got some buffalo blood and mixed it with badger blood and water. In the mixture he saw his image with blood streaming down his face. “Yes,” he cried, “I have seen it. What I am longing for is coming true!”

      The leaves were turning yellow when a tribesman caught sight of some Dakota raiders. The young men drove them off and the enemy took refuge in the dry bed of a stream. There, the Crow warriors were going to attack them. They were getting ready when Pretty-weasel rushed into their midst, crying, “Bind my son! Don’t let him go!” They looked for him. He was not to be found. All alone he was dashing toward the enemy. They galloped after him. He was close to the coulée, shaking his rattle and singing his song:—

      Sky and earth are everlasting,

      Men must die.

      Old age is a thing of evil,

      Charge and die!

      He rode straight up to the enemies’ hiding-place. At the edge he dismounted. Several Dakotas were peeping out. “There is no way for me to live,” he cried, “I must die!” He shot one foe and struck him with his rattle. Then another Dakota shot him in the left temple, and Takes-the-pipe fell dead.

      The Crow warriors caught up, and killed every man in the raiding party. Pretty-weasel reached the spot and wiped the blood from her son’s forehead. The men put him on a horse and brought him to camp. Wailing, they went home. There the Sore-lip women clipped their hair and gashed their legs. The Whistling-water men rode up and down singing the praises of the dead Crazy Dog. His fellow-Foxes propped up the corpse against a backrest, knelt before it and wailed. Their officers ran arrows through their flesh and jabbed their foreheads till the blood flowed in streams. Then they set up a scaffold on four posts, wrapped the body in a robe, and placed it on top. Beside the stage they planted a pole. From it was hung his drum, and his sashes swept down as streamers blowing in the wind. His rattle they put into his hand. Then the camp moved.

      Robert H. Lowie

A Crow Woman’s Tale

       Table of Contents

      “A story, grandmother, a story!”

      “What, in the daytime, outdoors? And in the summer too? Don’t you know that we tell tales only of a winter night?”

      “Oh, grandmother, those old rules are gone. Do tell us a story to keep us awake on this hot day.”

      “Well, what shall it be? Shall I tell you how Old-woman’s grandchild conquered the monsters that haunted the earth?”

      “No, you’ve told us that one many times. Tell us a new one.”

      “Well, you shall hear one you have never heard before; a new story and yet a true one.”

      There was a young Crow maiden named Beaver-woman who was as good-looking as any girl the Crows had ever known. She was neither too tall nor too short, her waist was slim, and her nose was as straight as a nose can be. She made the finest moccasins in all the tribe and knew how to embroider them with the prettiest quill designs. Throughout the camp there was no one for whom she did not have a kind word. The young men respected her for they knew she would not romp with them as some girls did, and those older ones who had been on the war-path were eager to take her to wife. Yet though one suitor after another came to offer horses to her father, the beautiful girl refused them all. At length her parents grew impatient and scolded her. “What are you waiting for? Your brothers have need of horses. Do you expect Morningstar to come down from the sky and woo you?”

      Then for the first time she spoke of her hopes. “One day when the grass was sprouting, I went to the creek to fetch some water. There my eldest brother’s comrade, the one they call White-dog, spoke to me and courted me, then left with a war party. I have seen him in my dreams, returning with booty. He is bringing home horses; he will offer you more than all the other suitors together who have tried to buy me.”

      Then one of her brothers laughed in derision, and another good-naturedly, and still others kept their peace, while her mother mumbled, “Some dreams have come true and some only mock one. I liked the looks of the horses you refused.”

      But a few days later, when the cherries were ripe, White-dog came back with his party, driving eighty head of horses stolen from the Sioux. Many he allotted to his followers and many he gave away to his father’s clansmen; but of the remainder he offered the twenty finest to Beaver-woman’s parents. Then she was happy and said, “My dream has come true.” Her parents, too, were very glad, and she went to live in her husband’s lodge.

      White-dog had an older wife named Turtle, whom he had inherited from a brother killed in battle. Turtle did not like the newcomer, but White-dog would not allow her to abuse Beaver-woman. He was very proud of his young and beautiful wife. When the people moved camp, it was Beaver-woman who bore his buffalo-hide shield; and when he came back from the enemy with spoils, she was the one to dance with his bow or spear while Turtle and other women looked on with envy. There was one thing he prized even higher than her good looks, and that was her virtue. Other men were having all sorts of trouble with their wives, but he was sure of his. When he heard of a married woman eloping with her lover, he would say proudly, “My wife will soon be the only one who shall dare chop down the tree for the Sun Dance lodge”; for only a wife who had never erred was allowed to take part in this sacred rite.

      All went well until one spring soon after Beaver-woman had borne her first child. You young men have your dancing-clubs to-day, some of you are Hot Dancers and others belong to the Big-Ear-Holes. That’s the way we Crows used to have it in the old days, only we had real societies, the Foxes and the Lumpwoods. They didn’t just dance and feast; they tried to be brave in war and each society sought to outdo the other. But they fought in another way, too. Sometimes it happened that a Lumpwood or a Fox had once had a mistress who afterwards married into the other society. Then for a few days in the early spring he was allowed to kidnap her. No matter how badly he felt about it, her husband durst not protect her, it would have been a terrible disgrace. He must never take her back so long as he lived, or the whole camp would jeer at him for the rest of his days. Often a man might feel like fighting, but he would control himself and say, “She is nothing to me, take her.” Then the people would praise him, saying, “That one has a strong heart.”

      Well, one day in the spring, a hooting was heard in camp. The Lumpwoods, headed by Red-eye, were ready to steal the Foxes’ wives, and the Foxes had answered the call of challenge. White-dog was not greatly interested in these doings. He was lounging in his lodge, talking to his younger brother, Little-owl, while Beaver-woman was crooning a song over her baby. Of a sudden the tramping of feet was heard, the door flap was rudely lifted, and Red-eye’s head was thrust through the opening. Beaver-woman faced him calmly. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

      He answered with a song:

      “My sweetheart is the one I love,

      I am taking her away.”

      “Go away, you’re crazy,” she said, “I have never been your sweetheart!”

      “What, don’t you remember what happened at the spring?”

      “Yes, you were going to hug me and I drenched you with water. Go away to your real sweetheart.”

      But СКАЧАТЬ