by Rick Revelle
“Over three hundred Lakȟóta left the main group that day many years ago. My grandfather’s people made it to where we now live and divided themselves into their old villages of past years. Our people thrived over those years and enjoyed relative peace.
“The Lakȟóta who had split off and gone west settled on Kȟaŋǧi Wakpá and prospered in the early years. They planted crops and hunted buffalo when the beasts drew near them.
“The antelope, though, proved to be very fast and difficult in the beginning to chase down. However, the hunters came up with a plan and were able to train their dogs to pursue this swift animal. One group of huntsmen took its dogs to a knoll to watch as the other party and its dogs chased the animal in that direction. Once the pursuit was close to them, the warriors on the knoll sent their dogs to turn the animal back into the other hunters. The dogs then continually chased the animal back and forth between the two groups until in the end the creature collapsed from exhaustion and the warriors made the kill.
“These prairie Lakȟóta soon discovered they had moved into a region that others started to inhabit. Eventually, they had to harvest trees from the area to erect a protective wall and then make a ditch to encircle it to keep their enemies from overrunning them. Life became harsh. The rain stopped coming, the skies were cloudless, the sun baked the earth around them, and their crops withered and died from the drought.
“During this time, a fierce tribe from the land of the rising sun entered the lands east of us. We called them the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ. It was an uneasy peace. Both nations came across each other during hunting trips, and warriors on each side died in those encounters. While my grandfather was alive, there were no outright battles until one fateful buffalo hunt by the Lakȟóta at Kȟaŋǧi Wakpá.
“The Kȟaŋǧi Wakpá people were near starvation after a very severe winter. Their crops had been poor the previous summer and the buffalo herds seemed to be avoiding them. Hunting the fleet antelope became difficult for the warriors because of their feebleness from lack of nourishment. Food was rationed among the women, children, and Elders. Death that winter stalked all the family lodges. It got so bad that they ate their dogs and anything else they could kill or forage in their weakened state, including snakes, mice, grass, and the hides they were clothed in. Select warriors who were proven hunters were given extra rations to keep them strong for hunting trips.
“On one of those trips in the late spring, four warriors found a huge herd of buffalo to the east. They were able to slay one and brought back as much meat as they and their dogs could carry. The buffalo were grazing near a cliff (present-day Blue Mounds State Park) the Kȟaŋǧi Wakpá Lakȟóta had used before as a buffalo jump. The scouts told their people it would take the hunting band four to five days to journey to the jump, maybe more because of their frail state. The buffalo had lots of grass where they were and there was no fear of them moving on before the hunters got to them.
“The decision was made among the Elders that thirty of the strongest warriors would leave immediately along with some dogs. After they departed, the women who were able to travel would follow behind with the rest of the healthy warriors and most of the village dogs who had survived the lean times. This group would arrive a day or two after the first party. The children, Elders, and remaining men and women who were too weak stayed behind.
“Unknown, though, to the Lakȟóta, about a hundred Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ had come down from the north and stumbled onto the herd. They were over fifteen suns from their permanent homes where the rice beds, abundance of maple trees for sugar, and the teeming lakes of whitefish, along with ample game, kept them well fed. Starvation didn’t drive the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ to Kȟaŋǧi Wakpá. The search for new lands did. Again, unknown to the Lakȟóta, the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ had made camp on the cliffs where the Lakȟóta planned to drive the buffalo to their deaths.
“The Lakȟóta had had small skirmishes in the past with the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ over hunting grounds, but nothing ever major. Our people had always hunted the buffalo where they had lived previously on the lower Mississippi, and when we moved north to Kȟaŋǧi Wakpá, we continued the practice. The Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ came from a place where buffalo rarely travelled and weren’t familiar with the beasts, how to hunt them, or how the Lakȟóta pursued them.
“Our warriors arrived near the herd’s location on a hot midsummer day. In the distance toward the horizon in the east, they could see the rising dust of the herd as some of the buffalo rolled on their backs to rid themselves of flies and tufts of hair.
“The sun’s rays created torrid heat in the plains that rose from the ground like a campfire, baking the hunters’ feet and their dogs’ paws. It made both the men’s and the animals’ tongues swell from the sweltering temperature and lack of water. The warriors found a small bubbling spring and drank their fill along with the dogs, then topped up their skin containers with the cool water. Here they applied grease to their bodies to protect their skins from the intense glare of the sun. After travelling for a time until mid-afternoon, they were now upon the herd. The men stood overlooking the animals, their bare brown skins glistening in the bright sunshine. They had brought more than fifty dogs with them, and the animals lay on the ground panting and salivating as they waited for their cue to start the chase.
“The decision was made that twenty of the warriors would turn as much of the herd as they could toward the eastern cliffs by running from the west, waving robes at them, yelling, and setting the dogs loose. The remaining men and dogs would come from the north and south to keep the animals from spinning away. The plan worked to perfection, and the unsuspecting Lakȟóta stampeded more than thirty of the beasts to the cliffs where the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ were camped.
“That fateful day the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ had only women, children, Elders, and a few warriors in the camp. The rest of the men and their dogs had trekked to the north of the herd to hunt. Most of the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ were in their lodges, seeking shelter from the sun’s heat, and only a few were outside to witness firsthand the spectacle of these immense animals bearing down and trapping them between the onrush and the cliffs behind. Their screams of warning came too late for the people in the lodges. As they stepped out through the entrance openings, they were trampled and caught up in the charge of the stampeding beasts over the sheer drop behind them. It was a tangle of bellowing animals, crumpling lodges, and shrieking people as they hit the ground below.
“When the Lakȟóta came upon the scene, it took them a few minutes to realize what had happened. The crushed makeshift shelters and bodies of the residents confused the Lakȟóta men. Our people hadn’t scouted ahead because they knew the location of the cliff where they wanted to drive the animals and there never was any thought of someone camping on the cliff approach. They stood on the edge, gazed below, and saw an entanglement of human bodies among the dead and dying buffalo. Looking at one another in bewilderment at the sight of the broken bodies below, they knew what had to be done. The Lakȟóta warriors descended the cliff to put human and beast out of their misery and to begin the work of burying the dead. Once that was done, they turned their attention to preparing the animals for the women to cut up for transportation back to their village.
“In the distance, a warrior, a young boy, and their two dogs observed the carnage, turned northward, and ran off to find the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ hunting party.
“The Lakȟóta women and remaining warriors arrived later the next day. The harvesting of the meat then commenced in earnest. Our people replenished their bodies which up until then had been wasting away from starvation. After the first few days, enough of the meat had been cut up so that they were able to prepare loads for more than a hundred dogs, each pulling a travois to take back to the village for the weakened women, children, and Elders who were there. It only took about a dozen people to handle the dogs on the return trip. Four women and eight warriors left with the procession. All the women pulled a sled along with a fe
w of the men, leaving the remaining warriors free to scout ahead and guard the small party.
“The group had brought more than five hundred dogs to handle the transportation of the meat, and in the next couple of days another band left with more dogs. All this time the Lakȟóta never sent out any scouts to watch for enemies, or bears attracted by the stench of the aging buffalo carcasses. Unknown to them, about fifteen Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ warriors were spying from a distance. It was the hunting party that had been away during the stampede over the cliff. Now the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ warriors were biding their time for a chance to strike back. They watched as their adversaries below slowly lessened their numbers by sending loaded pole sleds toward the prairie with the meat. Attacking any of the departing groups on the open plain would be dangerous, since our people would see them coming, eliminating the advantage of surprise. A battle in the open was always to be avoided because of the potential for devastating casualties.
“On the sixth day after our people had run the buffalo over the cliffs, they were left with only about a dozen men and women to prepare the final load. The Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ warriors took this opportunity to attack. Two men and three women were cutting up one of the last animals, a beast that had died a couple of hundred steps away from where the rest had perished. The others were loading the pole sleds for transportation home the next day.
“The Lakȟóta dogs started barking and howling when they heard the distinctive war whistle and then the war cry of the charging Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ. The enemy immediately set upon the group separated from the rest of our people, quickly slaying the women with their clubs and scalping the two men alive. The Lakȟóta warriors quickly shot as many arrows as they could in rapid succession and at the same time our enemies returned fire. The distance between the two groups of warriors was at the range limit for their arrows. The attack ended as rapidly as it began, with the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ retreating from the barrage of projectiles.
“Our people suffered the loss of three women and a dog. The Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ were seen carrying two of their wounded warriors from the battlefield. The two Lakȟóta men who had been scalped would live, but the women had to work fast to apply maggots from some rotting buffalo meat onto their heads to ease the wounds. After the maggots cleaned the men’s scalps, the women smeared on the juice of the húčhiŋška (hue-chin-ska: milkweed) to stop the bleeding. Then they used yapízapi iyéčheča (ya-pee-zapi eye-che-ca: dandelion) juice to help with the healing. If done quickly, the men would be scarred but alive.
“Our people didn’t pursue the attackers. A battle in the open would amount to more casualties than they wanted, and they hadn’t yet regained all their strength from the lack of food those past few moons. Instead they buried their dead women. The dog they ate that night. Then they posted guards and quickly finished their work. They would leave at first light and be gone from this place of death.”
“So, Uncle, that’s how the bad blood was started?” asked Tȟáȟča Čiŋčá.
“It was the beginning, Nephew, but what happened the next summer sealed the hatred between the Lakȟóta and Hahatonwan,” I said.
“What took place that caused this to continue to our own day?” asked Tȟáȟča Čiŋčá.
“A terrible massacre at Kȟaŋǧi Wakpá,” I replied. “Even though what had happened to the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ during the buffalo hunt was an accident because of the lack of scouting ahead by the Lakȟóta, what the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ did at Kȟaŋǧi Wakpá was planned and carried out as an act of all-out war against the Lakȟóta.
“That fatal late summer day twenty-five summers ago was stifling hot in the village of the Kȟaŋǧi Wakpá Lakȟóta. The people were once more hungry because the buffalo weren’t coming near their hunting grounds, the rains had stopped, and the crops were again dying. Our people had built an enclosure of upright logs that they lived behind for protection from their enemies. The two men who had been scalped by the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ the previous summer had lived but carried the scars of the battle, along with others of their community who had fought many small battles with our enemies. Warriors had been lost in these battles and others were slowly healing from the wounds obtained in the skirmishes. That day, for added protection, they were digging a ditch around their enclosure that they planned to flood with water from the nearby creek. Except for a few Elders and some sentries, everyone was either in the trench or pulling soil up in rawhide bags and then dumping it.
“At around midday they heard the shriek of a war whistle, then the war cries of the attacking Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ. Catching the sentries off guard, the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ bowled through them on the run, slashing with knives and swinging war clubs at our people’s heads. Once they neared the ditch, they fired arrows in volleys and sent some of the villagers on the sides tumbling backward into the pit and onto the people below. Next, the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ made it a bloodbath by standing on the edges and throwing spears and rocks and shooting arrows down on the defenceless below. The attack was so sudden and ruthless that the Lakȟóta had no time to reach for their weapons. The invaders then jumped into the trench and hacked and chopped our people, rendering them unrecognizable. When they were finished, they got out of the ditch and threw any corpses that remained above on top of the dismembered remains below. Then they turned their attention to the village dogs, killing and tossing them onto the animals’ vanquished masters.
“The Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ attackers only took two captives: a fifteen-year-old boy and his father, who had valiantly tried to defend the village. That night the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ shared a meal of dog with their prisoners. The next morning they gave each a quiver of arrows, a knife, and a bow, then sent them east to tell their Lakȟóta cousins what had happened. The man and boy were also told to let their people know that the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ would never forget what the Lakȟóta had done to the women, children, and Elders at the buffalo jump. From that day forward our people would be known to the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ as the Nadowessioux and our enemies would kill any of us on sight.”
“Uncle, who was the boy and his father they sent back?” asked Tȟáȟča Čiŋčá.
“The father’s name was Sutá Wičháša (soo-tah wee-chah’-shah: Strong Man), your grandfather,” I replied. “The boy was me.”
“So that’s why we hate the Ȟaȟátȟuŋwaŋ so much,” Tȟáȟča Čiŋčá muttered.
As I ended the story, we exited the heat and dust of the tall grass and came out onto a small hillock overlooking the prairie. “Nephew, look!”
There, ahead of us, as far as our eyes could see, where the earth met the sky, was a solid mass of buffalo.
10
Return to the River
ZHASHAGI
I dreamed I was stumbling toward the far shore, my mind going in and out of blackness, my legs not doing what I asked them to do, water over my knees. My left hand was pinned to the canoe with an arrow, and my blood reddened the boat and the surrounding water. The sounds of the battle my dog, Misko, and I were leaving behind seemed to fade in the distance, but during the moments that my mind cleared, the noise grew closer again.
It was when I approached the shore that the hand of the warrior reached out for me. I also recalled asking his name and his reply: “Nanabozho.”
Now I was being awakened by the rough tongue and whimpering of Misko. Upon opening my eyes, I found myself lying on my back in a pile of cedar branches beside a small fire with the smell of cedar tea boiling in a vessel over the fire. The dream I had experienced before being awakened was one of remembrance.
My hand had a slight prickle in it as if I had come into contact with a thistle. It was completely covered with moss and wrapped with leather to hold in the healing medicine. Beside me was a spear, but there was no sign of my rescuer.
I had no idea where I was in the forest and hoped Misko could lead the two of us back to the river. Sitting beside the fire, I gathered my thoughts and drank the hot tea. By sharing my meagre supply of
corn and dried meat with the dog, he gave me his full attention and hopefully his co-operation in what was to come.
Even though my hand tingled, there was no pain. The warrior Nanabozho must be a nenaandawi’iwed (ni-na-na-da-we-e-wed: healer) to take the pain away from a wound such as I had.
I had no idea how long I was in the dream world; time was elusive at the moment. My best guess was that I had only slept the remainder of the day and had awakened the morning after the battle. Looking at the sky, I searched for the sun through the dense overhead forest cover. The movement of the branches from the wind enabled the sun’s rays to enter through the sheltering limbs like droplets of rain. Spots of sunlight danced on the forest floor like embers in a fire. When the winds died down, the sun filtered through as soft beams of light, with specks of dust and insects inside the lighted areas.
Still, I was unable to determine the time of day because the woodland’s branch limbs hid the sun’s place in the sky from me. “Misko?” I asked. “Can you lead the two of us from this place of safety back to where we left our people at the river?”
He cocked his head as if to listen and stared at me with unblinking eyes. I turned to the fire, reaching into my medicine bag for some tobacco and tossed it into the flames, saying a short prayer of thanks to Gichi-Manidoo (Great Spirit) and asking him to guide us back to our village.