Most of the Ogalallas were acquainted with the occasional advent of the drunken Thunder Bird or cyclone.
The Bird’s wings, it is supposed, scarcely cover a mile laterally, and its course is an occasional downward sweep for a few miles and then upward. So they all ran for the line of safety.
But fortunately the winged inebriate took its upward flight before reaching the camp, therefore they received only the heavy rain and hail. What a triumph for the “Medicine Men!” They were considered from that hour to be among the greatest of their class.
Some say to this day that one of those priests can cause a hurricane to deviate from its course!
As the storm departed with a rattle of thunder like artillery after a heavy engagement, quiet succeeded. All the fleeing Ogalallas now returned. The men resumed their usual indifferent and stoical expression, which the Indian habitually assumes to conceal his real susceptibility. In fact, their calm was so completely restored that a stranger would not have guessed that there had been any excitement or disturbance in the camp but a few minutes before.
The “Medicine Men” had not been alone in seeking succor from Him who holds the lariat of the powers of the universe, for there were many who, though excitedly fleeing to be sure, were casting anxious glances heavenward, and were not unmindful of the fact that their God not only loves to give and to pity, but appreciates gifts himself, even though in the form of promises.
Feasts, Sun dances, and tobacco were the usual inducements presented to him. There was an old woman whose chief possessions were two litters of dogs. In the confusion it was impossible for her to carry them all; so finally, despairing and distracted, she seized two of the fat pups and held them aloft, while she excitedly entreated the “Great Mystery” this: “Be kind to me and mine, O Great Mystery! I give thee these two pups for thy feast!”
The topic of conversation throughout the village of tents was the narrow escape. What became of the old man who rode around the camp during the excitement? was the thought that came back like a flash, and closely following it another “Poor Black Pipe!”
The old man’s conduct needed no explanation now; but during the excitement everybody had only thought of the end of the world—his world, at the sight of the approaching hurricane.
In the sunshine of rejoicing over their escape, poor Black Pipe, the brave, was once more forgotten. He was then standing upon the highest butte in all that region, praying assiduously to the “Great Mystery” for a sign.
If the old man, his aged father, had been observed in his movements, he would have been seen to leave the camp as soon as the heavy storm subsided, when his pony carried him as fast as he could toward the highest butte. But he did not actually reach it. He paused at the foot of a lesser hill just below the other.
Breathlessly he climbed it and looked toward the summit of the high butte. He distinguished a form; though motionless it was still standing. Devoutly and with arms outstretched toward the blue sky he sang the praises of the “Great Mystery.”
Briefly, Black Pipe was a young brave of a suitable age, who was possessed of a burning ambition. Though quite young, he had already achieved for himself a reputation, according to the savage way of thinking. He had determined to seek some sign of the “Great Mystery.” If successful, his aim would be accomplished. He would then become a “Medicine Man” as well as a true brave.
Hence, he had taken all the preliminary steps with much deliberation. He had given a pony for the advice of one “Medicine Man,” and a blanket, which was then a rarity, to another for a similar service. At last, he had made a sweat or bath-house, which is really the altar of the “Medicine Man,” and invited a few of the noted ones. He had not spared any of his savage wealth in offerings. Therefore he was confident of success. Black Pipe was advised to fast and sojourn upon the highest butte for three days and three nights, singing, praying, and weeping. The songs were rude chants of exultation and praise to his God. In the first part of the prayer he enumerated to the Supreme Being his sacrifices and gifts ever since he could remember; that he had been an obedient and faithful son; in fine, he was deserving favor and mercy.
The weeping purported to be the last argument in his cause. It was an act of submission, and intended to solicit sympathy and pity, as a child begs of his father.
When the disturbance occurred below at the camp, the young man had been already two days and two nights upon the butte. Though exhausted and weak, he was an anxious spectator of the approaching cyclone. The animals and birds had apparently interested themselves in his solitary and helpless state, and did not fail to observe him from a respectful distance. Besides these unrequested offices, the wolves had evidently held, during the two nights, some sort of a meeting, at which they did not hesitate to make themselves heard all over the neighboring region. These things were not pleasant in the least for Black Pipe.
He had noticed, at a glance, when he took a bird’s eye view of the country about him in his first appearance, that there were two large eagles who had their young birds perched upon an inaccessible butte near by. Yet he had entertained no thoughts of interference from that quarter. But as the Sun hurried over the prairie of the heavens, he had evidences of ill will on the part of his neighbors. Mr. Eagle would obviously start off on his hunting excursion in an opposite direction, but always turned up from some other quarter in Black Pipe’s vicinity. His suspicions were verified during the second day. As he was weakened perceptibly by lack of sustenance and loss of sleep, though his spirit was willing his body had to stoop towards the ground for rest. But no sooner was this done than he heard a noise like the sighing of the wind through a pine tree, only it became stronger every second; therefore he lifted his weary head reluctantly to ascertain the cause of the disturbance. Lo, down came his neighbor, the eagle, as if he were shot from the mouth of a cannon!
At the first sight Black Pipe hoped for a messenger from the “Great Mystery,” but as the eagle descended his fearful mission became too clear. He sprang upon his feet with all the energy he could muster, and shook irreverently the sacred calumet over his head. The bird swung upward within twenty feet of the brave’s head, with the air of saying “There! I fooled you. I did not intend to touch you.”
The second night of his fasting was a trying one, for he felt as if the wrathy thunder bird would hurl him headlong over the precipice. The night was dark. He could not detect any object a few paces away from him, except when the great bird winked and sent forth zigzag flashes of fire. Thought he, “Thunder Bird has come to earth to punish some evil-doer!”
He continued his program during a wakeful and restless night. A brilliant flash of lightening exhibited before him a stranger, who greeted him with double rows of white teeth, and a pair of eyes of flaming fire, the effect intensified by the leisurely swaying of a snaky tail. A mountain lion! It was a vision of a second but never left the memory of the beholder. Another flash and peal—the visitor had departed.
On the following morning Black Pipe again gave way to physical weakness, and was asleep most of the forenoon in a sitting posture, with the calumet in his hand. When he awoke, the deliciously cool air and long sleep together had restored his senses. The atmosphere was clear. The sky above him was a spotless blue canopy. The Black Hills loomed up against the ocean-like sky. The “Bad Lands” lay around him. It seemed to his simple mind that the Thunder Bird had once, in some remote time, searched for the evil spirit who was hidden under these hills, and had thus torn up the land; but to a civilized eye, the country would have appeared like the debris of an ancient city destroyed by an earthquake. Pillars were still preserved here; columns and walls there; and yonder monuments and pyramids. Between these were heaped masses of ruins indescribable.
Suddenly in the western sky a black speck appeared. It continually developed until it assumed immense proportions and gradually advanced southeastward. It was a peculiar coneshaped cloud; part gray and part black. The clouds around it seemed to be in a turmoil. “Ah!” said Black
Pipe to himself, “the drunken Thunder Bird who occasionally visits these hills is coming, I must pray.” In a few minutes the cloud had passed and Black Pipe noticed that a rider came swiftly away from the camp and disappeared at the foot of the hill below him. Then he saw a man appear on the summit and stand there as if in prayer.
But all at once he felt chills and heat alternately, accompanied by a severe headache, and a feeling of utter weakness. Alas; the world around him was gradually fading away from his sight! At last, he thought he saw again the same landscape, and the Ogalalla camp lying below him. The people moved about like ants and the teepees appeared like ant hills.
But he was impressed with the added beauties of the scene. Upon the green prairies he saw vast herds of buffaloes. On the buttes adjacent to the one upon which he stood, were terraces like balconies high up on the sides, with perpendicular precipices above and below, on the edge of which were cedar trees and pines growing almost upon nothing. Under these were the daring Rocky Mountain sheep, quietly chewing their cud. Upon the ridges back of him were herds of elk, while lower down among the pine groves he saw the black-tailed deer lying in the shade. Just above him, among the rough banks, was digging the bear. As the young man looked about him with delight, he heard a voice:
“My son, I have heard thy prayers. Thou are a brave. I shall make thee also a Medicine Man. The Great Mystery has given me this power. I understand the mysteries of the roots and herbs. But thou must be strictly obedient to my rules. Thou shalt always keep my claws around thy neck for a token. Thou shalt sing my songs.”
When the speaker ceased, Black Pipe timidly turned his head to see who was addressing him. Behold, an old grizzly was sitting upon his haunches a few paces away. He bowed his head with a “how,” acknowledging these commands, and the old bear walked slowly away. Black Pipe resumed his former position but he was addressed again, in an unknown yet perfectly intelligible tongue.
“Brave, do not fear. Thou shalt be given the strongest of hearts henceforth.
“Behold me! I am no longer allowed by the Great Mystery to live in the world but with my contemporaries I a[m] returned to stone. Throughout these Bad Lands thou wilt find us. Our bodies have been turned to stones and commanded to remain thus until the end of time. Yet I have in possession some wisdom and knowledge, with which the Creator endowed me. I am now commanded by him to impart it to thee. I was originally given the power to see the heavens and earth, and know the events of the future, though I may be buried in the bottom of the lake or river. I was made to live longest of any animal, and my heart will beat even when it is taken from my body.
“Thou shalt be a prophet and live to a great age. Behold me!”
Black Pipe again turned to regard the speaker and, lo, a tortoise! A huge petrified tortoise, half buried in the smooth wall of a butte opposite him!
Just then, a great war party of the Crow Indians appeared suddenly in the neighborhood, and he was already discovered!
They attacked him upon their ponies, shouted wildly and surrounded him. In his brave defense he brought himself to his senses, and it was another bright morning, and the Crow Indian war party turned out to be a multitude of vulture[s] flying in circles over his head.
He sprang up quickly, and having smoked the pipe that he had held three days and three nights for the “Great Mystery,” he descended the butte with all the assurance of a great “Medicine Man” and a prophet. He found a new white teepee had been pitched just outside of the camp to receive him, and that he was now considered a full-fledged leader in his new profession.3
Notes of a Trip to the Southwest, 1900
You ask me how I like Arizona. I say it is too hot and dry. As the old Pima chief, Antonio says, nothing will grow there unless it is heat-proof. It was ninety degrees above on March 31st, and kept it up during the three days I was in the Sacaton region. I can’t say that I like Arizona for her climate, her giant cactus, Gila monsters and centipedes. Yet nearly all the white people I met were there for their health. It is a good incubator in which to protect exhausted lives.
You ask further how the Pima and Papago Indians are getting on. I say very badly indeed. The Pimas are very good people—willing to work and help themselves but they have been deprived of everything—even the natural courses of their streams have been diverted. The Gila River runs dry. No water for stock; none for their gardens; nor even for daily household use in some places! They live in what was once a beautiful valley, but now it is the valley of death.
I never saw more gentle and genial Indians in my life than these people, and I have seen many. Yet I cannot see but that starvation stares them in the face. Everywhere my eye meets the same mummified and half-starved faces. I looked into the clear sky of that region and could not help saying: Where are you, Charity? Can not these miserable people appeal to you?
The Pimas ask no charity after the usual fashion. They seek only such assistance as will be for their own lasting good. They want a reservoir large enough to irrigate their valley. They have already dug ditches on a small scale about their gardens hoping to catch every drop if it should rain. A bill has been introduced in Congress for the building of such a reservoir, at a cost of a million and a half. There can be no better and more humanitarian legislation than this. It will not only make these people self-supporting, but it will also help many poor whites in their vicinity to gain a livelihood.
“And what did you see in the Osage country?” I saw there conditions directly opposite to those described above. If you were to ask me where the Indian customs linger longest, I would say, among the Osages and Sac and Fox at Tama City, Iowa. Nowhere in all my travels have I ever met an Indian woman in full Indian costume, and talking excellent English, except at this agency. The Indian woman referred to had with her an adopted daughter, who is a full blooded white girl. She also was attired in the native dress of the Osages. Both the white girl and her adopted Osage mother said that they had been educated at the Catholic mission school. I do not blame the school. I think the church has done what it can for these people. It is the conditions and environment that have kept them from progress.
The Osages possess a competency second to none. They are in fact a rich corporation. They have $8,500,000 invested at 5% interest and a country good enough for any one. They have lived in close touch with civilization for forty years—longer than most Indian tribes; yet I have seen more real Indians there than almost anywhere else. I was told that there was very little work done by them. A custom exists among them that is very much like that of an English prince—they draw a fine annual income from the Government and get into debt to everyone at the same time.4
An Indian Festival, 1900
It was mid-summer—the Indians’ festival time, when the medicine men fulfilled their promise of the year before to make a “sun-dance,” a “fox-dance,” or any other kind of dance that has an intertribal significance. The Ogallalas, the Brules, the Hunkpapahs and the Minne-conwojus were encamped together. It was an imposing village of white teepees that had sprung up in one afternoon upon one of the broad bottom lands of the Cheyenne, overshadowed by the high peaks of the majestic Pahah-sapah (Black Hills).
The village was in four distinct circles or rings, according to custom. When separate, each tribe usually has a council teepee within the circle, from which all the unwritten codes of the tribe are made and enforced. But at such a reunion as this, one or another of the four tribes is selected to maintain their joint government during the festivals. If all these bands have been successful in war and the chase, the occasion is a happy one. Many a new reputation or chief is announced with extravagant savage pomp and ceremony. Children of noted chiefs or warriors are named publicly, a custom by which the poor and old profit, for at such times the parents of the newly named child give a great feast, and distribute presents in the form of ponies, blankets, and garments of every description. Likewise many widows and widowers, or other respectable mourners, publicly announce that they will again paint their faces and c
ease to mourn; but not until they have made a great feast, and their good and loving relatives have given away ponies and other savage wealth in honor of the event.
Following a two-days’ sun dance one morning, a half century or more ago, the criers went the rounds of the circular village extending the cordial invitation of Grey Eagle to a feast at which his only son, Lame Deer, would have his ears pierced. The crier further announced as an extraordinary inducement that the chief would give away three ponies, one of them his favorite war-horse.
“Ugh!” exclaimed a warrior, “that pony saved his scalp in many a battle, especially when the Sapah-wichasha (Utes) pursued us over vast plains—will he part with him? That pony is an honor and ornament to him. He has been struck and wounded nine times, and is entitled to eagle feathers both in his dock and mane, besides the usual war-paint for ponies, according to the custom.”
“How,” interrupted another, “It is in his mind to show his love for the boy—his only son.”
“Listen! The crier of the Ogallalas, upon his white pony, has entered our circle. Let us hear what he has to announce.” The speaker was a Minneconwoju woman, who was standing upon a buffalo skin, in the act of scraping off the hair. The fog-horn voice of the crier fairly re-echoed from hill to hill as he proceeded in this manner:
“Hear ye, Minneconwoju people! Your friend, Fire Lightning, the Ogallala chief, invites you to his feast in honor of his son’s first act of note. Hear ye, Minneconwoju people, Fire Lightning, according to the custom of his family, will give away ten spotted ponies! Let all come to the feast! Let all the pretty maidens and great braves come and witness the great chief’s act of strong heart.”
Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press Page 20