—Retold from various nineteenth-century sources.
[WASCO]
In the days of our grandfathers, a young warrior named Plain Feather lived near Mount Hood. His guardian spirit was a great elk. The great elk taught Plain Feather so well that he knew the best places to look for every kind of game and became the most skillful hunter in his tribe.
Again and again his guardian spirit said to him, “Never kill more than you can use. Kill only for your present need. Then there will be enough for all.”
Plain Feather obeyed him. He killed only for food, only what he needed. Other hunters in his tribe teased him for not shooting for fun, for not using all his arrows when he was out on a hunt. But Plain Feather obeyed the great elk.
Smart Crow, one of the old men of the tribe, planned in his bad heart to make the young hunter disobey his guardian spirit. Smart Crow pretended that he was one of the wise men and that he had had a vision. In the vision, he said, the Great Spirit had told him that the coming winter would be long and cold. There would be much snow.
“Kill as many animals as you can,” said Smart Crow to the hunters of the tribe. “We must store meat for the winter.”
The hunters, believing him, went to the forest and meadows and killed all the animals they could. Each man tried to be the best hunter in the tribe. At first Plain Feather would not go with them, but Smart Crow kept saying, “The Great Spirit told me that we will have a hard winter. The Great Spirit told me that we must get our meat now.”
Plain Feather thought that Smart Crow was telling the truth. So at last he gave in and went hunting along the stream now called Hood River. First he killed deer and bears. Soon he came upon five bands of elk and killed all but one, which he wounded.
Plain Feather did not know that this was his guardian elk, and when the wounded animal hurried away into the forest, Plain Feather followed. Deeper and deeper into the forest and into the mountains he followed the elk tracks. At last he came to a beautiful little lake. There, lying in the water not far from the shore, was the wounded elk. Plain Feather walked into the lake to pull the animal to the shore, but when he touched it, both hunter and elk sank.
The warrior seemed to fall into a deep sleep, and when he awoke, he was on the bottom of the lake. All around him were the spirits of many elk, deer, and bears. All were in the shape of human beings, and all were moaning. He heard a voice say clearly, “Draw him in.” And something drew Plain Feather closer to the wounded elk.
“Draw him in,” the voice said again. And again Plain Feather was drawn closer to the great elk. At last he lay beside it.
“Why did you disobey me?” asked the elk. “All around you are the spirits of the animals you have killed. I will no longer be your guardian. You have disobeyed me and slain my friends.”
Then the voice which had said, “Draw him in,” said, “Cast him out.” And the spirits cast the hunter out of the water, onto the shore of the lake.
Weary in body and sick at heart, Plain Feather dragged himself to the village where his tribe lived. Slowly he entered his tepee and sank upon the ground.
“I am sick,” he said. “I have been in the dwelling place of the lost spirits. And I have lost my guardian spirit, the great elk. He is in the lake of the lost spirits.”
Then he lay back and died. Ever after, the Indians called that lake the Lake of the Lost Spirits. Beneath its calm blue waters are the spirits of thousands of the dead. On its clear surface is the face of Mount Hood, which stands as a monument to the lost spirits.
—Collected by Ella Clark in 1953.
THE DEATH OF HEAD CHIEF
AND YOUNG MULE
[NORTHERN CHEYENNE]
This is a true story that took place in 1890, but it is also a legend among our people. Head Chief was a young man in his twenties. He was proud. He would have liked to be a warrior, but the days when a man could gain honor by counting coup were over. The Cheyennes had been put on reservations, the buffalo were gone. The fine old life was over.
That year the people were starving, and the promised government rations did not arrive. Head Chief said: “There’s nothing left but a little coffee and a piece of fry bread. How can we live? I’m going hunting, and maybe I’ll find some deer.” Some relatives tried to talk him out of it, saying: “There’s no game left on the reservation. It has all been hunted out, and if you go outside the reservation, there will be trouble with the white men.”
Head Chief said: “All this land from horizon to horizon used to be ours. Since when can white men forbid me to hunt? I go now.”
Young Mule, a boy of fourteen, always followed Head Chief around like a puppy dog. Head Chief was teaching him how to be a man, how to behave like a warrior. “Head Chief, let me come hunting with you,” Young Mule said.
“Ipewa, it is well. You can come.” They got on their horses and rode off. Soon they were outside the reservation. They found neither deer nor antelope; what they found was a lone cow. A white rancher’s cow.
“It probably belongs to a white man,” said Young Mule.
“I don’t care who it belongs to,” said Head Chief. “They killed all the buffalo on the Plains and shouldn’t begrudge us a single cow. We’re starving; I must bring meat to my people.”
Head Chief shot the cow. After they had butchered it and were loading the meat on their horses, a white man called Boyle rode up. He was the nephew of the rancher whose cow they had butchered. Boyle saw what had happened and started cursing the two Cheyenne. “What’s he saying?” asked Head Chief, who could not talk English. “He’s calling us lousy dogs,” answered Young Mule, who had been to the white man’s school.
“Oh, is that what he is saying?” Head Chief’s blood was up, and he went for his rifle. Seeing this, the white man stopped cursing. He tried to whip up his horse and get away, but it was too late. Head Chief shot him through the head; he was lying there dead.
“Now what do we do?” asked Young Mule.
“Bury him, I guess. Head Chief put a handkerchief over Boyle’s face so it wouldn’t get dirty as they buried him.
Then Head Chief and Young Mule rode back to their camp. “They’ll hang you for this,” the elders said. “No they won’t,” said Head Chief. “If you don’t surrender, we must fight to defend you,” the older men said. “It will be the end of the Tistsistas, the end of our people.”
“No,” said Head Chief, “I don’t want anyone to die for me. The days when we could fight them are over.”
Boyle was missed; and a search party found the body and what was left of the cow. The white police came to the reservation, saying: “We want the one who did this.” Head Chief sent word to them that he and he alone had done it. “Tell them I am the guilty one,” he said. The white sheriff sent word that he would come to arrest Head Chief. “I’ll be coming for that Indian,” said the sheriff. “He’ll be tried and hanged for sure. There had better be no resistance, either. A lot of soldiers are stationed here, and if you try to help that boy, you’ll be wiped out.”
Then Head Chief sent some of the elders and headmen to the sheriff. They told him: “Head Chief is ready to die, but not ready to be hanged. He will die like a man. On the next ration day, he wants you to bring the soldiers and line them all up at the foot of that hill. Then he’ll come riding out at them as if counting coup. But he won’t be armed, and the soldiers can shoot him as if it was in a battle. This will be a good death. Then there won’t be any hard feelings.”
“But this isn’t the regular way of handling it,” said the sheriff.
“Maybe it isn’t, but if you try to arrest and hang him, then we don’t know whether we’ll be able to hold back our young men, especially the Dog soldiers. Then you might have a real battle on your hands. Is doing things regularly worth that?”
The sheriff went back to the white folks and the soldier chief to talk things over. He sent word: “It’s all right; we’ll do this Head Chief’s way.”
So the night before ration day, Head Chief put on h
is finest war shirt. He painted his face for battle. He got a fine sorrel horse. He told his father: “Cheer up! It’s what I like. Sing a song for me.”
He and the other warriors went up to Squaw Hill and pitched a tent there. They were singing and feasting and telling stories all night. The Dog soldiers guarded them in case the white men decided to come and try to make an arrest.
Toward morning the elders told all the young men to leave. They didn’t want them on that hill for fear the young braves would start to fight. “Go; leave now,” they said. “Do it for the people.” Very unwillingly, the young men of the warrior societies obeyed. Then the chiefs had criers ride through the camp, telling the women not to call out and not to make high-pitched war cries which could get the young men’s blood up. The old ones wanted no accidents which could cause a massacre. They knew that you can’t fight the white man. They said: “The people must survive.”
Early that morning there were a lot of white people, on horseback and in buggies, come “to see the show.” A company of soldiers was lined up in the gulch at the bottom of Squaw Hill with their guns loaded. Then everybody saw Head Chief on his sorrel horse at the top of the hill. While they watched, he put on his grandfather’s warbonnet. His people were proud of him. Then suddenly there was a second one with him—the figure of a young boy.
It was Young Mule, riding a mule because he didn’t own a horse. He had told people: “I won’t have it said that I was not with my friend in his last battle. He let me come along when there was hunting and feasting and good times. I might just as well die with him too.” The white men were not interested in Young Mule. They knew he was only fourteen, and they knew he hadn’t shot Boyle. They had told the chiefs: “We don’t want that kid. We only want the older one, the one who shot Boyle.” But here Young Mule was, all the same.
Then those two friends rode down upon the soldiers side by side, singing their death songs. The Long Knives were waiting for them, the foot soldiers flanked by cavalry. These two boys circled around some soldiers, counting coup on them, daring them to shoot. Then the soldiers opened up, but didn’t seem to have their hearts in it. The boys made it back to the top of the hill. They might already have been hit; nobody knows.
Then Head Chief turned his horse for a last charge, coming down the hill at a dead run. The boy’s mule had been crippled by bullets, so he made his charge on foot, running zig-zag, defying the soldiers to hit him. Now the women could not hold back. They made the brave-heart cry, though they had been told not to. Even hardened warriors wept. One old man said: “Watch and see how a warrior should die.”
Head Chief had told the young boy: “I shall be riding through the enemy line. Even if I’ve been shot dead already, my body will still ride through their line.” He did just that. He rode through them, then fell off his horse, for he had been hit many times. He lay there, and one of the officers went over and finished him with a shot in the head. The young boy, Young Mule, was counting coups right and left. He went after the soldiers with a knife. Some say he had a gun hidden on him and was using it, but nobody knows for sure. Finally the soldiers killed him too. Then they marched off, as if ashamed.
They brought the bodies of these two friends to camp and laid them out. The people came to see them then. They said that the boys looked as if they were sleeping, with a little smile on their lips.
During that last charge, a feather from Head Chief’s warbonnet had come off and was fluttering in the wind near where he was killed. Somebody grabbed this eagle feather and tied it to a rock, right where the officer had gunned him. Head Chief’s blood was still on that rock. The eagle feather was there for a long time until, after many years, it finally rotted away. But the rock will be there forever.
—Recorded on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, Bushy, Montana, 1972, by Richard Erdoes.
THE GHOST DANCE AT
WOUNDED KNEE
[BRULE SIOUX]
This is a story about the massacre of Sioux ghost dancers at Wounded Knee in December 1890. Under the false impression that the ghost dance was the signal for a general Indian uprising, the white agent at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota called in the regular army to suppress the ghost dancers. One band under Chief Big Foot surrendered to the Seventh Cavalry—Custer’s old command. Among its men and officers were many who had served under Custer and who were eager to avenge his death. At Wounded Knee Creek eighteen miles northeast of Pine Ridge, the army opened fire with many quick-firing Hotchkiss cannon upon Big Foot’s people and killed some two hundred fifty men, women, and children. The mass grave in which they were buried is still there.
In 1973 Indian civil rights activists occupied the site and withstood a siege by U.S. marshals, the F.B.I., and local vigilantes. During this siege, which lasted 73 days, two Indians were killed, one of them a local Sioux buried next to his massacred ancestors.
Dick Fool Bull told this story on many occasions. Each time, he remembered something else connected with it. He was the last flute maker and player at Rosebud. He died in 1976. Some say he was 103; others say he was in his nineties. Nobody knows for sure.
This is a true story; I wish it weren’t. When it happened I was a small boy, only about six or seven. To tell the truth, I’m not sure how old I am. I was born before the census takers came in, so there’s no record.
When I was a young boy, I liked to stick around my old uncle, because he always had stories to tell. Once he said, “There’s something new coming, traveling on the wind. A new dance. A new prayer.” He was talking about Wanagi-wachipi, the ghost dance. “Short Bull and Kicking Bear traveled far,” my uncle told me. “They went to see a holy man of another tribe far in the south, the Piute tribe. They had heard that this holy man could bring dead people to life again, and that he could bring the buffalo back.”
My uncle said it was very important, and I must listen closely. Old Unc said:
This holy man let Short Bull and Kicking Bear look into his hat. There they saw their dead relatives walking about. The holy man told them, “I’ll give you something to eat that will kill you, but don’t be afraid. I’ll bring you back to life again.” They believed him. They ate something and died, then found themselves walking in a new, beautiful land. They spoke with their parents and grandparents, and with friends that the white soldiers had killed. Their friends were well, and this new world was like the old one, the one the white man had destroyed. It was full of game, full of antelope and buffalo. The grass was green and high, and though long-dead people from other tribes also lived in this new land, there was peace. All the Indian nations formed one tribe and could understand each other. Kicking Bear and Short Bull walked around and saw everything, and they were happy. Then the holy man of the Piutes brought them back to life again.
“You have seen it,” he told them, “the new Land I’m bringing. The earth will roll up like a blanket with all that bad white man’s stuff, the fences and railroads and mines and telegraph poles; and underneath will be our old-young Indian earth with all our relatives come to life again.”
Then the holy man taught them a new dance, a new song, a new prayer. He gave them sacred red paint. He even made the sun die: it was all covered with black and disappeared. Then he brought the sun to life again.
Short Bull and Kicking Bear came back bringing us the good news. Now everywhere we are dancing this new dance to roll up the earth, to bring back the dead. A new world is coming.
This Old Unc told me.
Then I saw it myself: the dancing. People were holding each other by the hand, singing, whirling around, looking at the sun. They had a little spruce tree in the middle of the dance circle. They wore special shirts painted with the sun, the moon, the stars, and magpies. They whirled around; they didn’t stop dancing.
Some of the dancers fell down in a swoon, as if they were dead. The medicine men fanned them with sweet-smelling cedar smoke and they came to life again. They told the people, “We were dead. We went to the moon and the morning star. We fou
nd our dead fathers and mothers there, and we talked to them.” When they woke up, these people held in their hands star rocks, moon rocks, different kinds of rocks from those we have on this earth. They clutched strange meats from star and moon animals. The dance leader told them not to be afraid of white men who forbade them to dance this wanagi-wachipi. They told them that the ghost shirts they wore would not let any white man’s bullets through. So they danced; I saw it.
The earth never rolled up. The buffalo never came back, and the dead relatives never came to life again. It was the soldier who came; why, nobody knew. The dance was a peaceful one, harming nobody, but I guess the white people thought it was a war dance.
Many people were afraid of what the soldiers would do. We had no guns any more, and hardly had any horses left. We depended on the white man for everything, yet the whites were afraid of us, just as we were afraid of them.
Then when the news spread that Sitting Bull had been killed at Standing Rock for being with the ghost dancers, the people were really scared. Some of the old people said: “Let’s go to Pine Ridge and give ourselves up, because the soldiers won’t shoot us if we do. Old Red Cloud will protect us. Also, they’re handing out rations up there.”
So my father and mother and Old Unc got the buggy and their old horse and drove with us children toward Pine Ridge. It was cold and snowing. It wasn’t a happy ride; all the grown-ups were worried. Then the soldiers stopped us. They had big fur coats on, bear coats. They were warm and we were freezing, and I remember wishing I had such a coat. They told us to go no further, to stop and make a camp right there. They told the same thing to everybody who came, by foot, or horse, or buggy. So there was a camp, but little to eat and little firewood, and the soldiers made a ring around us and let nobody leave.
AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS Page 55