ABACUS

by Chris McGowan

  “The sun’s still there.” He glanced up at the sky. “No need to leave bed so early to see it.”

  The hunters were riding out for buffalo again that afternoon and Talking Cloud invited Kate and AP to go along. He asked the question in such a way that refusal would have been impolite. So they accepted.

  “Good,” said Talking Cloud. “Now we must find you proper clothes. I’ll talk with Sings To Her Children.”

  “Awesome!” exclaimed AP later, astonished at the transformation in his sister. Kate wore a simple deerskin dress that hung straight down from her neck to below her calves. Fringed with long tassels, it shimmered when she moved. She also wore deerskin leggings, and moccasins. Her hair was parted at the center and braided.

  “Gold Butterfly Woman,” thought her brother—the name was perfect.

  “Okay, it’s your turn,” said Kate, smiling.

  Minutes later AP emerged from the tipi wearing a long-sleeved shirt and leggings, both made from deerskin edged with tassels, like Kate’s dress. In front he wore what appeared to be a cloth apron, with a second one behind.

  “Young Man Who Sits Too Much,” said Kate, “you look good!”

  “Well, these leggings feel weird. They’re just the leg part, held up by straps attached to my belt.” AP looked uneasy.

  “There’s no backside?” Kate asked with a smirk.

  “Exactly. I’m wearing this diaper thing instead.” He pointed to the apron flaps, back and front.

  She began to giggle.

  “What’s so funny?”

  This made her laugh even more.

  Talking Cloud had planned to keep up with the hunters, but when he saw Kate and AP trying to mount their horses, he changed his mind.

  “You have done little riding,” he observed.

  “We’ve ridden a bit,” Kate admitted, remembering an hour spent one summer holiday.

  Finally, they got into their saddles and the trio departed.

  The young braves trotted past, each with a second horse in tow.

  “Once buffalo are sighted,” Talking Cloud explained, “each hunter will swap the saddled mount that he’s riding for his running horse.”

  With Talking Cloud’s guidance, the novice riders grew more confident. And as they trotted along at their leisurely pace, he pointed out animals they would otherwise have missed. A clump of bushes appeared, some way off. When he asked if they could see the deer feeding there, they thought he was joking. Only after they stopped and stared for a while did they see the large buck with its rack of antlers.

  Talking Cloud explained how animal signs could be read. He pointed to a distant flock of black birds that had suddenly swooped down behind a rise. “They’re after insects, disturbed by horses’ hooves.” To prove his point, the trio headed that way, and sighted a herd of wild ponies over the hill.

  He spoke of the old days. “Once, the whole land teemed with game—herds of buffalo, elk, deer, pronghorn,…” Talking Cloud sighed wistfully. “Now the Powder River country is the last place we can find enough game.”

  “Us white people,” said AP gloomily. “We messed everything up.”

  “Not at first. When I was a boy, things were good between us and the settlers. They traveled freely across our land. We were happy to help them. When they were lost, we guided them. When they were hungry, we fed them. We traded buffalo hides and deerskins for things like knives and pots. All are one in Wakan Tanka’s universe.

  “The settlers were few at first. Then their numbers grew, like flies in summer. Soon, they were not content just to travel our land—they wanted to own it.” He spread his arms wide.

  “How can anyone own the land, or the sky or the air?”

  He paused.

  “They made us promises—their treaties. ‘Let us have this piece of land,’ they would say, ‘you shall have the rest, and live there in peace.’ But they always broke their promises and took more land. They built forts, and the soldiers attacked us, just for being here.

  “The Wasichus had no use for certain land. They said we should go and live there, on reservations. We would be safe. Instead of following the buffalo across the plains, they wanted us to become farmers, like them. Pah!”

  Talking Cloud pointed out a herd of pronghorns which had stopped feeding to watch them go by.

  “They bribed us and threatened us, and many bands went to live on the reservations. The Wasichus said Indians could have white-man’s things, like coffee and sugar. Food would always be plentiful, they said, but the agents who run the reservations make mistakes and Agency Indians go hungry.

  “How many Indians live on reservations?” asked AP.

  “Most of them.”

  “Have you tried it?”

  “Never. I will live my life on the open plains, free like the buffalo.”

  “And there are still lots of them,” said Kate.

  “Yes. But when the iron horse pushes farther west, all the buffalo will be gone.”

  “Why’s that?” she asked. “Do the trains frighten them away?”

  Talking Cloud shook his head and smiled a sad smile. “White hunters ride the iron horse. They shoot buffalo by the thousands. Some don’t even bother taking the hides to send back east—they just kill for pleasure, leaving the carcasses to rot in the sun.” He looked down at the ground. “The Wasichus know that when the buffalo are finished, so are we.”

  AP and Kate exchanged dismayed looks.

  By late afternoon they had caught up with the hunters, who were busy butchering the kill. Kate didn’t want to watch, but AP was interested in the process, so Talking Cloud took him closer while Kate stayed back.

  Working in small groups, the hunters began by skinning the carcass with sharp knives. Once the hide was free, they folded it into a bundle, tying it with strips cut from the pelt.

  “Good thing Kate isn’t watching,” said AP as they slit open a carcass, spilling intestines onto the ground. Then, plunging their hands deep inside the body, the hunters cut off wedges of warm liver to eat.

  “Try some,” said Talking Cloud, offering AP a slice, “it’s good!”

  “No thanks.”

  After carving large slabs of meat from the carcass, they tied them onto the sides of a waiting horse.

  Talking Cloud explained how little was wasted. “We carve the bones and horns into tools and ornaments. We boil some of the hooves to make glue, and others become ceremonial rattles.” He pointed to one of the hunters who was cutting something large from the pile of intestines—he was covered in green glop. “That’s the stomach. We use them to make cooking pots.”

  When they returned to the village, Sings To Her Children was busy inside the tipi preparing the meal. A low fire burned in the middle of the floor and something smelled good. Kate asked if she could help.

  “That’s a first,” thought AP, “she never volunteers at home.”

  “You can keep this hot,” said Sings To Her Children. She was squatting beside a large round pot hanging beside the fireplace on a tripod.

  “Here,” she said, handing Kate a pair of sticks. “Use these to pick up the stone from the bottom of the pot.”

  Kate, looking confused, gave it a try.

  Picking up a large stone with a pair of sticks is difficult, especially when it’s sitting in a bubbling pot of stew. After several attempts, she succeeded.

  “Good,” said Sings To Her Children, “now swap it for one of those in the fire.”

  Plopping the wet stone into the fire, Kate picked up a hot one, lowering it into the stew with a loud sizzling.

  They ate outside, sitting in the shade of the tipi.

  “That was delicious,” said Kate after the meal.

  “The best stew ever,” added AP.

  Horse riding had given them large appetites, and both had returned for seconds.

  “What was in it?” asked Kate.

  Sings To Her Children smiled proudly and explained it was one of her special recipes. She then listed the ingredients. �
��Fresh turnips, dried corn, and a mixture of meats—buffalo, rabbit, turtle, crow, porcupine and dog.”

  Kate became quiet but AP, recalling the cheese incident in medieval England, kept talking about it.

  They sat outside until late evening, enjoying tales from the past—the Sioux were wonderful storytellers. Surprisingly, Sleeps A Lot stayed awake to the end, entertaining them with stories of the Sioux’s favorite pastime: raiding the Crow, their traditional enemy.

  “I was the bravest warrior in the band,” he declared, and there was a chorus of agreement. “We had many battles with the Crow and I counted more coup than any other warrior.”

  “What’s counting coup?” asked AP.

  “Hmm,” pondered Sleeps A Lot, wondering where to begin. He was big on battles but small on explanations, so his brother stepped in.

  “A man wins respect by his deeds,” Talking Cloud explained. “For a warrior, bravery counts highest. The man with the highest number of brave acts is the greatest warrior.”

  Kate and AP nodded.

  “The highest award for bravery is to count coup upon an enemy. This is done by touching him.”

  “Touching him?” queried AP. “So if Kate, um, Gold Butterfly Woman, was my enemy and I touched her on the shoulder, I’d score a bravery point?”

  Talking Cloud shook his head. “No, that would be worthless because you’re not fighting. Most coup counting is in battle—you approach your enemy and touch him.” He paused. “But if you rode into his camp, burst into his tipi and touched him, that would count.”

  AP looked puzzled. “So, if a warrior touches another warrior during battle, but does nothing else to him, he wins a bravery point?”

  “Yes. That is counting coup.”

  “What if the warrior kills his enemy instead of just touching him?”

  “That is bravery too, though it doesn’t score so highly.”

  This made no sense to AP—surely the idea of battle was to kill enemies. However, he didn’t want to offend his host, so he tried another approach. “The warrior who’s touched is lucky because he’s unhurt and gets to fight again.”

  Talking Cloud and his brother were both horrified at this.

  “To have coup counted against you is the greatest shame. Better to die in battle than suffer such disgrace.”

  “So the Sioux battle the Crow so they can count coup against them?”

  Talking Cloud shrugged—the reason for waging war was unimportant. The Sioux fought the Crow because it was the proper thing to do.

  “We take their horses too. Taking a horse from your enemy is honorable. And it is good for a man to have many horses.”

  “Me and my brother have lots of horses,” offered Sleeps A Lot.

  “Why do you want so many?” asked AP.

  “Why do Wasichus want so much yellow metal?”

  “So horses are like gold?”

  The old men nodded.

  “If a young man wants to marry a man’s daughter,” Talking Cloud began again, “he’s expected to give a gift. A horse is a good gift.” He smiled. “If she is pretty and many men want to marry her, a warrior may have to give her father many horses!”

  Kate and AP went to bed that night knowing more about Sioux culture, yet understanding less.

  Chapter 16: The Sacred Hills

  AP kept a daily calendar on his piece of paper. Talking Cloud would have been amused had he known because his people measured time in seasons, not days. The Sioux led a simple life, and having been with them for almost a week, Kate and AP had slipped into their familiar routine. Then one morning, without warning, everything changed.

  “What’s going on?” asked Kate as one after another tipi was dismantled.

  “I’ve no idea,” replied AP. “It looks like the whole village is packing up.”

  Taking down tipis involved only the women, and the men had little to do. Most of them just stood around chatting. Talking Cloud was sharpening a knife on a stone, so AP went over to ask what was happening.

  “Time to pack up and go. Buffalo move, so we must follow.”

  Kate and AP asked Sings To Her Children if they could help. The old woman smiled, shaking her head. She and her sister could manage—they were used to it.

  “The tipi belongs to the wife,” Sings To Her Children explained, “so she does everything.”

  They’d already removed the buffalo-hide cover, leaving the framework of wooden poles still standing

  “See the ring of stones that were used to hold down the cover?” said AP, pointing at the ground.

  Kate nodded absentmindedly.

  “It’s called a tipi ring and shows where a tipi once stood.”

  After spreading the semicircular tipi cover out on the ground, the two sisters started folding it up. The result was a heavy bundle the size of a refrigerator.

  “That’s made of twelve buffalo hides, sewn together with sinews,” said AP.

  “They only last about two years. No wonder they need so many buffalo.”

  Kate stared blankly.

  Now the old women worked their way around the poles, lifting them off one by one. Three poles were left standing, firmly roped together at the crossover point.

  “How are they going to handle them?” asked Kate. “We should help.” But the women lowered them to the ground with ease.

  Using strips of buffalo hide, they tied the poles into two bundles. Then they lashed the end of each bundle to the side of a horse, leaving the other end free to drag along the ground.

  “That’s pretty basic,” commented AP.

  “And how would you do it?”

  “I’d load them onto a wagon.”

  “That’s okay if you’ve got wheels,” she said “but they don’t.”

  AP nodded sheepishly.

  Two more horses were needed to carry the tipi cover and all their other belongings. Each had a V-shaped trailer for the job.

  “That’s called a travois,” said AP. “It’s a pair of poles tied together at the front and joined together half way down by that narrow platform. See how it’s attached to one side of the horse?”

  “Yeah,” she replied dutifully.

  When everyone was ready, the band moved off. Many rode on horseback or hitched rides on the travois, but others walked. Mothers transported their babies in a carrier strapped to their backs or secured to a travois. Most toddlers rode piggyback, but others preferred bouncing along on a travois or sitting wedged in the saddle with an adult. Dogs—some pulling tiny travois—trotted everywhere.

  Kate and AP rode horses. “You both need more practice,” Talking Cloud told them as he showed them how to harness the horses and saddle up.

  The band moved at the speed of the slowest walkers, so progress was modest. “That suits me fine,” AP confided to Kate. “I’m still sore from yesterday’s ride.”

  After trotting alone together for an hour, Kate and AP were joined by Talking Cloud and his brother. AP thought this an ideal opportunity to enquire about Custer. As soon as he mentioned the name, he got a reaction.

  “Long Hair,” said Talking Cloud in a flat voice. “Long Hair Custer.”

  His brother repeated the name and spat on the ground.

  They rode on in silence and AP wished he’d never said anything.

  After some time, Talking Cloud began to speak.

  “Young Man Who Sits Too Much, I must tell you about Paha Sapa and what has happened these last two summers and winters. This story is long, but we have far to go. Talking helps pass the time.”

  He began by explaining how Paha Sapa—the Black Hills of South Dakota—was the Indians’ most sacred land. “It is a place of ghosts and sprits. A place where we can speak with Wakan Tanka. Few Wasichus have ever been there. They are not welcome.”

  He paused.

  “White men went there, looking for yellow metal. Some found it and told others.”

  “And some never lived long enough to tell,” added his brother gleefully.

  “The Great
Father in Washington was short of yellow metal. So, two summers ago, he sent Long Hair and his cavalry to Paha Sapa, to see if the stories were true.

  “Long Hair found what he was looking for and told every Wasichu. They swarmed there like ants, tearing up our cherished land.”

  “But weren’t white people supposed to stay away from that area?” asked AP.

  “They made a treaty with us eight summers ago. Paha Sapa was ours—until the end of time.”

  “Another one of their broken treaties!” snorted Sleeps A Lot.

  “Didn’t anyone complain?” asked Kate.

  “Some important Wasichus protested,” said Talking Cloud.

  “So what did the government do about it?” she continued.

  “What it always does: it sent a commission—a gang of politicians and soldiers—to make a deal. The commission knew they had to include free Indians as well as Agency Indians in the talks—otherwise the deal wouldn’t work. So they sent word to Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.”

  Kate repeated the two names.

  “Sitting Bull is leader of the Hunkpapa Sioux. Crazy Horse leads our tribe, the Oglala Sioux. Both refused to attend.”

  “So what happened?” asked AP.

  “Most of their people still went along, together with our friends the Cheyenne and Arapaho. We have never seen such a gathering of the Sioux Nation.”

  “Did they make a deal?” asked Kate.

  “They argued a lot. Not only did the Wasichus want to buy our sacred hills, they also wanted to buy this land, our last hunting ground.” He swept his arm across the horizon. “Tempers flared. Some of the warriors started jostling the soldiers.”

  “A great battle was about to begin!” yelled Sleeps A Lot.

  “But calmer heads won the day,” continued his brother.

  “More meetings took place, but no agreement was reached. So the government decided how much we should be paid, even though we refused to sell our land, and they let the Wasichus flood into Paha Sapa.”

  “Tell them about last winter,” said Sleeps A Lot.

  “The Great Father blamed the free Indians for the commission’s failure. He met with his army general, and they decided that every free Indian must move to a reservation by the end of January. If they didn’t, the Army would attack. But the order wasn’t sent out until the Wasichus feast of Christmas. By then the snow was deep, and it took many weeks for messengers just to reach our people. How could they possibly break up their winter camps and get to the reservations in time?”