MY LIFE AS AN INDIAN - James Willard Schultz

Скачать книгу

continues, perhaps for several hours, with frequent pauses for rest, or maybe to feast and smoke. But all the fun comes in toward the close of the festivities; the lines of men and women have advanced; suddenly a girl raises her robe or toga, casts it over her own and the head of the youth of her choice, and gives him a hearty kiss. The spectators shout with laughter, the drums are beaten louder than ever, the song increases in intensity. The lines retreat, the favoured youth looking very much embarrassed, and all take their seats. For this kiss payment must be made on the morrow. If the young man thinks a great deal of the girl, he may present her with one or two horses; he must give her something, if only a copper bracelet or string of beads. I believe that I was an "easy mark" for those lively and, I fear, mercenary maidens, for I was captured with the toga, and kissed more often than any one else. And the next morning there would be three or four of them at the trading post with their mothers; and one must have numerous yards of bright prints; another some red trade cloth and beads; still another a blanket. They broke me, but still I would join in when another dance was given.

      But if I danced, and gambled, and raced horses, my life in the camp was by no means a continual round of foolishness. I spent hours and hours with the medicine men and old warriors, learning their beliefs and traditions, listening to their stories of the gods, their tales of war and the hunt. Also I attended the various religious ceremonies; listened to the pathetic appeals of the medicine men to the Sun as they prayed for health, long life, and happiness for the people. It was all exceedingly interesting.

      Alas! Alas! why could not this simple life have continued? Why must the railroads, and the swarms of settlers have invaded that wonderful land, and robbed its lords of all that made life worth living? They knew not care, nor hunger, nor want of any kind. From my window here I hear the roar of the great city, and see the crowds hurrying by. The day is bitterly cold, yet the majority of the passers by, women as well as men, are thinly clad, and their faces are thin, and their eyes express sad thoughts. Many of them have no warm shelter from the storm, know not where they can get a little food, although they would gladly work for it with all their strength. They are "bound to the wheel," and there is no escape from it except by death. And this is civilisation! I, for one, maintain that there is no satisfaction, no happiness in it. The Indians of the plains back in those days of which I write, alone knew what was perfect content and happiness, and that, we are told, is the chief end and aim of men—to be free from want, and worry, and care. Civilisation will never furnish it, except to the very, very few.

      EDITOR.

      Chapter IV.

       A War Trip for Horses

       Table of Contents

      The young and middle-aged men of the tribe were constantly setting out for, or returning from war, in parties of from a dozen to fifty or more. That was their recreation, to raid the surrounding tribes who preyed upon their vast hunting ground, drive off their horses, and take scalps if they could. It was an inspiring sight to witness the return of a party which had been successful. A few miles back from camp they would don their picturesque war clothes, paint their faces, decorate their horses with eagle plumes and paint, and then ride quietly to the brow of the hill over looking the village. There they would begin the war song, whip their horses into a mad run, and, firing guns and driving before them the animals they had taken, charge swiftly down the hill into the bottom. Long before they arrived the camp would be in an uproar of excitement, and the women, dropping whatever work they had in hand, would rush to meet them, fol lowed more slowly and sedately by the men. How the women would embrace and hang on to their loved ones safely returned; and presently they could be heard chanting the praises of husband, or son, or brother. "Fox Head has returned!" one would cry. "Oh, Ai! Fox Head, the brave one, has returned, driving before him ten of the enemy's herd. Also, he brings the scalp of an enemy whom he killed in battle. Oh, the brave one! He brings the weapons of this enemy he killed; brave Fox Head!"

      And so it would go on, each woman praising the valour of her particular relative; and then the returned warriors, tired, hungry, thirsty, but proud of their success and glad to be once more at home, would retire to their lodges, and their faithful women folk, mother, and wife, and sister, would hasten to prepare for them a soft couch, and bring cool water, and set out a feast of the choicest meat and pemmican and dried berries. They were so happy and so proud, that they could not sit still; and every now and then one of them would go out and walk about among the lodges, again chanting praise of the loved one.

      No sooner did one of these parties return than others, incited by their success and anxious to emulate it, would form a party and start out against the Crows, or the Assiniboins, or perhaps the Crees, or some of the tribes on the far side of the Back-bone-of-the-world, as the Rockies were called. Therefore I was not surprised one morning to be told that they were about to start on a raid against the Assiniboins. "And you can go with us if you wish to," Talks-with-the-buffalo concluded. "You helped your friend to steal a girl, and you might as well try your hand at stealing horses."

      "I will," I replied, "I'll go with you; it is just what I have been longing to do."

      When I told Berry of my intention, both he and his wife protested strongly against it. '' You have no right to risk your life," he said, "for a few cayuses." "Think how your people would mourn," said his wife, "if any thing should happen to you."

      But my mind was made up; I was determined to go, and I did; but not for the intrinsic value of any horses or other plunder that I might obtain; it was the excitement and the novelty of the thing which attracted me. There were to be thirty of us, and Heavy Breast, a grim and experienced warrior of some forty years, was to be our partisan, or leader. He himself was the owner of a medicine pipe, which was considered to have great power. He had carried it on many an expedition, and it had always brought him and his parties good luck; taken them through various conflicts unharmed. But for all this, we had to get an old medicine man to pray with us in the sacred sweat lodge before we started, and to pray for us daily during our absence. Old Lone Elk was chosen for this responsible position; his medicine was of great power and had found favour with the Sun these many years. The sweat lodge was not large enough to accommodate us all, so half of the party went in at a time, I remaining with my two friends and going in with the last division. At the entrance of the sweat lodge we dropped our robes or blankets, our only covering, and creeping in at the low doorway, sat around the interior in silence while the red-hot stones were passed in and dropped in a hole in the centre. Lone Elk began to sprinkle them with a buffalo tail dipped in water and as the stifling hot steam enveloped us he started a song of supplication to the Sun, in which all joined. After that the old man prayed long and earnestly, beseeching the Sun to pity us; to carry us safely through the dangers which would beset our way, and to give us success in our undertaking. Then the medicine pipe was filled, lighted with a coal which was passed in, and as it was passed around, each one, after blowing a whiff of smoke toward the

Скачать книгу