Indian Boyhood, by [OHIYESA] Charles Eastman
C >>
Charles Eastman >> Indian Boyhood, by [OHIYESA] Charles Eastman
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 INDIAN
BOYHOOD
BY
OHIYESA
(CHARLES A. EASTMAN)
Contents
I
EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS
I: Hakadah, "The Pitiful Last"
II: Early Hardships
III: My Indian Grandmother
IV: In Indian Sugar Camp
V: A Midsummer Feast
II
AN INDIAN BOY'S TRAINING
III
MY PLAYS AND PLAYMATES
I: Games and Sports
II: My Playmates
III: The Boy Hunter
IV
HAKADAH'S FIRST OFFERING
V
FAMILY TRADITIONS
I: A Visit to Smoky Day
II: The Stone Boy
VI
EVENING IN THE LODGE
I: Evening in the Lodge
II: Adventures of My Uncle
VII
THE END OF THE BEAR DANCE
VIII
THE MAIDENS' FEAST
IX
MORE LEGENDS
I: A Legend of Devil's Lake
II: Manitoshaw's Hunting
X
INDIAN LIFE AND ADVENTURE
I: Life in the Woods
II: A Winter Camp
III: Wild Harvests
IV: A Meeting on the Plains
V: An Adventurous Journey
XI
THE LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER
XII
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CIVILIZATION
I
Earliest Recollections
I: Hadakah, "The Pitiful Last"
WHAT boy would not be an Indian
for a while when he thinks of the
freest life in the world? This life
was mine. Every day there was
a real hunt. There was real game.
Occasionally there was a medicine
dance away off in the woods where no one could
disturb us, in which the boys impersonated their
elders, Brave Bull, Standing Elk, High Hawk,
Medicine Bear, and the rest. They painted and
imitated their fathers and grandfathers to the
minutest detail, and accurately too, because they
had seen the real thing all their lives.
We were not only good mimics but we were
close students of nature. We studied the habits
of animals just as you study your books. We
watched the men of our people and represented
them in our play; then learned to emulate them in
our lives.
No people have a better use of their five senses
than the children of the wilderness. We could
smell as well as hear and see. We could feel and
taste as well as we could see and hear. Nowhere
has the memory been more fully developed than in
the wild life, and I can still see wherein I owe
much to my early training.
Of course I myself do not remember when I
first saw the day, but my brothers have often
recalled the event with much mirth; for it was
a custom of the Sioux that when a boy was born
his brother must plunge into the water, or roll in
the snow naked if it was winter time; and if he
was not big enough to do either of these himself,
water was thrown on him. If the new-born had a
sister, she must be immersed. The idea was that
a warrior had come to camp, and the other chil-
dren must display some act of hardihood.
I was so unfortunate as to be the youngest of five
children who, soon after I was born, were left
motherless. I had to bear the humiliating name
"Hakadah," meaning "the pitiful last," until I
should earn a more dignified and appropriate
name. I was regarded as little more than a play-
thing by the rest of the children.
My mother, who was known as the handsomest
woman of all the Spirit Lake and Leaf Dweller
Sioux, was dangerously ill, and one of the medi-
cine men who attended her said: "Another
medicine man has come into existence, but the
mother must die. Therefore let him bear the name
'Mysterious Medicine.'" But one of the by-
standers hastily interfered, saying that an uncle of
the child already bore that name, so, for the time,
I was only "Hakadah."
My beautiful mother, sometimes called the
"Demi-Goddess" of the Sioux, who tradition
says had every feature of a Caucasian descent with
the exception of her luxuriant black hair and deep
black eyes, held me tightly to her bosom upon
her death-bed, while she whispered a few words to
her mother-in-law. She said: "I give you this
boy for your own. I cannot trust my own
mother with him; she will neglect him and he will
surely die."
The woman to whom these words were spoken
was below the average in stature, remarkably ac-
tive for her age (she was then fully sixty), and
possessed of as much goodness as intelligence. My
mother's judgment concerning her own mother
was well founded, for soon after her death that
old lady appeared, and declared that Hakadah
was too young to live without a mother. She
offered to keep me until I died, and then she
would put me in my mother's grave. Of course
my other grandmother denounced the sugges-
tion as a very wicked one, and refused to give
me up.
The babe was done up as usual in a movable
cradle made from an oak board two and a half
feet long and one and a half feet wide. On one
side of it was nailed with brass-headed tacks the
richly-embroidered sack, which was open in front
and laced up and down with buckskin strings.
Over the arms of the infant was a wooden bow,
the ends of which were firmly attached to the
board, so that if the cradle should fall the child's
head and face would be protected. On this bow
were hung curious playthings--strings of artis-
tically carved bones and hoofs of deer, which
rattled when the little hands moved them.
In this upright cradle I lived, played and slept
the greater part of the time during the first few
months of my life. Whether I was made to lean
against a lodge pole or was suspended from a
bough of a tree, while my grandmother cut wood,
or whether I was carried on her back, or con-
veniently balanced by another child in a similar
cradle hung on the opposite side of a pony, I was
still in my oaken bed.
This grandmother, who had already lived
through sixty years of hardships, was a wonder to
the young maidens of the tribe. She showed no
less enthusiasm over Hakadah than she had done
when she held her first-born, the boy's father, in
her arms. Every little attention that is due to a
loved child she performed with much skill and de-
votion. She made all my scanty garments and my
tiny moccasins with a great deal of taste. It was
said by all that I could not have had more atten-
tion had my mother been living.
Uncheedah (grandmother) was a great singer.
Sometimes, when Hakadah wakened too early in
the morning, she would sing to him something like
the following lullaby:
Sleep, sleep, my boy, the Chippewas
Are far away--are far away.
Sleep, sleep, my boy; prepare to meet
The foe by day--the foe by day!
The cowards will not dare to fight
Till morning break--till morning break.
Sleep, sleep, my child, while still 'tis night;
Then bravely wake--then bravely wake!
The Dakota women were wont to cut and bring
their fuel from the woods and, in fact, to perform
most of the drudgery of the camp. This of neces-
sity fell to their lot, because the men must follow
the game during the day. Very often my grand-
mother carried me with her on these excursions;
and while she worked it was her habit to suspend
me from a wild grape vine or a springy bough, so
that the least breeze would swing the cradle to
and fro.
She has told me that when I had grown old
enough to take notice, I was apparently capable of
holding extended conversations in an unknown
dialect with birds and red squirrels. Once I fell
asleep in my cradle, suspended five or six feet
from the ground, while Uncheedah was some dis-
tance away, gathering birch bark for a canoe. A
squirrel had found it convenient to come upon the
bow of my cradle and nibble his hickory nut, until
he awoke me by dropping the crumbs of his meal.
My disapproval of his intrusion was so decided
that he had to take a sudden and quick flight to
another bough, and from there he began to pour
out his wrath upon me, while I continued my ob-
jections to his presence so audibly that Uncheedah
soon came to my rescue, and compelled the bold
intruder to go away. It was a common thing for
birds to alight on my cradle in the woods.
My food was, at first, a troublesome question for
my kind foster-mother. She cooked some wild rice
and strained it, and mixed it with broth made from
choice venison. She also pounded dried venison
almost to a flour, and kept it in water till the
nourishing juices were extracted, then mixed with
it some pounded maize, which was browned before
pounding. This soup of wild rice, pounded veni-
son and maize was my main-stay. But soon my
teeth came--much earlier than the white children
usually cut theirs; and then my good nurse gave
me a little more varied food, and I did all my own
grinding.
After I left my cradle, I almost walked away
from it, she told me. She then began calling my
attention to natural objects. Whenever I heard
the song of a bird, she would tell me what bird it
came from, something after this fashion:
"Hakadah, listen to Shechoka (the robin) call-
ing his mate. He says he has just found some-
think good to eat." Or "Listen to Oopehanska
(the thrush); he is singing for his little wife. He
will sing his best." When in the evening the
whippoorwill started his song with vim, no further
than a stone's throw from our tent in the woods,
she would say to me:
"Hush! It may be an Ojibway scout!"
Again, when I waked at midnight, she would
say:
"Do not cry! Hinakaga (the owl) is watch-
ing you from the tree-top."
I usually covered up my head, for I had perfect
faith in my grandmother's admonitions, and she
had given me a dreadful idea of this bird. It was
one of her legends that a little boy was once stand-
ing just outside of the teepee (tent), crying vigor-
ously for his mother, when Hinakaga swooped
down in the darkness and carried the poor little
fellow up into the trees. It was well known that
the hoot of the owl was commonly imitated by
Indian scouts when on the war-path. There had
been dreadful massacres immediately following this
call. Therefore it was deemed wise to impress
the sound early upon the mind of the child.
Indian children were trained so that they hardly
ever cried much in the night. This was very ex-
pedient and necessary in their exposed life. In my
infancy it was my grandmother's custom to put me
to sleep, as she said, with the birds, and to waken
me with them, until it became a habit. She did
this with an object in view. An Indian must al-
ways rise early. In the first place, as a hunter, he
finds his game best at daybreak. Secondly, other
tribes, when on the war-path, usually make their
attack very early in the morning. Even when our
people are moving about leisurely, we like to rise
before daybreak, in order to travel when the air is
cool, and unobserved, perchance, by our enemies.
As a little child, it was instilled into me to be
silent and reticent. This was one of the most im-
portant traits to form in the character of the Indian.
As a hunter and warrior it was considered abso-
lutely necessary to him, and was thought to lay the
foundations of patience and self-control. There
are times when boisterous mirth is indulged in by
our people, but the rule is gravity and decorum.
After all, my babyhood was full of interest and
the beginnings of life's realities. The spirit of
daring was already whispered into my ears. The
value of the eagle feather as worn by the warrior
had caught my eye. One day, when I was left
alone, at scarcely two years of age, I took my
uncle's war bonnet and plucked out all its eagle
feathers to decorate my dog and myself. So soon
the life that was about me had made its impress,
and already I desired intensely to comply with all
of its demands.
II: Early Hardships
ONE of the earliest recollections of
my adventurous childhood is
the ride I had on a pony's side.
I was passive in the whole mat-
ter. A little girl cousin of mine
was put in a bag and suspended
from the horn of an Indian saddle; but her
weight must be balanced or the saddle would not
remain on the animal's back. Accordingly, I was
put into another sack and made to keep the
saddle and the girl in position! I did not object
at all, for I had a very pleasant game of peek-a-
boo with the little girl, until we came to a big
snow-drift, where the poor beast was stuck fast
and began to lie down. Then it was not so nice!
This was the convenient and primitive way in
which some mothers packed their children for
winter journeys. However cold the weather
might be, the inmate of the fur-lined sack was
usually very comfortable--at least I used to think
so. I believe I was accustomed to all the pre-
carious Indian conveyances, and, as a boy, I en-
joyed the dog-travaux ride as much as any. The
travaux consisted of a set of rawhide strips secure-
ly lashed to the tent-poles, which were harnessed
to the sides of the animal as if he stood between
shafts, while the free ends were allowed to drag on
the ground. Both ponies and large dogs were
used as beasts of burden, and they carried
in this way the smaller children as well as the
baggage.
This mode of travelling for children was possi-
ble only in the summer, and as the dogs were some-
times unreliable, the little ones were exposed to a
certain amount of danger. For instance, when-
ever a train of dogs had been travelling for a long
time, almost perishing with the heat and their
heavy loads, a glimpse of water would cause
them to forget all their responsibilities. Some of
them, in spite of the screams of the women, would
swim with their burdens into the cooling stream,
and I was thus, on more than one occasion, made
to partake of an unwilling bath.
I was a little over four years old at the time of
the "Sioux massacre" in Minnesota. In the
general turmoil, we took flight into British
Columbia, and the journey is still vividly remem-
bered by all our family. A yoke of oxen and a
lumber-wagon were taken from some white farmer
and brought home for our conveyance.
How delighted I was when I learned that we
were to ride behind those wise-looking animals
and in that gorgeously painted wagon! It seemed
almost like a living creature to me, this new
vehicle with four legs, and the more so when we
got out of axle-grease and the wheels went along
squealing like pigs!
The boys found a great deal of innocent fun in
jumping from the high wagon while the oxen
were leisurely moving along. My elder brothers
soon became experts. At last, I mustered up
courage enough to join them in this sport. I was
sure they stepped on the wheel, so I cautiously
placed my moccasined foot upon it. Alas! before
I could realize what had happened, I was under
the wheels, and had it not been for the neighbor
immediately behind us, I might have been run
over by the next team as well.
This was my first experience with a civilized
vehicle. I cried out all possible reproaches on
the white man's team and concluded that a dog-
travaux was good enough for me. I was really
rejoiced that we were moving away from the
people who made the wagon that had almost
ended my life, and it did not occur to me that I
alone was to blame. I could not be persuaded to
ride in that wagon again and was glad when we
finally left it beside the Missouri river.
The summer after the "Minnesota massacre,"
General Sibley pursued our people across this
river. Now the Missouri is considered one of
the most treacherous rivers in the world. Even
a good modern boat is not safe upon its uncertain
current. We were forced to cross in buffalo-skin
boats--as round as tubs!
The Washechu (white men) were coming in
great numbers with their big guns, and while
most of our men were fighting them to gain time,
the women and the old men made and equipped
the temporary boats, braced with ribs of willow.
Some of these were towed by two or three women
or men swimming in the water and some by ponies.
It was not an easy matter to keep them right side
up, with their helpless freight of little children
and such goods as we possessed.
In our flight, we little folks were strapped in
the saddles or held in front of an older person, and
in the long night marches to get away from the
soldiers, we suffered from loss of sleep and insuf-
ficient food. Our meals were eaten hastily, and
sometimes in the saddle. Water was not always
to be found. The people carried it with them in
bags formed of tripe or the dried pericardium of
animals.
Now we were compelled to trespass upon the
country of hostile tribes and were harassed by them
almost daily and nightly. Only the strictest
vigilance saved us.
One day we met with another enemy near the
British lines. It was a prairie fire. We were sur-
rounded. Another fire was quickly made, which
saved our lives.
One of the most thrilling experiences of the
following winter was a blizzard, which overtook us
in our wanderings. Here and there, a family lay
down in the snow, selecting a place where it was
not likely to drift much. For a day and a night
we lay under the snow. Uncle stuck a long pole
beside us to tell us when the storm was over.
We had plenty of buffalo robes and the snow
kept us warm, but we found it heavy. After a
time, it became packed and hollowed out around
our bodies, so that we were as comfortable as one
can be under those circumstances.
The next day the storm ceased, and we dis-
covered a large herd of buffaloes almost upon us.
We dug our way out, shot some of the buffaloes,
made a fire and enjoyed a good dinner.
I was now an exile as well as motherless; yet I
was not unhappy. Our wanderings from place to
place afforded us many pleasant experiences and
quite as many hardships and misfortunes. There
were times of plenty and times of scarcity, and we
had several narrow escapes from death. In sav-
age life, the early spring is the most trying time
and almost all the famines occurred at this period
of the year.
The Indians are a patient and a clannish people;
their love for one another is stronger than that of
any civilized people I know. If this were not so,
I believe there would have been tribes of cannibals
among them. White people have been known to
kill and eat their companions in preference to
starving; but Indians--never!
In times of famine, the adults often denied
themselves in order to make the food last as long
as possible for the children, who were not able to
bear hunger as well as the old. As a people, they
can live without food much longer than any other
nation.
I once passed through one of these hard springs
when we had nothing to eat for several days. I
well remember the six small birds which consti-
tuted the breakfast for six families one morning;
and then we had no dinner or supper to follow!
What a relief that was to me--although I had only
a small wing of a small bird for my share! Soon
after this, we came into a region where buffaloes
were plenty, and hunger and scarcity were for-
gotten.
Such was the Indian's wild life! When game was
to be had and the sun shone, they easily forgot the
bitter experiences of the winter before. Little
preparation was made for the future. They are
children of Nature, and occasionally she whips
them with the lashes of experience, yet they are
forgetful and careless. Much of their suffering
might have been prevented by a little calculation.
During the summer, when Nature is at her best,
and provides abundantly for the savage, it seems to
me that no life is happier than his! Food is
free--lodging free--everything free! All were
alike rich in the summer, and, again, all were alike
poor in the winter and early spring. However,
their diseases were fewer and not so destructive as
now, and the Indian's health was generally good.
The Indian boy enjoyed such a life as almost all
boys dream of and would choose for themselves if
they were permitted to do so.
The raids made upon our people by other tribes
were frequent, and we had to be constantly on the
watch. I remember at one time a night attack was
made upon our camp and all our ponies stam-
peded. Only a few of them were recovered, and
our journeys after this misfortune were effected
mostly by means of the dog-travaux.
The second winter after the massacre, my father
and my two older brothers, with several others,
were betrayed by a half-breed at Winnipeg to the
United States authorities. As I was then living
with my uncle in another part of the country, I be-
came separated from them for ten years. During
all this time we believed that they had been
killed by the whites, and I was taught that I must
avenge their deaths as soon as I was able to go
upon the war-path.
I must say a word in regard to the character of
this uncle, my father's brother, who was my ad-
viser and teacher for many years. He was a man
about six feet two inches in height, very erect and
broad-shouldered. He was known at that time
as one of the best hunters and bravest warriors
among the Sioux in British America, where he
still lives, for to this day we have failed to persuade
him to return to the United States.
He is a typical Indian--not handsome, but
truthful and brave. He had a few simple princi-
ples from which he hardly ever departed. Some
of these I shall describe when I speak of my early
training.
It is wonderful that any children grew up
through all the exposures and hardships that we
suffered in those days! The frail teepee pitched
anywhere, in the winter as well as in the summer,
was all the protection that we had against cold and
storms. I can recall times when we were snowed
in and it was very difficult to get fuel. We were
once three days without much fire and all of this
time it stormed violently. There seemed to be no
special anxiety on the part of our people; they
rather looked upon all this as a matter of course,
knowing that the storm would cease when the
time came.
I could once endure as much cold and hunger
as any of them; but now if I miss one meal or
accidentally wet my feet, I feel it as much as if I
had never lived in the manner I have described,
when it was a matter of course to get myself soak-
ing wet many a time. Even if there was plenty
to eat, it was thought better for us to practice fast-
ing sometimes; and hard exercise was kept up
continually, both for the sake of health and to
prepare the body for the extraordinary exertions
that it might, at any moment, be required
to undergo. In my own remembrance, my
uncle used often to bring home a deer on his
shoulder. The distance was sometimes con-
siderable; yet he did not consider it any sort of
a feat.
The usual custom with us was to eat only two
meals a day and these were served at each end
of the day. This rule was not invariable, how-
ever, for if there should be any callers, it was
Indian etiquette to offer either tobacco or food, or
both. The rule of two meals a day was more
closely observed by the men--especially the
younger men--than by the women and children.
This was when the Indians recognized that a true
manhood, one of physical activity and endurance,
depends upon dieting and regular exercise. No
such system is practised by the reservation Indians
of to-day.
III: My Indian Grandmother
AS a motherless child, I always re-
garded my good grandmother as
the wisest of guides and the best
of protectors. It was not long
before I began to realize her su-
periority to most of her contempo-
raries. This idea was not gained entirely from my
own observation, but also from a knowledge of
the high regard in which she was held by other wo-
men. Aside from her native talent and ingenuity,
she was endowed with a truly wonderful memory.
No other midwife in her day and tribe could com-
pete with her in skill and judgment. Her obser-
vations in practice were all preserved in her mind
for reference, as systematically as if they had been
written upon the pages of a note-book.
I distinctly recall one occasion when she took
me with her into the woods in search of certain
medicinal roots.
"Why do you not use all kinds of roots for
medicines?" said I.
"Because," she replied, in her quick, charac-
teristic manner, the Great Mystery does not will
us to find things too easily. In that case every-
body would be a medicine-giver, and Ohiyesa
must learn that there are many secrets which the
Great Mystery will disclose only to the most
worthy. Only those who seek him fasting and
in solitude will receive his signs."
With this and many similar explanations she
wrought in my soul wonderful and lively concep-
tions of the "Great Mystery" and of the effects
of prayer and solitude. I continued my childish
questioning.
"But why did you not dig those plants that we
saw in the woods, of the same kind that you are
digging now?"
"For the same reason that we do not like the
berries we find in the shadow of deep woods as
well as the ones which grow in sunny places. The
latter have more sweetness and flavor. Those
herbs which have medicinal virtues should be
sought in a place that is neither too wet nor too
dry, and where they have a generous amount of
sunshine to maintain their vigor.
"Some day Ohiyesa will be old enough to know
the secrets of medicine; then I will tell him all.
But if you should grow up to be a bad man, I
must withhold these treasures from you and give
them to your brother, for a medicine man must be
a good and wise man. I hope Ohiyesa will be a
great medicine man when he grows up. To be
a great warrior is a noble ambition; but to be
a mighty medicine man is a nobler!"
She said these things so thoughtfully and im-
pressively that I cannot but feel and remember
them even to this day.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13