Hamlin Garland

“ It was strange to me and very irritating to find what false ideas of us and of our chief the Washington people held. When it became known that I was a Sioux and had been with The Sitting Bull, many were eager to question me about him, but I refused to do more than say: “We fought for our lands as Washington fought for his. Now you confine my chief as if he were a wolf. But he is a wise and gentle man, a philosopher, therefore he has laid his hands to the plow. His feet are in the white man’s road.” ”

“ THE STORM-CHILD There was tranquillity in the warm lodge of Waumdisapa, chief of the Tetons. It was always peaceful there for it is the duty of a head man to render his people harmonious and happy—but it was doubly tranquil on this midwinter day, for a mighty tumult had arisen in the tops of the tall willows, and across the grass of the bleak plain an icy dust was wildly sliding. ”

“ The snow, swept to and fro by the never-resting wind, blinded the eyes of the scouts and path finders.
Oh, that terrible march! In the gullies the horses floundered and fell to rise no more. There was no tree to shelter a tepee, no fuel for our fire. Women froze their arms and breasts, and little children died of cold and hunger. The camp grew each day more silent. The dogs were killed for food, and each night the lodge poles were cut down to make kindling, till each tepee became like a child’s toy. ”

“ We had the pride of race. We were fulfilling our destiny as hunters and freemen. Do you think that in ten years you can make my proud people bow the neck to the scourge of a white man’s daily hatred? Is the Great Spirit a bungler? Does he draw a figure on the earth, only to wipe it away as a child writes upon a slate?
“Why are we so thrust upon and degraded? It must be that we have angered the Great Spirit. We must go back to the point wherein our old trail is found,” so my father argued. ”

“ I watched the medicine men as they smoked to the Great Spirits of the world. I crept near, and heard them cry to the Great Spirit overhead and to the Dark One who lives below the earth. I listened all the time, and by listening I grew wise as an old man.
“I knew all the wonderful stories of the coyote and of the rattlesnake. I knew what the eagle said to his mate, and I knew the power of the great bear who sits erect like a man. I was a hunter, but I followed the game to learn its ways. In those days we were buffalo eaters. We did not eat fish, nor fowl, nor rabbits, nor the meat of bear. ”

“ THE RIVER’S WARNING We were visiting the camp of Big Elk on the Washeetay and were lounging in the tepee of the chief himself as the sun went down. All about us could be heard the laughter of the children and the low hum of women talking over their work. Dogs and babies struggled together on the sod, groups of old men were telling stories and the savory smell of new-baked bread was in the air.
The Indian is a social being and naturally dependent upon his fellows. ”

“ His short and passionate speech was received with expressions of astonishment as well as approval, for the boy Lelo was a model youth—and Hozro a proud father. “What will the mother say?” thought all the men who sat in the council.
Then gray old Supela, chief priest and sage, rose slowly, and said, “I have no son—but my son’s son I have. Him I will dedicate, though he is a part of my heart. I will cut him away because I love peace and hate war. Because if the white man rages against us he will slaughter everybody.” ”

“ To this The Sitting Bull replied: “Your kindness makes my heart warm. It gives me courage to tread the new paths that lie before me. I am very sad and distrustful, for I am like a man who enters a land for the first time. It is not easy for me to sit down as a prisoner and dream out the future. It is all dark to me. You are my friend. You are wise and your words have helped me. If we could have the aid of men like you, the new road would be less fearsome to our feet.” ”

“ They debated voluminously all night long, and at last decided to fight—but in the early morning a terrible noise was heard below on the plain, and when they rushed to see—behold the warriors in blue were rushing to and fro on their horses, shouting, firing off their appalling weapons. It was plain they were doing a war dance out of wanton strength, and so terrible did they seem that the hearts of the small people became as wax. “We can do nothing against such men; they are demons; they hold the thunder in the palms of their hands. ”

“ Again the sheriff fired, his big revolver sounding loud in the windless air.
Then, as if his shooting were a signal, a squad of cowboys rose out of a gully just before the fugitive, and with wild whoopings swept toward him. They came with lariats swinging high above their heads, and Howling Wolf, knowing well their pitiless ferocity, turned and ran straight toward the sheriff, who stood loading his gun on the inside of the fence. As he ran Howling Wolf could see great ranks of yelling people rushing over the field. ”

“ I will cause the white man to disappear from the earth, together with all the marks he has made with the plow and the ax. I will cause the old world to come back. It will slide above the present earth as one hand slides above the other; the white man and all his works will be buried and the red man will be caught up in the air and put down on this old earth as it returns, and he will find the buffalo and the elk, the deer and the antelope, feeding as of ancient days on the rich grass. The rifle will be no longer necessary nor the white man’s food or clothing. ”

“ It is this loquacity, so necessary to the tribe, which makes it so hard for a red man to keep a secret.
In short, a camp of Indians is not so very unlike a country village where nothing but the local paper is read and where gossip is the surest way of finding out how the world is wagging. There are in both villages the same group of old men with stories of the past, of the war time, to whom the young men listen with ill-concealed impatience. When a stranger comes to town all the story tellers rejoice and gird up their loins afresh. ”

“ What has he done to be chief? Nothing that others have not done. He is a crazy man. His heart is bad. Would he bring dissension among us? Let us rebuke this braggart. For me I am old—I sit here only by courtesy of Waumdisapa, but for me I want no change. I do not wish to make a wolf the war chief of my people. I have spoken.”
As the pipe went round and one by one the head men rose to praise and defend their chieftain, Mattowan became furious. He trembled and his face grew ferocious with his almost ungovernable hate and disappointment—plainly the day was going against him. ”

“ Not one of all our tribe had care as a bedfellow at this time. Even the aged smiled like children.
In those days the plains were black with buffalo and the valleys speckled with red deer and elk, and no lodge had fear of hunger or frost. In winter we occupied tepees of thick warm fur with the edges fully banked with snow and we were not often cold. We had plenty of buckskin to wear and no one went unsatisfied. You would look long to find a people as happy as we were, because we lived as the Great Spirit had taught us to do, with no thought of change. ”

“ You shall hang up the buffalo meat.
And there shall be plenty everywhere.
You shall live and not die in the old world which returns anew.
You shall chase the buffalo.
You shall gayly race on the bright prairie.
These were the promises of the songs, and as the visitors sang my despairing people became like little children; their hearts melted, they laughed and wept and shouted in time to the music. Some strange power seemed to go with the motions of The Bear’s hands. ”

“ Lone Wolf, tense and eager, asked, “What says the white chief?”
“He says we must run the line.”
Lone Wolf turned to his guard. “You may as well get ready,” he said, quietly.
The old men drew closer together with a mutter of low words, and each pair of dim eyes selected their man. The clicking of their guns was ominous, and Pierce turned white.
Speed drew his revolver-holster round to the front. “They’re going to fight,” he said. “Every man get ready!”
But Seger, eager to avoid the appalling contest, cried out to Pierce:
“Don’t do that! It’s suicide to go on. ”

“ We must be friends with everyone—with the white man, too. Our hearts must be clean and good.
“He also taught us the dance and new methods of purification, and these he commanded me to carry to you.” In this way The Kicking Bear ended, addressing the chief: “This is the message, father, and this is the promise: If all the red people unite, casting away all that is of the white man, praying and purifying themselves, then will the old world come back—the old happy world of the buffalo, and all the dead ones of our race will return, a mighty host, driving the buffalo before them.” ”

“ Your sons cannot live by hunting—they must live as the white man lives—by tilling the earth.”
“All that is strange,” darkly answered Tomacham. “We are as the Great Spirit made us. We cannot change. If the Great One wished us to be white why did He not make us so in the first place?”
Nevertheless, Seger’s words sank deep in the ears of Tomacham and Wahiah, his wife, and one day the chief appeared at the door of the school bringing his son Atokan, a splendid young lad of fourteen—handsome as a picture of Hiawatha, with his fringed leggins, beaded shirt, shining, braided hair and painted cheeks. ”

“ Can you not understand our condition of mind? Imagine that a great and powerful race had appeared from over the sea and had driven your people from their ancestral lands, on and on, until at last only a handful of you remained. Imagine this handful corralled in a small, bleak valley cut off from all natural activities, its religions tabooed, its dances and ceremonies forbidden, hungry, cold, despairing. ”

“ He was a philosopher. He had no hate of any race. He looked upon each people as the product of its conditions, and he often said, “The plains Indian was a perfect adaptation of organism to environment till the whites disturbed him.”
His speech and his thought are in all that I write. He taught me to put down my words simply and without rhetoric. He gave me books to read that were both right and honest, and in all things he was truthful. “Your life can never be happy,” he said. “You will always be a red man in the clothing of the whites, but you will find a pleasure in defending your people. ”

“ He had not entirely broken with his old chief, but he accepted position under the agent and listened to dispraise of The Sitting Bull from the agent’s point of view.
With all his gentleness of manner, the old fire was in The Sitting Bull, for he said to me, when speaking of the attack of Shell Fish on him: “I am here, old and beaten—a prisoner subject to the word of a white master, but no man shall insult me. I will kill the man who strikes me. What is death to me? I will die as I have lived, a chief.” ”

“ A race is the product of conditions, the result of a million years of struggle. I do not expect a red man to become a white man. Those who do, know nothing of the human organism. On the surface I can make some change; but deep down your emotions, your superstitions are red and always must be; that is not a thing to be ashamed of.”
I am giving this glimpse into my school days in order that my understanding of my chief and my race may appear plain. It is due to my good friend Davies, the noblest white I ever knew. ”

“ So it went slowly from man to man while Waumdisapa sat, in silence, with downcast eyes, awaiting its return.
As the pipe came to Mattowan he, the traitor, passed it by with a gesture of contempt.
The chief received it again with a steady hand, but from his lowered eye-lids a sudden flame shot. Handing the pipe to Mato he rose, and looking benignantly, yet sadly, round the circle, began very quietly:
“Brothers, the Lakotans are a great people, just and generous to their foes, faithful to the laws of their tribe. I am your chief. You all know how I became so. ”

“ They did not ask for the corrugated-iron roofs of the houses which an officious government built for them, nor for the little schoolhouse which the insistent missionary built at the foot of their mesa.
They were a gentle folk—small and round and brown of limb, peaceful and kindly. The men on their return from the fields at night habitually took their babes to their arms—and it was curious and beautiful to see them sitting thus on their housetops, waiting for supper—their crowing infants on their knees. Such action disturbed all preconceived notions of desert dwellers. ”

“ The chase kept us powerful, continent, and active. Our games, our dances, our songs of worship, and many of our legends had to do with these great cattle. They were as much a part of our world as the hills and the trees, and to our minds they were as persistent and ever-recurring as the grass. ”

“ To die with your people would be superb, but it would be wasteful. Don’t do it, my boy. Use your best influence against violence, but avoid danger. There is work for you to do in helping your people bridge the chasm between their mode of life and ours.”
I told him that I was already denounced as a coward and a traitor to my race. He replied: “No matter; ten years from now those who are still alive will see you in the light of a wise leader.” And in the spirit of this letter I sent word to my chief, saying that it was best to accept the agent’s rule. ”

“ They stood too near the stern reality of hunger and cold, and yet my people are a race of seers. To them the dream has not yet lost its marvelous portent. In time of trouble they go upon the hills and wait for the vision which shall instruct and comfort them. ”