James Willard Schultz

“ Sinopah was the first to notice them, and what he saw was so surprising that at first he could hardly believe his eyes, and stood staring with his little mouth wide open. And well he might; for except that they were packed dogs instead of packed horses, it was as if the women were moving camp. The first dog carried a small, new, and brightly painted parfleche, or rawhide pouch shaped like an envelope, on each side of its saddle, and piled on top, and firmly lashed with a stout rawhide rope, were several small blankets and buffalo robes. ”

“ Red Crane asked. "I am old, old. I tell you it makes me sick when I see the younger men start out to hunt, or leave to make war against the enemy, and I can't go with them. All I can do now is to stay here in the camp. All I can do is to teach our little Sinopah; [Pg 114] teach him to shoot and hunt; teach him to be good and kind and brave. My time is all for him. So it is that he shall have a fine little bow of horn."
"Father, don't you worry about these things," said White Wolf. "I can hunt for us all, and I can go to war. All I ask of you is to be happy. ”

“ Lone Bull, very quiet and solemn-faced now, led them under three large cottonwood trees near the edge of the river. "We will camp here," he said. "In this place the camp will be well sheltered from the wind. Out there on the plain is plenty of rich grass for the horses. Here is good water for all. Back of the bluffs there, the plain is covered with buffalo. The hunters will make big killings and the camp will be red with meat. Come, Sinopah, sit you down here with me while the women put up the lodge and get things in shape for the night." ”

“ The cradle was propped up at the foot of his mother's couch, so that he rested in an almost upright position. The mother, half sitting up against a willow slat back-rest, gazed across the length of the couch at the round little face, and there was a world of love shining in her big dark eyes.
The baby's face, as well as its short, thin hair, was of a red bronze color. It had a funny, tender little mouth, and its eyes were very bright. All at once it began to pucker its mouth and make a queer little cry.
"There! there! mother," the chief said anxiously, "it is crying; maybe it is sick. ”

“ Sinopah won most of the games, though, and he began to think that he could spin tops as well as any one of the great crowd of children there on the ice. When he had won three games, one after another, from Lone Bull and Otaki, he was sure that he was the best player of all, and said so.
Crow Foot, a boy older by some years, heard the boast and cried out: "You say that you are the best spinner here? Well, I say that I am the best. Come on, and we will see whose words are true. We will start spinning our tops at the same time, and the one of us who spins his longest shall win the other's top." ”

“ Red Crane answered. "This is going to be a lesson to you. Remember this—you, too, Lone Bull: those who gamble are always poor. Also, gamblers are not good men: they use up so much time playing games that they seldom hunt, and their women and children have not enough meat to eat. Neither are they of any account in war. If all our men gambled, the enemy would soon kill us all off."
"But, grandfather, I have no top now," said Sinopah, doing his best not to cry any more, "and see how clear and hard the ice is. ”

“ Old Red Crane was bending over the body examining it: "'T is a Crow warrior," he suddenly shouted, "and 't was my son who killed him. Great is White Wolf, the chief."
"True! True!" everyone cried. "White Wolf is a chief."
The old man looked around, saw Sinopah, and took him from his mother's arms: "Look, little one," he said: "See what your father has done. He has killed an enemy. That is a Crow warrior; your father killed him." ”

“ All knew what that meant: the men of the camp had killed some of the enemy and were returning. At that the people began to pour out of the lodges, each one joyfully shouting the name of husband, brother, or son who had been in the fight.
Sinopah's mother gently lifted him from the couch and hurried out with him in her arms, crying: "White Wolf! My man White Wolf! He has fought the enemy and returns victorious; a great chief is my man White Wolf."
Close in front of the lodge a crowd of women and children was gathering, and she edged her way into it. ”

“ Outside the lodges the dogs sat up on their haunches and howled; and from beetling cliffs and the far reaches of valley and plain the wolves joined in with long-drawn, melancholy cry. Had you been there, as I was, you too would have been strangely affected by it all. It was a very solemn and sacred time: men, women, children, even the very animals, were united in beseeching their gods for food.
Sinopah sat very quiet and wide-eyed watching his grandfather. The old man first got out his paint-bag and rubbed reddish-brown ochre, color best loved by the gods, on face and hands ”

“ Arriving at the door of the lodge they would cry out: "Otaki, we have arrived. Come get the meat we have killed."
The little girl would then come out and say: "Kyai-yo! What a fine killing my hunters have made. Go inside now, and I will soon have meat on the fire."
Then, while the two boys sat on their couches before the fire and dried their wet moccasins, she took her little knife from the sheath dangling from her belt, and skinned and cleaned the rabbits or birds, then brought them inside and roasted them on the hot, bright-red coals. ”

“ By that Sinopah knew that this was not the trail of a bear, for bears' tails are no longer than a boy's hand.
"It isn't a wolf either," he thought, "for wolves have very bushy tails. The mark of this one in the snow looks as if it has very short hair. Why, it may be that I am following an otter."
Thinking that, he hurried forward on the trail and soon came near the sandstone cliff. Here there was not so much timber. The ground sloped sharply up to the foot of the cliff, and on it were scattered a number of large and small rocks. ”

“ Red Crane shouted, "spread out and stamp on the ice. Scare back an otter swimming toward you."
There must have been all of a hundred children in the top-spinning crowd. The old man had to shout two or three times to make them understand, and then they all spread out and stamped the ice with their feet, and pounded it with their tops and whips, making altogether a terrible noise. ”

“ But in White Wolf's lodge not a sound was to be heard. Little [Pg 27] Sinopah waked up, heard the shooting and yelling and confusion of noise, and began to cry, but his mother quieted him at once: "There! there!" she said, putting him back in the bed and covering him up; "it is nothing; only some men come to steal horses and father is driving them away."
But for all her brave words her heart was full of fear. The enemy was shooting back at the men of the camp; one of their bullets might make her a widow and Sinopah an orphan. She began praying the gods to bring White Wolf safely back. ”

“ Then the snow falls deep, and the thermometer stays away down below zero, and the animals and birds die by the hundred. At such a time I have seen more than a hundred antelope, a whole band, lying frozen to death on the plain.
This was a good winter; too good, the boys and girls thought, for they wanted the river to freeze over so they could play on the ice. So it was that one night when Sinopah was going to crawl into his warm buffalo-robe couch, he made a short prayer to Ai-sto-yim-sta, Cold-Maker. ”

“ It is true that the meat did not taste so good as that of the buffalo and deer and elk and antelope that their fathers brought to camp, but they pretended that it was even better because they had killed it. They were very proud of being able to get their own food from the timber along the river. White children would not have liked [Pg 128] the chicken and rabbit meat that Otaki cooked, because she did not put any salt on it. The Indians never used salt before the white people taught them to put it in their food, and even to this day many of them do not care for it. ”

“ The least of these was the society of the Su-is-ksis-iks, or Mosquitoes, which White Wolf mentioned.
The Mosquito Society was composed entirely of young boys, but at the head of it were two or three old men who were their teachers, as they may be called. It was the duty of these old men to give talks to the boys on the right way to live, to instruct them in the ways of war, to pray for their long life and success, to teach them certain dances, and above all to make them honor and obey the teachings of the gods, especially the Sun. ”

“ After the camp was well settled, preparations were made for decoying or trapping a herd of buffalo. Only a few men in the whole tribe were able to do this, and so they were believed to have great "medicine": that is, mysterious power given them by the gods. One of these men was White Wolf, the father of Sinopah.
White Wolf came into his lodge one evening after a visit to the other chiefs, and said [Pg 85] to old Red Crane: "There is not much meat left in the lodges: we have decided that it is best to try to make a big killing to-morrow; you are asked to decoy a herd." ”

“ White Wolf replied, [Pg 142] pointing at Sinopah, who was far in the lead of the boys and girls who chased him. "I tell you this, father," he added, "there is in this child of ours the making of a great chief. Some day, if we live, we are going to be very proud of him."
"Ai! Ai! That is so. You never spoke truer words," old Red Crane agreed. "How good he is, and how fearless! And how popular also! Children from all parts of the camp are ever coming to ask him to play with them."
"That is the great point in the making of a chief," said White Wolf. ”

“ It has saved my life in many a dangerous place, so I put the mark of it on here and will pray to it, to help you until you get a medicine, a secret helper, for yourself."
"And when shall I get it?" Sinopah asked.
[Pg 151]
"Let me see; let me see," Red Crane mused. "You are now of age twelve winters. Three winters after this will be your time to fast. You will go alone to some sheltered place away from camp. You will lie there without food. You will pray continually to the Sun; to the Moon; the Stars; to all the world animals. ”

“ Grandfather Red Crane was all excited now. "Who would have thought we would get a medicine animal so easy as that?" he said. "It was just lucky that it stopped to make its bubble in front of me. But it is a good sign. Sinopah, we will save the skin for you. When you grow up we will make a [Pg 112] bow-and-arrow case of it for you, and I know that it will bring you good luck in war."
And with that he sent the children to camp after an axe with which he chopped a hole in the ice. Then he fished out the otter with a forked pole. It was a big otter ”

“ They soon unpacked the dogs, little Otaki helping all she could. That was the way things were done by the Blackfeet. The women did all the work of packing and unpacking the animals, making camp and getting firewood and water. But they did not work too hard; not nearly as hard as most white women who have a family and no [Pg 40] servants. The men rested when in camp and were waited on by the women; but they did their share of work: in good weather and bad they hunted to provide food for their own families, and for all the widows and orphans and the old and crippled people of the great camp. ”

“ In the morning all the children of the camp were called together and Red Crane gave them a short talk:—
"My little ones," he said, "every day you [Pg 70] are growing taller and stronger and will soon be strong men. The Blackfeet will soon depend upon you to fight the enemy, and they are all around us, and to keep our great plains and the herds of game upon them for our own use: that is one reason why you must never quarrel with one another. If you quarrel when you are children, you will quarrel with one another when you are older ”

“ He is very much too young to be turned loose."
So White Wolf let her have her way until Sinopah's fourth summer came, and then he said to her one day: "You have done well with this boy of ours. You have fed him good food and kept him strong and healthy. But it is not right for a boy to be long kept in the lodge; he must learn early to make a play of the things that he will have to do in [Pg 34] earnest when he grows up. From this day on he shall go about as he pleases with the children of the camp." ”

“ Hundreds of the buffalo went over the ledge, and only the last end of the herd, just a few animals, turned at the last [Pg 98] moment and escaped through the people to the plain.
Most of those that went over the cliff were killed outright by the fall, and those only crippled were soon put out of their misery by the hunters down there. Then began the skinning of the animals and the cutting-up of the meat and carrying it to the lodges in the camp. When night came the work was all done and the people rested and were happy. Pretty soon the moon came up and old Red Crane took Sinopah outside. ”

“ Maybe you will lie there four—five—or even seven days, eating nothing, drinking nothing except the water that your mother will take you every day. And you will sleep; you will dream. In your dream, when your shadow, your spirit goes forth on adventure, then you will find your secret helper. ”

“ It was a terrible sight, that resistless mass of huge and sharp-horned animals coming straight for the centre of the column of traveling people. The leaders of the herd, the swiftest of the cows, had of course by this time smelled the riders, but they were now powerless to stop or to turn back, for the closely packed herd behind was pushing them ”

“ They wondered how it was that the birds and the [Pg 129] women of the camp had not long since found and taken them all.
They soon ate all they could hold, and then said Lone Bull: "We should have all these berries for our lodge; there is a great quantity of them; enough to last us all winter."
"You talk wisely," Sinopah answered. "But of course gathering berries is not men's work. It is best that we bring Otaki up here to gather them."
"But she isn't strong enough for that," Lone Bull objected. "Of course she should come and help, but I think that we ought to get our mothers to do the work." ”

“ They don't have much sense at any time. You all know how often they go crazy with excitement. [Pg 55] That was just what happened to Sinopah's pony to-day. The passing of that great stream of buffalo, their swift running, the thunder of their hoofs, all was too much for his little brain. He just couldn't help running too; some strange attraction there was which caused him to go right into the herd and run with it.
"Well, about this little girl: The hunters had chased and killed many buffalo and the women were at work skinning the animals and cutting up the meat. ”

“ That all depends on many things," the old man answered. "There must be a herd in the right place out there on the plain; the wind must not be in the south; and my medicine has to be right, else I will fail to do the work. I will begin now, however, and try my best to bring meat. Send the camp crier around at once to notify the hunters to sing the coyote song before they sleep." ”

“ For instance, at times when there were great herds of buffalo near camp, the chiefs would order that no one should go out by himself to hunt and so scatter the animals and make it hard for all the hunters to get a plenty of meat and hides. Certain days were set when all the men would go together and make a big hunt. If any one broke that rule, the chiefs would order the Seizers to punish him, and punished he was. ”