University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

In their hours for eating, the Sioux accommodate themselves
to circumstances. If food be plenty, they eat three
or four times a day; if scarce, they eat but once. Sometimes
they go without food for several days, and often they

are obliged to live for weeks on the bark of trees, skins, or
anything that will save them from dying of famine.

When game and corn are plenty, the kettle is always
boiling, and they are invariably hospitable and generous,
always offering to a visitor such as they have it in their
power to give.

The stars were still keeping watch, when Harpstenah
was called by her mother to assist her. The father's morning
meal was prepared early, for he was going out to hunt.
Wild duck, pigeons, and snipe, could be had in abundance;
the timid grouse, too, could be roused up on the prairies.
Larger game was there, too, for the deer flew swiftly past,
and had even stopped to drink on the opposite shore of the
“Spirit Lake.”

When they assembled to eat, the old man lifted up his
hands—“May the Great Spirit have mercy upon us, and
give me good luck in hunting.”

Meat and boiled corn were eaten from wooden bowls,
and the father went his way, leaving his wife and daughter
to attend to their domestic cares.

Harpstenah was cutting wood near the lodge, when
Cloudy Sky presented himself. He went into the teepee
and lighted his pipe, and then, seating himself outside,
began to smoke. He was, in truth, a sorry figure for a
bridegroom. Always repulsive in his looks, his present
dress was not calculated to improve him. He wore mourning
for his enemy, whom he had killed.

His face was painted perfectly black; nothing but the
whites of his eyes relieved the universal darkness. His
blanket was torn and old—his hair unbraided, and on the
top of his head he wore a knot of swan's down.

Every mark of grief or respect he could have shown a
dead brother, he now assumed in honor of the man whom
he had hated—whose life he had destroyed—who had belonged
to the hateful tribe which had ever been the enemy
of his nation.

He looked very important as he puffed away, now watching
Harpstenah, who appeared to be unconscious of his
presence, now fixing his eyes on her mother, who was busily
employed mending mocassins.

Having finished smoking; he used a fan which was
attached to the other end of his pipe-stem. It was a very
warm day, and the perspiration that was bursting from his
forehead mingled with the black paint and slowly found
its way down his face.

“Where is your husband?” at length he asked of the
mother.

“He saw a deer fly past this morning,” she replied, “and
he has gone to seek it, that I may dry it.”

“Does he come back to-night?”

“He does; he said you were to give a medicine feast
to-morrow, and that he would be here.

Harpstenah knew well why the medicine feast was to be
given. Cloudy Sky could not, according to the laws of the
Sioux, throw off his mourning, until he had killed an enemy
or given a medicine dance. She knew that he wanted to
wear a new blanket, and plait his hair, and paint his face a
more becoming color. But she knew his looks could not be
improved, and she went on cutting wood, as unconcernedly
as if the old war chief were her grandfather, instead of her
affianced husband. He might gain the good will of her
parents, he might even propitiate the spirits of the dead:

She would take his life, surely as the senseless wood yielded
to the strength of the arm that was cleaving it.

“You will be at the feast too,” said Cloudy Sky to the
mother; “you have always foretold truly. There is not a
woman in the band who can tell what is going to happen
as well as you. There is no nation so great as the Dahcotah,”
continued the medicine man, as he saw several
idlers approach, and stretch themselves on the grass to listen
to him. “There is no nation so great as the Dahcotah—
but our people are not so great now as they were formerly.
When our forefathers killed buffaloes on these prairies, that
the white people now ride across as if they were their own,
mighty giants lived among them; they strode over the
widest rivers, and the tallest trees; they could lay their
hands upon the highest hills, as they walked the earth.
But they were not men of war. They did not fight great
battles, as do the Thunder Bird and his warriors.

There were large animals, too, in those days; so large
that the stoutest of our warriors were but as children beside
them. Their bones have been preserved through many
generations. They are sacred to us, and we keep them
because they will cure us when we are sick, and will save
us from danger.

I have lived three times on earth. When my body was
first laid upon the scaffold, my spirit wandered through the
air. I followed the Thunder Birds as they darted among
the clouds. When the heavens were black, and the rain
fell in big drops, and the streaked lightning frightened our
women and children, I was a warrior, fighting beside the
sons of the Thunder Bird.

Unktahe rose up before us; sixty of his friends were

with him: the waters heaved and pitched, as the spirits
left them to seek vengeance against the Thunder Birds.
They showed us their terrible horns, but they tried to
frighten us in vain. We were but forty; we flew towards
them, holding our shields before our breasts; the wind tore
up the trees, and threw down the teepees, as we passed
along.

All day we fought; when we were tired we rested
awhile, and then the winds were still, and the sun showed
himself from behind the dark clouds. But soon our anger
rose. The winds flew along swifter than the eagle, as the
Thunder Birds clapped their wings, and again we fought
against our foes.

The son of Unktahe came towards me; his eyes shone
like fire, but I was not afraid. I remembered I had been
a Sioux warrior. He held his shield before him, as he
tried to strike me with his spear. I turned his shield aside,
and struck him to the heart.

He fell, and the waters whirled round as they received
his body. The sons of Unktahe shouted fearful cries of
rage, but our yells of triumph drowned them.

The water spirits shrank to their home, while we
returned to the clouds. The large rain drops fell slowly,
and the bow of bright colors rested between the heavens
and the earth. The strife was over, and we were conquerors.
I know that Unktahe hates me—that he would kill
me if he could—but the Thunder bird has greater power
than he; the friend of the `Man of the West'[3] is safe
from harm.”

Harpstenah had ceased her work, and was listening to

the boaster. “It was all true,” she said to herself; “the
fairy of the water told me that he had offended her race.
I will do their bidding. Cloudy Sky may boast of his
power, but ere two nights have passed away, he will find
he cannot despise the anger of the water spirits, nor the
courage of a Dahcotah woman.”