Big Nose was an inveterate gambler. Like all the plains tribes the Shi-an-nay are a social people. They love companionship and the interchange of jest and story. At evening, when the day’s hunt is over, they come together to tell stories and joke and discuss each other’s affairs precisely as the peasants of a French village do. And when amusement is desired they dance or play games.
It is this feeling on their part which makes it so difficult for the Government to carry out its theories of allotment. It is difficult to uproot a habit of life which has been thousands of years forming. It is next to impossible to get one of these people to leave the village group and go into his lonely little cabin a mile or two from a neighbor. And the need of amusement is intensified by the sad changes in the life of these people. Games of chance appeal to them precisely as they do to the negro and to large classes of white people. They play with the same abandon with which the negro enters into a game of craps.
One evening Big Nose was in company with three or four others in the midst of Charcoal’s camp playing The Hand game. He had been doing some work for the Post and had brought with him to the camp a little heap of silver dollars. He was therefore in excellent temper for a brisk game. But luck was against him. His little store of money melted away and then he began taking his ponies, his gun, and finally his blankets and his tepee; all went into the yawning gulf of his bad luck. Before midnight came he had staked everything but the clothing on his back and had reached a condition of mind bordering on frenzy.
Nothing was too small for his opponents to accept and nothingwas too valuable for him to stake. He began putting his moccasins up on the chance and ended by tearing off his Gee string which represented his absolute impoverishment. A reasonable being would have ended the game here but with a desperation hitherto unknown to the gamblers of his tribe, he sat naked on the ground and gambled both his wives away.
When he realized what had happened to him, that he was absolutely without home or substance in the world, naked to the cold and having no claim upon a human being, his frenzy left him and he sank into pitiful dejection. Walking naked through the camp, he began to cry his need, “Take pity on me, my friends. I have nothing. The wind is cold. I have no blanket. I am hungry. I have no tepee.”
For a long time no one paid any heed to him, for they were disgusted with his foolishness and they would not allow his wives to clothe him or give him shelter. However, at last, his brother came out and gave him a blanket and took him into his tepee. “Let this be a lesson to you,” he said. “You are a fool. Yet I pity you.”
Next day a council was called to consider his case, which was the most remarkable that had ever happened in the tribe. There were many who were in favor of letting him take care of himself, but in the end it was decreed that he should be clothed and that he should have a tepee and the absolute necessities of life.
The question of restoring him to his wives was a much more serious one, the general opinion being that a man who would gamble his wives away in this way had no further claim upon a woman.
An argument outside a tepeeIn an Indian CampThe two men standing are in argument about the squaw seated between them, for the possession of whom they had gambled, the brave in the breech-clout, although the loser, refusing, in Indian parlance, “to put the woman on the blanket.”Illustration fromSUN-DOWN LEFLARE’S WARM SPOTbyFrederic RemingtonOriginally published inHarper’s Magazine,September, 1898
In an Indian CampThe two men standing are in argument about the squaw seated between them, for the possession of whom they had gambled, the brave in the breech-clout, although the loser, refusing, in Indian parlance, “to put the woman on the blanket.”Illustration fromSUN-DOWN LEFLARE’S WARM SPOTbyFrederic RemingtonOriginally published inHarper’s Magazine,September, 1898
The two men standing are in argument about the squaw seated between them, for the possession of whom they had gambled, the brave in the breech-clout, although the loser, refusing, in Indian parlance, “to put the woman on the blanket.”
Confrontation with the Indian agentCrow Indians Firing into the AgencyThis incident occurred in 1887 on the Crow Reservation in Northern Montana. A score or so of young Crow braves having captured sixty horses in a raid they made on a Piegan camp, were wildly celebrating the victory when the agent sought to arrest them with his force of Indian police. Upon this the raiders assumed a hostile attitude and as a defiance they began firing into the agency buildings.Illustration fromTHE TURBULENT CROWSOriginally published inHarper’s Weekly,November 5, 1887
Crow Indians Firing into the AgencyThis incident occurred in 1887 on the Crow Reservation in Northern Montana. A score or so of young Crow braves having captured sixty horses in a raid they made on a Piegan camp, were wildly celebrating the victory when the agent sought to arrest them with his force of Indian police. Upon this the raiders assumed a hostile attitude and as a defiance they began firing into the agency buildings.Illustration fromTHE TURBULENT CROWSOriginally published inHarper’s Weekly,November 5, 1887
This incident occurred in 1887 on the Crow Reservation in Northern Montana. A score or so of young Crow braves having captured sixty horses in a raid they made on a Piegan camp, were wildly celebrating the victory when the agent sought to arrest them with his force of Indian police. Upon this the raiders assumed a hostile attitude and as a defiance they began firing into the agency buildings.
At last, old Charcoal arose to speak. He was a waggish old fellow whose eye twinkled with humor as he said, “Big Nose has two wives as you know. One of them is young. She is industrious. She is very quiet, saying little and speaking in a gentle voice. The other is old and has a sharp tongue. Her tongue is like a whip. Itmakes her husband smart. Now let us restore him to his old wife. She will be good discipline for him. She will not let him forget what he has done.”
This suggestion made every one laugh and it was agreed with. And the news was carried to Big Nose. “I don’t want my old wife,” he said. “I want my young wife.”
“The council has decreed,” was the stern answer, “and there is no appeal.”
Big Nose accepted the ruling of the tribe and resolutely turned his face in the right direction. He gave up gambling and became one of the most progressive men of the tribe. By hard work he acquired a team and a wagon and worked well, freighting for the Agency and for the Post traders.
His old wife, however, grew more and more unsatisfactory as the years went by. For some inscrutable reason, she did not care to make a home, but was always moving about from camp to camp, full of gossip and unwelcome criticism. All this Big Nose patiently endured for four years. But one day he came to Seger, the superintendent of the school near him, and said:
“My friend, you know I am walking the white man’s road. You see that I want to do right. I have a team. I work hard. I want a home where I can live quietly. But my old wife is trifling. She is good for nothing. She wants to gad about all the time and never stay home and look after the chickens. I want to put her away and take another and better wife.”
Seger was very cautious. “What do the old chiefs say about it?”
Big Nose looked a little discouraged, but he answered defiantly, “Oh, I am walking the white man’s road these days. I don’t care what they say. I am listening to what you say.”
“I’ll consider the matter,” he replied evasively, for he wished to consult the head men. When he had stated the matter to White Shield, he said, “Now, of course, whatever you think best in this matter will be acceptable. I don’t know anything about the circumstances,but if this old woman is as bad as Big Nose says, she is of no account.”
White Shield, very quietly, replied, “Big Nose can never marry again.”
“Why not?” inquired Seger, being interested in White Shield’s brevity and decision of utterance.
White Shield replied, “Haven’t you heard how Big Nose gambled his wives away? That thing he did. Gambled away his tepees, his clothing, and walked naked through the camp. We gave him clothes. We gave back one wife, but we marked out a road and he must walk in it. He cannot marry again.”
And from this decree there was no appeal.