FOURTEENTH CHAPTERA BUFFALO HUNT
FOURTEENTH CHAPTER
My young husband and I lived together but a few years. He died of lung sickness; and, after I had mourned a year, I married Son-of-a-Star, a Mandan. My family wished me to marry again; for, while an Indian woman could raise corn for herself and family, she could not hunt to get meat and skins.
Son-of-a-Star was a kind man, and my father liked him. “He is brave, daughter,” Small Ankle said. “He wears two eagle feathers, for he has twice struck an enemy, and he has danced the death dance. Three times he has shot an arrow through a buffalo.” It was not easy to shoot an arrow through a buffalo and few of my tribe had done so.
Spring had come, and in the moon of Breaking Ice we returned to Like-a-Fishhook village. Our hunters had not killed many deer the winterbefore, and our stores of corn were getting low. As ours was a large family, Son-of-a-Star thought he would join a hunting party that was going up the river for buffaloes. “Even if we do not find much game,” he said, “we shall kill enough for ourselves. We younger men should not be eating the corn and beans that old men and children need.”
Small Ankle thought the plan a good one. I was glad also, for I was to be one of the party. Corn planting time would not come for a month yet; and, after the weeks in our narrow winter quarters, I longed to be out again in the fresh air.
There were ten in the party besides Son-of-a-Star and myself: Crow-Flies-High, Bad Brave, High Backbone, Long Bear, and Scar, and their wives. Scar was a Teton Sioux who had come to visit us.
My tribe now owned many horses, and fewer dogs were used than when I was a little girl. A party of buffalo hunters usually took both hunting and pack horses; but our village herd was weak and poor in flesh after the scant winter’s feeding, and we thought it better to take only dogs. There was yet little pasture, and the ground was wet and spongy from the spring thaws. Only a strong, well-fed pony could go all day on wet ground.
I took three of our family dogs. On the travois of two I loaded robes for bedding, the halves of an old tent cover, moccasins for myself and husband, an ax, a copper kettle and a flesher for dressing hides. My third dog draggeda bull boat, bound mouth down to the travois poles. We planned to return by way of the river, in boats.
We were clad warmly, for the weather was chill. All had robes. I wore a dress of two deer skins sewed edge to edge; the hind legs, thus sewed, made the sleeves for my arms.
I had made my husband a fine skin shirt, embroidered with beads. Over it he drew his robe, fur side in. He spread his feet apart, drew the robe high enough to cover his head, and folded it, tail end first, over his right side; then the head end over his left, and belted the robe in place. He spread his feet apart when belting, to give the robe a loose skirt for walking in.
We all wore winter moccasins, fur lined, with high tops. The men carried guns. Buffalo hunters no longer used bows except from horseback.
We started off gaily, in a long line. Each woman was followed by her dogs. Two women, having no dogs, packed their camp stuff on their backs.
We made our first camp late in the afternoon, at a place called Timber-Faces-across-River. There was a spring here, of good water. Crow-Flies-High and Bad Brave went hunting,while we women pitched our tent. We cut forked poles and stacked them with tops together like a tepee. We covered this frame with skins, laced together at the edges with thongs. A rawhide lariat was drawn around the outside of the cover; and small logs, laid about the edges, held the tent to the ground. We could not use tent pins, for the ground was frozen. We raised an old saddle skin on the windward side of the smoke hole, staying it with a forked pole, thrust through a hole in the edge. We were some time building, as the tent had to be large enough for twelve persons.
We finished just at dusk; and we were starting a fire inside, when the two hunters came in. Each packed on his back the side and ham of an elk they had killed. Bad Brave had laid a pad of dry grass across his shoulders that the meat juice might not stain his robe.
It was getting dark, and, while we women gathered dry grass for our beds, the two hunters roasted one of the sides of meat. They skewered it on a stick and swung it from the drying pole. Standing on each side, the two men swung the meat slowly, forth and back, over the fire.
We were all hungry when we sat down to eat. The fresh roasted ribs of the elk were juicy and sweet, and with full stomachs we felt sleepy, for the day’s march had been long. We gladly spread our robes and crept into our beds, first covering a coal with ashes for the morning fire.
Next morning we had struck our tent and loaded our dogs before the sun was well up. We took only the tent cover, leaving the poles. Three of our men went ahead to hunt. The rest followed more slowly, not to tire our dogs. Now and then we stopped to rest and eat from our lunch bags. These were of dried buffalo heart skins. Every woman in the party carried one of them tucked under her belt. We had been careful to fill our bags with cooked meat, from our breakfast.
My husband walked at my side if he talked with me. At other times he went a little ahead; for, if enemies or a grizzly attacked us, he would thus be in front, ready to fight, giving me time to escape.
Our trail led along the brow of the bluffs overlooking the Missouri. There was a path here, fairly well marked, made by hunting parties, and perhaps by buffaloes.
Our second camp was at a place called the Slides; for, here, big blocks of earth, softened by the spring rains, sometimes slide down the bank into the river. We found a spring a little way in from the river, with small trees that we could cut for tent poles.
Our tent was hardly pitched when Son-of-a-Star and Scar came in to say they had killed a stray buffalo not far away. They had packed part of the meat to camp on their shoulders, and Son-of-a-Star had cut out the buffalo’s paunch and filled it with fresh blood. While the two hunters went back for the rest of the meat, I put on my copper kettle and made blood pudding. It was hot and ready to serve by the time they came back. I had stirred the pudding with a green chokecherry stick, giving it a pleasant, cherry flavor.
We were a jolly party as we sat around the evening fire. The hot pudding felt good in our stomachs, after the long march. My good dogs, Knife-Carrier, Took-a-Scalp, and Packs-a-Babe, I had fed with scraps of meat from the dead buffalo, and they were dozing outside, snuggled against the tent to keep warm.Okeemeea,[25]Crow-Flies-High’s wife, fetched in some dry wood, which she put on the fire. A yellow blaze lit up the tent and a column of thin, blue smoke rose upward to the smoke hole.
[25]O kēē mēē´ ä
Crow-Flies-High filled his pipe and passed it among the men. Hidatsa women do not smoke.
In the morning, on the way up, we had forded a stream we call Rising Water creek.My leggings and moccasins were still wet; and, as I was wringing them out to dry over the fire, I said to High Backbone’s wife Blossom: “That creek is dangerous. As I was fording it to-day, I slipped in the mud and nearly fell in; but I once got a good dinner out of that mud.”
“How did you get a dinner out of mud?” asked Blossom.
“I will tell you,” I answered. “I was a young girl then. My tribe had come up the river to hunt buffaloes and we had stopped at Rising Water Creek to make fires and eat our midday meal. It was summer and the creek was low, for there had been little rain. Some little girls went down for water. They came running back, much frightened. ‘We saw something move in the mud of the creek,’ they cried. ‘It is alive!’
“We ran to the bank of the creek and, sure enough, something that looked as big as a man was struggling and floundering in a pool. The water was roiled and thick with mud.
“We could not think what it could be. Some thought it was an enemy trying to hide in the mud.
“A brave young man named Skunk threw off his leggings, drew his knife, and waded out to the thing. Suddenly he stooped, and in a moment started to land with the thing in his arms. It was a great fish, a sturgeon. It had a smooth back, like a catfish. We cut up the flesh and boiled it. It tasted sweet, like catfish flesh. I do not remember if we drank the broth, as we do when we boil catfish.”
“I have seen those fish,” said Bad Brave. “Sometimes when the Missouri falls after the spring floods, one of them will be left stranded on the sand; but I never knew one to be seen in Rising Water creek. I know that turtles are found there, the big kind that fight.”
“I have heard that white men eat turtles,” said Long Bear’s wife. “I do not believe it.”
“They do eat turtles,” said High Backbone, “and they eat frogs. A white man told me. I asked him.”
“Ey!And such unclean things; I could not eat them,” cried Bird Woman.
“There are big turtles in our Dakota lakes,” said Scar. “They are so big that they drag under the water buffaloes that come there to drink. I once heard a story of a magic turtle.”
“Tell us the story,” said Son-of-a-Star.
“A brave young Dakota led out a war party, of six men,” began Scar. “They came into the Chippewa country and wandered about, seeking to strike an enemy. They found deserted camps, sometimes with ashes in the fire pit still warm; but they found no enemies.
“One day they came to a beautiful lake. On the shore, close to the water, was a grassy knoll, rising upward like the back of a great turtle.
“The leader of the party had now begun to lose heart. ‘We have found no enemy,’ he said. ‘I think the gods are angry with us. We should return home. If we do not, harm may come to us.’
“‘Let us rest by this knoll,’ said one. ‘When we have smoked, we will start back home.’
“They had smoked but one pipe when the leader said, ‘I think we should go now. There is something strange about this knoll. Somehow, I think it is alive.’
“There was a young man in the party, reckless and full of life, whom the others called the Mocker. He sprang up crying, ‘Let us see if it is alive. Come on, we will dance on the knoll.’
“‘No,’ said the leader, ‘an evil spirit may be in the knoll. The hill may be but the spirit’s body. It is not wise to mock the gods.’
“‘Hwee[26]—come on! Who is afraid?’ cried the Mocker. He ran to the top of the knoll, and three of the party followed him laughing. They leaped and danced and called to the others, ‘What do you fear?’
[26]Hwēē
“Suddenly the knoll began to shake. It put out legs. It began to move toward the lake. It was a huge turtle.
“‘Help, help!’ cried the Mocker. He and his friends tried to escape. They could not. Some power held their feet fast to the turtle’s back, so that they could not move.
“The great turtle plunged in the lake. The men were never seen again.”
There was silence when Scar ended. Then Crow-Flies-High spoke: “Those men were foolish. One should never make mock of the spirits.” He paused, puffing at his pipe and blowing great clouds from his nostrils. “I know a story of another Dakota who came to grief at a lake,” he continued, as he passed the burning pipe for my husband to smoke.
“What is the story?” said Scar, smiling.
“We Hidatsas,” said Crow-Flies-High, “believe that all babies born in our tribe have lived in another life. Some have lived in hills we call Babes’ Lodges. Others have lived as birds or beasts or even plants.
“Down near the Dakota country is a lake. It is magic; and in old times young men went there to see what they had been in a former life. If one got up early in the morning while the lake was smooth, and looked in the water, he saw in his shadow the shadow also of what he had been. Some found this to be a bird, others a plant, as a flower or a squash.
“A Dakota Indian had married a Hidatsa woman, and dwelt with our tribe. He was a good man, but he had a sharp tongue. He often got angry and said bitter words to his wife. When his anger had gone, he felt sorry for his words. ‘I do not know why I have such a sharp tongue,’ he would say.
“One day, when hunting with some Hidatsas, he came near the magic lake. ‘I am going to see what I was before I became a babe,’ he told the others. In the morning he went to the lake, leaned over and looked. In his shadow he saw what he had been. It was a thorn bush.
“With heavy heart, he came back to camp. ‘Now I know why I have a sharp tongue,’ he cried. ‘It is because I was a thorn bush. All my life I shall speak sharp words, like thorns.’”
All laughed at Crow-Flies-High’s story, none more than Scar himself. “I am sureIwas never a thorn bush,” he said, “for I speak sweet words to my wife, even when she scolds me.”
“Hey, listen to the man!” cried his wife.
“But stop talking, you men,” she continued, as she reached for a piece of bark to use as a shovel. “It is time to sleep, for we must be up early in the morning.” And she began to cover the fire with ashes.