THIRTEENTH CHAPTERMARRIAGE
THIRTEENTH CHAPTER
And so I grew up, a happy, contented Indian girl, obedient to my mothers, but loving them dearly. I learned to cook, dress skins, embroider, sew with awl and sinew, and cut and make moccasins, clothing and tent covers. There was always plenty of work to do, but I had time to rest, and to go to see my friends; and I was not given tasks beyond my strength. My father did the heavy lifting, if posts or beams were to be raised. “You are young, daughter,” he would say. “Take care you do not overstrain!” He was a kind man, and helped my mothers and me whenever we had hard work to do.
For my industry in dressing skins, my clan aunt, Sage, gave me a woman’s belt. It was as broad as my three fingers, and covered withblue beads. One end was made long, to hang down before me. Only a very industrious girl was given such a belt. She could not buy or make one. No relative could give her the belt; for a clan aunt, remember, was not a blood relative. To wear a woman’s belt was an honor. I was as proud of mine as a war leader of his first scalp.
I won other honors by my industry. For embroidering a robe for my father with porcupine quills I was given a brass ring, bought of the traders; and for embroidering a tent cover with gull quills dyed yellow and blue I was given a bracelet. There were few girls in the village who owned belt, ring and bracelet.
In these years of my girlhood my mothers were watchful of all that I did. We had big dances in the village, when men and women sang, drums beat loud, and young men, painted and feathered, danced and yelled to show their brave deeds. I did not go to these dances often, and, when I did, my mothers went with me. Ours was one of the better families of the tribe, and my mothers were very careful of me.
I was eighteen years old the Bent-Enemy-Killed winter; for we Hidatsas reckoned by winters, naming each for something that happened in it. An old man named Hanging Stone then lived in the village. He had a stepson named Magpie, a handsome young man and a good hunter.
One morning Hanging Stone came into our lodge. It was a little while after our morningmeal, and I was putting away the wooden bowls that we used for dishes. The hollow buffalo hoofs hung on the door for bells, I remember, rattled clitter, clitter, clitter, as he raised and let fall the door. My father was sitting by the fire.
Hanging Stone walked up to my father, and laid his right hand on my father’s head. “I want you to believe what I say,” he cried. “I want my boy to live in your good family. I am poor, you are rich; but I want you to favor us and do as I ask.”
He went over to my mothers and did likewise, speaking the same words to both. He then strode out of the lodge.
Neither my father nor my mothers said anything, and I did not know at first what it all meant. My father sat for a while, looking at the fire. At last he spoke, “My daughter is too young to marry. When she is older I may be willing.”
Toward evening Hanging Stone and his relatives brought four horses and three flint-lock guns to our lodge. He tied the four horses to the drying stage outside. They had good bridles, with chains hanging to the bits. On the back of each horse was a blanket and some yards of calico, very expensive in those days.
Hanging Stone came into the lodge. “I have brought you four horses and three guns,” he said to my father.
“I must refuse them,” answered Small Ankle. “My daughter is too young to marry.”
Hanging Stone went away, but he did not take his horses with him. My father sent them back by some young men.
The evening of the second day after, Hanging Stone came again to our lodge. As before, he brought the three guns and gifts of cloth, and four horses; but two of these were hunting horses. A hunting horse was one fleet enough to overtake a buffalo, a thing that few of our little Indian ponies could do. Such horses were costly and hard to get. A family that had good hunting horses had always plenty of meat.
After Hanging Stone left, my father said to his wives, “What do you think about it?”
“We would rather not say anything,” they answered. “Do as you think best.”
“I know this Magpie,” said my father. “He is a kind young man. I have refused his gifts once, but I see his heart is set on having our daughter. I think I shall agree to it.”
Turning to me he spoke: “My daughter, I have tried to raise you right. I have hunted and worked hard to give you food to eat. Now I want you to take my advice. Take this man for your husband. Try always to love him. Do not think in your heart, ‘I am a handsome young woman, but this man, my husband, is older and not handsome.’ Never taunt your husband. Try not to do anything that will make him angry.”
I did not answeryesornoto this; for I thought, “If my father wishes me to do this, why that is the best thing for me to do.” Ihad been taught to be obedient to my father. I do not think white children are taught so, as we Indian children were taught.
For nigh a week my father and my two mothers were busy getting ready the feast foods for the wedding. On the morning of the sixth day, my father took from his bag a fine weasel-skin cap and an eagle-feather war bonnet. The first he put on my head; the second he handed to my sister, Cold Medicine. “Take these to Hanging Stone’s lodge,” he said.
We were now ready to march. I led, my sister walking with me. Behind us came some of our relatives, leading three horses; and, after them, five great kettles of feast foods, on poles borne on the shoulders of women relatives. The kettles held boiled dried green corn and ripe corn pounded to meal and boiled with beans; and they were steaming hot.
There was a covered entrance to Hanging Stone’s lodge. The light was rather dim inside, and I did not see a dog lying there until hesprang up, barkingwu-wu!and dashed past me. I sprang back, startled. Cold Medicine tittered. “Do not be foolish,” called one of our women relatives. Cold Medicine stopped her tittering, but I think we were rather glad of the dog. My sister and I had never marched in a wedding before, and we were both a little scared.
I lifted the skin door—it was an old-fashioned one swinging on thongs from the beam overhead—and entered the lodge. Hanging Stone sat on his couch against the puncheon fire screen. I went to him and put the weasel-skin cap on his head. The young man who was to be my husband was sitting on his couch, a frame of poles covered with a tent skin. Cold Medicine and I went over and shyly sat on the floor near-by.
The kettles of feast foods had been set down near the fireplace, and the three horses tied to the corn stage without. Hanging Stone had fetched my father four horses. We reckoned the weasel cap and the war bonnet as worth each a horse; and, with these and our three horses, my father felt he was going his friend one horse better. It was a point of honor in an Indian family for the bride’s father to make amore valuable return gift than that brought him by the bridegroom and his friends.
Plate II.—“I put the weasel-skin cap on his head.”
As we two girls sat on the floor, with ankles to the right, as Indian women always sit, Magpie’s mother filled a wooden bowl with dried buffalo meat pounded fine and mixed with marrow fat, and set it for my sister and me to eat. We ate as much as we could. What was left, my sister put in a fold of her robe, and we arose and went home. It would have been impolite to leave behind any of the food given us to eat.
Later in the day Magpie’s relatives and friends came to feast on the foods we had taken to Hanging Stone’s lodge. Each guest brought a gift, something useful to a new-wed bride—beaded work, fawn-skin work bag, girl’s leggings, belt, blanket, woman’s robe, calico for a dress, and the like. In the evening two women of Magpie’s family brought these gifts to my father’s lodge, packing them each in a blanket on her back. They piled the gifts on the floor beside Red Blossom, the elder of my two mothers.
Red Blossom spent the next few days helping me build and decorate the couch that was to mark off the part of our lodge set apart for my husband and me. We even made and placed before the couch a fine, roomy lazy-back, or willow chair.
All being now ready, Red Blossom said to me: “Go and call your husband. Go and sit beside him and say, ‘I want you to come to my father’s lodge.’ Do not feel shy. Go boldly and have no fear.”
So with my sister I slowly walked to Hanging Stone’s lodge. There were several besides the family within, for they were expecting me; but no one said anything as we entered.
Magpie was sitting on his couch, for this in the daytime was used as white men use a lounge or a big chair. My sister and I went over and sat beside him. Magpie smiled and said, “What have you come for?”
“I have come to call you,” I answered.
“Sukkeets—good!” he said.
Cold Medicine and I arose and returned to my father’s lodge. Magpie followed us a few minutes later; for young men did not walk through the village with their sweethearts in the daytime. We should have thought that foolish.
And so I was wed.