NINTH CHAPTERTRAINING A DOG
NINTH CHAPTER
Autumn twice came around, and my puppy had grown into a romping dog. In the moon of Yellow Leaves, my tribe went again into winter camp. We returned to Like-a-Fishhook village rather early in the spring. Patches of snow lay on the ground, and the ice was still firm on the Missouri when we crossed. We reached the village in midafternoon.
My father had two pack horses loaded with our stuff and our dogs dragged well-laden travois. While my mothers were unpacking, my father made a fire. He drew his flint and steel, and with a bit of soft, rotten wood for tinder struck a spark. In olden times the Hidatsas made fire with two sticks. “I saw very old men make fire thus, when I was a lad,” my grandfather once told me. I never saw it done myself.
Small Ankle wrapped the spark, caught in the tinder, in a little bunch of dry grass, and waved it in the air until the grass was ablaze. He had raked together some bits of charcoal in the fireplace and on them laid a few dry-wood splinters. To these he held the burning grass and soon had a fire.
There was a little firewood in the lodge, left from the previous autumn, but not enough to keep the fire going long. As my mothers were still unpacking, my father offered to go out and get wood for the night. Getting wood, we thought, was woman’s work; but my father was a kind man, willing to help his wives.
From the saddle of one of his horses Small Ankle took a rawhide lariat, and to one end fastened a short stick. There were some cottonwoods under the river bank, not far from the village. Into one of the largest trees Small Ankle threw his lariat until the stick caught in some dead branches overhead. A sharp pull broke off the branches. My father gathered them up and bore them to the lodge.
There were logs and dead wood lying along the river, but they were wet with the snows. My father knew the dead branches in the trees would be dried by the winds. He wanted dry wood to kindle a quick fire.
The next morning after we had eaten, Red Blossom took her ax, and, dragging a travois from its place against the fire screen, led the way out of the lodge. Strikes-Many Woman followed her. Our biggest dog, lying outside,saw them coming. He got up, shaking himself, wagging his tail, and barkingwu-wu-wu!Our dogs were always ready to be harnessed. They liked to go to the woods, knowing they would be fed well afterwards.
This, our best dog, was namedAkeekahee,[17]or Took-from-Him. He belonged to Red Blossom. A woman owning a dog would ask some brave man of her family to name him for her; and Red Blossom had asked my grandfather, Big Cloud, to name her dog. Once an enemy had stolen his horse, but Big Cloud gave chase and retook his horse from that bad enemy. For this, he named the dog Took-from-Him.
[17]Ȧ kēē´ kä hēē
My mothers harnessed their dogs, four in number and started off. They returned a little after midday; first, Red Blossom, with a great pack of wood on her back; after her, Strikes-Many Woman; then the four dogs, marching one behind the other, Took-from-Him in the lead. Each dog dragged a travois loaded with wood.
My mothers dropped their loads before the lodge entrance. The dogs were unhitched; and, while old Turtle fed them, Strikes-Many Woman carried the wood into the lodge and piled it by the corral, where it was handy to the fire.
I was eager to have my dog broken to harness and begged my grandmother to make a travois for him. “I will,” she said, “but wait another moon. Your dog will then be fed fat, after the long winter. A dog should be two years old, and strong, when he is broken. To work a dog too young or when he is weak will hurt his back.”
A month after this, my mothers came home one afternoon from woodgathering, dragging each a cottonwood pole about eight feet long. They peeled these poles bare of bark, and laid them up on the corn stage to dry.
“What are the poles for?” I asked.
“They are for your travois,” said my grandmother. “Your dogSheepeeshais now old enough to work; and my little granddaughter, too, must learn to be useful.”
I was ready to cry out and dance, when I heard these words of my grandmother; and I thought I could never, never wait until those poles dried. The heavy ladder we used for mounting the stage lay on the ground when not in use. I was too little to lift it, to climb up to the poles; but I went every day to stand below and gaze at them longingly.
One afternoon my grandmother fetched the poles into the lodge. “They are dry now,” she said. “I will make the travois frame.”
With her big knife she hacked the greater ends of the poles flat, so that they would run smooth on the ground. The small ends she crossed for the joint, cutting a notch in each to make them fit. She bound the joint with strips of the big tendon in a buffalo’s neck that we Indians call theeetsuta[18]. These strips drew taut as they dried, making the joint firm.
[18]ēēt sṳ´ tä
Turtle now drew a saddle, or cushion, over the poles just under the joint, sewing it down with buckskin thongs. This saddle was to keep the dog from fretting his shoulders against the poles.
The hoop for the basket was of ash. My father webbed it. He cut a long, thin thong from the edges of a hide, and soaked it to make it soft. Taking some wet paint in his palm, he drew the thong through it, thus painting it a bright red. He laced the thong over the hoop and my grandmother bound the basket in place.
The harness was of two pieces: a collar, to go around the dog’s neck; and a breast thong, that was drawn across his chest and through a loop in the saddle, was lapped once or twice around one of the travois poles, and was finally carried under the dog’s body to the other pole, where it was made fast.
I could hardly wait to eat my breakfast the next morning, for my mothers had promised totake me with them to gather wood. “And we are going to begin training your dog to-day,” they told me.
I knew a dog should be fed before he was harnessed, and I saved half my breakfast meat to give to mine. Owning a dog, and invited to go with my mothers to get wood, I felt that in spite of my girlish years I was almost a woman now.
Breakfast ended, Red Blossom fetched the new travois and laid it on my dog’s back. He looked up, puzzled, then sank to the ground and lay wagging his tail from side to side, sweeping a clean place in the dust. Red Blossom bound the collar about his neck, and drew and fastened the breast thong. While she was doing this I gently patted my dog’s head.
“Nah!” said Red Blossom, “Come!” But my doggie was a bit frightened. He twisted about, trying to rid himself of the travois, but only hurt himself. He looked up at me and whined. Red Blossom tied a thong to his collar and put the end in my hand. “Lead him,” she said. “He will follow the other dogs.” She led off, Strikes-Many Woman behind her, and the dogs followed after, in a line.
I tugged at my dog’s thong, pursing my lips and making a whistling sound, as Indians do. My doggie understood. He rose to his feet, and, seeing the other dogs moving off, followed after the last one.
We thus came to the woods, about a mile and a half from the village. The dogs sank in their tracks, to rest. My mothers searched about fordead-and-dry wood, which they cut into lengths of two feet or more, and piled them in the path near the dogs.
When they had enough wood cut, my mothers lifted each travois by its basket, and turned it so that the dog’s nose was pointed toward the village; and they loaded each travois with a double armful of wood, bound to the basket with two thongs. My two mothers then lifted each a load to her own back, and started to the village.
I did not carry any load myself, as my shoulders were not strong enough for such heavy work; but I led my dog. Not a very big load was put on him, as it was his first. I called to him, tugging gently at the thong. Seeing the other dogs ahead, he followed willingly.
Old Turtle awaited us at the door. “Grandmother,” I cried joyfully, “my dog has brought home a load of wood. He did not try to run away.” Turtle laughed, and helped me unload.
That evening I was sitting by the fire with my good dog, for Red Blossom had let me bring him into the lodge. Now and then I slipped him a bit of meat I had saved from my supper. My father had laid some dry sticks on the fire, and the blaze flickered and rose, flickered and rose, making post and rafter yellow with its light. Small Ankle sat on his couch smoking his pipe. Suddenly I heard the clitter of the hollow hoofs as the lodge door was raised and let fall again. I looked up. Coyote Eyes, a Ree Indian, was coming around the screen.
“Hau!”[19]cried my father, making a place for him on the couch. Small Ankle was a polite man. He handed his pipe to the Ree, who took big pulls, blowing the smoke through his nostrils.
[19]Hau (How)
Coyote Eyes gave the pipe back to my father. “That is a fine dog you have,” he said to me. “I know a story of my tribe about two dogs.”
Being but a little girl, I did not think it proper for me to talk to a stranger, but my father answered for me, “What is the story?”
“In the beginning, my tribe came out of a cave in the earth,” said Coyote Eyes. “They journeyed until they came to the Missouri river. ‘Let us go up this river,’ they said, ‘and find a place to build our villages.’ They were weary of journeying.
“They had two dogs in the camp. One was black; his name was Death. The other was white, and her name was Sickness. These dogs were asleep when the tribe broke camp the next morning. The people were in such haste to be off that they forgot to waken the dogs.
“The third day after, they saw two great fires sweeping toward them over the prairie. The women cried out with fear. All thought that they should die.
“When the fires came near, the people saw that they were the two dogs, Death and Sickness.
“‘Do not fear,’ said the dogs. ‘Our hearts are not all evil. True, we will bite you, because you forgot us; but we will also live with you and be your friends. We will carry your burdens; and when we die, you shall eat us.’
“The dogs grew old. The white one died, and her skin became the squash. Now our squashes are of different colors, white, gray, yellow, spotted, just as are dogs. These squashes we eat. Also we Rees eat dog meat; for, before he died, the black dog said, ‘You shall eat my flesh.’
“And to this day, when our Ree people sicken and die, they say, ‘We are bitten by Sickness and Death.’”
My father smiled. “We Hidatsas do not eat dogs,” he said; and then to me, “Little daughter, it is bedtime.”
I did not always obey my mothers; for, like all little girls, I was naughty sometimes, but I dared not disobey my father.
I put my dog out of the lodge, and went to bed.