Part 7

Social ostracism in various ways haunted the subsequent life of the murderer otherwise cleansed from his stain. If he came hungry to any lodge he was fed. But when he was gone, the spoon or dish he had used was destroyed. If he sat upon a robe, nobody else ever afterward would sit upon it. If he became needy, gifts were taken to his lodge, but this was done by way of pity rather than by way of friendly feeling. By exemplary conduct he might partly restore his standing, but it never was fully restored.

One time, when I was a boy five or six years old, all of the Northern Cheyennes and all of the Southern Cheyennes were camped together by the Giving White Medal river.[10] Each of the tribes had its sacred medicine tepee, the Northern Cheyennes for their Buffalo Head and the Southern Cheyennes for their Medicine Arrows. The great double camps remained together several days. There were many ceremonies, many social dances and other affairs, much going back and forth between the two camps in the renewal of old acquaintance and the making of new acquaintance.

Chief of Many Buffalo and Rolling Wheel were two men belonging then to our Northern Cheyenne tribe. Chief of Many Buffalo was not married. Rolling Wheel had a wife and a small boy. This wife was tempted by the single man, and she took her boy and went to live with him. Rolling Wheel complained to the chiefs. He asked that Chief of Many Buffalo be compelled to give him a certain running horse, the swiftest animal in the whole tribal herd.

“Yes, he must give you that horse,” the chiefs decided.

An old man was sent to notify Chief of Many Buffalo. The owner of the racer announced that he would keep it, that he had concluded he did not want the woman. He sent her away to her father’s lodge. “That makes no difference,” the old man said. “Rolling Wheel now owns that horse.”

He went and informed the aggrieved husband of the situation. He told him:

“The horse belongs to you. Go and get it.”

“I go now,” Rolling Wheel replied.

He took his lariat rope and went out among the herd. There on a little knoll stood Chief of Many Buffalo, armed with a rifle.

“Go away,” the armed man commanded.

But Rolling Wheel kept on after the horse. The rifle flashed and barked. The man with the lariat tumbled forward dead. Chief of Many Buffalo was a murderer.

This banished man was not allowed to have any tepee. For four years he slept in caves or in other natural shelters he might find in the neighborhood of our camping places. At the end of his term of isolation he left us and went to the Southern Cheyennes. There he married a widow of that tribe. Soon afterward he brought her and her two children to join us. They made their permanent home with our people. I remember clearly the time of their arrival at our camp. I was ten years old. We were on Crow creek, a stream that flows into Tongue river just north of the present Sheridan.

The misguided wife of the dead Rolling Wheel remained for several years an inhabitant of her father’s lodge. Finally she was married to another Cheyenne. She was my aunt, a sister of my father, White Buffalo Shaking Off the Dust.

A Cheyenne named Hawk came to us when I was a small boy. I heard people talk of him. They said he had been away four years, in consequence of his having killed Sharp Nose. From the repeated stories I learned the details.

The two men had been out together capturing wild horses or on a raid upon an enemy herd. They brought home three horses, one of them considered a specially good animal and the other two of inferior grade. Each one wanted to keep the first choice and give the two others to his companion. They quarreled. It appeared that Sharp Nose had the better claim to preference, but Hawk had possession of the disputed animal. He had it picketed beside his lodge.

Sharp Nose on horseback and his father afoot went there to argue further about the matter. Hawk sat just outside his tepee entrance. He had his bow and arrows. As the two approached, he stood up and declared:

“I am going to kill you right now.”

His arrow went through the body of the young man on horseback. Sharp Nose plunged forward and fell dead to the ground. His father shouted imprecations upon the hot-headed killer. The father of Hawk intervened to take a part in the affair. This old man went into their tepee and came out with a muzzle-loading rifle in his hands. The father of the dead Sharp Nose turned and walked away toward the camp boundaries. The rifle was leveled and fired at him. He staggered, evidently wounded, but he did not fall. The shooter reloaded his rifle with powder, bullet and cap. By that time the retreating victim was far off and still walking away. A second shot was sent after him. This time the result was fatal.

Hawk and his father were banished at once, not being allowed to take with them any property whatever. I used to gaze upon the returned Hawk with awe-stricken feelings. People whispered, “He killed a Cheyenne.” I do not remember ever having seen his father. I believe the old man died while they were in exile. The killing had been done somewhere between Cherry creek and the Arickaree river (northeastern Colorado). When Hawk joined the tribe again we were near the agency south of the Black Hills.

No property indemnity payment nor any other substitute penalty could take the place of the four years of banishment put upon a willful killer. If a killing were accidental, the survivor might be compelled to give horses and other presents to the relatives of the deceased, or he voluntarily and promptly might do his best to make amends to them in that manner. If no blame whatever rested upon him, he need pay nothing. Yet, it was customary for him to show in some such way his sadness of heart because of the occurrence.

Two youths, brothers, found one time a wolf’s den. One of them took his lariat and crawled into the hillside cave to get pups. He felt about in the darkness, got the rope about a pup’s hind feet and dragged it out. They knocked it in the head and he went back after another one. This time, either a pup or an old wolf bit his hand. He retreated. Outside he got a forked stick. With this projecting out in front of him, he returned to the attack upon the wolves. The forked end got engaged in the hair and skin of the wolf. The youth twisted and tugged, backing out and dragging after him the snarling and snapping animal. The brother stood with his rifle poised and ready to shoot. Limbs of brush diverted his aim, and the bullet crashed into the head of the other boy. The shocked and weeping brother put the dead body upon a horse and took it to their home lodge. People flocked there to see and to hear.

“You killed him in anger,” somebody accused.

“No, it was an accident,” he sobbed out. And he explained how it had occurred.

A group of warrior policemen went with him out to the wolf’s den. There he rehearsed for their observation all of the incidents of the happening. They became fully satisfied that he had no intention to kill his brother, that it truly was entirely accidental. The youth was released with no penalty whatever.

As we were camped one time on the upper Powder river, when I was about thirteen years old, Wolf Medicine and other men loaded their pack horses with buffalo robes and other skins and went to the trader post at the southward (Fort Laramie) for buying some supplies. They got tobacco, caps, powder, lead, sugar, and goods of that character. Wolf Medicine brought a sack of flour. Our women were just then learning how to make bread. Wolf Medicine’s wife knew how to make it so it tasted good. He was a little chief of the Elk warriors, and he wanted to give them a feast. He said to his wife:

“Make plenty of bread. I shall invite all Elks to come.”

“How,” she assented, and she went immediately at mixing flour and water. Then: “Oh, I have no soda.”

A young woman there said: “My mother has soda. I will go and get some.” She went to her home lodge and told her mother. This woman rummaged among her packages, looking into one after another. “Here it is,” she finally announced. The young woman took the white powder to the wife of Wolf Medicine. As the good cook proceeded with her work, her proud husband went out to the front of his lodge and stood there calling:

“All Elk warriors, come. Wolf Medicine has a feast of bread.”

That brought them in droves. The wife engaged some helpers. They fried many slices of bacon and they boiled a great potful of coffee. When the food was being eaten everybody said: “Wolf Medicine’s wife can make good bread.” The hearts of the husband and the wife were made glad by the compliments showered upon them.

After the feast, Wolf Medicine brought a supply of tobacco. The assemblage was converted into a grand smoking party. They passed the pipe and chatted and told stories. After a while somebody said: “I feel sick. My stomach pains me.” Just then the neighbor woman came running and screaming:

“I gave you the wrong powder! It is the wolf poison!”

The commotion aroused and brought the whole population of the camp. The victims were wallowing and groaning. An old man herald went among them calling out: “Make yourselves vomit.” Some already had done this, others began at once to gag their throats with fingers poked into them. Two men, Old Bear and White Elk, did not do this. Instead, they took doses of gunpowder in water. Both of these men had convulsions and were sick a long time, but they finally recovered full health. All of the others got relief soon after the gagging and vomiting. One of them was my father. As a test, some remnants of bread was given to two dogs. Both of the dogs went into convulsions and died. The woman who had provided the supposed soda was not punished. On the contrary, she was for a long time afterward so distressed in mind that people sympathized with and tried to console her.

A certain half-Sioux-half-Cheyenne man was married to a Cheyenne woman and they lived with our tribe. He killed one of our Cheyennes, served his exile term of four years and returned to a small village of Cheyennes where were his relatives. That was considered right, but his next movement was considered not right. He went to visit another Cheyenne village where were many relatives of the man he had killed. Warning was sent to him not to come there, that he would be killed, but he heeded not the notice, or he designed to show special bravery that might win a good standing. Two Cheyenne men accompanied him to the visited camp.

The three companions went from lodge to lodge, being received courteously and fed at the various stopping places. A brother of the man who had been killed sat in his own lodge, there meditating and saying nothing to anybody. He kept beside him a loaded rifle. From time to time, as the three men moved among the lodges he watched them from the interior of his tepee. People began to taunt him:

“You are afraid.”

“No, I will kill him today.”

The Sioux-Cheyenne walked at all times between the two Cheyenne companions when the three went from any one lodge to another. But as they were passing across one open area the middle man stopped and bent himself forward to tie a loose moccasin string. In a moment the bang of a rifle shot rang out from the watcher’s tepee. The half-Sioux pitched headfirst to the ground. His death was regarded by all as an earned infliction. The chiefs agreed: “He ought not to have come so soon to this place where are his victim’s relatives. His slayer did right.”

An Ogallala Sioux man had one of our women as his wife. They lived with our people. The couple had much domestic trouble. It was said the husband grossly abused his wife. The matter came to a climax as our Cheyennes were camped on the Giving White Medal river. I was a baby or a small child, and my knowledge of it comes only from hearsay stories. But in later times I knew the people involved.

The maltreated wife had two brothers, Dirty Moccasins and Tall White Man--not the present old man Tall White Man, but another Cheyenne dead many years ago. These two brothers decided to end the continual humiliation of their sister. They got their bows and arrows and went man-hunting. Each of them sent an arrow through the body of the offending Sioux and put out the lights of his life. They were not banished. Besides their having the natural sympathy of the people, the dead man was a Sioux, not a Cheyenne. Nevertheless, ever after that, Dirty Moccasins smoked only a deer bone pipe and Tall White Man used always a little stone one. For many years I saw him as a scrawny and feeble old man smoking the tiny short-stemmed stone pipe.

The Sioux and his wife had a ten-year-old daughter. When she grew to womanhood she married a Cheyenne man named Elk Creek. This couple had three daughters, grandchildren of the Sioux killed by the two brothers. One of these grandchildren married Round Stone, another married a Fort Keogh soldier named Thompson, the third is the wife of Willis Rowland, our present interpreter at the Lame Deer agency.

I heard a story about two Sioux in a Sioux camp who quarreled concerning the ownership of a horse. One of them had possession of the animal. The other sat in his lodge and brooded over what he regarded as a wrong done to him. He planned an unusual mode of carrying out revenge. He went to a Cheyenne camp near by and inquired there for a medicine man. A Cheyenne led him to a certain lodge.

“I have important business,” the Sioux announced. “Come out where nobody can hear us.”

The three went out of the camp, to a hilltop. The young Cheyenne served as negotiator between the Sioux and the medicine man.

“I want him to kill a Sioux,” the visitor proposed.

There was some exchange of talk about the compensation to the medicine man. Finally, an agreement was reached. The medicine man received a blanket, some moccasins and clothing, some food and a keen-bladed and sharp-pointed sheathknife. A day was consumed in settling the conditions. While this was going on, the Sioux camp moved away and was set up elsewhere. The angry Sioux and the medicine man followed them. The lodge of the enemy was pointed out. The medicine man drew the figure of a man upon the outside wall of the lodge. At the right place he made a special picture of the heart. Then he told the angry Sioux:

“Take this knife. At dawn tomorrow morning you must stab the heart picture I have drawn. Then bring to me the knife.”

The commanded procedure was carried out. The wielder of the weapon was astonished when blood flowed freely from the stabbed picture heart. He ran away and told the medicine man, told him of the blood and returned to him the knife.

“Good. He will die tonight,” came the assuring declaration.

As the medicine man went back to the Cheyennes he congratulated himself on the clever trick he had played upon his confiding employer. “Good knife, good blanket, good clothing, all for me,” he chuckled. But: That same night the enemy Sioux man actually became ill. He vomited blood, and before morning he was dead. I do not like that kind of medicine actions. Such use of the powers makes bad Indians.

The warrior days of a Cheyenne man began at the age of about sixteen or seventeen, or sometimes a little earlier for such activities as were not very difficult or risky. They ended somewhere between thirty-five and forty, according to particular circumstances. The regular rule was, every man was classed as a warrior and expected to serve as such until he had a son old enough to take his place. Then the father retired from aggressive fighting and the son took up the weapons for that family. If a man came into early middle age without any son, he adopted one. If he had more than one son, he might allow the additional one or more to be adopted by another man who had none. By following this system, all of the offensive fighting was done by young men, mostly the unmarried young men. The fathers and the older men ordinarily stayed in the background, to help or to shield the women and children. Or, if it was practicable, the fathers and old men and women followed out the young warriors and stayed at a safe distance behind, there to sing cheering songs and to call out advice and encouragement. If a warrior’s father or some other old person put himself unnecessarily forward in a battle he was likely to be criticised for his needless risk, and also the young warriors felt aggrieved at his taking from them whatever of honors might be gained in the combat. In general, the young men were supposed to be more valuable as fighters and less valuable as wise counselors, while the older men were estimated in the opposite way. It was considered as being not right for an important older man to place himself as a target for the missiles of the enemy, if he could avoid such exposure. Even in a surprise attack upon us, it was expected the seniors should run away, if they could get away, while the more lively and supposedly more ambitious young men met the attack.

Our war chiefs--that is, the three leading chiefs and the twenty-seven little chiefs of our three warrior societies--were more useful as instructors in quiet assemblage than as directors of operation in times of battle. There were frequent gatherings of the warrior societies, each in its own gathering, where the chiefs exchanged ideas about methods of combat and about daily care of the personal self, and where the listening young warriors learned their lessons. If some aggressive war was contemplated, these chiefs agreed upon the plans. But when any battle actually began it was a case of every man for himself. There were then no ordered groupings, no systematic movements in concert, no compulsory goings and comings. Warriors of all societies mingled indiscriminately, every individual went where and when he chose, every one looked out for himself only, or each helped a friend if such help were needed and if the able one’s personal inclination just then was toward friendly helpfulness. The warrior chiefs called out advice, perhaps a reminder of some rule of action theretofore discussed in the gatherings, or perhaps some special suggestion that exactly fitted the immediate situation, such as, “Yonder is one whose horse is down; go right in after him.” Ordinarily the advice of the chiefs was heeded. But the obedience was a voluntary one. In battle, the chiefs had not authority to issue commands that must be obeyed.

Special war parties made up of members of some certain warrior society often went out seeking conflict with the enemy. The warrior societies competed with each other for effectiveness in this kind of activity, as well as in all other activities regarded as commendable. At times, the members of some certain warrior society would be selected by the tribal chiefs to do all of the tribal fighting in some case where the opposition was looked upon as being not great enough to make necessary the use of the entire tribal military forces. If this appointed segment of our fighters did well they were acclaimed. If they did not do well, especially if other warriors had to go to their assistance, the original combatants were discredited. Ordinarily, whatever warrior society was on duty as camp policemen had also the duty as special camp defenders. It was their business to be the first ones out to meet any attack upon the camp. Members of the other societies added their help if necessary, refrained from doing so if they were not needed. If the enemy onset was sufficient to render needful the resistance of all of the warriors in the camp, all of them were called by the heralds of the tribal chiefs. In cases of extreme danger, even the old men and some of the women might use whatever weapons they could seize and wield.

The Sioux tribes had ways closely resembling those of the Cheyennes. We traveled and visited much with them, particularly with the Ogallalas, sometimes with the Minneconjoux. The Sioux tribal governments were almost the same as ours. Each of them had numerous tribal chiefs, each had various warrior societies and chiefs of them. Their warriors dressed for death in battle, all of their people dressed for death in time of peace, according to the same customs among us. Their warrior training by precept and by discipline was similar to our system. They fought their battles as a band of individuals, the same as we fought ours, and the same as was the way of all Indians I ever knew. They had war dances and medicine dances differing only a little from our ceremonies of this kind. So when white people learn the ways of the Cheyennes they have learned also a great deal of the ways of the Sioux and of other Indians in this part of the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Smoky Hill river (?).

IV

_Worshiping The Great Medicine._

I made medicine the first time when I was seventeen years old (1875). It was during the month of May, I believe, although we did not divide the years into months or weeks as the white people later taught us to divide them. Our family was in a camp of fourteen or fifteen lodges of Cheyennes in the hills at the head of Otter creek, a stream flowing into the eastern side of Tongue river. The main camp of the tribe was on Powder river, east of our location.

To “make medicine” is to engage upon a special period of fasting, thanksgiving, prayer and self denial, even of self torture. The procedure is entirely a devotional exercise. The purpose is to subdue the passions of the flesh and to improve the spiritual self. The bodily abstinence and the mental concentration upon lofty thoughts cleanses both the body and the soul and puts them into or keeps them in health. Then the individual mind gets closer toward conformity with the mind of the Great Medicine above us.

I said to my father: “All during my boyhood and youth the Great Medicine has been good to me. I have fond parents and kind brothers and sisters. I have had plenty of food and have had no bad sickness. No bullet nor arrow has hit me. No serious injury of any kind has fallen upon me. I ought to do something to show my gratitude for all of these favors.”

“Yes, my son, you owe a debt for them,” my father agreed.

Red Haired Bear, a good medicine man or spiritual adviser, was in our small camp. His wife was my mother’s sister. I went to him.

“I want to make medicine,” I told him. “I think I have lived in a way good enough to render me worthy. I want to become still better. I want to thank the Great Medicine and ask His continued favor. I want to become able to kill all enemies I may meet and to be shielded from their assaults upon me. I do not want to die in any manner until I reach old age. I wish you would help me.”

“How,” he responded encouragingly. “What number of days do you think you can endure?”

“The whole four days,” I replied confidently.

“How,” he glowed. “I will help you.”

He warned me it was a difficult undertaking for any young man. He urged me to be brave. He said the bravest ones always got the greatest spiritual benefit. I asserted myself as feeling equal to any distress that might come to me.

“That is good,” he cheered me on. “You shall have the strongest of trials. You shall stay out one night without any shelter, the next night you may have a little cone tepee, the third night you may build for yourself a willow dome lodge.”

This proposition put a check upon my eagerness. I had not thought of being unprotected from bad weather during any part of the time. It occurred to my mind that a rainstorm might interfere with the devotions. Even with a little cone tepee over me, a strong wind might upset the entire programme. My medicine might be broken by accidents like these. I asked if a willow dome lodge could be used during the entire procedure.

“How. It shall be as you desire.”