Part 8

He started me out to cut willow wands for making the medicine lodge. He told me I must get seventeen of them, each a clean and strong and long piece of pliable green wood. I carefully gathered them, selecting and rejecting. I tied them into a pack bundle. Throwing the bundle upon my back and taking a crowbar in my hands, I carried the burden far up a gulch and into the timber at the hilltop. I chose a spot for the lodge and put down my load. With the crowbar I punched in the ground sixteen holes around a circle about eight feet in diameter. Into these holes I set upright sixteen of the wands. I then bent their tops across, pairing them and tying together the pairs. The skeleton dome was completed by weaving through the coupled tops the seventeenth strand, this running from east to west. I returned then to Red Haired Bear for further instructions.

“Get a buffalo head,” he ordered me.

I searched the neighborhood until I found one. Under his directions I heaped up dirt into a low mound about eight feet due east from where was to be the eastern entrance opening of the lodge. Upon this mound was placed the buffalo head, it being set to face toward the lodge. I cleared off all grass and twigs to make a clean path between the buffalo head and the lodge opening. I gathered armfuls of sweet sagegrass and spread it as a carpet upon the floor of the enclosed circle. The two of us returned then to Red Haired Bear’s lodge.

The medicine man painted my whole body. Red clay mixed into water, in a dish, was used for most of the painting. Four times he took portions of the powdered red earth, each separate time casting the portion upon the water’s surface and uttering low prayers as he stirred it into solution. After having put the red coloring upon the entire surface of my skin he got out from his medicine bag a package of pulverized black earth. Four different casts and four separate stirrings into water were made likewise with this coloring material. With the black paint he made first a circle about my face, including the forehead, the chin and the cheeks. Black wristlets and black anklets were next formed. On the middle of my breast he painted a black sun. On my left shoulderblade he put a black moon.

My director then offered a prayer:

“Great Medicine Above: You see Wooden Leg. He wants to be a good man. Look upon him and favor him. Make him brave and wise and kind. Make him generous to his people, to all Indians, even to his enemies if they come peaceably and in need. Help him to defeat all enemies who may beset him, and shield him from their efforts to take his life. Guide him so that he may be rich in food and skins and horses. Help him to find a good wife. Give to them many children. Keep them all in good health and make them live a long time.”

He prayed also to the ground spirits. As he prayed to the Great Medicine he looked upward, and as he addressed the spirits below he looked down toward the ground. When the prayers were ended we walked together to the medicine lodge I had built in the hilltop forest. We sat down there beside the slender path I had made to connect the buffalo head and the entrance to the lodge. He talked to me:

“This is going to be a hard trial for you, the hardest trial you ever have had. Throughout four days you will have neither food nor water. Your desires will distress you. Other distresses may be piled upon these. You may retreat now and postpone it to another time if you want to do so. What say you?”

“I dread it,” I confessed, “but I know it will not kill me. I do not want to wait. I want to go on right now. I shall keep my courage from failing by fixing my thoughts upon being a good man.”

“That is good,” he cheered me. Then he added: “Be brave.”

The medicine man prayed again for me. He looked again upward and again downward, going through the same prayer for the below spirits as he had made to the Above Spirit. The praying was of the same kind as he had uttered just after the painting preparations, but he added some other solicitations for my welfare.

After this prayer had ended I crept in upon the sagegrass floor of the skeleton willow dome. He covered the frame all over with many buffalo robes we had brought. Not even a faint ray of light could get inside. He then went away to our camp.

I now was alone. For a little while I just sat there in the darkness--complete darkness, although it was about the middle of the afternoon. I was naked, except for the breechcloth and a buffalo robe. I had a supply of kinnikinick, some matches, and my medicine pipe that had been given to me by my father. I loaded and lit the pipe for a thoughtful smoke. The flash of the match dazzled my eyes. Time dragged along. I could not smoke continuously, so I just sat there and meditated, or tried to do so. I did not know when the sun went down nor when darkness came. It began to seem rather lonely. I grew sleepy, so I stretched myself out with the robe about me and drifted into a doze. But every little sound startled me. I sat up and had another smoke. Soon I had another, and then another. I slept again, this time more soundly. I had not the least notion as to how long I remained asleep. It seemed I had been there more than a day and night, that the medicine man had forgotten me. I listened intently to every slight rustle in the surrounding forest. My prayers all had been in thoughts, not in spoken words. I almost wished for some disturbing intrusion to break up the entire proceeding. Noise of a horse’s footsteps fell into my ears. Closer, closer, very close.

“Hey, Wooden Leg!” It was the voice of Red Haired Bear. “One day has passed. It now is noon.”

He dismounted and opened slightly the entrance covering. The light blinded me for a moment. Gradually he opened it wider, finally throwing it altogether aside. He allowed me to go outside for a few minutes, then I had to return to the interior.

“Let us smoke together,” he invited.

He sat just outside and I sat just inside. My smoking equipment was brought into use. He pointed the stem and sent a puff to each of the four principal directions, then to the above, to the below and to the buffalo head. We passed the pipe back and forth in many exchanges, until one loading of it was exhausted. He prayed again for me. Then he admonished me:

“The next day will be more difficult. But, be not afraid. The Great Medicine sees you.”

He shut up the lodge, mounted his horse and went away.

Fitful slumbers, prayers, smoking, efforts at meditation, these alternated in my quiet activities. I was hungry and thirsty, especially thirsty. My body was hot. My heart was heavy. My ears constantly were listening, listening, to every faint whisper of Nature. All of the time appeared to be night, the blackest of night. Suddenly there came a stamp--stamp--stamp. Then:

“Boo-o-o-o! Boo-o-o-o!”

A buffalo bull! The animal snorted, stamped and bellowed again. It surely would charge upon my lodge and tear it to pieces, I thought. I did not move, but I prayed earnestly: “Great Medicine, shield me. I have tried to be a good young man. You have been kind to me in past times. Be kind to me now.” I heard the threatening beast move away. It did not return.

Hours, hours, hours. I did not know whether it was day or night. I heard a horse coming. That was a welcome sound. I was all attention.

“Hey, Wooden Leg!”

“Hey!”

“Two days have passed,” Red Haired Bear informed me. “The sun now is far toward the west on your third day.”

Again he opened my dark retreat, gradually letting in more and more light. Again we smoked together. I told him of the buffalo bull. He listened with evident great interest.

“That is a good sign,” he comforted me. “No buffalo ever will harm you. You and all other Cheyennes will get plenty of meat and skins from them. The bull was your friend, telling you all this.”

Another prayer went from the medicine man to the Above and to the below. After a short allowance of time for me outside, he put me again into the enclosure and shut tightly the small hole.

“Be brave,” were his parting words.

“Yes,” I replied. But I was not sure.

Hot, thirsty, yet more hot and more thirsty. I prayed particularly for strength of body and firmness of heart to carry me through to the end of the trial. I loaded my pipe for a solacing smoke. But it was not a solace. The heat burned my already parching tongue. I tried to sleep. Maybe I did sleep. I do not know. I made attempts to meditate quietly. I do not know whether I actually was thinking or was following dreams racing through my mind. All I could be sure about was that I either was sitting down or lying down all the time. I heard something that cleared my mind at once. My mother brought wood and stones and placed them out by the buffalo head. She did not speak nor make any sign of recognition, but I knew it was my mother. It seemed I could look right through the robes and see her there. After she had deposited her burden she went away.

Oh, how lonely I was! I loaded and lit my pipe. No, it was not good. My mouth and throat were burning. Water! Water! But: “The Great Medicine sees me,” I kept thinking. My thoughts whirled and chased each other rapidly in circles. I dreamt that I heard the footsteps of a horse.

“Hey, Wooden Leg!”

“Hey!”

“This is the day.”

Happiness almost filled my heart. The only hindrance was in the thirst and the hot body. After I had been let out we smoked together. It was a torture to my tongue, but I did not complain. We went then to my father’s lodge in the camp. My father called out invitations to old men friends. They came and sat in a circle upon the robes spread over the lodge’s floor. I sat with them, by the side of my father. My mother brought a bucketful of water and set it off a little distance in front of me. I suppressed a strong desire to plunge my face into it, but I could not keep my eyes from staring at it. The medicine man sprinkled red powder upon the surface of the water, four small scatterings in four separate places. He passed his hands to and fro over it and prayed. It seemed I never in my life had heard so long a prayer. When it was ended he said to me:

“Wooden Leg, you have been four days without water. Now you may drink four sups.”

I seized the sides of the bucket. The four sups were four long-drawn mouthfuls. The water rumbled through my bowels. After a few minutes I was told, “Now you may have more, but do not take all you want.” I drank slowly, but I drew in big mouthfuls and took many of them. Not long afterward I was allowed to apply myself a third time at the bucket.

My mother brought a potful of buffalo meat she had been boiling. All of the guests were given portions of it. A piece was put upon a tin plate and set before me. It looked good enough to grab and swallow immediately. But I waited for advice. My adviser did not long detain me.

“Wooden Leg, you have been four days without meat. Take four sliced-off bites, one for each day of the fast.”

I selected a long chunk from the plate. I stuck the end of it far into my mouth, and with a sheathknife I cut it off. The chewing was vigorous, and I soon had it swallowed. The chunk was pushed a second time into my mouth and its end cut off there. A third and a fourth mouthful were taken in the same manner. After a few minutes, more meat was allowed to me. Then still more, all I cared to eat. It was the best meat I ever tasted.

The old men joined in asking me:

“Tell us of your experience.”

I told them--told them particularly of the coming of the buffalo bull. They complimented me, said I was brave, said the Great Medicine was my friend, assured me that no buffalo ever would harm me. Their approval and their assurances made me glad. My heart was like the sun coming up on a summer morning.

All of these old men, some of their wives, my father and mother and the medicine man went with me to my medicine lodge. We were to have a sweat bath worship together. My mother carried a bucketful of water for sprinkling upon the hot stones inside the lodge. The medicine man piled the stones into a cone heap. He leaned sticks of wood up the sides of this stone structure and set a fire to going among them. The other men stripped themselves to breechcloth and crept into the lodge. When the stones had become well heated by the wood fire over them the medicine man passed them to one of the men inside. They were handled with forked sticks and were piled into a pit some of the men had made in the center of the lodge’s earth floor. When the pit was filled with the hot stones the medicine man set inside the bucketful of water. He himself then crept in, on hands and knees as we all had done. One man remained outside to close the opening, to ventilate temporarily when we might require, to wait upon us in whatever way our needs might demand. Not any of the women went into the lodge. Twelve men were in there.

At the left inside of the entrance sat the medicine man. I was next at his left side. My father was third, at my left. The other men were seated on beyond, the row extending around the circle. All had backs to the wall. We had smoked together while the stones were being heated, but the pipe now had been placed outside. Its bowl rested on the ground beside the buffalo head and its stem projected upward past the nose and eyes of the hallowed object. A good spirit influence was coming from the nostrils of the head straight along the clean path and into the lodge. No knowing and worshipful Indian ever crossed that path. Such act would cut off the steady flow of healing virtue.

The medicine man opened the interior proceedings with another prayer for my welfare. Once more he pleaded with the Great Medicine to make me good and generous, to give me success in hunting, to protect me from enemies and to enable me to kill them. Once more he asked that I might get a good wife, might have many children, and that myself and all of my family might keep good health and live to advanced years. He beseeched again that I might gather together many horses and not lose any of them. I believed his prayers would be heard. My hopes were high. My trust in the Being Above was strong.

Water was squirted upon the hot stones in the central pit. The medicine man first gave each one in the lodge a drink of water. He took into his own mouth a chew of herb. After its mastication he supped and squirted four successive mouthfuls of water. Between the acts were short prayers. Thus he released from the stones the vitality put into them by the burning wood that had got it from the sun, the material representative of the Great Medicine. The stones hissed their protests as the water compelled them to release into the air the spiritual curative forces. Our bodies were enveloped by the steam wherein floated the vital energy. The vivifying and purifying influence soaked into our skins. Bad spirits were driven out of us and drowned in the water that dripped from us. The medicine man repeated from time to time the sprinkling of water upon the protesting stones.

The soft whisperings of an eagle wing bone flute came into my ears. The sound seemed to come from the roof and from other points in the utterly dark interior of the lodge. After a few of the gentle blasts, I felt the instrument being placed in my hands. My father put it there. It now was mine, to keep. It was to be worn about my neck, suspended at the mid-breast by a buckskin thong, during all times of danger. If I were threatened with imminent harm I had but to put it to my lips and cause it to send out its soothing notes. That would ward off every evil design upon me. It was my mystic protector. It was my medicine.

After an hour or more together in the devotional dome, all of us went to our respective lodge homes. There my father presented me also with a shield of rawhide taken from the rump of a buffalo bull. The hair had been removed and the piece of skin had been dried rapidly before a fire, to make it extremely tough. It was covered with antelope buckskin sewed in place. The cover had medicine designs drawn in color upon its surface. This shield would turn off any bullet or arrow or other missile coming toward me. My father made it. He delivered it into my left hand.

My second medicine experience took place a month or so after that first one. Black White Man, a medicine man, took me through it. This time the plan was for but two days of self denial and worship. I made the dome lodge according to the same rules as had governed in making the first one, which was the regular way of making them. Black White Man painted me in the same way and with the same ceremony used by Red Haired Bear. I had the same kind of harassing sensations while alone, but they covered only two days instead of four. The resumption of water and food was carried out in a manner exactly like had been done in the previous proceedings. The sweat bath devotions had a like preparatory programme and followed a course like that of the other one and of all such affairs entered upon among the Cheyennes. But during this second time of spiritual upbuilding there was one intervening incident that marked it as different from all others.

During the last part of my lonely vigil--I learned afterward it was during my second night--my quietude was broken by the tread of horses, many horses. I heard men talking. Gabble-gabble-gabble. It was not Cheyenne talk. It was not Sioux. This being the case, the horsemen necessarily must be enemies, either whites or Indians. It seemed now that the bellowing buffalo bull of my previous experience had been but a tame threat. It appeared I surely would be discovered or already had been discovered, by the gabbling strangers. It seemed that death threatened me. My hair raised itself and I could feel it standing upright. My heart thumped. It throbbed and pounded the inner wall of my breast. To my senses its noise was so boisterous as to notify the intruders and all the rest of the world that a human being frozen by fright awaited the fatal blow. I did not move--perhaps was not able to move. But I could think. I centered my thoughts upon whispering over and over, “The Great Medicine sees me.”

“Hi-ye-e-e-e!” The war-cry!

“Bang! Bang! Bang-bang!” Rifle shots.

The horses near me clattered away. One of them bawled as if wounded by a bullet. The strange voices went out of my hearing. Other voices shouted. These were Cheyennes. I heard Cheyenne women and children crying as they ran past my retreat. But I could do nothing but just sit there with my buffalo robe over my head. The commotion gradually died down. My pious meditations were much disturbed by the alarming turmoil. I could not keep myself from wondering what had happened. I wondered if the Cheyennes had been driven from their camp and had left me there alone. This thought chilled me. But I stayed, waiting, waiting. Many hours later Black White Man came.

“They were Crows trying to steal our horses,” he explained. The raiders had been repulsed, but one of our Cheyennes had been killed. “It shows that the Crows never can hurt you,” the medicine man assured me.

For a third season of warrior discipline I went one morning at dawn to the top of a hill. There I fasted, prayed, meditated and dreamed all day. During the day I saw the lodges taken down and the whole camp move away down the valley. But I had to stay. When the sun had set I started out afoot to follow the trail of my people. I drank water along the way, but I got no food until my arrival at the home lodge at the end of my journey of ten or twelve miles.

Another disciplinary means for subduing the flesh was to stand upright all day, from sunrise to sunset, on a hill. The devotee did not move during that time except to keep his face turned at all times toward the sun. He might keep his eyes closed or shaded, but his countenance had to be presented ever toward the venerated token of the Great Medicine’s existence. He prayed or otherwise kept his thoughts fixed on a high plane. This system of self denial was varied by the attitude taken. One might stand all day or sit in one position all day or lie down during all of the time. But the attitude assumed at the beginning must be kept to the end. My all-day supplications were made while sitting down.

Standing upright in water from sunrise to sunset was one way of putting the body under the rule of the spirit. The water had to be up to the neck or the upper breast. Not any drink of it was taken. It was not permissible to move the body except for keeping the face toward the sun. The bodily torture incident to the full standard Great Medicine dance--what the white people call the sun dance--was the most severe test of hardihood, so it was looked upon as the highest form of self scourging. I never undertook this extreme step.

Women did not make medicine by feats of endurance. Such was for men only. Sometimes two men would go together for the all-day hilltop fast or for some other similar performance. Ordinarily, though, only one man made up the vigil. I like best the solitary way. I think it is better to be alone at such times. At any of the occasions observable it was permissible for onlookers to view the act. Such scrutiny might aid greatly in spurring on to full compliance with the rules. Payment to any medicine man helper was due. This might be such as was agreed upon in advance--often paid in advance--or it might be in the form of subsequent free gifts to him. The standard fee was a horse.

Our tribal Great Medicine dance was a ceremony of one, two or three days, the period depending upon immediate conditions. In times before mine the full period had been four days, but in my time three days was the maximum. It was not held at any regular time. Once every two or three years was the usual custom. It would be held, though, in successive years if the tribe was having misfortune or if enough special devotees wanted to undergo the trials. The summer season was the special time. The prime purpose was to ask the Great Medicine’s favorable attention to the tribe as a whole, not to any particular persons. The prayers were for good grass, new colts in the horse herds, plenty of berries and roots, many children, success in hunting game and in repelling enemies.

The Cheyennes and the Arapahoes had their two Great Medicine ceremony dances together on one occasion when I was about twelve years old (1870). We were south of the mountains beyond the headwaters of Powder river. The two tribes camped as one, in one great camp circle, but all of the Cheyenne lodges were at one side of the camp and all of the Arapaho lodges at the opposite side. Each tribe had its Great Medicine lodge at its own side of the combined camp. I went back and forth looking on at both of them. The other people of both tribes did the same. I was not quite old enough during our free roaming days to take a part in the important tribal affairs. I merely looked, listened, kept quiet and thought about them. This double sacred dance of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes was for only one day. During that one day all of the participants and many other people took neither food nor water. After sunset they had a great feast. That was the regular way--the participants took neither food nor water while the ceremonies were being carried out, one, two, three or four days.