Part 9

"Traveling south day after day along the foot of the mountains, One Horn and his women at last struck the River-of-Many-Chiefs-Gathering, and, following it up, came in sight of the big prairies at the foot of the lower one of these Inside Lakes. It was then dusk, but not so dark but what they could see that there was a big camp of people at the edge of the timber bordering the lake shore. Said One Horn, 'They must be the ones I seek, the Mountain Crows. As soon as they sleep, we will go on and put up our lodge near theirs.'

"Early the next morning an old man stepped out from his lodge, and saw a strange lodge standing by itself just outside the circle of the big camp. He looked at it a long time, and the growing light at last enabled him to see that there were two huge bears painted on its new white leather skin. He turned and hurried to the lodge of the head chief of the camp, aroused him, and cried: 'Here is a mystery; something to be looked into: just outside the circle of our camp a strange lodge is standing. It belongs not to us Mountain Crows, nor to our brothers, the River Crows. I know that, for it has painted upon it two big bears, and neither of our tribes has that medicine.'

"The chief hurried to get up and dress, and so did others, and they soon left their lodges and approached the strange lodge. There was a fire within it. Voices were heard in low-toned conversation. Close around a few horses were picketed, and farther out grazed a large band of them, mostly grays and blacks. It was evident that the owner of the lodge was a chief, a bear medicine man, a very rich man. The Crow chief thrust aside the door curtain of the lodge, and entered, the others following. A fine-appearing man at the back of it gave them the sign for welcome, and motioned them where to sit. He lifted a big filled pipe and lighted it, and passed it. The Crow chief smoked first, and then one by one those with him.

"Having passed on the pipe, the Crow chief signed to the stranger: 'You are a Blackfoot?'

"'Yes, I am a Blackfoot,' One Horn answered. 'You are wondering why I, an enemy, have come here and set up my lodge beside you. You shall know! I have come to try to make peace between your people and my people. I am tired of all this war, and its wasting of men's lives, and making women and children mourn.'

"'You say well. Your talk deserves attention. Peace between us would be good for us both. I will talk to my people about it,' said the Crow chief.

"And just then One Horn's women set before him and the other Crows dishes of rich berry pemmican, the best of dried meat and back fat, and they ate with the outside chief. Then they smoked again and went home, the Crow chief saying that he would soon give a call for a council, and would send for the Blackfoot to join in it.

"It was not until near sunset, however, that a youth came to invite One Horn to the Crow chief's lodge. He found assembled there all the head men of the tribe, and the chief told him that, after long talk, they had decided that they, too, were tired of war, and would be glad to make peace with the Blackfeet.

"'But be not in a hurry to return home,' the Crow chief concluded. 'Make us a long visit, and during it we will decide together where and when our two tribes shall meet to make this lasting peace treaty.'

"Answered One Horn: 'I shall be glad to camp here with you for the rest of this moon.' And all those present signed to him: 'Yes. Remain here with us for a time.'

"One Horn and the Crow chief became friends. They hunted together, visited often in each other's lodge, and together were invited to other lodges to feast and smoke, and join in the warriors' tales of raids and battles and adventures along far trails.

"The River Crows were at this time encamped just over the ridge from the Inside Lakes, on Little River, and some of them came frequently to visit their Mountain brothers at the foot of the lakes. Among others came a man who was always counting his _coups_. In a gathering of the warriors he would wait until all had told what they had done in war against their enemies, and then he would count one _coup_, only one, that was far greater than any of theirs.

"On a day when One Horn was visiting in the Crow chief's lodge, this man was one of the guests. The talk was of war, and after many there had told what they had done, he said that, with a friend, he was approaching the Blackfeet camp, and they were discovered and surrounded by all the warriors of the tribe. His friend soon fell, as full of arrows as a porcupine is full of quills, but that he, charging this way, that way, shooting arrows fast and killing many Blackfeet, made them give way before him and he escaped from them, although wounded in the back. Later on, when safe from pursuit, he had drawn out the arrow, and still had it, proof enough of the truth of his tale.

"This man then turned to One Horn, and said, by signs, of course, 'We have all of us here told about our fights, and now it is your turn: tell of your brave deeds.'

"'I have nothing to say that will interest you; mine have been just the common experiences of those who go on raids. No, I have nothing to say,' he answered.

"'But you must tell us one great thing that you have done,' the River Crow insisted.

"And again One Horn answered: 'What I have done would not interest you. I have nothing to say.'

"The man then turned to the Mountain Crow chief and said: 'This is a poor kind of a friend for you to have! He has done nothing; he is no chief, he is a woman!'

"'I do not know for sure, but I think that he is a chief, that he has a big war record,' the host answered him.

"And then the guests went their several ways, the River Crow laughing shrilly, contemptuously, as he left the lodge.

"It was not long after this that the River Crow came over again from Little River, and again was one of a party of guests in the lodge of the chief of the Mountain Crows. Once more the talk was of war, and when it came this man's turn to talk, he drew an arrow from his quiver, laid it on the ground in front of him, and said: 'There! No one here, nor in the camp of the Mountain Crows and the camp of the River Crows, has ever equaled what that stands for. That is the arrow that I drew from my back after my partner was killed, and I fought my way single-handed through the hundreds of Blackfeet warriors, killing many of them, and so frightening them that they dared not pursue me.'

"One Horn leaned over, looked at the arrow, and gave an exclamation of disgust: 'That is my arrow,' he signed. 'I know this man now. At dawn, one morning, I discovered him and his partner asleep near our camp. I crept up to them and shouted, thinking that they were our horseherd watchers, and when they sprang up, I saw that they were enemies. I shot one of them dead. This man turned and ran, never even firing at me, and I shot an arrow into his back, but he kept on going and escaped from me in the brush! Yes. That is the very arrow I shot into him!'

"'It is a lie! A big lie!' the River Crow said, and signed.

"For answer to that, One Horn went to the door of the lodge and shouted to his women to bring over his quiver of arrows. It was soon handed in to him, and he said: 'I have here two kinds of arrows: hunting arrows and war arrows. Here are the war arrows.' And he laid them beside the arrow in front of the boaster. All there saw at once that they were exactly like it in every way, had the same private mark just back of the point. And suddenly, with jeers and cries of 'Liar!' 'Coward!' they took handfuls of ashes and earth from the fireplace and threw them in the River Crow's face and on his head, and he ran for the door and was gone, leaving the arrow behind. One Horn picked it up and put it in his quiver, and said: 'That no doubt ends his lying bragging!'

"Some days after this exposure of his lying, the River Crow, watching his chance, entered the lodge of the Mountain Crow chief and said to him: 'That Blackfoot has shamed me. I was a chief, but now all people laugh at me. I want revenge. Let me kill that friend of yours and I will give you three of my best horses!'

"'What you ask is impossible!' the chief replied. 'He is my friend! We have smoked together, have eaten together. I cannot allow you to kill him. And for your lying you deserve what you got!'

"The River Crow sneaked away, but on the next evening, when none but the chief and his women were at home, he came again. And this time he said: 'Let me do what I want to do; you know what that is; and I will give you five of my best horses and my beautiful young daughter.'

"And this time the chief did not give him a short answer. He thought over the offer for a long time. He knew that it would be a terrible thing to betray his Blackfoot friend, but the temptation was great. His women were getting old. He wanted that beautiful girl. And at last he gave way to the temptation: 'It shall be as you wish,' he told the man. 'All is arranged for to-morrow; we go with the hunters on a big buffalo hunt, and there will be no chance for you to do what you want to do. Come the day after to-morrow and I will help you--if you need my help--to kill the Blackfoot.'

"Very early the next morning the hunters started out after buffalo, One Horn taking with him one of his women to help in the butchering and packing in of the meat. They were no sooner gone than one of the Crow chief's women hurried to One Horn's lodge and told his other woman all about the plan to kill him. She told it because she was jealous; she did not want her man to take another wife!

"So it was that, when One Horn came home that evening, this wife ran to him and embraced and kissed him as though she would never let him out of her arms. This strong showing of love was unusual with her, and he asked her the cause for it.

"'Because to-morrow you are to die, and sister and I are to become slaves. See now what you have done by coming to try to make peace with these Crows!' And she told him all about the plot to end his life.

"But One Horn just laughed: 'Wipe away your tears and take courage,' he told her. 'These Crows will not kill me, a bear medicine man, and a chief. They cannot kill me. I will show you to-morrow something that will surprise you!'

"That night he kept his favorite war horse picketed close to his lodge, and the next morning he carefully dressed himself in his beautiful war clothes, painted himself and his horse, took his bow and arrows, his shield and spear, and rode into the center of the big camp, and called upon the Crow chief to come out. He did come out, also dressed for battle, and One Horn cried out to him, at the same time making signs, so that he would be sure to understand, 'Your plot is discovered. So you and that River Crow are going to kill me. Where is he? Call him. I want to fight you both. I am a bear. I fight like a bear. Come! Hurry! Let us fight. Ha! I am going to fight my true friend, the chief of the Mountain Crows, he who smoked and ate with me, he who was going to join me in making a lasting peace between our two tribes. Come! Let us fight! Shall it be on horseback or afoot? I give you the choice.'

"The Crow chief gave him no answer. Some of the people, looking on, were beginning to show their anger and shame at his betrayal of a friend. He turned and went back into his lodge, and would not come out again.

"While this was going on, several men had hurried to the River Crow man, stopping in the far end of camp: 'Your plan to kill the Blackfoot is discovered, and he is dressed and armed and mounted, waiting to fight you. He is like a raging grizzly, and his, you know, is the bear medicine. What are you going to do?'

"The man did not answer them. He mounted his horse, and, hidden from One Horn's sight by the lodges, struck out for the River Crow camp on Little River, and fear was with him. He often looked back to see if he were being pursued by this dreadful bear medicine man who had once wounded him, and was now so anxious to meet him face to face.

"One Horn rode back to his lodge. 'Take down the lodge, pack up everything. We will not stay another day with these treacherous Crows,' he told them, and rounded up and caught what horses were needed for packing and riding.

"Just before they were ready to leave, the Crow chief sent one of his women to say to One Horn that he was sorry for what he had done, very sorry that he had ever listened to the River Crow, and wanted to make reparation. He wanted to give his Blackfoot friend ten head of horses.

"'Tell him that I will not accept anything from him,' One Horn answered the woman. And he and his outfit started for the north and were soon out of sight of the Crow camp.

"Some days afterward they arrived at the camp of their people on the Big River of the North, and had no sooner set up their lodge than One Horn called a council of the chiefs and told them where he had been and for what purpose.

"'Although I accomplished nothing, I am glad I went,' he told them. 'I now know the Crows. They are liars all, and not to be trusted. I advise that we begin a steady war against them.'

"The other chiefs agreed to that. Messengers were sent to the brother tribes, the Bloods and the North Blackfeet, and to the Gros Ventres, friends of the Blackfeet, and the war was started. Little by little, summer after summer, they drove the Crows southward, killing many of them, and were not satisfied until they forced them to the country south of the Elk River,[11] where they have ever since remained. So, because of their treachery, the Crows lost a great and rich country."

[11] Po-no-ka´-ĭs-i-sak-ta. Elk River; the Yellowstone River.

_August 18._

THE ELK MEDICINE CEREMONY

Not in many, many years have I been so affected as I was this morning. For some days I have had a high fever, and have slept but little at night. In-si-mak´-i (Growth Woman), Yellow Wolf's wife, had been doctoring me with the good old remedy for fevers, sweet sage tea, but it seemed to have no effect. So Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill announced that he would have his Elk Medicine ceremony for my benefit, and that he was sure that it would cure me of my illness. We had it this morning, and to-night I have a normal pulse and the fever has left me. I will not go so far as to say that it was his prayers that cured me,--prayers far better, far more earnest than those of any Christian preacher I ever heard,--but yet, I am well! To me, all religions are nothing more than the codified superstitions of the ages, but of them all, Christian and pagan, I like best the faith of these, my people, faith that the sun is the conservator of all life and the orderly ruler of this, our earth. And what absolute faith they have in their Sun-religion! Should Christians live as closely to their beliefs as the Blackfeet do to the laws of conduct given them by their Sun god, what a different, what a happy world this would be!

Before I relate the details of the ceremony, I must tell something of the medicine itself.

The Blackfeet believe that, when they lie down and sleep, their shadows, or, as we say, their souls, their spiritualities, leave the body and go on far adventure. Their name for this is Ni-pup´-o-kan (my dream; my vision); and when they awake they really believe that they have experienced all the incidents of their dream, and relate them as having been of actual fact.

When men and animals were first created, they had a common language, and the latter had the power to change themselves at will into the form of man. It was in that long ago time that a man seeking knowledge, and praying earnestly for it, was in his vision visited by an elk in the form of a man, whose name was Po-no-kai´-ût-sĭn-in-ah (Elk-Tongue Chief).

"I have heard you praying, asking for help. What is it you want? Perhaps I can help you," the elk man said.

The man answered: "I seek some way to relieve my people from sickness; some way to give them long life and happiness. Help me if you can do so."

The elk man answered: "I can help you; I will help you. Through what was given me in my vision I am in great favor with the sun, and all the gods of the earth, the deep waters, and the blue above. That medicine you shall have. I give it to you now!" And having said that, he gave the man a painted lodge, a medicine pipestem, beautifully decorated with a down-hanging set of tail feathers of the sage hen, and wound with strips of the fur of the bear and various water animals. And with it, wrapped in clean buckskins, were the skins of birds and animals, all those that live upon the water and in the water, and feed upon the life in the water, fish, and all the various water insects. And having given the man all this, he taught him how to use it, with all the prayers and ceremonies that go with it. The man took all this to his home, and used it, and found that it was great medicine, and ever since that time the Elk Medicine Lodge and the things that go with it have been handed down from generation to generation, to this day.

So now we come to the ceremony that was given to-day for the curing of my illness. It was my lucky day! Early in the morning Mr. Herford T. Cowling, chief photographer for the United States Reclamation Service, arrived at the Great Northern Railway Company's St. Mary's Camp and I went to him and asked if he would take moving pictures of the ceremony, provided the Indians were willing to have him do it. He enthusiastically replied that he would be very glad to take it all in with his crank-machine, so I went to my people to ask if they would permit it to be done. They objected, saying that the ceremony was so sacred that even the presence of white people, antagonistic all of them to their religion, would profane it. They did not count me. I was one of them!

Said I: "Listen, my relatives, and brothers all! We are all soon to die, and as we pass away the whole of the old life goes with us. Your children, taken away from you by the whites, put in school and taught the white men's religion and manner of living, will know nothing about the way their fathers lived unless I put it all down in writing for all time to come. That I am doing. And how much more interesting it will be if I can have pictures to go with it! Say yes! Let us have, with this that you are to do to-day, the living pictures of it all!"

There followed a long silence, all considering my request. Finally, my best of friends, Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill, wiped tears from his eyes, and said, brokenly: "Ap-i-kun´-i is right. The whites take our children from us and teach them false beliefs. But they teach them to read, and it may be, that, after we have all gone on to the Sand Hills,[12] they will read our brother's writings and see us as we were, making our prayers to the gods, and, having read and seen the pictures of it all, return to the one true faith. I say, let the picture man come!"

[12] The Sand Hills (Spät-si-kwo). The drear after-life abode of the Blackfeet. Their shadows there had a cold, cheerless imitation of life.

"Ai! Ai! Let him come!" all cried, and I sent a messenger for him.

During the ceremony he took six hundred feet of it, and so for all time to come is preserved the interesting ceremony of the Elk Medicine.

The ceremony is always given in a closed lodge, but this time we threw the front of it wide open, so that the lens of that moving-picture machine could take it all in.

As I have said, Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill is old, feeble, half-blind, and is himself unable to go through parts of the ceremony. So, on the evening before this came off, he sent for Chief Crow and his wife, living near, to help him out. Chief Crow is also a medicine man, his wife, of course, a medicine woman, and he owns the Seizer's medicine pipe. Four other medicine men were there, all of them taking part in the ceremony. In each of the three tribes of the Blackfeet there is a secret society of the medicine men, and the members help one another in their ceremonies, and they and they only can dance with the sacred symbols of their rites.

When I went into the lodge the sacred medicines were hanging directly over the owner's couch, opposite the doorway. They were the sacred pipestem and many skins of water animals and birds enclosed in various wrappings, and a buffalo rawhide painted pouch containing sacks of various colored sacred paints. On Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill's left sat his medicine wife. I took my seat close to him on his right. Back of me, and all around the right side of the lodge from me, were a number of women. On the other side, opposite them, were the men and Chief Crow's medicine wife.

The ceremony opened with a prayer by Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill, beseeching the gods to look with favor upon what was to be done. Then his wife arose and undid the fastenings of the medicines, and slowly, reverently, laid them on the couch between her and her husband. The opening song then began, the song of Po-no-kai´-ût-sĭn-in-ah (Elk-Tongue Chief). Oh, how I would like to inscribe that song here! Alice Fletcher says--and I know that she is right--that all Indian music is classical. But their tonal scale is far different from ours; we have not one musical instrument that can reproduce it. Never, never lived a white man who could sing these Blackfeet songs. As a boy, year after year, I tried to sing them, and always failed; one has to take them in with his mother's milk in order to sing them correctly.

The song ended. The medicine woman, with a pair of sacred red-painted willow tongs, took a coal from the fire, placed it just in front of the sacred medicines, and dropped upon it a pinch of sweet grass. It burned, and, as the perfumed smoke arose, she and her man grasped handfuls of it and stroked their bodies, thus purifying themselves before handling the medicines. Then, all present joining in, they sang the song of the real bear, the grizzly, while the medicine woman unfastened the outer wrapping of the medicine pipestem roll, which was bound with a strip of fur from a grizzly's back; and at the same time, in keeping with the time of the song, they made the sign for the bear, closed hands held upon each side of the head, representing its wide, rounding ears.

That song finished, the song of the buffalo began, the medicine man and the medicine woman clenching their hands and alternately putting one out before the other, representing the deliberate, ponderous tread of the animals as they traveled to and from the water. When that song was finished--and it was one to stir one's inmost soul--another wrapping, bound with buffalo fur, was undone, and all present besought the gods to have pity upon them.

Next came the fourth and last song, the song of the beaver, chief of water animals. And while it was being sung, the medicine woman unrolled the fourth and last wrapping, and the sacred medicine pipestem lay in sight of us all. At that all the women gave shrill cries of triumph, of victory; and all the medicine men beginning a solemn chant to the Sun, Chief Crow advanced, received from the medicine wife of my old friend the sacred stem, and, extending the fan of feathers drooping from it, held it aloft and danced in time with the song to the doorway of the lodge and back again, and returned the stem to my friend, who reverently took and embraced it, and made a short prayer to the gods for the long life, good health, and happiness of us all, especially the little children of the tribe.