Chapter 2

“You are jealous of my fine fur,” sneered the muskrat. “I may build my lodge in the mud, but I always have a clean coat. But you are half buried in the ground, and when men dig you up, you are never clean.”

“And your fine coat always smells of musk,” jeered the artichoke.

“That is true,” said the muskrat. “But men think well of me, nevertheless. They trap me for the fine sinew in my tail; and handsome young women bite off my tail with their white teeth and make it into thread.”

“That’s nothing,” laughed the artichoke. “Handsome young warriors, painted and splendid with feathers, dig me up, brush me off with their shapely hands and eat me without even taking the trouble to wash me off.”

THE RABBIT AND THE BEAR WITH THE FLINT BODY

The Rabbit and his grandmother were in dire straits, because the rabbit was out of arrows. The fall hunt would soon be on and his quiver was all but empty. Arrow sticks he could cut in plenty, but he had nothing with which to make arrowheads.

“You must make some flint arrowheads,” said his grandmother. “Then you will be able to kill game.”

“Where shall I get the flint?” asked the rabbit.

“From the old bear chief,” said his old grandmother. For at that time all the flint in the world was in the bear’s body.

So the rabbit set out for the village of the Bears. It was winter time and the lodges of the bears were set under the shelter of a hill where the cold wind would not blow on them and where they had shelter among the trees and bushes.

He came at one end of the village to a hut where lived an old woman. He pushed open the door and entered. Everybody who came for flint always stopped there because it was the first lodge on the edge of the village. Strangers were therefore not unusual in the old woman’s hut, and she welcomed the rabbit. She gave him a seat and at night he lay with his feet to the fire.

The next morning the rabbit went to the lodge of the bear chief. They sat together awhile and smoked. At last the bear chief spoke.

“What do you want, my grandson?”

“I have come for some flint to make arrows,” answered the rabbit.

The bear chief grunted, and laid aside his pipe. Leaning back he pulled off his robe and, sure enough, one half of his body was flesh and the other half hard flint.

“Bring a stone hammer and give it to our guest,” he bade his wife. Then as the rabbit took the hammer he said: “Do not strike too hard.”

“Grandfather, I shall be careful,” said the rabbit. With a stroke he struck off a little flake of flint from the bear’s body.

“Ni-sko-ke-cha? So big?” he asked.

“Harder, grandson; strike off bigger pieces,” said the bear.

The rabbit struck a little harder.

“Ni-sko-ke-cha? So big?” he asked.

The bear grew impatient. “No, no, strike off bigger pieces. I can’t be here all day. Tanka kaksa wo! Break off a big piece.”

The rabbit struck again--hard! “Ni-sko-ke-cha?” he cried, as the hammer fell. But even as he spoke the bear’s body broke in two, the flesh part fell away and only the flint part remained. Like a flash the rabbit darted out of the hut.

There was a great outcry in the village. Openmouthed, all the bears gave chase. But as he ran the rabbit cried: “Wa-hin-han-yo (snow, snow) Ota-po, Ota-po--lots more, lots more,” and a great storm of snow swept down from the sky.

The rabbit, light of foot, bounded over the top of the snow. The bears sunk in and floundered about helpless. Seeing this, the rabbit turned back and killed them one by one with his club. That is why we now have so few bears.

STORY OF THE LOST WIFE

A Dakota girl married a man who promised to treat her kindly, but he did not keep his word. He was unreasonable, fault-finding, and often beat her. Frantic with his cruelty, she ran away. The whole village turned out to search for her, but no trace of the missing wife was to be found.

Meanwhile, the fleeing woman had wandered about all that day and the next night. The next day she met a man, who asked her who she was. She did not know it, but he was not really a man, but the chief of the wolves.

“Come with me,” he said, and he led her to a large village. She was amazed to see here many wolves--gray and black, timber wolves and coyotes. It seemed as if all the wolves in the world were there.

The wolf chief led the young woman to a great tepee and invited her in. He asked her what she ate for food.

“Buffalo meat,” she answered.

He called two coyotes and bade them bring what the young woman wanted. They bounded away and soon returned with the shoulder of a fresh-killed buffalo calf.

“How do you prepare it for eating?” asked the wolf chief.

“By boiling,” answered the young woman.

Again he called the two coyotes. Away they bounded and soon brought into the tent a small bundle. In it were punk, flint and steel--stolen, it may be, from some camp of men.

“How do you make the meat ready?” asked the wolf chief.

“I cut it into slices,” answered the young woman.

The coyotes were called and in a short time fetched in a knife in its sheath. The young woman cut up the calf’s shoulder into slices and ate it.

Thus she lived for a year, all the wolves being very kind to her. At the end of that time the wolf chief said to her:

“Your people are going off on a buffalo hunt. Tomorrow at noon they will be here. You must then go out and meet them or they will fall on us and kill us.”

The next day at about noon the young woman went to the top of a neighboring knoll. Coming toward her were some young men riding on their ponies. She stood up and held her hands so that they could see her. They wondered who she was, and when they were close by gazed at her closely.

“A year ago we lost a young woman; if you are she, where have you been,” they asked.

“I have been in the wolves’ village. Do not harm them,” she answered.

“We will ride back and tell the people,” they said. “Tomorrow again at noon, we shall meet you.”

The young woman went back to the wolf village, and the next day went again to a neighboring knoll, though to a different one. Soon she saw the camp coming in a long line over the prairie. First were the warriors, then the women and tents.

The young woman’s father and mother were overjoyed to see her. But when they came near her the young woman fainted, for she could not now bear the smell of human kind. When she came to herself she said:

“You must go on a buffalo hunt, my father and all the hunters. Tomorrow you must come again, bringing with you the tongues and choice pieces of the kill.”

This he promised to do; and all the men of the camp mounted their ponies and they had a great hunt. The next day they returned with their ponies laden with the buffalo meat. The young woman bade them pile the meat in a great heap between two hills which she pointed out to them. There was so much meat that the tops of the two hills were bridged level between by the meat pile. In the center of the pile the young woman planted a pole with a red flag. She then began to howl like a wolf, loudly.

In a moment the earth seemed covered with wolves. They fell greedily on the meat pile and in a short time had eaten the last scrap.

The young woman then joined her own people.

Her husband wanted her to come and live with him again. For a long time she refused. However, at last they became reconciled.

THE RACCOON AND THE CRAWFISH

Sharp and cunning is the raccoon, say the Indians, by whom he is named Spotted Face.

A crawfish one evening wandered along a river bank, looking for something dead to feast upon. A raccoon was also out looking for something to eat. He spied the crawfish and formed a plan to catch him.

He lay down on the bank and feigned to be dead. By and by the crawfish came near by. “Ho,” he thought, “here is a feast indeed; but is he really dead. I will go near and pinch him with my claws and find out.”

So he went near and pinched the raccoon on the nose and then on his soft paws. The raccoon never moved. The crawfish then pinched him on the ribs and tickled him so that the raccoon could hardly keep from laughing. The crawfish at last left him. “The raccoon is surely dead,” he thought. And he hurried back to the crawfish village and reported his find to the chief.

All the villagers were called to go down to the feast. The chief bade the warriors and young men to paint their faces and dress in their gayest for a dance.

So they marched in a long line--first the warriors, with their weapons in hand, then the women with their babies and children--to the place where the raccoon lay. They formed a great circle about him and danced, singing:

“We shall have a great feast

“On the spotted-faced beast, with soft smooth paws:

“He is dead!

“He is dead!

“We shall dance!

“We shall have a good time!

“We shall feast on his flesh.”

But as they danced, the raccoon suddenly sprang to his feet.

“Who is that you say you are going to eat? He has a spotted face, has he? He has soft, smooth paws, has he? I’ll break your ugly backs. I’ll break your rough bones. I’ll crunch your ugly, rough paws.” And he rushed among the crawfish, killing them by scores. The crawfish warriors fought bravely and the women ran screaming, all to no purpose. They did not feast on the raccoon; the raccoon feasted _on them!_

LEGEND OF STANDING ROCK

A Dakota had married an Arikara woman, and by her had one child. By and by he took another wife. The first wife was jealous and pouted. When time came for the village to break camp she refused to move from her place on the tent floor. The tent was taken down but she sat on the ground with her babe on her back The rest of the camp with her husband went on.

At noon her husband halted the line. “Go back to your sister-in-law,” he said to his two brothers. “Tell her to come on and we will await you here. But hasten, for I fear she may grow desperate and kill herself.”

The two rode off and arrived at their former camping place in the evening. The woman still sat on the ground. The elder spoke:

“Sister-in-law, get up. We have come for you. The camp awaits you.”

She did not answer, and he put out his hand and touched her head. She had turned to stone!

The two brothers lashed their ponies and came back to camp. They told their story, but were not believed. “The woman has killed herself and my brothers will not tell me,” said the husband. However, the whole village broke camp and came back to the place where they had left the woman. Sure enough, she sat there still, a block of stone.

The Indians were greatly excited. They chose out a handsome pony, made a new travois and placed the stone in the carrying net. Pony and travois were both beautifully painted and decorated with streamers and colors. The stone was thought _“wakan”_ (holy), and was given a place of honor in the center of the camp. Whenever the camp moved the stone and travois were taken along. Thus the stone woman was carried for years, and finally brought to Standing Rock Agency, and now rests upon a brick pedestal in front of the Agency office. From this stone Standing Rock Agency derives its name.

STORY OF THE PEACE PIPE

Two young men were out strolling one night talking of love affairs. They passed around a hill and came to a little ravine or coulee. Suddenly they saw coming up from the ravine a beautiful woman. She was painted and her dress was of the very finest material.

“What a beautiful girl!” said one of the young men. “Already I love her. I will steal her and make her my wife.”

“No,” said the other. “Don’t harm her. She may be holy.”

The young woman approached and held out a pipe which she first offered to the sky, then to the earth and then advanced, holding it out in her extended hands.

“I know what you young men have been saying; one of you is good; the other is wicked,” she said.

She laid down the pipe on the ground and at once became a buffalo cow. The cow pawed the ground, stuck her tail straight out behind her and then lifted the pipe from the ground again in her hoofs; immediately she became a young woman again.

“I am come to give you this gift,” she said. “It is the peace pipe. Hereafter all treaties and ceremonies shall be performed after smoking it. It shall bring peaceful thoughts into your minds. You shall offer it to the Great Mystery and to mother earth.”

The two young men ran to the village and told what they had seen and heard. All the village came out where the young woman was.

She repeated to them what she had already told the young men and added:

“When you set free the ghost (the spirit of deceased persons) you must have a white buffalo cow skin.”

She gave the pipe to the medicine men of the village, turned again to a buffalo cow and fled away to the land of buffaloes.

A BASHFUL COURTSHIP

A young man lived with his grandmother. He was a good hunter and wished to marry. He knew a girl who was a good moccasin maker, but she belonged to a great family. He wondered how he could win her.

One day she passed the tent on her way to get water at the river. His grandmother was at work in the tepee with a pair of old worn-out sloppy moccasins. The young man sprang to his feet. “Quick, grandmother--let me have those old sloppy moccasins you have on your feet!” he cried.

“My old moccasins, what do you want of them?” cried the astonished woman.

“Never mind! Quick! I can’t stop to talk,” answered the grandson as he caught up the old moccasins the old lady had doffed, and put them on. He threw a robe over his shoulders, slipped through the door, and hastened to the watering place. The girl had just arrived with her bucket.

“Let me fill your bucket for you,” said the young man.

“Oh, no, I can do it.”

“Oh, let me, I can go in the mud. You surely don’t want to soil your moccasins,” and taking the bucket he slipped in the mud, taking care to push his sloppy old moccasins out so the girl could see them. She giggled outright.

“My, what old moccasins you have,” she cried.

“Yes, I have nobody to make me a new pair,” he answered.

“Why don’t you get your grandmother to make you a new pair?”

“She’s old and blind and can’t make them any longer. That’s why I want you,” he answered.

“Oh, you’re fooling me. You aren’t speaking the truth.”

“Yes, I am. If you don’t believe--come with me _now!_”

The girl looked down; so did the youth. At last he said softly:

“Well, which is it? Shall I take up your bucket, or will you go with me?”

And she answered, still more softly: “I guess I’ll go with you!”

The girl’s aunt came down to the river, wondering what kept her niece so long. In the mud she found two pairs of moccasin tracks close together; at the edge of the water stood an empty keg.

THE SIMPLETON’S WISDOM

There was a man and his wife who had one daughter. Mother and daughter were deeply attached to one another, and when the latter died the mother was disconsolate. She cut off her hair, cut gashes in her cheeks and sat before the corpse with her robe drawn over her head, mourning for her dead. Nor would she let them touch the body to take it to a burying scaffold. She had a knife in her hand, and if anyone offered to come near the body the mother would wail:

“I am weary of life. I do not care to live. I will stab myself with this knife and join my daughter in the land of spirits.”

Her husband and relatives tried to get the knife from her, but could not. They feared to use force lest she kill herself. They came together to see what they could do.

“We must get the knife away from her,” they said.

At last they called a boy, a kind of simpleton, yet with a good deal of natural shrewdness. He was an orphan and very poor. His moccasins were out at the sole and he was dressed in wei-zi (coarse buffalo skin, smoked).

“Go to the tepee of the mourning mother,” they told the simpleton, “and in some way contrive to make her laugh and forget her grief. Then try to get the knife away from her.”

The boy went to the tent and sat down at the door as if waiting to be given something. The corpse lay in the place of honor where the dead girl had slept in life. The body was wrapped in a rich robe and wrapped about with ropes. Friends had covered it with rich offerings out of respect to the dead.

As the mother sat on the ground with her head covered she did not at first see the boy, who sat silent. But when his reserve had worn away a little he began at first lightly, then more heavily, to drum on the floor with his hands. After a while he began to sing a comic song. Louder and louder he sang until carried away with his own singing he sprang up and began to dance, at the same time gesturing and making all manner of contortions with his body, still singing the comic song. As he approached the corpse he waved his hands over it in blessing. The mother put her head out of the blanket and when she saw the poor simpleton with his strange grimaces trying to do honor to the corpse by his solemn waving, and at the same time keeping up his comic song, she burst out laughing. Then she reached over and handed her knife to the simpleton.

“Take this knife,” she said. “You have taught me to forget my grief. If while I mourn for the dead I can still be mirthful, there is no reason for me to despair. I no longer care to die. I will live for my husband.”

The simpleton left the tepee and brought the knife to the astonished husband and relatives.

“How did you get it? Did you force it away from her, or did you steal it?” they said.

“She gave it to me. How could I force it from her or steal it when she held it in her hand, blade uppermost? I sang and danced for her and she burst out laughing. Then she gave it to me,” he answered.

When the old men of the village heard the orphan’s story they were very silent. It was a strange thing for a lad to dance in a tepee where there was mourning. It was stranger that a mother should laugh in a tepee before the corpse of her dead daughter. The old men gathered at last in a council. They sat a long time without saying anything, for they did not want to decide hastily. The pipe was filled and passed many times. At last an old man spoke.

“We have a hard question. A mother has laughed before the corpse of her daughter, and many think she has done foolishly, but I think the woman did wisely. The lad was simple and of no training, and we cannot expect him to know how to do as well as one with good home and parents to teach him. Besides, he did the best that he knew. He danced to make the mother forget her grief, and he tried to honor the corpse by waving over it his hands.”

“The mother did right to laugh, for when one does try to do us good, even if what he does causes us discomfort, we should always remember rather the motive than the deed. And besides, the simpleton’s dancing saved the woman’s life, for she gave up her knife. In this, too, she did well, for it is always better to live for the living than to die for the dead.”

A LITTLE BRAVE AND THE MEDICINE WOMAN

A village of Indians moved out of winter camp and pitched their tents in a circle on high land overlooking a lake. A little way down the declivity was a grave. Choke cherries had grown up, hiding the grave from view. But as the ground had sunk somewhat, the grave was marked by a slight hollow.

One of the villagers going out to hunt took a short cut through the choke cherry bushes. As he pushed them aside he saw the hollow grave, but thought it was a washout made by the rains. But as he essayed to step over it, to his great surprise he stumbled and fell. Made curious by his mishap, he drew back and tried again; but again he fell. When he came back to the village he told the old men what had happened to him. They remembered then that a long time before there had been buried there a medicine woman or conjurer. Doubtless it was her medicine that made him stumble.

The story of the villager’s adventure spread thru the camp and made many curious to see the grave. Among others were six little boys who were, however, rather timid, for they were in great awe of the dead medicine woman. But they had a little playmate named Brave, a mischievous little rogue, whose hair was always unkempt and tossed about and who was never quiet for a moment.

“Let us ask Brave to go with us,” they said; and they went in a body to see him.

“All right,” said Brave; “I will go with you. But I have something to do first. You go on around the hill _that_ way, and I will hasten around _this_ way, and meet you a little later near the grave.”

So the six little boys went on as bidden until they came to a place near the grave. There they halted.

“Where is Brave?” they asked.

Now Brave, full of mischief, had thought to play a jest on his little friends. As soon as they were well out of sight he had sped around the hill to the shore of the lake and sticking his hands in the mud had rubbed it over his face, plastered it in his hair, and soiled his hands until he looked like a new risen corpse with the flesh rotting from his bones. He then went and lay down in the grave and awaited the boys.

When the six little boys came they were more timid than ever when they did not find Brave; but they feared to go back to the village without seeing the grave, for fear the old men would call them cowards.

So they slowly approached the grave and one of them timidly called out:

“Please, grandmother, we won’t disturb your grave. We only want to see where you lie. Don’t be angry.”

At once a thin quavering voice, like an old woman’s, called out:

“Han, han, takoja, hechetuya, hechetuya! Yes, yes, that’s right, that’s right.”

The boys were frightened out of their senses, believing the old woman had come to life.

“Oh, grandmother,” they gasped, “don’t hurt us; please don’t, we’ll go.”

Just then Brave raised his muddy face and hands up thru the choke cherry bushes. With the oozy mud dripping from his features he looked like some very witch just raised from the grave. The boys screamed outright. One fainted. The rest ran yelling up the hill to the village, where each broke at once for his mother’s tepee.

As all the tents in a Dakota camping circle face the center, the boys as they came tearing into camp were in plain view from the tepees. Hearing the screaming, every woman in camp ran to her tepee door to see what had happened. Just then little Brave, as badly scared as the rest, came rushing in after them, his hair on end and covered with mud and crying out, all forgetful of his appearance:

“It’s me, it’s me!”

The women yelped and bolted in terror from the village. Brave dashed into his mother’s tepee, scaring her out of her wits. Dropping pots and kettles, she tumbled out of the tent to run screaming with the rest. Nor would a single villager come near poor little Brave until he had gone down to the lake and washed himself.

THE BOUND CHILDREN

There once lived a widow with two children--the elder a daughter and the younger a son. The widow went in mourning for her husband a long time. She cut off her hair, let her dress lie untidy on her body and kept her face unpainted and unwashed.

There lived in the same village a great chief. He had one son just come old enough to marry. The chief had it known that he wished his son to take a wife, and all of the young women in the village were eager to marry the young man. However, he was pleased with none of them.

Now the widow thought, “I am tired of mourning for my husband and caring for my children. Perhaps if I lay aside my mourning and paint myself red, the chief’s son may marry me.”

So she slipped away from her two children, stole down to the river and made a bathing place thru the ice. When she had washed away all signs of mourning, she painted and decked herself and went to the chief’s tepee. When his son saw her, he loved her, and a feast was made in honor of her wedding.