Part 4

But one time he had a vision which made him very sad, so that he could only cry and weep and could not speak of his vision for sadness of heart. And the people besought him to tell them his vision, for, they said, "if it is a vision of evil to come, we may as well know the worst. We ought to be prepared for it." For a long time the old man could not bring himself to tell them the evil foreboding which had come to him. But at last, when they continued strongly urging him to tell them what it was, he said: "Well, my children, I will tell you the vision, for it may be that I shall not live long. This vision has come to me from the Mysterious and Awful Powers, and it is full of evil portent for our people." But now he was again so overcome by sadness that he was unable to tell it.

Again, after some days the people begged him to tell the vision, and they pressed him so urgently that finally he said: "This is what I saw in my vision, which has come to me repeatedly. I saw a great incursion of human beings of strange appearance. They are coming from the direction of the rising sun and are moving toward this land in multitudes so great that they cannot be counted. They move everywhere over the face of the land like the restless fluctuations of heated air which are sometimes seen incessantly wavering over the heated prairie on a summer day. They are moving on resistlessly toward us and nothing can stop them, and they will take our land from us. They are a terrible people and of a monstrous appearance. The skin of this people is not of a wholesome color like the skin of our people who are born of our holy mother earth. Their skin is hideous and ghastly, and the men have hairy faces like the face of a wolf. They are not kind like our people; they are savages, cruel and unfeeling. They have no reverence for our holy places, nor for our holy mother earth. And they kill and destroy all things and make the land desolate. They have no ear for the voices of the trees and the flowers, and no pity for the birds and the beasts of the field. And they deface and spoil the beauty of the land and befoul the water courses.

"And they have many dreadful customs. When a person dies the body is not honorably laid upon a funeral scaffold on the prairie or in the branches of a tree in the forest as we do, but they dig a hole in the ground and put the body down into the hole and then fill the hole up again, throwing the dirt down upon the body. And they have strange and powerful weapons, so that when they come our people will not be able to withstand them. It is this dreadful vision which has overcome me with sadness."

Then the people were amazed and angry. They tried to have him change his vision, but he could not. Again the same vision came to him. The leading men now counseled and gave the order that the people should give him no more food for some days. They said, "Perhaps he will have a different vision." So he was left alone in his tent for four days. And on the fourth day when they came to his tent they found him dead. They had not intended to cause his death, but they hoped that if they let him become very hungry he would change his vision.

Now when they found him dead they were shocked and astonished and very angry. They said, "Now the evil which he foretold will come, for he died without changing his vision." And they said "We will not bury him honorably upon a scaffold according to our custom, but we will bury him in a hole in the ground, as he said his 'wandering people' bury their dead." So they dug a hole and into this they put the body of the old man and put the earth back again upon the body.

At evening some women were gazing out across the river in the twilight, and they saw a man come up out of the river and advance toward the village. When he came nearer they saw it was the holy man who had died and whose body had been buried in a hole in the ground. When he died he had changed from this life to the life of those who dwell in "The Land of Evening Mirage." From the place where they buried him he had gone out under the ground and had come up out of the water of the river. Now when he came up out from the water he was changed back again to the life on earth. From this it was evident to all the people that he was indeed a very holy man, and that his vision was true and must come to pass. They gave him a good dwelling and provided for all his needs, and the women cooked for him the best food they had, and every one did homage to him and paid him reverence.

After a time he knew that the end of his life was approaching, and as he was about to die he called the leading men about him and said, "The vision which I had will truly come to pass in future time. Now I am about to die. When I am dead let me be buried in the ground again at the place where I was buried before. You will see that some good thing will come of it for our people at this place. And it shall be good for all people at this place forever." When he said something good would come they thought he meant that the people should be saved from the cruel and savage, strange, pale-skinned people of his vision, but that was not what he meant.

When the holy man was dead they would have preferred to give him honorable scaffold burial as was customary, but they did as he had directed and buried him in the ground where he had been buried before. But this time, they dug out a roomy place, and made walls and a roof with timbers, and in this place they put the body of the holy man after dressing him in the best of garments decorated with porcupine quill embroidery, and wrapped in a fine buffalo robe painted with beautiful designs. And they placed with him his pipe and tobacco and food and valuable presents of all kinds. Then they covered it all over with earth again and set the sod as it was before.

At evening they watched the place in the river where he had reappeared the other time after his burial. They thought he might return again out of the water of the river, but he did not come. And they listened above the little house they had made for him under the ground, but they heard not the slightest sound of breathing or any movement. Then they made a sacred fire by the grave from twigs of the cedar tree, for this tree is holy and sacred to the Good Powers and the breath of its fire will bring persons of good intention into communion with those Unseen Powers. But the holy man did not appear by the sacred fire and he was never seen again by any of the people.

Now the people became so burdened with sadness that they could not endure to remain at this place, so they moved far away, where they found another good country. In this new place they stayed until all the people who were grown at the time they left the village of the holy man's grave, had become old and had died. And none had ever been back there. Then, when all those who were but boys and girls when they left the former village had now become old men and women, their tribe began to suffer harrassment from an enemy people of another tribe. Their enemies were too strong for them, so they had to think of moving to another place. And so it came into their minds to return to the place by the Muddy-Water River, where they had lived at the time when those of their people who were now old had been merry, happy children.

So they came back, and before they had reached the place the old men said, "Let us go on ahead and see the grave of the holy man." And when the old men came to the place where the holy man had been buried they found that a spring of good water issued from the place where the holy man's grave had been. And that is why we call this spring "The Holy Man's Waterspring."

And it is said that now a bright star is often seen shining over this spring for a while and that it then goes down and disappears into the water of the spring. And it is said that sometimes when the moon is full and bright the holy man may be seen walking near the spring. When one approaches to speak to him he disappears into the spring. Not all persons can see these things, but only those whose hearts are kind and gentle, and whose minds are in accord with Nature, and who have reverence for holy things and for the beauties and mysteries in Nature.

THE SACRED SYMBOL OF THE CIRCLE

To the Dakotas the form of the circle is a sacred symbol because Great Spirit caused everything in nature except stone to be round. Stone is the implement of destruction. The sun, the earth and the moon are round like a shield, and the sky is round like a bowl inverted over the earth. All breathing creatures are round like a human body. All things growing out of the ground are round, as the trunk of a tree or the stem of an herb. The edge of the world is a circle, hence the circle is a symbol of the world and of the winds which travel to us from all points on the edge of the world. The sun and the moon which mark the day and the night travel in a circle above the sky; for this reason the circle is a symbol of these divisions of time, and of the year, and so is the symbol for all time.

Raindrops are round, and so are the drops of dew hanging like strings of beads upon the grass blades. Pellets of hail and of sleet are round. Every snowflake has a centre from which lines radiate as from the centre of a circle. The rainbow, which beautifies the sky after showers, is round.

Because Great Spirit has caused almost all things to be round it is for us a sacred symbol; it reminds us of the work of Great Spirit in the universe. And for this reason Dakotas make their tipis round; and in laying a camp the tipis are set in a circular line; and in all ceremonies they sit in a circle.

The circle is a symbol of the tipi and of shelter and comfort. In decorative figures the undivided circle is a symbol of the world and of time. If the circle be filled with red it is a symbol of the sun; if filled with blue it is a symbol of the sky. If the circle be divided into four parts it is a symbol of the four winds.

The mouthpiece of a pipe should always be passed about the circle and offered to the four directions before it is formally smoked.

THE SACRED NUMBER FOUR

It appears that Great Spirit caused everything in the world to be in fours; for this reason mankind's activities of all kinds should be governed by the number four out of respect to this sacred number and in agreement with it.

We see that there are four directions: the north, the east, the south, and the west; four divisions of time: the day, the night, the moon, and the year; there are four seasons: the spring, the summer, the autumn, and the winter; there are four parts to everything that grows from the ground: the roots, the stems, the leaves, and the fruits; four kinds of things that breathe: those that crawl, those that fly, those that walk on four legs, and those that walk on two legs; four things above the world: the sun, the moon, the sky, and the stars; four kinds of gods: the great, the associates of the great, the gods below them, and the spirit kind; four periods of human life: infancy, youth, adulthood, and old age; mankind has four fingers on each hand, four toes on each foot, and the thumbs and big toes of each taken together make four.

All these tokens of the works of Great Spirit should cause mankind to order his ceremonies and all activities so far as possible by this sacred number.

THE PRISTINE PRAIRIE

To obtain even an approximate appreciation of the conditions of life as they presented themselves to the people of the nations which formerly occupied the region drained by the Missouri River and its tributaries we must bring ourselves to see it as it was in its natural condition, void of all the countless changes and accessories which we have erected here by our European culture and custom.

Imagine, then, a country of open prairie stretching away and away beyond the range of vision over hill, valley, and plain, the skyline unbroken by trees, except a fringe along the course of the streams. The aspect of this landscape in summer was that of a boundless sea of shining green, billowing under the prevailing south wind, darkened here and there by the swiftly marching shadows of clouds sailing high and white in the brilliant blue sky. Toward the end of summer the sun appears to have shed some of its lustre upon the plain below, for it now shines with a paler light, while the ever restless, rustling, whispering sea of grass waves in rolling billows of golden green, seeming to be forever flowing on before the south wind into the mysterious North, changing again into yellow and warm brown as autumn comes on.

Then it may happen some day that the whole aspect is suddenly changed. Fire has escaped in the sea of dry grass. To the windward the horizon is one long line of smoke, which, as it comes nearer, rolls up in black masses shot through with darting tongues of angry red flames leaping a hundred feet skyward, while the sound of the conflagration is like that of a rushing storm. Frightened animals are fleeing before it in terror for their lives and birds are flying from the threatened destruction.

This scene passes, and now the whole visible earth is one vast stretch of coal black, and the whole sky is a thick blue haze in which the sun seems to hang like a great red ball, while an unbroken silence pervades the land.

Then winter comes with days of leaden sky and blackened earth, succeeded by clear days when the snow-covered earth appears like a vast white bowl encrusted with frost-diamonds and inclosed by an over-arching dome of most brilliant blue.

Again the season changes; warm airs blow from the south; soft showers fall; the sound of the first thunder wakens all Nature; the blackened earth appears once more, soon showing color from the pale green spears of tender young grass, and in a short time the form of Mother Earth is once more clothed in a mantle of shining green.

And now as the biting winds of winter yield to the balmy breezes from the south all the vernal flora is quickened into life and beauty. The modest blue violets appear in such profuse abundance that they seem like shreds of the sky wafted by the spring breezes over the land and drifted into every swale and ravine. On the upland the purple flowers of the buffalo pea show themselves; in sandy places of the Middle Great Plains the dainty lavender blue bonnets of the early wind-flower are trembling in the breeze. In the Northern Great Plains the snow is scarcely gone before the pasque flowers, first gladsome harbingers of the lovely hosts to follow, troop forth over the bleak hillsides, "very brave little flowers," the Cree Indians say, "which come while it is still so cold that they must come wearing their fur coats." This is in allusion to the furry appearance of the pasque flower.

And as the floral life manifests itself all the native faunal life is also awakened to renewed activity. The migratory birds are seen and heard flying northward by relays in hundreds of thousands. The course of the Missouri River marks upon the earth the chart by which they direct their northward flight toward their summer homing places. The Arkansas River, the Kansas, the Platte, the Niobrara and the White River are relay stations of their journey, and the countless V-shaped flocks coming northward in long lines wheel, circling down until tracts many acres in extent are whitened by the great numbers of snow geese, while the Canada geese in equal numbers darken other tracts; ducks in great numbers are swimming on all the ponds and quiet streams, and regiments and brigades of tall gray cranes are continually marching and counter-marching on land or sailing like fleets of monoplanes far up in the clear blue, whence float down to earth the vibrant notes of their bugle calls as they travel on into the North. On the higher prairies at sunrise as the long rays of the red morning sun slant brightly across the land the booming, drum-like sound of hundreds of prairie chickens is heard at their assemblies, for at this season they dance the mating dance at the sunrise hour. Soon the meadowlarks, "the birds of promise," appear, singing their songs of promise of good things for their friends, the human beings; and they set about the duties of housekeeping, building their lowly nests at the grass roots, and all about are scenes of brightness and sounds of gladness.

It was in such a country as this, then, that the people of the several different native nations who were here before us lived and took joy of the good gifts of Mother Earth and from their own activities, and in all the beauty of this good land. And they loved this land for all its good gifts and for its beauty, and for these and for its mystery and grandeur they paid reverence.

ABORIGINAL AMERICAN AGRICULTURE

_See Map. Vertical lines indicate region under agriculture by natural rainfall. Horizontal lines indicate region farmed under irrigation. Both regions were settled in permanent villages._

Most people of this country, of the now dominant European race, seldom give a thought to the aboriginal economic conditions which prevailed here before this country was Europeanised. They seldom think of the precolumbian utilisation of the natural resources of this continent by the people of the native American race. They do not consider the myriad possible uses of plants and plant products by the people of the native tribes. Most persons of our European race in arrogant self-satisfaction have not been accustomed to think of those of the American race as agriculturists at all, much less have we given thought to the contributions made by that race to the world's agriculture. But according to the United States crop report of 1916 the value of the crops in this country alone, of plants which were first brought under cultivation by Indians, is $3,000,000,000.

No doubt the beginnings of agriculture, with our own European race and with every race, was simply the gathering and storing of supplies of wild plant products, and proceeded by the stages of intentional dissemination and cultivation, selection and improvement of stock into myriad varieties.

When European explorers first visited the Atlantic shores of America they found the native tribes to be agriculturists, living in villages of permanent houses, and with their cultivated fields stretching about the villages. And as the explorers advanced into the interior of the continent they found similar conditions to prevail as far as to and including the Missouri River valley. So it was found that in all the region from the Gulf of Mexico to the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes and the region of the upper Missouri river all the various Indian nations were settled agriculturists. On the High Plains and in the western mountains the tribes could not cultivate the soil because of the unfavorable conditions.

The crops cultivated by the tribes in the region above defined consisted of corn, beans, squashes and pumpkins in many varieties, gourds, sunflower, and tobacco. According to the testimony of some of the early explorers it appears that in the southeastern part of the continent they also cultivated sweet potatoes and peanuts. It may be said that the sunflower is native to the western plains and was there brought under cultivation and improved to what we have as the cultivated sunflower and was distributed throughout the region from the Great Plains to the Atlantic coast. The other crops above named were introduced from the south many centuries ago from Mexico. Their wild ancestors grow there, which would indicate that there they were first brought into domestication by cultivation and improvement of the wild stock. All evidence from every source seems to point to the plateau of southeast Mexico as the place of origin of corn. It seems to have been originally a large, coarse wild grass with seeds which were at least large enough to furnish an article of food when gathered in quantity. The botanical evidence would indicate that it was a branched stalk and that all the branches and the terminal alike bore loose panicles of seeds, not in compact ears as we now know the corn ear. But ages of cultivation and selection by obscure and forgotten tribes of primitive farmers have produced a plant which bears its staminate flowers generally on the terminal and its pistillate flowers on side branches modified into what we know as the corn ear. Not only had the above-described modification taken place in the process of long ages of cultivation and selection, but the five great types of corn had been formed and developed into innumerable varieties of each type prior to the advent of white men on this continent. The five types to which I have referred are dent corn, flour corn, flint corn, sweet corn, and pop corn. Dent corn was obtained first by white men from the Indians of Virginia in the beginning of the seventeenth century at the first settlement of that colony by the English. The New England tribes had flint corn, flour corn, and sweet corn, and pop corn, but not dent corn. The tribes of the upper Missouri River had flint corn, flour corn and sweet corn.

The Arikara and Mandan on the upper Missouri were the great agricultural tribes of this region. Omaha legend credits the Arikara with first having corn and with having distributed to other tribes. And the common pictograph to represent the Arikara among all the surrounding tribes was a conventionalised ear of corn. In the sign language also the surrounding tribes designated the Arikara by a motion of the hands depicting the act of shelling corn, or by the motions of eating an ear of corn. Washington Matthews says: "There are some reasons for believing that the Arikara represent an older race of farmers than the Mandan; for their religious ceremonies connected with the planting are the more numerous, and they honor the corn with a species of worship." And it is the work of these northern tribes in past centuries in acclimating corn to the short northern summer with its cool nights which has made it possible for the states of North Dakota, Montana and Minnesota now to be corn-producing states; for acclimation is a long and gradual process and was accomplished during a northward migration from Mexico which occupied many centuries of time.

In the arid region of what is now New Mexico and Arizona the work of agriculture was carried on by means of irrigation ages before the coming of white men, and the old irrigation ditches made by the primitive Indian farmers of that region may still be traced--irrigation works made without other power than human muscles and without the use of iron; the shovels used being made of bone.

The world is indebted to the aboriginal American agriculturists not only for all types of corn which we now have, but also for all kinds of beans, for pumpkins and squashes, cultivated sunflowers, sweet potatoes, peanuts, and many other crops among our present day staples.

A great handicap to the primitive American farmer was the lack of iron tools; for they had no iron before the coming of white men. Another handicap was the absence of horses. The horse was not native to the western hemisphere, and was first introduced by the Spaniards. Previously the only beast of burden in North America was the dog. So the cultivation of the ground was entirely handwork; and the tool most in use was a hoe made from the shoulderblade of the buffalo or of the elk. One may imagine the immense labor which was required to develop and extend the above-named crops over the continent, acclimated and ready to our hand when we arrived in the New World.

THE EARTH-LODGE