Our Saddles Were Brought In, And Scarcely Were We
Seated Upon Them Before The Place Was Thronged With Indians, Who Came
Crowding In To See Us.
The Big Crow produced his pipe and filled it
with the mixture of tobacco and shongsasha, or red willow bark.
Round and round it passed, and a lively conversation went forward.
Meanwhile a squaw placed before the two guests a wooden bowl of
boiled buffalo meat, but unhappily this was not the only banquet
destined to be inflicted on us. Rapidly, one after another, boys and
young squaws thrust their heads in at the opening, to invite us to
various feasts in different parts of the village. For half an hour
or more we were actively engaged in passing from lodge to lodge,
tasting in each of the bowl of meat set before us, and inhaling a
whiff or two from our entertainer's pipe. A thunderstorm that had
been threatening for some time now began in good earnest. We crossed
over to Reynal's lodge, though it hardly deserved this name, for it
consisted only of a few old buffalo robes, supported on poles, and
was quite open on one side. Here we sat down, and the Indians
gathered round us.
"What is it," said I, "that makes the thunder?"
"It's my belief," said Reynal, "that it is a big stone rolling over
the sky."
"Very likely," I replied; "but I want to know what the Indians think
about it."
So he interpreted my question, which seemed to produce some doubt and
debate. There was evidently a difference of opinion. At last old
Mene-Seela, or Red-Water, who sat by himself at one side, looked up
with his withered face, and said he had always known what the thunder
was. It was a great black bird; and once he had seen it, in a dream,
swooping down from the Black Hills, with its loud roaring wings; and
when it flapped them over a lake, they struck lightning from the
water.
"The thunder is bad," said another old man, who sat muffled in his
buffalo robe; "he killed my brother last summer."
Reynal, at my request, asked for an explanation; but the old man
remained doggedly silent, and would not look up. Some time after I
learned how the accident occurred. The man who was killed belonged
to an association which, among other mystic functions, claimed the
exclusive power and privilege of fighting the thunder. Whenever a
storm which they wished to avert was threatening, the thunder-
fighters would take their bows and arrows, their guns, their magic
drum, and a sort of whistle, made out of the wingbone of the war
eagle. Thus equipped, they would run out and fire at the rising
cloud, whooping, yelling, whistling, and beating their drum, to
frighten it down again. One afternoon a heavy black cloud was coming
up, and they repaired to the top of a hill, where they brought all
their magic artillery into play against it. But the undaunted
thunder, refusing to be terrified, kept moving straight onward, and
darted out a bright flash which struck one of the party dead, as he
was in the very act of shaking his long iron-pointed lance against
it. The rest scattered and ran yelling in an ecstasy of
superstitious terror back to their lodges.
The lodge of my host Kongra-Tonga, or the Big Crow, presented a
picturesque spectacle that evening. A score or more of Indians were
seated around in a circle, their dark naked forms just visible by the
dull light of the smoldering fire in the center, the pipe glowing
brightly in the gloom as it passed from hand to hand round the lodge.
Then a squaw would drop a piece of buffalo-fat on the dull embers.
Instantly a bright glancing flame would leap up, darting its clear
light to the very apex of the tall conical structure, where the tops
of the slender poles that supported its covering of leather were
gathered together. It gilded the features of the Indians, as with
animated gestures they sat around it, telling their endless stories
of war and hunting. It displayed rude garments of skins that hung
around the lodge; the bow, quiver, and lance suspended over the
resting-place of the chief, and the rifles and powder-horns of the
two white guests. For a moment all would be bright as day; then the
flames would die away, and fitful flashes from the embers would
illumine the lodge, and then leave it in darkness. Then all the
light would wholly fade, and the lodge and all within it be involved
again in obscurity.
As I left the lodge next morning, I was saluted by howling and
yelling from all around the village, and half its canine population
rushed forth to the attack. Being as cowardly as they were
clamorous, they kept jumping around me at the distance of a few
yards, only one little cur, about ten inches long, having spirit
enough to make a direct assault. He dashed valiantly at the leather
tassel which in the Dakota fashion was trailing behind the heel of my
moccasin, and kept his hold, growling and snarling all the while,
though every step I made almost jerked him over on his back. As I
knew that the eyes of the whole village were on the watch to see if I
showed any sign of apprehension, I walked forward without looking to
the right or left, surrounded wherever I went by this magic circle of
dogs. When I came to Reynal's lodge I sat down by it, on which the
dogs dispersed growling to their respective quarters. Only one large
white one remained, who kept running about before me and showing his
teeth. I called him, but he only growled the more. I looked at him
well. He was fat and sleek; just such a dog as I wanted. "My
friend," thought I, "you shall pay for this!
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