CHAPTER 5 My Education as a Human Being

YOU MIGHT HAVE NOTICED that Old Lodge Skins started out as a buffoon in this narrative. Let me say that was true only around white men. Among the Cheyenne he was a sort of genius. It was him who taught me everything I learned as a boy that wasn’t physical like riding or shooting. The way he done this was by means of stories. I reckon he told me and the other children many a hundred such tales, and sometimes the grownups would listen too, for he was held to be a wise old Indian and wouldn’t have lived to his ripe age had he not been.

I’m going to tell you two of his tales. One of them saved my life when I went on my first horse-stealing raid. The other, which he spoke at a council-meeting with some Sioux, will give you a better idea of the difference between red men and whites than anything else short of having lived as both, like me.

Several snows had fell and melted since I joined the Cheyenne, and I must have been going on thirteen years of age. We boys was playing war one day and Younger Bear, growing taller by the month, shot a blunt-head arrow with such force that when it struck a lad called Red Dog in the forehead he was knocked cold. I believe it had been aimed at me, but I was ever a shifting target. Old Lodge Skins happened along at the moment in the company of an Indian by the name of Two Babies, who was naked and painted black from head to toe and going out to take an enemy scalp in accord with some vow.

Two Babies just walked by in a kind of trance; but when Old Lodge Skins saw Red Dog laying unconscious, he leaned over him and said: “Come on and eat!” The lad woke up instantly, and the chief sent him over to Buffalo Wallow Woman for a meal, which will cure an Indian of almost anything.

Then Skins said to Younger Bear: “It is a brave warrior who tries to kill his friends.” And the Bear was full of shame.

Old Lodge Skins spread his blanket on the ground, and we all sat around him. His braids was wrapped in weasel fur, and he wore a sort of little scarf ornamented with the old-time beads that dated from before the whites come with their glass jewelry: these was fashioned from the purple section of the ocean shell, and since the Cheyenne lived in the middle of the country, they must have reached the chief by a long history of trading, starting maybe a century or so back when some coastal savage in Oregon or Massachusetts cracked open a clam, sucked down the rubbery meat, and fell with his stone drill to fashion something cunning from the shell.

The chief said: “I’m going to tell you about a warrior who loved his friends. This happened many snows ago, when I was a young man. In those days you seldom saw a gun among us, because we did very little trading with the white men and of course other Indians would keep what firearms they could get hold of. We didn’t even have many iron arrowheads, and in battle we would ride up close to the enemy, hoping to get shot by his arrows so as to get some of those iron points.”

He laughed heartily, and pulled up his legging to show his right calf and its mass of ancient punctures.

“There wasn’t any other way to get them at the time. For horses, we would generally go south to the land of the Snake People, for they are great riders and have the best ponies. It is said the reason for this is that they mate with horses, but I have never seen this with my own eyes.” The Comanche is who he was talking about, the world’s finest riders, excelling other Indians; and whether or not they coupled with mares, I know for a fact they mounted their own women stallion-style, from behind, neighing and snorting; they was all horse-crazy.

“Sometimes we would not really need the horses but would go just for fighting, because the Snakes are a brave people and it lifts your heart to see them come charging, particularly on an early morning when the sun is still a young man in the sky; later on, when he is middle-aged, it gets too hot in their country and you can see why years earlier the Human Beings ran them down there and kept this place for ourselves, which is perfect.”

Talk of war always cheered Old Lodge Skins. He’d lose several decades right in front of you, his eyes would heat up and his cheeks filled out, and he’d positively chortle at a specially gory turn.

“One time a party of six Human Beings was after horses in the Snake Country: Hawk’s Visit, Little Robe, Horse Chief, Iron Shirt, Crazy Mule, and Little Man. With them also was a man called Hairy, of the Arapaho who you know have always been our friends and usually camp with the Human Beings. Now this party had started out with the intention of capturing wild horses rather than stealing those of the Snakes. Otherwise Hairy would not have gone along, because the Arapaho were at peace with the Snakes that year.

“Near the headwaters of the Washita, our men came upon the trail of a big Snake village and determined to raid it after nightfall, although they had no guns and only a few remaining arrows and could not fight long if the Snakes caught up with them afterwards.

“Having located the camp, they hid until dark. Then they crept in and stole a herd of beautiful ponies. Hairy did not take part in this raid, owing to the treaty his people had with the Snakes. He waited outside camp, holding their own ponies for the Human Beings, and when they came driving the herd he went with them. They rode all night and half the next day without stopping until the sun stood where he could have looked right down the smokehole of a tepee. By then they had reached the Stinking Creek, where a horse can drink but not a man. So they watered that herd.

“But they had not been able to ride fast, having to drive the stolen horses, and before they left the Stinking Creek, the Snakes arrived, in a number that was more than ten for every Human Being also including Hairy. Our men mounted their ponies and went up onto a little knoll, then killed the animals to make a fortification, stripped off their leggings and shirts, and singing their songs, prepared to die.

“Before the Snakes charged, a chief of theirs named Moon rode up near enough the knoll to be clearly seen and said, in the signs: ‘You Plenty of Tattooed Marks,’ which is how the Snakes call our friends the Arapaho, ‘why are you stealing our horses with the Striped Arrow People? Your tribe and mine are at peace. Are you a bad person?’

“Hairy stood up and answered: ‘I did not enter your camp nor did I steal your horses. These are my friends. I have lived with them, eaten with them, and fought alongside them. So, although it is true that I do not have a quarrel with you, I think it is a good day to die with them.’

“ ‘I hear you,’ Moon signaled back and joined his people, and they charged the knoll, killing Iron Shirt, Hawk’s Visit, and Little Robe, but the remaining four fought so bravely that the Snakes retired, having lost several of their own, with some others wounded. Then the Snakes charged again, but with only about ten of their warriors instead of the whole party, and Hairy was killed with a lance through the chest, but he put his last arrow into the neck of the man who did it as he was being ridden down. The Snake toppled off his horse, grasping the mane, and in its rearing and plunging the pony kicked Crazy Mule in the stomach and another Snake leaned over while galloping and brained him with a war club. Also Horse Chief was given a bad wound, from which he soon died.

“Now only Little Man remained alive, and he had no more arrows. He had to wait until a Snake shot an arrow at him so he could pull it out of his body and shoot it back. In this fashion, he had killed one of the riders and wounded another as the charge went over the knoll. But now the Snakes were coming back from the other side, six or seven of them, riding down on him with their short lances.

“The first Snake had just gained the crest when Little Man seized a blanket from the pile of clothes our people had discarded, and shouting ‘Hu, hu, hu!’ he flapped it at the pony’s head, scaring the animal just enough so that it faltered from the proper line of charge, and the lance missed Little Man, making a long rent in the blanket, instead. Grasping the rider’s belt, Little Man pulled him from the back of the pony. The Snake no sooner struck the ground than Little Man made three quick knife cuts across his throat, but could not take the scalp, for the other Snakes were on him. He leaped upon the pony, and with the captured lance drew so much blood from them that the Snakes retreated across the plain to where their main force was waiting.

“Little Man rode back and forth upon the knoll, singing his death song, while the Snakes held a council. Then Moon came forward and said in the signs: ‘You are a brave man. We have taken back the horses you stole and do not want to fight any more. You may go home.’

“But Little Man said: ‘I do not hear you.’ And Moon went back and the Snakes charged again, this time with twenty men, and Little Man killed several with his lance and went himself untouched. Now the Snakes were really frightened; they had never before tried to fight against such powerful medicine.

“Moon rode forward again and signaled: ‘You are the bravest Striped Arrow Person we have ever seen. Keep that pony you are riding and keep the lance, and we will also give you another horse. Go back to your people. We don’t want to fight any more.’

“ ‘No thank you,’ said Little Man. ‘All my friends are dead, including one who was loyal to the Human Beings although he was himself an Arapaho. Without my friends I would just sit around all day and weep. You had better kill me, too. It is a good day to die.’

“Thereupon Little Man raised the lance above his head, and sounding the war cry and the name of his people, he charged the entire Snake force. Moon was a brave chief, but when he saw Little Man galloping towards him, shouting those terrible cries, he screamed and tried to run away, but Little Man overtook him and ran the lance halfway through his body, where it stuck. So Little Man drew his knife and continued the charge into the Snake army, who fell away before him. He rode among them like the whirlwind, stabbing and cutting on all sides so furiously as if he had a knife for every finger, and the Snakes were howling in fright though they are a valiant people.

“At last a Snake with a musket shot Little Man in the back, and he pitched to the ground and the Snakes cut off his head. But when they had done that, Little Man’s body got up and began to fight again with the knife it still grasped in its hand. And his head, which they mounted on a spear, started again to shout the war cry. The Snakes could take no more. They galloped off fast as they could go, and those that looked back saw Little Man’s headless body running after them, waving his knife. Then when they were out of reach, it walked to the top of the knoll and lay down among its friends. Nobody knows what happened to the head, which was dropped by the man carrying the spear when it began to shout.

“Moon recovered afterwards but was humpbacked like a buffalo for the rest of his life. He bore no shame for his running because Little Man had a medicine that day that no Snake could have been expected to stand against. Moon told me this story himself in a later time when we made peace between our tribes, and the Snakes also found Little Man’s brother and gave him that horse they had promised, so that they could go again to the place where Little Man died, without being attacked by his body.”

I had not seen a white person since Caroline snuck out of camp that night. One time since, when we was camped on the Surprise River and us boys was out hunting prairie chickens, we saw some moving objects a couple miles off that I took for buffalo, but Little Horse, with his Indian eyes, said no, they was white men, that one had yellow hair, was armed with a shotgun, and rode a bay that was slightly lame in the left forefoot; and the other wore a beard and was mounted on a roan with a saddle sore. Also, they was lost, but he could see that the bay had got the scent of water and shortly they would strike the river and know where they was. So we went in the other direction.

There was a reason why we didn’t hanker none to meet these whites: it had begun to mean bad luck for the Cheyenne. You remember what happened at the wagon train of my white family: some Cheyenne had almost killed one another. Then some bad things was occurring from time to time down at Fort Laramie, where a number of Indians camped roundabout to trade. A young man might get drunk and take a shot at a soldier or run off with some horses. And once a Sioux come across an old sick cow strayed from some emigrant train, and killed it for its hide. Burned up at this, the Army attacked the Indian camp and several individuals on both sides was rubbed out.

We was sixty-seventy miles away from Laramie on War Bonnet Creek at the time of this incident but knew about it quick enough. Some Minneconjou, which was a type of Sioux or Lakota, come riding in and held counsel with Old Lodge Skins, Hump, and our other principal men. Anybody can attend such a meeting, and can say anything that isn’t ridiculous, but generally the chiefs do the talking because they are wiser, which is why they are chiefs.

Luckily there was a man with the Minneconjou who knew Cheyenne, for though the Human Beings and the Sioux been allies for generations, they speak altogether different languages and usually have to converse in the signs as if they had no closer connection than a Portuguee and a Russian. So this man interpreted.

Great Elk, a Minneconjou, stood up and told what happened down at Laramie, concluding: “I have met many Wasichu”—which is how the Sioux call whites—“and drunk their coffee and eaten their molasses, which is good.” Here many of the Cheyenne sitting round the tepee said: “How, how.”

“But I have never known why they came to our country,” Great Elk went on. “First there were just a few of those poor homeless ones, and the Lakota took pity on them and gave them food. Then many came with the ugly cattle that one cannot eat because they have lost their testicles and have tough flesh, being good only to pull the Wasichu wagons which are filled with useless things except for the coffee and sugar and the iron hoops of barrels, from which you can make arrowheads. The Wasichu women are sick-looking and make me sneeze. Then the soldiers came with their big, weak horses; and they have no wife each man for himself but share among them a few women whom one must give a present every time he lies with her.

“If a Wasichu does something that the other Wasichu do not like, they tie a rope around his neck and drop him from a high place, so as to pull his spirit from his body. They talk of the great villages they have in the place where the sun rises, but if that is so, why do they come to our country and scare away the buffalo?

“I shall tell you why: the Wasichu are sick, and if they ever had the great villages they brag about, everybody there has died from lying with those sick women or eating that bacon which stinks, and now the rest come here and if we don’t kill them all, they will infect the Lakota and our friends the Shyela.”

The latter was the Sioux name for “Cheyenne.”

Great Elk sat down then and scratched his lice, and another Sioux spoke to the same effect, and then our Hump stood up to talk. He wasn’t much of an orator, but he sure had a grasp of the practicalities.

“If we are going to fight the white man, we had better get some guns and powder. The only place we can get enough guns and powder and shot to fight the white man is from the white man. I do not think that he will want to give them to us for this purpose; we have very little to buy them with even if he would sell them for this purpose; and we certainly can’t take them away from him, for if we could do that, we wouldn’t need guns and powder and shot for this purpose.”

Hump thought for a moment, opening and closing his mouth for air since his nose was permanently obstructed by that damage he sustained at the wagons. “I don’t know, either, what the white men are doing here. I think they may be crazy. I think it’s better to keep away from them, since we don’t have guns and powder and shot.”

Great Elk got up again and said: “At the fort was a young soldier chief who said with ten men he could rub out the entire nation of Shyelas, and with thirty men, all the people of the plains. But we Minneconjou, along with some Oglala, rubbed him out instead. This is his ring that I am wearing on a string around my neck. I used to have his finger, too, but I lost it.”

Old Lodge Skins finally took his turn, and put on that falsetto that proper oratory called for. The following remarks was developed deep in the chest, but come out high and quavering after having fought a passage through his tightened throat. The first time you heard it, you might have thought the poor devil was dying of strangulation; but it could get the wind up in you once you caught the style.

For a while he flattered the Minneconjou and the rest of the Lakota. Then he reminded them of the Cheyenne theory that they was established in the Black Hills and rich in horses at the time when the Sioux showed up there poor as could be and with only dogs for transport, and the Human Beings took pity on them and give them a horse now and again, which enabled the Sioux to prosper into the great tribe they was at present.

“As to the white men,” he said after an hour or so, “among my people it was my grandfather’s grandfather who saw them for the first time. His name was Walking on the Ground. In those days our people lived near the Lake You Cannot See Across, in houses of earth, and they raised corn. One morning Walking on the Ground and several other Human Beings were tracking a bear along a creek when they came across the trail of another kind of animal they had never seen before. These new tracks were almost the size of a bear’s, but they showed no toe marks and were round and smooth. Our people believed these tracks to have been made by a water-animal, whose toes were joined one to another so he could swim well.

“They followed the trail until they came to a clearing in the forest, and there they saw six of these new animals, and the grizzly bear too, who had also been tracking them. The new animals looked strange to our people. They seemed to be naked, but each one had a different type of fur or skin and another shape of head. Our men then thought they were cousins or even children of the grizzly bear because like him they stood on their hind feet and had bulky bodies and used their front paws like hands.

“But the next moment, the grizzly bear charged the new animals, and several of the latter took from between their legs their penises, which were longer than their arms, put them against the shoulder, and making a great noise, shot flame and smoke at the grizzly and he fell dead.

“Our people were terribly frightened at this and ran back through the forest to their village to tell the others, and the others were excited and had to see these new animals for themselves. So all the warriors in the village went back to the clearing where the animals were and hid in the bushes and watched them. One of the animals stripped the skin off its body and head and our men clapped their mouths in astonishment. But when the animal’s fur was off, it looked just like a human being except that its flesh was white and it had hair all over its face. It washed itself in the creek and put its skin back on, and our men then realized that what they thought was its hide was actually clothing.

“Several of the animals had hairy faces, and our people supposed these to be the males, whereas the smooth-faced ones were the females. And they saw that the lightning-shooting sticks were not the penises of those animals, but they sometimes stood holding them between their legs, so it had looked that way.

“Our men drew back into the forest and held a counsel. Hungry Bear said: ‘I don’t think we should bother these animals or make them angry, because they are very strange and you can’t tell what they will do.’

“Black Wolf, who had not been with the first party that saw the shooting, said: ‘We could easily kill them, but that white flesh doesn’t look as if it would be good to eat, though the skin might make a pretty shirt.’

“But Walking on the Ground, who was very wise, said: ‘These animals are not Human Beings, but they are men. You know the old prophecy made by our great hero Sweet Medicine, that a new people would one day come among us, their skins white and their ways odd. And you know that he said they will bring us bad luck. But now they are here, and it is better for us to find them than for them to come upon us by surprise.

“ ‘Here is what we should do: I will walk into their camp and look at them. The rest of you watch from the bushes. If the white persons attack me, then we must fight them and someone should go back to the village and send the women and children to hide. If I am not attacked, then some of you can also come into camp.’

“Walking on the Ground stripped himself to the breechclout and went alone into the clearing. The first white person to see him started to raise the lightning stick, but another—without hair on its face, so that it seemed a woman—stepped in front of the first and thrust its hand at Walking on the Ground. My grandfather’s grandfather stopped and looked her in the eyes, for our people had never heard of shaking hands at that time. Then other white men came all around Walking, and our men in the bushes started to stretch their bows, but soon they saw the whites were not trying to harm the Human Being but rather smiling at him and making talk, and so some of them came out of the bushes and went into that camp.

“The smooth-faced persons turned out to be men as well as the hairy-cheeked, and one of them wore a golden cross around his neck and when he took off his hat his head was mostly bare skin except for a fringe around his ears. He got two sticks and making a cross of them, stuck it in the earth, and then all the white men fell upon their knees while the bald one closed his eyes, folded his hands, and talked. Then the whites showed the Human Beings their lightning-and-thunder sticks and let them pull the triggers, but our people were still scared when the shots came.

“Those first white men stayed in that place for about one moon and started to build a square house of logs. Our people would visit them every day, and the man with the cross would give them presents and make signs that they should kneel upon the ground while he talked to the crossed sticks which were his medicine, and so they would do so to be polite.

“But then one night, while half of the white party was sleeping, the other half killed them and took all their things and burned up the house and went over to the Big Water, got into a boat they had there, and went away.

“That is the truth as it has come down to me,” said Old Lodge Skins. “And the same thing happened many times thereafter, whenever the white people appeared. They do not like each other, and sooner or later one will kill the next, and usually not in battle, the way our people do to prove themselves brave and to enjoy the courageous deaths of our enemies and to die on a good day, but rather by shooting in the back or stretching the neck or by infecting one another with the coughing-sickness and sores or making people lose their heads with whiskey.

“But I say they are white, and not like us, and there may be some reason why they act this way that one cannot understand unless he is himself white. If they ever attack me, I will defend myself. But until such time, I will avoid them.”

That was when we went up into the Powder River country, though we wasn’t in no hurry and first went south for a day or so along the Surprise River and took buffalo there. Them was the days before the railroad and the professional white hunters, and you could find single herds numbering in the hundreds of thousands, maybe a square mile or more of beasts crowded so thick you couldn’t see no grass between them, and the Cheyenne would get them milling and drop one after another with arrow or spear and it would make no appreciable difference in the size of the herd. Then the women would come out for the butchering and when it was done haul the usable parts back to camp on the hide, which was afterward fleshed and stretched on a frame for a robe or lodge cover. We’d eat boiled tongue and roast hump then, the finest grub in the world, alongside which your best beefsteak will taste like a singed bootsole. But it is all gone now.

Now it’s true there wasn’t no white men up on the Powder, but there was Crow Indians roundabout. The Cheyenne and the Crow was generally enemies, but made a peace some years before when the Government got most of the warring tribes together on Horse Creek east of Laramie and had them sign a treaty not to fight one another. This worked fine between tribes that never came in contact with the next, but didn’t last long with them that did, it being normal for a Cheyenne to fight a Pawnee. And if you didn’t fight, you’d turn into a woman.

So with the Crow, who was by the way friends of the whites, claiming never to have killed a white man and for that reason they was always let to keep their country. The Crow was brave men when they fought the Cheyenne and Sioux alone, but when they served as scouts for the U.S. Cavalry, they often turned coward. I don’t know why.

Anyway, we no sooner had got up to the Powder than some of our men who was out spying come in with the news that a big camp of Crow had been located on the Crazy Woman’s Creek.

“If it is a big camp, they must have a lot of ponies,” said Hump.

Shadow That Comes in Sight, one of the spies, said: “Those Crow are very rich in ponies. They are the most beautiful ponies I have ever seen. I hid all day in the scrubwood just to look at those ponies.”

“I have heard you,” said Hump and sighed. The group then went over to talk with Old Lodge Skins, a bunch of us boys following along.

“Do you need ponies?” the chief said after he had been apprised.

Shadow nodded his head very sad, saying: “Never have I been so poor.”

Old Lodge Skins asked the same question of the others and got the same answer. Then he spoke, groping within his blanket: “I received this medal for making my mark on the peace paper between us and the Crow. On it is the face of the Father who lives in the main village of the whites. I said that I would not fight with the Crow while the sun still shines forever, and I do not speak in two directions. But none of you made your mark on that paper and none of you wear this medal. I don’t think the Father knows who you are. My own favorite type of horse is pinto.”

So a party of raiders formed at twilight: Shadow That Comes in Sight, Cold Face, Yellow Eagle, Bird Bear, and Long Jaw. It was autumn of the year, with the nights getting brisk, but of course they stripped to the buff so no clothes would get in the way of their quick work. We boys was hanging around doing little services for these men we admired: honing a knife, filling arrow quivers, and so on, when Younger Bear steps up to Shadow and says: “I am ready to go.”

Shadow, cinching up his moccasin, answers, “All right,” without looking at him.

Younger Bear says: “I have practiced many times, stealing meat from the women.” He was referring to the game we played which like the others trained us for more serious business: the women cut buffalo flesh into thin slices and hung them on rawhide lines to dry in the sun, and we would snake along on our bellies and swipe it, each slice standing for a pony. If the woman saw you, she hit you lightly with a stick and you was counted out. Actually Younger Bear was one of the worst at this game; force, rather than stealth, being his specialty. But he was around fourteen now and he was going to bust if he had to stay a boy much longer.

“I killed a buffalo two days ago,” he went on. This everybody knew because his father had gone around camp singing about it after the hunt and then gave a feast.

“I have heard that,” said Shadow. “You can come.”

“I am the strongest boy in camp,” Younger Bear said.

“You also talk a lot,” said Cold Face, who was tying a little medicine bundle behind his ear for luck. “We’ll stay here and you can go and make a speech to the Crow, who love a big mouth.”

“You can come,” said Shadow, “if you don’t say any more. The Human Beings are the greatest people on the face of the earth, the bravest warriors, have the most beautiful and virtuous women, and live in a place that is perfect. That is known to everybody, even our enemies. A Human Being just is and does not have to talk about it.”

Now that stuff got my goat even more than Younger Bear’s volunteering to join the raid. I liked the Cheyenne and by this time really felt I was maybe a second cousin to them, but whenever I ran into their arrogance it served only to remind me I was basically white. The greatest folk on earth! Christ, they wouldn’t have had them iron knives if Columbus hadn’t hit these shores. And who brought them the pony in the first place?

I was standing at the side of Little Horse and whispered to him, “I’m going.” He said, “I’m not,” and left Shadow’s tepee. That was the first sign that I can remember he showed of what was to be his life direction.

I stepped up to the men and asked: “Can I go?”

I was in the wrong state of mind for such a dangerous venture, when solidarity is wanted, whereas I was joining out of my difference from my comrades. Them Cheyenne looked at me and then they looked at one another. I was about thirteen, quite the shrimp in build, and I had red hair, blue eyes, and skin that may have been dirty and sunburned and scratched but withal was pale as a fishbelly.

I believe it might have occurred to them right then that the Crow was friends of the Americans, and that it probably was foolhardy to take along on what was only too likely to be a fatal expedition for some, a fellow whose trust wasn’t secured by blood. Not to mention an untried kid.

But Shadow says: “All right.” You give an Indian a choice and he is sure to take the reckless alternative: he is inclined to let anybody do what they want. Especially the Cheyenne, who don’t have initiation ceremonies for a boy. You want to be a man so you try what men do, and there ain’t nothing to stop you but the enemy.