near the same age, these organizations are often called age-societies by the white people.
In time I passed through all of the societies and became a Bull. When in the Raven-bearers we gave a dance at a trading post where Fort Benton now stands and two strange white men watched us. One of them drew a picture of us and afterwards the older man asked questions of me through an interpreter and wrote something in a book. I heard that he came from across the great water as did the first white people, but I never saw him again.[3]
When with my comrades in the Bulls we sold out to the Catchers, I became one of the old men to sit in council and advise the people. There are two leaders for each society. I was never a leader, because the leaders of one always sold to the leaders of the lower, and it so happened during my life that the same two men lived to reach the Bulls. So there was no chance for anyone else to lead. But we are now far ahead of my story, I must begin with my life as one of the young married men.
After I came back with my woman to live in my band, old Medicine-bear often sat in our tepee. (My woman soon tanned skins from my hunting and made a large fine tepee of our own.) He wished me to become a shaman like himself. You see I had experienced a real vision, few men who fasted received such power as came to me. I had the power to become a shaman, but I held to my vow to be a warrior. I was poor. So I led war parties against the Cree, Assiniboin, Snake, and Crow. Many horses and guns I took. Coups I counted and took three scalps from the Crow. But I meditated often upon the powers in the air, water, and earth. They are the great mysteries. Everything is done by them. About this time two things happened to me that turned my thoughts from war.
Our chief led a party against the Cree and invited me to go. The chief was jealous of me. As I told you, he was a bad man, but I could not refuse. Medicine-bear, the shaman, went with us to give us power. When we reached the Cree country I was ordered out as a scout. It was dark. As I went along I saw a tepee all by itself. I went up to it quietly and looked in. There was no one in the tepee except a man, his wife, and a little child. The little child could just walk and was amusing itself by dipping soup from the kettle with a small horn spoon. The man and his wife were busy talking and paid no attention to the child. Now the child looked up and saw me peeping through the hole, toddled over to the kettle, dipped up some soup in the spoon and held it to my lips. I drank and the child returned to the kettle for more. In this way the child fed me for many minutes. Then I went away. As I went along to my own party, I thought to myself, “I do not like to do this, but I must tell my party about this tepee. When they know of it, they will come and kill these people. This little child fed me even when I was spying upon them, and I do not like to have it killed. Well, perhaps I can save the child; but then it would be too bad for it to lose its parents. No, I do not see how I can save them, yet I cannot bear to have them killed.” I sat down and thought it over. After a while, I went back to the tepee, went in, and sat down. While my host was preparing the pipe, the child began to feed me again with the spoon. After we had smoked, I talked to the man in the sign-language, told him all about it, how I had come as a scout to spy upon them, how I was about to bring up my war party, but that they had been saved by the little child. Then I directed the man to go at once, leaving everything behind him in the tepee.
The man was very thankful and offered to give me a medicine bundle and a suit of clothes; but I refused, because I knew that my party would suspect me. Then the man suggested that he might place the bundle near the door, behind the bedding, so that when the war party came up and dashed upon the tepee, I would be the first to capture the bundle. (All the important property of the tepee is always kept at the back, opposite the door, and, when a war party rushes in, the swiftest runs to this place.)
Then I reported to my chief, telling him that I had discovered a camp of the enemy but that I had not been up to it or seen anyone. He started out at once, all of us following. When we had surrounded the tepee, we gave a whoop and rushed upon it. I kept behind and while the others were busy counting coup upon the things in the back of the tepee, I seized the bundle by the door. The chief was angry, but said nothing. When we were again in camp old Medicine-bear began to unwrap his war medicine pipe to make a thank offering for our success. Then the chief faced me and denounced me as a traitor, accused me of warning the enemy and secreting the medicine bundle. My anger rose, I drew my knife, but at that moment old Medicine-bear sprang between us, holding the holy pipe in both hands. This is the custom, no one can fight over a holy pipe. The shaman made us each take the pipe and vow to put away our anger and hold our silence. So it was.
Never have I forgotten that little child. Some great power was guarding it. Its medicine was strong. Many times have I prayed to that power and sometimes it helped me, but I do not yet know what power it is. Yet somehow I took little interest in war, the child’s medicine did that to me.
The next year I felt sad and gloomy. So I decided to go to war anyway. I led out a party of my own against the Crow. The fourth night I went out to scout. It was cloudy and rather dark. As I was stealing along a marshy place, a star rose out of the earth and stood before me. It was the Smoking-star. Something in me said, “Follow.” Then the star led off slowly; gradually it took me to the back trail and then swiftly faded away, as it moved toward my woman’s tepee at home. I sat down and prayed. In my mind the Smoking-star was telling me to go back.
When dawn came I returned to my party. I told my story. All agreed that we should go home for the signs were against us. When I got into our camp I saw many people standing about my woman’s tepee and heard a doctor’s drum. My son, my first born, was very ill. Three doctors had been called, one after the other. I gave them all my horses. As is their way, when they feared the sick one would die, they departed. At last, I went out to the top of a hill to cry to the Smoking-star. Surely, I thought, he would help me, but clouds overcast the sky and there was no answer to my appeal. That morning the boy died.
In the afternoon the body was wrapped in a robe and placed in a tree near our camp. As he died in the tepee, we could not use it again so we placed it at the foot of the tree. I cropped my hair and mourned many days. Now I was poor. All my horses went to the doctors. My woman’s tepee was gone and once again we lived with our poor old grandmother in her little ragged tepee; but in a few days my woman’s relatives gave her another tepee and after a time we again accumulated horses.
About this time Medicine-bear became a beaver bundle owner. My misfortunes turned my mind more and more to the mysteries of the powers around us and I began to learn the songs and the teachings of the beaver men. The ritual for the beaver bundle is long and difficult. There are more than three hundred songs to be learned before one can lead the ceremony of the beaver. In the bundle are the skins of beavers, otters, and many kinds of birds and water animals. With each of these there are songs, for each brought some power to the man who first saw it in a vision. My people did not plant corn, as did the Mud-houses (Mandan and Hidatsa), but the beaver men planted tobacco. At the planting and the gathering of the tobacco, the beaver bundle is opened and the ritual sung. The garden and the plants are sacred, for tobacco must be offered to all the powers of the earth, and of the water. A beaver man must keep count of the days, the moons, and the winters. For this he keeps a set of sticks like those sometimes found in a beaver’s house. At all times he must be ready to tell the moon and the day; he must say when it is time to go on the spring hunt, to hold the sun dance, etc. Then he must watch the sun, moon, stars, winds, and clouds so that he may know what the weather will be. If he is holy and good, he will have visions and dreams of power and so become a shaman.
So after my son died I often sat with the beaver men. In time I learned many of the beaver songs and became chief assistant to Medicine-bear in the ceremonies. When I was an old man, Medicine-bear died; it was the year before I sold out of the Bull society (the year we saw the first steamboat). Then I became the leading beaver man, as I am still.
When I first began to study the beaver medicine, I spent hours on the hilltops and near the waters, meditating and watching the birds, animals, and the heavens. Yet such solemn thoughts did not occupy all my time as a young married man.
There
