GOODBIRD
THE INDIAN
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GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
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Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2017 with funding from
Princeton Theological Seminary Library
https://archive.org/details/goodbirdindianhiOOwils
EDWARD GOODBIRD
Issued under the direction of the Council of
Women for Home Missions
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
His Story
TOLD BY HIMSELF
TO
GILBERT L. 'WILSON
Author of " Myths of the Red Children,” “ Indian Hero Tales”
Illustrated by FREDERICK N. WILSON
New York Chicago Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh
Copyright, 1914, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York : 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
Contents
Glossary of Indian Words . . 6
I
Birth
9
II
Childhood .
. 19
III
The Gods
27
IV
Indian Beliefs .
. . . 36
V
School Days .
43
VI
Hunting Buffaloes .
• 53
VII
Farming .
61
VIII The White Man’s Way
• 71
Glossary of Indian Words
a ha hg
al (I)
/
a pa tip
E di a ka ta
HI d&t sa
Ho Wash t6
.. /
It si di shi di i ta ka
It si ka ma hi di
Ka du te ta
ku kats
Ma hi di wi a
Man dan
mi ha dits
Mi ni ta ri
na
San tee
Sioux (Soo). (The plural, spelled also Sioux, is commonly
pronounced Soos)
te pee
Tsa ka ka sa ki
Tsa wa
u a ki h6 ke
FOREWARD
CATLIN in 1832, and Maximilian in 1833, have
made famous the culture of the Mandan and
Minitari, or Hidatsa, tribes.
In 1907, I was sent out by the American Museum of
Natural History, to begin anthropological studies
among the remnants of these peoples, on Fort Berthold
Reservation; and I have been among them each sum-
mer, ever since.
During these years, Goodbird has been my faithful
helper and interpreter. His mother, Mahidiwia, or
Buffalo Bird Woman, is a marvelous source of informa-
tion on old-time life and beliefs.
Indians have a gentle custom of adopting very dear
friends by relationship terms; by such adoption, Good-
bird is my brother; Mahidiwia is my mother.
The stories which make this little book were told
my by Goodbird in August, 1913.
I have but put Goodbird’s Indian- English into com-
mon idiom. The stories are his own; in them he has
bared his heart.
In 1908, and again in 1913, my brother, Frederick
N. Wilson, was also sent by the Museum to make
drawings of Hidatsa arts. Illustrations in this book
are from studies made by him in those years; a few
are redrawn from simpler sketches by Goodbird himself.
7
8
FOREWORD
Acknowledgment is made of the courtesy of the
Museum’s curator, Dr. Clark Wissler, whose permission
makes possible the publishing of this book.
May Goodbird’s Story give the reader a kindly interest
in his people.
Minneapolis. G. L. W.
An Old Hidatsa Village.
I
BIRTH
I WAS born on a sand bar, near the mouth of the
Yellowstone, seven years before the battle in
which Long Hair * was killed. My tribe had
camped on the bar and were crossing the river in bull
boats. As ice chunks were running on the Missouri
current, it was probably the second week in November.
The Mandans and my own people, the Hidatsas,
were once powerful tribes who dwelt in five villages
at the mouth of the Knife River, in what is now North
Dakota. Smallpox weakened both peoples; the sur-
vivors moved up the Missouri and built a village at
* General George A. Custer.
9
IO
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
Like-a-fish-hook Bend, or Fort Berthold as the whites
called it, where they dwelt together as one tribe. They
fortified their village with a fence of upright logs
against their enemies, the Sioux.
We Hidatsas looked upon the Sioux as wild men,
because they lived by hunting and dwelt in tents. Our
own life we thought civilized. Our lodges were houses
of logs, with rounded roofs covered with earth; hence
their name, earth lodges. Fields of corn, beans,
squashes and sunflowers lay on either side of the village,
in the bottom lands along the river; these were cultivated
in old times with bone hoes.
With our crops of corn and beans, we had less fear
of famine than the wilder tribes; but like them we
hunted buffaloes for our
meat. After firearms
became common, big
game grew less plentiful,
and for several years
before my birth, few
buffaloes had been seen near our village. However,
scouts brought in word that big herds were to be
found farther up the river and on the Yellowstone,
and our villagers, Mandans and Hidatsas, made ready
for a hunt.
A chief, or leader, was always chosen for a tribal
hunt, some one who was thought to have power with
the gods. Not every one was willing to be leader.
The tribe expected of him a prosperous hunt with plenty
of meat, and no attacks from enemies. If the hunt
proved an unlucky one, the failure was laid to the
leader. “ His prayers have no power with the gods.
He is not fit to be leader! ” the people would say.
Bone Hoe.
BIRTH
ii
This leader had to be chosen by a military society
of men, called the Black Mouths. They made up a
collection of rich gifts — gun, blankets, robes, war
bonnet, embroidered shirt — and with much ceremony
offered the gifts, successively, to men who were known
to own sacred bundles; all refused.
They prevailed at length upon Ediakata to accept
half the gifts. “ Choose another to take the rest,” he
told the Black Mouths: “ I will share the leadership
with him! ” They chose Short Horn.
The two leaders fixed the day of departure. On the
evening before, a crier went through the village, calling
out, “ To-morrow at sunrise we break camp. Get
ready, everybody! ”
The march was up the Missouri, on the narrow
prairie between the foothills and the river. Ediakata
and Short Horn led, commanding, the one, one day,
the other, the next. The camp followed in a long line,
some on horseback, more afoot; a few old people rode
on travois. Camp was made at night in tepees, or
skin-covered tents.
My grandfather’s was a large thirteen-skin tepee,
pitched with fifteen poles. It sheltered twelve persons;
my grandfather, Small Ankle, and his two wives, Red
Blossom and Strikes-many- woman; his sons, Bear’s
Tail and Wolf Chief, and their wives; my mother,
Buffalo Bird Woman, daughter of Small Ankle, and
Son-of-a-Star, her husband; Flies Low, a younger son
of Small Ankle; and Red Kettle and Full Heart, mere
boys, brothers of Flies Low.
Ascending the west bank of the Missouri, my tribe
reached the mouth of the Yellowstone at their eleventh
camp; here the Missouri narrows, offering a good place
12
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
to cross. A long sand bar skirted the south shore;
tents were pitched here about noon. There was not
room on the narrow bar to pitch a camping circle, and
the tepees stood in rows, like the houses of a village.
My grandfather pitched his tent near the place
chosen for the crossing. The day was cold and windy;
with flint and steel, my grandfather kindled a fire.
Dry grass was laid around the wall of the tent and
covered with robes, for beds. Small logs, laid along
the edges of the beds, shielded them from sparks
from the fire.
At evening the wind died; twilight crept over the
sky, and the stars appeared. The new moon, narrow
and bent like an Indian bow, shone white over the
river, and the waves of the long mid-current sparkled
silvery in the moonlight. Now and then with a
swi-i-s-sh, a sheet of water, a tiny whirl-pool in its
center, would come washing in to shore; while over all
rose the roar, roar, roar of the great river, sweeping
onward, the Indians knew not where.
At midnight a dog raised himself on his haunches,
pointed his nose at the sky, and yelped. It was the
signal for the midnight chorus; and in a moment every
dog in camp had joined it, nose-in-air, howling mourn-
fully at the moon. Far out on the prairie rose the
wailing yip-yip-yip-ya-a-aA/ of a coyote. The dogs
grew silent again and curled up, to sleep.
And I came into the world.
Wrapped in a bit of robe, I was laid in my mother’s
arms, her first bom; she folded me to her breast.
The morning sky was growing gray when my father
came home. He raised the tent door and entered,
smiling.
BIRTH
r3
“ I heard my little son cry, as I came,” he said;
“ It was a lusty cry! I am very happy.”
My grandmother placed me in his arms.
My tribe began crossing the river the same morning.
Tents were struck, one by one; and the owners, having
loaded their baggage in bull boats, pushed boldly out
into the current.
A bull boat was made by stretching a buffalo skin
over a frame of willows. It was shaped like a tub and
was not graceful; but it carried a heavy load.
Our boat had been brought up from the village on a
travois, and my father ferried my mother and me
across. He knelt in the bow, dipping his oar in the
water directly before him; my mother sat in the tail
of the boat with me in her arms. Our tent poles,
tied in a bundle, floated behind us; and our dogs and
horses came swimming after, sniffing and blowing as
they breasted the heavy current. We landed tired,
and rather wet.
The tribe was four days in crossing; and as the
season was late, we at once took up our march to the
place chosen for our winter camp. My mother and I
now rode on a travois, drawn by a pony. A buffalo
skin was spread on the bottom of the travois basket;
this my father bound snugly about my mother’s knees
as she sat, Indian fashion, with her ankles turned to
the right. I lay in her lap, cuddled in a wild-cat skin
and covered by her robe.
We reached Round Bank, the place of our winter
camp, in five days. My tribe’s usual custom was to
winter in small earth lodges, in the woods by the Mis-
souri, a few miles from Like-a-fish-hook village; but
14
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
this winter we were to camp in our skin tents, like
the Sioux. A tent, well sheltered, with a brisk fire
under the smoke hole, was comfortable and warm.
No buffaloes had been killed on the way up to the
Yellowstone; but much deer, elk, and antelope meat
had been brought into camp, dried, and packed in bags
for winter, Many, also, of the more provident families
had stores of corn, brought with them from Like-a-fish-
hook village. After snow fell, our hunters discovered
buffaloes and made a kill. We thus faced winter with-
out fear of famine.
The tenth day after my birth was my naming day;
it came just as we were getting settled in our winter
camp. An Indian child was named to bring him good
luck. A medicine man was called in, feasted, and given
a present to name the child and pray for him. As my
grandfather was one of the chief medicine men of the
tribe, my mother asked him to name me.
My grandfather’s gods were the birds that send the
thunder. He was a kind old man, and took me gently
into his arms and said, “ I name my grandson Tsa-
ka-ka-sa-ki, — Good-bird!” My name thus became a
kind of prayer; whenever it was spoken it reminded
the bird spirits that I was named for them, and that
my grandfather prayed that I might grow up a brave
and good man.
The winter passed without mishap to any one in our
tent. An old man named Holding Eagle had his leg
broken digging in a bank for white clay; he was prying
out a lump with a stick, when the bank caved in upon
him. Toward spring, Wolf -with-his-back-to- the- wind
and his brother were surprised by Sioux and killed. A
man named Drum was also killed and scalped.
BIRTH
J5
Spring came, but ice still lay on the Missouri when
the Goose society gave their spring dance. The flocks
of geese that came flying north at this season of the
year were a sign that it was time to make ready our
fields for planting com. The Goose society was a society
of women, and their dance was a prayer that the spirits
of the geese would send good weather for the corn-plant-
ing. Most of the work of planting and hoeing our com
fell to the women.
Our winter camp now broke up, most of the tribe
returning to the Yellowstone; but my grandfather and
One Buffalo, with their families, went up the Missouri
to hunt for buffaloes. They found a small herd, gave
chase, and killed ten.
Four more tepees now joined us, those of Strikes
Back-bone, Old Bear, Long
Wing, Spotted Horn, and
their families. To each
tent owner, my grand-
father gave the half of a
freshly killed buffalo and
one whole green buffalo
skin. Camp was pitched;
the meat was hung on
stages to dry, and the
women busied themselves
making the skins into bull
boats.
When the ice on the
Missouri broke, our camp
made ready to return to the village, for the women
wanted to be about their spring planting. Bull boats
were now taken to the river and loaded; and the
At Work with a Bone Hoe.
i6
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
families, six or seven tepees in all, pushed out into the
current.
My parents led, with three boats lashed together,
in the first of which they sat and paddled; my fath-
er’s rifle lay by him. The second boat was partly
loaded with bags of dried meat, and upon these sat
Flies Low, my uncle, with me in his arms. The third
boat was loaded to the water with meat and skins.
The Missouri’s course is winding; if a turn in it sends
the current against the wind, the waves rise heavy and
choppy, so that a single boat can hardly ride them.
When approaching one of these turns, our party would
draw together, laying tight hold of one another’s boats
until the danger was passed; bunched together in this
manner, the boats ran less risk of upsetting.
Snow had disappeared from the ground, and the grass
was beginning to show green when we left the Yellow-
stone. We floated down the great river in high spirits.
All went well until we neared the mouth of the Little
Missouri, thirty miles from the village. Then a storm
arose, and as we rounded a bend, the current carried
us into the very teeth of the wind. Our flimsy boats,
sea-sawing up and down on the heavy waves, threatened
to overturn.
My parents turned hastily to shore and plied their
paddles. Suddenly my father leaned over his side of
the boat, almost tipping it over and tumbling my
mother in upon him ; she caught at the edge of the boat
to save herself, but had the presence of mind not to
drop her paddle. Then she saw what had happened;
I had fallen into the water, and my father was drawing
me, wet but unhurt, into the boat.
I have said that my uncle, Flies Low, and I rode in
BIRTH
17
the second boat. I had grown restless, and he had
loosened my cradle clothes to give me room to move
my limbs. When we ran into the storm, our boat
rocked so violently that I slipped from his arms, but
my loosened clothes made me float.
“ I did not mean to drop the baby,” my uncle said
afterwards. “ I thought the boat had upset and I was
frightened.” He was only a lad, and my mother could
not blame him.
We reached shore in a terrible storm of snow and
wind. The boats were dragged up on the beach; the
two tents were hastily pitched to shelter the women and
children; and fires were lighted.
My father stopped only long
enough to see us safe, and then
pushed on through the storm
with the horses, which my
grandfather had been driving
along the shore in sight of
the boats. He reached the
village safely and drove the
horses into the shelter of some
woods along the river.
Boys know that in summer,
when they go swimming, it
is warmer to stay in the water,
than upon the bank, in a wind.
There was a pond in the
woods; and our horses waded
into the water to escape the
cold wind. When they came
Flint and Steel, with Bag.
wind chilled
out the
their coats, so that three of them died.
The storm lasted four days. When it was over, my
i8
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
mother and the rest of the party re-embarked in their
bull boats and floated safely down to Like-a-fish-hook
village.
Of course I remember nothing of these things; but
I have told the story as I heard it from the lips of my
mother.
Hidatsa Earth Lodge.
II
CHILDHOOD
LIKE-A-FISH-HOOK village stood on a bluff
overlooking the Missouri, and contained about
seventy dwellings. Most of these were earth
lodges, but a few were log cabins which traders had
taught us to build.
My grandfather’s was a large, well-built earth lodge,
with a floor measuring about forty feet across. Small
Ankle, his two wives and their younger children; his
sons, Bear’s Tail and Wolf Chief, and his daughter,
my mother, with their families, dwelt together. It
was usual for several families of relatives to dwell
together in one lodge.
An earth lodge was built with a good deal of labor.
The posts were cut in summer, and let lie in the woods
19
20
G00DBIRD THE INDIAN
until snow fell; men then dragged them to the village
with ropes. Holes were dug the next spring, and the
posts raised. Stringers, laid along the tops of the
posts, supported rafters; and upon these was laid a
matting of willows and dry grass. Over all went a
thick layer of sods.
The four great posts that upheld the roof had each
a buffalo calf skin
or a piece of
bright-colored cal-
ico bound about it
at the height of
a man’s head.
These were offer-
ings to the house
spirit. We Hidat-
sas believed that
an earth lodge was
alive, and that
the lodge’s spirit,
or soul, dwelt in
the four posts.
Small Ankle’s Couch. Certain medicine
women were hired
to raise these posts in place when a lodge was built.
Our lodge was picturesque within, especially by the
yellow light of the evening fire. In the center of the
floor, under the smoke hole, was the fireplace ; a
screen of puncheons, or split logs, set on end, stood
between it and the door. On the right was the corral,
where horses were stabled at night. In the back of the
lodge were the covered beds of the household, and my
grandfather’s medicines, or sacred objects. The most
CHILDHOOD
21
important of these sacred objects were two human skulls
of the Big Birds’ ceremony, as it was called. Small
Ankle was a medicine man and when our com fields
suffered from drought, he prayed to the skulls for rain.
Against the puncheon screen on the side next the fire-
place, was a couch made of planks laid on small logs,
with a bedding of robes. This couch was my grand-
father’s bed at night, and his lounging place by
day. A buffalo skin overhead protected him from
bits of falling earth or a leak in the roof, when it rained.
My two grandmothers also used the couch as a bench
when making ready the family meals; and the water
and grease spilled by them and trampled into the dirt
floor made the spot between the couch and the fireplace
as hard as brick. Small Ankle filed his finger nails
here against the hard floor.
The earliest thing that I remember, is my grand-
father sitting on his couch, plucking gray hairs from
his head. Indians do not like to see themselves growing
old, and Small Ankle’s friends used to tease him. “ We
see our brother is growing gray — and old! ” they would
say, laughing. Small Ankle used to sit on the edge of
his couch with his face tilted toward the smoke hole,
and drawing his loose hair before his eyes, he would
search for gray ones.
He had another habit I greatly admired. The
grease dropped from my grandmothers’ cooking, drew
many flies into our lodge, and as my grandfather sat
on his couch, the flies would alight on his bare shoulders
and arms. He used to fight them off with a little
wooden paddle. I can yet hear the little paddle’s spat
as it fell on some luckless fly, against his bare flesh.
No war club had surer aim.
22
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
His couch, indeed, was the throne from which my
grandfather ruled his household, and his rule began
daily at an early hour. He arose with the birds, raked
coals from the ashes and started a fire. Then we would
hear his voice, “ Awake, daughters; up, sons; out, all
of you! The sun is up! Wash your faces! ”
My fat grandmothers made a funny sight, washing
their faces; stooping, with eyes tightly shut, each
filled her mouth with water, blew it into her palms
and rubbed them over her face. No towels were used.
The men of the household more often went down
for a plunge in the river. Some of the young men of the
village bathed in the river the whole year, through a
hole in the ice in winter.
Many bathers, after their morning plunge, rubbed
their wet bodies with white clay; this warmed and
freshened the skin.
My mother usually washed my face for me; I liked
it quite as little as any white boy.
Our morning meal was now eaten, hominy boiled
with beans and buffalo fat, and seasoned with alkali
salt — spring salt we called it, because we gathered it
from the edges of springs. After the meal, I had
nothing to do all day but play.
My best loved toy was my bow, of choke-cherry
wood, given me when I was four years old. My arrows
were of buck-brush shoots, unfeathered. These shoots
were brought in green, and thrust into the hot ashes
of the fireplace ; when heated, they were drawn out
and the bark peeled off, leaving them a beautiful yellow.
Buck-brush arrows are light, and I was allowed to shoot
them within the lodge.
My uncle, Full Heart, a boy two years older than
CHILDHOOD
23
myself, taught me how to use my bow. In our lodge
were many mice that nested in holes under the sloping
roof, and my uncle and I hunted these mice as savagely
as our fathers hunted buffaloes. I think I was not a
very good shot, for I do not remember ever killing one.
But I had the ill luck to shoot my mother. She
was stooping at her work, one day, when an arrow
badly aimed struck her in the cheek, its point pierced
the skin, and the shaft remained hanging in the flesh.
I saw the blood start and heard my mother cry, “ Oh,
my son has shot me! ” I dropped my bow and ran,
for I thought I had killed her; but she drew out the
shaft, laughing.
I was too young to have any fear of the Sioux, and I
had not yet learned to be afraid of ghosts, but I was
afraid of owls, for I was taught that they punished little
boys. Sometimes, if I was pettish, my uncles would
cry, “The owl is coming!” And in the back of the
lodge a voice would call, “ Hoo, hoo, hoot ” This always
gave me a good fright, and I would run to my grand-
father and cover my head with his robe, or hide in my
father’s bed.
It was not the custom of my tribe for parents to
punish their own children; usually, the father called
in a clan brother to do this. My uncle, Flies Low, a
clan brother of my father, punished me when I was
bad, but he seldom did more than threaten.
Sometimes my mother would say, “ My son is bad,
pierce his flesh! ” and my uncle would take an arrow,
pinch the flesh of my arm, and make as if he would
pierce it. I would cry, “ I will be good, I will be good! ”
and he would let me go without doing more than giving
me a good fright.
24
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
A very naughty boy was sometimes punished by
rolling him in a snow bank, or ducking him in water.
One winter evening I was vexed at my mother and
would not go to bed. “ Come,” she said, trying to
draw me away, but I fought, kicking at her and scream-
ing. Quite out of patience, my mother turned to
Flies Low. “ Apatip — duck him! ” she cried. A pail
of water stood by the fireplace. Flies Low caught me
up, my legs over his shoulder, and plunged me, head
downward, into the pail. I broke from him screaming,
but he caught me and plunged me in again. The
water strangled me, I thought I was going to die!
“ Stop crying,” said my uncle.
My mother took me by the arm. “ Stop crying,”
she said. “ If you are bad, I will call your uncle again ! ”
And she put me to bed.
We Indian children knew nothing of marbles or
skates. I had a swing, made of my mother’s packing
strap, and a top, cut from the tip
of a buffalo’s horn. Many boys
owned sleds, made of five or six
buffalo ribs bound side by side.
With these they coasted down
the steep Missouri bank, but
that was play for older boys.
Few wagons were owned by the tribe at this time.
When journeying, we packed our baggage on the backs
of ponies, or on travois dragged by dogs.
A travois was a curious vehicle. It was made of
two poles lashed together in the shape of a V, and
bearing a flat basket woven with thongs. A good dog
with a travois could drag sixty or eighty pounds over
the snow, or on the smooth prairie grass.
Sled of Buffalo Ribs.
CHILDHOOD
25
But a travois’s chief use was in dragging in wood
for a lodge fire. In our lodge my mother and my two
grandmothers, with five dogs, went for wood about
twice a week. They started at sunrise for the woods,
a mile or two away, and returned about noon.
It happened one morning that my father and mother
went to gather wood, and I asked to go along. “ No,”
they said, “ you would but be in our way. You stay
Dog Travois.
at home!” But I wept and teased until they let me
go.
My parents walked before, the dogs following in a
single file. They were gentle animals, used to having
me play with them ; and I was amusing myself running
along, jumping on a travois, riding a bit, and jumping
off again.
Our road led to a choke-cherry grove, but it was
crossed by another that went to the river. As we
neared the place where the roads crossed, we saw a
woman coming down the river road, also followed by
three or four dogs in travois. I had just leaped on the
travois of one of our dogs.
The packs spied each other at the same instant; and
26
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
our dogs, pricking up their ears, burst into yelps and
started for the other pack. I was frightened out of
my wits. “ Ai, ai, ai!” I yelled; for I thought I was
going to be eaten up. The dogs were leaping along
at such speed that I dared not jump off.
The woman with the strange dogs ran between the
packs crying, “ Na, na , — go way, go way!” This
stopped our dogs; and I sprang to the ground and ran
to my mother. I would never ride a travois again.
Taking it altogether, children were well treated in
my tribe. Food was coarse, but nourishing; and there
was usually plenty of it. Children of poor families
suffered for clothing, but rarely for food, for a family
having meat or corn always shared with any who were
hungry. If a child’s parents died, relatives or friends
cared for him.
My mother sighs for the good old times. “ Children
were then in every lodge,” she says, “ and there were
many old men in the tribe. Now that we live in cabins
and eat white men’s foods, the children and old men
die; and our tribe dies !”
But this is hardly true of the Christian families.
Ill
THE GODS
I HAVE said we Hidatsas
believed that an earth
lodge was alive; and that
its soul, or spirit, dwelt in the
four big roof posts. We be-
lieved, indeed, that this world
and everything in it was alive
and had spirits; and our faith
in these spirits and our wor-
ship of them made our re-
ligion.
My father explained this to
me. “All things in this world,”
he said, “ have souls, or spirits.
The sky has a spirit; the
clouds have spirits ; the sun and
moon have spirits; so have
animals, trees, grass, water,
stones, everything. These
spirits are our gods; and we
pray to them and give them
offerings, that they may help
us in our need.”
We Indians did not believe
in one Great Spirit, as white
Seeking His God.
27
28
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
men seem to think all Indians do. We did believe that
certain gods were more powerful than others. Of
these was It-si-ka-ma-hi-di, our elder creator, the
spirit of the prairie wolf; and Ka-du-te-ta, or Old-
woman-who-never-dies, who first taught my people to
till their fields. Long histories are given of these
gods.
Aiiy one could pray to the spirits, receiving answer
usually in a dream. Indeed, all dreams were thought
to be from the spirits; and for this reason they were
always heeded, especially those that came by fasting
and suffering. Sometimes a man fasted and tortured
himself until he fell into a kind of dream while yet
awake ; we called this a vision.
A man whom the gods helped and visited in dreams,
was said to have mystery power; and one who had
much mystery power, we called a mystery man, or
medicine man. Almost every one received dreams
from the spirits at some time; but a medicine man
received them more often than others.
A man might have mystery power and not use it
wisely. There once lived in our village a medicine
man who had one little son. On day in summer, the
little boy with some playmates crossed a shallow creek
behind the village in search of grass for grass arrows.
It happened that the villagers’ fields were suffering from
drought, and that very day, some old men brought
gifts to the medicine man and asked him to send them
rain.
The medicine man prayed to his gods, and in an
hour rain fell in torrents. The little boys, seeking to
return, found the creek choked by the rising waters;
greatly frightened, they plunged in, and all got
THE GODS
29
safely over but the medicine man’s little son; he
was drowned.
The medicine man mourned bitterly for his son,
for he thought it was he that had caused the little boy’s
death.
Believing as he did that the world was full of spirits,
every Indian hoped that one of them would come to
him and be his protector, especially in war. When a
lad became about seventeen years of age, his parents
would say, “You are now old enough to go to war;
but you should first go out and find your god!” They
meant by this, that he should not risk his life in battle
until he had a protecting spirit.
Finding one’s god was not an easy task. The lad
painted his body with white clay, as if in mourning,
and went out among the hills, upon some bluff, where
he could be seen of the gods; and for days, with neither
food nor drink, and often torturing himself, he cried
to the gods to pity him and come to him. His suffer-
ings at last brought on delirium, so that he dreamed,
or saw a vision. Whatever he saw in this vision was
his god, come to pledge him protection. Usually this
god was a bird or beast; or it might be the spirit of
some one dead; the bird or beast was not a flesh-and-
blood animal, but a spirit.
The lad then returned home. As soon as he was
recovered from his fast, he set out to kill an animal
like that seen in his vision, and its dried skin, or a part
of it, he kept as his sacred object, or medicine, for in
this sacred object dwelt his god. Thus if an otter
god appeared to him, the lad would kill an otter, and
into its skin, which the lad kept, the god entered. The
otter skin was now the lad’s medicine; he prayed to it
30
G00DBIRD THE INDIAN
and bore it with him to war, that his god might be
present to protect him.
Indians even made offerings of food to their sacred
objects. They knew the sacred object did not eat the
food; but they believed that the god, or spirit, in the
sacred object, ate the spirit of the food. They also
burned cedar incense to their sacred objects.
The story of my uncle Wolf Chief, as he was after-
wards called, will show what sufferings a young man
was willing to endure who went out to seek his god.
He was but seventeen when his father, Small Ankle,
said to him, “ My son, I think you should go
out and seek your god!” The next morning my
uncle climbed a high butte overlooking the Missouri,
and prayed:
“O gods, I am poor; I lead a poor life;
Make me a good man, a brave warrior!
I want to be a great warrior;
I want to capture many horses;
I want to teach much to my people;
I want to be their chief and save them in their need!”
For three days and nights, my uncle prayed; and in
this time he had not a mouthful of food, not a drop of
water to drink. The fourth day his father came to
him. “ My son,” he said, “ perhaps the gods would
have you become a great man : and they are trying
you, whether you are worthy, You have not suffered
enough!”
“ I am ready, father,” said my uncle.
Small Ankle fixed a stout post in the ground and
THE GODS
31
fastened my uncle to it with thongs, so that all day he
was in great suffering.
In the evening, Small Ankle came and cut him loose.
“You have suffered enough, my son,” he said; “I
think the gods will now pity you and give you a dream !”
He took my uncle home and gave him something to
eat and drink; then he laid the boy tenderly upon a
pile of buffalo skins, before his own medicines.
For a long time, my uncle could not sleep for the pain
from his wounds. A little before daylight, he fell into
a troubled dream. He heard a man outside, walking
around the earth lodge. The man was singing a
mystery song; now and then he paused and cried,
“ You have done well, Strong Bull!”
Small Ankle was very happy when my uncle awoke
and told him his dream. He knew that one of the gods
had now come to his son to protect him and help him;
and he called the boy by his new name, Strong Bull,
that the god had
given him.
Other men had
different dreams.
My grandfather
once told me of a
man who had a
vision of four buf-
falo skulls that be-
came alive.
Many years ago
when our villages
were on Knife River
a man named Bush went out to find his god. He
sought a vision from the buffalo spirits; and he
Buffalo Skulls.
32
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
thought to make himself suffer so that the spirits might
pity him. He tied four buffalo skulls in a train,
one behind another, and as Bush walked he dragged
the train of skulls behind him.
He made his way painfully up the Missouri, mourning
and crying to the gods. The banks of the Missouri
are much cut up by ravines, and Bush suffered greatly
as he dragged the heavy skulls over this rough country.
Fifty miles north of the villages, he came to the
Little Missouri, a shallow stream, but subject to sudden
freshets; he found the river flooded, and rising.
He stood on the bank and cried: “ O gods, I am poor
and I suffer! I want to find my god. Other men have
suffered, and found their gods. Now I suffer much,
but no god answers me. I am going to plunge into
this torrent. I think I shall die, yet I will plunge in.
0 gods, if you are going to answer me, do it now and
save me!”
He waded in, dragging the heavy skulls after him.
The water grew deeper. He could no longer wade, he
had to swim; he struck out.
He wondered that he no longer felt the weight of the
skulls, and that he did not sink. The he heard some-
thing behind him cry, “ Whoo-oo-oohr He looked
around. The four buffalo skulls were swimming about
him, buoying him up; but they were no longer skulls!
Flesh and woolly hair covered them; they had big,
blue eyes; they had red tongues. They were alive!
Bush himself told this story to my grandfather.
It should not be thought that Bush was trying to
deceive when he said he saw these things. If one had
been with him when he sprang into the torrent, and had
cried, “ Bush, the skulls are not alive; it is your delirium
THE GODS
33
that makes you think they live!” he would have
answered, “Of course you cannot see they are alive!
The vision is to me, not to you. The flesh and hair and
eyes are spirit flesh. I see them; you see only the
skulls!”
A man might go out many times thus, to find his
god. If he had ill success in war, or if sickness or mis-
fortune came upon him, he would think the gods had
forgotten him ; and he would throw away his moccasins,
cut his hair as for mourning, paint his face with white
clay, and again cry to the gods for a vision.
A medicine man’s visions were like other men’s;
but we gave them more heed, because we thought he
had more power with the gods. We looked upon a
medicine man as a prophet; his dreams and visions
were messages to us from the spirits; and we thought
of his mystery power as white men think of a prophet’s
power to work miracles. Our medicine men sought
visions for us, and messages from the gods, just as
white men’s preachers study to tell them what God
speaks to them in His Book.
A medicine man had much influence in the tribe. He
cured our sick, called the buffalo herds to us, gave us
advice when a war party was being formed, and in
times of drought prayed for rain.
Worshipping as we did many gods, we Indians did
not think it strange that white men prayed to another
God; and when missionaries came, we did not think
it wrong that they taught us to pray to their God,
but that they said we should not pray to our own
gods. “ Why,” we asked, “ do the missionaries hate
our gods? We do not deny the white men’s Great
Spirit; why, then, should they deny our gods?”
34
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
Sometimes Indians who seek to join the mission
church, secretly pray to their own gods; more often
an Indian who accepts Jesus Christ and tries to follow
Him, still fears his old gods, although he no longer
prays to them.
Many older Indians, who do not know English,
look upon Jesus Christ as they would upon one of their
own gods; a story will show how His mission is some-
times misunderstood.
On this reservation lives a medicine woman, named
Minnie Enemy Heart. When a girl, she went to the
mission school and learned something about Jesus
Christ. Afterward, as her fathers had done, she went
into the hills to seek her god. She says that she fasted
and prayed, and Jesus came to her in a vision. One
side of his body was dark, like an Indian; the other
side was white, like a white man. In His white hand
he carried a lamb; in the other, a little dog.
Jesus explained the vision. “ My body,” He said,
“ half dark and half white, means that I am as much an
Indian as I am a white man. This dog means that
Indian ways are for Indians, as white ways are for
white men; for Indians sacrifice dogs, as white men
once sacrificed lambs. If the missionaries tell you this
is not true, ask them who crucified me, were they Indians
or white men?”
Many Indians believe this vision. More than fifteen
have left the Catholic priest to follow Minnie Enemy
Heart, and three or four have left our Protestant
mission.
To us Indians, the spirit world seemed very near,
and we did nothing without taking thought of the gods.
If we would begin a journey, form a war party, hunt, trap
THE GODS
35
eagles, or fish, or plant corn, we first prayed to the
spirits. A bad dream would send the bravest war
party hurrying home.
If our belief seem strange to white men, theirs seemed
just as strange to us.
IV
INDIAN BELIEFS
MANY medi-
cine men
added to
their mystery power
by owning sacred
bundles, neatly bound
bundles of skin or
cloth, containing sa-
cred objects or relics
that had been handed
down from old times.
Every bundle had its
history, telling how
the bundle began and
what gods they were
that helped those
who prayed before it.
There were about
sixty of these sacred
bundles in the tribe,
when I was a boy.
The owner of a sacred bundle was called its keeper;
he usually kept it hung on his medicine post, in the
back part of his lodge. A sacred bundle was looked
Medicine Post and Sacred Bundle.
36
INDIAN BELIEFS
37
upon as a kind of shrine, and in some lodges strangers
were forbidden to walk between it and the fire.
When a keeper became old, he sold his sacred bundle
to some younger man, that its rites might not die with
him. The young man paid a hundred tanned buffalo
skins and a gun or pony, and made a feast for the keeper;
at this feast, the young man received the bundle with
Shrine and Sacred Bundle of the Big Birds’ Ceremony.
the rites and songs that went with it. This was called,
“ making a ceremony.”
White men think it strange that we Indians honored
these sacred bundles; but I have heard that in Europe
men once honored relics, the skull, or a bone, or a bit
of hair of some saint, or a nail from Jesus’ cross; that
they did not pray to the relic, but thought that the
spirit of the saint was near; or that he was more willing
to hear their prayers when they knelt before the relic.
In much the same way, we Indians honored our
sacred bundles. They contained sacred objects, or
38
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
relics, that had belonged each to some god — his scalp,
or skull, the pipe he smoked, or his robe. We did not
pray to the object, but to the god or spirit to whom it
had belonged, and we thought these sacred objects
had wonderful power, just as white men once thought
they could be cured of sickness by touching the bone
of some saint.
A medicine man’s influence was greater if he owned
a sacred bundle. Men then came to him not only
because the spirits answered him when he fasted, but
because, as its keeper, he had power from the gods of
the sacred bundle.
The most famous of these sacred bundles belonged to
my grandfather, Small Ankle. It was called the bundle
of the Big Birds’ ceremony. It was kept on a kind of
stand in the back part of our lodge, and it contained two
skulls and a carved wooden pipe. These objects were
thought to be very holy.
When my tribe came up the Missouri to Like-a-fish-
hook Bend, where they built their last village, they
first camped there in tepees. A question arose as to
how they should plan their village, and the more im-
portant medicine men of the tribe came and sat in a
circle, to consider what to do. This was seven years
after the small-pox year.
At that time, the skulls of the Big Birds’ ceremony
were owned by an old man named Missouri River.
The other medicine men, knowing that these skulls
were most important sacred objects in the tribe, said
to Missouri River, “ Your gods are most powerful.
Tell us how we should lay out our village!”
Missouri River brought the two skulls from his tent,
and holding one in either hand, he walked around in
INDIAN BELIEFS
39
a wide circle, returning again to the place where he
had started. “ We will leave this circle open, in the
center of our village,” he said. “ So shall we plan it! ”
He laid the skulls on the grass and said to Big Cloud,
Small Ankle’s son-in-law, “ Your gods are powerful.
Choose where you will build your earth lodge! ”
Big Cloud arose. “ I will build it here,” he said,
“ where lie the two skulls. The door shall face the west,
for my gods are eagles that send thunder, and eagles
and thunders come from the west. And so I think
we shall have rain, and our children and our fields
shall thrive, and we shall live here many years.” Big
Cloud had once seen a vision of thunder eagles, awake
and with his eyes open.
The medicine men said to Has-a-game-stick, “You
choose a place for your lodge! ”
Has-a-game-stick stood and said, “ My god is the
Sunset Woman. I want my lodge to face the sunset,
that the Sunset Woman may remember me, and I will
pray to her that the village may have plenty and enemies
may never take it, and I think the Sunset Woman will
hear me! ”
The medicine men said to Bad Horn, “ You stand up ! ”
Bad Horn stood and said, “ My gods are bears, and
bears always make the mouths of their dens open
toward the north. I want my lodge door to open toward
the north, that my bear gods may remember me. And
I will pray to them that this village may stand many
years! ”
The medicine men then said to Missouri River,
“ Choose a place for your lodge! ”
Missouri River took the two skulls, one in either
hand, and singing a mystery song, walked around the
40
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
circle with his right hand toward the center, as moves
the sun. Three times he walked around, the fourth
time he stopped at a place and prayed, “ My gods,
you are my protectors, protect also this village. Send
also rains that our grain may grow, and our children
may eat and be strong and healthy. So shall we pros-
per, because my sacred bundle is in the village.”
He turned to the company upon the grass. “ Go,
the rest of you,” he said, “ and choose where you will
build your lodges; and keep the circle open, as I have
marked! ”
Before Missouri River died, he sold his sacred bundle
to my grandfather, Small Ankle; and Small Ankle
sold it to his son, Wolf Chief. After Wolf Chief became
a Christian, he sold the bundle to a man in New York,
that it might be put into a museum.
We had other beliefs, besides these of the gods.
We thought that all little babies had lived before,
most of them as birds, or beasts, or even plants. My
father, Son-of-a-Star, claimed he could even remember
what bird he had been.
We believed that many babies came from the babes’
lodges. There were several of these. One was near our
villages on the Knife River. It was a hill of yellow
sand, with a rounded top like the roof of an earth lodge.
In one side was a little cave, and the ground about the
cave’s mouth was worn smooth, as if children played
there. Sometimes in the morning, little footprints were
found in the sand.
To this hill a childless wife would come to pray for
a son or daughter. She would lay a pair of very beauti-
ful child’s moccasins at the mouth of the cave and
pray: “ I am poor. I am lonesome. Come to me, one
INDIAN BELIEFS
4i
of you! I love you. I long for you! ” We understood
that children who came from this babes’ lodge had
light skin and yellowish hair, like yellow sand.
A very old man once said to me: “I remember my
former life. I lived in a babes’ lodge. It was like a
small earth lodge inside. There was a pit before the
door, crossed by a log. Many of the babes, trying to
cross the pit, fell in. But I walked the whole length
of the log; hence I have lived to be an old man.” I
have heard this story from other old men.
Very small children, who died before they teethed
or were old enough to laugh, were not buried upon
scaffolds with our other dead, but were wrapped in skins
and placed in trees. We thought if such a baby died,
that its spirit went back to live its former life again,
as a bird, or plant, or as a babe in one of the babes’
lodges.
Older children and men and women, when they died,
went to the ghosts’ village. This was a big town of
earth lodges, where the dead lived very much as they
had lived on earth. Older Indians of my tribe still
believe in the ghosts’ village.
There were men in my tribe who had died, as we
believed, and gone to the ghosts’ village, and come
back to life again. From these men we learned what
the ghosts’ village was like.
My mother’s grandfather came back thus, from the
ghosts’ village; his name was It-si-di-shi-di-it-a-ka, or
Old Yellow Elk.
Old Yellow Elk had an otter skin for his medicine,
or sacred object. He died in the small-pox year; and his
family laid his body out on a hill with the otter skin
under his head for a pillow. Logs were piled about
42
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
the body, to keep off wolves. Men were dying so fast
that there was no time to make burial scaffolds.
That night a voice was heard calling from the hill,
“ A-ha-he! 4 -ha-het Come for me, I want to get
up! ”
The villagers ran to the grave and took away the
logs, and Old Yellow Elk arose and came home.
“ The ghosts’ village is a fine town,” he told his
family. “ I saw many people there, they gave me a
spotted pony. My god, the otter, brought me back.
He led me up the bed of the Missouri, under the water.
I brought my pony with me and tied him to a log on
my grave ! ”
His family went out to the grave the next morning
and looked for the pony’s tracks, but found none!
All these things I firmly believed, when I was a boy.
V
SCHOOL DAYS
I WAS six years old when
Mr. Hall, a missionary,
came to us, from the
Santee Sioux. He could not
speak the Mandan or the Hi-
datsa language, but he spoke
Sioux, which some of our
people understood. He was a
good singer; and he had a
song which he sang with Sioux
words. Our people would
crowd about him to hear it,
for it was the first Christian
^ong they had ever heard.
The song began:
“Ho washte, ho washte,
On J esus yatan miye;
Ho walcan, ho wakan,
Nina hin yeyan!”
The words are a translation
of an English hymn:
The Sun Man (Redrawn from
a sketch by Goodbird).
43
44
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
“Sweetly sing, sweetly sing,
Jesus is our Saviour king;
Let us raise, let us raise,
High our notes of praise!”
It is a custom of my people to give a name to every
stranger who comes among us, either from some singu-
larity in his dress or appearance, or from something
that he says or does. Our people caught the first two
words of the missonary’s song and named him after
them, Ho Washte. He is still called by this name.
Mr. Hall had brought his wife with him, and they
began building a house with timbers freighted up the
river on a steamboat. Our chief, Crow’s Belly, threat-
ened to bum the house, but the missionary made him a
feast and explained that he wanted to use the house
for a school, where Indian children could learn English.
Crow’s Belly thought this a good plan, and made no
further trouble.
The school was opened the next winter. It was soon
noised in the village that English would be taught in
the mission school, and several young men started to
attend, my uncle, Wolf Chief, among them. They
went each morning with hair newly braided, faces
painted, and big brass rings on their fingers. Most
of them found school work rather hard, and soon
tired of it.
The next fall, my parents started me to school, for
my father wanted me to learn English. The mission
house was a half mile from our village; I went each
morning with a little Mandan companion, named
Hollis Montclair, We wore Indian dress, leggings,
moccasins, and leather shirt.
SCHOOL DAYS
45
At noon Hollis and I would return to the village for
our noon meal; and sometimes we would go to school
again in the afternoon. We went pretty faithfully
all the fall, and until Christmas time, when our teacher
told us we were to have a Christmas tree.
Hollis and I had never seen a Christmas tree; and
when Christmas day came, we could hardly wait until
the time came for us to go to the school house. It was
a cheerful scene then, that met our eyes. The tree was
a cedar cut on the Missouri bottoms, lighted, and
trimmed with strips of bright colored paper. Mr.
Hall and his family sat at the front, smiling. My teacher
moved about among the children, greeting each as he
arrived, and speaking a kind word to those that were
shy. About fifteen school children of the age of Hollis
and myself were present.
We had music and singing, and Mr. Hall explained
what Christmas means, that it is the birthday of Jesus,
the Son of God; and that we should be happy because
He loved us. Presents were then given us; each child
was called by name, and handed a little gift taken
from the tree.
And now I grieve to say, that Hollis and I acted as
badly as two white children. There was a magnet
hanging on the tree, a piece of steel shaped like a horse
shoe, that picked up bits of iron. Hollis and I thought
it the most wonderful thing we had ever seen. We
each hoped to receive it; but it was given to another
child. This vexed us; and we left upon the floor the
gifts we had received, and stalked out of the room.
The last thing I saw as I went out of the door was my
teacher with her handkerchief to her eyes. I did not
feel happy when I thought of this; but I was an Indian
46
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
boy, and I was not going to forgive her for not giving
me the magnet!
I told the story of the magnet to my parents; and
finding I was unwilling to go back to the mission, they
sent me to the government school that our agent had
just opened; but I did not go there long. I was taken
sick, and my former teacher came to see me in our
earth lodge. She was so kind and forgiving that I
forgot all about the magnet, and when I got well I went
back to the mission school.
I grew to love my teacher, although I was always a
little afraid of her. We boys were not allowed to talk
in study hours; but when our teacher’s back was turned,
we would whisper to one another. Sometimes our
teacher turned quickly, and if she caught any of us
whispering, she would come and give each of us a spat
on the head with a book; but it did not hurt much, so
we did not care.
We used to sing a good deal in the school. One song
I liked was, “ I need Thee every hour.” I loved to
sing, although the songs we learned were very dif-
ferent from our Indian songs. Indians are fond of
music; I have known my grandfather and three or four
cronies to sit at our lodge fire an entire night, drumming
and singing, and telling stories.
I found English a rather hard language to learn.
Many of the older Indians would laugh at any who
tried to learn to read. “ You want to forsake your
Indian ways and be white men,” they would say; but
there were many in the village who wanted their chil-
dren to learn English.
My grandfather was deeply interested in my studies.
“ It is their books that make white men strong, ”__he
SCHOOL DAYS
47
would say. “ The buffaloes will soon be killed; and we
Indians must learn white ways, or starve.” He was a
progressive old man.
I am sorry to say that I played hookey sometimes.
Big dances were often held in the village; especially,
when a war party came in with a scalp, there was great
excitement. The scalp was raised aloft on a pole, and
the women danced about it, screaming, and singing
glad songs. Warriors painted their faces with charcoal,
and danced, sang, yelled, and boasted of their deeds.
Everybody feasted and made merry.
When I knew that a dance was going to be held, I
would hide somewhere in the village, instead of going
to school. The next day my teacher would say,
“ Where were you yesterday?” “At the dance,” I would
answer. She would then tell me how naughty I was;
but she never punished me, for she knew if she did,
I would leave the school. My parents also scolded,
but did not punish me. I am afraid I was a bad little
boy!
One day, on my way to school, I was overtaken by
a very old white man, with white hair. I had been
going to school about a year and could talk a little
English.
“ What is your name, little fellow? ” the old man
asked. He had a friendly voice.
“ My name is Goodbird,” I answered.
“But what is your English name? ”
“ I have none.”
“ Then I will give you mine,” the old man said,
smiling. “ It is Edward Moore.”
It is a common custom for an Indian to give his name
to a friend; so I did not know the old man’s words were
48
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
said in fun. At the school, I told Mr. Hall what the
old man had said, and he laughed. “ I think Moore
is not a good name for you,” he said. “ Moore sounds
like moor, a marshy place where mists rise in the air,
but Edward is a very good name.”
So I have called myself Edward Goodbird ever since.
Every Friday Mr. Hall gave a dinner in the mission
house to his pupils. We Indian children thought
these dinners wonderful. Many of us had never tasted
white men’s food; some things, as sour pickles, we did
not like. Mr. Hall wanted us to learn to eat white
bread and biscuits, so that we would ask our mothers
to bake bread at home. He hoped this would be a
means of getting us to like white men’s ways.
On Saturdays we had no school, and Mr. Hall would
go around the village, shaking hands with the Indians
and inviting them to come to church the next morning.
Later, Poor Wolf acted as his crier, and on Saturday
evenings he would go around, calling out, “ Ho Washte,
Ho Washte! Come you people, to-morrow, and sit for
him ! ” He meant for them to come to church the
next morning and sit in chairs.
Mr. Hall’s janitor, a young Indian named Bear’s
Teeth, swept out the mission house, made the fires, and
got the school room ready for the services. There was
no bell on the mission, so a flag was run up as a signal
for the congregation to gather.
Not many came to the services, fifteen or twenty
were a usual congregation, sometimes only ten. Mr.
Hall preached, and to make his sermons plainer, he
often drew pictures on the blackboard.
My father thought the missionary’s religion was good,
but would not himself forsake the old ways. “ The old
SCHOOL DAYS
49
gods are best for me,” he used to say, but he let me go
to hear Mr. Hall preach. I cannot say that I always
understood the sermon. Sometimes Mr. Hall would
say, “ Thirty years ago, my friends, I saw the light! ”
I thought he meant he had seen a vision.
But I learned a good deal from Mr. Hall’s preaching;
and my lessons and the songs I learned at school made
me think of Jesus; but I thought an Indian could be a
Christian and also believe in the old ways.
It came over me one day, that this could not be.
A story of our Indian god, It-si-ka-ma-hi-di, tells us
that the sun is a man, with his body painted red, like
fire; that the earth is flat, and that the sky covers it
like a bowl turned bottom up; but in my geography,
at school, I learned that the earth is round.
In our earth lodge, that night, I said to my parents,
“ This earth is round; the sun is a burning ball! ” My
cousin Butterfly was disgusted. “ That is white man’s
talk,” he grunted. “ This earth is flat. White men are
foolish! ” This I would in no wise admit, and I came
home almost daily with some new proof that the earth
was round.
As I grew older and began to read books, I thought
of myself as a Christian, but more because I went to the
mission school, than because I thought of Jesus as my
Saviour. I loved to read the stories of the Bible;
and Mr. Hall taught me the Ten Commandments. Some
of the Indian boys learned to swear, from hearing white
men; but I never did, because Mr. Hall told me it was
wrong. I thought that those who did as the Bible
bade, would grow up to be good men.
I had a cousin, three years older than myself, in the
Santee Indian school, who had become a Christian.
5°
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
One day I received a letter from him. “I believe in
Jesus’ way,” he wrote. “ I believe Jesus is a good
Saviour. I have tried His way, and I want you to try
to join in and have Him for your Saviour.” This letter
set me to thinking.
In these years, my life outside the school room was
wholly Indian. We Hidatsa children knew nothing of
base ball, or one hole cat, or other white children’s
games, but we had many Indian games that we played.
Some of these games I think better than those now
played on our reservation.
In March and early April, we boys played the hoop
game. A level place, bare of snow, was found, and the
boys divided into two sides, about thirty yards apart.
Small hoops, covered with
a lacing of thongs, were
rolled forward, and were
caught by those of the
opposite side on sticks,
thrust or darted through
the lacings. A hoop so
Hoop and Stick of the Hoop Game.
caught, was sent hurtling through the air, the object
being to hit some one of the opposing players.
The game was played but a few weeks, for as soon
as the ice broke on the Missouri, we boys went to the
high bank of the river, and hurled our hoops into the
current. We were told, and really believed, that they
SCHOOL DAYS
5i
became dead buffaloes as soon as they had passed out
of sight, beyond the next point of land. Such buffaloes,
drowned in the thin ice of autumn and frozen in, came
floating down the river in large numbers at the spring
break-up. The carcasses were always fat, and the
frozen flesh was sweet and tender.
After the first thunder in spring, we played
u-a-ki-he-ke, or throw stick. Willow
rods were cut, peeled, and dried,
and then stained red, with ochre, or
a bright green, with grass. These
rods, darted against the ground,
rebounded to a great distance. The
player won whose rod went far-
thest. U-a-ki-he-ke is still played on
the reservation.
In June, when the rising waters
have softened the river’s clay banks,
we fought sham battles. Each boy
cut a willow withe, as long as a
buggy whip, and on the smaller end
squeezed a lump of wet clay. With
the withe as a sling, he could throw
the clay ball to an astonishing
distance. Hidatsa and Mandan boys ^0n Lodge PostT
often fought against one another, using these clay
balls as missiles.
It was exciting play, for we fought like armies, each
side trying to force the other’s position; when an attack
was made, a storm of mud balls would come whizzing
through the air like bullets. A hit on the bare flesh
stung like a real wound. Once one of my playmates
was hit in the eye, and badly hurt. I was just over
52
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
fourteen, when my parents let me join in the grass
dance, or war dance, as the whites call it. The other
dancers made me an officer, and my father was so
pleased, that he hung up a fine eagle’s feather war
bonnet in our lodge. “ If enemies come against us,”
he said, “ my son shall go out to fight wearing this
war bonnet!”
One evening, Bear’s Arm, a lad of eighteen years,
came in from hunting a strayed pony; he was much
excited. “I saw two Sioux in war dress, hiding in
a coulee,” he told us.
Our warriors ran for their ponies. “ Put on your
war bonnet,” my father said to me. “ I am going
to take you in the party. Keep close to me; and if
there is a fight, see if you cannot strike an enemy!”
We rode all night, Bear’s Arm leading us. We
reached the coulee and surrounded it a little before
daybreak, and with the first streak of dawn, we closed
in, our rifles ready; but we found no enemies.
This was my one war exploit.
Buffaloes.
VI
HUNTING BUFFALOES
The summer I was twelve years old, our village
went on a buffalo hunt, for scouts had brought
in word that herds had been sighted a hundred
miles west of the Missouri. My father, Son-of-a-Star,
was chosen leader of the hunt.
My tribe no longer used travois, for the government
had issued wagons to us. These we took apart, loading
the wheels into bull boats while the beds were floated
over the river. We made our first camp at the edge
of the foot hills, on the other side of the river.
The next morning, we struck tents, loaded them
into our wagons, and began the march.
S3
54
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
My father led, carrying his medicine bundle at his
saddle head; behind him rode two or three elder
Indians, leaders of the tribe, also on horseback. Then
followed the wagons in a long line; and on either side
rode the young men, on their tough, scrubby, little
ponies.
Some of our young men as they rode, drove small
companies of horses. Neighbors commonly put their
horses together, and a young man, or two or three
young men, acted as herders. Sometimes a girl,
mounted astraddle like a man, drove them.
Now and then a youth might be seen reining in his
pony to let the line of wagons pass, while he kept a
sharp watch for his sweet-
heart. She hardly glanced
at him as she rode by, for it
was not proper for a young
man’s sweetheart to let him
talk to her in the march-
ing line. The time for court-
ship was in camp, in the
evening.
Toward five or six in the
afternoon, we made camp.
The wagons were drawn up
in a big circle, and the women pitched the tents,
while the men unhitched and hobbled their horses,
and brought firewood. The women brought water and
lighted the fires.
Water was carried in pails. I have heard that in
old times, they used clay pots made of a kind of red
clay, and burned; a thong went around the neck of
the pot, for a handle.
Clay Pot with Thong Handle.
HUNTING BUFFALOES
55
My mother, an active woman, often had her fire
started before her neighbors. While she got supper,
my father sat and smoked. Friends frequently joined
him, and they would sit in a circle, passing the pipe
around, telling funny stories and laughing. My father
was a capital story teller.
For supper we had deer or antelope meat, boiled or
roasted, and my mother often fried wheat-flour dough
into a kind of biscuits that were rather hard. Corn
picked green the year before, and boiled and dried,
was stewed in a kettle, making a dish much like the
canned corn we buy at the store. More often we had
succotash, hominy boiled with fat and beans. We
drank black coffee, sweetened; my mother put the coffee
beans into a skin, pounded them fine with an ax, and
boiled them in an iron pot. You see, we were getting
civilized.
When supper was ready, my mother would call
“ Mi-ha-dits — I have done!” and my father would put
up his pipe and come to eat. My mother gave him
meat, steaming hot, in a tin dish, and poured coffee
into a cup; another cup held meat broth, which made a
good drink also. We did not bring wooden feast bowls
with us, as some families did.
My mother and I ate with my father, much as white
families do; a robe or blanket was spread for each to
sit upon.
I wore moccasins and leggings; and my hair was
braided, Indian fashion, in two tails over my shoulders,
but my mother had made me a white man’s vest, of
black cloth, embroidered all over with elk teeth. I
was proud of this vest, and cared not a whit that I had
no coat to wear over it.
56 GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
The seventh day out, we made camp near the Cannon
Ball River. My father had sent two mounted scouts
ahead, with a spy glass, to see if they could find the
herds; at evening, they returned with the report,
“ There is a big herd yonder!” Everybody got ready for
the hunt the next morning, and my father
made me happy by telling me that I might
go along.
We arose early. My father saddled two
ponies, one of them a pack animal; and I
mounted a third, with a white man’s saddle.
My father’s were pack saddles, of elk horn,
covered with raw hide; ropes, looped up like
a figure 8, were tied behind them to be used
in binding the packs of meat we would bring
home from the hunt.
There were about forty hunters in our party,
mounted, and leading each a pack horse; eight
boys, of twelve or fifteen years of age, and
three old men. I remember one of the old
men carried a bow and arrows, probably from
old custom. Only the hunters expected to take
part in the actual chase of the buffaloes;
they were armed with rifles.
The party’s leader, E-di-a-ka-ta — the same
(Indian wh0 jgd our tribe to the Yellowstone — rode
Whip'^ ahead, and we followed at a brisk trot. Five
miles out of camp, the two scouts were again sent ahead
with the spy glass. We saw them coming back at a
gallop and knew that the herd was found, and we
urged our horses at the top of their speed. I
remember the slap of the quirts on the little
ponies’ flanks; and the beat-beat, beat-beat! of their
Quirt
HUNTING BUFFALOES
57
hoofs on the hard ground. Indians do not shoe their
horses.
We drew rein behind a hill, a half mile to leeward
of the herd, and, having dismounted, hobbled our led
horses. Our hunters laid aside their shirts and leggings,
stripped the saddles from their ponies’ backs, and
twisted bridles of thong into their ponies’ mouths; it
was our tribe’s custom to ride bare-back in the hunt.
E-di-a-ka-ta went a little way off and stood, facing
in the direction of the herd ; from a piece of red cloth
he tore a long strip, ripped this again into three or
four pieces and laid them on the ground. I saw his
lips move, and knew he was praying, but I could not
hear his words. The pieces of red cloth were an offer-
ing J;o the spirits of the buffaloes.
Our hunters remounted and drew up in a line facing
the herd, E-di-a-ka-ta on the right, and at a signal,
the line started forward, neck-and-neck, at a brisk gallop.
A guard, named Tsa-wa, or Bear’s Chief, rode in advance;
if a hunter pressed too far forward in the line, Tsa-wa
struck the hunter’s pony in the face with his quirt.
We boys and the three old men rode a little behind
the line of hunters; we did not expect to take part
in the hunt, but wanted to see the kill.
As we cleared the brow of the hill we sighted the
buffaloes, about four hundred yards away, and
E-di-a-ka-ta gave the signal, “ Ku’kats — Now then!”
Down came the quirts on the little ponies’ flanks,
making them leap forward like big cats. The line
broke at once, each hunter striving to reach the herd
first and kill the fattest. An iron-gray horse, I remem-
ber, was in the lead.
We boys followed at breakneck speed — unwilling-
58
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
ly on my part; my pony had taken the bit in his
mouth and was going over the stony ground at a speed
that I feared would throw him any moment and break
his neck and mine. I tugged at the reins and clung
to the saddle, too scared to cry out.
Bang! A fat cow tumbled over. Bang! Bang! Bang!
Bang! The frightened herd started to flee, swerved to
the right, and went thundering away up wind, in a
whirl of dust. Buffaloes, when alarmed, fly up wind
if the way is open; their sight is poor, but they have
a keen scent, and running up wind they can nose an
Indian a half mile away.
For such heavy beasts, buffaloes have amazing speed,
and only our fastest horses were used in hunting them;
indeed, a young bull often outran our fastest ponies.
Only cows were killed. The flesh of bulls is tough
and was not often eaten; that of calves crumbled when
dried, making it unfit for storing.
Some buffalo calves, forsaken by the herd, were
running wildly over the prairie, bleating for their
mothers; two of our hunters caught one of the smallest
with a lariat, and brought it to me. “ Here, boy,”
they said, “ keep this calf.”
I caught the rope and drew the calf after me; but
my pony, growing frightened, reared and kicked the
little animal; paying out more rope, I led the calf at a
safer distance from my horse’s heels.
The hunters came straggling back, and my father
seeing the calf, cried out, “ Let that calf go! Buffaloes
are sacred animals. You should not try to keep one
captive!” I was much disappointed, for I wanted to
take it into camp.
My father had killed three fat cows, and these he
HUNTING BUFFALOES
59
now sought out and dressed. The shoulders, hams, and
choicer cuts he loaded on our led horse, covering the
pack with a green hide and tying it down with the raw-
hide ropes brought for the purpose; the rest he left
in a pile on the prairie, covered with the other two
hides. We intended to return for
these with wagons, the next day.
As my father was cutting up one
of the carcasses, I saw him throw
away what I thought were good
Drying Meat and Boiling Bones.
cuts; I did not like to see good meat wasted, and
when I thought he was not looking, I slyly put the
pieces back on the pile.
We returned to camp slowly, at times urging our
ponies to a gentle trot, more often letting them walk.
My father had to dismount several times to secure our
pack of meat, which threatened to slip from our pack
horse’s back. In our tent that evening, I heard him
6o
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
telling my mother of my part in the hunt. “ Our son,”
he said, “is no wasteful lad. He put back some tough
leg pieces that I had thrown away. He would not see
good meat wasted!” And they both laughed.
Stages were built in the camp, and for two days,
every body was busy drying meat or boiling bones for
marrow fat. The dried meat was packed in skin bags,
or made into bundles; the marrow fat was run into
bladders; and all was taken to Like-a-fish-hook village,
to be stored for winter.
Goodbird at the Age of Twenty. (Redrawn from Portrait by Gilbert
Saul. Report Indian Census, 1890.)
VII
FARMING
THE time came when we had to forsake our village
at Like-a-fish-hook Bend, for the government
wanted the Indians to become farmers. “ You
should take allotments,” our agent would say. “ The
big game is being killed off, and you must plant bigger
fields or starve. The government will give you plows
and cattle.”
All knew that the agent’s words were true, and little
by little our village was broken up. In the summer
of my sixteenth year nearly a third of my tribe left to
take up allotments.
We had plenty of land; our reservation was twice the
size of Rhode Island, and our united tribes, with the
Rees who joined us, were less than thirteen hundred
61
62
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
souls. Most of the Indians chose allotments along
the Missouri, where the soil was good and drinking water
easy to get. Unallotted lands were to be sold and the
money given to the three tribes.
Forty miles above our village, the Missouri makes
a wide bend around a point called Independence Hill,
and here my father and several of his relatives chose
their allotments. The bend enclosed a wide strip of
meadow land, offering hay for our horses. The soil
along the river was rich and in the bottom stood a thick
growth of timber.
My father left the village, with my mother and me,
in June. He had a wagon, given him by the agent;
this he unbolted and took over the river piece by piece,
in a bull boat; our horses swam.
We camped at Independence in a tepee, while we
busied ourselves building a cabin. My father cut the
logs; they were notched at the ends, to lock into one
another at the corners. A heavier log, a foot in thick-
ness, made the ridge pole. The roof was of willows
and grass, covered with sods.
Cracks between the logs were plastered with clay,
mixed with short grass. The floor was of earth, but we
had a stove.
We were a month putting up our cabin.
Though my father’s coming to Independence was a
step toward civilization, it had one ill effect: it removed
me from the good influences of the mission school, so
that for a time I fell back into Indian ways. Winter,
also, was not far off; the season was too late for us to
plant corn, and the rations issued to us every two weeks
rarely lasted more than two or three days. To keep
our family in meat, I turned hunter.
FARMING
63
There were no buffaloes on the reservation, but black-
tailed deer were plentiful, and in the hills were a good
many antelopes. I had a Winchester rifle, a 40.60
caliber, and I was a good shot.
To hunt deer, I arose before daylight and went to
the woods along the Missouri. Deer feed much at
night, and as evening came on, they would leave the
thick underbrush by the river and go into the hills
to browse on the rich prairie grasses. I would creep
along the edge of the woods, rifle in hand, ready to
shoot any that I saw coming in from the feeding grounds.
I was careful to keep on the leeward side of the game ;
a deer running up wind will scent an Indian as quickly
as a buffalo.
I loved to hunt, and although a mere boy, I was one
of the quickest shots in my tribe. I remember that
one morning I was coming around a clump of bushes
when I saw a doe and buck ahead, just entering the
thicket. I fired, hardly glancing at the sights; I saw
the buck fall, but when I ran up I found the doe lying
beside him, killed by the same bullet.
Independence was a wild spot. The hill from which
the place took its name had been a favorite fasting place
for young men who sought visions; at its foot, under
a steep bank, swept the Missouri, full of dangerous
whirlpools. Such spots, lonely and wild, we Indians
thought were haunts of the spirits.
Once, when I was a small boy, my father took me to
see the Sun dance. A man named Turtle-no-head
was suspended from a post in a booth, and dancing
around it. Turtle-no-head’s hands were behind him,
and he strained at the rope as he danced. Women
were crying, “ A -la-la-la-la-la! ” Old men were calling
64
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
out, “ Good; Turtle-no-head is a man. One should be
willing to suffer to find his god ; then he will strike many
enemies and win honors!’”
I was much stirred by what I saw, and by the old
men’s words.
“ Father,” I said, “ when I get big, I am going to
suffer and seek a vision, like Turtle-no-head! ”
“ Good! ” said my father, laughing.
At Independence, I thought of this vow made years
before. One day, I said to my father, “ I want you to
suspend me from the high bank, over the Missouri.”
When evening came, my father stripped me to my
clout and moccasins, and helped me paint my body
with white clay. He called a man named Crow, and
they took me to the bank, over the Missouri. My
father fastened me to the rope, and I swung myself
over the bank, hanging with my weight upon the rope.
“Suffer as long as you can!” called my father, and
left me.
I did not feel much pain, but I became greatly
wearied from the strain upon my back and thighs.
Toward morning I could stand it no longer. I drew
myself up on the bank, and went home and to bed; and
I slept so soundly that no dream came from the spirits.
A year later, I again sought a vision. This time
my father took me to a high hill, a mile or two from the
river. He drove a post into the ground, fastened me
to it, as before, and left me, ]‘ust at nightfall.
I threw myself back upon the rope and danced around
the post, hoping to fall into a swoon and see a vision.
It was autumn, and a fight snow was falling; the cold
flakes on my bare shoulders made me shiver till my
teeth chattered. The night was black as pitch. A
FARMING
65
coyote howled. I was so lonely that I wished a ghost
would sit on the post and talk with me, though I was
dreadfully afraid of ghosts, especially at night. I grew
so cold that my knees knocked together.
About two o’clock in the morning, I untied the rope
and went home. For an hour I felt sick, but I soon
fell into a sleep, again dreamless.
I was eating my breakfast when my father came in.
“ I have seen no vision, father,” I told him; he said
nothing.
The next year the government forbade the Indians
to torture themselves when they fasted. My father
was quite vexed. “ The government does wrong to
forbid us to suffer for our gods! ” he said. But I was
rather glad. “ The Indian’s way is hard,” I thought.
“ The white man’s road is easier! ” And I thought
again of the mission school.
Other things drew my thoughts to civilized ways.
Our agent issued to every Indian family having an allot-
ment, a plow, and wheat, flax, and oats, for seeding.
My father and I broke land near our cabin, and in the
spring seeded it down.
We had a fair harvest in the fall. Threshing was
done on the agency machine, and, having sacked our
grain, my father and I hauled it, in four trips, to Hebron,
eighty miles away. Our flax we sold for seventy-five
cents, our wheat for sixty cents, and our oats for twenty-
five cents a bushel. Our four loads brought us about
eighty dollars.
I became greatly interested in farming. There was
good soil on our allotment along the river, although
our fields sometimes suffered from drought; away from
the river, much of our land was stony, fit only for grazing.
66
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
My parents had been at Independence eight years,
when one day the agent sent for me. I went to his
office.
“ I hear you have become a good farmer,” he said,
as I came in. “ I want to appoint you assistant to our
agency farmer. Your district will include all allotments
west of the Missouri between the little Missouri and
Independence. I will pay you three hundred dollars
a year. Will you accept? ”
“ I will try what I can do,” I answered.
“Good,” said the Major. “Now for your orders!
You are to measure off for every able-bodied Indian,
ten acres of ground to be plowed and seeded. If an
Indian is lazy and will not attend to his plowing, report
him to me and I will send a policeman. In the fall,
you are to see that every family puts up two tons of
hay for each horse or steer owned by it.”
I did not know what an acre was. “ It is a piece of
ground,” the agent explained, “ ten rods wide and
sixteen rods long.” From this I was able to compute
pretty well how much ten acres should be; but I am
not sure that all the plots I measured were of the same
size.
I began my new duties at once, and at every cabin
in my district, I measured off a ten-acre plot and
explained the agent’s orders. Not a few of the Indians
had done some plowing at Like-a-fish-hook village,
and all were willing to learn. Once a month, I took
a blacksmith around to inspect the Indians’ plows.
Rains were abundant that summer, and the Indians
had a good crop. Some families harvested a hundred
bushels of wheat from a ten-acre field; others, seventy-
five bushels; and some had also planted oats.
FARMING
67
The government began to issue cattle in payment of
lands sold for us. The first issue was one cow to each
family, and the agent ordered me to see that every
family built a bam.
These bams were put up without planks or nails.
A description of my own will show what they were like;
it rested on a frame of four forked posts, with stringers
laid in the forks; puncheons, or split logs, were leaned
against the stringers for walls; rough-cut rafters sup-
ported a roofing of willows and dry grass, earthed over
with sods.
More cattle were issued to us until we had a consider-
able herd at Independence. The cattle were let run
at large, but each steer or cow was branded by its
owner. Calves ran with their mothers until fall; the
herd was then corralled and each calf was branded
with its mother’s brand. My own brand was the
letters SU on the right shoulder.
Herders guarded our cattle during the calving season ;
we paid them ten cents for every head of stock herded
through the summer months.
I had been assistant farmer six years and our herd
had grown to about four hundred head, when Bird
Bear and Skunk, our two herders, reported that some
of our cattle had strayed. “We have searched the
coulees and thickets, but cannot find them,” they said.
Branding time came; we corralled the herd and found
about fifty head missing.
We now suspected that our cattle had been stolen.
Cattle thieves, we knew, were in the country; they had
broken into a corral one night, on a ranch not far from
Independence and killed a cowboy named Long John.
Winter had passed, when the agent called me one day
68
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
into his office. “ Goodbird,” he said, “ I want you to
take out a party of our agency police and find those
thieves who stole your cattle. Start at once! ”
I got my party together, eight in all; Hollis Mont-
clair, my boyhood chum; Frank White Calf, Crow Bull,
Sam Jones, White Owl, Little Wolf, No Bear, and
myself. Only Hollis and I spoke English.
We started toward the Little Missouri, where we sus-
pected the thieves might be found. I drove a wagon with
our provisions and tent; my men were mounted. We
reached the Little Missouri before nightfall, and camped.
The next morning, we
turned westward; before
noon,wecrossed a prairie
dog village, and shot
three or four prairie dogs
for dinner. The hail
for dinner. The hair was
singed off the carcasses, and
they were drawn, and spitted
on sticks over the fire. Prairie
dogs are not bad eating, especially
in the open air, by a good wood fire;
I have never become so civilized Prairie Dogs,
that I would not rather eat out of doors.
Toward evening we met a cowboy. “How!” I
called, as I drew in my team. “ Have you seen any
stray cattle, with Indian brands, ID, 7 bar, 7, or the
like?” And I told him of our missing cattle.
“ I know where they are,” said the cowboy. “ You
will find them on a ranch near Stroud’s post-office;
but don’t tell who told you!”
“ Have no fear,” I answered.
Stroud’s post-office was farther west, near the Mon-
FARMING 69
tana border; we reached it the third or fourth day-
out.
We made camp, and after supper, I went in and
told Mr. Stroud our errand.
“ Yes,” he said, “ your cattle are three miles from
here, on a ranch owned by Frank Powers; he hired two
cowboys to steal them for him.”
The next morning my men and I mounted, and leav-
ing our wagon at Stroud’s, started for Powers’ ranch.
I was unarmed; the others of my party had their rifles.
We stopped at the cabin of a man named Crockin,
to inquire our way. A white man came in; after he
had gone out again, I asked Crockin, “ Who is that man?”
“ He is Frank Powers,” said Crockin.
I turned to my men and said in their own language,
“ That is the man who stole our cattle.”
Little Wolf drew his cleaning rod. “ I am going to
give that bad white man a beating,” he cried angrily.
“ You will not,” I answered. “ We will go into
Powers’ pasture and round up his cattle; and I will cut
out all that I think are ours. If that bad white man
comes out and says evil words against me, do nothing.
If he shoots at me, kill him quick; but do not you shoot
first!”
My men loaded their rifles, and about two o’clock
I led them into the pasture. Powers’ cattle were all
bunched in a big herd; we drove them to a grassy flat,
and I began cutting out those that were ours.
Powers saw us and came out, revolver in hand, and
two or three white men joined him. He was so angry
that he acted like a mad man; he grew red in the face,
talked loud, and swore big oaths; but he did not shoot,
for he knew my men would kill him.
70
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
I cut about twenty-five head out of the herd, all
that I found with altered brands on the right shoulder
or thigh. Maybe I took some of Powers’ cattle by
mistake, but I did not care much.
Powers left us after a while. My men rounded up
our cattle, and we drove them back to Stroud’s and
camped.
After supper, I asked Mr. Stroud to write a letter
to our agent, telling him what I had done. “ To-
morrow,” I told my men, “ we will set out for home.
You drive our cattle back to the reservation in short
stages, so that they will not sicken with the heat. I
will go ahead with Mr. Stroud’s letter.”
I set out before sunrise; at four o’clock I reached
Independence, eighty miles away; and at sunset, I
was at Elbowoods.
It was Decoration day, and the Indians were having
a dance. The agent was sitting in his office with the
inspector, from Washington.
“ I have found our cattle,” I said; and I gave him
Mr. Stroud’s letter.
He read it and handed it to the inspector.
“ Report this matter to the United States marshal,”
the inspector said to him. “ Tell him to have Powers
arrested.”
The Chapel at Independence.
VIII
THE WHITE MAN’S WAY
MY thirty-fifth winter — as we Indians count
years — found me still assistant farmer; but
time had brought many changes to our reser-
vation. Antelope and blacktailed deer had gone the
way of the buffalo. A few earth lodges yet stood,
dwellings of stern old warriors who lived in the past;
but the Indian police saw that every child was in school
learning the white man’s way. A good dinner at the
noon hour made most of the children rather willing
scholars.
The white man’s peace had stopped our wars with the
Sioux; and the young folks of either tribe visited,
and made presents to one another. I had visited the
Standing Rock Sioux, and had learned to rather like
n
72
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
them. Indeed, I liked one Sioux girl so well that I
married her. We had a comfortable cabin; my wife
was a good cook, and my children were in school.
Living so far from the mission, it was not possible
for me to attend church services at the mission house;
but Mr. Hall came to Independence and preached to
us. Until a school house was built, he often held his
meetings in my cabin.
I usually interpreted for him. He would speak in
English and I would translate into Hidatsa, which the
Mandans also understand. Indians are .good linguists;
not a few young men of my tribe speak as many as four
or five languages.
I drew no salary as interpreter; but I felt myself
well repaid by what I learned of the Bible. Interpret-
ing Mr. Hall’s sermons made them sink into my heart,
so that I would think of them as I went about my work.
As time went on, there grew up quite a company of
Christians at Independence. One of their active leaders
was Frank White Calf; and he and Sitting Crow called
a kind of praying council at Two Chiefs’ cabin. All
the Independence Christians came; and I was invited
to meet them.
Some of the Indians prayed; and Frank White Calf
asked me, “ Goodbird, why do you not join us in this
Christian way? Tell us your mind!”
I arose and spoke: “ My friends, I learned of this
Christian way at the mission school. It is a good way.
You ask me my thoughts. I answer, I have tried to
live like a Christian and I love to read my Bible, but I
have not received baptism; I am now ready to be
baptized.”
A few days after this, Frank White Calf said 'to me,
THE WHITE MAN’S WAY
73
“ Mr. Hall wants you to come to the mission house and
be baptized.”
I went the next Sunday with my family, and was
received into the church. My sons Charles and Alfred
were baptized at the same time.
In part, I was influenced to become a church member
by the thought that it was the white man’s way. Our
Indian beliefs, I felt sure, were doomed; for white
men’s customs were becoming stronger with us each
year. “ I am traveling the new way, now!” I thought,
when I was baptized. “ I can never go back to Indian
ways again.”
But for some years, even after I became a church
member, I was not a very firm Christian; and I did
not keep God’s commandments very well, because I
did not believe all that the missionaries taught me.
I was unwilling to trust any white man’s words, until
I had proved that they were true. I did not want to
take anything on faith.
Mr. Hall made Independence a preaching station,
and put an assistant in charge; I interpreted for her.
Sometimes Mr. Hall, or his son, preached to us.
The missionary teacher let me know each week what
was to be the next Sunday’s lesson, and she gave me
books to read. Knowing something of her subject, I
was better able to interpret for her. In this way, also,
I learned more of Christ’s teachings; and I learned how
to study my Bible.
This study of the Bible influenced me a great deal;
and my having to interpret made me fall into the habit
of going to church regularly. My interest in church
work grew.
In 1903, the government abolished the position of
74
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
assistant farmer. In October of the following year,
Mr. Hall’s son said to me, “ We need an assistant
missionary at Independence, and my father and I want
to appoint you. Come and talk with my father about
it.”
I went to Elbowoods and saw Mr. Hall. “ Edward,”
he asked, “ are you willing to be our assistant mis-
sionary?”
“ Yes,” I answered.
I knew some one must preach to the Independence
Indians; and I thought I could do this, because I could
speak their language as well as read English. I felt
also that I was closer to God than I had been when I
was baptized.
So I became Mr. Hall’s assistant, and have been in
charge of the Independence station ever since. Every
Sunday I preach to the Indians in the Hidatsa language.
My text is the Sunday-school lesson of the week, for
we Indians do not care for sermons, such as white men
hear. Our older men cannot read English, and we do
not have the Bible in our own tongue; we like best
to hear the Sunday-school lesson because it explains
the stories of the Bible, which my people cannot read
for themselves.
Things do not always go smoothly in an Indian con-
gregation. Frictions and misunderstandings arise, as I
have heard they do in white churches; and Indians
sometimes seek to become church members from un-
worthy motives. Our former life makes us Indians
clannish; members of the same clan feel bound to help
one another, and many Indians seem to look upon the
church as a kind of clan. Sometimes a young man will
say, “ I will be baptized and join your church. Then
THE WHITE MAN’S WAY
75
all the Christians will work to make me agency police-
man!”
Others, again, will say, “ I want to join the church
because I am sick; perhaps God will make me well!”
Some, with clearer faith, say, “ I want to become a
Christian because I believe Jesus will save me to be a
spirit with Him.” They mean that they hope Jesus
will take them to live with Him when they die.
My uncle, Wolf Chief, says of the Christian way:
“ I traveled faithfully the way of the Indian gods,
but they never helped me. When I was sick, I prayed
to them, but they did not make me well. I prayed to
them when my children died; but they did not answer
me. I have but two children left, and I am going to
trust God to keep these that they do not die like the
others. I talk to God every day, as I would talk to
my father; and I ask Him for everything I want. I
try to do all that He bids me do. I hope that He will
take my spirit to travel in that new heaven about
which I have learned. I cannot change now. I can
never go back to the old gods!”
Wolf Chief has been a strong Christian for more than
eight years. He has given much to our mission work;
and he is never absent from Sunday services.
Six years ago, we Christians at Independence became
dissatisfied with our log meeting house, and began to
talk of building a chapel, or church-house, as we call
it. A council was called in Wolf Chief’s cabin.
It was an evening in December; all the leading
Christians of Independence came with their wives —
Wolf Chief, Tom Smith, Frank White Calf, Mike Basset,
Hollis Montclair, Sam Jones, Louis Baker, and myself.
Each woman brought something for a feast, and we ate
76
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
together. We had fried bread, tea, pie, tomato soup, and
other good things.
When our feasting was over, Wolf Chief made a speech.
“ We Christian Indians,” he said, “ should have a chapel.
We should raise the money to build a house to God,
where we can go and worship!”
Tom Smith and others spoke, and we called for
subscriptions. Frank White Calf’s wife gave five
dollars. W olf Chief’s brother, Charging Enemy, although
not a Christian, gave a pony. Others promised, some
ten, some fifteen, and some twenty-five dollars.
I was appointed treasurer to make collections, and
get more subscriptions. I wrote a letter to Water
Chief’s dancing society and asked them to give some-
thing. The dancing Indians are pagans; but they gave
us a subscription.
Mr. Hall gave us fifty dollars; Mr. Shultis, our
school-teacher, gave us ten dollars; and other white
friends gave us subscriptions; but most of the money
was given by the Indians.
When we had collected three hundred and fifty dollars,
we began buying lumber.
Wolf Chief wanted to give us the land for our chapel;
but the Indian commissioner wrote, “ No, you may sell
your land, but you must not give it away.” So we
bought the land for a dollar an acre; but Wolf Chief
gave the money back to us, outwitting the commis-
sioner after all !
We bought ten acres. “ When white men build a
house,” said Wolf Chief, “ they leave land around it
for a yard. We should be ashamed not to have some
land around God’s house ! ” Our ten-acre plot makes
a fine big church yard; at one end is our Indian cemetery.
THE WHITE MAN’S WAY
77
Wolf Chief also gave us a colt, and much money, and
bought paint and nails.
We Indians think Wolf Chief wealthy. He owns
five hundred acres of land, thirty head of cattle, eight
horses, and pigs and chickens; he has a potato field
and a corn field, and owns a trading store.
More than fifty were present when we dedicated our
chapel. A minister from Minneapolis preached the
sermon, and I interpreted for him. A young white
lady sang, and played the organ, and my cousin played
a clarionet. Our school teacher had lent us his phono-
graph, and it sang “ There are ninety and nine,” just
like a choir in a city church. I asked for subscriptions
to clear off our debt, and we raised eighty-three dollars
in money, and Wolf Chief gave us another colt. The
minister prayed God to bless our chapel, and we went
home, all very happy.
Older Indians, who came from Like-a-fish-hook
village, find their life on allotments rather lonesome.
Cabins are often two or three miles apart and the old
men cannot amuse themselves with books, for they
cannot read. In old times, Indians often met in big
dances; but pagan ceremonies are used in these dances,
and Mr. Hall does not like the Christian Indians to
go to them.
That our Christian Indians may meet socially now
and then, we now observe many white men’s holidays;
and at such times, we make our chapel the meeting place.
In August, we hold a Young Men’s Christian Con-
vention, when families come from miles around, to
camp in tents around the chapel. At Christmas, we
have feasting and giving of presents; and our chapel
is so crowded that many have to stand without, and
78
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
look through the windows. Of late years, we have
also observed Decoration Day at Independence.
Our camp last Decoration Day was ten or more tents,
with two or three families in a tent. We made a booth,
after old custom, of leafy branches and small trees. In
this we gathered at about ten o’clock.
Our school teacher began our exercises with a speech
telling us what Decoration Day should mean to us.
We sang “ America,” and other hymns, and had speeches
by Indians. A committee had been appointed to choose
the speakers.
Rabbit Head spoke, “ I do not know anything about
your way, but I encourage you! Go on, do more. I
have nothing against your going the Christian way!”
Rabbit Head is a chief in the Grass dance society, and a
pagan.
Wounded Face spoke, “ I do not belong to this
church, I am a Catholic; but I thus show that I like
white men’s ways! ”
After dinner we made ready to decorate our graves.
Every family having a son buried in our graveyard,
hired a clan father to clean the grave of weeds and
stones; if a daughter, a clan aunt was asked. An Indian
calls the members of his mother’s clan, his brothers and
sisters; members of his father’s clan, he calls his clan
fathers and aunts.
At two o’clock we formed a procession and marched
to the cemetery. Two aged scouts led, High Eagle and
Black Chest ; High Eagle bore a large American flag.
We marched by two’s in a long line, the men first, then
the women and children. Having marched around the
graveyard, we stood and sang some hymns, and I made
a speech:
THE WHITE MAN’S WAY
79
“ All you relatives and friends of these dead, I want
to make a speech to you !
“ It seems sad to our hearts to come here, and yet we
are glad, because we come to remember our loved ones
at their graves; so both gladness and sorrow are in our
hearts.
“ These warrior men, that you see here, fought against
our enemies. They fought to save us, so that to-day
we are not captive, but free. Some of the brave men
who fought to save us, died in battle. Also, some of
your loved ones have died and are buried in this grave-
yard. Many of these loved ones did not die fighting
against enemies, yet they were brave warriors against
evil and temptation. Now they are gone from us.
They are in a new world, the ghost land; they are
with God. I am sure they are in a safe, happy
place.
“Now come forward, all who want to put flowers on
the graves.”
We had had a cold, dry spring, and the prairie flowers
had not come into bloom, but we had sent to Plaza
and bought artificial silk flowers. The clan fathers
and aunts placed these flowers on the graves, while
many of the women wept.
We Hidatsas know that our Indian ways will soon
perish; but we feel no anger. The government has
given us a good reservation, and we think the new way
better for our children.
I think God made all peoples to help one another.
We Indians have helped you white people. All over
this country are corn fields; we Indians gave you the
seeds for your corn, and we gave you squashes and
8o
GOODBIRD THE INDIAN
beans. On the lakes in your parks are canoes; Indians
taught you to make those canoes.
We Indians think you are but paying us back, when
you give us schools and books, and teach us the new
way.
For myself, my family and I own four thousand acres
of land; and we have money coming to us from the
government. I own cattle and horses. I can read
English, and my children are in school.
I have good friends among the white people, Mr.
Hall and others, and best of all, I think each year I
know God a little better.
I am not afraid.
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