V V It was apparent from a distance that Eagle Voice was up and waiting. A thin stem of smoke from a well-established fire stood tall and straight above the tepee, blooming flatly aloft in the glittering, knife-edged air of the clear morning.
As I stooped through the flap, the sudden friendly warmth seemed to radiate from the old man’s happy face. “How, my grandson,” he said merrily. “The Grandfather has sent us a good day, and I am glad to see you.”
The pipe was ready and we smoked awhile in silence.
“That was very tender meat we had yesterday,” he said at length, with a mock-serious crinkling about his eyes. “I think it was the best meat I ever ate. It sent me a good dream last night, and I think I am getting younger. If only I had enough of it, maybe I could turn into a boy!
“Yes, it made my grandfather well again, and after that we did not lack meat, for he was a better hunter than I was, even with my new medicine power! In those days I thought he was almost as old as the hills, but I can see now that he would have to be my younger son if he came back.
“So we wandered while the young moon came and grew and died, praying much and mourning less and less; and always we were up to see the morning star. Who sees the morning star shall see more, for he shall be wise. The people were still good in those days before the sacred hoop was broken; but the time of wandering alone with the spirit, mourning and praying, made them better. It was like dying with the dear one and coming back all new again and stronger to live. Now, when somebody dies, we don’t go anywhere. We just sit where we are and feel bad, and we don’t get along with each other any more, for we have forgotten how to learn.
“Afterwhile it was getting to be the time to make winter meat, and we wanted to be ready for the big buffalo hunt; so we went back to our village in the valley of the Tongue.
“Everybody was happy to see us again. The people sang welcoming songs when we entered the hoop and circled the village from left to right, as young men ride after a victory. My grandfather walked first, leading the horse with the drag, and behind the drag was grandmother, then my mother, and I was last. The old grandfather horse was very tired, but he lifted his head and nickered to the singers, for he was happy too.
“When my mother and grandmother had set up the old smoke-blackened piece of a tepee for a shelter, many people came to us with food, and we feasted together. And while we feasted, there was a big giving of gifts until we were not poor at all. There was a tepee of buffalo hide made double against the coldest winter and the hottest summer, and the deeds of my father were painted on it. Our new horses were staked all around us, whinnying with joy, and none of them was old. We all had new buckskin dresses; my grandfather had a good gun with plenty of powder and lead; and there was nothing lacking in the tepee that women need to make a home. But the best gift of all was the horse I got for myself. He was not too young, not too old either, and I called him Whirlwind because he could run so fast. It was Looks Twice who gave the gift with a speech that made me proud, for he was my father’s brother-friend, and he carried my father dead out of the battle. Brother-friends do not have the same mother and father, but they are closer than common brothers, because they are just like one man, and if one of them is in trouble, the other must help, even if he knows he will die. Maybe that horse had some spirit power from my father, for sometimes when I was riding alone, all at once I would be back in the dream that came to me by the scaffold, and Whirlwind would be the buffalo-runner floating.”
The animated expression suddenly left the old man’s face, and for some time he sat looking at the ground, blowing softly on his eagle-bone whistle. A chuckle signaled his return from the remoteness of the inner world.
“I was thinking,” he said with the crinkled look, “about stealing my grandfather’s pipe that time; and this is how it was. I knew I had to be a great warrior and a great hunter so that everyone would praise me, and I had a good start already with the fawn. I thought and thought about it. Maybe in the big hunt we were going to have I could sneak out among the hunters when everybody was excited, and nobody would notice; and maybe there would be a lame cow and I could kill her. Or it would be a calf anyway, maybe one that had lost its mother in the dust. I was not very sure about the cow; but the more I thought, the more I knew I had to have that calf; and it came to me that I’d better get Wakon Tonka to help me. I would dedicate a pipe to the Great Mysterious One and make a sacred vow the way I had heard them tell real warriors did. Then maybe I would get that calf. I was already feeding enough old people for ten calves when it came to me that I had no pipe.
“That was when I made a mistake. I said to myself: It will be all right to take grandfather’s pipe, because I am doing this for very old people who have hardly any teeth at all; and anyway he has two pipes now.’ I did not ask for the pipe, because I knew he would not let me have it. So I just took it when nobody was looking, and rode far out to where there was a tall, pointed hill, standing all alone above the little hills that sat around it.
“When I tied Whirlwind to some brush and climbed to the top, I saw that some black clouds were coming up over towards where the sun goes down, and it was that way I had to look when I made my offering. I did not know just how to do it, but maybe it would be all right anyway. So I held the pipe up and cried out in a loud voice: ‘Tonka schla, Wakon Tonka! You see me here and you know I must get a calf for the old people, because they can hardly chew. I give you this pipe, and if you send me a calf, I will dance the sun dance, just as soon as I get big enough.’
“When I said this, all at once there was a big thunder off there—boom-m-m how-ow-ow oom-m-m ow-ow!
“I dropped the pipe and ran as fast as I could down the hill. Some of me almost got there before I did, because I stumbled and rolled part of the way. Then I rode home as fast as Whirlwind could go, because the big voice sounded angry, and I was frightened.
“When I got home I did not say anything to anybody. And afterwhile grandmother said: ‘I wonder what is wrong with our boy. He looks queer.’ And my mother said: ‘He does look queer. Maybe he ate too much.’ Then my grandfather looked hard at me and said: ‘Maybe he has been smoking my pipe, for I see it is not here.’ And when he kept on looking hard at me for a while, I had to tell him; but I did not tell everything. I just said I took it because I had to make a vow so that we would get plenty of meat in the hunt.
“I thought he was getting ready to be angry, he looked so hard at me. Then he said, ‘hm-m-m,’ high up in his nose, and his eyes looked as though he might be going to laugh; but he didn’t. My mother and grandmother didn’t say anything. They just tried to look sad down their noses.”
After chuckling awhile over the memory, the old man continued: “If I had been a Wasichu boy, I think they would have whipped me; but Lakotas never hurt a child. They were good in those days before the sacred hoop was broken. It was the sacred way they lived in the hoop that made them good and taught the children; and I will tell you how that was.
“There were seven teoshpaiay [bands], seven council fires, and one of them was my people, the Oglala. They were all Lakota and had the same tongue, but they did not all say things in the same way, and when we got together, sometimes we boys would mock each other, because our way of speaking was the best. Each teoshpaiay was a hoop by itself, and could go anywhere it pleased, for it had its own tepee okige, the highest tepee where its chief lived, and its own tepee iyokihe, the next highest tepee, where its councilors made the laws for the people.
“When all the seven teoshpaiay, or most of them, came to live together, they would camp in a great hoop, which was more sacred than any of the smaller hoops that made it. And if there were laws to be made for all the hoops to obey or something to decide for all of them, then each teoshpaiay would bring its council tepee to the center of the great hoop; and with all these tepees they would make a big place for all the councils and chiefs to meet as one, and this they called tepee-thrown-over-together. It had no roof, only walls, because it was not needed very long.
“And it was here that four were chosen to be chiefs above all others—one wichashita nacha, who is highest, and three nacha, who were next.
“Also each hoop had its own akichita, and they were the keepers of all the laws. They were like relatives of the thunder beings, and theirs was the power of lightning. Nothing could stop them; and if any man broke a law, they took care of him, even a brother or a father. If the chief himself broke a law, the akichita could throw him out of the tepee okige, and a better man would be chosen. If any should go on a war party or a hunt when the council said, ‘no,’ the akichita could whip them and cut their tepees in pieces. And if any fought the akichita, they would be killed. If you broke a law, it was like breaking the sacred hoop a little; and that was a very bad thing, for the hoop was the life of the people all together.
“If an akichita did some bad thing or did not do what he ought to do, then the wichasha yatapika could throw him out before all the people; and it was better to die than to see shame in every face. Even little boys could mock such a man and no one would stop them. For the wichasha yatapika [men whom all praise] were stronger at last than all others except Wakon Tonka; and yet they did not make the laws. They chose the chiefs and the councilors and the akichita from among themselves; and any man could become one of them, but it was not easy, and it took a long time.
“It was like this. Maybe I am a young man and I think to myself that I want to be a chief sometime. I don’t say anything to anybody about this, but I know what I must do. First, I must be very brave. I have to kill an enemy, I have to count coup so many times, and I have to get a scalp. Nobody can say I was ever afraid. But that is only the beginning. I must never break any laws, I must be good to everybody in the hoop, so that afterwhile people notice this and talk about it until everybody is saying it. And that too is only the beginning, although it takes a long time. I must be very generous and always see that old people and the needy have meat. I do not do this once or twice. I keep on doing it until everybody notices and talks about it, and then I keep on doing it.
“Maybe some old men and women are sitting around under a sunshade made of boughs. They are talking about the old days when everything was better. And, afterwhile, one of them, who can see a little better than the others, squints at a hilltop, and says: ‘A horseback is coming over there, and he is bringing something. I wonder who it is.’ Then they all squint at the horseback coming, and when he is closer, another one says: ‘Why, that is Gray Bear’s son, Eagle Voice, and I think he is bringing some meat.’ Then they all cry out together, ‘hi-yay!’ Because people have been talking about me, and the old ones know I will come to them first with the tenderest pieces. But if I am somebody else, and a stingy fellow, then the old people will say, ‘heh-heh-heh,’ and look down their noses. And if that is what old people say about me, I am never going to be a wichasha yatapika, even if I have killed a hundred enemies.
“After people have noticed these things for a long time, even the wichasha yatapika begin to talk about me in their meetings, and at last they say: ‘This young Eagle Voice ought to be one of us.’ So they have a big feast and a ceremony at the center of the hoop, with all the people sitting around. And before they take me to be one of them, the people are asked to say any evil thing they may know about me. But all the people cry out together, ‘hi-yay, hi-yay,’ and not even a jealous one can say anything bad at all. So they make me a man whom all praise, and before all the people they teach me what I must do, and they say I do not belong to myself any more, but to the people. Then I take the pipe they offer and smoke it; and that is a sacred vow.
“Now I am a wichasha yatapika, and I can be an akichita, or a councilor, or even a chief, if I keep on being brave enough and generous enough and good enough. It is hard to be any of these, but it is hardest of all to be a chief, because he must be wachin tonka [great minded] standing above himself, as he stands above others.
“When they make him a chief, they will say: ‘Maybe your favorite dog will come home with an arrow in him. You will not be angry, but hold fast to your pipe and remember the laws. Maybe some mangy dog will water your tepee in the dark [malicious gossip]. You will have neither eyes nor ears, but you will look into your heart, and go ahead. If anything you have is better for another than for you, it will be his. You do not belong to yourself.’
“I will tell you a little story to show how it was in the old days before the sacred hoop was broken. Once there was a great chief, a wichashita nacha, and although he was still strong like a bear, he was not young any more; and the people listened to his words for he was wise. This old chief had taken a young woman who was very good to see, and he was so fond of her that people talked about it and smiled behind their hands; but they felt kind when they smiled. And I think the young woman liked the chief because he was so good to her, but maybe she was only proud because his power was so great. And afterwhile there was a young warrior who was very brave, and also very good to see; and these two looked upon each other until they could see nothing else at all. So they ran away together far from the village; and the people talked and talked, wondering what the chief would do. And this is what he did.
“When he had called an akichita, he said: ‘Go find this man and woman wherever they are and bring them here to me.’ It was done as he had spoken. And when at last the two stood before him in the tepee okige, for they had hidden far away to be alone together, they were so afraid that they could hardly stand. But the old chief smiled at them and said: ‘Sit down beside me here, and do not be afraid. No law is made against your being young, and, if there were, I broke it long ago.’
“So the young woman sat upon his left, and on his right the other. And when the three had sat thus very still for a long while, just looking at the ground, the old chief spoke to the akichita: ‘Bring here to me my best buffalo runner, the young sorrel with the morning star on his forehead.’ And when this was done, he took the end of the horse’s lariat and placed it in the hands of the young man on his right. Then he said: ‘Give me my bow and arrows yonder’; and these also he placed in the young man’s hands.
“Then he turned to where the young woman sat weeping with her face in her hands, and what he did then was very hard for him to do.
“They tell it he was very gentle while he undid the long braids of the young woman, who was weeping harder now. And when her hair was hanging all loose down her back and she was just a girl again, he took a comb and combed it gently. Over and over he combed it, until it was all smooth and shining like the bend of a crow’s wing in the sun. Then with great care he parted it and braided it again, doing this very slowly. And when the braids were tied, he took the woman’s hand and placed it in the hand of him who sat upon the right. ‘Go now,’ he said, ‘and be good people.’ Some tell it there were tears upon his face, but others that he kept them in his breast. I do not know.
“All this was many snows ago, before the sacred hoop was broken, and when people still were good.”