VIII VIII “Dho!” said Eagle Voice musingly, as he came slowly out of his inner solitude; “I felt queer and light when I left the wakon’s tepee, and wherever I looked there was a strangeness like dreaming; and the sun was getting low.
“The two friends were waiting there with a sorrel horse all saddled and painted in a sacred manner for me. On his forehead was a thin new moon, because he was facing the world of spirit where the new moons lead; on his rump was the morning star to shine from behind me upon the dark road ahead; on his left flank was the sacred hoop; and on his right flank was the white wing of the goose.
“The friends did not say anything. They just took hold of me and set me in the saddle; and then we started for the hill of vision. The one who walked ahead to show the way was carrying the offerings for where the sun goes down—the bow and wooden cup—, and for the place of cleansing—the white wing and the herb. The other walked behind me with a morning star made of rawhide for where the light and the days of men are born; the hoop and staff for where the growing power lives. I held the pipe; and I was holding it very tight with both hands in front of me, for on that must I depend. It was a sacred, fearful thing that I was doing, and although my legs were getting long there was still a little boy inside me. I did not look where we were going. I just looked hard at the pipe, and held it tight. There were four painted strips of skin hanging from the stem, blue, white, red, and yellow for the quarters and the powers. Also from the stem a long wing feather of an eagle hung, and that was for the Great Mysterious One. Last, upon the mouthpiece was the bison hide, and that was for the breast of Maka where all that live, with legs or wings or roots or fins, are little children nursing. I did not understand it all till I was older, but I could feel the power in the pipe.
“The sun was shining bright and level across the world, getting ready to go under, when we came to the hill standing high and alone, with shadows gathered around it like a blanket and the last of day upon its head. I felt an aching in my breast, for it was like the time we took my father to the scaffold on the hill.
“When we came to the top I could see that the friends had prepared the place for me. It was flat, and they had dug a hole there as deep as to my waist, and round about it sacred sage was scattered. Then, with the hole for center, they had made a circle, maybe fifteen steps across, and at each quarter a stick was set, each with the proper color on it—blue, white, red, yellow. There were strips of painted rawhide for the black road and the red; and where these crossed at the holiest place in the center the two friends put me down. Then when they had placed the offerings at the proper quarters, they left a skin-bag full of water, and went away down the hill leading the horse. They did not say anything to me, and they did not look back. It was the way they would have done if I were dead up there and lying on a scaffold.
“With my robe about my shoulders, I stood in the hole up to my hips, holding the pipe in front of me. I watched the round red sun slip under. A thin new moon appeared low down and like a ghost. It looked lost and lonely yonder going to the spirit world. Some wolves mourned. I remembered I had heard the criers calling to the people that the village would move next day. The stars got brighter. The night was big and empty when the wolves were still. The thin new moon touched the edge of the world and sank. All at once I wanted to get out of the hole and run and run back to my people before they went away. Then I remembered my pipe. I must hold fast to it. On it must I depend. So I held it as tight as I could, and right away I could feel the power running all through me again, up my back and into my hair. I remembered the wakon said he would be with me, and that my father would help me on the hill. I could almost hear him saying, ‘Never be afraid of anything.’
“Then all at once everything was different, and I felt like praying. So I threw back my robe and started naked for the quarter of the sunset where the bow and cup were hanging; and as I went, the world was a great shining bubble and in the midst of it the pipe and I were floating. At the blue quarter I raised both hands with the pipe in my right and cried out to the power that makes live and destroys, the power of the rain and the lightning. Four times I cried, ‘hey-a-hey.’ Between the cries I waited and listened, but it was so far out yonder that no voice came back. And when I cried, ‘Lean close and hear and help me’ there was nothing.
“I walked backward to the center and waited there awhile with my face to the white quarter, where the goose’s wing and the white herb hung. Then I went there, and, as before, I raised my hands and the pipe, crying out four times and asking the power of cleansing and healing to hear and help me. But the world was a big, empty bubble, and no voice came back. At the red quarter of the morning star and the sunrise, where the light is born and the days of men begin, I cried out four times and asked for help; but there was nothing. At the yellow quarter, where the sacred hoop and tree were set, I called upon the growing power for help. The voice I sent forth went far, so far it could never return, and there was stillness. When I stood in the hole at the most sacred place in the center and raised my face and my hands and the pipe, and prayed the prayer Blue Spotted Horse had taught me, there was nothing. And there was nothing when I leaned with my face and my hands and the pipe on Maka’s breast and asked the mother of all to help me.
“I prayed around the hoop again and again, but still there was nothing. So I stood in the hole for a while and thought hard about what I was doing. It was not easy to find a vision, and I must try and try until I found it—like getting the first deer or the first bison calf, only harder, maybe. Pretty soon I was not thinking about the vision at all. I was in the brush by the waterhole and the deer was coming down with the fawn to drink. The cow was chasing Whirlwind and me up the hillside. I was coming into the camp with the haunch of the fawn on my shoulder. My grandmother was jumping up and down crying: ‘Oh, see the vision our grandson has brought us!’ Only it was not my grandmother, but the wakon looking that queer way at me. ‘If the heart is not good something very bad will happen.’
“My head jerked, and at first I did not know where I was. Then I remembered my pipe and held it tight and began my praying all over again. I did that all night long, advancing to each of the quarters in turn and back to the center. I did not rest long there, because I had to stay awake as long as I was able. I got so tired and sleepy that sometimes I would forget what I was saying; then I would remember the old wakon’s eyes with the new moons upside down in them and the queer look, and then I would hold my pipe as tight as I could, and go ahead. Sometimes the coyotes would mock me when I waited and listened between cries, but that is all there was.
“The night was like always, until all at once there was the morning star out yonder and a pale streak of day beneath it. It was looking at me the way it did when I ’woke beside my father’s scaffold. I remembered how I tried to hold him fast in the dream, but he melted away and the buffalo-runner too.
“When I got back to the center that time I was crying a little, and when I put my hands and my pipe and my face on Maka’s breast and asked for help, I cried harder, because I was sad for my father, and the grass on my face was soft like my own mother’s breast when I was little.
“When I looked again the sun was shining. Something was happening away off yonder. There was a big whirling cloud of dust, and things were flying around in it. Then I saw that the cloud was full of coup-sticks with scalps on them, and they were flying about in the cloud and the cloud was the whirling dust of many hoofs in a battle.
“I looked until it was not there any more. Then there was a voice above and behind me that said, ‘Hold fast to your pipe, for there is more.’ When I turned to see whose voice that was, it was an eagle soaring low and looking back at me until it was not there.
“The sun was shining almost level. I had gone to sleep kneeling in the hole with my face and hands on the grass, and I thought it was still morning. But the blue stick, with the bow and cup, was where the red stick should be! The sun was shining low out of the blue quarter, and it was getting ready to go under! I had slept dead all day, and it made me feel good; but there were teeth in my belly, I was so hungry; for I had not eaten the day before.
“I filled up on the warm water in the skin and thought about what I had seen. Maybe all those coup-sticks and scalps meant I would be a great warrior. But if they meant that, what more could there be, and what did the eagle mean?
“I began to pray again as soon as the sun went under and the thin moon appeared going to the spirit land. I prayed harder than ever because of what the eagle said, and I could feel power getting stronger and stronger in me every time I came back to the center. When I advanced to the quarters, it was like floating with the pipe in the midst of a great starry bubble. And afterwhile, whenever I began to say the prayer to Wakon Tonka at the most sacred place, the prayer the wakon taught me, it made me cry. And this is the prayer:
“‘Grandfather, Great Mysterious One! You have been always, and before you nothing has been. There is nothing to pray to but you. The star nations all over the heavens are yours, and yours are the grasses of the earth. You are older than all need, older than all pain and prayer. Day in, day out, you are the life of things.
“‘Grandfather, all over the world the faces of living ones are alike. In tenderness have they come up out of the ground. Look upon your children, with children in their arms, that they may face the winds and walk the good road to the day of quiet.
“‘Teach me to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that live. Give me the strength to understand and the eyes to see. Help me, for without you I am nothing.’*
“That is the prayer, Grandson. Maybe it will help you, Wasichu though you are, to walk the black road and to find the flowering tree.
“The lean moon was gone and the night must have been getting old when a great sudden voice roared from the quarter of the sundown where I was facing. I had not seen it coming; but all at once it was there—a heaped-up cloud coming fast towards me, with swift blue lightning on its front and giants shouting in it. And in between the shouts that shook the hill I could hear the deep voices of the rain singing all together, like many warriors charging.
“I was not afraid. I felt very big and strong, and I cried back to the thunder beings as loud as I could, ‘hey-a-hey, hey-a-hey,’ and they answered. Then the lightning and the voices were all about me, so that I could not hear the cries I sent forth, and the rain was a roaring between thunders. I stood there, holding my pipe high in both hands, but not a drop of rain touched me. And when the swift storm had past and the stars were bright again, I could hear the giant voices cheering far away.
“I knew my praying had been heard and I would see. The power was mighty in me as I prayed around the hoop and back to the most sacred place at the center.
“I was standing in the hole with my face and hands and pipe raised to the Great Mysterious One, and I was crying hard while I prayed, but I was happy and my heart sang. I was saying, ‘All over the world the faces of living ones are alike.’ But all at once I was not saying; I was seeing!
“I was standing on the highest hill in the center of the world. There was no sun, but so clear was the light that what was far was near. The circle of the world was a great hoop with the two roads crossing where I stood, the black one and the red. And all around the hoop more peoples than I could count were sitting together in a sacred manner. The smokes of all the peoples’ little fires stood tall and straight and still around the circle; and by the murmur of the voices of the peoples, they were happy. And while I looked and wondered, there was a tree that sprang at my feet from where the two roads crossed. It grew so fast that, while I watched, it reached the sky and spread, filling the heavens with blooms and singing leaves.
“Then I felt dizzy, and all at once I was sitting in the hole with my head on the grassy edge of it. When I looked about me, the circle of the world was empty and the sun was high above. While I sat there looking around me at the empty world, I felt homesick for what I had seen without my eyes, and there was an aching in my breast.
“Afterwhile I knew I was very hungry and thirsty. So I filled myself with water from the skin; and when I looked around me again, far off down a valley I could see the friends returning with the horse.”
The old man fell into one of his prolonged silences which I finally broke with a question: “And the wakon? What did he say when you told him?”
“I was alone with him in his tepee,” Eagle Voice replied, “and a little fire made the light. He looked hard at me for a long time when I had spoken, then he said: ‘You have seen in a sacred manner and your praying has come alive. By the lightning and the thunder and the rain that fell about you, the power to make live and to destroy will protect you to the end of the black road, and the road will be long. You shall breathe the dust of battles, counting many coups, and shall not be hurt. You shall travel far and see strange peoples; but the sacred hoop of all the peoples under the flowering tree, you shall not see by the light of the sun. It was your father talking through the eagle. Hold fast to the vision Wakon Tonka has sent you, and pray for the strength to understand it. Hetchetu aloh!’
“Then he waved his hand, and I went out into the low day. I was very hungry.”
* This prayer was given to me by my old friend and teacher, Black Elk, the Oglala Sioux holy man.