The Essential Writings of Charles Eastman. Charles A. Eastman
Читать онлайн книгу.
into the bear before he fell,” I exclaimed. “But I thought all bears ought to be in their lodges in the winter time. What was this one doing at this time of the year and night?”
“Well,” said my uncle, “I will tell you. Among the tribes, some are naturally lazy. The cinnamon bear is the lazy one of his tribe. He alone sleeps out of doors in the winter and because he has not a warm bed, he is soon hungry. Sometimes he lives in the hollow trunk of a tree, where he has made a bed of dry grass; but when the night is very cold, like to-night, he has to move about to keep himself from freezing and as he prowls around, he gets hungry.”
We dragged the huge carcass within our lodge. “O, what nice claws he has, uncle!” I exclaimed eagerly. “Can I have them for my necklace?”
“It is only the old medicine men who wear them regularly. The son of a great warrior who has killed a grizzly may wear them upon a public occasion,” he explained.
“And you are just like my father and are considered the best hunter among the Santees and Sissetons. You have killed many grizzlies so that no one can object to my bear’s-claws necklace,” I said appealingly.
White Foot-print smiled. “My boy, you shall have them,” he said, “but it is always better to earn them yourself.” He cut the claws off carefully for my use.
“Tell me, uncle, whether you could wear these claws all the time?” I asked.
“Yes, I am entitled to wear them, but they are so heavy and uncomfortable,” he replied, with a superior air.
At last the bear had been skinned and dressed and we all resumed our usual places. Uncheedah was particularly pleased to have some more fat for her cooking.
“Now, grandmother, tell me the story of the bear’s fat. I shall be so happy if you will,” I begged.
“It is a good story and it is true. You should know it by heart and gain a lesson from it,” she replied. “It was in the forests of Minnesota, in the country that now belongs to the Ojibways. From the Bedawakanton Sioux village a young married couple went into the woods to get fresh venison. The snow was deep; the ice was thick. Far away in the woods they pitched their lonely teepee. The young man was a well-known hunter and his wife a good maiden of the village.
“He hunted entirely on snow-shoes, because the snow was very deep. His wife had to wear snow-shoes too, to get to the spot where they pitched their tent. It was thawing the day they went out, so their path was distinct after the freeze came again.
“The young man killed many deer and bears. His wife was very busy curing the meat and trying out the fat while he was away hunting each day. In the evenings she kept on trying the fat. He sat on one side of the teepee and she on the other.
“One evening, she had just lowered a kettle of fat to cool, and as she looked into the hot fat she saw the face of an Ojibway scout looking down at them through the smoke-hole. She said nothing, nor did she betray herself in any way.
“After a little she said to her husband in a natural voice: ‘Marpeetopah, some one is looking at us through the smoke hole, and I think it is an enemy’s scout.’
“Then Marpeetopah (Four-skies) took up his bow and arrows and began to straighten and dry them for the next day’s hunt, talking and laughing meanwhile. Suddenly he turned and sent an arrow upward, killing the Ojibway, who fell dead at their door.
“‘Quick, Wadutah!’ he exclaimed; ‘you must hurry home upon our trail. I will stay here. When this scout does not return, the warparty may come in a body or send another scout. If only one comes, I can soon dispatch him and then I will follow you. If I do not do that, they will overtake us in our flight.’
“Wadutah (Scarlet) protested and begged to be allowed to stay with her husband, but at last she came away to get reinforcements.
“Then Marpeetopah (Four-skies) put more sticks on the fire so that the teepee might be brightly lit and show him the way. He then took the scalp of the enemy and proceeded on his track, until he came to the upturned root of a great tree. There he spread out his arrows and laid out his tomahawk.
“Soon two more scouts were sent by the Ojibway war-party to see what was the trouble and why the first one failed to come back. He heard them as they approached. They were on snowshoes. When they came close to him, he shot an arrow into the foremost. As for the other, in his effort to turn quickly his snow-shoes stuck in the deep snow and detained him, so Marpeetopah killed them both.
“Quickly he took the scalps and followed Wadutah. He ran hard. But the Ojibways suspected something wrong and came to the lonely teepee, to find all their scouts had been killed. They followed the path of Marpeetopah and Wadutah to the main village, and there a great battle was fought on the ice. Many were killed on both sides. It was after this that the Sioux moved to the Mississippi river.”
I was sleepy by this time and I rolled myself up in my buffalo robe and fell asleep.
II. Adventures of My Uncle
It was a beautiful fall day—‘a gopher’s last look back,’ as we used to say of the last warm days of the late autumn. We were encamped beside a wild rice lake, where two months before we had harvested our watery fields of grain, and where we had now returned for the duck-hunting. All was well with us. Ducks were killed in countless numbers, and in the evenings the men hunted deer in canoes by torchlight along the shores of the lake. But alas! life is made up of good times and bad times, and it is when we are perfectly happy that we should expect some overwhelming misfortune.
“So it was that upon this peaceful and still morning, all of a sudden a harsh and terrible war-cry was heard! Your father was then quite a young man, and a very ambitious warrior, so that I was always frightened on his account whenever there was a chance of fighting. But I did not think of your uncle, Mysterious Medicine, for he was not over fifteen at the time; besides, he had never shown any taste for the field.
“Our camp was thrown into great excitement; and as the warriors advanced to meet the enemy, I was almost overcome by the sight of your uncle among them! It was of no use for me to call him back—I think I prayed in that moment to the Great Mystery to bring my boy safely home.
“I shall never forget, as long as I live, the events of that day. Many brave men were killed; among them two of your uncle’s intimate friends. But when the battle was over, my boy came back; only his face was blackened in mourning for his friends, and he bore several wounds in his body. I knew that he had proved himself a true warrior.
“This was the beginning of your uncle’s career, He has surpassed your father and your grandfather; yes, all his ancestors except Jingling Thunder, in daring and skill.”
Such was my grandmother’s account of the maiden battle of her third son, Mysterious Medicine. He achieved many other names; among them Big Hunter, Long Rifle and White Footprint. He had a favorite Kentucky rifle which he carried for many years. The stock was several times broken, but he always made another. With this gun he excelled most of his contemporaries in accuracy of aim. He used to call the weapon Ishtahbopopa—a literal translation would be “Pops-the-eye.”
My uncle, who was a father to me for ten years of my life, was almost a giant in his proportions, very symmetrical and “straight as an arrow.” His face was not at all handsome. He had very quiet and reserved manners and was a man of action rather than of unnecessary words. Behind the veil of Indian reticence he had an inexhaustible fund of wit and humor; but this part of his character only appeared before his family and very intimate friends. Few men know nature more thoroughly than he. Nothing irritated him more than to hear some natural fact misrepresented. I have often thought that with education he might have made a Darwin or an Agassiz.
He was always modest and unconscious of self in relating his adventures. “I have often been forced to realize my danger,” he