Kitobni o'qish: «Prairie Smoke, a Collection of Lore of the Prairies»

MAP TO SHOW THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE NATIVE TRIBES IN WHAT IS NOW THE STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA AND ADJACENT STATES

The native tribes of North Dakota are of three different linguistic stocks or races. These are the Algonkian, Siouan and Caddoan. The Algonkian race is represented in North Dakota by one nation, the Chippewa or Ojibwa. The Siouan race is represented within our state boundaries by three nations, the Dakota (sometimes called Sioux), the Mandan, and the Hidatsa (who are also called Gros Ventre and Minnetari). The Caddoan race is represented by one nation, the Arikara. Other nations of the Caddoan race are the Pawnees, the Wichita and the Waco farther south.

The domain of the Dakota nation comprised southern Minnesota, northwest Iowa, almost all of South Dakota, part of northwest Nebraska, eastern Wyoming, and the southern part of North Dakota.

The Chippewa domain was around the west end of Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin, northern Minnesota, and part of northeastern North Dakota.

The Mandans, Hidatsas and Arikaras were three nations allied together for mutual protection against the encroachments of their common enemies who pressed upon them from all sides. The Mandan as an independent nation held domain along both sides of the Missouri River in what is now the central part of North Dakota. The Hidatsa were to the east of the Mandan. The Arikara were, some centuries ago, in northern Nebraska, but migrated gradually up the river. Finally they were so pressed by the incursion of the Dakotas from the east that they joined forces with the Mandans, who allowed them place in their country in exchange for the added strength which their numbers gave against the common enemy. The Hidatsas and the Mandans had already, before this, made alliance, so now the three nations were allied in the region of the upper Missouri River within what is now North Dakota, extending westward a little into what is now Montana.

The several domains of the various native tribes or nations within North Dakota and adjacent states are represented on this map as follows:

DEDICATION

To the Real Pioneers of the Great Plains: to those whose questing spirit first sought out the wonders and the beauties of this land; – its vast reaches, league upon league, of grassland, verdant in springtime, sere and red and brown in autumn; its inviting valleys and its forbidding buttes; – to those whose moccasined feet made the first human footprints upon the turf of these prairies and upon the sands of these river margins; whose self-reliance made them the first to breast the current of these streams; whose humble footpaths over the land have now become the transcontinental highways of the world’s travel and trade; to those who first slaked thirst at these cool, clear watersprings, whose hunger was first satisfied by the fruits of this land, and who, in eating and in drinking, devoutly gave thanks to our tender Mother Earth for her bounties, receiving them gratefully as sacred gifts to be prudently used and thankfully enjoyed, and never to be wasted; who knew and loved this land in all its spacious extent, east to west and south to north; who reverenced its sacred places, the holy watersprings, the grand and silent hills, the mysterious caves, the eery precipices, – all places where their fathers had with prayer and fasting sought and obtained the favour of the gods, and where the gods had granted revelations and given wisdom to their fathers; to those whose eyes first beheld this land in its virgin beauty, fresh and joyous, unscarred and unspoiled, clean and wholesome, animated with exuberance of life of many species of both plant and animal in wonderful balance and adjustment, spontaneously replenished; and who held it a form of sacrilege to violate or in any way endanger the overthrow of that delicate balance of nature; – to those first inhabitants of this land which we now inhabit.

That something of their appreciation, of their love and reverence for the land and its native life, something of their respect for its sacred places and holy associations; that something of their sense of its charm, of its beauty and wonder, may come to us; that we may the more worthily occupy and more sympathetically enjoy our tenure of this land.

To these ends and purposes this book is hopefully and earnestly dedicated.

INTRODUCTION

Many persons are ever seeking outside of themselves and in some distant place or time for interest and cheer. They are always discontented and complaining. They fancy if they were but in some other place or other circumstances they would be happy. But this is a vain fancy. Each of us carries with him the germs of happiness or of unhappiness. Those of unhappy disposition will be unhappy wherever they may be. Cheer is not in environment, but in the individual. One who is of a cheerful, understanding disposition will find interest and cheer wherever he may be.

Robert Louis Stevenson well said “The world is so full of a number of things I think we should all be as happy as kings.” When there are so many interesting things in the world, so many in any given place, so many more than one can ever fully know or enjoy in the short span of human lifetime, how can one ever be overtaken by dullness? If dullness seem to enfold us, be sure it is we that are dull; it is because our minds are lazy and our eyes unseeing. There is enough of interest about us wherever we may be to engage our attention if we open our eyes to it. If we have initiative and independence of mind we shall find interest everywhere; but if we depend upon others or neglect what is about us in desire for what is distant we shall never be content. One greater than Robert Louis Stevenson said “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”

It is with the purpose of calling attention to some of the many fascinatingly interesting things which we have all about us on the prairie plains and in the hills and valleys of our own state, and perhaps in our own neighborhood, that this volume is produced. The myths which pertain to the hills, valleys, springs and streams in our own state and in our own neighborhood must be of interest to us when we look with our own eyes upon the actual places to which these myths pertain. And these myths of the country in which we live are at least equal in beauty and interest to the myths of the Greeks, and to the old Teutonic myths of Thor, Odin, and Freya; or even to our own old British myths which we have from our Druidic ancestors. And however beautiful and interesting in itself a native tree or flower or other plant may be, however engaging to the attention may be a native bird or beast, how much more so when we think of what this bird or beast or flower or tree has been in the lives of generations of our fellow creatures who have lived here and loved this land and its teeming native life long before we ever saw it.

So, it is with the purpose of directing the attention of our people to the wealth of lore, of legend and story and myth, and of wonder and beauty which lies all about us here if we but look and listen, that this little volume is presented.

The title of this book is suggested by one of the popular names of the flower which is the subject of one of the stories of this volume. This flower, the earliest of all to bloom in springtime over all the northern prairies, has a number of popular names, among which are Pasque flower, Gosling flower, and Prairie Smoke flower. The latter name is suggested by the nebulous appearance presented by a patch of the bluish flowers blooming upon a prairie hillside in early spring, while all other vegetation is still brown and dead. At such a time, with all their blossoms tremulous in the spring wind, they appear to the view like a pulsing cloud of grayish-blue smoke hovering low over the ground.

Besides the reference to this dearly-loved prevernal flower the term “prairie smoke” also connotes a number of other engaging conceptions. To one who has lived upon the prairie this term will recall lively recollections of both sight and scent. It will recall to the imagination memories of rolling billows of smoke which he has seen covering miles of advancing lines of prairie fire; he will see again in memory the tiny blue spirals of smoke showing where some solid particles still smoulder hours after the line of fire has passed on leaving behind a vast blackened waste. It will recall to him also the rare, intangible blue haze which for days after such a fire lay like a veil over all the plain, and through which the sun appeared like a great red disk hanging in the sky, while the air was redolent with an indescribable tang. Again, it brings to mind the wisps of smoke which once curled upward in the quiet summer air from stovepipes projecting from the roofs of prairie sodhouses, or which on snowy winter mornings hung above them like thin white scarfs against a vast background of blue overhanging a white world.

It will bring to mind also other days and other scenes of this same prairie country, when there might be seen wreaths of smoke issuing from the domes of the hemispherical-shaped houses of villages of Mandans, Pawnees, or Omahas, upon the hills and river terraces, their laboriously tilled cornfields and gardens in the fertile alluvial valleys near by. Or, again, it will recall the scene of an encampment of some of these people out upon the prairie on a buffalo hunt in quest of their meat supply. The encampment is a circle of conical tents, a circle of perhaps a half mile in diameter. Before each tent the evening fire is twinkling in the dusk upon the green of the prairie, a circle of friendly lights, each the centre of a family group, while a few stars begin to twinkle in the blue of the sky above, and the sunset colours glow in the horizon.

Some or all of these sights and scents, and others also, will present themselves according to the experience of the one who comprehends the title “Prairie Smoke.”

So it is hoped that to each one who reads this little volume it may indeed be as a “wisp of prairie smoke,” and shall bring a real savour of the prairie and at least a slight realisation of what the Prairie was before it was swept by the destructive Fires of Change.

Land and People

NATURE AND HEALTH

The philosophy of health and wholesomeness of the native Americans, the Indians, was to live in accordance with nature and by coming as much as possible into direct physical contact with the elements in nature, such as the sunshine, the rain and snow, the air and earth. They felt the need and desire to be in frequent and immediate contact with “Mother Earth,” to receive upon their persons the strong rays of the sun, the restorative efficacy of the winds from the clean sky, and to bathe daily in living streams.

The priest of a certain ritual of the Pawnee nation visited Washington. He admired the Washington monument as he viewed it from the capitol. When he went over to visit the monument he measured the dimensions of its base by pacing; then he stood up and gazed toward its summit, noting its height. Then he went inside; but when he was asked whether he would walk up the stairway or go on the lift, he said: “I will not go up. White men like to pile up stones, and they may go to the top of them; I will not. I have ascended the mountains made by Tirawa.” (Tirawa is the Pawnee name of God.)

Some years ago Mr. Louis J. Hill took a party of people of the Blackfoot tribe to New York City as his guests. They were interested in the sight of the great engineering feats as manifested in the great structures of the city. But they were unwilling to be cooped up in the rooms of the hotel, so they made arrangements to be allowed to set up their tents upon the hotel roof so that they might at least have the natural sunlight and the outdoor air.

In an ancient Pawnee ritual there is a hymn which begins with the words, “Now behold; hither comes the ray of our father Sun; it cometh over all the land, passeth in the lodge, us to touch and give us strength.” And in another stanza of this hymn, referring to the passing of the sun, it continues, “Now behold where has passed the ray of our father Sun; around the lodge the ray has passed and left its blessing there, touching us, each one of us.”

So it was ever the aim to live in accord with nature, to commune often with nature. A word of admonition from the wisdom lore of the Menomini tribe says, “Look often at the moon and the stars.” And the Winnebagoes have a wise saying: “Holy Mother Earth, the trees and all nature, are witnesses of your thoughts and deeds.” Another admonition of Winnebago wisdom is: “Reverence the Unseen Forces that are always near you and are always trying to lead you right.”

SPIRIT OF LIFE

In the following verses Dr. A. McG. Beede of Fort Yates, North Dakota, has translated a prayer he once heard uttered by an old man of the Dakota nation who had just come from bathing in the river and was standing upon a hill giving expression to his feeling of adoration:

 
Spirit of Life in things above
And lovelier in things below,
We pray to Thee, All-being-love,
Spontaneous in our hearts to grow.
 
 
Our Father Life, we live in Thee
And pray for glory which is Thine,
And by our living may we be
As Thou art in the Life divine.
 
 
The trees and flowers and watersprings
Are singing good old songs of mirth,
So may we sing while music brings
The good old joy o’er all the earth.
 
 
Spirit of Life, sing on, sing on;
Sing till our aching hearts find rest
And anxious fear is past and gone,
And like the rivers we are blest.
 
 
The earth is singing, hark the song;
The whispering breezes floating by,
The waterstreams gliding along,
Reflecting faces in the sky.
 
 
Spirit of Life, we worship Thee,
With waterstreams and trees and flowers;
So may our new-born spirits be
As Thou art, and Thy glory ours.
 

ATTITUDE TOWARDS NATIVE LIFE

People of European race resident in America, (Americans we call ourselves) have sentimental regard toward the plants and animals native to Europe, some of which, domesticated by our ancestors, we have brought with us to America. But most of our people have not developed such sentiments toward the plants and animals native to America. Literary allusions, songs and stories refer to trees, flowers, birds and other forms of life pertaining to our old home lands in Europe, but not to those of America. People of our race have been inhabitants of America now for three centuries, and still we have not made ourselves at home here; we have not formed sentimental attachment to the land and to its native forms of life.

It is a pity for a people not to be so attached to the country in which they live that their sentiments shall be first of all for the forms of life that are native to their own country. Otherwise there is a disharmony which lessens happiness and is harmful in many ways.

Lacking friendly feeling for the plants and animals native to America there has been a tendency to destroy these things in a ruthless manner; and this can hardly be prevented by law unless we can awaken sentimental feelings for the native forms of life in America such as that which our ancestors had for forms of life native in Europe.

Indians, the native Americans, have friendly sentiments, and even feelings of reverence for the forms of life native to America.

I once asked an old Omaha what was the feeling of Indians when they saw the white men wantonly killing buffaloes. As soon as he comprehended my question he dropped his head and was silent for a moment, seeming to be overcome by sadness; and then in a tone as though he were ashamed that such a thing could have been done by human beings, he answered: “It seemed to us a most wicked, awful thing.”

Most white men can not comprehend the sense of pain experienced by Indians at seeing the native forms of life in America ruthlessly and wantonly destroyed with no compunction on the part of the destroyers. And this destruction of the forms of native American life by white people gave to Indians a sense of a fearful void in nature, coupled with a feeling of grief, of horror, of distress and pain. It was not fundamentally the thought of the loss of their food supply, but the contemplation of the dislocation of the nice balance of nature, the destruction of world symmetry.

White Horse, an old man of the Omaha tribe in Nebraska, said to me in August, 1913: “When I was a youth the country was beautiful. Along the rivers were belts of timberland, where grew cottonwoods, maples, elms, oaks, hickory and walnut trees, and many other kinds. Also there were various vines and shrubs. And under all these grew many good herbs and beautiful flowering plants. On the prairie was the waving green grass and many other pleasant plants. In both the woodland and the prairie I could see the trails of many kinds of animals and hear the cheerful songs of birds. When I walked abroad I could see many forms of life, beautiful living creatures of many kinds which the Master of Life had placed here; and these were, after their manner walking, flying, leaping, running, feeding, playing all about. Now the face of all the land is changed and sad. The living creatures are gone. I see the land desolate, and I suffer unspeakable sadness. Sometimes I wake in the night and I feel as though I should suffocate from the pressure of this awful feeling of loneliness.”

Indians generally were shrewd and discerning observers of the life and habits of plants and animals. The careful study of plants and animals was a considerable part of the courses of study in their system of education, which included much more than is supposed by persons who have not made themselves acquainted with Indian life. They were well informed in plant and animal ecology, and in knowledge of range of species. They took cognizance of the habits of animals in the animals’ dwelling places. An old Indian once told me how a muskrat lays up stores of food in his house. He compared the appearance of the musk-rat’s stores to that of a grocer’s goods on the shelves of his store. Many old Indians have told me what kinds of food are stored by different species of animals which lay up stores. They often speak of such animals as lay up food stores as being civilized animal nations, and of those which do not make such provision as being uncivilized.

They attribute great wisdom to certain species of animals. This disposition results from discerning observation of the animals’ works and ways. The beaver notably is reputed to be very wise and industrious. Indians often sought to gain the favor and learn the wisdom of various animal species by endeavoring to place themselves en rapport with the guardian genius of the species.

INDIANS’ APPRECIATION AND LOVE OF THEIR HOMELAND

In the rituals of the various tribes may be found numerous expressions of the love and reverence which the people had for Holy Mother Earth in general and for their own homeland in particular. And in their thought of their homeland they did not regard it as a possession which they owned, but they regarded themselves as possessed by their homeland, their country, and that they owed her love and service and reverence. The following song is found in an ancient ritual of the Pawnee nation which is given entire in the Twenty-second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part 2. This song plainly reflects the topography and the scenery of the country of the Pawnee nation, that part of the Great Plains traversed by the Solomon, Republican, Platte, Loup, and Niobrara rivers.

SONG TO THE TREES AND STREAMS

I

 
Dark against the sky yonder distant line
Lies before us. Trees we see, long the line of trees,
Bending, swaying in the breeze.
 

II

 
Bright with flashing light yonder distant line
Runs before us, swiftly runs, swift the river runs,
Winding, flowing o’er the land.
 

III

 
Hark! O hark! A sound, yonder distant sound
Comes to greet us, singing comes, soft the river’s song,
Rippling gently ’neath the trees.
 

In the foregoing song one can hear the constant murmur of the summer south wind as it blows in that country for days, and see the broad stretch of the great level land, gently undulating in places, with its eastward-flowing streams bordered by zones of trees, the timbered zones along the stream courses being the only forest land in that country.