Claiming a Native American Identity: Zitkala-Sa and Autobiographical Strategies
Author(s): Sandra Kumamoto Stanley
Source: Pacific Coast Philology, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Sep., 1994), pp. 64-69
Published by: Penn State University Press on behalf of the Pacific Ancient and Modern
Language Association (PAMLA)
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Claiming a Native American Identity:
Zitkala-Sa and Autobiographical Strategies
Sandra Kumamoto Stanley
California State University, Northridge
Like the African American writer and ethnographer, Zora Neale
Hurston, the Native American writer and activist Zitkala-Sa (18761938), attempted to preserve her people's oral tradition by transcribing
oral tales into written English, as well as transcribing her life's story
into autobiography. Noting that Hurston had been trained under
anthropologist Franz Boas, Francoise Lionnet has argued that
Hurston's autobiography is essentially an autoethnography, a "figural
anthropology" of the self in which Hurston is caught between the role
of observer--"redeeming the otherness of a primitive culture"--and
the role of participant.' Zitkala-Sa also found herself caught in this
liminal position of participant and observer. But unlike Hurston, who
rejected political commitments, especially to the cause of "racial
solidarity," Zitkala-Sa attempted to show how her life is transcribed in
the cultural life of her people, or, in Toni Morrison's words, to
demonstrate how "the single solitary life is like the lives of the tribe."
Thus, for Zitkala-Sa, the private self is also a cultural construct. In order
to establish her cultural identity, Zitkala-Sa enacted her own
autobiographical strategies, rejecting, on the one hand, the
predominant assimilationist autobiographical mode of her time--Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography--as well as, on the other hand, the
nostalgic stance of Western ethnographers who would view the Native
American as a dying race, representing the prelapsarian noble savage.
Autobiographies modeled on the conventions of Benjamin
Franklin's Autobiography, the classic American secularized conversion
narrative, inevitably affirm the values of the predominant culture; for
the individual is empowered (transforming her rags to riches) insofar
as that individual can harness cultural authority, aligning her identity
with the dominant culture's identity. In fact, many late nineteenth-cen-
tury and early twentieth-century ethnic autobiographies-such as
those written by immigrants Edward Bok and Mary Antin and African
American Booker T. Washington-replicate the conventions of
Franklin's palimpsestic work, demonstrating that those people who
work hard, become educated and/or "Americanized," and adapt to a
capitalist marketplace (in other words, assimilate into American
society) can succeed in the majority culture--conquering even the
barriers of race, language, class and gender, these signifiers of "other-
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Claiming a Native American Identity 65
ness." Scholars, however, have recently argued th
autobiographical works as Washington's Up from Slaver
writers often have chosen a voice of reconciliation and accommodation
precisely because they understand that they are part of a disempowered
group; strategically using an encoded language of accommodation,
they seek what power they can from a dominant culture which might
otherwise silence them.2
In the midst of this Horatio Alger era, Zitkala-Sa raised her voice to
challenge the values of the dominant culture--especially in such
autobiographical works as "Impressions of an Indian Childhood" and
"The School Days of an Indian Girl."3 In 1900, she published a series of
autobiographical sketches in the Atlantic Monthly which she later
reprinted in American Indian Stories in 1921. These stories--which highlighted her socialization into the Euro-American society and the resul-
tant cultural dislocation from her own native society-challenge the
basic assumptions of Franklinesque autobiographies. Like African
American writer and activist, W. E. B. Du Bois, Zitkala-Sa not only
fought for the rights of her people, but also sought to recover and affirm
her people's cultural contributions--as she states "to transplant the
native spirit.. .into the English language, since America in the last few
centuries has acquired a second tongue."4 Although Du Bois struggled
with the implications of his "double veil"--being an American and a
black man-Zitkala-Sa wore several veils signifying her otherness,
including her Sioux language/culture, her Native American identity
and her gender. Refusing to have any of the signifiers of her otherness
erased, Zitkala-Sa, eschewing a language of accommodation, enacted a
strategy of subversion and inversion in her autobiography. As Kristen
Herzog has noted, Zitkala-Sa, who learned to write in a "white man's
missionary school," serves, through her writing, as a link between the
oral tradition of an indigenous tribal culture and the written tradition
of the literate colonizers. As such, Zitkala-Sa is one of the first Native
American women writers to write her autobiography without the help
of an interpreter or ethnographer. But when Zitkala-Sa seized the pen
of the "mainstream" culture, she used that emblem of phallic power as
a revisionist force, to deconstruct the prevailing imperialistic
mythologies of the majority culture.
Historically, European colonizers have tended to mythologize the
indigenous peoples they conquer-appropriating not only their land,
but their voice. Typically, the colonizers rely upon two generic
paradigms, envisioning the "native" as either an innocent Noble
Savage inhabitant of a prelapsarian Eden, or as a demonic savage, living
in an unregenerate hell. Such colonizers can find various justifications
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66 Sandra Kumamoto Stanley
for their dealings with the native inhabi
of extermination as a rite of purgation, tra
tolerable reflection of the European sel
Savages as the last of their pure, unfalle
Ultimately, however, if these "savages"
pear, the colonizers must find a way to a
values of the dominant culture. Nineteenth
theories supported the evolutionary vision
civilization over indigenous cultures-a "m
cal telos of human development; Western
native societies tended to view these societi
and to regard their own scholarship a
preserving these cultures in a text.
In her autobiography, Zitkala-Sa's task
First of all, she must reclaim the authorial
identity, insisting to speak for herself as w
no longer a silent and .inarticulate si
colonizers or ethnographers--can name an
Sioux, can validate her culture not through
but through her people's own stories. In
autobiography, she highlights how in h
enculturated into Yankton/Sioux traditio
to change her name from Gertrude Simm
name signifying Red Bird--claiming the rig
linguistic and social categories of identity
Second of all, Zitkala-Sa critiques th
"white man's" culture. In a section of her
Big Red Apples," Zitkala-Sa tells of how,
reservation as part of an assimilationist
advocated off-reservation education. Sepa
their mother land, children were discour
American religions or traditions and we
even speaking their native language. Sh
decided to leave the reservation-a lan
mother's native tongue"-and depart for
"land of red apples," she believed that if sh
eat all the red apples she wanted. Zitkala
apple trees. I had never tasted more than a
and when I heard of the orchards of the Ea
them" ("Impressions," 46). By using th
Western tradition, Zitkala-Sa subverts t
were "saving the Indians"; instead, she e
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Claiming a Native American Identity 67
wherein the missionaries tempt her with forbidden fruit,
to fall out of the coherent oral culture of her mother into the "white
man's" world of knowledge, a world too often promising her "white
men's lies"-knowledge as delusion. Moreover, she depicts the rites of
assimilation as a site of degradation and humiliation. In a powerful
scene, she recounts the missionaries cutting her hair. In Sioux tradition,
only mourners or cowards have their hair shorn. Imposing one set of
values and erasing another, the missionaries impose a whole system of
signification which the child Zitkala-Sa cannot decode and, as such, one
in which she cannot situate the self.
But to assume that Zitkala-Sa does not at the same time become a
product of enculturation would be a mistake. And herein lies the
paradox--for even as Zitkala-Sa resists the values of the dominant
culture, she also internalizes those values. As such she must become
the subject of her own critique.
When Zitkala-Sa returns home, she realizes that she no longer
belongs in either her mother's or the missionary's world. Caught between both cultures, she must face the fact that she is a representative
of both--the ethnographic self and the radical other. Ultimately, Zit
kala-Sa's strategy of subversion must be turned inward. As such,
Zitkala-Sa's work escapes the easy binary opposition in which the self
is pitted against the other, the minority voice against the dominant
culture. For finally, the self is a site of continual displacement, in which
multiple voices must interrogate cultural presuppositions.
Zitkala-Sa writes: "During this time [the time she returns from the
school to the reservation] I seemed to hang in the heart of chaos, beyond
the touch or voice of human aid.... My mother had never gone inside
of a schoolhouse, and so she was not capable of comforting her
daughter who could read and write. Even nature seemed to have no
place for me. Iwas neither a wee girl nor a tall one; neither a wild Indian
nor a tame one" ("School," 191). Neither language nor sensual nature
can touch the girl who feels caught by chaos-in which both language
(the reading and writing of the missionaries) and nature (emblematic
of her mother and Mother Earth) become arbitrary systems of signs
neither grounded in some form of transcendent center. At first, in order
to deal with her alienation, Zitkala-Sa leaps upon a pony (nature's "iron
horse") and recklessly chases animals; but nature brings her no comfort.
Then when she sobs at her mother's side, her mother attempts to hand
Zitkala-Sa a Bible, the "white man's papers." This, too, Zitkala-Sa
vehemently rejects. In response, her mother goes to the hills and wails
for her daughter's pain. Zitkala-Sa is unable to return to her mother's
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68 Sandra Kumamoto Stanley
or Nature's womb-a reassuring and protec
past; she exists in an interstitial, "in-betwe
provide, as Homi Bhabha has noted, a new t
signs of identity."6 At the moment, her moth
voice to her pain, her sense of dislocation.
In time, Zitkala-Sa comes to affirm her hyb
selves. She returns to school and she becomes both a teacher and an
accomplished violinist. At the same time, voicing opposition to the
stifling policies practiced by the American governmental and religious
institutions, she becomes an Indian rights activist, transforming her
mother's wails into written form. Her sense of private dislocation is
now tranferred onto the communal sphere; for her Native American
community also exists in the "in-between" space of a hybrid culture,
caught in the "double veil" of being Yankton Sioux and enculturated
Americans. But in this cultural site of contestation and negotiation,
Zitkala-Sa, in mastering, rather than rejecting the "white man's" discourse, acts as an agent for political and social change. Thus, her sense
of cultural dislocation gives her the opportunity for relocating and
reconceiving cultural identity.
Aware of the complexity of the politics of identity, Zitkala-Sa
chooses not absence--to assimilate and disappear into the dominant
culture--but presence-to demand that the disempowered have a voice
and to record the oral tradition of her people. Although Zitkala-Sa
recognizes that she will occupy a liminal position--caught between two
cultures, caught between orality and textuality, caught between participant and observer--she understands that texts are, to use Edward
Said's phrase, "facts of power," and, ultimately, Zitkala-Sa chooses to
valorize her own autobiographical and her people's cultural and historical texts in order to transform the existing hegemonic social and
political systems. Zitkala-Sa recognizes that the dominant culture
values one identity--the Euro-American, Christian identity--more
than the other--the Native American identity. Thus, she chooses to
occupy the marginal identity and to resignify that cultural construction.
As such, she enacts oppositional strategies in her autobiography-rejecting both assimilationist autobiographical models and teleological,
social evolutionary theories; demonstrating that she and her tribe are
not part of a vanishing culture, but one of the many diverse living
cultures inscribed into a pluralistic, multiple American text.
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Claiming a Native American Identity 69
Notes
1. Franqoise Lionnet, Autobiographical Voices: Race, Gender, Self-Portraiture
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 99.
2. For example, Houston Baker's argues that Booker T. Washington was not an
accommodationist but an astute manipulator of the master's form, enacting a
strategy of masked mastery to achieve what power he could. See Baker's Modernism
and the Harlem Renaissance (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
3. Zitkala-Sa, "Impressions of an Indian Childhood," Atlantic, 85 (January, 1900),
37-47; "The School Days of an Indian Girl," Atlantic, 85 (February, 1900), 185-194.
Further references to these work will be cited in text as "Impressions" and "School,
respectively.
4. Zitkala-Sa, Old Indian Legends (Boston and London: Athenaeum Press, 1902),
vi.
5. Kristin Herzog, Headnote for "Zitakala-Sa" in Heath Anthology of American
Literature eds. Paul Lauter, et al. (Lexington: D. C. Heath, 1991), 911.
6. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London and New York: Routledge,
1994), 1.
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Impressions of an Indian Childhood
I
MY MOTHER
A WIGWAM of weather-stained canvas stood at the base of some irregularly
ascending hills. A footpath wound its way gently down the sloping land till it
reached the broad river bottom; creeping through the long swamp grasses that
bent over it on either side, it came out on the edge of the Missouri.
Here, morning, noon, and evening, my mother came to draw water from the
muddy stream for our household use. Always, when my mother started for the
river, I stopped my play to run along with her. She was only of medium height.
Often she was sad and silent, at which times her full arched lips were
compressed into hard and bitter lines, and shadows fell under her black eyes.
Then I clung to her hand and begged to know what made the tears fall.
"Hush; my little daughter must never talk about my tears"; and smiling through
them, she patted my head and said, "Now let me see how fast you can run
today." Whereupon I tore away at my highest possible speed, with my long
black hair blowing in the breeze.
I was a wild little girl of seven. Loosely clad in a slip of brown buckskin, and
light-footed with a pair of soft moccasins on my feet, I was as free as the wind
that blew my hair, and no less spirited than a bounding deer. These were my
mother's pride, – my wild freedom and overflowing spirits. She taught me no
fear save that of intruding myself upon others.
Having gone many paces ahead I stopped, panting for breath, and laughing with
glee as my mother watched my every movement. I was not wholly conscious of
myself, but was more keenly alive to the fire within. It was as if I were the
activity, and my hands and feet were only experiments for my spirit to work
upon.
Returning from the river, I tugged beside my mother, with my hand upon the
bucket I believed I was carrying. One time, on such a return, I remember a bit
of conversation we had. My grown-up cousin, Warca-Ziwin (Sunflower), who
was then seventeen, always went to the river alone for water for her mother.
Their wigwam was not far from ours; and I saw her daily going to and from the
river. I admired my cousin greatly. So I said: "Mother, when I am tall as my
cousin Warca-Ziwin, you shall not have to come for water. I will do it for you."
With a strange tremor in her voice which I could not understand, she answered,
"If the paleface does not take away from us the river we drink."
"Mother, who is this bad paleface?" I asked.
"My little daughter, he is a sham, – a sickly sham! The bronzed Dakota is the
only real man."
I looked up into my mother's face while she spoke; and seeing her bite her lips,
I knew she was unhappy. This aroused revenge in my small soul. Stamping my
foot on the earth, I cried aloud, "I hate the paleface that makes my mother cry!"
Setting the pail of water on the ground, my mother stooped, and stretching her
left hand out on the level with my eyes, she placed her other arm about me; she
pointed to the hill where my uncle and my only sister lay buried.
"There is what the paleface has done! Since then your father too has been
buried in a hill nearer the rising sun. We were once very happy. But the
paleface has stolen our lands and driven us hither. Having defrauded us of our
land, the paleface forced us away.
"Well, it happened on the day we moved camp that your sister and uncle were
both very sick. Many others were ailing, but there seemed to be no help. We
traveled many days and nights; not in the grand, happy way that we moved
camp when I was a little girl, but we were driven, my child, driven like a herd
of buffalo. With every step, your sister, who was not as large as you are now,
shrieked with the painful jar until she was hoarse with crying. She grew more
and more feverish. Her little hands and cheeks were burning hot. Her little lips
were parched and dry, but she would not drink the water I gave her. Then I
discovered that her throat was swollen and red. My poor child, how I cried with
her because the Great Spirit had forgotten us!
"At last, when we reached this western country, on the first weary night your
sister died. And soon your uncle died also, leaving a widow and an orphan
daughter, your cousin Warca-Ziwin. Both your sister and uncle might have
been happy with us today, had it not been for the heartless paleface."
My mother was silent the rest of the way to our wigwam. Though I saw no
tears in her eyes, I knew that was because I was with her. She seldom wept
before me.
II.
THE LEGENDS.
During the summer days my mother built her fire in the shadow of our
wigwam.
In the early morning our simple breakfast was spread upon the grass west of
our tepee. At the farthest point of the shade my mother sat beside her fire,
toasting a savory piece of dried meat. Near her, I sat upon my feet, eating my
dried meat with unleavened bread, and drinking strong black coffee.
The morning meal was our quiet hour, when we two were entirely alone. At
noon, several who chanced to be passing by stopped to rest, and to share our
luncheon with us, for they were sure of our hospitality.
My uncle, whose death my mother ever lamented, was one of our nation's
bravest warriors. His name was on the lips of old men when talking of the
proud feats of valor; and it was mentioned by younger men, too, in connection
with deeds of gallantry. Old women praised him for his kindness toward them;
young women held him up as an ideal to their sweethearts. Every one loved
him, and my mother worshiped his memory. Thus it happened that even
strangers were sure of welcome in our lodge, if they but asked a favor in my
uncle's name.
Though I heard many strange experiences related by these wayfarers, I loved
best the evening meal, for that was the time old legends were told. I was always
glad when the sun hung low in the west, for then my mother sent me to invite
the neighboring old men and women to eat supper with us. Running all the way
to the wigwams, I halted shyly at the entrances. Sometimes I stood long
moments without saying a word. It was not any fear that made me so dumb
when out upon such a happy errand; nor was it that I wished to withhold the
invitation, for it was all I could do to observe this very proper silence. But it
was a sensing of the atmosphere, to assure myself that I should not hinder other
plans. My mother used to say to me, as I was almost bounding away for the old
people: "Wait a moment before you invite any one. If other plans are being
discussed, do not interfere, but go elsewhere."
The old folks knew the meaning of my pauses; and often they coaxed my
confidence by asking, "What do you seek, little granddaughter?"
"My mother says you are to come to our tepee this evening," I instantly
exploded, and breathed the freer afterwards.
"Yes, yes, gladly, gladly I shall come!" each replied. Rising at once and
carrying their blankets across one shoulder, they flocked leisurely from their
various wigwams toward our dwelling.
My mission done, I ran back, skipping and jumping with delight. All out of
breath, I told my mother almost the exact words of the answers to my
invitation. Frequently she asked, "What were they doing when you entered their
tepee?" This taught me to remember all I saw at a single glance. Often I told
my mother my impressions without being questioned.
While in the neighboring wigwams sometimes an old Indian woman asked me,
"What is your mother doing?" Unless my mother had cautioned me not to tell, I
generally answered her questions without reserve.
At the arrival of our guests I sat close to my mother, and did not leave her side
without first asking her consent. I ate my supper in quiet, listening patiently to
the talk of the old people, wishing all the time that they would begin the stories
I loved best. At last, when I could not wait any longer, I whispered in my
mother's ear, "Ask them to tell an Iktomi story, mother."
Soothing my impatience, my mother said aloud, "My little daughter is anxious
to hear your legends." By this time all were through eating, and the evening
was fast deepening into twilight.
As each in turn began to tell a legend, I pillowed my head in my mother's lap;
and lying flat upon my back, I watched the stars as they peeped down upon me,
one by one. The increasing interest of the tale aroused me, and I sat up eagerly
listening for every word. The old women made funny remarks, and laughed so
heartily that I could not help joining them.
The distant howling of a pack of wolves or the hooting of an owl in the river
bottom frightened me, and I nestled into my mother's lap. She added some dry
sticks to the open fire, and the bright flames leaped up into the faces of the old
folks as they sat around in a great circle.
On such an evening, I remember the glare of the fire shone on a tattooed star
upon the brow of the old warrior who was telling a story. I watched him
curiously as he made his unconscious gestures. The blue star upon his bronzed
forehead was a puzzle to me. Looking about, I saw two parallel lines on the
chin of one of the old women. The rest had none. I examined my mother's face,
but found no sign there.
After the warrior's story was finished, I asked the old woman the meaning of
the blue lines on her chin, looking all the while out of the corners of my eyes at
the warrior with the star on his forehead. I was a little afraid that he would
rebuke me for my boldness.
Here the old woman began: "Why, my grandchild, they are signs, – secret signs
I dare not tell you. I shall, however, tell you a wonderful story about a woman
who had a cross tattooed upon each of her cheeks."
It was a long story of a woman whose magic power lay hidden behind the
marks upon her face. I fell asleep before the story was completed.
Ever after that night I felt suspicious of tattooed people. Whenever I saw one I
glanced furtively at the mark and round about it, wondering what terrible magic
power was covered there.
It was rarely that such a fearful story as this one was told by the camp fire. Its
impression was so acute that the picture still remains vividly clear and
pronounced.
III.
THE BEADWORK.
Soon after breakfast, mother sometimes began her beadwork. On a bright, clear
day, she pulled out the wooden pegs that pinned the skirt of our wigwam to the
ground, and rolled the canvas part way up on its frame of slender poles. Then
the cool morning breezes swept freely through our dwelling, now and then
wafting the perfume of sweet grasses from newly burnt prairie.
Untying the long tasseled strings that bound a small brown buckskin bag, my
mother spread upon a mat beside her bunches of colored beads, just as an artist
arranges the paints upon his palette. On a lapboard she smoothed out a double
sheet of soft white buckskin; and drawing from a beaded case that hung on the
left of her wide belt a long, narrow blade, she trimmed the buckskin into shape.
Often she worked upon small moccasins for her small daughter. Then I became
intensely interested in her designing. With a proud, beaming face, I watched
her work. In imagination, I saw myself walking in a new pair of snugly fitting
moccasins. I felt the envious eyes of my playmates upon the pretty red beads
decorating my feet.
Close beside my mother I sat on a rug, with a scrap of buckskin in one hand
and an awl in the other. This was the beginning of my practical observation
lessons in the art of beadwork. From a skein of finely twisted threads of silvery
sinews my mother pulled out a single one. With an awl she pierced the
buckskin, and skillfully threaded it with the white sinew. Picking up the tiny
beads one by one, she strung them with the point of her thread, always twisting
it carefully after every stitch.
It took many trials before I learned how to knot my sinew thread on the point of
my finger, as I saw her do. Then the next difficulty was in keeping my thread
stiffly twisted, so that I could easily string my beads upon it. My mother
required of me original designs for my lessons in beading. At first I frequently
ensnared many a sunny hour into working a long design. Soon I learned from
self-inflicted punishment to refrain from drawing complex patterns, for I had to
finish whatever I began.
After some experience I usually drew easy and simple crosses and squares.
These were some of the set forms. My original designs were not always
symmetrical nor sufficiently characteristic, two faults with which my mother
had little patience. The quietness of her oversight made me feel strongly
responsible and dependent upon my own judgment. She treated me as a
dignified little individual as long as I was on my good behavior; and how
humiliated I was when some boldness of mine drew forth a rebuke from her!
In the choice of colors she left me to my own taste. I was pleased with an
outline of yellow upon a background of dark blue, or a combination of red and
myrtle-green. There was another of red with a bluish gray that was more
conventionally used. When I became a little familiar with designing and the
various pleasing combinations of color, a harder lesson was given me. It was
the sewing on, instead of beads, some tinted porcupine quills, moistened and
flattened between the nails of the thumb and forefinger. My mother cut off the
prickly ends and burned them at once in the centre fire. These sharp points
were poisonous, and worked into the flesh wherever they lodged. For this
reason, my mother said, I should not do much alone in quills until I was as tall
as my cousin Warca-Ziwin.
Always after these confining lessons I was wild with surplus spirits, and found
joyous relief in running loose in the open again. Many a summer afternoon, a
party of four or five of my playmates roamed over the hills with me. We each
carried a light sharpened rod about four feet long, with which we pried up
certain sweet roots. When we had eaten all the choice roots we chanced upon,
we shouldered our rods and strayed off into patches of a stalky plant under
whose yellow blossoms we found little crystal drops of gum. Drop by drop we
gathered this nature's rock-candy, until each of us could boast of a lump the
size of a small bird's egg. Soon satiated with its woody flavor, we tossed away
our gum, to return again to the sweet roots.
I remember well how we used to exchange our necklaces, beaded belts, and
sometimes even our moccasins. We pretended to offer them as gifts to one
another. We delighted in impersonating our own mothers. We talked of things
we had heard them say in their conversations. We imitated their various
manners, even to the inflection of their voices. In the lap of the prairie we
seated ourselves upon our feet; and leaning our painted cheeks in the palms of
our hands, we rested our elbows on our knees, and bent forward as old women
were most accustomed to do.
While one was telling of some heroic deed recently done by a near relative, the
rest of us listened attentively, and exclaimed in undertones, "Han! han!" (yes!
yes!) whenever the speaker paused for breath, or sometimes for our sympathy.
As the discourse became more thrilling, according to our ideas, we raised our
voices in these interjections. In these impersonations our parents were led to
say only those things that were in common favor.
No matter how exciting a tale we might be rehearsing, the mere shifting of a
cloud shadow in the landscape near by was sufficient to change our impulses;
and soon we were all chasing the great shadows that played among the hills.
We shouted and whooped in the chase; laughing and calling to one another, we
were like little sportive nymphs on that Dakota sea of rolling green.
On one occasion I forgot the cloud shadow in a strange notion to catch up with
my own shadow. Standing straight and still, I began to glide after it, putting out
one foot cautiously. When, with the greatest care, I set my foot in advance of
myself, my shadow crept onward too. Then again I tried it; this time with the
other foot. Still again my shadow escaped me. I began to run; and away flew
my shadow, always just a step beyond me. Faster and faster I ran, setting my
teeth and clenching my fists, determined to overtake my own fleet shadow. But
ever swifter it glided before me, while I was growing breathless and hot.
Slackening my speed, I was greatly vexed that my shadow should check its
pace also. Daring it to the utmost, as I thought, I sat down upon a rock
imbedded in the hillside.
So! my shadow had the impudence to sit down beside me!
Now my comrades caught up with me, and began to ask why I was running
away so fast.
"Oh, I was chasing my shadow! Didn't you ever do that?" I inquired, surprised
that they should not understand.
They planted their moccasined feet firmly upon my shadow to stay it, and I
arose. Again my shadow slipped away, and moved as often as I did. Then we
gave up trying to catch my shadow.
Before this peculiar experience I have no distinct memory of having recognized
any vital bond between myself and my own shadow. I never gave it an
afterthought.
Returning our borrowed belts and trinkets, we rambled homeward. That
evening, as on other evenings, I went to sleep over my legends.
IV.
THE COFFEE-MAKING.
One summer afternoon, my mother left me alone in our wigwam, while she
went across the way to my aunt's dwelling.
I did not much like to stay alone in our tepee, for I feared a tall, broadshouldered crazy man, some forty years old, who walked loose among the hills.
Wiyaka-Napbina (Wearer of a Feather Necklace) was harmless, and whenever
he came into a wigwam he was driven there by extreme hunger. He went nude
except for the half of a red blanket he girdled around his waist. In one tawny
arm he used to carry a heavy bunch of wild sunflowers that he gathered in his
aimless ramblings. His black hair was matted by the winds, and scorched into a
dry red by the constant summer sun. As he took great strides, placing one
brown bare foot directly in front of the other, he swung his long lean arm to and
fro.
Frequently he paused in his walk and gazed far backward, shading his eyes
with his hand. He was under the belief that an evil spirit was haunting his steps.
This was what my mother told me once, when I sneered at such a silly big man.
I was brave when my mother was near by, and Wiyaka-Napbina walking
farther and farther away.
"Pity the man, my child. I knew him when he was a brave and handsome youth.
He was overtaken by a malicious spirit among the hills, one day, when he went
hither and thither after his ponies. Since then he cannot stay away from the
hills," she said.
I felt so sorry for the man in his misfortune that I prayed to the Great Spirit to
restore him. But though I pitied him at a distance, I was still afraid of him when
he appeared near our wigwam.
Thus, when my mother left me by myself that afternoon, I sat in a fearful mood
within our tepee. I recalled all I had ever heard about Wiyaka-Napbina; and I
tried to assure myself that though he might pass near by, he would not come to
our wigwam because there was no little girl around our grounds.
Just then, from without a hand lifted the canvas covering of the entrance; the
shadow of a man fell within the wigwam, and a large roughly moccasined foot
was planted inside.
For a moment I did not dare to breathe or stir, for I thought that could be no
other than Wiyaka-Napbina. The next instant I sighed aloud in relief. It was an
old grandfather who had often told me Iktomi legends.
"Where is your mother, my little grandchild?" were his first words.
"My mother is soon coming back from my aunt's tepee," I replied.
"Then I shall wait awhile for her return," he said, crossing his feet and seating
himself upon a mat.
At once I began to play the part of a generous hostess. I turned to my mother's
coffeepot.
Lifting the lid, I found nothing but coffee grounds in the bottom. I set the pot
on a heap of cold ashes in the centre, and filled it half full of warm Missouri
River water. During this performance I felt conscious of being watched. Then
breaking off a small piece of our unleavened bread, I placed it in a bowl.
Turning soon to the coffeepot, which would never have boiled on a dead fire
had I waited forever, I poured out a cup of worse than muddy warm water.
Carrying the bowl in one hand and cup in the other, I handed the light luncheon
to the old warrior. I offered them to him with the air of bestowing generous
hospitality.
"How! how!" he said, and placed the dishes on the ground in front of his
crossed feet. He nibbled at the bread and sipped from the cup. I sat back against
a pole watching him. I was proud to have succeeded so well in serving
refreshments to a guest all by myself. Before the old warrior had finished
eating, my mother entered. Immediately she wondered where I had found
coffee, for she knew I had never made any, and that she had left the coffeepot
empty. Answering the question in my mother's eyes, the warrior remarked, "My
granddaughter made coffee on a heap of dead ashes, and served me the moment
I came."
They both laughed, and mother said, "Wait a little longer, and I shall build a
fire." She meant to make some real coffee. But neither she nor the warrior,
whom the law of our custom had compelled to partake of my insipid
hospitality, said anything to embarrass me. They treated my best judgment,
poor as it was, with the utmost respect. It was not till long years afterward that I
learned how ridiculous a thing I had done.
V.
THE DEAD MAN'S PLUM BUSH.
One autumn afternoon, many people came streaming toward the dwelling of
our near neighbor. With painted faces, and wearing broad white bosoms of elk's
teeth, they hurried down the narrow footpath to Haraka Wambdi's wigwam.
Young mothers had their children by the hand, and half pulled them along in
their haste. They overtook and passed by the bent old grandmothers who were
trudging along with crooked canes toward the centre of excitement. Most of the
young braves galloped hither on their ponies. Toothless warriors, like the old
women, came more slowly, though mounted on lively ponies. They sat proudly
erect on their horses. They wore their eagle plumes, and waved their various
trophies of former wars.
In front of the wigwam a great fire was built, and several large black kettles of
venison were suspended over it. The crowd were seated about it on the grass in
a great circle. Behind them some of the braves stood leaning against the necks
of their ponies, their tall figures draped in loose robes which were well drawn
over their eyes.
Young girls, with their faces glowing like bright red autumn leaves, their glossy
braids falling over each ear, sat coquettishly beside their chaperons. It was a
custom for young Indian women to invite some older relative to escort them to
the public feasts. Though it was not an iron law, it was generally observed.
Haraka Wambdi was a strong young brave, who had just returned from his first
battle, a warrior. His near relatives, to celebrate his new rank, were spreading a
feast to which the whole of the Indian village was invited.
Holding my pretty striped blanket in readiness to throw over my shoulders, I
grew more and more restless as I watched the gay throng assembling. My
mother was busily broiling a wild duck that my aunt had that morning brought
over.
"Mother, mother, why do you stop to cook a small meal when we are invited to
a feast?" I asked, with a snarl in my voice.
"My child, learn to wait. On our way to the celebration we are going to stop at
Chanyu's wigwam. His aged mother-in-law is lying very ill, and I think she
would like a taste of this small game."
Having once seen the suffering on the thin, pinched features of this dying
woman, I felt a momentary shame that I had not remembered her before.
On our way I ran ahead of my mother, and was reaching out my hand to pick
some purple plums that grew on a small bush, when I was checked by a low
"Sh!" from my mother.
"Why, mother, I want to taste the plums!" I exclaimed, as I dropped my hand to
my side in disappointment.
"Never pluck a single plum from this bush, my child, for its roots are wrapped
around an Indian's skeleton. A brave is buried here. While he lived, he was so
fond of playing the game of striped plum seeds that, at his death, his set of
plum seeds were buried in his hands. From them sprang up this little bush."
Eyeing the forbidden fruit, I trod lightly on the sacred ground, and dared to
speak only in whispers, until we had gone many paces from it. After that time, I
halted in my ramblings whenever I came in sight of the plum bush. I grew
sober with awe, and was alert to hear a long-drawn-out whistle rise from the
roots of it. Though I had never heard with my own ears this strange whistle of
departed spirits, yet I had listened so frequently to hear the old folks describe it
that I knew I should recognize it at once.
The lasting impression of that day, as I recall it now, is what my mother told
me about the dead man's plum bush.
VI.
THE GROUND SQUIRREL.
In the busy autumn days, my cousin Warca-Ziwin's mother came to our
wigwam to help my mother preserve foods for our winter use. I was very fond
of my aunt, because she was not so quiet as my mother. Though she was older,
she was more jovial and less reserved. She was slender and remarkably erect.
While my mother's hair was heavy and black, my aunt had unusually thin locks.
Ever since I knew her, she wore a string of large blue beads around her neck, –
beads that were precious because my uncle had given them to her when she was
a younger woman. She had a peculiar swing in her gait, caused by a long stride
rarely natural to so slight a figure. It was during my aunt's visit with us that my
mother forgot her accustomed quietness, often laughing heartily at some of my
aunt's witty remarks.
I loved my aunt threefold: for her hearty laughter, for the cheerfulness she
caused my mother, and most of all for the times she dried my tears and held me
in her lap, when my mother had reproved me.
Early in the cool mornings, just as the yellow rim of the sun rose above the
hills, we were up and eating our breakfast. We awoke so early that we saw the
sacred hour when a misty smoke hung over a pit surrounded by an impassable
sinking mire. This strange smoke appeared every morning, both winter and
summer; but most visibly in midwinter it rose immediately above the marshy
spot. By the time the full face of the sun appeared above the eastern horizon,
the smoke vanished. Even very old men, who had known this country the
longest, said that the smoke from this pit had never failed a single day to rise
heavenward.
As I frolicked about our dwelling, I used to stop suddenly, and with a fearful
awe watch the smoking of the unknown fires. While the vapor was visible, I
was afraid to go very far from our wigwam unless I went with my mother.
From a field in the fertile river bottom my mother and aunt gathered an
abundant supply of corn. Near our tepee, they spread a large canvas upon the
grass, and dried their sweet corn in it. I was left to watch the corn, that nothing
should disturb it. I played around it with dolls made of ears of corn. I braided
their soft fine silk for hair, and gave them blankets as various as the scraps I
found in my mother's workbag.
There was a little stranger with a black-and-yellow-striped coat that used to
come to the drying corn. It was a little ground squirrel, who was so fearless of
me that he came to one corner of the canvas and carried away as much of the
sweet corn as he could hold. I wanted very much to catch him, and rub his
pretty fur back, but my mother said he would be so frightened if I caught him
that he would bite my fingers. So I was as content as he to keep the corn
between us. Every morning he came for more corn. Some evenings I have seen
him creeping about our grounds; and when I gave a sudden whoop of
recognition, he ran quickly out of sight.
When mother had dried all the corn she wished, then she sliced great pumpkins
into thin rings; and these she doubled and linked together into long chains. She
hung them on a pole that stretched between two forked posts. The wind and sun
soon thoroughly dried the chains of pumpkin. Then she packed them away in a
case of thick and stiff buckskin.
In the sun and wind she also dried many wild fruits, – cherries, berries, and
plums. But chiefest among my early recollections of autumn is that one of the
corn drying and the ground squirrel.
I have few memories of winter days, at this period of my life, though many of
the summer. There is one only which I can recall.
Some missionaries gave me a little bag of marbles. They were all sizes and
colors. Among them were some of colored glass. Walking with my mother to
the river, on a late winter day, we found great chunks of ice piled all along the
bank. The ice on the river was floating in huge pieces. As I stood beside one
large block, I noticed for the first time the colors of the rainbow in the crystal
ice. Immediately I thought of my glass marbles at home. With my bare fingers I
tried to pick out some of the colors, for they seemed so near the surface. But
my fingers began to sting with the intense cold, and I had to bite them hard to
keep from crying.
From that day on, for many a moon, I believed that glass marbles had river ice
inside of them.
VII.
THE BIG RED APPLES.
The first turning away from the easy, natural flow of my life occurred in an
early spring. It was in my eighth year; in the month of March, I afterward
learned. At this age I knew but one language, and that was my mother's native
tongue.
From some of my playmates I heard that two paleface missionaries were in our
village. They were from that class of white men who wore big hats and carried
large hearts, they said. Running direct to my mother, I began to question her
why these two strangers were among us. She told me, after I had teased much,
that they had come to take away Indian boys and girls to the East. My mother
did not seem to want me to talk about them. But in a day or two, I gleaned
many wonderful stories from my playfellows concerning the strangers.
"Mother, my friend Judéwin is going home with the missionaries. She is going
to a more beautiful country than ours; the palefaces told her so!" I said
wistfully, wishing in my heart that I too might go.
Mother sat in a chair, and I was hanging on her knee. Within the last two
seasons my big brother Dawée had returned from a three years' education in the
East, and his coming back influenced my mother to take a farther step from her
native way of living. First it was a change from the buffalo skin to the white
man's canvas that covered our wigwam. Now she had given up her wigwam of
slender poles, to live, a foreigner, in a home of clumsy logs.
"Yes, my child, several others besides Judéwin are going away with the
palefaces. Your brother said the missionaries had inquired about his little
sister," she said, watching my face very closely.
My heart thumped so hard against my breast, I wondered if she could hear it.
"Did he tell them to take me, mother?" I asked, fearing lest Dawée had
forbidden the palefaces to see me, and that my hope of going to the
Wonderland would be entirely blighted.
With a sad, slow smile, she answered: "There! I knew you were wishing to go,
because Judéwin has filled your ears with the white men's lies. Don't believe a
word they say! Their words are sweet, but, my child, their deeds are bitter. You
will cry for me, but they will not even soothe you. Stay with me, my little one!
Your brother Dawée says that going East, away from your mother, is too hard
an experience for his baby sister."
Thus my mother discouraged my curiosity about the lands beyond our eastern
horizon; for it was not yet an ambition for Letters that was stirring me. But on
the following day the missionaries did come to our very house. I spied them
coming up the footpath leading to our cottage. A third man was with them, but
he was not my brother Dawée. It was another, a young interpreter, a paleface
who had a smattering of the Indian language. I was ready to run out to meet
them, but I did not dare to displease my mother. With great glee, I jumped up
and down on our ground floor. I begged my mother to open the door, that they
would be sure to come to us. Alas! They came, they saw, and they conquered!
Judéwin had told me of the great tree where grew red, red apples; and how we
could reach out our hands and pick all the red apples we could eat. I had never
seen apple trees. I had never tasted more than a dozen red apples in my life; and
when I heard of the orchards of the East, I was eager to roam among them. The
missionaries smiled into my eyes, and patted my head. I wondered how mother
could say such hard words against him.
"Mother, ask them if little girls may have all the red apples they want, when
they go East," I whispered aloud, in my excitement.
The interpreter heard me, and answered: "Yes, little girl, the nice red apples are
for those who pick them; and you will have a ride on the iron horse if you go
with these good people."
I had never seen a train, and he knew it.
"Mother, I am going East! I like big red apples, and I want to ride on the iron
horse! Mother, say yes!" I pleaded.
My mother said nothing. The missionaries waited in silence; and my eyes
began to blur with tears, though I struggled to choke them back. The corners of
my mouth twitched, and my mother saw me.
"I am not ready to give you any word," she said to them. "Tomorrow I shall
send you my answer by my son."
With this they left us. Alone with my mother, I yielded to my tears, and cried
aloud, shaking my head so as not to hear what she was saying to me. This was
the first time I had ever been so unwilling to give up my own desire that I
refused to hearken to my mother's voice.
There was a solemn silence in our home that night. Before I went to bed I
begged the Great Spirit to make my mother willing I should go with the
missionaries.
The next morning came, and my mother called me to her side. "My daughter,
do you still persist in wishing to leave your mother?" she asked.
"Oh, mother, it is not that I wish to leave you, but I want to see the wonderful
Eastern land," I answered.
My dear old aunt came to our house that morning, and I heard her say, "Let her
try it."
I hoped that, as usual, my aunt was pleading on my side. My brother Dawée
came for mother's decision. I dropped my play, and crept close to my aunt.
"Yes, Dawée, my daughter, though she does not understand what it all means,
is anxious to go. She will need an education when she is grown, for then there
will be fewer real Dakotas, and many more palefaces. This tearing her away, so
young, from her mother is necessary, if I would have her an educated woman.
The palefaces, who owe us a large debt for stolen lands, have begun to pay a
tardy justice in offering some education to our children. But I know my
daughter must suffer keenly in this experiment. For her sake, I dread to tell you
my reply to the missionaries. Go, tell them that they may take my little
daughter, and that the Great Spirit shall not fail to reward them according to
their hearts."
Wrapped in my heavy blanket, I walked with my mother to the carriage that
was soon to take us to the iron horse. I was happy. I met my playmates, who
were also wearing their best thick blankets. We showed one another our new
beaded moccasins, and the width of the belts that girdled our new dresses. Soon
we were being drawn rapidly away by the white man's horses. When I saw the
lonely figure of my mother vanish in the distance, a sense of regret settled
heavily upon me. I felt suddenly weak, as if I might fall limp to the ground. I
was in the hands of strangers whom my mother did not fully trust. I no longer
felt free to be myself, or to voice my own feelings. The tears trickled down my
cheeks, and I buried my face in the folds of my blanket. Now the first step,
parting me from my mother, was taken, and all my belated tears availed
nothing.
Having driven thirty miles to the ferryboat, we crossed the Missouri in the
evening. Then riding again a few miles eastward, we stopped before a massive
brick building. I looked at it in amazement and with a vague misgiving, for in
our village I had never seen so large a house. Trembling with fear and distrust
of the palefaces, my teeth chattering from the chilly ride, I crept noiselessly in
my soft moccasins along the narrow hall, keeping very close to the bare wall. I
was as frightened and bewildered as the captured young of a wild creature.
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