“Kȟóda ni Dakȟóta! [Friend You Are Dakȟóta!]" sings tȟašíyagmuŋka, the western meadowlark. Photo by Blake Matheson for Observe Your Preserve.
A Woman Saves The Hero
The Tree Bound
By Ziŋtkála Ša (Red Bird)
A photo of Gertude Simmons Bonnin, known as Ziŋtkála Ša, or Red Bird, by Gertrude Kasebier, 1898.
The
following story comes from Ziŋtkála
Ša’s “Old Indian Legends.” Ziŋtkála Ša
was born on the Yankton Sioux Indian
Reservation in what became South Dakota. She attended White’s Manual Labor
Institute in Indiana, Earlham College, played violin with the New England
Conservatory of Music, taught music at Carlisle Industrial School (she was
latter dismissed when she challenged the institute’s founder that natives could
aspire to more than menial labor), and briefly worked as a clerk for the BIA
(Bureau of Indian Affairs) on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation before
marrying and moving to the Unitah-Ouray Reservation in Utah. Ziŋtkála Ša was also a founding member of the National
Congress of American Indians.
It was a clear summer day. The blue
blue sky dropped low over the edge of the green level land. A large yellow sun
hung directly overhead.
The singing birds filled the summer
space between earth and sky with sweet music. Again and again sang a yellow-breasted
birdie[1], “Kȟóda ni Dakȟóta!”
which was, “Friend
you are Dakota!” Perchance the birdie meant the avenger[2] with the magic arrow, for
there across the plain he strode. He was handsome in his paint and feathers,
proud with his great buckskin quiver on his back and a long bow in his hand.
Afar to an eastern group of cone-shaped thípis[3] he was going. There over
the Indian village hovered a large red eagle threatening the safety of the
people. Every morning rose this terrible red bird out of a high chalk bluff and
spreading out his gigantic wings soared slowly over the round camp ground. Then
it was that the people, terror-stricken, ran screaming into their blankets,
they sat trembling with fear. No one dared to venture out till the red eagle
had disappeared beyond the west, where meet the blue and green.
In vain tried the chieftain of the
tribe to find among his warriors a powerful marksman who could send a death
arrow to the man-hungry bird. At last to urge his men to their utmost skill he
bade his crier proclaim a new reward.
Of the chieftain’s two beautiful
daughters he would have his choice who brought the dreaded red eagle with arrow
in its breast.
George Catlin's "Archery of The Mandan." The scene probably looked similar to this, with men readying their arrows skyward.
Upon hearing these words, the men of
the village, both young and old, both heroes and cowards, trimmed new arrows
for the contest. At gray dawn there stood indistinctly under the shadow of the
bluff many human figures; silent as ghosts and wrapped in robes girdled tight
about their waists, they waited with chosen bow and arrow.
From within the dwellings many eyes
peeped through the small holes in the front lapels of the thípi. With shaking knees
and hard-set teeth, the women peered out upon the Dakȟóta men prowling about with bows and
arrows.
At length when the morning sun also
peeped over the eastern horizon at the armed Dakȟóta, the red eagle walked out upon the
edge of the cliff. Pluming his gorgeous feathers, he ruffled his neck and
flapped his strong wings together. Then he dived into the air. Slowly he winged
his way over the round camp ground; over the men with their strong bows and
arrows! In an instant the long bows were bent. Strong straight arrows with red
feathered tips sped upward to the blue sky. Ah! Slowly moved those indifferent
wings, untouched by the poison-beaked arrows. Off to the west beyond the reach
of arrow, beyond the reach of eye, the red eagle flew away.
A sudden clamor of high-pitched voices
broke the deadly stillness of the dawn. The women talked excitedly about the
invulnerable red of the eagle’s feathers, while the would-be heroes sulked
within their wigwams[4].
“Hĕ-hĕ-hĕ!”[5] groaned the chieftain.
On the evening of the same day sat a group
of hunters around a bright burning fire. They were talking of a strange young
man whom they spied while out upon a hunt for deer beyond the bluffs. They saw
the stranger taking aim. Following the point of his arrow with their eyes, they
beheld a herd of buffalo.[6] The arrow sprang from the
bow! It darted into the skull of the foremost buffalo. But unlike other arrows
it pierced through the head of the creature and spinning in the air lit into
the next buffalo head. One by one the buffalo fell upon the sweet grass they
were grazing. With straight quivering limbs they lay on their sides. The young
man stood calmly by, counting on his fingers the buffalo as they dropped dead
to the ground. When the last one fell, he ran thither and picking up his magic
arrow wiped it carefully on the soft grass. He slipped it into his long fringed
quiver.
“He is going to make a feast for some
hungry tribe of men or beasts!” cried the hunters among themselves as they
hastened away.
They were afraid of the stranger with
the sacred bow. When the hunters’ tale of the stranger’s arrow reached the ears
of the chieftain, his face brightened with a smile. He sent forth his fleet
horsemen, to learn of him his birth, his name, and his deeds.
“If he is the avenger with the magic
arrow, sprung up from the earth out of a clot of buffalo blood, bid him come
hither. Let him kill the red eagle with his magic arrow. Let him win for
himself one of my beautiful daughters,” he said to his messengers, for the old
story of the badger’s man-son was known all over the level lands.
After four days and nights the braves
returned. “He is coming,” they said. “We
have seen him. He is straight and tall; handsome in face, with large black eyes.
He paints his round cheeks with bright red, and wears the penciled lines of red
over his temples like our men of honored rank. He carries on his back a long
fringed quiver in which he keeps his magic arrow. His bow is long and strong.
He is coming now to kill the big red eagle.” All around the camp ground from
mouth to ear passed those words of the returned messengers.
In one story, Iktómi, the trickster, wanted spots like the fawn. The fawns burned him in a fire and left him there instead.
Now it chanced that immortal Iktómi,[7] fully recovered from the
brown burnt spots,[8]
overheard the people talking. At once he was filled with a new desire. “If only
I had the magic arrow, I would kill the red eagle and win the chieftain’s
daughter for a wife,” he said in his heart.
Back to his lonely wigwam he hastened.
Beneath the tree in front of his thípi he sat upon the ground with chin between
his drawn-up knees. His keen eyes scanned the wide plain. He was watching for
the avenger.
“’He is coming!’ said the people,”
muttered old Iktómi. All of a sudden he raised an open palm to his brow and
peered afar into the west. The summer sun hung bright in the middle of a
cloudless sky. There across the green prairie was a man walking bareheaded
toward the east.
“Ha! Ha![9] ‘tis he! The man with the
magic arrow!” laughed Iktómi. And when the bird with the yellow breast sang
loud again, “Kȟóda
ni Dakȟóta! Friend you are Dakȟóta!” Iktómi put his hand over his mouth
as he threw his head far backward, laughing at both the bird and man.
“He is your friend, but his arrow will
kill one of your kind! He is a Dakȟóta, but soon he’ll grow into the bark
on this tree! Ha! Ha! Ha!” he laughed again.
The young avenger walked with swaying
strides nearer and nearer toward the lonely wigwam and tree. Iktómi heard the swish! shwish! of the stranger’s feet
through the tall grass. He was passing now beyond the tall tree, when Iktómi,
springing to his feet, called out, “Háu, my friend! I see you are dressed in
handsome deerskins and have red paint on your cheeks. You are going to some
feast or dance, may I ask?” Seeing only the young man Iktómi smiled and went
on, “I have not had a mouthful of food this day. Have pity on me, young brave,
and shoot yonder bird for me!” With these words Iktómi pointed toward the
tree-top, where sat a bird on the highest branch. The young avenger, always
ready to help those in distress, sent an arrow upward and the bird fell. In the
next branch it was caught between the forked prongs.
A dead cottonwood tree in an open field.
“My friend, climb the tree and get the
bird. I cannot climb so high. I would get dizzy and fall,” pleaded Iktómi. The
avenger began to scale the tree, when Iktómi dried to him, “My friend, your
beaded buckskins may be torn by the branches. Leave them safe upon the grass
till you are down again.”
“You are right,” replied the young
man, quickly slipping off his long fringed quiver. Together with his dangling
pouches and tinkling ornaments, he placed it on the ground. Now he climbed the
tree unhindered. Soon from the top he took the bird. “My friend, toss to me
your arrow that I may have the honor of wiping it clean on soft deerskin!”
exclaimed Iktómi.
“Háu!” said the brave, and threw the
bird and arrow to the ground.
At once Iktómi seized the arrow.
Rubbing it first on the grass and then on a piece of deerskin, he muttered
indistinct words all the while. The young man, stepping downward from limb to
limb, hearing the low muttering, said, “Iktómi, I cannot hear what you say!”
“Oh, my friend, I was only talking of
your big heart.”
Again stooping over the arrow Iktómi
continued his repetition of charm words. “Grow fast, grow fast to the bark of
the tree,” he whispered. Still the young man moved slowly downward. Suddenly
dropping the arrow and standing erect, Iktómi said aloud, “Grow fast to the
bark of the tree!” Before the brave could leap from the tree he became
tight-grown to the bark.
“Ah! Ah!” laughed the bad Iktómi. “I
have the magic arrow! I have the beaded buckskins of the great avenger!”
Hooting and dancing beneath the tree, he said, “I shall kill the red eagle. I
shall wed the chieftain’s beautiful daughter!”
“Oh, Iktómi, set me free!” begged the
tree-bound Dakȟóta brave. But Iktómi’s ears were like
the fungus on a tree. He did hear with them.
"There among them stood Iktómi in brown buckskins," by Angel De Cora for the University of Nebraska Press Bison Book edition of "Old Indian Legends."
Wearing the handsome buckskins and
carrying proudly the magic arrow in his right hand, he started off eastward.
Imitating the swaying strides of the avenger, he walked away with a face turned
slightly skyward.
“Oh, set me free! I am glued to the
tree like its own bark! Cut me loose!” moaned the prisoner.
A young woman, carrying a bundle of
tightly bound willow on her strong back, passed near by the lonely thípi. She
heard the wailing man’s voice. She paused to listen to the sad words. Looking
around she saw nowhere a human creature. “It may be a spirit,” she thought.
“Oh! Cut me loose! Set me free! Iktómi
has played me false! He has made me bark of his tree!” cried the voice again.
The young woman dropped her pack of
willow to the ground. With her stone axe she hurried to the tree. There before her
astonished eyes clung a young brave close to the tree.
Too shy for words, yet too
kind-hearted to leave the stranger tree-bound, she cut loose the whole bark.
Like an open jacket she drew it to the ground. With it came the young man also.
Free once more, he started away. Looking backward, a few paces from the young
woman, he waved his hand upward and downward, before her face. This was a sign
of gratitude used when words failed to interpret strong emotion.
When the bewildered woman reached her
dwelling, she mounted a pony and rode swiftly across the rolling land. To the
camp ground in the east, to the chieftain troubled by the red eagle, she
carried her story.
[1] The D-Lakȟóta
refer to this particular bird as tȟašíyagmunka, the meadowlark, which some say sings
in the D-Lakȟóta language.
[2] The “Avenger” was “born” of a clot of
blood after Badger prayed to the Great Spirit for retribution against a family
of bears who had taken his home. The story of the Avenger’s birth can be found
in Ziŋtkála Ša’s book “Old Indian Legends.” The story is called “The Badger and
The Bear.”
[3] Thiíkčeya
or Thipȟéstola are two proper words for the thípi (variously spelled as “tipi” or “teepee).
[4] Ziŋtkála Ša’s use of this word is
probably in reference to what most Americas knew also as a “wikiup,” a
temporary lodge made by bending saplings into a small dome. Sometimes it was
covered with a robe or blanket. This type of temporary lodging is called thiyúktaŋ.
[5] A traditional Lakȟóta interjection used by men is, “Aŋhé,” to express satisfaction or
self-satisfaction. “Hĕ-hĕ-hĕ,” may be an Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ (End Village Dwellers; one of the
Seven Council Fires) variation of the Lakȟóta expression. Ziŋtkála Ša however uses this word before “groaned,” which seems to
imply in “exasperation,” but the expression could very well be “grunted,” in
which case “groan” would seem to be the most appropriate word to how the chief
said the interjection, and he could be satisfied that his warriors are taking
action rather than huddling in their lodges.
[6] Bison. Another collective noun for
bison is “Gang.” The Lakȟóta
refer to bison as Ptéčaka (Bison), Tȟatȟáŋka
(Bison Bull), or simply
Pté (Bison Cow).
[8] In reference to the story in which
Iktómi wanted brown spots like a young fawn. Young fawns buried Iktómi under a
pile of leaves and cedar, started it afire and left him for their mothers
thinking that the Trickster would get out of the flames when it became too hot.
See Ziŋtkála Ša’s story “Iktomi and
The Fawn.”
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