Dahcotah Part 26

What wonder that she should not heed the noise of the tempest! The storms of her life had been fiercer than the warring of the elements.

But while the fountains of heaven were unsealed, those of her heart were closed forever. Never more should tears relieve her, who had shed so many. Often had she gone into the prairies to weep, far from the sight of her companions. Her voice was heard from a distance. The wind would waft the melancholy sound back to the village.

"It is only Harpstenah," said the women. "She has gone to the prairies to weep for her husband and her children."

The storm raged during the night, but ceased with the coming of day. The widowed wife and childless mother was found dead under the scaffold where lay the body of her son.

The Thunder Bird was avenged for the death of his friend. The strength of Red Deer had wasted under a lingering disease; his children were dead; their mother lay beside her youngest son.

The spirit of the waters had not appeared in vain. When the countenance of Unktahe rests upon a Dahcotah, it is the sure prognostic of coming evil. The fury of the storm spirits was spent when the soul of Harpstenah followed her lost ones.

Dimly, as the lengthened shadows of evening fall around them, are seen the outstretched arms of the suffering Dahcotah women, as they appeal to us for a.s.sistance--and not to proud man!

He, in the halls of legislation, decides when the lands of the red man are needed--one party makes a bargain which the other is forced to accept.

But in a woman's heart G.o.d has placed sympathies to which the sorrows of the Dahcotah women appeal. Listen! for they tell you they would fain know of a balm for the many griefs they endure; they would be taught to avoid the many sins they commit; and, oh! how gladly would many of them have their young children accustomed to shudder at the sight of a fellow creature's blood. Like us, they pour out the best affections of early youth on a beloved object. Like us, they have clasped their children to their hearts in devoted love. Like us, too, they have wept as they laid them in the quiet earth.

But they must fiercely grapple with trials which we have never conceived. Winter after winter pa.s.ses, and they perish from disease, and murder, and famine.

There is a way to relieve them--would you know it? a.s.sist the missionaries who are giving their lives to them and G.o.d. Send them money, that they may clothe the feeble infant, and feed its starving mother.

Send them money, that they may supply the wants of those who are sent to school, and thus encourage others to attend.

As the day of these forgotten ones is pa.s.sing away, so is ours. They were born to suffer, we to relieve. Let their deathless souls be taught the way of life, that they and we, after the harsh discords of earth shall have ceased, may listen together to the "harmonies of Heaven."

HAOKAH OZAPE;

THE DANCE TO THE GIANT

CHAPTER I.

The dance to the Giant is now rarely celebrated among the Dahcotahs. So severe is the sacrifice to this deity, that there are few who have courage to attempt it; and yet Haokah is universally reverenced and feared among the Sioux.

They believe in the existence of many Giants, but Haokah is one of the princ.i.p.al. He is styled the anti-natural G.o.d. In summer he feels cold, in winter he suffers from the heat; hot water is cold to him, and the contrary.

The Dahcotah warrior, however brave he may be, believes that when he dreams of Haokah, calamity is impending and can only be avoided by some sort of sacrifice to this G.o.d.

The incident on which this story is founded, occurred while I resided among the Sioux. I allude to the desertion of Wenona by her lover. It serves to show the blind and ignorant devotion of the Dahcotah to his religion.

And as man is ever alike in every country, and under every circ.u.mstance of life--as he often from selfish motives tramples upon the heart that trusts him--so does woman utterly condemn a sister, feeling no sympathy for her sorrow, but only hatred of her fault.

Jealous for the honor of the long-reverenced feasts of the Dahcotahs--the "Deer Killer" thought not for a moment of the sorrow and disgrace he would bring upon Wenona, while Wauska loved the warrior more than ever, triumphing in his preference of her, above her companion.

And Wenona--

A cloud came o'er the prospect of her life, And evening did set in Early, and dark and deadly.

But she loved too truly to be jealous, and departed without the revenge that most Indian women would have sought, and accomplished too. Her silence on the subject of her early trial induced her friends to believe that her mind was affected, a situation caused by long and intense suffering, and followed by neglect; in such cases the invalid is said to _have no heart_.

The girl from whom I have attempted to draw the character of Wauska, I knew well.

Good looking, with teeth like pearls, her laugh was perfect music. Often have I been roused from my sewing or reading, by hearing the ringing notes, as they were answered by the children. She generally announced herself by a laugh, and was welcomed by one in return.

She was pettish withal, and easily offended, and if refused calico for an okendokenda, or beads, or ribbon to ornament some part of her dress, she would sullenly rest her chin on her hand, until pacified with a present, or the promise of one.

It is in Indian life as in ours--youth believes and trusts, and advancing years bring the consciousness of the trials of life; the necessity of enduring, and in some cases the power to overcome them. Who but she who suffers it, can conceive the Sioux woman's greatest trial--to feel that the love that is her right, is gone! to see another take the place by the household fire, that was hers; to be last where she was first.

It may require some apology that Wauska should have vowed destruction upon herself if the Deer Killer took another wife, and yet should have lived on and become that most unromantic of all characters--a virago.

She was reconciled in time to what was inevitable, and as there are many wives among the Sioux, there must be the proportion of scolding ones. So I plead guilty to the charge of wanting sentiment, choosing rather to be true to nature. And there is this consideration: if there be among the Dahcotahs some Catharines, there are many Petruchios.

A group of Indian girls were seated on the gra.s.s, Wauska in the centre, her merry musical laugh echoed back by all but Wenona. The leaves of the large forest tree under which they were sheltered seemed to vibrate to the joyous sounds, stirred as they were by a light breeze that blew from the St. Peter's. Hark! they laugh again, and "old John" wakes up from his noon-day nap and turns a curious, reproving look to the noisy party, and Shah-co-pee, the orator of the Sioux, moves towards them, anxious to find out the cause of their mirth.

"Old John," after a hearty stretch, joins them too, and now the fumes of the pipe ascend, and mix with the odor of the sweet-scented prairie gra.s.s that the young girls are braiding.

But neither Shah-co-pee the chief, nor old John the medicine man, could find out the secret; they coaxed and threatened in turns--but all in vain, for their curiosity was not gratified. They might have noticed, however, that Wenona's face was pale, and her eyes red with weeping. She was idle too, while the others plaited busily, and there was a subdued look of sadness about her countenance, contrasting strangely with the merry faces of the others.

"Why did you not tell Shah-co-pee what we were laughing at, Wenona?"

said Wanska. "Your secret is known now. The Deer-killer told all at the Virgin's feast. Why did you not make him promise not to come? If I had been you, I would have lain sick the day of the feast, I would have struck my foot, so that I could not walk, or, I would have died before I entered the ring.

"The Deer-killer promised to marry me," replied Wenona. "He said that when he returned from his hunt I should be his wife. But I know well why he has disgraced me; you have tried to make him love you, and now he is waiting to take you to his lodge. He is not a great warrior, or he would have kept his word."

"Wenona!" said Wanska, interrupting her, "you have not minded the advice of your grandmother. She told you never to trust the promises of the bravest warriors. You should not have believed his words, until he took you to his wigwam. But do not be afraid that I will marry the Deer-killer. There was never but one woman among the Dahcotahs who did not marry, and I am going to be the second."

"You had better hush, Wanska," said the Bright Star. "You know she had her nose cut off because she refused to be a wife, and somebody may cut yours off too. It is better to be the mother of warriors than to have every one laughing at you."

"Enah! then I will be married, rather than have my nose cut off, but I will not be the Deer-killer's wife. So Wenona may stop crying."

"He says he will never marry me," said Wenona; "and it will do me no good for you to refuse to be his wife. But you are a liar, like him; for you know you love him. I am going far away, and the man who has broken his faith to the maiden who trusted him, will never be a good husband."

"If I were Wenona, and you married the Deer-killer," said the Bright Star to Wanska, "you should not live long after it. She is a coward or she would not let you laugh at her as you did. I believe _she has no heart_ since the Virgin's feast; sometimes she laughs so loud that we can hear her from our teepee, and then she bends her head and weeps.

When her mother places food before her she says, 'Will he bring the meat of the young deer for me to dress for him, and will my lodge be ever full of food, that I may offer it to the hungry and weary stranger who stops to rest himself?' If I were in her place, Wanska," added the Bright Star, "I would try and be a medicine woman, and I would throw a spell upon the Deer-killer, and upon you too, if you married him."

"The Deer-killer is coming," said another of the girls. "He has been watching us; and now that he sees Wenona has gone away, he is coming to talk to Wanska. He wears many eagle feathers: Wenona may well weep that she cannot be his wife, for there is not a warrior in the village who steps so proudly as he."

But he advanced and pa.s.sed them indifferently. By and by they separated, when he followed Wanska to her father's teepee.

Her mother and father had gone to dispose of game in exchange for bread and flour, and the Deer-killer seated himself uninvited on the floor of the lodge.

"The teepee of the warrior is lonely when he returns from hunting," said he to the maiden. "Wanska must come to the lodge of the Deer-killer. She shall ever have the tender flesh of the deer and buffalo to refresh her, and no other wife shall be there to make her unhappy."

"Wanska is very happy now," she replied. "Her father is a good hunter.