Growing Up Native American (12 page)

We then rode to where my father had killed a buffalo. There we stopped and prepared it for taking home. It was late afternoon when we got back to camp. No king ever rode in state who was more proud than I that day as I came into the village sitting high up on my load of buffalo meat. Mother had now two hunters in the family and I knew how she was going to make over me. It is not customary for Indian men to brag about their exploits and I had been taught that bragging was not nice. So I was very quiet, although I was bursting with pride. Always when arriving home I would run out to play, for I loved to be
with the other boys, but this day I lingered about close to the tipi so I could hear the nice things that were said about me. It was soon all over camp that Ota K'te had killed a buffalo.

My father was so proud that he gave away a fine horse. He called an old man to our tipi to cry out the news to the rest of the people in camp. The old man stood at the door of our tipi and sang a song of praise to my father. The horse had been led up and I stood holding it by a rope. The old man who was doing the singing called the other old man who was to receive the horse as a present. He accepted the horse by coming up to me, holding out his hands to me, and saying, “Ha-ye,” which means “Thank you.” The old man went away very grateful for the horse.

That ended my first and last buffalo hunt. It lives only in my memory, for the days of the buffalo are over.

I
n his autobiographical recollection
, The Middle Five: Indian Schoolboys of the Omaha Tribe,
Francis La Flesche offers a thorough and incisive account of student life in a Presbyterian mission school in northeastern Nebraska around the time of the Civil War. The students, whose ages ranged from four to seventeen, frequently banded together into groups that offered friendship, mutual comfort, and understanding as they tried to negotiate between the old world they had been torn from and the alien new world in which they found themselves. The Middle Five was the name of the group created by Francis La Flesche and four other schoolboys
.

In these selections, La Flesche tells several moving incidents illustrating the compassion, bravery, and friendship of a group of boys during one of the most difficult periods of their lives
.

Francis La Flesche (Omaha) was born in 1857. He devoted his life to the study of his people's traditions and was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of Nebraska in 1926 for his outstanding scholarly achievements. He died in 1932
.

 

JOE

 

I
T WAS RECESS. THE LAUGHER AND SHOUTS OF THE BOYS, AS THEY
chased each other and wrestled, mingled with the song of the wren and other birds that inhabited the woods surrounding the school. Not less merry or boisterous were the laughter and calls
of the girls, although their territory for play was limited and fenced in, to keep them from too free a communication with the rougher sex. Study and work were forgotten, and every boy and girl romped in the sunshine, and the atmosphere around seemed to be alive with happiness.

Suddenly the boys began to gather curiously around two objects upon the ground. The girls, seeing this unusual stir, came running to their fence, climbed up as far as they dared, and asked the nearest boys what it was that attracted so large a crowd.

It was a pitiful scene,—there, sitting on the green grass, was a crippled old woman of about seventy or eighty years, speaking in the kindest and gentlest of tones, with inflections of the voice hard to describe, but which brought to one's mind the twittering of a mother bird to its young, and passing her crooked fingers and wrinkled hands over the brown back of a miserable, naked, little boy who was digging his chubby fists in his eyes to squeeze away the tears that flowed incessantly.

“Don't cry! my little grandson,” she was saying; “don't cry! These White-chests are kind; they will clothe and feed you. I can no longer take care of you, so I must give you to them. See these boys, what nice caps and coats and pants they have! You will have these things, too, and you will have plenty to eat. The White-chests will be good to you; I will come and see you very often. Don't cry!”

But the boy cried all the harder, twisting his fists into his eyes, and the old woman continued her caressing twittering.

The bell rang, and there was a rush for the school-room. When the hard breathing, coughing, and shuffling into position at the desks had ceased, the door was gently pushed open, and the old woman entered, tenderly urging the unwilling little brown body forward into the room, still weeping. Addressing Gray-beard, who was watching the scene with a queer smile on his lips, the old woman said:

“I have brought my little boy to give him to the White-chests to raise and to educate. On account of my age and feebleness, I am no longer able to care for him. I give him to you, and I beg that he be kindly treated. That is all I ask.”

Without waiting for an answer, the poor creature, with tears
streaming down her furrowed cheeks, limped out of the room, making a cheerless clatter with her heavy stick as she moved away. The little boy, recovering from his bewilderment, turned to see if his grandmother was still near by, and, finding that she had gone, gave a piteous wail, and fell to the floor, sobbing violently.

Who was this wretched little boy? He was his mother's son, that's all. He had no father, that is, none to caress and fondle him as other boys had. A man had presented the name of the boy to the Agent to be entered on the annuity rolls, only to that selfish extent recognizing the lad as his son.

The mother died while the child still needed her tender care, and the little one was left all alone in this great world that plays with the fortunes of men and nations. The place of death was in a dreary little tent, the rags of which flapped and fluttered in the force of the merciless winds, as though in sympathy with the melancholy situation. No loving husband or father was there to prepare the body for its last resting-place, and to give the helpless babe the nourishment for which it cried. Not even a relative was there; the dead woman had none among the people; she belonged to another tribe.

As the mother lay an unburied corpse, and her child wailing, a figure bent with age was plodding by. It was an old woman; slowly she put her heavy stick forward, then took a step, as though measuring every movement. When she came near the tent, she stopped, for the distressing wail had pierced her ears. She raised her trembling hand to her brow, looked up to the tent, then to the surroundings. The wailing went on, and the decrepit old woman hastened toward the tent as fast as she was able to go, and entered. For a moment she stood still, contemplating the scene before her, then from the fountains of her tender heart arose tears, impelled not by the sympathy that naturally springs from the love of friend or kindred, but by that nobler and higher feeling which lifts one toward God,—the sympathy for human kind.

Thus it was that this kind-hearted old woman took the homeless little child to her tent and cared for him. The two were inseparable until the grandmother, as she was called by the boy, felt that she was fast approaching the time when she would be
summoned to join her fathers in the spirit-land; so, to provide for the child's future, she had brought him to the school.

The naming of a new pupil was usually an occasion for much merriment, but this time there was no enthusiasm. The school seemed to be in sympathy with the grandmother who went away weeping. Instead of raising their hands, as was their wont, to suggest names, they sought to hide their feeling by poring over their books.

“Come,” said Gray-beard, “we must have a name for this youngster. Be quick and suggest one.”

There was no response. Finally a big boy, who was busy over his lessons, said without lifting his head, “Call him Joseph.”

So Gray-beard entered that name on the school Register.

Joe, as he was called by the boys, grew rapidly, but the helplessness of infancy clung to him. Because he could not fight, he became the butt of every trick a school-boy could devise, and there was no one who would do battle for him. If a big boy looked hard at him he would howl, and if one of his size rushed at him threateningly, he would shrink with fear. He was incapable of creating any mischief, yet he was continually stumbling into scrapes.

One sultry afternoon as I was sitting in the shade of the walnut-tree in front of the school, busy making a sling for Bob out of an old shoe, Joe came up to us, and dropped on his hands and knees. With the greatest interest he watched me cut the leather into a diamond shape; after a while he ventured to ask, “What yer makin'?”

“Wait and see,” I answered, and went on working. When I had finished the sling-strap or pocket, I cut from the lappets of my buckskin moccasin two strings, making a noose at the end of one, and then fastened both strings to the sling-strap. Although I did not say anything about it, I had determined to make one for Joe as soon as I had shown Bob how to use the sling. He tried to find out from Bob what I was making; but that little chap would not speak to him.

When the sling was finished, I told Bob to gather some rusty nails and pebbles. He was off with a jump, and returned with a good supply in an amazingly short time. Joe still sat watching, with eyes and mouth wide open. I put a nail in the sling-strap,
and, to show Bob how to use the sling, swung it around three or four times, then threw out my arm with force, letting one end of the string slip, and the nail sped on its way through the air, singing. Bob clapped his hands with delight.

A crow was flying lazily over head, croaking as he went. I sent a stone whizzing up to him; it barely missed his head, and he turned a complete somersault in the air, to our great amusement.

“I'm goin' to make one too!” said Joe, suddenly rising and hunting around for materials.

I paid no attention to him, but went on teaching Bob how to throw stones with the sling, little thinking that we were drifting toward an incident which gave Joe much pain temporarily and left an impression on my immature mind unfavorable to the White-chests which lasted many, many years.

“Mine's done!” exclaimed Joe, holding up a sling he had made out of rotten rags.

“Don't use it,” I made haste to say, “and I'll make you a good one.”

He paid no heed to my words, but went on trying to balance stones in the old piece of rag. The stones dropped before he could swing the sling and throw them. Bob kept me busy throwing stones for him, for he was afraid of hitting the boys who were on the hillside near by playing tag, or of sending a pebble over the fence, where the girls were singing and chatting over some of their games.

“Look now, look!” cried Joe. I turned to see what he was doing. He had succeeded in balancing a clod of earth nearly as large as his head in the rag sling, and was about to swing it.

Just at this moment Gray-beard came out of the carpenter's shop and, shading his eyes with a newspaper, he called loudly to one of the boys who was playing tag, “Ulysses! Ulysses!” He inflated his lungs to call for the third time, and with greater volume of voice. Joe had swung the clod of earth around for the second time, and it was half way up for the third round when the string broke; released from its holdings, the clod flew into the air, revolving, and dropping loose particles as it went. I held my breath as I watched it, for I saw just where it was going to strike.

In throwing a stone at some object, I used to imagine that by keeping a steady eye on the stone and bending my body in the direction I desired it to go, I could make the missile reach the place aimed at. In this instance, although I did not throw the clod, I unconsciously bent my body sidewise, keeping my eyes steadily on the lump of earth to draw it away from the spot for which it was making. The two other boys watched with frightened faces.

Gray-beard with head thrown back, lips parted, and chest expanded, called, “Uly—!” when the diminutive planet, which I was trying to guide by my force of will, struck him in the chest, and burst in a thousand bits. For a moment there was coughing and sputtering; then Gray-beard drew out his hand-kerchief, dusted his beard, and his white shirt front. He looked around to see where the missile that struck him came from. I wished that we three could sink into the earth, or else turn into nothing, as Gray-beard's eyes rested upon us.

“Come here!” he demanded with a vigorous gesture. Like so many guilty curs we walked up to him.

“Which one of you did it?” he cried, grasping me by the collar and shaking me until my teeth chattered.

Joe cringed and cried; it was a confession. I was about to say, “he didn't mean to do it;” when the infuriated man turned, went into the shop, and in a moment came back with a piece of board.

“Hold out your hand!” he said, addressing the shrinking boy.

Joe timidly held out his left hand, keeping his eyes all the while on the uplifted board, which came down with force, but not on the little hand that had been withdrawn to escape the blow. Gray-beard sprang at the boy, caught his hand, and attempted to strike it; but the boy pulled away and the board fell with a vicious thud on the wrist of the man, who now turned white with rage. Catching a firm grip on the hand of the boy, Gray-beard dealt blow after blow on the visibly swelling hand. The man seemed to lose all self-control, gritting his teeth and breathing heavily, while the child writhed with pain, turned blue, and lost his breath.

It was a horrible sight. The scene in the school-room when the naked little boy was first brought there by the old woman
rose before me; I heard the words of the grandmother as she gave the boy to Gray-beard, “I beg that he be kindly treated; that is all I ask!” And she had told the child that the White-chests would be kind to him.

Poor Joe, I did what I never would have done if a boy of his own size had thrashed him, I took him by the hand and tried to comfort him, and cared for his bruises.

As for Gray-beard I did not care in the least about the violent shaking he had given me; but the vengeful way in which he fell upon that innocent boy created in my heart a hatred that was hard to conquer.

The day was spoiled for me; I partly blamed myself for it, though my plans had been to make the two little boys happy, but misery came instead. After supper I slipped away from my companions, and all alone I lay on the grass looking up at the stars, thinking of what had happened that afternoon. I tried to reconcile the act of Gray-beard with the teachings of the Missionaries, but I could not do so from any point of view.

All the boys had come together in the yard, and some one called out, “Let's play pull.” So they divided into two groups, grading each according to the size of the boys. Two of the strongest were selected, one from each side; they held a stout stick between them, then on each side the boys grasped each other around the waist. When all were ready, they began to pull, every boy crying, “Hue! Hue!” as he tugged and strained. In the dusk the contending lines looked like two great dark beasts tearing at each other and lashing their tails from side to side. Bob and Joe were at the very end of one side; Bob had tied a bit of rope around his waist, and Joe had hold of that with his only serviceable hand. The pulling lasted for quite a while; finally one side drew the other over the mark; the game ended, and the boys noisily disbanded.