Lakota (2 page)

He spent his early days strapped in a cradleboard, bouncing along on his mother's back as the camp moved out onto the plains in search of Uncle Tatanka, Bull Buffalo. Other days, when the band encamped near some stream or beside a spring in the hills, he would crawl about, discovering the freedom of the camp. Other children would often play tricks on him or roll a buckskin ball to him. Sometimes he would creep over among the elders. They would not scold him or chase him back to the children. Sometimes old He Hopa, Four Horns, the medicine man, would speak strange words and draw the boy child close.

"Ah, see how Mastincala seeks the wisdom of his elders," the old man told his fellows. "He will grow to be a shirt wearer like his father. Or else be a man of power like this old grandfather."

He Hopa presented Mastincala a medicine bundle when next the child crawled to the old men's fire, and the others howled their approval as the Rabbit clutched a sacred horn.

"See," He Hopa cried. "He is already the man of power I foresaw."

The other men laughed at the thought of an infant knowing the sacred ways of Wakan Tanka. But they took new interest in the restless one.

Mastincala enjoyed his wanderings. Most of the time, that is. The time he crawled into the coals of his father's fire, he screamed in pain. The tender skin of his hands was scorched most severely, and as he fled the fiery earth, he stared at the amused faces of those he judged his protectors.

"See there, Mastincala, foolish one," Tacante said. "You've burned yourself. A wise man doesn't put his hands in the fire."

Wablosa then carried him to He Hopa's lodge, and the medicine man provided a thick yellow paste that soothed the burned hands.

It was the way a boy learned best, so said the Lakota elders. Leave a child to burn himself, and he will not need to be told a fire is hot. Leave the anxious mind to explore. He will learn.

And so Mastincala took his first steps when he undertook the notion to walk. He spoke as he grew able to form the words. His questions were answered if it wasn't inconvenient, and understanding began to supplant impulse.

By the time he greeted his seventh summer, he knew much. He could easily recognize the dress and traditions of his band, the Sicangu Lakota, the burned-thigh people or Brules, as the French traders knew them. He could quite naturally tell the difference between his Oglala cousins and the Pawnees or the Crows, their enemies. He sensed his father was a great man, for even the head man of the band, Little Thunder, would seek the counsel of the man known as Buffalo Heart. Tacante's prestige flowed from the beaded shirt he wore when leading raids upon the Pawnee horse herds or while chasing curious Crows from the buffalo range.

He learned, too, the heavy burdens life placed on the shoulders of an only son. For in those seven years three times Tasiyagnunpa had walked heavy with child, but only once did the infant live. And Mastincala had little use for the pudgy sister that was named Wicatankala, Gull. She soon grew nearly as tall as her brother, and she had not half the trouble with her name the rabbit had with his.

Yes, Mastincala found his name a trial. While he shot small, blunt-pointed arrows with the other boys, they teased him beyond all reason. How was it a rabbit should walk among Little Raven or Mountain Hawk? There were boys named for beavers and eagles and horses. And there was the one called Rabbit.

"Ah," He Hopa assured Mastincala, "one day you will be a man of power. Those others will hunt and live and die, but they will follow you in time of trial. It is good that a man who would lead the people should face hardships. You must make a prayer of thanks to Wakan Tanka, who sends you this struggle to make you strong."

Mastincala did so, but it was hard to feel glad when the sharp words of the other boys stung his seven-year-old heart. And while Wicatankala doted upon her skinny, pale-skinned brother, the other girls enjoyed teasing the Rabbit.

"Take care no hawk swoops down and takes you off to Paha Sapa," they called.

"No, hawks see good," Capa, the Beaver, observed. "He is too little to make a meal of. Even a Pawnee would not waste an arrow on him."

The others laughed, and Mastincala suffered.

He might have endured the name and his slow growth more easily were it not for the light pigment of his skin. Others, whose flesh had grown dark brown, spoke of the white rabbit. When wagons of the Wasicun, the white people, passed along the road they had built beside the Platte, they often spoke to him in their stranger tongues.

"They want to know if you have a white mother or father," some trader's son translated.

Mastincala replied in his shrill voice that he was Sicangu Lakota, the son of Tacante, the great hunter and shirt wearer.

But still the whites wished to take him from his people, to see him placed among the black robe priests who came among the Lakota with their loud words of the angry wakan. These whites were a strange people, Mastincala decided. They had many laws that were never to be broken, and yet they needed many soldiers to chase down those who broke such laws. At the forts there were lodges with iron windows where men who violated the laws were kept. Even soldiers were locked in those lodges. How much simpler to take the Lakota way. A man or woman who did wrong was sent from the camp. Was there worse pain than being taken from the people, left to wander the earth alone?

And yet being among the white people was not altogether bad. They had many good things to trade for buffalo hides. Tacante and other warriors boasted fine rifles. The traders and the wagon travelers, too, would give many fine beads and much cloth for fresh trout plucked from the river or even a pair of worn moccasins. And while among the whites, Mastincala's skin appeared not so pale.

At one fort, the one called Laramie, Mastincala met the first great friend of his young life. This was Hinkpila, Short Hair, also called Louis Le Doux by the whites. His skin was dark for a white man, and Hinkpila explained how his grandmother was a Lakota. Hinkpila was of an age and size to be Mastincala's twin, and the two boys, both misfits among their own people, spent many days swimming the river, wrestling on the sandy banks, or racing through cottonwood groves that stood between the Sicangu camp and the white man's fort.

It was as good a time as a boy not old enough to ride to the buffalo hunt might know, but it didn't last forever. A year had passed since a soldier chief had fired upon Conquering Bear's camp, and the Lakota had fought a battle near the fort. Many soldiers had been slain, for Conquering Bear had been killed and the people were very angry. Peace followed, but now Hinkpila's father brought word the soldiers were angry with the Lakota and were sending an eagle chief to teach the Indian a lesson.

"We will go," Tacante explained to his son. "We've always known Le Doux to give us good words. We have traded, and now we should seek out Uncle Tatanka."

So Mastincala bid his friend farewell, leaving him the gift of a fine buffalo-hide coat to mark their friendship.

"White men make poor coats," the Rabbit declared. "This will keep you warm when the snows come."

In return, Hinkpila gave his Lakota friend a fine steel knife with a polished bone handle. It was a knife to put Capa and his friends to shame, and Mastincala rode eastward along the Platte road feeling taller and prouder. But his heart was sad, too, for he had never parted with a friend before.

That summer was a remembered time for Little Thunder's Sicangus. Good fortune smiled on the hunt, and soon the camp was alive with the aroma of smoking meat. Bellies were full, and as the grandmothers pounded chokecherries into strips of meat to make the wasna, the dried buffalo meat that would prevent winter starving, songs of thanks rose to Wakan Tanka.

Mastincala was too young to ride with the hunters, but he stalked what game was to be found beside Platte River. His first kill was a plump porcupine, and his mother accepted it proudly. Quills were greatly favored for decorating warrior shirts, after all.

Soon thereafter the Rabbit had his first spirit dreaming. Often he had seen images of this or that in his sleep, but never had the spirit visions seemed as real. He sought out He Hopa and explained about the dream, telling how while he had been hunting with the other boys in the rocks beyond the river, a large black bear had come upon them. It growled and fell upon them, striking boys until none save Mastincala remained. The bear had gazed with cold eyes upon the Rabbit while the boy notched an arrow and let it fly into the bear's heart.

"Ah, brave one, I am no more," the bear had cried. Then he was gone, and the boys were alive once more.

"Perhaps your heart is torn by the words of your brothers, little one," He Hopa said, leading the boy aside. "You are seen small and unworthy by their eyes, and you wish to grow taller."

"It's true," Mastincala admitted. "But the bear felt close."

"Then perhaps he will come, and you will have your chance," He Hopa said, smiling. "Here, I will give you a strong arrow with a sharp point. Carry it among your deer arrows."

Mastincala thanked the medicine man for the gift, and Four Horns urged caution.

"Maybe it is only a dream," the old man said. "But your eyes have always held power, Mastincala. The bear may come."

Mastincala spoke to no one else of the bear or the dream, not even his father. In time he put it out of his mind. To the other boys, he made up one tale after another to explain the long, sharp-pointed arrow he carried in his quiver. But despite their nagging, he never once spoke of the truth.

"A man of power should not betray his secrets," He Hopa said often. It was wisdom well spoken, for Mastincala couldn't have endured the taunts that would have followed a seven-year-old's revelation of a spirit dream.

Then one afternoon as the boys stalked a small doe in the rocks beyond the river, they came upon a rockslide. As they crept among the fallen boulders and passed a dark hole in the hillside, a roar not unlike thunder froze their feet. Out of the darkness rumbled the very bear Mastincala had seen in his dream.

"Run!" Capa screamed as he scampered away from the lumbering creature. Those who could did so. Two of the older ones fired arrows first. Their small shafts and flint points, designed to penetrate bird feathers or rabbit fur, bounced harmlessly off the enormous bulk of the bear. Both shooters were suddenly in terrible peril. That was when Mastincala called to the bear.

"Here I am, Mato! I, Mastincala, am ready for you."

The bear turned and eyed the bare-chested boy as Mastincala notched his arrow. Then, holding his arm as steady as was possible, the Rabbit let loose his arrow. It struck the bear in the throat. The animal roared in pain and bellowed so that the earth began to shake. The terrified boys fled through the rocks, all save Mastincala, who remained to await his fate. Suddenly Tacante and his brother, Hinhan Hota, arrived. They leveled their new rifles and fired. The bear fell on its side and breathed out its life.

The boys howled their relief, then raced to touch their bows to the flanks of the fallen bear, thus counting coup on the enemy. Mastincala stood as before, solitary and silent. His ears filled with the remembered dream voice of the bear, and he knew a great moment had come to him.

Tacante saw the strange gaze of his son and led the boy finally away from the bear. Only then did Mastincala tell of the dream and of He Hopa's counsel.

"Ah, it was a brave thing, little one," Tacante declared. "But very dangerous. It's a shirt wearer's duty to come to the aid of his brothers, but to stand and die is never desired. A man can't help his family if he dies young."

Mastincala felt the comfort of his father's strong arm and rejoiced that he had Buffalo Heart for a protector. Hinhan Hota later dragged the dead bear to the camp, and the band enjoyed a feasting that night. As for the skin, Hinhan Hota promised Mastincala a fine winter coat from it.

Such a day would have been remembered even if He Hopa had not risen that night to speak to the people.

"I have said here is a boy with power to see things," the medicine man reminded them. "Now he has stood as a warrior and protected his brothers. Surely there would be the wail of burial songs among us tonight if not for Mastincala's courage. It is a brave deed he has done, and I say it now to all."

The others murmured their agreement. Even Capa and the other boys whooped and beat small sticks together in recognition of the Rabbit's deed.

He Hopa then motioned Mastincala to come close, and the old man produced an eagle feather and tied it in the boy's hair.

"Here has been done the first of many brave deeds," He Hopa announced. "Wakan Tanka, watch over this little one that he may grow tall in wisdom. May his feet never stray from the sacred path."

The others howled their agreement, and Mastincala stretched himself to his full height and grinned back at his assembled admirers. Such moments don't last long, he knew, and are best enjoyed at the moment. Tomorrow would bring new tasks and fresh undertakings. There would be rest only tonight.

Rabbit is a clever creature. He dwells in the roughest hollows, among the thorny bushes and the cacti. He builds his warren beneath the earth, in places overlooked and ignored by most men and safe from the keen eyes of the soaring hawks. He is never content with a solitary entrance. He digs a second so as to provide always a lane of escape. And while foraging for his sustenance, he often retraces his steps, thus making a double trail that leads in a circle. Even the best Lakota trackers admitted Rabbit was clever.