Prairie Smoke

by Melvin R. Gilmore, Louis Schellbach (Illustrator)

Overview

Tells the traditional stories and describes the lifeways of some of the first people of the Plains: the Pawnee, Sioux, Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara, and Omaha Indians. Through these stories, readers learn of the essential ties Native peoples have to the land.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780873512077
Publisher:	Minnesota Historical Society Press
Publication date:	04/01/1987
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	253
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	9 - 17 Years

Read an Excerpt

PRAIRIE SMOKE

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By MELVIN R. GILMORE

MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESS

Copyright © 2011 Melvin R. Gilmore
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-87351-207-7

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Chapter One

MOTHER EARTH

THE PRAIRIE

To obtain even an approximate appreciation of the conditions of life as they presented themselves to the people of the nations which formerly occupied the region drained by the Missouri River and its tributaries, we must bring ourselves to see it as it was in its natural condition, void of all the countless changes and accessories which we have made here by our European culture and custom.

Imagine, then, a country of open prairie stretching away and away, beyond the range of vision, over hill, valley, and plain, the skyline unbroken by trees, except a fringe along the course of a stream. The aspect of this landscape in summer was that of a boundless sea of shining green, billowing under the prevailing south wind, darkened here and there by the swiftly marching shadows of clouds sailing high and white in the brilliant blue sky. Toward the end of summer the sun appears to have shed some of its luster upon the plain below, for it now shines with a paler light, while the ever-restless, rustling, whispering sea of grass waves in rolling billows of golden green, seeming to be forever flowing on before the south wind into the mysterious North, changing again into yellow and warm brown as autumn comes on.

Then it may happen some day that the whole aspect is suddenly changed. Fire has escaped in the sea of dry grass. To the windward the horizon is one long line of smoke, which, as it comes nearer, rolls up in black masses shot through with darting tongues of angry red flames leaping a hundred feet skyward, while the sound of the conflagration is like that of a rushing storm. Frightened animals are fleeing before it in terror for their lives, and birds are flying from the threatened destruction.

This scene passes, and now the whole visible earth is one vast stretch of coal-black, and the whole sky is a thick blue haze in which the sun seems to hang like a great red ball, while an unbroken silence pervades the land.

Then winter comes with days of leaden sky and blackened earth, succeeded by clear days when the snow-covered earth appears like a vast white bowl encrusted with frost-diamonds and inclosed by an overarching dome of most brilliant blue.

Again the season changes: warm airs blow from the south; soft showers fall; the sound of the first thunder wakens all Nature; the blackened earth appears once more, soon showing color from the pale green spears of tender young grass, and in a short time the form of Mother Earth is once more clothed in a mantle of shining green.

And now, as the biting winds of winter yield to the balmy breezes from the south, all the vernal flora is quickened into life and beauty. The modest blue violets appear in such profuse abundance that they seem like shreds of the sky wafted by the spring breezes over the land and drifted into every swale and ravine. On the upland the purple flowers of the buffalo pea show themselves; in sandy places of the Middle Great Plains the dainty lavender blue bonnets of the early windflower are trembling in the breeze. In the Northern Great Plains the snow is scarcely gone before the pasque flowers, first gladsome harbingers of the lovely hosts to follow, troop forth over the bleak hillsides—"very brave little flowers," the Cree Indians say, "which arrive while it is still so cold that they must come wearing their fur coats." This is in allusion to the furry appearance of the pasque flower.

And as the floral life manifests itself, all the native faunal life is also awakened to a renewed activity. Migratory birds are seen and heard flying northward by relays in hundreds of thousands. The course of the Missouri River marks upon the earth the chart by which they direct their northward flight toward their summer homing places. The Arkansas River, the Kansas, the Platte, the Niobrara and the White River are relay stations of their journey, and the countless V-shaped flocks coming northward in long lines wheel, circling down until tracts many acres in extent are whitened by the great numbers of snow geese, while the Canada geese in equal numbers darken other tracts; ducks in great numbers are swimming on all the ponds and quiet streams, and regiments and brigades of tall gray cranes are continually marching and countermarching on land or sailing like fleets of monoplanes far up in the clear blue, whence float down to earth the vibrant notes of their bugle calls as they travel on into the North. On the higher prairies at sunrise as the long rays of the red morning sun slant brightly across the land the booming, drum-like sound of hundreds of prairie chickens is heard at their assemblies, for at this season they dance the mating dance at the sunrise hour. Soon the meadow larks, "the birds of promise," appear, singing their songs of promise of good things for their friends, the human beings; and they set about the duties of housekeeping, building their lowly nests at the grass roots, and all about are scenes of brightness and sounds of gladness.

It was in such a country as this, then, that the people of the different native nations who were here before us lived and took joy from the good gifts of Mother Earth and from their own activities, and in all the beauty of this good land. And they loved this land for all its good gifts and for its beauty, and for these and for its mystery and grandeur they paid reverence.

THE WATER SPRING OF THE HOLY MAN

Long ago there was a village of people of the Dakota nation which was situated on the east side of the great river which they call the Muddy Water, but which white people call the Missouri River. The white people named it so from the Missouri nation of Indians on the lower course of this great river.

The village that I have mentioned was on the east side of the river, nearly opposite to the mouth of the Cannon Ball River. The people were happy in this village, for it was a pleasant place. There was plenty of wood for their fires, and there was an abundance of buffalo berries, wild plums, chokecherries, June berries, wild grapes, wild raspberries and other fruit growing in the woods. Upon the high prairie there was much tipsin, whose roots are so good when cooked with meat or with dried green corn. Moreover, in the timber were many box elder trees, whose sap was made into sugar in early springtime. Not far away were some lakes where there were many wild ducks and geese and other waterfowl. The flesh and also the eggs of these birds were good food. Upon the prairie were herds of buffaloes and antelopes and elks, and in the timber along the river were many deer.

And below the hills, on the level ground of the river valley, there was fertile soil where they planted their fields of corn and beans and squashes. They also cultivated the great sunflowers, whose seeds are so good for food.

And the people loved this place, for besides all the good things to eat, and other comforts which it gave them, it was also pleasant to look upon. There was the mysterious river, coming down from the distant mountains away in the northwest and flowing on towards the lands of other nations of people in the southeast; its channel could be seen winding its gleaming way among the dark trees on its shores. Upon the prairie hills in early spring the courageous little pasque flowers appeared like a gray-blue cloud let down upon the hilltops, where they nodded their cheery greetings to the people who passed them. In the vales a little later were masses of deep-blue violets. Still later, the prairie was bright with the color and the air was sweet with the breath of the wild rose of the prairie. The cheery meadow lark, which the people call "the bird of promise," flitted here and there and called his greetings and promised good things to his friends, the Dakota people.

And through the procession of the seasons there were spread out before their eyes on all sides scenes of beauty, changing with the change of seasons and changing every day; indeed the beauties of color and light and shade were changing at every stage of the day from the rosy dawn till the blue shades of evening came.

Yes, it was a delightful land and the people rejoiced in it. But a strange thing happened which caused the people to move away to a far-distant place. And this is the way it happened:

There was living in this village an old man, a wise man, a man who was held in great respect by the people, for he was a holy man, to whom the Unseen Powers granted knowledge not given to all the people. And these revelations came to the holy man in visions.

This holy man was now too old and feeble to till the soil and raise crops of food plants, or to go on the chase for game, or to gather any of the wild food plants. But because the young men held him in honor, they were glad to provide for him, and the women cooked for him of the best they had.

But he once had a vision which made him very sad, so that he could only cry and weep and could not speak of his vision for sadness of heart. And the people besought him to tell them his vision, for, they said, "if it is a vision of evil to come, we may as well know the worst; we ought to be prepared for it." For a long time the old man could not bring himself to tell them the evil foreboding which had come to him. But at last, when they continued strongly urging him to tell them what it was, he said: "Well, my children, I will tell you the vision, for it may be that I shall not live long. This vision has come to me from the Mysterious and Awful Powers, and it is full of evil portent for our people." But now he was again so overcome by sadness that he was unable to tell it.

Again, after some days, the people begged him to tell the vision, and they pressed him so urgently that finally he said: "This is what I saw in my vision, which has come to me repeatedly. I saw a great incursion of human beings of strange appearance. They are coming from the direction of the rising sun and are moving toward this land in multitudes so great that they cannot be counted. They move everywhere over the face of the land like the restless fluctuations of heated air which are sometimes seen incessantly wavering over the heated prairie on a summer day. They are moving on resistlessly toward us, and nothing can stop them, and they will take our land from us. They are a terrible people and of a monstrous appearance. The skin of this people is not of a wholesome color like the skin of our people who are born of our holy Mother Earth. Their skin is hideous and pale and ghastly, and the men have hairy faces like the face of a wolf. They are not kind like our people; they are savages, cruel and unfeeling. They have no reverence for our holy places, nor for our holy Mother Earth. And they kill and destroy all things and make the land desolate. They have no ear for the voices of the trees and the flowers, and no pity for the birds and the beasts of the field. And they deface and spoil the beauty of the land and befoul the water courses.

"And they have many dreadful customs. When a person dies, the body is not honorably laid upon a funeral scaffold on the prairie or in the branches of a tree in the forest, but they dig a hole in the ground and put the body down into the hole and then fill the hole up again, throwing the dirt down upon the body. And they have strange and powerful weapons, so that when they come our people will not be able to withstand them. It is this dreadful vision which has overcome me with sadness."

Then the people were amazed and angry. They tried to have him change his vision, but he could not. Again the same vision came to him. The leading men now counseled and gave order that the people should give him no more food for some days. They said, "Perhaps he will have a different vision." So he was left alone in his tent for four days. And on the fourth day, when they came to his tent, they found him dead. They had not intended to cause his death, but they hoped that if they let him become very hungry he would change his vision.

Now when they found him dead, they were shocked and astonished and very angry. They said, "Now the evil which he foretold will come, for he died without changing his vision." And they said, "We will not bury him honorably upon a scaffold according to the custom of the Dakotas, but we will bury him in a hole in the ground, as he said his 'wandering people' bury their dead." So they dug a hole, and into this they put the body of the old man, and they put the earth back again upon the body.

At evening some women were gazing out across the river in the twilight, and they saw a man come up out of the river and advance toward the village. When he came nearer, they saw it was the holy man who had died and whose body had been buried in a hole in the ground. When he died, he had changed from this life to the life of those who dwell in "The Land of Evening Mirage." From the place where they buried him, he had gone out under the ground, and he had come up out of the water of the river. Now when he came up out from the water, he was changed back again to life on earth. From this it was evident to all the people that he was indeed a very holy man, and that his vision was true and must come to pass. They gave him a good dwelling and provided for all his needs, and the women cooked for him the best food they had, and every one did homage to him and paid him reverence.

After a time he knew that the end of his life was approaching, and as he was about to die he called the leading men about him and said, "The vision which I had will truly come to pass in future time. Now I am about to die. When I am dead, let me be buried in the ground again at the place where I was buried before. You will see that some good thing will come of it for our people at this place. And it shall be good for all people at this place forever." When he said something good would come, they thought he meant that the people should be saved from the cruel and savage, strange, pale-skinned people of his vision, but that was not what he meant.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from PRAIRIE SMOKE by MELVIN R. GILMORE Copyright © 2011 by Melvin R. Gilmore. Excerpted by permission of MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

Contents

Dedication....................v
Introduction....................xi
Preface....................xxv
The Prairie....................1
The Water Spring of the Holy Man....................5
The Legend of Standing Rock....................13
The Holy Hill Pahok....................16
Love of the Homeland....................29
The Spirit of Life....................31
Children of Mother Earth....................32
Nature and Health....................37
The Breaking Up of the Ice....................38
A Mandan Monument....................39
A Boy's Education....................43
The Ceremony of Hunka....................47
The Sacred Number Four....................51
The Sacred Symbol of the Circle....................52
The Earth Lodge....................54
The Tipi....................58
How Indians Made Paints....................60
The Wonderful Basket....................62
An Omaha Ghost Story....................67
Personal Names among Indians....................70
False Notions about Indians....................78
Early Indian Agriculture....................83
Trading between Tribes....................88
Indian Ideas of Property....................93
Tribal Boundary Lines....................100
Carrying the Pipe....................104
Escape of a War Party....................110
The Faithful Dog....................114
How Coyote Chief Was Punished....................119
The Coyote's Box-Elder Knife....................123
The Bean Mouse....................125
Gratitude to the Bean Mouse....................127
The Lost Boy and the Bean Mouse....................129
The Black-tailed Deer That Talked....................131
The War Eagle and the Jack Rabbit....................134
The Song of the Old Wolf....................136
Why Geese Migrate....................139
How the Meadow Lark Won the Race....................140
Children and the Meadow Lark....................148
The Horned Lark....................150
The Chickadee....................152
The Song of the Wren....................154
The Lost Baby and the Upland Plover....................156
Societies of Birds....................158
The Captive Bird....................161
The Precious Gift of Corn....................165
Veneration of Mother Corn....................172
The Friendly Corn....................175
The Forgotten Ear of Corn....................178
Sacred Trees....................179
Grandmother Cedar Tree....................184
The Ground Bean and the Bean Mouse....................192
The Usefulness of Wild Rice....................195
The Arikara Silverberry Drink....................198
The Prairie Rose....................200
The Sunflower....................203
The Spiderwort....................204
The Song of the Pasque Flower....................205
Works by Melvin R. Gilmore....................209
Works About Melvin R. Gilmore....................220
Index....................221