Cheyenne Memories PDF
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CHEYENNE MEMORIES CHEYENNE MEMORIES Second Edition By John Stands In Timber and Margot Liberty With the Assistance of Robert M. Utley Yale University Press / New Haven and London lirst published DG7 11) \'ale Universit\. Second edition \\ith a nr\\ preface puhlisheci W Sh y Yale Gniversit) . Cop>right C> 1967 by Yale University. Preface to the second edition '01 998 by Yale University VII rights reserved. This book ma) not be reproduced. in \\hole or in part, incluclin~i;l lustration.-.. in any form hryond the copying permitted b> Sections 107 and 108 of the L<S. Copyright Ida\\ and except by reviewers tor ill;' public press). \Mthout written permission from the publishers. Printed in the United States ofAmerica Library of Congrtx Cataloging in Publication Number 97-61 148 ISBN 0-300-07300-3 4 catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meet5 the guidelines for permanence and durability ofthe Comtnittce i-n Production Guidelines for Book Longevity ofthc Council on Library Re-ionrces. They will be powerful people, strong, tough. They will fly up in the air, into the sky, they will dig under the earth, they will drain the earth and kill it. All over the earth they will kill the trees and the grass, they will put their own grass and their own hay, but the earth will be dead-all the old trees and grass and animals. They are coming closer all the time. Back there, New York, those places, the earth is already dead. Here we are lucky. It's nice here. It's pretty. We have this good air. This prairie hay still grows. But they are coming all the time, turn the land over and kill it, more and more babies being born, more and more people coming. That's what He said. He said the white men would be so powerful, so strong. They could take thunder, that electricity from the sky, and light their houses. Maybe they would even be able to reach up and take the moon, or stars maybe, one or two. Maybe they still can't do that . . . Our old food we used to eat was good. The meat from buffalo and game was good. It made us strong. These cows are good to eat, soft, tender, but they are not like that meat. Our people used to live a long time. Today we eat white man's food, we cannot live so long-maybe seventy, maybe v eighty years, not a hundred. Sweet Medicine told us that. He said the whit,e man was too strong. He said his food would be sweet, and after we taste that food we want it, and forget our own foods. Chokecherries and plums, and wild turnips, and honey from the wild bees, that was our food. This other food is too sweet. We eat it and forget. . . . It's all coming true, what He said. FREDL ASTB ULL Keeper of the Sacred Arrows Busby, Montana September 1957 John Stands In Timber died on June 17, 1967, as this book -the work he cherished most of all in a long lifetime-was in press. Those of us who have worked with him over a decade to make it a reality have been saddened beyond measure that he will never hold it in his hands. One of the greatest and simplest of people, he now rests among the great and the simple of his tribe. He might like best for us to remember him with the words of one of his favorite warrior songs: "My friends, only the stones stay on earth forever. Use your best ability." M. L. Acknowledgments Many people and institutions have helped in the preparation of this book. Thanks are first due the Association on American Indian Affairs for the year's research grant through which the initial recording was done. Dr. Henry S. Forbes was instrumental in arranging this. John W. Vaughn, Don Rickey, Jr., Edgar I. Stewart, Elmer Kobold, Bill Smurr, and Harry Fulmer all read sections of manuscript and made helpful comments and corrections as well as lending invaluable support. Mrs. E. G. Mygatt, Charles Erlanson, Dick Williams, and my brother Robert Pringle assisted in obtaining pictures or per- mitted the use of their own. The Smithsonian Institution was also very helpful in this respect. Mrs. Janet Mullin of Lame Deer, Montana, undertook to help John Stands In Timber transcribe his memories before I knew him. A section of this early narrative has been drawn upon for Chapter 13. My mother, Helena Huntington Smith, is due great thanks for careful reading and cogent criticism of an early draft. Others contributing editorial advice beyond the call of duty vii viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS have included Chester Ken-, David Horne, and John Gud- mundsen, of Yale University Press. Robert Utley has given invaluable service in lending his detailed knowledge of the Indian Wars to a critical review of the manuscript and to essential expansion of the annotations. Montana State University, American Heritage magazine, and The Westerners New York Posse Brand Book are to be thanked for permitting the use of material first published by them, appearing in Chapters 9, la, and 18. My teachers in anthropology have been steady sources of encouragement. Professor Carling Malouf of Montana State University thought from an early time that this undertaking was important. Professor E. Adamson Hoebel made possible advanced graduate study at the University of Minnesota and gave invaluable assistance through his own detailed knowledge of the Cheyennes. Professor Elden Johnson of that institution reviewed the first six chapters and made many suggestions. Professor Pertti Pelto gave counsel at many points along the road, of a sort for which his students are constantly grateful. Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. deserves a very special note of thanks, for penetrating the gloom of an early period of revision in Montana and for causing me to feel then, as he has many times since, that all was not lost and hopeless. And finally, Ellen Cotton of Decker, Montana, deserves tribute quite beyond the power of language. She has given me and my family a home for several summers, while working inexhaustibly as research associate, typist, and assistant in everything else that has had to be done. She has prepared the index, and by now knows John's material in all its ramifica- tions at least as well as I do. M.L. St. Paul, Minnesota January 1967 Contents Acknowledgments vii Preface to the Second Edition xiii List of Illustrations and Maps xxvii Introduction 3 I. Earliest Stories. I I The Creation. The Early People. The Seven Stars. The Great Race. When White Man Lost His Eyes. 2 Sweet Medicine. 27 The Coming of Sweet Medicine. The First Mira- cle. The Second Miracle. Exile. Return. Death and Prophecies. 3. The Chiefs. 42 Organization and Laws. Red Robe's Father and Black Coyote. The Chiefs since 1892. Battle at the Rio Grande. The Chiefs' Emblem. Well Known Chiefs. 4. The Soldiers. 58 The Different Military Societies. The Foxes. Sui- cide Warriors. Songs and Dances. The Dog Sol-
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