by Jim Fergus
Great coveys of pintailed grouse squirt up ahead of our horses, fan off to the horizon like fall seeds spread on the wind. Helen is thoroughly rejuvenated by the shooting and delights our Indian companions with her prowess with the shotgun. She has given some of them instruction in its use, but I am proud to see that none of them can match her shooting skills.
These have been fine days of easy travel and perfect weather, the People quietly harvesting the plenty of the earth—the fall before the winter, the calm before the storm that, since Medicine Lodge, some whisper is coming.
18 October 1875
It was a true homecoming when we reached the winter camp—the other bands had been arriving for several weeks, coming from all directions like spokes on a wheel running to the hub. Some bands had already come in and left again, having decided to make their camps elsewhere. Some have already elected to go into the agencies for the winter, for word has spread from the scouts and between the Sioux and the Cheyennes of the Great Father’s recently issued ultimatum that all the free Indians must give themselves up at one of the agencies by the first day of February or pay the consequences. “Three Stars,” as the Indians call General Crook, has promised that those who comply early will be favored with the best land for their reservations and a greater share of provisions. Winter at the agency, with all of their food and other needs supplied by the Great White Father, has been promised to be an easy path for all who willingly take it.
We found upon our return that among those who have gone into the agency are a number of our own women and their husbands. Like all of us, they had become increasingly anxious about the prospect of childbirth in the wilds without real doctors and especially in the wintertime. And who can blame them?
With several months yet to go, I remain generally sanguine about my own impending childbirth. I had very little difficulty with either of my former pregnancies, and gave birth to both my children at home with only a midwife in attendance. Still, regardless of what immediate course of action Little Wolf decides for our band, I am pleased that others have already chosen to go into the agency; this can only be a good thing, and our white women will serve as a kind of advance guard to smooth the way for the rest of us when we go—which by all consensus is now only a matter of time. I am certain that before the winter is out the rest of us will succeed in convincing our husbands to “surrender” to “the inexorable march of civilization,” as Captain Bourke rather grandly calls it.
So we rode into camp yesterday afternoon, alerting the others to our arrival by singing our song, the song of the Little Wolf band; all the People sang, even the little children, a joyful song of coming together and friendship. I had myself learned the words and sang as we rode in, as did Phemie, Helen, and the Kelly girls. A lively chorus we made of it, too!
The winter camp has been set in a lovely grassy valley formed by the confluence of Willow Creek and the upper Powder River. It is well protected from the wind and elements, defined by rocky pine-studded bluffs on one side of the river, climbing to timbered foothills, and on the other a network of ravines and coulees that rise to the rolling benches and table-lands of the prairie, and on to the faint outline of the Bighorn Mountains against the distant horizon. The valley appears to have everything we need for the moment—sufficient grass for the horses, running water, and an ample supply of cottonwood for our fires. Several large herds of buffalo have also taken up winter residence in the general vicinity and presently feed as placidly as domestic cows on the rich fall grasses.
In this place we will settle for a time—and make our plans for the future. A welcome settling it will be after the constant travel of the past months.
Martha was beside herself with joy at our return. Even from a distance as we rode in and I made her out, I noticed that she was looking quite large with child herself. She waved excitedly to us as we rode down into the valley off the bench above, singing our song, our horses picking their way carefully down the slope. She jumped up and down, clapping her hands like a child. Then I watched as she did something extraordinary; she slipped a rope bridle over the head of one of the horses tethered beside her lodge, grasped it by the mane, and swung onto its back like an Indian! She wheeled the horse and galloped out to meet us! Good God, I thought, can this be my same friend, Martha, who when first we arrived here could hardly take a step without tripping and falling down? Hah! The one they call Falls Down Woman?
She was breathless when she rode up, but hardly more so than I at the sight of her. “May, oh May,” she said, “I cannot tell you how pleased I am to see you home! I had begun to worry so for you. Where have you been? You must tell me all about your travels. And I, too, have news for you. Much has happened since you’ve been away. But first, I must know—did you go all the way to Fort Laramie? Did you dine with the officers? Did you see your Captain?”
I couldn’t help but notice how hale and healthy Martha looked. The added weight of pregnancy becomes her; indeed, I’d never seen her look as well. Where, upon our departure all those months ago, she was still mousy and frightened—she has actually grown quite pretty in the interim—her cheeks rosy, her arms brown and strong. I laughed in astonishment and happiness. “All that in good time, dear,” I said, “we will have a long visit after we have made camp. And I am so pleased to see you, too. But good Lord, Martha, look at you, you look like a wild Indian! And riding bareback like a trick rider—hardly a proper activity for a pregnant woman!”
“I’ve never felt better, May, I think that pregnancy and the wilderness life agree with me … You were right I was fine without you … I suppose I have become a wild Indian!”
And then we both laughed and rode into camp side by side, chattering away like schoolgirls.
NOTEBOOK VII
Winter
“When the end of the village was reached we were to charge at full gallop down through the lines of ‘tipis’, firing our revolvers at everything in sight. Just as we approached the village we came upon a ravine some ten feet in depth and of varying width, the average being not less than fifty. We got down this deliberately, and at the bottom and behind a stump saw a young boy about fifteen years old driving his ponies. He was not ten feet off. The youngster wrapped his blanket about him and stood like a statue of bronze, waiting for the fatal bullet. The American Indian knows how to die with as much stoicism as the East Indian. I leveled my pistol …”
(John G. Bourke, from his memoir, On the Border with Crook)
1 November 1875
We arrived at winter camp in timely fashion, for two days ago the first snows came. Fortunately, we had nearly a fortnight of mild weather previous to this and the men made a number of successful hunts. Now the larder is full with all manner of game—fresh, dried, and smoked, and we seem to be exceptionally well supplied.
A frigid wind blew down from the north for an entire day before delivering the full brunt of the blizzard. And then the snows marched across the plains like an approaching army, blowing horizontally, at first lightly but soon so thickly that even going outside to do one’s business was to risk becoming disoriented and lost in the maelstrom. Fortunately the camp itself is situated so as to be partially protected from the worst of the wind and drifting snow. After another day, the wind began to subside, but the snow continued, falling straighter now, until the air was windless and the flakes, as big as silver dollars, fell steadily. For two days and two nights it snowed thus. And then the wind came again and blew the skies clear and as suddenly stopped. The mercury plunged and the stars in the sky glittered coldly off the fresh snow, which had drifted in huge sculpted mounds across the rolling prairie so that it appeared as if the earth itself had shifted, reformed itself with the storm.
Of course we were very much “housebound” during the storm and there was no visiting among us for those several days. All stayed as much as possible in their lodges; and though ours was warm and snug, the confinement became, finally, quite tedious. After the wind abated I did venture down to the river one morning f
or a bath, which cold as it is, I do not intend to give up—this activity, at least, allowing me to get out of the “house” however briefly.
5 November 1875
The weather continues clear and cold, but at least we are able to get about now to visit. I should mention that an inventory of our numbers since our band’s return from Fort Laramie reveals that well over half of our women chose to move with their husbands and “families” to the agency for the winter—good timing on their parts as a move now with the snow would be virtually impossible. Gretchen and her doltish husband No Brains are still among us, as are Daisy Lovelace and Bloody Foot, of whom Daisy has grown even fonder. “Ah nevah would have believed mahself,” she says, “that I could fall in luuuve with a niggah Injun boy, but ah’m afraid that this is exactly what has happened. I don’t care if he is daaaak as naaaght, Ah luuuve the man, and I am proud to say that Ah am carryin’ his chaald.”
As to Phemie, especially since our visit to Red Cloud, she and I have been in some conflict about the matter of enrolling at the agency, and have had several heated discussions on the question. For my part, I argue that such a move is inevitable and in the best interest of the People—while she equates the reservation system with the institution of slavery itself.
“My husband Mo’ohtaeve ho’e and I have discussed the matter,” Phemie says. “He does not remember our people’s slavery for he has lived most of his life as a free man. Thus we have decided that we will not surrender to the agency. My days of enslavement to white folks are behind me.”
“Phemie, there is no slavery on the reservation,” I argue. “The People will own the land and will earn their livings as free men and women.”
To which Phemie answers in her melodious and imperious manner. “I see,” she says. “Then the Cheyennes will enjoy complete equality with the whites, is this what you are telling me, May?”
“That’s right, Phemie,” I answer, but I hesitate just long enough that she senses my lack of conviction on the matter.
“And if the People are equal to the white tribe, why then are they being restricted to reservations?” Phemie asks.
“They are being asked to live voluntarily and temporarily on reservations as a first step toward assimilating them into our own society,” I answer, and already I know that I am walking right into the trap she lays for me.
Phemie laughs her deep, rich chuckle. “I see,” she said. “And if they do not ‘volunteer’ to live on the reservation? Then am I to understand that they may remain on this land which belongs to them and upon which they have been living for many hundreds of years and where some of them, myself and my husband included, are quite content to remain?”
“No, Phemie,” I answer, abashed, assuming the role now, involuntarily, of Captain Bourke, “they cannot live here any longer. You cannot. If you try to stay here past the February deadline, you will be breaking the law and you will be punished for it.”
“The law made by the whites,” Phemie says. “The whites being, of course, the superior race, who make these laws in order to keep the inferior in their place. That, May, is, by definition, slavery.”
“Dammit Euphemia!” I answer in frustration. “It’s not the same thing at all.”
“No?” she asks. “Explain to me then the difference.”
And, of course, I cannot.
“My people were once forcibly removed from their homeland,” Phemie continues. “My mother was taken from her family when she was just a child. All my life I have dreamed of going back for her. Now, living among these people, I have in a sense done so. This is as close as I will ever get to my mother’s homeland, to my family. And I have promised myself, May, that one way or another I will live from now on as a free woman, and I will die, if necessary, to protect that freedom. I could never tell these people that they should surrender and go to live on reservations or at agencies, because to do so is to take from them their freedom, to make of them slaves to a higher order. That, my friend, is my position on the matter and nothing you can say to me will change my mind.”
“But Phemie,” I plead, “why then did you sign up for this program? You are an educated woman; you must have understood that the process of assimilation that we are facilitating is, inevitably, a process whereby the smaller native population is absorbed into the greater invading one. It is the way of history, has always been.”
“Ah, yes, May,” Phemie chuckles, seemingly amused at my distress, “your version of history, the white man’s version. But not mine, certainly, not the history of these, our adopted people. My history, my mother’s history, is one of being torn from homeland and family and enslaved in a foreign land. Theirs is one of being pushed from their own land and slaughtered when they refuse to give it up. Absorbed? Assimilated? Hardly. Our common history is one of dispossession, murder, and slavery.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Phemie,” I say. “Which is precisely our purpose here. To see that history does not repeat itself, to prove that there is another way, a peaceful solution in which both races learn from the other, learn to live in harmony together. Our children will be the final proof of this commitment, and the true hope for the future. Let us say, for example, that my son were to grow up to marry your daughter. Think of it, Phemie! Their offspring would be part white, part black, part Indian. In this way we are pioneers, you and I, in a great and noble experiment!”
“Oh May,” Phemie says with real sadness in her voice. “The plantations were full of mulattos—people of mixed blood and of all shades of color. I myself am one. I am half-white. My father was the master. Did this make me free? Did this make me accepted by the ‘superior’ culture? No, I was still a slave. In many cases our lives were more difficult for being of mixed blood, for we were considered neither black nor white, and resented by both. Your Captain was right. You’ve seen the half-breeds around the forts. Do they appear assimilated to you?”
“They come and go among the two races,” I said, without conviction. “But they were all born to women of the exploited culture, fathered by the exploiters. We women hold the key, Phemie, we mothers. We couple with the Cheyennes of our own free will; we bear their children as gifts to both races.”
“For the sake of your children I hope you’re right,” Phemie said. “You asked me a moment ago why I signed up for this program. As I told you months ago on our train ride here, I signed up to live as a free woman, to serve no man, to be inferior to no one. I shall never give up my freedom again, and I shall choose to have children only when I know that they may live as free men and women. If I have to fight first for their freedom, so be it. And to be born on a reservation is not freedom.”
And thus Phemie and I go round and round … I, advocating peaceful surrender in the interest of future harmony, an idealistic vision of the future perhaps … and one, it is true, without precedent in human history. And Phemie advocating resistance, intransigence, militancy—in the process inflaming her husband and her warrior society against the idea of going into the agency, against the invading white man, against the soldiers.
But we have time yet—a long winter to grapple with these questions—to reach some consensus. As always sentiment among those remaining in the camp runs decidedly mixed on the matter of going in. Some of us are making small inroads persuading our own families that this is the only reasonable course of action. Due to the great influence that women hold in the Cheyenne family, I have been concentrating my own efforts on my fellow tentmates. I describe to them the many marvelous inventions of the whites—with some of which they are already familiar—the many comforts they will own in civilization, the conveniences and advantages which are so dear to a woman’s heart … . For win the women’s hearts and those of the People will soon follow.
10 November 1875
Today Gretchen and I have broken yet another barrier between the sexes. If only temporarily …
We have all long envied the custom that the men observe of the “sweat lodge.” This is a special tipi which serves the same
function as a steam house in our own culture, except that this one seems also to hold special religious connotations—and women are strictly verboten, as Gretchen puts it. A large fire is built in the center of the sweat lodge, upon which rocks are laid until they are heated nearly red-hot and then water poured over the rocks to create steam—this whole process attended to by a medicine man who also frequently speaks some ceremonial mumbo jumbo and passes a pipe for the men to puff contentedly upon. The participants themselves sit in a circle around the outside of the fire, until they are perspiring freely and when they can bear the heat no longer run outside and roll around in the snow or leap into a hole chopped into the now frozen river. They then return to the sweat lodge to begin the process anew. This strikes me as both a healthful and a hygienic recreation—particularly in the wintertime.
The other day I was visiting with Gretchen in her lodge and she happened to mention—somewhat longingly I thought—that her husband, No Brains, was presently performing a sweat-lodge ceremony. She told me that in the old country her people observed exactly this same practice through the long, dark, northern winters—without the religious overtones, of course, and with no prohibitions upon the sex of the participants. Gretchen’s own family had brought the custom with them to America and built a sweat house on their farm in Illinois—which they enjoyed all year.
“Oh, May, der is nutting bedder dan a goot steam bath, I tell you dat,” Gretchen said, shaking her head mournfully.
“And why should we not be able to take steam baths ourselves?” I asked.
