Black Hills

by Simmons, Dan

  That first day and evening at the Deer Medicine Rocks, Limps-a-Lot points out to the excited but nervous Paha Sapa the various great Ikče Wičas´a whom his tunkašila wičasa wakan wants the boy to know by sight and possibly to meet, but not to touch unless one of the men specifically asks for such contact.

  As young as he is, Paha Sapa understands that his tunkašila wants these famous men to know of his small-vision-backward-or-forward-touching, but not for him to use the seeing ability—even if he were able to do so at will, which he usually is not—unless asked to do so. Paha Sapa bows his head in understanding.

  All that day the famous men and their followers ride in from different directions. All the bands of the Lakota are present. From the Oglala come Big Road and Limps-a-Lot’s first wife’s famous cousin, Crazy Horse. From the Hunkpapa there are Gall and Crow and Black Moon and Sitting Bull himself. From the Sans Arcs has come Spotted Eagle. From the Minneconjou arrives Fast Bull and the younger Hump. Dull Knife has come up with the few Shyelas allowed to attend. (The other famous Cheyenne leader, Ice Bear, has chosen to stay at the larger village to the south.)

  When Limps-a-Lot tells Paha Sapa each of the great arrivals’ names, the older man cries out—

  —Hetchetu aloh!

  It is so indeed.

  More than a thousand Lakota have already gathered. Paha Sapa thinks that this is the most magnificent assembly he has ever seen, grander even than the great gatherings at Matho Paha—Bear Butte—every second summer, but Limps-a-Lot tells him that this temporary village is only for Sitting Bull’s Sun Dance and that even more Lakota and Cheyenne will continue to gather during the ceremony, the nights of the full moon, and the days beyond.

  Paha Sapa watches the preparations for Sitting Bull’s wiwanyag wachipi with a young boy’s awe, but also with the strange sense of detachment that comes over him at such times. It is as if there are several Paha Sapas watching through his eyes, including a much older version of himself looking back through time while coexisting in the thin boy’s mind.

  First, an honored Hunkpapa wičasa wakan—but not Paha Sapa’s beloved tunkašila—is sent out alone to select the waga chun, the “rustling tree” or cottonwood, that will stand in the center of the dancing circle.

  When this wičasa wakan, an old boyhood friend of Limps-a-Lot named Calling Duck, returns with the news that he has found the right tree, many of the hundreds gathered bedeck themselves with flowers picked along the banks of the river. Several warriors chosen for their bravery then count coup on the tree, with the bravest warrior—this year a young Oglala follower of Crazy Horse named Kills Six Alone—being the last and loudest to strike the tree. Paha Sapa learns that Kills Six Alone will now hold a Big Giveaway in which he will give away almost everything he owns—including his two young wives only recently earned in battle—to the other men at the Sun Dance.

  After the counting coup on the tall, proud (but not too tall or thick or old) waga chun standing alone in its high-grass meadow, several virgins with axes approach the tree while chanting a song saying that if anyone knows they are not virgins or that they are not virtuous in all ways, that man or woman must speak now or forever be silent. Then, when no one speaks, the virgins proceed to chop down the tree.

  Limps-a-Lot leads Paha Sapa to the cluster of warriors and then boys and old men gathered to catch the tree as it falls; it must not, he explains, touch the ground. Six of the chiefs who were sons of chiefs then carry the sacred tree back to the site where the wiwanyag wachipi will be held.

  Before the waga chun is stripped of its branches and erected, Limps-a-Lot leads Paha Sapa out of the grassy circle of the dancing place, and the boy (and the older man within him) watches while scores of warriors on horses gather around the periphery of this holy place. At a signal given by Sitting Bull, the young men rush to the sacred place at the center of the circle where the tree will stand, all of them pushing and shoving and fighting and gouging to be the first to touch that bit of soil. Amid the cloud of dust and flurry of hooves and rearing of horses and shouts from both warriors and their watchers, Paha Sapa smiles. It looks like nothing more than a grown-up version of his own boy-game of Throwing-Them-Off-Their-Horses. But before the boy makes the mistake of laughing aloud, Limps-a-Lot touches his shoulder and whispers in his ear that this is very important, since the man who is first to touch the sacred place will not be killed in battle this year.

  That evening they have a wonderful cookout closer to the river than to the Deer Medicine Rocks, and a very hungry Paha Sapa has his fill of buffalo meat and his favorite delicacy, boiled dog. The bands have sacrificed several puppies for this feast, so there is enough to go around. Then the warriors strip the chosen tree of its lower limbs and paint it blue, green, yellow, and red. Paha Sapa’s tunkašila explains that each color signifies a direction—north, east, west, and south—and then a large willow sweat lodge and sun shelter is built near the center of this consecrated hoop, and the real prayers begin. A wičasa wakan takes tobacco and fills a pipe—in this case a unique Ptehinčala Huhu Canunpa, a most sacred Buffalo Calf Bone Pipe that has been in the Lakota nation for twelve generations—and reconsecrates the site and the tree and the event not only to the four directions of the flat, visible earth, but also to the sky and to Grandmother Earth herself, as well as to all of the earth’s visible and invisible fliers and four-leggeds, asking each in turn to make this ceremony correct in each way so as to please them and to please Wakan Tanka, the All, the Great Mystery, the Father, the Grandfather of All Grandfathers.

  Then the assembled men do what they have to do to turn the tree into a medicine lodge.

  They raise the tall, thin waga chun to much deep chanting by the men and constant tremolo from the women.

  They mark a circle around it with twenty-eight forked posts. From each of these posts they run a long pole to be bound up in the sacred tree, leaving only a special opening in the east by which the rising sun may enter.

  Now, as everyone gathers around the tree-turned-medicine-lodge in the lengthening summer twilight, only women visibly pregnant are allowed to approach the waga chun and to dance around it. Paha Sapa understands that the All, Wakan Tanka, as well as the specific wakan of the Sun, loves fruitfulness, thus the pregnant women, as much as the spirit of the Sun loves dancing.

  Paha Sapa looks east across the prairie—its grasses rustling now to the rising evening wind like ripples in the fur of a living beast—and sees the full moon rising. Limps-a-Lot has explained that such an important wiwanyag wachipi is always held during the Moon of Making Fat or the Moon of Blackening Cherries when the moon is full, banishing the ignorance of the black sky and making the summer night most like the radiant days so beloved by the spirit of the Sun.

  Paha Sapa sleeps well that night. This night is so warm that he and his grandfather do not even raise a shelter of willow branches, but sleep in the open on the blankets and skins they have brought. Only once does Paha Sapa awaken, and that is because the full moon is shining too brightly in his face. He grunts and rolls over closer to his uncle-grandfather and goes back to sleep.

  Early the next morning, as he eats, Paha Sapa watches a line of still-nursing mothers bring their babies to lay them at the base of the now-transformed waga chun. These boy babies will now grow up to be brave men and the girl babies will be mothers of brave men. Limps-a-Lot and the other wičasa wakans sit around the circle throughout the morning, piercing the ears of these babies. The parents of each baby so honored are expected to give away a pony to someone in need of one.

  All that day, Sitting Bull and the other warriors involved in the Sun Dance purify themselves in sweat lodges and make ready for the important work to begin the following morning. During the preceding year—especially during the winter when food was scarce or loved ones were sick—many of the men and women gathered here took private vows to sacrifice at the sacred tree. Others preparing here are the boys, some not many months older than Paha Sapa, who will be dancing as part of their manhood cere
mony.

  The sacrifices will include slashing at one’s arms or chest, or cutting squares of flesh from the same areas, or perhaps cutting off one’s finger. But the most serious sacrificers here will undergo the full piercing ceremony and dance before the pole.

  Thousands of Lakota have now arrived for the ceremony. The prairie near the Deer Medicine Rocks and on both sides of the Rosebud are bright with evening fires and glowing lodges.

  The night before the dance begins, Limps-a-Lot takes Paha Sapa to visit Sitting Bull.

  Even by the flickering light of Sitting Bull’s small lodge fire, Paha Sapa can see that the man has been preparing for the ritual, which—according to Limps-a-Lot—Sitting Bull has performed many times since he was a boy dancing into manhood at his manhood ceremony. Several days before this, Sitting Bull washed off all paint, removed his feathers from his hair, and loosened his braids. Paha Sapa can see from his slow movements and slight air of weakness that Sitting Bull has been fasting. Still, the chief offers Limps-a-Lot smoke from his pipe after Paha Sapa has been introduced and as the two men talk about old memories. Sitting Bull’s voice is low, his pace unhurried, when he finally turns his attention to Paha Sapa.

  —My friend Limps-a-Lot tells me that Wakan Tanka may have granted you the ability to see into human beings’ past or future, Black Hills.

  Paha Sapa’s heart pounds. He can only manage a nod. Sitting Bull’s eyes are luminous and piercing.

  —I can also see into the future at times, little Black Hills, but I am granted a Vision only after much pain and effort and sacrifice. You have not had your hanblečeya yet, have you, boy?”

  —No, Ate.

  The Ate—Father—is a term of respect.

  Sitting Bull nods slowly, looks at Limps-a-Lot, and then returns his strong gaze to Paha Sapa’s face across the fire.

  —Then these little visions you have had are not a true Vision. It may be some ability in you, given to you by the spirits or by Wakan Tanka, or they may be tricks done to you by some power that does not love the Natural Free Human Beings. Be very careful, little Black Hills, about trusting in these visions-which-are-not-a-Vision.

  Again, all Paha Sapa can do is nod.

  —You may know where these things come from when you perform your real hanblečeya.

  Sitting Bull looks at Limps-a-Lot and there is a question in his eye. Limps-a-Lot says—

  —We thought perhaps next summer, when the whole band will be near the Black Hills again. It seems right that Paha Sapa does his hanblečeya there because of the circumstances of his birth, but the band is now far from Bear Butte and the Hills, and it would be a dangerous time for the boy of ten or eleven summers to travel alone.

  Sitting Bull grunts.

  —That is true. Long Hair and his wasichu horse soldiers are on the march, as are General Crook and others. A boy traveling alone on the plains or with only his adoptive tunkašila would run a great risk of being captured or killed—especially if we have a big fight here along the Rosebud or Little Big Horn, as I hope we will, and if we kill many Wasicun. The other wasichu will want blood. But, Limps-a-Lot, I think you should send Black Hills on his hanblečeya sooner than next summer. Much sooner. No later than the Moon of the Colored Leaves or the Moon of the Falling Leaves. This… gift… of his may be dangerous. And not only to the boy. He needs a Vision, if the Father or Six Grandfathers will grant him one.

  Limps-a-Lot only grunts noncommittally. Sitting Bull leans toward the fire and Paha Sapa.

  —Black Hills, I apologize for speaking about you as if you were not here. We old men do that sometimes when the young are about. Did you want to touch me to see if your small-looking-back-vision or small-looking-forward-vision works with me?

  Paha Sapa is silent for a long moment. Then, through trembling lips, he says—

  —No. Pilamaye, Ate.

  He does not know why he added the “thank you.”

  Sitting Bull smiles.

  —Washtay! Good. I would not have let you touch me for such a vision. Not on the night before my own Dance.

  Sitting Bull swivels toward Limps-a-Lot and grasps his forearm.

  —I am fasting, so I will not partake, but before you go, my friend, you and your grandchild will enjoy some hot pejuta sapa. I found it on the body of a dead Wasicun only last week and I had my wife grind it tonight. And then we shall smoke together.

  Paha Sapa’s eyes grow wide. Pejuta sapa—“black medicine,” coffee—is one of the most magical drinks ever taken from the wasichu, second only in its power to mni waken, holy water, whiskey.

  While Sitting Bull prepares the pipe, Paha Sapa drinks his cup of the pejuta sapa, sipping only when his tunkašila sips (out of fear that there may be some aspect to the ritual drinking of which he is ignorant). Paha Sapa has never tasted anything so strong and so black and so bitter and so wonderful.

  Afterward, Sitting Bull and Limps-a-Lot smoke the special pipe—it is precisely the Ptehinčala Huhu Canunpa, the sacred Buffalo Calf Bone Pipe, used earlier in the preparing-the-tree ritual—long into the night.

  At one point, when Sitting Bull has stepped out of the lodge to piss into the high grass, Paha Sapa whispers to his grandfather—

  —Can you just smoke this pipe as if it were… a pipe?

  Before Limps-a-Lot can answer, Sitting Bull replies from the darkness at the opening of the tipi, where he is tucking himself in.

  —Yuhaxcan cannonpa, el woilagyape lo. Ehantan najin oyate maka sitomniyan cannonpa kin he unywakanpelo.

  It is used for doing all things. Ever since the standing people have been all over the earth, the pipe has been wakan.

  Then Sitting Bull adds—

  —And it is the best pipe I own for smoking tobacco.

  When they are finally finished and Limps-a-Lot and Paha Sapa both rise and step out into the smoke-smelling sweet darkness to go back to their own lodge—Paha Sapa does not feel the least bit sleepy—Sitting Bull steps outside with them and touches Paha Sapa on the shoulder, gingerly, with the curved end of his old coup stick.

  —Come watch my Dance tomorrow, Black Hills. Watch and learn how to ask Wakan Tanka and all the spirits for a real vision.

  —Han, Ate.

  Then Sitting Bull taps him lightly and says softly, in a singsong voice—

  —Toksha ake čante ista wacinyanktin ktelo, Paha Sapa.

  I shall see you again with the eye of my heart, Black Hills.

  8

  The Black and Yellow Trail

  December 1923

  —You don’t mind driving, do you, Billy?

  —No. It’s a beautiful car.

  —It is, isn’t it? And almost brand-new. I picked it up in Rapid City in late October. I wasn’t sure that I wanted a Nash—Fords should be good enough for a poet and historian, I think—but my brother-in-law knew the owner at the new Nash dealership and… well… it is an attractive vehicle, isn’t it? I could have chosen the Nash 41 for almost four hundred dollars less. It’s also a four-cylinder, but it’s not closed. On days like this—the temperature must be only twenty or so out there—it’s so much nicer to have a closed sedan, don’t you think?

  —Yes.

  —Of course, for a couple of hundred dollars more, I could have bought a Nash 47, and it’s certainly prettier, but it doesn’t have any luggage rack or compartment at all. None.

  —No?

  —No. None. But then—if I wanted to really spend more, and the salesman certainly tried to convince me to do so, I could have gone up to the Nash 48 Touring Car or—although this is silly even to contemplate—the new Nash 697 Sport Touring version with six cylinders. Six cylinders, Billy! They would certainly help with these hills we’ve been climbing!

  —The four cylinders seem to be doing just fine, Mr. Robinson.

  —Yes, it does seem to handle the grades well, doesn’t it? Of course, if I were dreaming of spending five thousand dollars or more for an automobile, I’d go for the LaFayette 134. It weighs more than two tons and—so I’ve
read, at least—can travel at speeds up to ninety miles per hour. Tell me, Billy—why would any person need or want to go ninety miles per hour? Except perhaps at the Indianapolis Speedway, I mean?

  —I don’t know.

  —But I’m no Jimmy Murphy, and anyway, I’d have to buy a Duesenberg to compete there and I’m happy with this Nash. Do you mind if I take some notes as we continue our discussion about the old days?

  —Go ahead.

  —Speaking of racetracks, Billy… I’ve heard mention on the reservation of the Race Track, but it’s not a formation or place that the Park Service has on its maps or one that I’m familiar with.

  —We drove through it coming out of Rapid City, Mr. Robinson.

  —We did?

  —The Race Track is the old Lakota and Cheyenne name for the valley that surrounds the Black Hills… the long, curving valley between the outer rim of red Hogback Ridge and the Hills themselves. If you went high enough in an aeroplane, perhaps you could see the entire reddish oval surrounding the Hills. That’s the Race Track.

  —Good heavens, Billy. My whole life lived near the Hills—me as head of the state history effort—and I never noticed that the valley goes all the way around the Hills or that your people had a name for it. Race Track. Why Race Track—because the sunken oval of the valley resembles one?

  —No, because it was one.

  Paha Sapa looks over at the older man as Robinson is hurriedly taking notes. Doane Robinson is sixty-seven years old (nine years older than Paha Sapa in this last day of 1923) and wears no cap in the freezing air—the Nash’s heater is all but worthless—even though he is as bald as the proverbial egg. Robinson’s ever-present gentle smile is matched by kind eyes only partially hidden this morning behind the circular horn-rimmed glasses.

  Once a lawyer (who supported the Sioux tribes in some of their early lawsuits against the state and federal governments), Robinson traded law for literature long ago to become South Dakota’s favorite humor writer and poet. He is also the state’s official historian. Most important, Paha Sapa trades these occasional interviews about the “old days”—in which he reveals very little of substance and almost nothing personal—for permission to borrow books from the historian-writer’s extensive home library. This arrangement has led to the majority of what fifty-eight-year-old Paha Sapa considers his personal and private “college education” in the past six years.