Post by ephriam on Jun 5, 2014 9:57:48 GMT -5
Meany Interview with Tall Woman, 1907:
Wi-an-has-ka
Tall Woman
Ogalala
79 years old
White Clay S.D. 13 VII [July] 07
John Monroe, Interpreter
In the old times the women had charge of the tipi while the men went on war parties or hunting.
Some women went with war parties. When the warriors made a strike in battle the women sang to keep up the courage of the men.
On the first time she went on a war party her brother got a scalp of a Crow and gave it to her so she came home to the village singing.
The next time she started with a war party in the spring. When they came near the Crows the warriors charge don them. While fighting they got the best of the Crows who retreated. Her father came to her and gave her a little Crow boy about eight years old. She got hold of the boy when four other Sioux women and each one struck the boy once with a whip. So when the war was over they came home and her brother said he would adopt as his son the little Crow boy.
Her father’s name was Ay-iunki = Running-for-an-enemy.
Getting home all painted their faces black and she had a good time singing all night and they broke up at daylight.
Fifty-six years ago, they started from Bushay Creek near Chadron and started East. It was winter and she was one of the only two women in the war party. All were on foot though they had a few pack horses.
It took forty days to get where the Pawnees were. They approached the Pawnees. Scouts reported the Pawnees were encamped near a fort in the bend of a river. The Sioux chief was Iron Dishes. He was picked as a scout and started alone for the Pawnee camp. On returning he howled four times like a gray wolf so they knew he was coming.
Iron Dishes told the warriors to be brave and try to get scalps for the women.
The warriors charged and first struck a man who was standing and they killed and scalped him. The Sioux killed six including some women and children. Her cousin, His Lance, brought her a scalp and the other woman also got a scalp. The man who brought a scalp to the other woman was Black-bird-white. The other woman was Standing White Center Woman. She brought her scalp home and gave it to Tom Tyon’s mother. They only got four horses and it took them sixty days to walk back. No Sioux were killed.
At the time the stars were shooting she was six years old.
At the age of ten she dreamt often that a white man was chasing her. The people camped with tipis in a circle. In her dreams she stole out of her buffalo robe and ran all around the village with the white man chasing her. She came out and tied a white flag on a rod and went around the circle showing it to the people.
At the age of twenty-four she dreamed again and saw the heavens opened and saw the Great Spirit sticking his head out and told her to get a buffalo calf skin and work with porcupine quills a line along each leg and a circle in the center.
She asked her brother to go out and kill for her a buffalo calf and bring it to her. This he did. She tanned it and when it was done she worked on it as the Great Spirit had ordered her to do. When she had finished she went to a creek and cut four pieces of skin from her arms, and a lock of her hair. These she put in a piece of buckskin and held it in her hand while with the other hand she held a pipe to the Great Spirit. She told the Great Spirit she had finished all the things He had told her to make, and she asked Him to give her a good medicine so that whatever she did she would be lucky. When she had finished these words she threw everything she had into the water.
Later her brother was taken sick and she went out and talked with the Great Spirit and asked for good medicine so her brother would not die. She promised that if he lived she would make another offering as before. The brother recovered and she did as she promised.
She did this again when her boy was sick and offered a buffalo robe tied to a pole like a flag pole.
In a dream she saw a man painted red, who told her to pull up roots to cure the sick. He told her to become a doctor or medicine woman. He told her to pull up a root there and then. She did so but found it was a bullsnake, then it became a root again. Then she became acquainted with ten different kinds of roots which she uses in making medicine. They are all different colors. When one fails she tries another and keeps on until she finds one that does good.
In the old days they colored porcupine quills yellow from a color they got from pine trees, growing on outside (probably fungi); red from leaves that turned red when boiled. These leaves are found in the bottoms. These are the only two colors until the white man came.
She went on the buffalo hunts three times once to the Black Hills. On the last one she went alone, without relatives, but she got five robes.
She prepared as high as three hides a day for the tipi.
She took the hair off and tanned the hide of a morphodite buffalo in one day. The hide was awful thick.
In the old days the women would go to the woods and find a round gnarl on the side of a tree. This they cut out carefully and hollowed it out for use as a cup.
Of the horns of the mountain sheep and of the antelope they made spoons.
Knives were scarce. They cost the best buffalo robe for two knives. She does not remember anything about the time before they got iron.
In crossing rivers they took willows as large as a man’s wrist and bent them in a circle or oval and to these they fastened two buffalo robes sewn together and thus made a skin boat and made paddles usually of elm wood.
She thinks Crazy Horse and Red Cloud are the greatest chiefs of the Sioux.
Sitting Bull belongs to north and she thinks he is a good warrior. She heard so.
She says that the chieftainship passes as an inheritance from father to son in the Sioux nation.
Wi-an-has-ka
Tall Woman
Ogalala
79 years old
White Clay S.D. 13 VII [July] 07
John Monroe, Interpreter
In the old times the women had charge of the tipi while the men went on war parties or hunting.
Some women went with war parties. When the warriors made a strike in battle the women sang to keep up the courage of the men.
On the first time she went on a war party her brother got a scalp of a Crow and gave it to her so she came home to the village singing.
The next time she started with a war party in the spring. When they came near the Crows the warriors charge don them. While fighting they got the best of the Crows who retreated. Her father came to her and gave her a little Crow boy about eight years old. She got hold of the boy when four other Sioux women and each one struck the boy once with a whip. So when the war was over they came home and her brother said he would adopt as his son the little Crow boy.
Her father’s name was Ay-iunki = Running-for-an-enemy.
Getting home all painted their faces black and she had a good time singing all night and they broke up at daylight.
Fifty-six years ago, they started from Bushay Creek near Chadron and started East. It was winter and she was one of the only two women in the war party. All were on foot though they had a few pack horses.
It took forty days to get where the Pawnees were. They approached the Pawnees. Scouts reported the Pawnees were encamped near a fort in the bend of a river. The Sioux chief was Iron Dishes. He was picked as a scout and started alone for the Pawnee camp. On returning he howled four times like a gray wolf so they knew he was coming.
Iron Dishes told the warriors to be brave and try to get scalps for the women.
The warriors charged and first struck a man who was standing and they killed and scalped him. The Sioux killed six including some women and children. Her cousin, His Lance, brought her a scalp and the other woman also got a scalp. The man who brought a scalp to the other woman was Black-bird-white. The other woman was Standing White Center Woman. She brought her scalp home and gave it to Tom Tyon’s mother. They only got four horses and it took them sixty days to walk back. No Sioux were killed.
At the time the stars were shooting she was six years old.
At the age of ten she dreamt often that a white man was chasing her. The people camped with tipis in a circle. In her dreams she stole out of her buffalo robe and ran all around the village with the white man chasing her. She came out and tied a white flag on a rod and went around the circle showing it to the people.
At the age of twenty-four she dreamed again and saw the heavens opened and saw the Great Spirit sticking his head out and told her to get a buffalo calf skin and work with porcupine quills a line along each leg and a circle in the center.
She asked her brother to go out and kill for her a buffalo calf and bring it to her. This he did. She tanned it and when it was done she worked on it as the Great Spirit had ordered her to do. When she had finished she went to a creek and cut four pieces of skin from her arms, and a lock of her hair. These she put in a piece of buckskin and held it in her hand while with the other hand she held a pipe to the Great Spirit. She told the Great Spirit she had finished all the things He had told her to make, and she asked Him to give her a good medicine so that whatever she did she would be lucky. When she had finished these words she threw everything she had into the water.
Later her brother was taken sick and she went out and talked with the Great Spirit and asked for good medicine so her brother would not die. She promised that if he lived she would make another offering as before. The brother recovered and she did as she promised.
She did this again when her boy was sick and offered a buffalo robe tied to a pole like a flag pole.
In a dream she saw a man painted red, who told her to pull up roots to cure the sick. He told her to become a doctor or medicine woman. He told her to pull up a root there and then. She did so but found it was a bullsnake, then it became a root again. Then she became acquainted with ten different kinds of roots which she uses in making medicine. They are all different colors. When one fails she tries another and keeps on until she finds one that does good.
In the old days they colored porcupine quills yellow from a color they got from pine trees, growing on outside (probably fungi); red from leaves that turned red when boiled. These leaves are found in the bottoms. These are the only two colors until the white man came.
She went on the buffalo hunts three times once to the Black Hills. On the last one she went alone, without relatives, but she got five robes.
She prepared as high as three hides a day for the tipi.
She took the hair off and tanned the hide of a morphodite buffalo in one day. The hide was awful thick.
In the old days the women would go to the woods and find a round gnarl on the side of a tree. This they cut out carefully and hollowed it out for use as a cup.
Of the horns of the mountain sheep and of the antelope they made spoons.
Knives were scarce. They cost the best buffalo robe for two knives. She does not remember anything about the time before they got iron.
In crossing rivers they took willows as large as a man’s wrist and bent them in a circle or oval and to these they fastened two buffalo robes sewn together and thus made a skin boat and made paddles usually of elm wood.
She thinks Crazy Horse and Red Cloud are the greatest chiefs of the Sioux.
Sitting Bull belongs to north and she thinks he is a good warrior. She heard so.
She says that the chieftainship passes as an inheritance from father to son in the Sioux nation.