I Earliest Recollections
I: Hadakah, "The Pitiful Last"
WHAT boy would not be an Indian for a while when he thinks of the
freest life in the world? This life was mine. Every day there was a real
hunt. There was real game. Occasionally there was a medicine dance
away off in the woods where no one could disturb us, in which the boys
impersonated their elders, Brave Bull, Standing Elk, High Hawk,
Medicine Bear, and the rest. They painted and imitated their fathers and
grandfathers to the minutest detail, and accurately too, because they had
seen the real thing all their lives.
We were not only good mimics but we were close students of nature.
We studied the habits of animals just as you study your books. We
watched the men of our people and represented them in our play; then
learned to emulate them in our lives.
No people have a better use of their five senses than the children of the
wilderness. We could smell as well as hear and see. We could feel and
taste as well as we could see and hear. Nowhere has the memory been
more fully developed than in the wild life, and I can still see wherein I
owe much to my early training.
Of course I myself do not remember when I first saw the day, but my
brothers have often recalled the event with much mirth; for it was a
custom of the Sioux that when a boy was born his brother must plunge
into the water, or roll in the snow naked if it was winter time; and if he
was not big enough to do either of these himself, water was thrown on him.
If the new-born had a sister, she must be immersed. The idea was that a
warrior had come to camp, and the other chil- dren must display some act
of hardihood.