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STORY AND SONG OF THE MOTHER’S VOW.
It was a warm day of early spring on the Upper Missouri, when the subtle joy of awakening life stirs the blood and rouses the fancy. The brown outline of the bare trees was already broken by little leaves that were shaking themselves in the bright sunlight. Flowers were peering through the vivid green of the freshly sprung grass, the birds had come, and the silence of the year had passed. It was a day to enjoy outdoor life, to indulge in hope and happy thoughts. The sky was so blue between the rolling white clouds that one forgot they could ever become portentous of storm. The tents of the Indians, dotted along the banks of the stream, stood like tall white flowers among the trees. Women and children were chatting and calling to each other. Men moved sedately about, busy with preparations for the coming summer days. Young men and maidens were thinking of each other; for the morning song of the lover had been heard, and the signal flash of the mirror[8] had revealed his watching-place to the dark-eyed girl demurely drawing water for the household in the early dawn.
Unheeding the passage of the hours, I wandered up the narrow valley, noting the fading lines of aboriginal life spread out before me. All at once I became aware that the brightness of the day was overshadowed: a greyish hue, that rapidly deepened, pervaded the scene. Suddenly the wind came over the hills, the birds darted about, and the sound of thunder was heard. Everything was seeking a shelter; and, as I turned in haste, hoping to reach the nearest tent, I saw an old woman emerge from a lodge and in the face of the storm begin to climb the hill, down which the wind swept, laying low the grass and whipping the heads of the flowers. Seemingly unmindful of the storm, on the woman went, her scant garments flapping, and her hair, seamed with grey, tossing about her wrinkled face. The sight was so strange that I paused to watch her, as she climbed on and on, steadfastly breasting the storm. The lightnings flashed around her, and the thunder echoed among the hills as she reached the top. There she stopped and stood, a silhouette against the surging clouds, her hands uplifted, her head thrown back; and between the thunder peals I heard her voice ring out loud and clear in a song,—a song, I doubted not, that carried a message to the mighty storm, in which to her the gods were present. Many years have passed since I witnessed this scene and learned the story of the woman's song. She is now at rest, and let us hope her lifelong sorrow may have turned to joy.
In the early part of the century a Dakota woman fasted and prayed, and Thunder came to her in her vision. To the god she promised to give her firstborn child. When she became a mother, she forgot in her joy that the life of her little one did not belong to her; nor did she recall her fateful vow until one bright spring day, when the clouds gathered and she heard the roll of the thunder,—a sound which summoned all persons consecrated to this god to bring their offerings and to pay their vows. Then she remembered what she had promised; but her heart forbade her to lay the infant, which was smiling in her arms, upon the cloud-swept hill-top. She pressed the baby to her breast, and waited in silence the passing of the god in the storm.
The following spring, when the first thunder pealed, she did not forget her vow; but she could not gather strength to fulfil it.