Star: The Story of an Indian Pony

by Forrestine C. Hooker

She thought proudly of the pony races during festivals. When only the ponies of the Quahadas ran, Quannah's ponies were not among them, for he would not humiliate his own warriors by showing how slowly their ponies ran. But when the Cheyennes, Kiowas, or Arapahoes brought their best ponies to race against those of the Quahadas, Running Deer was led into the line of strange ponies.

As she stood among them, her bright eyes would note each lithe body, each nervous nostril, and the outlines of steeled muscles. Measuring her rivals she would toss her dainty head, and when the signal was given, would shoot away like an arrow from the other ponies and reach the goal ahead of them. Then amid wild shouts the Quahadas would gather about Running Deer who had upheld the honour of the tribe.

Later the defeated warriors would go back to their own camps, but the best ponies would be left behind with the herd of the Quahadas. Songbird knew that some day Star would race for the honour of the tribe. So while the other children raced and bragged, Songbird watched and was silent.

The games that Songbird played with the children were not so very different from many games played by white children in other parts of the world. Both boys and white girls shot arrows at targets, or, mounted on high stilts, chased one another between the tepees. There were wooden tops carved from tough limbs of trees, and the boys made whistles of reeds on which they blew music that the Indians loved.

Tiring of this they would turn to playing "Wolf" or "Chaser," which is much like "Tag," or it might be a game of "Hide Things" which was the name for "Hide and Seek." "Cat's Cradle" was played with strings of tough buckskin, and a great favourite among the boys was a breath-holding contest in which the boy who could hold his breath the longest was the winner, and the one who was first to fail was ridiculed by boys and girls.

Songbird and the other little girls had dolls which the squaws made for them. These were of buckskin painted gaily, and hair from the tails of ponies was sewed to the heads. The women used threads of fine sinews, and sharply pointed bits of stout wood pushed the queer thread through the material. That was the way the Comanche women sewed, even in making their tents, their clothes, and their moccasins.

Keeping house and having feasts like dinner parties made many merry hours. The boys, who scorned to play with the dolls, were very glad to join the games when they saw cactus-fruit, pine nuts, dried wild berries, dried acorns, and maybe deer meat that had been cut into long narrow strips and hung in the sun until cured so that it could be eaten without being cooked. There might even be little cakes made of dried buffalo meat that had been pounded between two stones and mixed with dried berries.

Instead of candy they chewed dried mesquite beans, which were juicy inside, and though sweet were tart. Possibly a special treat had been prepared for the little housekeepers, and their mothers had given them cactus-fruit. Eagerly the children watched the gorgeous yellow blossoms form on the prickly-pear bushes, and when the petals fell, leaving the delicious fruit, they knew enough not to touch it, for it was thickly encrusted with tiny stickers. These were so fine as to be almost invisible and were very painful as they worked into the flesh.

A tough stick was used to knock the fruit from the edge of the thick, flat, fleshy leaves that formed great clumps of the prickly-pear cactus. The thorns and skin were then removed with sharp sticks, or by placing for a few moments in hot ashes. The feast usually wound up with chewing gum obtained from the sweet sap of certain trees. It oozed through the bark, formed into dry lumps, and was all ready for any little Comanche who happened near.

So the men hunted deer and buffalo and made plans to protect their families and homes, and the women searched for roots, nuts, and berries for food and medicine, made clothes and cooked, while the children played their games, like other children all over the world, and listened to stories told in the tepees and by the camp fires, until the Spirit of Darkness rode his big black horse across the sky.