The Blindness of Pi-waṕ-ōk
[[143]]
Pi-waṕ-ōk, Flint-knife, was a Blood warrior; he was brave and ambitious, seldom passing a day idly in his lodge. If not away on the war-path against some distant tribe, he was sure to be out hunting. The burning heats of summer, the cold, and the piercing snow-drifting winds of winter did not keep him back, if he thought game was to be found. There were always many buffalo hides and many skins of elk, deer, and antelope stacked up about his lodge, and within were thick warm robe beds, and piles of soft buckskins, tanned by his wife Í-kai-si, the Squirrel. None knew better than the poor, the blind, and the crippled, that the parfleches piled up behind the beds, and filling the space near the doorway, contained stores of fat dried meat, rich pemmican, marrow fat, dried berries and roots, to a share of which they [[144]]were always welcome. The couple had no children, and they said that unless a crowd of guests feasted and smoked in their lodge of an evening, they felt lonesome. So for many years they lived, happy and prosperous, and then a great trouble came on them.
One day Pi-waṕ-ōk returned from a hunt and complained that his eyes hurt him. “They feel as if some one had thrown sand in them,” he said. “When I try to see something far away, they fill with tears and everything becomes indistinct.”
“Oh, that is nothing,” Í-kai-si said to him, “the hard wind which you have been out in all day has made them a little sore. I’ll stew some of those leaves my old grandmother used to say were good for the eyes, and after you have bathed them once or twice, no doubt you will see clearly again.”
The lotion was used for a day or two, but the inflammation increased. A great doctor was called in; he looked carefully at the red lids and the thin, ever-spreading film covering the eyes, and prescribed a steam bath, into which he threw certain herbs. It did no good, and a great medicine man was sent for. He [[145]]came with ceremony, dressed in a bear-skin robe, carrying a bag of mysterious medicines, and shaking his rattles as he entered the lodge. Seating himself by the patient, he asked many questions as he examined the swollen eyes. At last he inquired if Pi-waṕ-ōk had experienced unpleasant dreams of late.
“Yes,” the sick man replied, “the night before this affliction came upon me, I had a terrible dream; you remember that I killed two Crow warriors this spring when we had the battle with them at the Yellow River. Well, I was fighting it all over again in my sleep. I had stabbed and taken the scalp of one Crow, and was turning to struggle with the other, when the dead one sprang up, all bleeding and sightless, the loose skin of the forehead hanging over his eyes, and with a loud cry struck me with the war-club still hanging from his wrist. Then I woke, frightened and trembling from the awful sight.”
“Ah!” said the medicine man, after thinking a little. “That explains it all; the ghost of some enemy you have killed is near here, and is blinding you in some mysterious way. Well, let me get to work; perhaps I can drive him away.” [[146]]
He opened the medicine bag and took from it a long pipe stem painted red and black, to which was tied a small buckskin sack, ornamented with the feathers of certain small birds, and curious claws and teeth. No one but he knew what was inside the little sack; it was his secret helper. “Hai-yu,” he cried to it, entreatingly. “Hai-yu, you certain thing of the earth. Help me now; help me to drive away the ghosts from this sufferer’s eyes. As you long ago told me in my dreams to do, favored one of the Sun, that I will now do. Intercede for us all here to-day; ask the Sun to have pity on us all; to grant us long life, good health, and sufficient food.”