Then the chief said, “When my son there,”—he touched my arm—“or one of my trusted warriors can go to the spirit world and return to tell me it is true, then I may believe. If this religion is true all other deeds are worthless. Bring me proof. My ears are open, my eyes are not yet dim. If these songs are true, then I shall weep no more. If they are not true, then I wish to die. Let us hold a dance to-morrow.” And with a sign he dismissed us, but he himself remained alone with Looking Eagle, who still lay motionless where he had fallen.
XI
THE BREAKING OF THE PEACE PIPE
A knowledge of the dance spread like flame throughout all the Grand River district, and young and old began to flock to The Sitting Bull’s camp, eager to hear more, eager to experiment. “We also wish to see our friends who have gone before us,” they said. “We wish to hear what they say. Teach us the way of the trance.”
I felt the influence of their thought very strongly what time I sat among them, but afterward, when I had returned to the agency, it appeared but the rankest folly, and when others asked me about it I always said: “It is but a foolish thing; do not value it.” But my words did not check the wave of belief in it.
While no special pains were taken to conceal the fact from the white people, it was several days before the agent had any knowledge of Kicking Bear or his mission. This agent, let me say, was a good man, but jealous of his authority, and when he learned that the chief had himself invited The Kicking Bear into the reservation he was angry and said, “I won’t have any of this nonsense here,” and calling Crow, lieutenant of the police, he said: “Crow, go down to The Sitting Bull’s house and tell him this Kicking Bear and Messiah business must stop. Put Kicking Bear off the reservation at once!”
I was very much alarmed by the order, and waited anxiously to learn what the chief would say. I feared his revolt.
The next day the Crow returned from Rock Creek like a man walking in his sleep. He could give the agent no intelligible account of himself or of what he had seen. “He is a wonder worker,” he repeated, “I couldn’t put him away. When he took my hand I was weak as a child. I saw the dance, and when he waved a feather I became dizzy, I fell to the ground, and my eyes were turned inward.”
The agent stared at him as if he were crazy; then he turned to me and said: “Iapi, I wish you’d go down and see what all this hocus-pocus means. Take a couple of policemen with you and make sure that they start this mischief maker on his way home. And tell The Sitting Bull that I want to see him. Say to him the agent expects him to fire Kicking Bear off the reservation.”
I did not tell him that I already knew what was being done. I felt that if some one must carry such a message to the chief it was well for me to do it, for he was in no mood to be reproved like a boy. I took no policemen, but rode away alone with many misgivings.
No sooner had I passed the fort than I regretted my acceptance of the mission. After all, I was Uncapappa and I honored my chief. Whenever I entered the shadow of a tepee I was no longer alien; I fused with my tribe. The gravity and order of my chieftain’s lodge were pleasant to me, and the sound of the women’s songs melted my bones. I was not white; I was red. Acquiring the language of the conquering race had not changed my heart.