For all these reasons I saw that I was set forth on a dishonorable mission. To speak the words of the agent were impossible to me. When I met Circling Thunder, an old playmate of mine, and learned that many were dancing, my face stiffened. I had hoped to be able to have a word with the chief in private.
“Do you believe in it?” I asked.
My friend shook his head. “I don’t know. Many claim to have visited the spirit world—and Looking Eagle brought back a handful of pemmican, so they say. The buffalo were thick over there and the people were very happy.”
“How do you know it was pemmican?”
“I tasted it.”
“Perhaps it was only beef.”
“It may be so,” he said, but his eyes were still dim with dream.
Many of those whom I met were in this state of doubt. They wished to be convinced. It was so sweet to dream of the old-time world, and yet they could not quite believe it. They stood too near the stern reality of hunger and cold, and yet my people are a race of seers. To them the dream has not yet lost its marvelous portent. In time of trouble they go upon the hills and wait for the vision which shall instruct and comfort them.
In my youth I had shared in these beliefs. I had had my days of fasting and prayer; yes, I too had entered the sleep which reveals. I had met and talked with birds and animals, and once I felt the hand of my dead mother move in my hair. I had fasted until I could walk among the painted tepees of the spirit world and I had gazed on the black herds of buffalo.
My training among scholars had given me a new understanding of these conditions, but I could not impart my knowledge to my people. My wisdom was accounted alien and therefore to be distrusted. Of what avail to argue with them when the frenzy was upon them?