Says the father,
Says the father.
This song refers to the sacred pipe which, according to the Sioux tradition, was brought to them by a mysterious young woman from the spirit world. The story, as outlined by Captain J. M. Lee, is as follows: In the old times the Sioux were always at war, not only with other tribes, but also among themselves. On one occasion two young men were out hunting when they saw a young woman approaching them with folded arms. Seeing that she was not of their own tribe, one proposed to the other that they kill her, but he refused and urged that they wait until they learned what she wanted. The first speaker, however, was about to kill her as she drew near, when she suddenly stooped down and took from around her ankle something resembling an anklet, which she waved about her head. The motion was so rapid that it seemed as though a cloud encircled her for a few moments, when she ceased, and the snake which she had taken from off her ankle glided away through the grass. But the young warrior who had thought to kill her had disappeared, swept from the face of the earth.
Turning now to his companion, she said, “To you I come as a friend and helper. Your people have been killing each other. I bring you a pipe, which is a token of peace,” and she held out a pipe as she spoke. “When you smoke it your thoughts will be of peace, and no murderer (i. e., no one who kills a member of his own tribe) must be allowed to smoke it.” She returned with him to his village, where the women prepared for her reception a large tipi, to which the chiefs of the tribe came to listen to her instructions. She taught them to be at peace with one another, if they would be happy, and when they listened to her words and accepted her teachings, she gave them the sacred medicine pipe to smoke thenceforth in their councils as a perpetual reminder of the peace covenant of the Lakota. Her mission now ended, she said she must leave them, and although they begged her earnestly to stay with them, she could not tarry longer, but disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as she had come.
A variant of this legend is given by Colonel Mallery in his paper in the Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, where it is illustrated by a colored plate from a picture by the Indian story teller. According to this version, the pipe maiden was the mysterious white Buffalo Cow, and brought, with the pipe, a package of four grains of maize of different colors. This corn sprang from the milk which dropped from her udder, and was thus, with the flesh of the buffalo itself, appointed from the beginning to be the food of all the red tribes. The seeming snakes about her waist and ankles were really blades of grass (corn?). She taught the people to call her “grandmother,” a reverential title among Indians, and after leading them to her relatives, the buffalo, she faded from their sight as they stood gazing at her.
The pipe holds an important part in the mythology and ritual of almost all our tribes, east and west, and no great ceremony is complete and no treaty was ever ratified without it. It is generally symbolic of peace and truth. As a peace emblem, it was formerly carried by every bearer of a friendly message from one tribe to another and was smoked in solemn ratification of treaties, the act of smoking being itself in the nature of an oath. Among the prairie tribes an individual accused of crime is offered the sacred pipe, and if he accepts it and smokes he is declared innocent, as no Indian would dare to smoke it if guilty. The ordinary ceremonial pipe of the prairie tribes is made of the red stone, known as catlinite, from the famous pipestone quarry in Minnesota in the old country of the Sioux. The peace pipe of the Cherokee was made of a white stone, somewhat resembling talc, from a quarry near Knoxville, Tennessee. It is said to have had seven stem holes, emblematic of the seven clans of the Cherokee, and was smoked by seven counselors at the same time. In every case the tribe has a legend to account for the origin of the pipe. A flat pipe is the tribal “medicine” of the Arapaho, and is still preserved with the northern band in Wyoming. (See Arapaho songs 1 and 2.) Besides the stone pipe, there are also in use pipes of clay or bone, as well as cigarettes, but as a rule no ceremonial character attaches to these. In ceremonial smoking the pipe is passed around the circle of councilors, each of whom takes only a few whiffs and then hands it to his neighbor. Each one as he receives the pipe offers it first to the sun, holding the bowl up toward the sky and saying, “Grandfather, smoke;” then to the earth, the fire, and perhaps also to each of the four cardinal points and to one or another of their mythologic heroes. Among the Kiowa I have seen a man hold up the pipe to the sky, saying, “Smoke, Sinti” (Sinti being their great mythologic trickster), and then in the same way, “Smoke, Jesus.”
In the Ghost dance at Rosebud and Pine Ridge, as usually performed, a young woman stood in the center of the circle holding out a pipe toward the messiah in the west, and remained thus throughout the dance. Another young woman usually stood beside her holding out a bäqati wheel (see [Arapaho song 49]) in the same way. This feature of the dance is said to have been introduced by Short Bull.
3. He tuwe′cha he
He tuwe′cha he u echa′ni hwo?
He tuwe′cha he u echa′ni hwo?