Sinopah, the Indian Boy

by James Willard Schultz

Sinopah found his voice: "What is it?" he cried. "Oh, how funny; my dogs packed just like horses."

And then Lone Bull and Otaki began to dance around the dogs: "Oh, Sinopah! We know what all this is," they shouted. "Your mother and ours have given us a little lodge and everything to go in it."

"Ai! They speak truth, little one," his mother told him; "come, we are going to make camp for you. Now, where shall it be?"

"Let me lead the first dog and be chief," said Lone Bull. "I will go ahead and choose the place for the camp."

So the little procession started, each child leading a dog, the mothers following and laughing. They had worked long and hard for all this, and were very happy because the children were so excited and pleased.

Lone Bull, very quiet and solemn-faced now, led them under three large cottonwood trees near the edge of the river. "We will camp here," he said. "In this place the camp will be well sheltered from the wind. Out there on the plain is plenty of rich grass for the horses. Here is good water for all. Back of the bluffs there, the plain is covered with buffalo. The hunters will make big killings and the camp will be red with meat. Come, Sinopah, sit you down here with me while the women put up the lodge and get things in shape for the night."

The mothers laughed to hear him talking so wisely, and giving orders just as if he was a chief. They soon unpacked the dogs, little Otaki helping all she could. That was the way things were done by the Blackfeet. The women did all the work of packing and unpacking the animals, making camp and getting firewood and water. But they did not work too hard; not nearly as hard as most white women who have a family and no servants. The men rested when in camp and were waited on by the women; but they did their share of work: in good weather and bad they hunted to provide food for their own families, and for all the widows and orphans and the old and crippled people of the great camp. That, and herding horses, fighting the enemy, and making their bows and arrows, their shields and clothing, kept them generally busy.

When the dogs were unpacked and turned loose, the women tied four lodge poles together about two feet from the tips,—they were fourteen feet long,—and then set them up in the form of a square-based cone, after which all save one of the remaining poles were laid up in a circle, their tips resting in the crotches formed by the tips of the original four. The upper edge of the lodge skin was then tied to the remaining pole at the proper height, and with it raised at the back of the lodge. It was easy then to bring the side edges of the lodge skin around and fasten them together in the front with wooden skewers. Lastly, the poles were pushed outward at the bottom until the skin set tightly over them.

The women then hung a curtain over the little round hole in front that answered for a doorway. The bedding of robes and blankets was carried in and made up in three couches. The parfleches, tightly stuffed with dried meat, dried berries, and pemmican, were taken in and laid open near the door, water was brought in the little kettle, and the work was done. It was a fine little lodge, the skin made of tanned elk hides and almost snow-white. At the base it was about ten feet in diameter, large enough for a dozen or more children to play in.