Sinopah, the Indian Boy

by James Willard Schultz

"Oh, that will be good," Sinopah cried. "I am to become a member of a warrior band. How long will it be before I can join a higher one? I would like to be an Ai-in-i-ki-quan."

"Oh, that time is yet some winters ahead," his father answered. "You have to go to war before joining that order, you know."

The Ai-in-i-ki-kwaks, or Seizers, were the police of the great camp. It was their duty to guard it in time of danger and to carry out the orders of the chiefs. For instance, at times when there were great herds of buffalo near camp, the chiefs would order that no one should go out by himself to hunt and so scatter the animals and make it hard for all the hunters to get a plenty of meat and hides. Certain days were set when all the men would go together and make a big hunt. If any one broke that rule, the chiefs would order the Seizers to punish him, and punished he was. Sometimes the man was whipped and his weapons smashed; or, worse, he might not only be whipped, but his lodge and property would be torn to pieces and some of his horses killed.

Besides the Mosquitoes and Seizers, there were a number of other orders, the Buffalo Bulls, They Who Carry the Raven, the Dogs, all parts of the great society of the tribe, which was called I-kun-uh-ka-tse, All Friends.

On the morning following the talk of White Wolf and Red Crane, preparations were begun for Sinopah's entrance into the Mosquito Society. First of all, Red Crane changed the manner of dressing the boy's hair. It had been daily combed and plaited into four long braids, two of them falling just behind, and two just in front of the ears. To these was now added a fifth braid, a slender one drooping beside the one just in front of the right ear, and the end of it was wrapped with a narrow strip of otter fur, believed to be the favorite fur of the Sun. This fifth braid was the scalp-lock. Were Sinopah to be killed in battle the enemy would take it as a trophy of the fight.

Right after the morning meal the boy's mother had begun to make a pair of moccasins for him, and she kept at the work for some days. The tops or uppers of them were solidly embroidered with brightly colored porcupine quills, each small quill tightly fastened in place with many stitches of very fine sinew thread.

In the mean time, old Red Crane fumbled around in his several pouches and finally found four beautifully tanned, snow-white antelope skins. "These your grandmother tanned the summer before she died," he told Sinopah. "I have been saving them for you. They are for your first war-suit. Watch, now, how I cut them, for after this you will have to make your own clothes."

The old man then spread a skin out flat on his couch and cut it into an oblong square after measuring one of the boy's legs. A few stitches then made of the material a wide-flapped legging. Next, the flaps were fringed by slitting them every quarter of an inch along their length, and then ornamented with tufts of red-dyed horsehair and parts of scalps that the old man had himself taken in battle. The other legging was made in the same way.