When the tree flowered

by John G. Neihardt

“When my mother and grandmother had set up the old smoke-blackened piece of a tepee for a shelter, many people came to us with food, and we feasted together. And while we feasted, there was a big giving of gifts until we were not poor at all. There was a tepee of buffalo hide made double against the coldest winter and the hottest summer, and the deeds of my father were painted on it. Our new horses were staked all around us, whinnying with joy, and none of them was old. We all had new buckskin dresses; my grandfather had a good gun with plenty of powder and lead; and there was nothing lacking in the tepee that women need to make a home. But the best gift of all was the horse I got for myself. He was not too young, not too old either, and I called him Whirlwind because he could run so fast. It was Looks Twice who gave the gift with a speech that made me proud, for he was my father’s brother-friend, and he carried my father dead out of the battle. Brother-friends do not have the same mother and father, but they are closer than common brothers, because they are just like one man, and if one of them is in trouble, the other must help, even if he knows he will die. Maybe that horse had some spirit power from my father, for sometimes when I was riding alone, all at once I would be back in the dream that came to me by the scaffold, and Whirlwind would be the buffalo-runner floating.”

The animated expression suddenly left the old man’s face, and for some time he sat looking at the ground, blowing softly on his eagle-bone whistle. A chuckle signaled his return from the remoteness of the inner world.

“I was thinking,” he said with the crinkled look, “about stealing my grandfather’s pipe that time; and this is how it was. I knew I had to be a great warrior and a great hunter so that everyone would praise me, and I had a good start already with the fawn. I thought and thought about it. Maybe in the big hunt we were going to have I could sneak out among the hunters when everybody was excited, and nobody would notice; and maybe there would be a lame cow and I could kill her. Or it would be a calf anyway, maybe one that had lost its mother in the dust. I was not very sure about the cow; but the more I thought, the more I knew I had to have that calf; and it came to me that I’d better get Wakon Tonka to help me. I would dedicate a pipe to the Great Mysterious One and make a sacred vow the way I had heard them tell real warriors did. Then maybe I would get that calf. I was already feeding enough old people for ten calves when it came to me that I had no pipe.

“That was when I made a mistake. I said to myself: ‘It will be all right to take grandfather’s pipe, because I am doing this for very old people who have hardly any teeth at all; and anyway he has two pipes now.’ I did not ask for the pipe, because I knew he would not let me have it. So I just took it when nobody was looking, and rode far out to where there was a tall, pointed hill, standing all alone above the little hills that sat around it.

“When I tied Whirlwind to some brush and climbed to the top, I saw that some black clouds were coming up over towards where the sun goes down, and it was that way I had to look when I made my offering. I did not know just how to do it, but maybe it would be all right anyway. So I held the pipe up and cried out in a loud voice: ‘Tonka schla, Wakon Tonka! You see me here and you know I must get a calf for the old people, because they can hardly chew. I give you this pipe, and if you send me a calf, I will dance the sun dance, just as soon as I get big enough.’

“When I said this, all at once there was a big thunder off there—boom-m-m how-ow-ow oom-m-m ow-ow!

“I dropped the pipe and ran as fast as I could down the hill. Some of me almost got there before I did, because I stumbled and rolled part of the way. Then I rode home as fast as Whirlwind could go, because the big voice sounded angry, and I was frightened.

“When I got home I did not say anything to anybody. And afterwhile grandmother said: ‘I wonder what is wrong with our boy. He looks queer.’ And my mother said: ‘He does look queer. Maybe he ate too much.’ Then my grandfather looked hard at me and said: ‘Maybe he has been smoking my pipe, for I see it is not here.’ And when he kept on looking hard at me for a while, I had to tell him; but I did not tell everything. I just said I took it because I had to make a vow so that we would get plenty of meat in the hunt.

“I thought he was getting ready to be angry, he looked so hard at me. Then he said, ‘hm-m-m,’ high up in his nose, and his eyes looked as though he might be going to laugh; but he didn’t. My mother and grandmother didn’t say anything. They just tried to look sad down their noses.”

After chuckling awhile over the memory, the old man continued: “If I had been a Wasichu boy, I think they would have whipped me; but Lakotas never hurt a child. They were good in those days before the sacred hoop was broken. It was the sacred way they lived in the hoop that made them good and taught the children; and I will tell you how that was.