Chief White Horse
Chief White Horse
“My father told me I was born in the Black Hills. Ever since I can remember my people have lived on the shores of [pg 92] the Bad River, South Dakota. While I lived there I saw the white people for the first time coming up the river in the big boats. At this time the buffalo were on both sides of the Missouri River, and there was plenty of game and we were all living fat at that time. It was not very long before the fort was built at the mouth of the Bad River. My father liked to be with the white people, and we were up at the store a good deal. The fort finally became a great trading post. The Indians brought in skins of the various animals, such as beaver, wolf, fox, panther, and buffalo. While I was still a young boy I left that section of the country and came further west with the other Indians. I have always tried to live without making any trouble among my own people or with the whites. When I got out among the Sioux I began to learn some of their wild tricks. I began to learn to fight the other Indians. I then went on the warpath, and have been in a good many Indian fights. One fight in particular against the Assinaboines I want to mention. In this battle there were about two hundred of us Sioux. The fight was on the Missouri River. There were charges and countercharges several times. One of the bravest came in advance of the others but he had to retreat. I put two arrows in his back and then rushed up and knocked him off his horse with my bow. After I had knocked this man off [pg 93] his horse my own horse ran away with me and ran right into the enemy's line, dashing in among the foe. They were firing arrows at me from all sides, and I expected that this was my last day. This was the greatest fight I was ever in, though I have been in many others.”
It is a long step from the spear to the ploughshare, but the moccasined feet of White Horse soon took the step. Concerning this epoch in his life, he said: “The most important event in my life was when the Government began to give annuities to the Indians and we were placed on the reservation. I have always been a leader of the Indians and a chief. When farming implements were assigned us, and the allotments made, I was appointed head farmer over the Indians. I visited the Indians all over my district, and tried to get them to till the soil and send their children to school. I sent my own boy to school first as an example to the others. I sent my children to a nearby school until they were old enough and then I was one of the first to send my children to Hampton, Virginia, to school. They all came home and died of consumption. About this time the first missionary came to our country, and I was one of the first to be converted to the Church. I have since done all I could to bring the other Indians into the Church. I went at my own expense down to the place where I now live. [pg 94] There were no people living there at the time, and I cut out of the woods the logs and built a church in my own home. I had no help. The Indians came there to church, and afterward they named the church the White Horse Church. After this a settlement was made here by the Indians, and finally the Government made a post-office at this place, and they called it the White Horse post-office. It has since become a sub-agency. The influence thus brought to bear on the Indians had led them to live a good deal as the white man lives. I have my farm now, raise cattle and horses. All I have done for the Government and for the Church I have been glad to do, for they have all been kind to me. While other Indians have been fighting and making trouble for the United States I have never participated in any of it.”
Before passing to the folklore tale that fell from the lips of Chief White Horse, the attention of the reader is especially directed to the chapter on Indian Impressions of the last Great Council, where White Horse describes his feelings and the lessons he learned while riding for the first time on the iron horse.
Folklore Tales—Yankton Sioux
“In the evenings of my boyhood days my father always told stories. I remember that I used to go to sleep while [pg 95] he was telling stories. This is one of the stories he used to tell: There goes a wolf on a journey. He came upon three buffalo. The wolf said to the buffalo: ‘My brothers, make me as one of you, and we will all live together.’ The buffalo told him: ‘Will you stand the life that we live?’ The wolf said ‘Yes,’ and they all told him to go a distance off and lie down on his back. The buffalo was going to make the wolf a buffalo, and he lay down on his back and sides and rolled in the dust, and then he got up and shook himself and he then made a plunge for the wolf and stuck his horns in him and threw him in the air. Just as he got to the wolf, the wolf jumped aside, and the buffalo said: ‘You made me make that hard run for nothing.’ The wolf said: ‘Try again.’ The buffalo said: ‘This time you stand up and I will come at you.’ So the wolf stood a good ways off. Just as the buffalo reached the wolf, the wolf turned into a buffalo, and they locked horns with each other. And thus he became a strong buffalo. He roamed with the buffalo for a while. The other buffalo went off a little way by themselves and grazed on the grass while the wolf-buffalo took the first grass near where he stood. While he was eating there another wolf came along, and he said to the buffalo: ‘Make me a buffalo, and we will all be brothers together.’ This wolf buffalo then told the wolf to stand just as he had stood before. This wolf [pg 96] buffalo lay down on his back and rolled in the dust and went for the wolf, and as he was going to strike him he turned back again into a wolf, and the two wolves were there together fighting. The wolf buffalo said: ‘I was happy as a buffalo, and was living fat—why did you come around here and make me into a wolf again?’ And he began to fight him. And thus the story ends. And this is why the Indians are always fighting each other.”