[These are actual recollections of the wild life. The Indian boy whose experiences are described wrote them out himself many years afterward when, having graduated at Dartmouth College and the Boston University School of Medicine, he had become an educated man, and a physician among his own people.]
THE Indian boy was a prince of the wilderness. He had but very little work to do during the period of his boyhood. His principal occupation was the practising of a few simple but rigid rules in the arts of warfare and the chase. Aside from this, he was master of his time.
Whatever was required of us boys was quickly performed; then the field was clear for our games and plays. There was always keen competition between us. We felt very much as our fathers did in hunting and war—each one strove to excel all the others. It is true that our savage life was a precarious one, and full of dreadful catastrophes; however, this never prevented us from enjoying our sports to the fullest extent. As we left our tepees in the morning, we were never sure that our scalps would not dangle from a pole in the afternoon! It was an uncertain life, to be sure. Yet we observed that the fawns skipped and played happily while the gray wolves might be peeping forth from behind the hills, ready to tear them limb from limb.
Our sports were molded by the life and customs of our people—indeed, we practised only what we expected to do when grown. Our games were feats with the bow and arrow, foot and pony races, wrestling, swimming, and imitations of the customs and habits of our fathers. We had sham fights with mud balls and willow wands, we played lacrosse, made war upon bees, shot winter arrows (which were used only in that season), and coasted upon ribs of animals and buffalo-robes.
Our games with bow and arrow were usually combined with hunting; but as I shall take hunting for the subject of another letter, I will speak only of such as were purely plays.
No sooner did the boys get together than they divided into squads, and chose sides; then a leading arrow was shot at random into the air. Before it fell to the ground, a volley from the bows of the participants followed. Each player was quick to see the direction and speed of the leading arrow, and he tried to send his own with the same speed and at an equal height, so that when it fell it would be closer than any of the others to the first.
It was considered out of place to shoot an arrow by first sighting the object aimed at. This was usually impracticable, because the object was almost always in motion, while the hunter himself was often on the back of a pony in full gallop. Therefore, it was the offhand shot that the Indian boy sought to master. There was another game with arrows which was characterized by gambling, and was generally confined to the men.
The races were an every-day occurrence. At noon the boys were usually gathered by some pleasant sheet of water, and as soon as the ponies were watered, they were allowed to graze for an hour or two, while the boys stripped for their noonday sports. A boy might say, "I can't run, but I challenge you for fifty paces," to some other whom he considered his equal. A former hero, when beaten, would often explain his defeat by saying, "I had drunk too much water!" Boys of all ages were paired for a "spin," and the little red men cheered on their favorites with spirit! As soon as this was ended, the pony races followed. All the speedy ponies were picked out, and riders chosen. If a boy said, "I cannot ride," what a shout went up! Such derision!
Last of all came the swimming. A little urchin would hang to his pony's long tail, while the latter held only his head above water and glided sportively along. Finally the animals were driven into a fine field of grass, and we turned our attention to other games.
Lacrosse was an older game, and was confined entirely to the Sisseton and Santee Sioux. Shinny, such as is enjoyed by white boys on ice, is now played by the western Sioux. The "moccasin-game," although sometimes played by the boys, was intended mainly for adults.