We had some quiet plays which we alternated with the more severe and warlike ones. Among them were throwing wands and snow-arrows. In the winter we coasted much. We had no "double-rippers" nor toboggans, but six or seven of the long ribs of a buffalo, fastened together at the larger end, answered all practical purposes. Sometimes a strip of bass-wood bark, four feet long and half a foot wide, was used with much skill. We stood on one end and held the other, using the inside of the bark for the outside, and thus coasted down long hills with remarkable speed.
Sometimes we played "Medicine Dance." This to us was almost what "playing church" is among white children. Our people seem to think it an act of irreverence to imitate these dances, but we children thought otherwise; therefore we quite frequently enjoyed in secret one of these performances. We used to observe all the important ceremonies and customs attending it, and it required something of an actor to reproduce the dramatic features of the dance. The real dances usually occupied a day and a night, and the program was long and varied, so that it was not easy to execute all the details perfectly; but the Indian children are born imitators.
I was often selected as choirmaster on these occasions, for I had happened to learn many of the medicine songs, and was quite an apt mimic. My grandmother, who was a noted medicine woman, on hearing of these sacrilegious acts (as she called them), warned me that if any of the medicine men should learn of my conduct, they would punish me terribly by shriveling my limbs with slow disease.
Occasionally we also played "white man." Our knowledge of the pale-face was limited, but we had learned that he brought goods whenever he came, and that our people exchanged furs for his merchandise. We also knew, somehow, that his complexion was white, that he wore short hair on his head and long hair on his face, and that he had coat, trousers, and hat, and did not patronize blankets in the daytime. This was the picture we had formed of the white man. So we painted two or three of our number with white clay, and put on them birchen hats, which we sewed up for the occasion, fastened a piece of fur to their chins for a beard, and altered their costume as much as lay within our power. The white of the birch-bark was made to answer for their white shirts. Their merchandise consisted of sand for sugar, wild beans for coffee, dried leaves for tea, pulverized earth for gunpowder, pebbles for bullets, and clear water for dangerous "fire-water." We traded for these goods with skins of squirrels, rabbits, and small birds.
When we played "hunting buffalo" we would send a few good runners off on the open prairie with meat and other edibles; then start a few of our swiftest runners to chase them and capture the food. Once we were engaged in this sport when a real hunt by the men was going on near by; yet we did not realize that it was so close until, in the midst of our play, an immense buffalo appeared, coming at full speed directly toward us. Our mimic buffalo hunt turned into a very real "buffalo scare"! As it was near the edge of a forest, we soon disappeared among the leaves like a covey of young prairie-chickens, and some hid in the bushes while others took refuge in tall trees.
In the water we always had fun. When we had no ponies, we often had swimming-matches of our own, and we sometimes made rafts with which we crossed lakes and rivers. It was a common thing to "duck" a young or timid boy, or to carry him into deep water to struggle as best he might.
I remember a perilous ride with a companion on an unmanageable log, when we both were less than seven years old. The older boys had put us on this uncertain bark and pushed us out into the swift current of the river. I cannot speak for my comrade in distress, but I can say now that I would rather ride on a wild bronco any day than try to stay on and steady a short log in a river. I never knew how we managed to prevent a shipwreck on that voyage, and to reach the shore!
We had many curious wild pets. There were young foxes, bears, wolves, fawns, raccoons, buffalo calves, and birds of all kinds, tamed by various boys. My pets were different at different times, but I particularly remember one. I once had a grizzly cub for a pet, and so far as he and I were concerned our relations were charming and very close. But I hardly know whether he made more enemies for me or I for him. It was his custom to treat unmercifully every boy who injured me. He was despised for his conduct in my interest, and I was hated on account of his interference.
COPY IN BLACK AND WHITE OF A COLOR-DRAWING BY AN INDIAN BOY