Waheenee: An Indian Girl's Story

by Waheenee; Gilbert Livingstone Wilson

The next morning a terrible blizzard broke over our village. The wind howled overhead, driving the falling snow in blinding clouds. Red Blossom drew her robe over her head and went to the entrance to run over to our next neighbor’s; but she came back. “I am afraid to go out,” she said. “The air is so full of snow that I can not see my hand when I hold it before my face. I fear I might lose my way, and wander out on the prairie and die.” There were stories in the tribe of villagers who had perished thus.

Old Turtle and Strikes-Many Woman made ready our noon meal—no easy thing to do; for the cold wind, driving down the smoke hole, blew ashes into our faces and into our food. An old bull-boat frame was turned over the smoke hole. Against it, on the windward side, my mothers had laid a buffalo skin the night before, weighting it down with a stone. This was to keep the wind from blowing smoke down the smoke hole; but the wind had shifted in the night, blowing the buffalo skin off the boat frame. The weight of the stone had sunk one end of the skin into the earth roof, where it had frozen fast; and we could hear the loose end flapping and beating in the wind. Little snow came down the smoke hole. The wind was so strong that it carried the snow off the roof.

Turtle and Strikes-Many Woman had gone with dogs for firewood only the day before; so there was plenty of fuel in the lodge. We could not go to get water at the river; but Red Blossom crept into the entrance way and filled a skin basket with snow. This she melted in a clay pot, for water. It was in this water that we boiled our meat for the midday meal. In spite of the calf skin that my grandmother belted about me, I shivered with the cold until my teeth chattered. Turtle poured some of the meat broth, steaming hot, into a wooden bowl, and fetched me a buffalo-horn spoon. With this spoon I scooped up the broth, glad to swallow something hot into my cold little stomach.

After our meal, my two mothers and Turtle sat on my father’s couch, looking grave. “I hope Small Ankle and Big Cloud have reached shelter in the Missouri-river timber,” I heard Red Blossom say. “If they are on the prairie in this storm, they will die.”

“Big Cloud’s prayers are strong,” answered Turtle, “and Small Ankle is a good plainsman. I am sure they and their party will find shelter.”

“I knew a Mandan who was caught in a blizzard,” said Red Blossom. “He walked with the wind until he fell into a coulee, that was full of snow. He burrowed under the drifts and lay on his back, with his knees doubled against his chin and his robe tight about him. He lay there three days, until the storm blew over. He had a little parched corn for food; and, for drink, he ate snow. He came home safely; but his mouth was sore from the snow he had eaten.”

Darkness came early, with the wind still screaming overhead. Turtle tried to parch some corn in a clay pot, but blasts from the smoke hole blew ashes into her eyes. She took out a handful of the half-parched corn, when it had cooled, and poured it into my two hands. This was my supper; but she also gave me a lump of dried chokecherries to eat. They were sweet and I was fond of them.

I awoke the next morning to see my mothers cooking our breakfast, parched-corn meal stirred into a thick mush with beans and marrow fat. I sprang out of bed and glanced up at the smoke hole. The sky, I saw, was clear and the sun was shining.

The second day after, about midafternoon, Small Ankle came home. I heard the tinkle of the hollow hoofs that hung on the skin door, and in a moment my father came around the fire screen leading his war pony, a bay with a white nose. He put his pony in the corral, replaced the bar, and came over to his couch by the fire. My mothers said nothing. Red Blossom put water and dried meat in a pot and set it on the fire, and Turtle fetched an armful of green cottonwood bark to feed the pony.

My father took off his big cap and hung it on the drying pole, and wrung out his moccasins and hung them beside the cap. They were winter moccasins, and in each was a kind of stocking, of buffalo skin turned fur in, and cut and sewed to fit snugly over the foot. These stockings Small Ankle drew out and laid by the fire, to dry. He put on dry moccasins, threw off his robe, and took upon his knees the bowl of broth and meat that Red Blossom silently handed him.