But he comes here looking gray and crying,
And wanders aimlessly about!
When the woman sang, “He comes here looking gray,” she meant that the man was gray from the white-clay paint on his body.
Snake Head-Ornament heard her song; but, knowing she was his clan sister, he cried out to her: “Sing louder, cousin! You are right; let my ‘fathers’ hear what you say. I do not know if they will feel shame or not, but the bull snake and the bald eagle both called me ‘son’!”
What he meant was that the bull snake and the bald eagle were his dream gods. That is, they had appeared to him in a dream, and promised to help him as they would a son, when he went to war. In her song, the woman taunted him with this. If she had not been his clan cousin, he would have been beside himself with anger. As it was, he but laughed and did not hurt her.
But the woman had cause for singing her song. Years before, when Snake Head-Ornament was a very young man, he went out with a war party and killed a Sioux woman. When he came home the people called him brave, and made much of him; and he grew quite puffed up now that all looked up to him.
Not long after, he was made a member of the Black Mouth society. It happened one day, that the women were building a fence of logs, set upright around the village, to defend it from enemies. Snake Head-Ornament, as a member of the Black Mouths, was one of the men overseeing the work. This woman, his clan cousin, was slow at her task; and, to make her move more briskly, Snake Head-Ornament came close to her and fired off his gun just past her knees. She screamed, but seeing it was Snake Head-Ornament who had shot, and knowing he was her clan cousin, she did not get angry. Nevertheless, she did not forget! And, years after, she had revenge in her taunting song.
Young men going out with a war party had to take much chaffing from older warriors who were clan cousins. My brother was once out with a party of fifty, many of them young men. They were fleeing from a big camp of Sioux and had ridden for two days. The second night one of the younger men, a mere lad, fell asleep as he rode his pony. An older warrior, his clan cousin, fired a gun past the lad’s ear. “Young man,” he cried, “you sleep so soundly that only thunder can waken you!” The rest of the party thought the warrior’s words a huge joke.
