CHAPTER XXXVII
PAINTED TEPEES AND PICTURE WRITING
The circle camp, on the prairies at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, had a strange and fascinating interest. Even after many years, the scenes are still fresh in my mind. Night and day there was generally something going on. Morning was the quietest time, when few people were stirring. Never did the meadows look fresher or lovelier than in the golden sunlight of a July morning. Flowers and grass were hung with sparkling lace and shining gems of dew.
On my way to the stream for my morning bath, I waded through masses of golden sunflowers and blue and purple vetches up to my knees. Dim on the eastern horizon, where the sun was rising, were the blue outlines of the Sweet Grass Hills; and in the west the mighty frontier range of the Rockies, with glistening glaciers and snowfields. In the long grass I saw a prairie hare, a pair of kit foxes, and ground squirrels running about, chirping in the sunlight. Along the shore of the lake were killdeer, long-billed curlew, and spotted sandpipers.
All the birds were singing, robins, yellow-throats, and lovely mountain bluebirds; horned larks were fluttering and trilling, hovering like butterflies against the deep blue sky. Along the stream were thickets of willows and snowberry bushes in flower, and in marshy places blue flags, scarlet painted-cups, and blue-eyed grasses.
After a plunge in the cold water of the brook, I went back to my lodge and had breakfast; looked after my horses, watered them and changed their picket places, then sat outside in the sunlight.
Health is a wonderful thing. On lovely summer mornings, [[259]]when nature was at her best over the prairie, my heart felt light and I was happy; the civilized world was easily forgotten. With my horses, cameras, and notebooks, I could always occupy myself and had plenty of work to do.
In the circle camp I counted three hundred and fifty lodges—thirty of them were Painted Tepees with symbolic decorations. They belonged to the head men of different bands and were pitched in prominent places on the inner circle. The owners were proud of them. The ceremonies that went with them gave a social prestige and a good standing in the tribe.
At first it was hard to find out anything about the Painted Tepees—about their symbolic declarations, ceremonies, and the legends of their origin. The owner believed that the divulging of the secrets weakened their supernatural power. Each Painted Tepee had a sacred bundle and a separate ceremony. The pictures on the tepee cover and the ceremony that went with them could not be separated. They came originally through a dream and belonged exclusively to the founder, who might transfer them to another; but no one could copy them. They were believed to have protective power for the owners and their families. Both men and women made vows to them in time of danger and in behalf of the sick. If the tepee cover with its decorations wore out, a new one with the same pictures took its place. But the old one was sacrificed to the Sun—destroyed by spreading upon the surface of a lake and sinking it under the water.