Life and Death of Sweet Medicine
A long time ago the people had no laws, no rules of
behavior. There was
one man among them who had a natural sense of what was right. He
and his wife were good, hard- working people, a family to be proud
of. Their only child was a daughter, beautiful and modest,
who had reached the age when girls begin to think about husbands
and making a family. One night a man's voice spoke to her in a
dream. "You are handsome and strong, modest and young. Therefore
Sweet Root will visit you."
From that time on, the girl felt different. Something was stirring,
growing within her, and after a few months, her condition became
obvious: she was going to have a baby. She told her parents that no
man had touched her, and they believed her. But others would not be
likely to, and the girl hid her condition. When she felt the birth
pangs coming on, she went out into the prairie far from the camp
and built herself a brush shelter. Doing everything herself, she
gave birth to a baby boy. She dried the baby, wrapped him in soft
moss, and left him there in the wickiup, for in her village a baby
without a father would be scorned and treated badly. Praying that
someone would find him, she went sadly home to her
parents.
At about the same time, an old woman was out searching the prairie
for wild turnips, which she dug up with an animal's shoulder blade.
She heard crying, and following the sound, came to the wickiup. She
was overjoyed to find the baby, as she had never had one of her
own. All around the brush shelter grew the sweet root which makes a
mother's milk flow; so she named the boy Sweet Medicine. She took
him home to her shabby tipi.
Sweet Medicine grew faster and learned faster than ordinary
children. When he was only ten years old, he had already grown-up
wisdom and hunting skill far in advance of his age.
That year there was a drought, very little game, and much hunger in
the village. "Grandmother," he told her, "find me an old buffalo
hide- any dried out, chewed up scrap with holes in it will
do."
The woman found a wrinkled, brittle piece that the starving dogs
had been chewing on. When she brought it to Sweet Medicine, he told
her, "Take this to the stream outside the camp, wash it in the
flowing water, make it pliable, and scrape it clean." After she had
done this Sweet Medicine took a willow wand and bent it into a
hoop, which he colored with sacred red earth paint. He cut the
buffalo hide into one long string and wove it back and forth over
the hoop, making a kind of net with an opening in the center. Then
he cut four wild cherry sticks, sharpened them to a point, and
hardened them in the hearth fire.
The next morning he said: "Grandmother, come with me. We're going
to play the hoop-and-stick game." He took the hoop and the
cherry-wood sticks and walked into the middle of the camp circle.
"Grandmother, roll this hoop for me," he said. She rolled the hoop
along the ground and Sweet Medicine hurled his pointed sticks
through the center of it, hitting the right spot every time. Soon a
lot of people, men and women, boys and girls, came to watch the
strange new game. Then Sweet Medicine cried: "Grandmother,
let me hit it once more and make the hoop turn into a fat buffalo
calf!"
Again he threw his stick like a dart, again the stick went through
the center of the hoop, and as it did so the hoop turned into a
fat, yellow buffalo calf. The stick had pierced its heart, and the
calf fell down dead. "Now you people will have plenty to eat," said
Sweet Medicine. "Come and butcher this calf."
The people gathered and roasted chunks of tender calf meat over
their fires. And no matter how many pieces of flesh they cut from
the calf's body, it was never picked clean. However much they ate,
there was always more. So the people had their fill, and that was
the end of the famine. It was also the first hoop-and-stick game
played among the Cheyenne. This sacred game has much power attached
to it, and it is still being played.
A boy's first kill is an important happening in his life. He will
be honored by his father, who may hold a feast for him and give him
a man's name. There would be no such feast for Sweet
Medicine. Still
he was very happy when he killed a fat, calf on his first hunt. He
was skinning and butchering it when he was approached by an elderly
man, a chief too old to do much
hunting. "This is just
the kind of hide I have been looking for," said the chief. "I will
take it."
"You can't have a boy's first hide." said Sweet Medicine. "Surely
you must know this. But you are welcome to half of the meat,
because I honor old age."
The chief took the meat but grabbed the hide too, and began to walk
off with it. Sweet Medicine took hold of one end, and they started
a tug-of-war. The chief used his riding whip on Sweet Medicine,
shouting: "How dare a poor nothing boy defy a chief?" As he whipped
Sweet Medicine again and again across the face, the boy's fighting
spirit was aroused. He grabbed a big buffalo leg bone and hit the
old man over the head.
Some say Sweet Medicine killed that chief, others say the old man
just fell down stunned. But in the village the people were angry
that a mere boy had dared to fight the old chief. Some said, "Lets
whip him," others said, "Lets kill him."
After he had returned to the old woman's lodge, Sweet Medicine
sensed what was going on. He said: "Grandmother, some young men of
the warrior societies will come here to kill me for having stood up
for myself." He thanked her for her kindness to him and then fled
from the village.
The following morning someone saw Sweet Medicine, dressed as a Fox
warrior, standing on a hill overlooking the village. His enemies
set out in pursuit, but he was always just out of their reach and
they finally retired exhausted. The next morning he appeared as an
Elk warrior, carrying a crooked coup stick wrapped in otter skin.
Again, they tried to catch him and kill him, and again he evaded
them. They resumed their futile chase on the third morning, when he
wore the red face paint and feathers of a Red Shield warrior, and
on the fourth, when he dressed like a Dog soldier and shook a small
red rattle tied with buffalo hair at his pursuers. On the fifth day
he appeared in the full regalia of a Cheyenne chief. That made the
village warriors angrier than ever, but they still couldn't catch
him, and after that they saw him no more.
Wandering alone over the prairie, the boy heard a voice calling,
leading him to a beautiful dark-forested land of many hills.
Standing apart from the others was a single mountain shaped like a
huge tipi: the sacred mountain called Bear Butte.
Sweet Medicine found a secret opening which has since been closed
and entered the
mountain. It was hollow inside like a tipi, forming a sacred lodge
filled with people who looked like ordinary men and women, but were
really powerful spirits.
"Grandson, come in, we have been expecting you,” the holy people
said, and when Sweet Medicine took his seat, they began teaching
him the Cheyenne way to live so that he could return to the people
and give them this knowledge.
First of all, the spirits gave him the sacred four arrows, saying,
"This is the great gift we are handing you. With these wonderful
arrows, the tribe will prosper. Two arrows are for war and two are
for hunting. But there is much, much more to the four arrows. They
have great powers. They contain rules by which men ought to
live."
The spirit people taught Sweet Medicine how to pray to the arrows,
how to keep them, how to renew them. They taught him the wise laws
of the forty-four chiefs. They taught him how to set up rules for
the warrior societies. They taught him how women should be honored.
They taught him the many useful things by which people could live,
survive, and prosper, things that people had not yet learned at
that time. Finally they taught him how to make a special tipi in
which the sacred arrows were to be kept. Sweet Medicine listened
respectfully and learned well, and finally an old spirit man burned
incense of sweet grass to purify both Sweet Medicine and the sacred
arrow bundle. Then the Cheyenne boy put the holy bundle on his back
and began the long journey home to his people.
During his absence there had been a famine in the land. The buffalo
had gone into hiding, for they were angry that the people did not
know how to live and were behaving badly. When Sweet Medicine
arrived at the village, he found a group of tired and listless
children, their ribs sticking out, who were playing with little
buffalo figures they had made out of mud. Sweet Medicine
immediately changed the figures into large chunks of juicy buffalo
meat and fat. "Now there's enough for you to eat," he told the
young ones, "with plenty left over for your parents and
grandparents. Take the meat, fat, and tongues into the village, and
tell two good young hunters to come out in the mornin to meet
me."
Though the children carried the message and two young hunters went
out and looked everywhere for Sweet Medicine the next day, all they
saw was a big eagle circling above them. They tried again on the
second and third days with no success, but on the fourth morning
they found Sweet Medicine standing on top of a hill overlooking the
village. He told the two: "I have come bringing a wonderful gift
from the Creator which the spirits inside the great medicine
mountain have sent you. Tell the people to set up a big lodge in
the center of the camp circle. Cover its floor with sage, and
purify it with burning sweet grass. Tell everyone to go inside the
tipi and stay there, no one must see me approaching."
When at last all was made ready, Sweet Medicine walked slowly
toward the village and four times called out: "People of the
Cheyenne, with a great power I am approaching. Be joyful. The
sacred arrows I am bringing." He entered the tipi with the sacred
arrow bundle and said: "You have not yet learned the right way to
live. That is why the Ones above were angry and the buffalo went
into hiding." The two young hunters lit the fire, and Sweet
Medicine filled a deer-bone pipe with sacred tobacco. All night
through, he taught the people what the spirits inside the holy
mountain had taught him. These teachings established the way of the
Tsistsistas, the true Cheyenne nation. Toward the morning, Sweet
Medicine sang four sacred songs. After each song he smoked the
pipe, and its holy breath ascended through the smoke hole up into
the sky, up to the great mystery.
At daybreak, as the sun rose and the people emerged from the sacred
arrow lodge, they found the prairie around them covered with
buffalo. The spirits were no longer angry. The famine was
over.
For many nights to come, Sweet Medicine instructed the people in
the sacred laws. He lived among the Cheyenne for a long time and
made them into a proud tribe respected throughout the
plains.
Four lives the Creator had given him, but even Sweet Medicine was
not immortal. Only the rocks and the mountains are forever. When he
grew old and feeble and felt that the end of his appointed time was
near, he directed the people to carry him to a place near the
sacred Bear Butte. There they made a small hut for him out of
cottonwood branches and cedar lodge poles covered with bark and
leaves. They spread its floor with sage, flat cedar leaves, and
fragrant grass. It was a good lodge to die in, and when they placed
him before it, he addressed the people for the last
time:
"I have seen in my mind that some time after I am dead...and may
the time be long...light-skinned bearded men will arrive with
sticks spitting fire. They will conquer the land and drive you
before them. They will kill the animals who give you their flesh
that you may live, and they will bring strange animals for you to
ride and eat. They will introduce war and evil, strange sickness
and death. They will try and make you forget Maheo, the Creator,
and the things I have taught you, and will impose their own alien,
evil ways. They will take your land little by little, until there
is nothing left for you. I do not like to tell you this, but you
must know. You must be strong when that bad time comes, you men,
and particularly you women, because much depends on you, because
you are the perpetuators of life and if you weaken, the Cheyenne
will cease to be. Now I have said all there is to say.
Then Sweet Medicine went into his hut to die.
(Told by members of the Strange Owl family on the Lame Deer Indian
Reservation, Montana,)
The
Event
Date - Saturday, February 7, 2009
8:00 p.m.
Location - Seaton Trail
Parking Lot, Whitevale
This is not your typical
meet and greet event. There is no pub or indoor
facility at the posted location. No washrooms.
Nearer the event, I will post coordinates for a nearby
restaurant that cachers may chose to congregate at prior to
this event.
Come out on a full moon
(Cheyenne Moon) and participate in an ancient and sacred
Cheyenne ritual of playing the Hoop & Stick
game.
After a game of Hoop
& Stick to celebrate the month, we will go for a full
moon trek on the Seaton Trail. The Trail is broken into
sections and attendees can chose to hike as far as they
wish. Based on previous tales, it is quite possible we
may encounter an owl or a coyote, both significant in native
mythology.
There are lots of caches in the area should anyone chose to find
them. I will be publishing a couple of new ones as
well.
This is a family and dog friendly
event.
Note: For those
working on my Native American Series, this event is NOT part
of the series. There will be no code and no need to
attend in order to log a find on the final of Bitter Tears
when it is published in the spring. However, it is a
good opportunity to pump me and others for clues to existing
cache puzzles. After all, it is also a
Comanche Moon.