Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition

5. At the Soldiers’ Town

5 AT THE SOLDIERS’ TOWN After all the meat was dried, the six bands* of our nation that had come together about the time when the great vision came to me, broke camp at the mouth of Willow Creek and scattered in all directions. A small part of our band, the Ogalalas, started south for the Soldiers’ Town† on Smoky Earth River (the White), for some of our relatives were there and we wanted to see them and have a feast of aguiapi and paezhuta sapa with chahumpi ska in it.‡ All the rest of the Ogalalas stayed in the country with Crazy Horse, who would have nothing to do with the Wasichus. This was late in the Moon When the Cherries are Ripe (July)¹ and we boys had a good time playing. There were not many boys in our small band, and we all played together. I had quit thinking about my vision. The queer feeling had left me and I was not bashful any more; but whenever a thunder storm was coming I felt happy, as though somebody were coming to visit me. We camped first on Powder River, then on the headwaters of the north fork of Good River (the Cheyenne) where there is a big butte that we called Sits-With-Young-One, because it has a little butte beside it.² Then * Ogalalas, Brules, Sans Arcs, Black Kettles, Hunkpapas, Minneconjous. [The Lakotas comprised seven major divisions, not six; although these groups are frequently referred to as bands, they are more accurately designated as independent tribes. Here, Neihardt has merged the Blackfoot Sioux and Two Kettles into a single group. —rdm] † Fort Robinson. [Camp (later Fort) Robinson was established March 8, 1874, at Red Cloud Agency, near present Crawford, Nebraska (Prucha, Military Posts of the United States, 102). The Lakota name for the White River is Makhízita wakpá, ‘smoking earth river.’ —rdm] ‡ Aguiapi, ‘brown all over,’ bread. Paezhuta sapa, ‘black medicine,’ coffee. Chahumpi ska, ‘white juice of the tree,’ sugar. [Aǧúyapi; phežúta sápa; châhá˛pi ska. —rdm] At the Soldiers’ Town 39 we camped on Driftwood Creek, then on the Plain of Pine Trees, and next on Plum Creek. When we got there, the plums were turning red, but they were not quite ripe yet. My grandfather went out and got some big red ones and they tasted good. When we got to War Bonnet Creek, which is not very far from the Soldiers’ Town, my aunt and other relatives were there waiting for us with bread and coffee, and we had a big feast. I was sick all that night, and the next day my parents made me ride on a pony drag, because they were afraid I would surely die this time. But I think it was only too much bread and coffee, and maybe the plums. We camped again at Hips Hill, and by this time most of our people from the Soldiers’ Town were among us. The next day about twenty tepees of us went on, and the rest stayed back. We camped with our relatives by White Butte³ near the Soldiers’ Town and stayed there all winter, and we had a good time sliding down hill with sleds made out of bison jaws and ribs tied together with rawhide. I was ten years old that winter, and that was the first time I ever saw a Wasichu. At first I thought they all looked sick, and I was afraid they might just begin to fight us any time, but I got used to them. That winter one of our boys climbed the flagpole and chopped it off near the top. This almost made bad trouble, for the soldiers surrounded us with their guns; but Red Cloud, who was living there, stood right in the middle without a weapon and made speeches to the Wasichus and to us. He said the boy who did it must be punished, and he told the Wasichus it was foolish for men to want to shoot grown people because their little boys did foolish things in play; and he asked them if they ever did foolish things for fun when they were boys. So nothing happened after all.⁴ Red Cloud was a great chief, and he was an Ogalala. But at this time he was through with fighting. After the treaty he made with the Wasichus five years before (1868) he never fought again, and he was living with...