Legends of our Nation

Continued from last week.

The Very Angry Ghost

Young men never know how to behave themselves. They should learn good manners from their elders, but they seldom do.

One day, long ago an old warrior who had counted many coups in his days took three young braves with him on a raid to steal horses from the Pawnees, ancient enemies of the Sioux.

“Stealing Horses” – this is what the white man called it. But it was really a sport practiced by all the Plains tribes. To creep into an enemy village quietly, unseen, and to make off with their herd right under the noses of the horse guards (to outwit, out-think, and out-ride them) took great skill and brought fame and honor to a warrior.

On this raid, though, the four Sioux had no luck. They were discovered by the enemy before they could even get near the horse herd. They had to be happy to out of this scrap alive by running away and hiding themselves in a gorge. They had left on foot, and on foot they went home. Their moccasins had holes in them from their many days of hard walking. They were hungry, tired, and empty-handed.

Halfway home, they passed a hill on top of which they spied a lonely tipi, all by itself, and without any signs of life. They wondered what it was doing there on the wild prairie and went up to investigate. They found that it was a burial tipi, a splendid one made of sixteen large buffalo hides and painted all over with pictures of war and hunting. Inside they found the body of a man, his face painted in the sacred scarlet color, lying in state in a shiny war shirt and beautifully beaded leggings. His fine weapons, his quilled moccasins, and all his other possessions were spread about him to take along to the spirit world. The young men looked at all these fine things. “What stroke of luck,” they said, “We will take all this to bring home, turning failure into success.”

“A fine success,” said the old warrior. “To steal horses from an enemy brings honor, but to rob the dead is shameful. How wrong I was to pick youths of low mind like you to accompany me. Don’t you know that only great chiefs and famous warriors are buried thus?”

They left and went down the hill again, making their camp near a stream.

But the young men were still thinking of all the splendid things left in the lone tipi. “I think it was stupid to leave it all there,” said one of them. “We should have taken everything,” said the second. “Let’s go right now and do it,” said the third.

“I really showed bad judgement in picking you to go with me on the raid,” the old man told them. “I will never be able to make good warriors out of you.”

But the young men would not listen. “Old one, show some sense,” they answered him. “Those fine things are of no use to one who is dead, but they are of much use to us who are alive.

“Well, I guess you better go without me then,” said the old warrior.

So, they left him to go up that hill again. Quickly the old man ran to the stream and smeared himself all over with cold mud. He took a fur pouch he wore, made two holes in it, and put it over his head as a mask. He looked like a ghost from another world. He ran fast, circling the hill, coming up on the far side, and sat down in the entrance of the lone tipi before the three young braves arrived.

When they got there, they heard an eerie hollow voice resounding from the tipi. “Who has come here to rob a great chief? I will take them to the spirit world with me.” Out from under the entrance flap rose the specter of a frightful ghost, the pale moonlight making it look still more terrible to the young men, who were so helpless with fright that their hair stood on end. They stood stock-still and open-mouthed for a few seconds. Then all together, they dropped their bows, and turned around and took to their heels, running down the hill as fast as their feet would carry them.

It was not very fast. They were so scared, they didn’t know where to put their feet. They stumbled, they stepped on cactus and prickly pear, they got stuck in underbrush. The ghost got nearer and nearer, gaining on them fast. At last, the hindmost felt a cold, clammy hand touching his bare shoulder, and a hollow voice whispered in his ear, “Friend, I have come for you.” The young man was so frightened he fell down in a dead faint.

Then it was the next young man’s turn to feel the icy hand, and to hear the ghostlike voice. He too, fainted. And so did the third and last one.

The old man got back to the campsite well ahead of them. He took off his mask and washed the mud from his body in the cold stream. He was warming himself by the fire as the bedraggled young men came in one by one.

“Where are all those fine things you wanted to take from that dead Chief?” asked the warrior.

“We did not find the tipi,” said the young men, “and we did not feel like taking those things after all.”

Back home in their village, the three young men were sitting in the camp circle telling the people about their raid. Suddenly the old warrior came in and sat down among the others. He put on his fur mask and laid a muddy hand on a pretty girl’s shoulder. “Does that frighten you, Wincincala?” he asked the girl.

“You are a funny old man,” said the girl, giggling.

“There are some here who were very frightened,” said the old warrior, “so frightened that they fainted.” And he told the story of how he had fooled them.

Everybody has a good laugh at the young men’s expense. They were shamed, but this was good for them. It taught them a lesson, how to act and how to behave, so they turned out to be good men and brave warriors.