Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains

nks of the freest life in the world? This life was mine

ell as hear and see. We could feel and taste as well as we could see and hear. Nowhere has the memory bee

oy was born his brother must plunge into the water, or roll in the snow naked if it was winter time; and if he was not big enough to do either of these himself, water was

ss. I had to bear the humiliating name "Hakādah," meaning "the pitiful last," until I should earn a more d

red sack, which was open in front and laced up and down with buckskin strings. Over the arms of the infant was a wooden bow, the ends of which were firmly attached to the board, so that if the cradle

ade to lean against a lodge pole or was suspended from a bough of a tree, while my grandmother cut wood, or whether I was carried on h

she had done when she held her first-born, the boy's father, in her arms. Every little attention that is due to a loved child she performed with much skill and devotion

, when Hakadah wakened too early in the morning, she

p, my boy,

away-are

, my boy; pr

day-the f

will not d

break-till

y child, while

wake-then b

fell to their lot because the men must follow the game during the day. Very often my grandmother carried me with her on these excursions; and whi

fell asleep in my cradle, suspended five or six feet from the ground, while Uncheedah was some distance away, gathering birch bark for a canoe. A squirrel had found it convenient to

egan calling my attention to natural objects. Whenever I heard the song of a

en to Oopehanska (the thrush); he is singing for his little wife. He will sing his best." When in the evening the whi

ay be an Oj

aked at midnigh

(the owl) is watching

utside of the teepee (tent), crying vigorously for his mother, when Hinakaga swooped down in the darkness and carried the poor little fellow up into the trees. It was well known that the hoot of the owl was

ds, and to waken me with them, until it became a habit. She did this with an object in view. An Indian must always rise early. In the first place, as a hunter, he finds his game best at daybreak. Secondly, other tribes, when on th

mportant traits to form in the character of the Indian. As a hunter and warrior it was considered