Yankton Indians -- Government relations; Yankton Indians -- Social conditions; Yankton women -- Biography; Zitkala-Sa, 1876-1938
Just here a paleface woman came up to my table. As she looked into the
jar, she shoved my hands roughly aside. I stood fearless and angry. She
placed her red hands upon the rim of the jar. Then she gave one lift and
stride away from the table. But lo! the pulpy contents fell through the
crumbled bottom to the floor I She spared me no scolding phrases that I
had earned. I did not heed them. I felt triumphant in my revenge, though
deep within me I was a wee bit sorry to have broken the jar.
As I sat eating my dinner, and saw that no turnips were served, I
whooped in my heart for having once asserted the rebellion within me.
IV.
THE DEVIL.
Among the legends the old warriors used to tell me were many stories of
evil spirits. But I was taught to fear them no more than those who
stalked about in material guise. I never knew there was an insolent
chieftain among the bad spirits, who dared to array his forces against
the Great Spirit, until I heard this white man's legend from a paleface
woman.
Out of a large book she showed me a picture of the white man's devil. I
looked in horror upon the strong claws that grew out of his fur-covered
fingers. His feet were like his hands. Trailing at his heels was a scaly
tail tipped with a serpent's open jaws. His face was a patchwork: he had
bearded cheeks, like some I had seen palefaces wear; his nose was an
eagle's bill, and his sharp-pointed ears were pricked up like those of a
sly fox. Above them a pair of cow's horns curved upward. I trembled with
awe, and my heart throbbed in my throat, as I looked at the king of evil
spirits. Then I heard the paleface woman say that this terrible creature
roamed loose in the world, and that little girls who disobeyed school
regulations were to be tortured by him.
That night I dreamt about this evil divinity. Once again I seemed to be
in my mother's cottage. An Indian woman had come to visit my mother. On
opposite sides of the kitchen stove, which stood in the center of the
small house, my mother and her guest were seated in straight-backed
chairs. I played with a train of empty spools hitched together on a
string. It was night, and the wick burned feebly. Suddenly I heard some
one turn our door-knob from without.
My mother and the woman hushed their talk, and both looked toward the
door. It opened gradually. I waited behind the stove. The hinges
squeaked as the door was slowly, very slowly pushed inward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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