Yankton Indians -- Government relations; Yankton Indians -- Social conditions; Yankton women -- Biography; Zitkala-Sa, 1876-1938
With a strange tremor in her voice which I could not understand, she
answered, "If the paleface does not take away from us the river we
drink."
"Mother, who is this bad paleface?" I asked.
"My little daughter, he is a sham,--a sickly sham! The bronzed Dakota is
the only real man."
I looked up into my mother's face while she spoke; and seeing her bite
her lips, I knew she was unhappy. This aroused revenge in my small soul.
Stamping my foot on the earth, I cried aloud, "I hate the paleface that
makes my mother cry!"
Setting the pail of water on the ground, my mother stooped, and
stretching her left hand out on the level with my eyes, she placed her
other arm about me; she pointed to the hill where my uncle and my only
sister lay buried.
"There is what the paleface has done! Since then your father too has
been buried in a hill nearer the rising sun. We were once very happy.
But the paleface has stolen our lands and driven us hither. Having
defrauded us of our land, the paleface forced us away.
"Well, it happened on the day we moved camp that your sister and uncle
were both very sick. Many others were ailing, but there seemed to be no
help. We traveled many days and nights; not in the grand, happy way that
we moved camp when I was a little girl, but we were driven, my child,
driven like a herd of buffalo. With every step, your sister, who was not
as large as you are now, shrieked with the painful jar until she was
hoarse with crying. She grew more and more feverish. Her little hands
and cheeks were burning hot. Her little lips were parched and dry, but
she would not drink the water I gave her. Then I discovered that her
throat was swollen and red. My poor child, how I cried with her because
the Great Spirit had forgotten us!
"At last, when we reached this western country, on the first weary night
your sister died. And soon your uncle died also, leaving a widow and an
orphan daughter, your cousin Warca-Ziwin. Both your sister and uncle
might have been happy with us today, had it not been for the heartless
paleface."
My mother was silent the rest of the way to our wigwam. Though I saw no
tears in her eyes, I knew that was because I was with her. She seldom
wept before me.
II.
THE LEGENDS.
During the summer days my mother built her fire in the shadow of our
wigwam.
In the early morning our simple breakfast was spread upon the grass west
of our tepee. At the farthest point of the shade my mother sat beside
her fire, toasting a savory piece of dried meat. Near her, I sat upon my
feet, eating my dried meat with unleavened bread, and drinking strong
black coffee.
The morning meal was our quiet hour, when we two were entirely alone. At
noon, several who chanced to be passing by stopped to rest, and to share
our luncheon with us, for they were sure of our hospitality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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