Dahcotah: Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort SnellingEastman, Mary H. (Mary Henderson)
History
Dahcotah: Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling
Eastman, Mary H. (Mary Henderson)
Dakota Indians -- Folklore; Dakota Indians -- History; Dakota Indians -- Social life and customs
The day after the return of Fiery Wind, the boys of the village were to
attack a hornet's nest. This is one of the ways of training their sons
to warfare. One of the old warriors had seen a hornet's nest in the
woods, and he returned to the village, and with the chief assembled all
the boys in the village. The chief ordered the boys to take off all
their clothes, and gave them each a gun. He then told them how brave
their forefathers were--that they never feared pain or danger--and that
they must prove themselves worthy sons of such ancestors. "One of these
days you will be men, and then you will go on war parties and kill your
enemies, and then you will be fit to join in the dog feast. Be brave,
and do not fear the sting of the hornet, for if you do, you will be
cowards instead of warriors, and the braves will call you women and
laugh at you."
This was enough to animate the courage of the boys--some of them not
more than five years old pushed ahead of their elder brothers, eager to
show to their fathers, who accompanied them, how little they feared
their enemies, as they termed the hornets. And formidable enemies they
were too--for many of the little fellows returned sadly stung, with
swollen limbs, and closed eyes; but they bore their wounds as well as
brave men would have endured their pain on a battle-field.
After leaving their village, they entered the woods farther from the
banks of the river. The guide who had seen the nest led the way, and the
miniature warriors trod as lightly as if there was danger of rousing a
sleeping foe. At last the old man pointed to the nest, and without a
moment's hesitation, the young Dahcotahs attacked it. Out flew the
hornets in every direction. Some of the little boys cried out with the
pain from the stings of the hornets on their unprotected limbs--but the
cries of Shame! shame! from one of the old men soon recalled them to
their duty, and they marched up again not a whit discomfited. Good Road
cheered them on. "Fight well, my warriors," said he; "you will carry
many scalps home, you are brave men."
It was not long before the nest was quite destroyed, and then the old
men said they must take a list of the killed and wounded. The boys
forced a loud laugh when they replied that there were no scalps taken by
the enemy, but they could not deny that the list of the wounded was
quite a long one. Some of them limped, in spite of their efforts to walk
upright, and one little fellow had to be assisted along by his father,
for both eyes were closed; and, although stung in every direction and
evidently suffering agony, the brave boy would not utter a complaint.
When they approached the village, the young warriors formed into Indian
file, and entered as triumphantly as their fathers would have done, had
they borne twenty Chippeway scalps with them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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