After my adoption, the women of Mad Wolf’s family were hospitable and
kind and treated me as a relative. Strikes-on-Both-Sides, my Indian
sister, came with her mother to my lodge and examined all my
belongings. They emptied the bags containing my most personal
possessions; but everything was carefully replaced. The old woman did
not like the looks of my deerskin moccasins and changed them to suit
her idea of the tribal style. She told me to use red earth on my face,
the way Indians did; it would help my looks and protect my skin from
sun and wind.
The women were hard workers—always busy, cooking, tanning skins, making
lodge coverings, their own clothing and most of the men’s, providing
firewood, gathering berries and wild vegetables and herbs and plants
for both eating and healing. Near Mad Wolf’s lodge, they had some
cowhides pegged to the ground hair-side down. On them were painted
designs for cases, berry bags, and toy parfleches for the children, in
red, yellow and blue, with the ring-bone pattern, also mountains,
hills, arrow-points and buffalo trails.
Women considered it a disgrace for men to do any of their work—put up
lodges, tan skins, cook food at home or look after the provisions; all
this was woman’s work in which they were trained from childhood and
they resented any interference from the men.
The men gave most of their time to care of horses and cattle, hunting,
dancing, and religious ceremonies. Mad Wolf himself was away from camp
most of the time, busy with public meetings throughout the tribe and
with the ceremonies of his Beaver Bundle and Medicine Pipe.
Little Creek, the son-in-law of Mad Wolf, was of middle age, easy-going
and good-natured, skilled in the handling of horses and cattle. He and
his father-in-law were on the best of terms; but, in accordance with
tribal etiquette, he never had any dealings with his mother-in-law. He
always avoided speaking to her and they were never together in the same
place. He explained that it was a custom handed down from their
ancestors—a woman felt ashamed and humiliated to meet her son-in-law;
she had to visit her daughter when he was away from home.
Often friends of Mad Wolf and their wives came to his tepee to spend an
evening by the lodge-fire: White Calf, the head-chief; Ear-Rings, the
doctor; White Grass, the medicine man; Middle Calf, Double Runner, and
Morning Plume. The men sat on the north side of the fire; and according
to custom, the women across from them, with Mad Wolf in the center and
at the back, as owner of the lodge. The men had a large redstone pipe
which they passed to and fro; the women a smaller pipe which they too
smoked in turn. Visitors entered without ceremony, the men taking
places on the right of the door, the women opposite and on the south
side of the tepee.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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