Free Growing Up Native American by Bill Adler Page A

elaborate costume was laid away and once more Waterlily wore ordinary dress, so there was nothing in her daily appearance to make her different from other children. Nothing further was said about her recent honor. In time she would realize fully that she was of the elect, but the honor was something she must appear to wear casually. Let others speak of it—self-boasting was out.
    Waterlily was beginning to take homely things and family doings with more appreciation. These she had always taken for granted, until this grand gesture of her stepfather brought them into focus. And so it was very much to her liking when one of her cousins, the youngest son of Black Eagle, came in one evening with the following report: “I came upon a stray buffalo with a broken leg today, so I shot him and left him in the hollow he rolled into and died.”
    News of meat was always a cause for rejoicing. For Black Eagle, this particular news was cause for pride and elation, for it was the boy’s first real killing. Immediately he invited any ofthe family members who wished to go, to move out to the scene with him and camp there for the butchering. In short, it was to be a family outing.
    At dawn, Rainbow and his sisters, First Woman and Dream Woman, and two or three cousins, all with their families, and of course the grandparents, Gloku and her old man, moved out there, leaving their homes standing in the camp circle and setting up temporary tipis near the ravine where the buffalo was. All the men were experienced butchers. They always cut up the animals they shot and brought the meat home in pieces. It was the Teton custom to skin the animal carefully, since hides were as important as the meat, and then to dissect the flesh according to the muscle structure. Each muscle was removed intact and called by name. The anatomical names of parts of animals were many. As each piece was removed and handed to the waiting women, they set at once to preparing it for drying. The old people took care of the bones, pounding them and then boiling them to derive their rich oils that took the place of butter, which they did not have.
    But it was not all work. There was feasting on the side. Nothing seemed so desirable as meat broiled while still fresh. It was the men who took charge here, broiling the whole sides, on a grand scale called “warpath style.” Over a huge fire of elm and oak they made a dome of green willows, and when the fire died down to a pile of hot coals, they flung the meat like an immense tent over the dome. It quite well covered the fire and caught all the rising heat. To a people subsisting principally on buffalo meat, the sound of sizzling juices dripping into the fire was delicious to hear; the occasional flare-up from the melting grease whetted all appetites. When the meat was cooked, it was lifted off by means of stout sticks sharpened to a point and was laid level on elm boughs spread on the ground. Then it was cut into juicy strips and passed around. And everyone had a wonderful time, the children making the most of it.
    Inveterate givers of food as the Tetons were, it was not enough that Black Eagle’s group of relatives were feasting after this windfall in their midst. No, they must share it. So they scanned the surrounding country for people passing in the distance and summoned them by waving a blanket or by callingto them, or some youth on a swift pony was dispatched to bring them in, to partake of the feast.
    It was wonderfully pleasant to be out there. When all the meat had been cared for properly, nobody wanted to return to the camp circle just yet, though it was in sight and there was constant going in and coming out by different ones, especially the boys on horseback, who were sent back with meat for those who did not come out.
    The fact that the tinpsila , wild prairie turnips, were at their best and grew plentifully on the hillsides offered a good excuse to stay; the women wanted to dig them for winter