Free Crow Dog : Four Generations of Sioux Medicine Men (9780062200143) by Leonard C. Dog Page A

says, ‘Go over there and shoot them and bring the meat.’ But nobody could find them or shoot them. They were spirit antelopes. So they call that place Antelope Creek. You hear the noise sometimes, something like a hoofbeat. It couldn’t be a bear, it couldn’t be a coyote. You hear them, but you can never see them. Hooves, hooves, something strange. People hear it and think there must be some antelopes there. No, nothing. Just something spiritual with a hoof. I myself encountered it. One morning I looked for some horses. I went up that hill about half a mile. I went down to the creek. The horses were there. They were snorting and stamping with their ears pointing ahead, looking at something, smelling something, but there was nothing. Just air. Then suddenly I saw them, something like a ghost, you could kind of see through them. That was the first time that antelope buck and his female came back. They just sort of dissolved into air. I saw it, many years ago. The wasichu can’t handle a thing like that.
    “When I was young, Indian ceremonies, even a sweat lodge, were forbidden. They called it an Indian offenses act. So you talked and listened to the yuwipi spirits at night, in the darkness. By day you put up a good front, toting your Bible around, crossing yourself—that was a shield behind which a medicine man could hide. And we also kept our medicine bundles hidden where the missionaries couldn’t see them.
    “White people depict us in their books and movies as stony-faced folks with the corners of our mouths turned down, always looking grim. But we are not like that. Among ourselves we joke and laugh. With all that suffering and poverty our people can survive only by laughing at misfortune. That’s why we have the sacred clown, heyoka, the hot-cold, forward-backward, upside-down contrary. He makes us laugh through our tears. And we have Iktomi, the spider man. He’s a trickster, a no-good, but also an inventor, a creator.
    “The man and woman thing, it’s sacred. It’s good. The missionaries always say, ‘Don’t do that with a woman or the devil will get you.’ I tell them, ‘You guys invented the devil, you keep him. It has nothing to do with us.’ A man and a woman have to experience everything. The man is a human compass, the needle leads him to the woman. Those pious wasichus, that’s like a short in a radio. A man has to connect to understand women. You have to go to bed early to make a baby. At Crow Dog’s Paradise they ought to breed, to make more full-bloods. There aren’t enough. Well, Leonard and I, we have done our part. The Crow Dogs always had the elk medicine, the love herb.”
    Winyan kin akoka,
You women from other tribes,
econpi yo!
keep away from me.
Cicinpi sni yelo
I don’t want you!
Sicangu winyan ecena wacin ye!
I want a Rosebud woman!
Sicangu winyan,
Rosebud woman,
washte cilake!
I love you!
    People would listen to my father for hours. He led a hard life, but he did not let it conquer his spirit. Under all the poverty and suffering, he was proud of who he was. He spoke of the “royal-ness of our bloodline.” He told me, “We are the born government of this turtle continent, physically and spiritually. They call us aborigines because we are the originals on this earth. The Crow Dogs are royal blood—that is, full-bloods. We are the people of the center.”
    My father held on to our land, our allotment, which he named Crow Dog’s Paradise. He never sold the land, even when he was starving. He never dressed up. He always wore the same floppy pants and out-of-shape hat. But it was different when it came to his dance outfits. They were beautiful and he made them himself. He was the greatest eagle dancer our tribe ever had. Watching him you forgot that it was a man dancing, not a bird. He spoke about this: “I was great doing the eagle dance. I could make myself into Wanbli, the sacred bird. I could think and move like a bird, move slowly, cock my head, turn it this way and