I Boyhood Wild Days.

Seventy-three years ago (1858) I was born when my people were camped by the waters of the Cheyenne river, in the Black Hills. Both of my parents were of the Northern Cheyenne tribe of Indians. My father had two names, as often is the case among us. He sometimes was called Many Bullet Wounds, because of such marks of warfare on his body. But his preferred name was White Buffalo Shaking Off the Dust. My mother’s name was Eagle Feather on the Forehead. Marriage during the old Indian days did not change any woman’s name, so all through her lifetime this same term was used for her.

My father’s father went to Washington, as a delegate from our tribe, before I was born. He was known as No Braids. The differing words to indicate my grandfather, my father, my mother, and myself show our old way of keeping individuality, regardless of parentage or marriage. My brothers and sisters each had a name different from mine and from our father and mother.

I was known, during my boyhood, as Eats From the Hand. But this baby name was set aside during my youth. The change came about in this manner:

On a certain occasion, many years before my birth, the Cheyennes were camped on the western side of the middle part of Powder river. At this same time the Crows were assembled on a branch of what now is known as the Mizpah river, which flows into the lower part of the Powder river. They were only two or three days of travel from our camp. The Cheyennes organized a war party and went to fight the Crows. As a result of the battle the Cheyennes captured five Crow women and one boy about ten years old. The women were made wives for their captors. The boy was adopted as a son of one of them. All of these captives stayed permanently thereafter with our people.

The Crow boy liked Eagle Feather on the Forehead, who then was only a little older than he. He said, “This girl is my sister.” She accepted him as a brother. In later years the girl was married to White Buffalo Shakes Off the Dust, and these became my parents. The Crow boy came to manhood and married a Cheyenne girl. Myself and my brothers and sisters were taught to look upon him as our uncle, since he had been an adopted brother of my mother. He was an admirable man, brave and capable. All of the Cheyennes had a high regard for him. He knew he was born a Crow, but he never showed any desire to leave us for returning to them. He went, though, to the Southern Cheyennes, following the great warrior Roman Nose. He died there, in Oklahoma, a very old man.

This Crow-Cheyenne Indian man was a wonderful traveler on foot. Even as a boy he could outwalk and wear down most of the young men who journeyed with him. His capabilities in this regard were so noticeable that people said: “His legs must be made of wood, since he never becomes tired.” Then they fixed upon him a name, Kum-mok-quiv-vi-ok-ta—Wooden Leg.

I also was a youthful wonder in the matter of walking. By the time I was fifteen years old I could go all day following in the footsteps of my uncle Wooden Leg. I was tall and gaunt, and I grew yet taller in young manhood. Friends began jokingly to apply to me the name of this enduring uncle, who then had become a middle-aged or elderly man. I liked the name, I liked the man who bore it, and I liked the honor of comparison with him. I told my father I wished to be known as Wooden Leg. It was a common custom to pass down names to junior relatives. My father told me that when the right time came he would confer upon me the new name. The time came when I was about seventeen years old.

The Cheyennes then were camped far up the Tongue river, on a small creek branch at its western side. It was in winter, there was deep snow and the weather was cold. One morning we discovered that twenty of our horses were missing. A blizzard was whirling, so we could only get glimpses of the trail of the thieves. We supposed them to be Crow Indians, of course. Thirteen Cheyennes, including myself, mounted ponies and set off in pursuit. We struggled all day through the blinding snowstorm. We got the general direction of the trail, so we kept on going during all of the succeeding night. None of us slept. The following morning was clear, but a cold north breeze was sifting the snow along as if it were sand. We then were far up the valley of the Little Bighorn river.

We saw two Indians driving a band of horses out of the valley and upon the benches to the westward. It was evident they were Crows urging our lost animals toward their camp west of the Bighorn. We approached them as rapidly as possible while concealing our presence. When we arrived on the benchland we found the two men had stopped in a sheltered gulch, had dismounted and were preparing to light their pipe for a smoke. We charged upon them. One of them got to his horse and dashed away, but Black Eagle’s rifle brought him down dead. The other one was surrounded and cut to death with knives and hatchets. We got back all of our horses and their two horses in addition.

My companions informed my father that I had shown great bravery in rushing upon and helping to dispatch our Crow enemy. My father gave a feast to honor me, and at this feast he proclaimed: “Henceforth the name of this son of mine is Wooden Leg.”

As a little boy I used to ride in a travois basket when the tribe moved camp. Two long lodgepoles were crossed over the shoulders or tied to the sides of a horse. Thus they were dragged over the country. Buffalo skins were used to stretch across between the widely gaping poles behind the horse. Upon or into these bagging skins were placed all of the family property, in rawhide satchels or as separate loose articles. The smaller children also rode there. I have fond recollections of this kind of traveling. Many an hour I have slept in that kind of gentle bed. Roads were not needed for this kind of vehicle. A travois can be taken anywhere a horse will go, and there never is any jolting. The spring of the poles and the skin takes up all of the shocks.

When I was six years old I asked my father: “Will you give me a horse?” “Yes, you may have any horse of mine that you want, but you must catch him,” he replied. He gave me a rawhide lariat rope. He and my mother and some other older people laughed about it, but I took the matter seriously. With the lariat looped and coiled I went out among the herd to search for horses belonging to my father. I selected a small pony as being my choice. I maneuvered a long time before I could get the loop about its neck. It struggled, but I hung on. When it quieted down I followed carefully along the line, talking soothingly, until it allowed me to pat its neck. After a while I got into its mouth and around its lower jaw a loop of the rawhide, according to the old Indian way of making a bridle. When it had calmed after this new advance I began to make strokes upon its back. Then I tucked the long coil into my belt, the same as I had seen men do, and I climbed quickly upon the little animal. It shied, and I fell off. But I still had my rope, this uncoiling from my belt as the pony moved away. I seized the tether and followed again its guidance to the coveted mount. More petting and soothing talk. Another attempt at riding. Off again. Before making a third try I spent a long time at the gentle taming procedures. Nevertheless, the pony shied and then bucked after I had mounted it. But I grabbed its mane and stuck to my seat. Within a few minutes I had control. I rode to my father’s lodge.

“Yes, that is your pony, to keep,” he told me.

Bands of us boys went out at times on horseback to hunt wolves. We had only the bows and arrows. We killed many wolves with the arrows. My father had given me a good bow and a supply of arrows when I was nine or ten years old. We then were in the Black Hills country.

The only trading post I ever saw during those years was somewhere on the Geese river.⁠[1] The trader was known to us as Big Nosed White Man. I was twelve years old the first time I went there, and I never was at any other trading place during those times. My father got me a rifle at this place. It used powder and bullets and caps, not cartridges. I learned how to make bullets for it.

I recollect very clearly one certain boyhood hunting experience. We were camped on Otter creek about two miles from the present white man town of Ashland, Montana, situated by the Tongue river. It was midwinter, the snow was deep, the weather was cold. My mother said to me: “We have no meat.”

Another boy and I set off for a hunt. We were about the same age, fifteen years old. We each had on a shirt, leggings and moccasins, all of buckskin or other skin. The leggings had no seat in them, as was the Indian way of clothing the lower limbs. We had no head coverings nor any mittens for our hands. Although we were accustomed to hardship, this was a cold day for us. We waded and wallowed through snow up to our knees and our thighs. I had my muzzle-loading rifle and a bow and arrows. My companion had only his bow and arrows.

A brush rabbit sat huddled under a shelter in a brier patch. I fumbled out an arrow and placed it upon the bow. My numb fingers scarcely could hold the arrow alone, surely could not draw the bow to a tensity enough for accurate shooting. The arrow missed. I rubbed and slapped together my hands to make them warm and mobile. Then I strung another pointed missile and took a careful aim. This time the rabbit’s body was perforated. We laid it beside our trail and went on in pursuit of more game.

We saw four buffaloes on the land where now stand the Mennonite missionary houses. They also saw us, and they ran away. They crossed Tongue river on the ice, and soon afterward we got a view of them clambering up the hillside beyond the river and going on to the timbered benchland out of our sight. No chance to shoot at them. We trudged on, though, rubbing and pounding our hands and our bodies in order to keep from freezing. We crossed the river on the ice and came out from the bordering timber near the present-day home of my friend Joe Crow.

A deer jumped out and stood looking at us. The first shot from my rifle brought it down. We rushed to it and cut its throat. We hurriedly cut open the body and jammed our hands inside, to get them warm. Many a time I have done that same thing in other instances. After this limbering of the fingers we skinned the animal and cut off all of the meat from the bones. The meat was wrapped into the skin, then we set off on the back trail for the home camp. We took turns at carrying the burden. As we plodded along we paused to pick up the dead rabbit. About dark we arrived at our lodges, very tired but contented.

On another winter hunt I went alone. My mother said, “We have no meat.” So I took a packhorse and started out. The snow was deep. I led the horse as I walked, to keep warm. It was a long and tiresome day. I was becoming discouraged when I found the tracks of a buffalo. I followed them, and finally I got into the right position and killed the animal with a rifle. It was hard work, me alone skinning off the hide, cutting off the meat, rolling the bundle and packing my horse. I got through with it, though, and set out for the home lodge. My legs carried me there, but it was after dark when I gave the horse’s leading rope to my mother. All of our family laughed in joy, for we had plenty of meat.

But I was in great bodily distress. I was snow-blind and the soles of my feet were frozen. The firelight dazzled my eyes to the utmost painfulness. My feet tortured me as they began to get warm in the comfortable lodge. My mother sent for the doctor, a medicine man named Red Bear. He got snow and rubbed the soles of my feet. He took snowflakes between his lips, puffed flicks of them into my eyes, and also he flipped snowflakes from his fingertips into my eyes. Pretty soon I felt much better. Before he went away that night I was entirely cured. He was a wise medicine man for sick people. Many of our doctors in the old times made wonderful cures.

One time when I was on a hunting trip with others in the Bighorn mountains I saw an eagle capture and carry away a buffalo calf. The big bird took the little animal far up to the top of a cliff, where there was an eagle nest. We sat on our horses and watched, to see what would happen. Ordinarily a capturing eagle would drop its prey from high in the air, so it would be killed by the fall to the ground. But this did not happen in this case. As long as we stayed there watching, we still could see the buffalo calf standing up there on the cliff and wiggling its tail.

A band of soldiers fought our Cheyennes back and forth across a river one time when I was seven or eight years old. It was the Lodgepole river, near where it flows into Geese river. Members of our Crazy Dog warrior society did all of our fighting that day. The Elk warriors and the Fox warriors stayed back with the body of our people who were looking on. My father belonged to the Elk warriors, so he was an onlooker. Roman Nose and High-Backed Wolf were the specially brave Crazy Dogs on that day.

The Shoshones, the Crows and the Pawnees were the tribes we fought most during my time of growing up to manhood. The Pawnees, though, were too far away from the regions where I spent a large part of my early life—the Black Hills, the Powder, Tongue and Bighorn countries. So my own youthful warrior experiences were mostly in combat against the Crows and the Shoshones. One incident out of many in this kind of warfare will show how it was carried on.

A band of Shoshones came at night and stole some of our horses. We were camped on a divide between the upper part of Tongue river and the Little Bighorn. Deep snow and winter weather. I then was sixteen years old. I went with the party of Cheyennes who took the trail of the thieves. After traveling all day and into the night we found a small camp of Shoshones. Most of them, alarmed by their dogs, had fled when we made our attack upon them. But repeated shots kept coming from one certain lodge. We concentrated our assault upon this lodge. Two Cheyennes were killed and another one mortally wounded before we could suppress this destructive defense. White Wolf, eleven years older than I was and yet living as my neighbor on Tongue river, was the brave warrior who dealt the fatal blow to that Shoshone. White Wolf crept along the ground and into the lodge. He had in his right hand a six-shooter. It was totally dark in there, and he fumbled about the interior, seeking whomsoever he might find. His gun bumped into somebody, and he pulled the trigger. Later developments revealed this was the only occupant of the lodge. The victim was an old man. He was the only Shoshone we killed in that fight, so far as we could learn. But we won the battle and got back our horses.

We cut up the body of the old Shoshone man. We cut off his hands, his feet, his head. We ripped open his breast and his belly. I stood there and looked at his heart and his liver. We tore down the lodge, built a bonfire of it and its contents and piled the remnants of the dead body upon this bonfire. We stayed there until nothing was left but ashes and coals.

The Cheyennes during my youth associated much with the Ogallala Sioux, the Arapahoes and the Minneconjoux Sioux. Many Cheyennes learned the speech of these other tribes, and in turn they had many members who used ours. Most of my outside mingling was with the Ogallalas. By the time I was grown to full stature I could talk Sioux about as well as I could talk Cheyenne. I still can use either language.

Forty army mules were brought into our camp on Rosebud creek when I was about nine years old. Three Cheyennes got them. These three were Wrapped Braids, Old Bear and Pipe, a half-man-and-half-woman Cheyenne. They had chased away a lone soldier herding the mules near a soldier fort on the Bighorn river.⁠[2] There were many attacks on this and other forts by the Cheyennes and the Sioux, but I was too young to take part in them.

Some Crow chiefs visited our camp on Rosebud creek. The Crows were our enemies, but our people treated these visitors well, as was the Indian custom when enemies came peaceably. After a feast and a smoke had been given them they told our chiefs that the big chief of the soldiers at the Bighorn fort had sent them to make peace with us and invite us to join the Crows and the soldiers in warring against the Sioux. They said the soldiers would give us lots of presents if we would be friendly with them. All of our camp moved over there. We were given some blankets, many boxes of crackers, and our women received beads and other gifts. We then went back to the Rosebud valley. I do not know what was done about making peace, but I know that our young men warriors kept on doing as they had been doing.

Another soldier fort that was being fought by the Ogallala Sioux and some of the Cheyennes was on what we called Buffalo creek.⁠[3] Little Wolf was then our most important old man chief. Crazy Head was next in importance among us. Red Cloud was the leading old man chief of the Ogallalas, with Crazy Horse as their principal warrior chief. At a time when our whole tribe were in camp on Rosebud creek, just below the mouth of Lame Deer creek, and when the Ogallalas were on Tongue river, just below where Birney, Montana, is now situated, some of their people came over the divide to us and asked the Cheyennes to join them in a great attack on the Buffalo creek fort. Our chiefs considered the matter. It was decided that whatever young men of us might wish to go would be allowed to do so. Our camp then was moved up Lame Deer creek to the base of the divide, a short day’s ride from the Ogallalas on Tongue river. Our great medicine man, Crazy Mule, showed that he could cause bullets shot at him to fall harmless at his feet. A hundred or more of our young men said they could go to fight the soldiers if Crazy Mule would go with them. He agreed to go. Our second chief, Crazy Head, led the band of warriors. Little Wolf stayed in our camp.

My oldest brother, named Strong Wind Blowing, was killed in that midwinter battle with the soldiers.⁠[4] He was about sixteen years old. Chief Little Wolf’s younger brother also was killed. These two were the only Cheyennes who fell that day. I do not know how many Sioux may have been cut down by the soldier bullets, but I believe there were not many. Our returning warriors said that more than a hundred white men lost their lives, that Crazy Mule’s medicine caused them to fall down dead without need for the Indians to kill them.⁠[5] There was rejoicing in our camp on account of the victory. But our family and all relatives of the two dead Cheyennes were in mourning. We wept and prayed for the spirits of our lost ones.

Some time after that battle a half-breed Indian came as a messenger from the soldier fort chief to the Cheyennes. He said, “Come, friends, and let us have peace.” Little Wolf told us we ought to go, so the whole tribe moved near to them. Little Wolf and others of our chiefs had a council with the soldier chiefs. The big chief of the soldiers said to Little Wolf: “We are going away from this country. I give to you all of these soldier houses. Your people may live in them and learn how to cultivate the land.” A separate council of our chiefs was held. They replied, “Yes, we will take the houses.”

The Cheyennes were pleased. “That one will be my house,” some one of them would say, pointing out a certain building. “I want that one,” another would claim, indicating some other structure. But Little Wolf was not satisfied. He meditated and expressed his disapproval. “We can not live here,” he urged. “It is impossible for Indians to live in the same houses all the time and get enough buffalo and other meat to sustain them.” The women especially implored him to change his mind. The question was settled fully one morning when Little Wolf set fire to the fort. He went from building to building, carrying his firebrands. He did not cease his efforts until the entire evidence of white man occupation was in ashes.⁠[6]

Little Wolf had been a big tribal chief, the most influential one, for about two years before that time. In his earlier manhood years he was for a long time chosen over and over again as the leading chief of the Elk warrior society. If during his time any Cheyenne was looked upon as the bravest man of all, he was the man. He never was afraid to speak the truth. The people all believed him. He was a gentle and charitable man, but if insulted to anger he was likely to hurt somebody. In either disturbed or undisturbed mood everybody knew he meant just what he said. He was my uncle by marriage, one of his two wives being a sister of my father. He used to tell me many thrilling stories, both at his lodge and at my father’s lodge. I recall one in particular, when he had a hand-to-hand combat with a Shoshone. Each had a sheathknife. They grappled and wrestled and slashed one another. Finally Little Wolf pinioned the arms of the Shoshone, threw him to the ground, plunged upon him and stabbed him to death. He gave me a great deal of good advice, both as to warfare and as to how to carry myself uprightly as a man among my own people. My conduct all throughout my life has been influenced by his teachings, more than by those of any other preceptor except my own father.

I think my body grew more rapidly than did my mind. By the time I was eighteen years old I was among the tallest men of the tribe. I believe there were but two who stood a little above me. Both of these two were killed in the great battle against the soldiers of Custer. Then remained myself and Tall Bull as the two topmost in stature. We were the same in height, were about the same age, but he was distinctly the heavier. We were close associates during youth and manhood. He died at Lame Deer eight or ten years ago. I do not know by any measurement just what was my height when I was a young man. I think I have grown shorter as old age has crept upon me. My friend the white man doctor measures me now at six feet two inches and weighs me at 235 pounds.

Our tribe during my growing years moved here and there throughout the region between the Black Hills and the Bighorn mountains and Bighorn river. We never went north of the Elk river (the Yellowstone) except on two occasions when some of the tribe went across for only a few days each time. The places of crossing were just above and just below the mouth of the Bighorn. Only one time was the tribal camp circle made west of the Bighorn river. We considered that country as belonging to the Crows. Our war parties went there, but our campings were eastward from this stream. I do not know why we crossed to that side on this occasion. We had been having a series of ceremonial dances at successive camping places, and it may be that this invasion of Crow land was intended as a challenge.

I was about fourteen years old, I believe. The season was what in later life I have come to know as June. It was the time for our usual early-summer religious devotions. A medicine dance had been led by White Horse, an old man, when we were just below where Greasy Grass creek flows into the Little Bighorn. We stayed there five sleeps. Then we moved a few miles down the Little Bighorn, where Crazy Mule led a buffalo dance. Camped there four sleeps. Moved again down the Little Bighorn, this time placing our camp circle on the exact spot where it was located four years later, at the time we killed all of the soldiers. Bear Sits Down gave a buffalo dance at this place. Four sleeps here. The movement was continued on down the Little Bighorn to its mouth, where we crossed the Bighorn and set up our camp circle on its west side. Here Brave Wolf led a Great Medicine or Great Spirit dance, the ceremony known to the white people as a sun dance. Four sleeps we stayed here, then we crossed back to the east side of the Bighorn. That was the only time our people as a tribe ever crossed that river.

FOOTNOTES: