He was an old Indian. His face was weather beaten, but his eyes were still bright. I never knew what tribe he was from, though I could guess. Yet others from the tribe whom I talked to later had never heard his story.
We had been talking of the visions of the young men. He sat
for a long time, looking out across the Yellowstone Valley through the pouring
rain, before he spoke. They are beginning to come back, he said.
Who is
coming back? I asked.
The animals, he said. It has happened before.
Tell me about it.'
He thought for a long while before he lifted
his hands and his eyes. The Great Spirit smiled on this land when he made it.
There were mountains and plains, forests and grasslands. There were animals of
many kinds--and men.
The old man s hands moved smoothly, telling the
story more clearly than his voice.
The Great Spirit told the people,
These animals are your brothers. Share the land with them. They will give you
food and clothing. Live with them and protect them.
Protect especially
the buffalo, for the buffalo will give you food and shelter. The hide of the
buffalo will keep you from the cold, from the heat, and from the rain. As long
as you have the buffalo, you will never need to suffer.
For many winters
the people lived at peace with the animals and with the land. When they killed a
buffalo, they thanked the Great Spirit, and they used every part of the buffalo.
It took care of every need.
Then other people came. They did not think
of the animals as brothers. They killed, even when they did not need food. They
burned and cut the forests, and the animals died. They shot the buffalo and
called it sport. They killed the fish in the streams.
When the Great
Spirit looked down, he was sad. He let the smoke of the fires lie in the
valleys. The people coughed and choked. But still they burned and they killed.
So the Great Spirit sent rains to put out the fires and to destroy the
people.
The rains fell,and the waters rose. The people moved from the
flooded valleys to the higher land.
Spotted Bear, the medicine man,
gathered together his people. He said to them, The Great Spirit has told us that
as long as we have the buffalo we will be safe from heat and cold and rain. But
there are no longer any buffalo. Unless we can find buffalo and live at peace
with nature, we will all die.
Still the rains fell, and the waters rose.
The people moved from the flooded plains to the hills.
The young men went
out and hunted for the buffalo. As they went they put out the fires. They made
friends with the animals once more. They cleaned out the streams.
Still the
rains fell, and the waters rose. The people moved from the flooded hills to the
mountains.
Two young men came to Spotted Bear. We have found the
buffalo, they said. There was a cow, a calf, and a great white bull. The cow and
the calf climbed up to the safety of the mountains. They should be back when the
rain stops. But the bank gave way, and the bull was swept away by the
floodwaters. We followed and got him to shore, but he had drowned. We have
brought you his hide.
They unfolded a huge white buffalo skin.
Spotted Bear took the white buffalo hide. Many people have been drowned,
he said. Our food has been carried away. But our young people are no longer
destroying the world that was created for them. They have found the white
buffalo. It will save those who are left.
Still the rains fell, and the
waters rose. The people moved from the flooded mountains to the highest peaks.
Spotted Bear spread the white buffalo skin on the ground. He and the
other medicine men scraped it and stretched it, and scraped it and stretched it.
Still the rains fell. Like all rawhide, the buffalo skin stretched when
it was wet. Spotted Bear stretched it out over the village. All the people who
were left crowded under it.
As the rains fell, the medicine men stretched
the buffalo skin across the mountains. Each day they stretched it farther.
Then Spotted Bear tied one corner to the top of the Big Horn Mountains.
That side, he fastened to the Pryors. The next corner he tied to the Bear Tooth
Mountains. Crossing the Yellowstone Valley, he tied one corner to the Crazy
Mountains, and the other to Signal Butte in the Bull Mountains.
The
whole Yellowstone Valley was covered by the white buffalo skin. Though the rains
still fell above, it did not fall in the Yellowstone Valley.
The waters
sank away. Animals from the outside moved into the valley, under the white
buffalo skin. The people shared the valley with them.
Still the rains
fell above the buffalo skin. The skin stretched and began to sag.
Spotted Bear stood on the Bridger Mountains and raised the west end of
the buffalo skin to catch the West Wind. The West Wind rushed in and was caught
under the buffalo skin. The wind lifted the skin until it formed a great dome
over the valley.
The Great Spirit saw that the people were living at
peace with the earth. The rains stopped, and the sun shone. As the sun shone on
the white buffalo skin, it gleamed with colors of red and yellow and blue.
As the sun shone on the rawhide, it began to shrink. The ends of the
dome shrank away until all that was left was one great arch across the valley.
The old man's voice faded away; but his hands said Look, and his arms
moved toward the valley.
The rain had stopped and a rainbow arched
across the Yellowstone Valley. A buffalo calf and its mother grazed beneath it.
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