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Show 296 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF sented with my medicine shield by the great medicine chief, to preserve and carry for me, no one but myself having authority to take it from her. I trembled while she was passing this perilous ordeal, and its triumphant termination filled me with delight. She was a girl of superior endowments, and, if they had been fostered by a Christian edu.cation, I know no woman who would surpass her in worth, elegance, or attainments. I-Iad she ever failed in her conduct, it would have been thundered in her ears when she stooped to gather the sand, and a cry would have arisen that she was polluting the medicine of the nation. If the candidate is killed during the inauguration ceremonies, nothing more is done in the same medicine lodge: it is immediately torn down, and the tribe moves to some other place, where it builds another lodge, and the same observances are again gone through with. In the mean while, women are engaged cooking and preparing a sumptuous feast of every thing in season. All kinds of meats and dried berries, variously cooked, ~re spread before the partakers, which includes all who can obtain seats, except the medicine men, prophets, and dreamers. Their fast continues for seven days, during which time their inspiration is continually moving them. There are plenty of warriors in attendance to convey messages and execute orders, like deputy sheriffs in a justice's court ; and as fast as an ordinance is dreamed out, prophesied upon, and medicined, the instructions are delivered to the messengers, and away they start, one party in this direction, and one party in another, to communicate the instructions and execute orders. While we were yet at the lodge, a deputation of • • JAMES P. BECKWOURTH. 297 about a dozen Grovan warriors came to solicit our assistance against the Cheyennes and Siouxs, who had. rnade a combined attack upon them, killing about four hundred of their warriors. In reply to the application, we told them that we had lost many warriots during the past winter, and that we n1ust avenge our own men first; but that we would go and see them in the course of the summer, and hold a conference with them on the subject. There are two bands of the Grovans : the Grovans of the Missouri, which the Crows sprung from, and whose language they speak, and the Grovans of the prairie, who form a band of the Black Feet. The Grovans of the Missouri were then a weak tribe or band, having, by their incessant wars with the surrounding tribes, been reduced to a very insignificant number of warriors. When the Crows separated from them, the nation was deemed too nun1erous. This separation was effected, according to their reckoning, above a century since. Those Grovans and the Crows have always been on very friendly terms, and even to this ~ay consider themselves descendants of the same family. They do not move about, like many wandering tribe~, but remain stationary and cultivate the ground. Theu lodges are built of poles, filled in with earth ; they are spacious, and are kept comparatively neat. I would here remark that the name " Crow" is not the correct appellation of the tribe. They have never yet acknowledged the name, and never call themselves Crows. The name was conferred upon them . many years ago by the interpreters, either through their ig~ orance of the language, or for the purpose of ridicul- , ing them. The name which they ackn?w!edge .themselves by, and they recognize no other, IS In theu lanN2 |
