Table Of ContentCHEYENNE MEMORIES
CHEYENNE MEMORIES
Second Edition
By John Stands In Timber and Margot Liberty
With the Assistance of Robert M. Utley
Yale University Press / New Haven and London
lirst published DG7 11) \'ale Universit\. Second edition \\ith a nr\\ preface puhlisheci
W Sh y Yale Gniversit) .
Cop>right C> 1967 by Yale University.
Preface to the second edition '01 998 by Yale University
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They will be powerful people, strong, tough. They will
fly up in the air, into the sky, they will dig under the earth,
they will drain the earth and kill it. All over the earth they
will kill the trees and the grass, they will put their own
grass and their own hay, but the earth will be dead-all
the old trees and grass and animals. They are coming closer
all the time. Back there, New York, those places, the earth
is already dead. Here we are lucky. It's nice here. It's pretty.
We have this good air. This prairie hay still grows. But
they are coming all the time, turn the land over and kill it,
more and more babies being born, more and more people
coming. That's what He said.
He said the white men would be so powerful, so strong.
They could take thunder, that electricity from the sky, and
light their houses. Maybe they would even be able to reach
up and take the moon, or stars maybe, one or two. Maybe
they still can't do that . . .
Our old food we used to eat was good. The meat from
buffalo and game was good. It made us strong. These cows
are good to eat, soft, tender, but they are not like that meat.
Our people used to live a long time. Today we eat white
man's food, we cannot live so long-maybe seventy, maybe
v
eighty years, not a hundred. Sweet Medicine told us that.
He said the whit,e man was too strong. He said his food
would be sweet, and after we taste that food we want it,
and forget our own foods. Chokecherries and plums, and
wild turnips, and honey from the wild bees, that was our
food. This other food is too sweet. We eat it and forget.
. . . It's all coming true, what He said.
FREDL ASTB ULL
Keeper of the Sacred Arrows
Busby, Montana
September 1957
John Stands In Timber died on June 17, 1967, as this book
-the work he cherished most of all in a long lifetime-was
in press. Those of us who have worked with him over a decade
to make it a reality have been saddened beyond measure that
he will never hold it in his hands.
One of the greatest and simplest of people, he now rests
among the great and the simple of his tribe. He might like
best for us to remember him with the words of one of his
favorite warrior songs:
"My friends, only the stones stay on earth forever. Use your
best ability."
M. L.
Acknowledgments
Many people and institutions have helped in the preparation
of this book.
Thanks are first due the Association on American Indian
Affairs for the year's research grant through which the initial
recording was done. Dr. Henry S. Forbes was instrumental in
arranging this.
John W. Vaughn, Don Rickey, Jr., Edgar I. Stewart, Elmer
Kobold, Bill Smurr, and Harry Fulmer all read sections of
manuscript and made helpful comments and corrections as
well as lending invaluable support.
Mrs. E. G. Mygatt, Charles Erlanson, Dick Williams, and my
brother Robert Pringle assisted in obtaining pictures or per-
mitted the use of their own. The Smithsonian Institution was
also very helpful in this respect.
Mrs. Janet Mullin of Lame Deer, Montana, undertook to
help John Stands In Timber transcribe his memories before
I knew him. A section of this early narrative has been drawn
upon for Chapter 13.
My mother, Helena Huntington Smith, is due great thanks
for careful reading and cogent criticism of an early draft.
Others contributing editorial advice beyond the call of duty
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
have included Chester Ken-, David Horne, and John Gud-
mundsen, of Yale University Press.
Robert Utley has given invaluable service in lending his
detailed knowledge of the Indian Wars to a critical review of
the manuscript and to essential expansion of the annotations.
Montana State University, American Heritage magazine,
and The Westerners New York Posse Brand Book are to be
thanked for permitting the use of material first published by
them, appearing in Chapters 9, la, and 18.
My teachers in anthropology have been steady sources of
encouragement. Professor Carling Malouf of Montana State
University thought from an early time that this undertaking
was important. Professor E. Adamson Hoebel made possible
advanced graduate study at the University of Minnesota and
gave invaluable assistance through his own detailed knowledge
of the Cheyennes. Professor Elden Johnson of that institution
reviewed the first six chapters and made many suggestions.
Professor Pertti Pelto gave counsel at many points along the
road, of a sort for which his students are constantly grateful.
Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. deserves a very special note of thanks,
for penetrating the gloom of an early period of revision in
Montana and for causing me to feel then, as he has many times
since, that all was not lost and hopeless.
And finally, Ellen Cotton of Decker, Montana, deserves
tribute quite beyond the power of language. She has given me
and my family a home for several summers, while working
inexhaustibly as research associate, typist, and assistant in
everything else that has had to be done. She has prepared the
index, and by now knows John's material in all its ramifica-
tions at least as well as I do.
M.L.
St. Paul, Minnesota
January 1967
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Preface to the Second Edition xiii
List of Illustrations and Maps xxvii
Introduction 3
I. Earliest Stories. I I
The Creation. The Early People. The Seven
Stars. The Great Race. When White Man Lost
His Eyes.
2 Sweet Medicine. 27
The Coming of Sweet Medicine. The First Mira-
cle. The Second Miracle. Exile. Return. Death and
Prophecies.
3. The Chiefs. 42
Organization and Laws. Red Robe's Father and
Black Coyote. The Chiefs since 1892. Battle at the
Rio Grande. The Chiefs' Emblem. Well Known
Chiefs.
4. The Soldiers. 58
The Different Military Societies. The Foxes. Sui-
cide Warriors. Songs and Dances. The Dog Sol-
