Bears Arm. 

 The people were living out on the Reservation by this time. I was about 24 years old then. By that time we had wagons so we went with teams We went across from Independence and set out west towards Heart Butte Singers Butte that day. The next time we moved, we camped at Eagle Nest Butte. Bad Coat had his wife, True woman was her name (Waterbuster); Iron Eyes and his wife Brown Chest an Awaxenawita; Charging had his wife, Robe (Knife clan); Little Crow had his wife Otter a Waterbuster; Packs Wolf’s wife was Comes Along Pink, Awaxenawita woman; Spotted Weasel’s wife was Cedar Woman, awaxenawita; Raven Knows Nothing’s wife was Bear Woman, a Knife clan; Sitting Owl’s wife was Pink Blossom, Awaxenawita; Sitting Owl had an adopted son called Standing Bull; 

The next time we camped where the new bridge over the L. Missouri is today, it was just the other side of where the White Lodge stands. Where there are nice springs. We went on the next day and came opposite to north of Buffalo Manure Butte and camped on the banks of the Little Missouri. We crossed the Little Mo. there and followed Buffalo Manure Creek and crossed there and came to where we camped. The camp was on the little Missouri in the timber 

We set to work, for we had wagons then, cut timbers, the posts, mostly ash and hauled it on the wagons and after we were through we set up the four posts, the pails at the top and then put the timbers up, all the men worked on this and finally finished it, it took us one day to cut the timbers while others scraped the ground down and took the timbers and roots out; the next day we set to putting it up, finishing the actual building in one day. When we got through with that the next day the leader put the wood pillows on the ground, dug out the fireplace, and the stakes at the head of the lodge where the buffalo head was placed. He finished everything up just as in the other drawings I made. After the skull was brought in by the leader, it was placed at the head. Then we went out and cut soft grass and cut it for bedding. Iron Eyes was the man to stay in the lodge and burn incense for he was an old man and did not go into any of the pits. 

Each one of us went out and selected a spot where our pits should be; sometimes two would go in together and make one pit and when though they would go to another site and made another pit for the other one. That took us two days. Where one had a pit close to a washout or bank, they would carry the dirt and throw it in there; those on the level would carry the dirt far off and put it in a low pile to make it look as though a ground mole or pocket gopher had dug it up. After the pits were dug, we took the measurements of it, and go back to the camp and cut sticks, buckbrush between and tie that on and thus make a shield for the grass which was to come next. We took those and put them over the pit and throw grass on the brush and that was the way I fixed mine. 

The bait was at the side, a rabbit or etc and fresh meat tied on its back, two stakes to hold it down with a crotch on end. Stakes are drawn in and the bait tied to the two stakes to keep it from being moved by bird. The stake on the inside on the wall also has a crotch and a strong cord tied to the bait by this third stake also so that eagle cannot move the bait. And the stake that holds the decoy seen in the picture is driven into the ground. 

As all the stakes are tied together to get into pit take things up and drop them in under and go in foot first. Before going in, the bait is fixed from the outside and drops the cord down in and ties it to the stake and then smoothes the grass covering down. We always used six poles and that way it made the covering strong enough to hold the bird up. Some trappers always reported that birds came and found the decoy if it was too close to the bait so I always had mine farther off and that was why I never had any trouble. 

When we had the lodge completed, the leader told us we could go in. We took our arms up and stood in front of the lodge. The Leader said, “Sitting Owl, you will go in and be the Crack Bad Coat’s Eagle Exp. Bears Arm. 2 

Shot.” He did not know that he would be, if fact, none of us knew who would be selected for the different places. Then Charging was told to go in, then Raven Knows Nothing, Bears Arm, and Spotted Weasel was selected as the waiter on that side, then on the other side Packs Wolf as waiter(? p. 3) Blue Stone, Little Crow, Iron Eyes, and Bad Coat went in last. 

Each man beginning with the crack shot had four sticks, each one representing one of the four eagles so that there would be 20 sticks on the side and 24 sticks on the other side. There were no markings on them, they were chokecherry trees (When Wolfs Eyes went out, he had no sticks in front at all, Old Bear each man had his four sticks, all in a row and no carvings. Never knew of offering beaver hides to stakes as Crows Heart says but it may be in some of the other men’s rites but I was out with Old Black Bear and he was doing a little differently but White Eagle came and asked me to go home as my folks wanted me. The leader thought I ought to go back so I came away. In that trapping, I understood that there some rules that were somewhat different, a trapper coming home from his pit stumbles and falls, when he comes back into the lodge he has to tell it and when he does so, a new name was given him for the time of the trapping. He also changed all their names during the time of trapping and gave them names about bears or eagles. He sold his rights to Stephen Bird, still living. 

When everything was completed the leader burned incense and offered smoke to the buffalo skull and offered sacrifices and calicos to the skull and that is what we called “Blessing the Lodge.” Then we went to our pits. Sitting Owl caught two white tails with black tips, in the evening we went into the lodge and the leader placed a piece of cornball and called the Crack Shot and instead of crawling on his elbow and knees, he stooped over and walked to the leader and the leader gave him the cornball and the leader said, “The footbone is giving you this cornball” and the crack shot took it and tasted it and said, “Footbone, the bottom of your foot is so delicious, so sweet,” and each one when he came up to the leader in turn said the same thing, taking them in regular order. Each person has a piece of cornball in front of him and the tail feathers of the eagle is given to crack shot and he takes them and touches the cornball with them and he passes them around until the feathers get back to the leader. When the leader gets the feathers, he again gets up and goes over to the buffalo skull and he says, “Old Man with Ears Backwards, here is your tails; but it is not yours. Your children wish you to keep these feathers for them.” Then the waiter went out and he cried, asking the women to come over to the lodge and all the women came over and they came in and sat down close to the entrance. The leader painted himself with red paint on his forehead, on his cheeks, and on his hands and wrists, also the top of his head and had a feather back of his head. He represented the old black bear and his goards were the bears claws tied together with a long string. When the women came in the leader and those who were sitting with him sang and the women sang with the men and Iron Eyes wife had a little bear skin one her lap, it was the bear that had lain on the altar and when the women came in, the leader gave it to her to let it lay on her lap and make it dance. Each one of us took our snares from the little sticks on the altar, opened up the loop and swung it up and down in time the the leader who was singing a special song and the women sang and the woman with the bear’s skin made it dance in time with the music. We all enjoyed ourselves singing. At the end of each song, we would take our cords and pretend to be roping something 

Then this was also different from the others. Anyone one of the men could make a trap by setting posts up with braces for a pitfall and whatever comes under there it catches, a bed fox or what not and the one who goes out there and sees the trap and he sees a red fox or coyote and he takes it, throws it to one side then takes the skin off and that is also placed on the altar. In case there is a boy old enough so he can go out and take the animal and he goes out and brings it in Bad Coat’s Eagle Exp. Bears Arm. 3 

but in this case we had one boy but he was too young so they did not have the trap set, they just sang the song that goes with it. When the ceremony was going on there was one song that when it came on we all got up and danced. There was also a special song for the waiter in which he danced alone. The leader’s waiter on his side was the main waiter and the other was an assistant, if the main waiter is absent the the assistant does the work. In the evening the women would bring wood into the camp for the sweathouse. 

When the wind was in the right direction we go into the pits. That is what we call the good wind. When the wind is from the sw or nw it was considered good to fair winds but the west was considered the best. The waiter is the first one to be up and around; he gest out and looks at the flag and when he sees that the wind is from the right direction, then when he says “The wind is in the right direction, the men all get out of bed and go to their pits. The leader would say, “I will help the waiter if we wants to go into his pit, I will stay and do his work. When the waiter goes out and sees the flag and the wind coming from the other directions, he comes back and reports it to the leader by saying, “Leader, the wind is in the wrong direction” and then the leader would say to the men, “When you are through eating, go out and hunt.” There was a term that they used and instead of saying morning meal, he would say, “After you are through sitting on it” meaning that the eagle sits on the bait and that is why he uses that term. He would use the words as “Go out and throw stones at animals” meaning to hunt game for it was customary to throw stones at game. When the wind was right, we went to our pits. Raven Don’t Know Anything caught three good eagles with black tips; then we would have another meeting the same as before, the women would come and we would have a good time, the leader would have the men come to him for their cornballs. 

Another time we went to our pits and Packs Wolf caught two with the black tips and then the leader, himself caught two. They were black tips also. Those were all the birds caught. 

The night after the catch was made, I asked the Crack Shot to fill up the pipe; he did so and gave it to me and I took the pipe and gave it to the leader and I said, “My leader, take this pipe for I wish to be tortured.” He was glad and meantime, having my sticks already made, I made three of them and the crack shot and his helper took me outside close to the lodge, by the tree and there they cut my breast and one on the top of my right arm. They fastened the rawhide rope onto the sticks and then I ran around the tree while the ceremony and singing was going on inside of the lodge. After all the songs were sung, the same men who tortured me came out and took the rawhide rope off of me and pulled the sticks out and the sticks were taken in and placed on the altar After days after that, Charging was tortured When I was tortured, I had my medicine bundle that I got from my father, the Bear Medicine hanging on my right arm. (Why be tortured several times?) When I was tortured, it was a prayer asking the great spirits to help me to live long in the world, be fortunate in everything I undertook and to have property. I prayed to Black Medicine because Spring Boy and Lodge Boy said that they would turn into that root but that their spirits would go back into the skies and help the people: that was why I prayed to them. The idea of fasting and offering self this way was to be blessed by the great spirits and in war they would come out victorious in defeating the enemy. I told you of the case where a man fasted in a bear’s den and the bear took ahold of him and threw him to one side and that man dreamt that night that the bear came and blessed him and told him that he would be a successful warrior and a brave man and afterwards a son was born to him, the son was Seven Bears, and the Assiniboin came with the intention of doing us away but 7 Bears was brave and they shot him with arrows and bullets but they had no effect on him. His horse was shot but he got on another and came back and fought the enemy and ran over them, struck them so that the enemy turned and ran Bad Coat’s Eagle Exp. Bears Arm. 4 

back. Torturing was a part of prayers for whenever he prays he should fast and then torturing would be often and in torturing, one will have a dream of a spirit and that way he is blessed. That way by doing these things, some of the men got great power from the spirits. Crows Heart once saw that Old White Man’s back was full of scars and C.H. asked him how many times he was tortured and O.W.M. could not remember how many times, he had been so many times. 

The next one to be tortured was Packs Wolf. His was inside of the lodge, to the roof. His feet were off of the ground and a stick was given him with which to swing himself and while he was hanging there, the leader sang his songs. 

Then several days after that Spotted Weasel whittled four sticks and came back and made a sweathouse; in the sweathouse would be the head and they ran sticks through his wrist and up to the braces of the sweatlodge and he was also tortured in the breast. When one is tortured in the sweathouse, the women are not permitted to into it at any time. Crack Shot was Sitting Owl and Spotted Weasel was his son-in-law so he got another man to act in his place, he asked Raven Not Know Anything to do the torturing. When we went in there, the leader began to pour water on the stones and we got down low but Spotted Weasel could not being up there; he cried to the spirits and it was a hardship for him to go through but he did. After that, we went into our pits but no one caught any more birds and we were there over one month. 

After that the sweathouse was made each one of us got some good dried meat and a whole meat, the large piece stripped of of the animal and we paid the leader and he took us into the sweatlodge and cleansed all of us and we broke camp and started for home. Bluestone and I were single, we left the others and came ahead. 

I think the women had to do something in this ceremony for in the other trips with other men, they would not let them come in. I thought that the cause for being unlucky was because they had let the women in. 

I heard that Blue Stone’s father, Wood Mouth or Medicine Bird, when he was a leader, he and his men did not have any luck in catching the eagles so one day he whipped his wife and by doing that the luck changed form bad to good and after he gave her the beating, they caught many eagles I do not know if some great spirit told him to do that or not but I do know that they did not use to do that for men women and children were expected to be kindhearted and not to have any ill-feeling towards each other but to live on good terms. 

We did not change pipes but used both red stone or black, depending on the kind the leader had. In early days they did not have the red stone pipes and the stone was black and straight without the elbow. The hole was in the end and the stone fitted in and the stone inside was called i-go-xE 

In the ceremony used a special medicine pipe from the bundles