Many Many Moons

Front matter

MANY MANY MOONS

MANY MANY MOONS

A BOOK OF WILDERNESS POEMS

Preface

PREFACE

The specific words and phrases which the American Indian utters in song and ceremony are few and fragmentary. In their original forms of expression the utterances of Indian dance, song, and ritual are often crude and inadequate. Literal translation, therefore, will rarely reveal the emotional and ideational content of a ceremony. For example, the only words uttered in the course of a long and richly meaningful scal-pdance song may be the following:

I am dancing in the sky, I am dancing in the sky With a Sioux scalp."

The few fragmentary phrases may be repeated over and over again, interspersed with apparently meaningless syllables and ejaculations. The meager phrase in a medicine song may be slight in its denotation; it can represent merely the peaks of an emotional flight, or it can merely symbolize a great situation. Yet if the fragmentary ideas be interpreted against a background of legend, or supplemented by the accompanying incidents of the dance,-its music, postures, gestures, and vocal embellishments,-if they be refracted through the prismatic glass of Indian imagination, the few words that are uttered may suggest a great colorful complex of ideas and emotions. The poems of Indian theme in Parts I and III of this volume, therefore, are in no sense literal translations of original utterances of aboriginal song and council-talk; they are, rather, very free, broad interpretations. I have endeavored to interpret most broadly the original Indian motives through their suggestive connotations, in the light of Indian symbolism and mysticism, of the mythology and superstition involved, and of the attendant ceremonies.

Although I have been very free in my interpretations, I have endeavored to maintain steadily and accurately the consciousness of the genuine American Indian of today, his peculiar mental and emotional slants. I have sought, moreover, to maintain consistently the point of view of the modern reservation type of red man,—more copper or bronze than red.-who in his present transition from the primitive wild life to the new civilization offers a paradoxical amalgam or mosaic of the old and the new, the ideal and the material, the majestic and the grotesque.

The romantic red man in the picturesque setting of war-dances and ambuscaded prairie schooners has gone the way of the buffalo, the flintlock, and the stone-ax. With him has gone much of the romantic beauty of the wild yesterdays; the old glory of the lawless Indian frontier has grown a bit faded and tawdry. Yet in the life and the aspirations of the red man of today, and particularly in the character of the more remote, primitive Northern woods Indian. there is a new, strange, often bizarre beauty which, because of the economic and social complexities created by modern reservation life, is infinitely more colorful and kaleidoscopic than that of the old romantic days. In this transitional type of the Original American there is a rugged charm distinctive of the New World, and of the race of pioneers that struggled here to beat back the wilderness and to fling out the borders of a new civilization. About this bronze figure, the symbol of our vanished West and of our beaten borderlands, hovers a wild poetic beauty as peculiarly American in fragrance as the redolence of burning pine, or the odor of a cornfield after rain.

Beneath the drab surface of the modern transitional type of Indian in his semi-civilized setting of the reservation there is comedy, cosmic tragedy, and a wealth of literary materials that are epic in sweep. Consider the pathos of his desperate struggle of three centuries to stem the tide of a subtle, irresistible civilization, to withstand the ravages of the white man's diseases, to beat off the packs of astute grafters who were ever ready to pounce upon him as wolves upon a wounded deer. In the great drama enacted in the American wilderness these bronze stoics have played every rôle,—hero and villain, hunter and hunted, victor and vanquished; yesterday defiant, imperious, battling victoriously with naked hands against storm and wind and snow and cyclone, against man and beast and hunger and pestilence; today poverty-stricken, servile, making their exit in the West and the North, a handful of broken people, a thin line of bedraggled figures in the twilight, straggling across the desert with muffled foot fall into the Valley of Night to the ultimate companionship of the stars.

In much of the seeming cacophony of the modern Indian's music there is lyric poetry. In the primitive dances to which the pagan elder folk have clung so tenaciously, and in which today the Indian sings his soul out of its rags back for a moment to the old glory of the wild days, there is a pungent, elemental charm. Rugged dignity and power mark his council oratory. A pagan spiritual beauty glitters in all the religious rituals that express his cosmic theory; for his pantheistic conception of the phenomena of nature is sublime in its personification of the wilderness, in its humanization of earth and sky and water, of beast and bird and reptile, of the flash of the lightning, the rumble of thunder, and the roar of the big winds. In the supernatural world created by his imagination. there is a weird mysticism; for the Indian walks through life ever beckoned by unseen hands, ever communing with the ghosts of the unseen spirit of beast and devil and god.

His life is not, however, wholly in shadow; it has its high lights of comedy and humor. There is humor in his naïve attempts to adapt himself to the white man's mode of living with its baffling machines and its incomprehensible customs; sometimes a ludicrous incongruity in his domestic environment with its agglomeration of primitive birch-basket and battered alarm clock, papoose cradle and broken sewing machine,—the latter often purchased as a thing of ornament rather than of utility,—quaint stone pestle and mortar and the badge of affluence, that sine qua non of Indian aristocracy, the cheap talking machine eternally playing its one record. There is unconscious humor, and often subtle wit, in much of his talk, and in his modern dialect, a hybrid language in which the simple dignity of the old poetic diction is now shot. through with the mixed idioms, the crudities, and the twisted phrases of borderland slang and of French-Canadian patois. The comedy in his character,—largely the humor of grotesqueness, inconsistency, and paradox,—is best suggested perhaps by the incongruities of the costume which he often wears at some idealistic old ceremonial dance; a nondescript outfit composed of buckskin moccasins and conspicuous white man's underwear, beaded medicine bag and shoddy trousers, eagle feathers and a battered derby hat.

It is the spirit of this more modern type of Indian,—and particularly of the more remote Northern woods Indian of Algonquian stock, with his peculiar anachronistic combination of the primitive and the modern, the tragic and the comic, the ideal and the real, the romantic and the drab, the spiritual and the material,—it is the spirit of this transitional type of red man which I wish to catch in Part I and Part III of this volume. I desire, furthermore, not only to catch the spirit of the woods Indian, but also, through the nature poems in Part II, to capture something of the atmosphere of the Indian's environment, of his setting of the Northern wilderness. If, therefore, the poems in this book convey in some degree the wild beauty of the North, and of its wilderness folk, a beauty so inadequately expressed by the printed word, I shall be most happy. If they do not thus succeed—it was Walter Savage Landor—was it not?—who said, "There is delight in singing, though none hear beside the singer."

Although a few of the poems in Parts I and III presuppose on the part of the reader some knowledge of the American Indian, most of them will readily yield their meaning without the aid of supplementary notes. I have incorporated in each poem most of the special information concerning Indian folk-lore of which the casual reader may not be informed. Likewise, the correct pronunciation of the various Chippewa words which are used is made clear by the accents and the phonetic spelling; and their meanings may be readily grasped from their context. However, for the benefit of the reader who may be interested in further details concerning the ceremonials and legends that lie at the foundation of certain of the poems, I have added a brief section of expository comments in the Appendix, beginning on page 71. I suggest that the reader glance at these supplementary notes before reading the poems in Part I and Part III upon which they bear.

I wish to take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to Miss Harriet Monroe, the editor of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, to Mr. Carl Sandburg, and to Professor Stuart P. Sherman of the University of Illinois for their encouragement and their helpful suggestions, and to many other friends for valuable criticisms.

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Books say Yes to life. Or they say No. "Many Many Moons" says Yes.

Picking classics in contemporary books is like picking winners in baseball or durable forms of government among nations. One man's guess is as good as another's.

We might say, "Herewith is entered Lew Sarett and 'Many Many Moons' as a runner for a place among the classics." And it would be only a guess.

However, there is nothing in the stipulations of the Espionage Act nor in the Code of Chesterfield nor in the Marquis of Queensbury rules, that stops us from asking:

"Why not have the loam and the lingo, the sand and the syllables of North America in the books of North America?"

And so Sarett … with tall timber, freshwaters, blue ducks, and a loon in him. The loon, a poet's bird for sure, is here. Unless there is a loon cry in a book the poetry is gone out of it. We have too many orderly, respectable, synthesized poets in the United States and in England. In their orientation with the library canary fed from delicatessen tins, they are strangers to the loon that calls off its long night cry in tall timber up among the beginnings of the Mississippi.

Sarett has equipment. Years a forest ranger and a woodsman, other years a wilderness guide, companion of red and white men as an outrider of civilization, university instructor, headline performer at western Chautauquas, magazine writer, he brings wisdom of things silent and things garrulous to his book. Old men with strong heads and shrewd slow tongues, young men with tough feet, the wishing song of mate for mate—they are here. The loam and the lingo, the sand and the syllables of North America are here. "Many Many Moons" says Yes.

Carl Sandburg

The Blue Duck

PART I

FLYING MOCCASINS

tpp|THE BLUE DUCK| {_d} To be read with a vigorous lilt emphasizing the drumbeats

Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Heé-ya! Hói-ya! Heé-ya! Hói-ya! Keétch-ie Má-ni-dó, Má-ni-dó, The hunter-moon is chipping, Chipping at his flints, At his dripping bloody flints; He is rising for the hunt, And his face is red with blood From the spears of many spruces, And his blood is on the leaves That flutter down. The Winter-Maker, White Bee-bóan, Is walking in the sky, And his windy blanket Rustles in the trees. He is blazing out the trail Through the fields of nodding rice For the swift and whistling wings Of his She-shé-be, For the worn and weary wings |end=follow

ppoem| start=follow| Of many duck— Ho! Plenty duck! Plenty duck! Ho! Plenty, plenty duck!

{_d} More slowly and quietly, verging on a chant.

Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hóy-eeeeeee! Ya! Hóy-eeeeeee! Ya! Keétch-ie Má-ni-dó, Má-ni-dó, The seasons have been barren. In the Moon-of-Sugar-Making, And the Moon-of-Flowers-and-Grass, From the blighted berry patches And the maple-sugar bush, The hands of all my children Came home empty, came home clean. The big rain of Nee-bin, the Summer-Maker, Washed away the many little partridge. And good Ad-ík-kum-áig, sweet whitefish, Went sulking all the summer-moons, Hiding in the deepest waters, Silver belly in the mud, And he would not walk into my nets! Ugh! Thus the skin-sacks and the mó-kuks Hang within my weég-a-wam empty.

Soon the winter moon will come, Slipping through the silent timber, Walking on the silent snow, |end=follow

ppoem| start=follow| {_d}To be chanted {_d}from this point {_d}on—slower in {_d}rate—higher {_d}and higher in {_d}pitch—mount- {_d}ing to melan- {_d}choly wailing. Stalking on the frozen lake. Lean-bellied, Squatting with his rump upon the ice, The phantom wolf will fling His wailings to the stars. Then Weén-di-go, the Devil-Spirit, Whining through the lodge-poles, Will clutch and shake my teepee, Calling, Calling, Calling as he sifts into my lodge; And ghostly little shadow-arms Will float out through The smoke-hole in the night— Leaping, tossing shadow-arms, {_d}A sustained {_d}wailing chant, {_d}gathering power {_d}steadily. Little arms of little children, Hungry hands of shadow-arms, Clutching, Clutching, Clutching at the breast that is not there… Shadow-arms and shadow breasts… Twisting, Twisting, Twisting in and twisting out On the ghastly clouds of smoke… Riding on the whistling wind Riding on the whistling wind… Riding on the whistling wind… Starward!… Blow, blow, blow Kee-wáy-din, North Wind, Warm and gentle on my children, |end=follow

ppoem| start=follow| Cold and swift upon the wild She-she-be, Ha-a-ah-eee-ooo … Plenty duck… Ha-a-a-a-ah-eeee-ooooo … Plenty duck

{_d} Faster—with a lilt—dancing rhythm.

Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Keétch-ie Má-ni-dó, Má-ni-dó, Blow on Ah-bi-tóo-bi many wings; Wings of teal and wings of mallard, Wings of green and blue. My little lake lies waiting, Singing for her blustery lover; Dancing on the golden-stranded shore With many little moccasins, Pretty little moccasins, Beaded with her silver sands, And with her golden pebbles. And upon her gentle bosom Lies Mah-nó-min, sweetest wild-rice, Green and yellow, Rustling blade and rippling blossom— Hi-yee! Hi-yee! Blow on Ah-bi-tdo-bi plenty duck! Ho! Plenty, plenty duck! Ho! Plenty duck, plenty duck! Ho! Ho!

Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! í! Hit Hée-ya! Hoi-yat Hée-ya! Hoi-ya! Keétch-ie Má-ni-dó, Má-ni-dó, I place this pretty duck upon your hand; Upon its sunny palm and in its windy fingers. |end=follow

ppoem| start=follow| {_d}Faster, louder, {_d}with a vigorous {_d}lilting beat— {_d}with abandon. Hi-yeee! Blue and beautiful Is he, beautifully blue! Carved from sleeping cedar with abandon. When the stars like silver fishes Were a-quiver in the rivers of the sky; Carved from dripping cedar When the Kóo-koo-kóo dashed hooting At the furtive feet That rustle in the leaves— Hi! And seasoned many moons, many moons, Ho! Seasoned many, many, many sleeps! Hi-yeee! Blue and beautiful Is he, beautifully blue! Though his throat is choked with wood, And he honks not on his pole, And his wings are weak with hunger, Yet his heart is plenty good. Hi-yee! His heart is plenty good! Hi-yee! Plenty good, plenty good! Hi-yee! Hi-yee! Hi-yee! His heart is good! …

{_d} Broken and brusquely

My heart like his is good!

Ugh! My tongue talks straight!

Ho!

Chippewa Flute Song

To be chanted softly and monotonously in a high pitch, with a downward inflection at the end of every sentence and at other places where the voice naturally falls.

Hah-eeeeeeeee-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo! My little Pigeon-Woman, For you alone as I float in my little birch canoe in the purple twilight, I am singing, I am calling on my little cedar lute tenderly. For you alone, for you alone I am playing on my little yellow flute mellowly. And though the singing of my throat is like the grumping of the frog at night among the water-lilies, yet the notes from my cedar Beée-hee-gwin are like silver bubbles in the moonlight. Therefore why do you hide away from me like the timid little fawn that peers tremblingly at me from yonder bending willows, My little Pigeon-Woman, My Kah-lée-lee-óh-kah-láy-kway!

Hah-eeeeeeeee-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo! From the clouds of purple twilight on yonder shore the wailing loon is calling, calling, calling for his woman drearily. And I am also calling on my little yellow flute wearily. In the dewy glade of yonder valley the whip-poor-will is crying for his mate; In the somber lonely shadows of the timber the melancholy owl is also calling. But the owl and the whip-poor-will do not hear an answer to their many, many callings— Nor do I hear an answer to my melody. The meadow-lark is fluting his golden song; and from the lilied meadows other golden notes come floating back to him like little golden bells. And though the meadow-lark does not sing more tenderly than my little yellow flute, you do not answer my callings, My little Pigeon-Woman, My Kah-lée-lee-óh-kah-láy-kway!

Hah-eeeeeeeee-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo! And now the purple wings of the night are softly folded down upon my sleeping little lake, and the sighing silver balsams.

The cooing wood-dove has slipped her sleepy head beneath her downy wings; and the hermit-thrush with his running-water notes will pipe his song no longer. The eyes of the many little stars are peering down upon me from the sky steadily; And the wan and sickly moon is smiling yellowly at me— I do not like the many little peering eyes, I do not like the smiling yellow moon; I love the sun that dances down the sky with a swirl of scarlet robes, her head flung back over her shoulder, a taunting smile on her vermilion face And now the flutings of my little Bée-bee-gwun avail me no longer; For you have flown away from me, you have flown away from me like the sun that slipped down behind the willows trailing her purple veils behind her on the shimmering waters of my lake and over the edge of the world. But tomorrow the sun will come back to me, the sun will come back tomorrow, My little Pigeon-Woman, My Kah-lée-lee-óh-kah-láy-kway!

The Squaw-Dance

tpp|THE SQUAW-DANCE| Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat upon the tom-tom, Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat upon the drum, Hóy-eeeeeee-yáh! Hóy-eeeeeee-yáh! Shuffle to the left, shuffle to the left, Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle to the left, to the left. Fat squaws, lean squaws, gliding in a row, Grunting, wheezing, laughing as they go; {_d}To be read {_d}rapidly with {_d}a vigorous lilt {_d}and syncopated {_d}dance rythm. Bouncing up with a scuffle and a twirl, Flouncing petticoat and hair in a whirl. Rheumatic hags of gristle and brawn, Rolling in like a ponderous billow; Fair squaws lithe as the leaping fawn,— Swaying with the wind and bending with the willow; Bouncing buttock and shriveled shank, Scuffling to the drumbeat, rank on rank; Stolid eye and laughing lip, Buxom bosom and jiggling hip, Weaving in and weaving out, Hí! Hi! Hí! with a laugh and a shout, To the beat, beat, beat, beat, beat upon the tom-tom, Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat upon the drum; And a shuffle to the left, a shuffle to the left, A shuffle, shuffle, shuffle to the left, to the left,— Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hóy-eeeeeeeeeeeeee-yáh! |end=follow

Medicine men on the medicine drum, Beating out the rhythm with a steady thrum. Medicine gourd with its rattle, rattle, rattle, Flinging wild with the call of battle. Beaded drummers squatting in the ring Leap to its challenge with a crouch and a spring; Weathered old bucks that grunt and wheeze As they jangle bells on their wrists and their knees,— Shining new and olden bells, Silver, copper, golden bells, Cow-bells, toy bells, ringing sleigh-bells, Beaded dance bells, "give-away " bells, Jingling, jangling, jingling bells, Set-the-toes-atingling bells, To the beat, beat, beat, beat, beat upon the tom-tom, Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat upon the drum; And a shuffle to the left, a shuffle to the left, A shuffle, shuffle, shuffle to the left, to the left— Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hóv-eeeeeeeeeeeececee-yáh!

Old bucks stamping heel and toe, Ugh! as they snort and they cackle and they crow,— Yowling like the lynx that crouches nigh, Howling like the wolf at the prairie sky: Growling and grunting as they shift and they tramp, Stalking, crouching,—with a stamp, stamp, stamp,— Sleek limbs, lithe limbs, strong and clean limbs, Withered limbs, bowed limbs, long and lean limbs; Flat feet, bare feet, dancing feet, Buckskin-moccasined prancing feet. Eager child-feet, scuffling feet,

ppoem| start=follow| Feet, feet, feet, feet, shuffling feet! Hi! Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat upon the tom-tom, Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat upon the drum; Shuffle to the left, shuffle to the left, Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle to the left, to the left,— Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hóy-eeeeeeeeeeeee-yáh!

{asc}Kee-Wáy-Din-ó-Kway, the "north-wind woman," sings:

"I have a pretty present for Máh-een-gans, For 'Little-Wolf' I have a pretty medicine bag. Broidered upon it are many little beads In many pretty patterns of wild lilies,— Yellow beads and beads of the color of the cornflower. Through the many winter moons {_d}Dance ceases. {_d}To be chanted. I labored on this token of love; In this gaily patterned medicine bag I left my weary eyes and my worn fingers. Now I wish 'the Wolf' to dance with me in the ring. Hi! Beat, beat upon the drums, old medicine men! Dance! Dance in the ring, my people, and sing!"

<>(Ho! Ho! … Hí-yah! Hí-yah!)

{_d}With a lilt and {_d}dance rythm. Hóy-eeeeeeeee-yáh! Hóy-eeeeeeeee-yáh! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hóy-eeeeeeeeeee-yáh! Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat upon the tom-tom, Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat upon the drum, As a bouncing breast and a lean long thigh, Caper to the ring with a whoop and a cry, |end=follow

ppoem| start=follow| And shuffle to the left, shuffle to the left, Shuffle. shuffle. shuffle to the left, to the left,— Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hóy-eeeeeeeeeeee-yáh!

{asc}Máh-Een-Gans, the "little-wolf," sings:

'I have a present for the 'Wind-Woman,' A present equal in value to her medicine bag. {_d}Dance ceases— {_d}chant. Ho! A pretty present, a mi-gis chain Of many little mi-gis shells,— As beautiful as the 'North-Wind-Woman.' My chain of shells will shimmer on her breast As the little silver brooks that tinkle Down the moonlit bosom of yonder mountain. Now I wish the woman to dance with me in the ring. Hi! Beat, beat upon the drums, old medicine men! Dance! Dance in the ring, my people, and sing!"

Hóy-eeeeeeeee-yáh! Hóy-eeeeeeeeeee-yáh! Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hóy-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-yáh! Beat, beat. beat, beat, beat upon the tom-tom, Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat upon the drum. Medicine gourd with its rattle, rattle, rattle, {_d}To be read {_d}with a vigor- {_d}ous, lilting {_d}dance rhythmn, {_d}and with great {_d}spirit. Ringing wild with the call of battle. Rheumatic hags of gristle and brawn, Rolling in like a ponderous billow: Fair squaws lithe as the leaping fawn,— Swaying with the wind and bending with the willow. Bouncing buttock and shriveled shank, Scuffling to the drumbeat, rank on rank. Old bucks stamping heel and toe, Ugh! as they snort and they cackle and they crow,— |end=follow

Sleek limbs, lithe limbs, strong and clean limbs, Withered limbs, bowed limbs, long and lean limbs; Flat feet, bare feet, dancing feet, Buckskin-moccasined prancing feet; Shuffle to the left, shuffle to the left, Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle to the left, to the left; With a crouch and a spring and a grunt and a wheeze, And a clanging of bells at the wrists and the knees,— Shining new and olden bells, Silver, copper, golden bells— Feet, feet, feet, feet, scuffling feet! To the drumbeat, drumbeat, beat, beat, beat— Hí! Hi! Hí! Hi! Hóy-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-yáh!

Beat Against Me No Longer

Be as the young silver birch In the Moon-of-the-Green-Growing-Flowers— Who sings with the thrill of the sap As it leaps to the south wind's caresses; Who yields her rain-swollen buds To the kiss of the sun with glad dancing. Be as the cool tranquil moon Who flings off her silver-blue blanket To bare her white breast to the pine; Who walks through the many-eyed night In her gleaming white nudeness With proud eyes that will not look down. Be as the sun in her glory, Who dances across the blue day, And flings her red soul, fierce-burning, Into the arms of the twilight. Ai-yee! Foolish one, woman, Be as the sun and the moon! Cast the strange doubts from thy bosom! Wash the red shame from thy face! Thou art a woman, a woman! Beat against me no longer! Be not afraid of my eyes!

The Conjurer

tpp|THE CONJURER| {_d}To be chanted. Come ye, spirits three! Out of the East, out of the West, out of the North! Rise ye, ma-ni-do, from your weég-a-wams In the corners of the earth! Blow, blow, blow thy raging tempests Through the ranks of whining pine! Come ye! Come ye to my chée-sah-kán Riding on thy crazy-running winds. Hear! Hear my potent chantings! Bestow me the strength to work my conjurings! Hi! Take ye my good medicine, This precious skin of the jumping-rat Killed in the hour when death, When purple death walked into my lodge,— And three moons, three moons dried On the grave of my youngest son. Hi! Hear me! Hear me, má-ni-dó!

Come ye, spirits three! Out of the East, out of the West, out of the North! Hi! Blow, blow, blow thy whirling winds! Sway my wigwam, sway it With the breathings of the cyclone! Hi! Bend its birchen poles |end=follow

ppoem| start=follow| Like the reeds in yonder bay! Hi! Clutch my teepee, bend it 'Till its peak shall scrape the ground! Hear me! Hear me, ma-ni-do! …

{_d}Brokenly, con- {_d}versationally, in {_d}an "aside" to {_d}the audience.

How! How!

Behold! my friends, it bends

Like a lily in the storm!

{_d}To be chanted. Come ye, spirits three! Out of the East, out of the West, out of the North! On the wings of the wind send into my lodge The lean spirit of a lean coyote— Of the dying prairie wolf whose whimperings We followed many sleeps across the desert. Make him, má-ni-dó, fling up again His last long mournful wailings When thirst and hunger clutched His withered aching throat— That the old men of my tribe may hear Again his ghostly callings as of old. Hear me! Hear me, má-ni-dó! …

{_d}Conversa- {_d}tionally in an {_d}"aside".

How! How!

Ho! There is a power

In my precious ratskin!

{_d}To be chanted. Come ye, spirits three! Out of the East, out of the West, out of the North! On the wings of the wind send into this lodge The spirit of Sings-in-the-Hills |end=follow

ppoem| start=follow| Who walked to his death in his birch canoe Over the falls of the Cut-Foot Waters. Blow his spirit into my lodge, That his aged father who sits without May hear his voice again. Hear me! Hear me, má-ni-dó! Make his ghost to talk from my lodge That the people who watch my juggling May know his voice again

{_d}Conver- {_d}sationally.

How! How!

Hear, my people?

My medicine-skin is strong with power!

{_d}To be chanted. Hear ye, spirits three! Go ye back to thy weég-a-wams In the corners of the earth! Into the East, into the West, into the North! Leash again the wolves of the wind To thee, O Má-ni-dó of the East, This handful of burning balsam Which I fling on the dying wind; To thee, O Má-ni-dó of the West, This handful of yellow medicine, Powder of precious clays; To thee, O Má-ni-dó of the North, This red-willow twig whereon I have rubbed My potent medicine ratskin. Go ye back, ye má-ni-dó, To the corners of the earth! Hah-eeee-yóoooooooooooo!

|end=follow

ppoem| start=follow| {_d}Conver- {_d}sationally.

How!

Enter ye the teepee, my friends!

Unbind ye the basswood cords from my body!

I am done!

How! How!

Red-Rock, the Moose-Hunter

Dripping, dripping, dripping Thin tinkling streams from his palms; Plashing, plashing, plashing Cupped handfuls of silvery waters Splashing among the lilies— Black bronze in the purple twilight, Statuesque bronze in the night— "Red-Rock! Big hunter-of-moose!—Ugh!"

A long low call from the valley; A bellow, an echoing bugle Mellow and deep with the passion Of lone longing male for his mate: "Hark! Hark! sweet One-in-the-Lilies! Ho! my Splashing-One! Ho! I come!—with my limbs aquiver! I come!—with a straining of flanks!"

Beat-beating, beat-beating, beat-beating, Long-loping feet in the forest; A clashing of horn tn the timber, A crashing of hoofs in the brush,— A splash in the placid bayou, An eager nose to the air, And lo! a palpitant bellow, A wild-ringing rapturous blare! …

Black bronze in the cool blue moonlight! Black statuesque bronze in the night! Cupped hands to the stars uplifted,— Dripping, dripping, dripping

Thin tinkling streamlets of silver, Soft-plashing fountains of silver, Shimmering-blue sprinklings of silver— "Red-Rock! Big killer-of-moose!—Ugh!"

Rain Song

tpp|RAIN SONG| {sc}<>Motive I

{_d}To be read with {_d}the vigorous {_d}beat of dance {_d}rhythm. God of the Thunders, Thunder-God Hear thou our medicine rattles! Hear! Hear our sounding drums! Hi! Our medicine bag on yonder rock Has a power, a big-good medicine power— Three silver scales of the Great Sea Monster— Ho! Big rain-medicine! Strong rain-medicine! Ho! Ugh! Behold! On the rock by the stream the Beast Has placed three scales from his slimy belly— Ho! Big medicine! Ho! Strong medicine!— Silver scales of the Big Sea Monster! Hi! Spirit-of-Thunder, come in thy fury, Come with thy wet winds, come with thy many waters; Come in thy wrath against thy foe That taunts thee there with his filthy poison. All the children of the earth are good, Heap-good in the heart to the Thunders; All the children of the earth are bitter— Ugh!—hitter to thy foe, the Demon!— We spit!—Behold! we spit on him! Come with a heart that is good to thy children— Ho! And big-many waters and heap-much rain! Come with a heart that is bad to our enemy— |end=follow

ppoem| start=follow| Ho! And big-much lightning, plenty-big storm! Ho! Silver-wing God, with thy swift wet feet, Come! Come! Come in thy big black war clouds! Hurl thy arrows of flashing flame! Rush at our foe with thy whirlwind waters! Crush with thy storms the stinking beast That defies thee here with his slimy poison— Ho! Big medicine! Ho! Strong medicine!— Silver scales of the Big Sea Snake!

Ho!

{sc}<>Motive II

Hah-yée! Hah-yó-ho-o-o-o! Hah-yó-ho-o-o-o! {_d}Dance rhythm {_d}ceases. To be {_d}chanted with a {_d}minor wail. God of the Thunders, Thunder-God. Hear thou our medicine rattles! Hear! Hear our sounding drums! Two moons the mountain brooks have been dry, And the panting birds like ghosts in a row, Sit in the shade and sing no longer. Our Brother, the Sun, can find his face No more in the shining-glass of the river; His eyes see nothing but yellow cracked mud As wrinkled as the skins of our old women! Eagerly the sunflower lifts her mouth to the dew, Yet her lips parch and her head droops, And her leafy arms grow thin and wither!