Читать книгу Prairie Smoke, a Collection of Lore of the Prairies - Gilmore Melvin Randolph - Страница 10

This story of Standing Rock is a legend of the Arikara who once had their villages along the Missouri River between the Grand River and the Cannonball River. Afterwards, being harrassed by hostile incursions of the Dakotas they abandoned this country to their enemies and moved farther up the Missouri River, joining themselves in alliance with the Mandans.

One time there was a young girl in this tribe who was beautiful and amiable but not given to heedless, chattering, idle amusement. She was thoughtful and earnest and conversant with the ways of all the living creatures, the birds and the small mammals, and the trees and shrubs and flowers of the woodlands and of the prairies. She was in the habit of going to walk by herself to visit and commune with all these living creatures. She understood them better than most other people did, and they all were her friends.

When she became of marriageable age she had many suitors, for she was beautiful and lovely in disposition. But to the young men who wooed her she answered, “I do not find it in my heart to marry any one. I am at home with the bird people, the four-footed people of the woods and prairies, with the people of the flower nations and the trees. I love to work in the cornfields in summer, and the sacred squash blossoms are my dear companions.”

Finally her grandmother reasoned with her and told her that it was her duty to marry and to rear children to maintain the strength of the tribe. Because of filial duty she finally said, when her grandmother continued to urge her to marry a certain young man of estimable worth who desired her for his wife, “Well grandmother, I will obey you, but I tell you that good will not come of it. I am not as others are, and Mother Nature did not intend me for marriage.”

So she was married and went to the house already prepared for her by her husband. But three days later she came back to her mother’s, house, appearing sad and downcast. She sat down without speaking. Finally her grandmother said, “What is it, my child? Is he not kind to you?” The girl answered, “Oh, no, he is not unkind. He treated me well.” And with that she sped away into the forest. Her grandmother followed her after a little while, thinking that out among her beloved trees and plants she might open her heart and tell her what was the trouble. And this she did, explaining all the trouble to her grandmother. And she concluded her talk with her grandmother with these words, saying: “And so you see, grandmother, it is as I said when you urged me to marry. I was not intended for marriage. And now my heart is so sad. I should not have married. My spirit is not suited to the bounds of ordinary human living, and my husband is not to be blamed. He is honorable and kind. But I must go away and be with the children of nature.” So her grandmother left her there where she was sitting by a clump of choke-cherries, having her sewing kit with her and her little dog by her side.

She did not return home that night, so the next morning young men were sent to search for her. At last she was found sitting upon a hill out upon the prairie, and she was turned to stone from her feet to her waist. The young men hastened back to the village and reported to the officers who had sent them out.

Then the people were summoned by the herald and they all went out to the place where the young woman was. Now they found she had become stone as far up as her breasts.

Then the priests opened the sacred bundle and took the sacred pipe which they filled and lighted and presented it to her lips so that thus she and they in turn smoking from the same pipe might be put in communion and accord with the spirit. But she refused the pipe, and said, “Though I refuse the pipe it is not from disloyalty or because of unwillingness to be at one with my people; but I am different by nature. And you shall know my good will towards my people and my love and remembrance of them always, for whoever in summer time places by this stone a wild flower or a twig of a living tree in winter time or any such token of living, wonderful Nature at any time, shall be glad in his heart, and shall have his desire to be in communion with the heart of Nature.” And as she said these words she turned completely into stone, and her little dog, sitting at her feet and leaning close against her was also turned into stone with her. And this stone is still to be seen, and is revered by the people. It is from this stone that the country around Fort Yates, North Dakota, is called Standing Rock.