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Where the reading above conveys a sense of universal and near-total vulnerability of Native Americans to Eurasian pathogens, in fact, different peoples had different degrees of vulnerability depending on a range of factors, from proximity to an outbreak to whether they lived in semi-sedentary homes or more nomadic encampments. Generally speaking, sedentary peoples, who lived with more exposure to larger groups of people, were more vulnerable than nomads, who routinely dispersed in smaller groups. Over time, Native people developed ways of avoiding and containing epidemics, often through dispersal and avoidance. Here a Kiowa man, Eagle Plume (also known as Frank Givens), tells a story of how his nomadic people escaped the worst ravages of smallpox. This text, which Eagle Plume dictated in the early twentieth century, is a rare example of Indian testimony about smallpox. Few Native people possessed a written language. Most recorded the formative events and developments of their history in stories passed from generation to generation. In this story, the Kiowa’s mythic hero, Saynday, who always protects his people from harm and who is also notoriously crafty, meets smallpox, a venomous mass-murderer who comes from the world of white men. At first, this seems like a story scripted from a simple good versus evil drama, with the Indian hero facing the white monster. But pay careful attention to what happens here. Notice that smallpox is only one of a host of environmental changes mentioned in the story. Is the disease a spiritual presence, and if so, is it as powerful as the spirits that Native people could invoke for their own protection? In what ways does this document show how Kiowas came to understand smallpox and how they could ameliorate its effects? How does Saynday protect his people from smallpox? How does its deadly presence shape their relations with other Indians? Are whites and their dreaded disease the only enemies of the Kiowa people? How does Saynday think he will overcome smallpox in the long run?

* * *

(Excerpt from Alice Marriott and Carol K. Rachlin, American Indian Mythology. New York: Thomas Y. Cravell Co., 1968.)

Saynday was coming along, and as he came he saw that all his world had changed. Where the buffalo herds used to graze, he saw white-faced cattle. The Washita River, which once ran bankful with clear water, was soggy with red mud. There were no deer or antelope in the brush or skittering across the high plains. No white tipis rose proudly against the blue sky; settlers’ soddies dented the hillsides and the creek banks.

My time has come, Saynday thought to himself. The world I lived in is dead. Soon the Kiowa people will be fenced like the white man’s cattle, and they cannot break out of the fences because the barbed wire will tear their flesh. I can’t help my people any longer by staying with them. My time has come, and I will have to go away from this changed world.

Off across the prairie, Saynday saw a dark spot coming toward him from the east, moving very slowly.

That’s strange, too, Saynday thought to himself. The East is the place of birth and of new life. The things that come from the East come quickly; they come dancing and alive. This thing comes as slowly as death to an old man. I wonder what it is?

Almost absent-mindedly, Saynday started walking eastward. As he went the spot grew larger, and after a while Saynday saw that it was a man on a horse.

The horse was black, but it had been powdered to roan with the red dust that the plows had stirred up when they slashed open the plains. Red dust spotted the man’s clothing – a black suit and a high hat, like a missionary’s. Red dust blurred his features, but behind the dust Saynday could see that the man’s face was pitted with terrible scars.

The stranger drew rein, and sat looking at Saynday. The black roan horse lifted one sore hoof and drooped its head as if it were too weary to carry its burden any farther.

“Who are you?” the stranger asked.

“I’m Saynday. I’m the Kiowas’ Old Uncle Saynday. I’m the one who’s always coming along.”

“I never heard of you,” the stranger said, “and I never heard of the Kiowas. Who are they?”

“The Kiowas are my people,” Saynday said, and even in that hard time he stood up proudly, like a man. “Who are you?”

“I’m Smallpox,” the man answered.

“And I never heard of you,” said Saynday. “Where do you come from and what do you do and why are you here?”

“I come from far away, across the Eastern Ocean,” Smallpox answered. “I am one with the white men – they are my people as the Kiowas are yours. Sometimes I travel ahead of them, and sometimes I lurk behind. But I am always their companion and you will find me in their camps and in their houses.”

“What do you do?” Saynday repeated.

“I bring death,” Smallpox replied. “My breath causes children to wither like young plants in spring snow. I bring destruction. No matter how beautiful a woman is, once she has looked at me she becomes as ugly as death. And to men I bring not death alone, but the destruction of their children and the blighting of their wives. The strongest warriors go down before me. No people who have looked on me will ever be the same.” And he chuckled low and hideously. With his raised forearm, Smallpox pushed the dust off his face, and Saynday saw the scars that disfigured it.

For a moment Saynday shut his eyes against the sight, and then he opened them again. “Does that happen to all the people you visit?” he inquired.

“Every one of them,” said Smallpox. “It will happen to your Kiowa people, too. Where do they live? Take me to them, and then I will spare you, although you have seen my face. If you do not lead me to your people, I will breathe on you and you will die, no matter whose Old Uncle you are.” And although he did not breathe on Saynday, Saynday smelled the reek of death that surrounded him.

“My Kiowa people are few and poor already,” Saynday said, thinking fast as he talked. “They aren’t worth your time and trouble.”

“I have time and I don’t have to take any trouble,” Smallpox told him.

“Even one person whom I blot out, I can count.”

“Oh,” said Saynday. “Some of your ways are like the Kiowas’, then.

You count the enemies that you touch.”

“I have no enemies,” said Smallpox. “Man, woman, or child – humanity is all alike to me. I was brought here to kill. But, yes, I count those I destroy. White men always count: cattle, sheep, chickens, children, the living and the dead. You say the Kiowas do the same thing?”

“Only the enemies they touch,” Saynday insisted. “They never count living people – men are not cattle, any more than women and children are.”

“Then how do you know the Kiowas are so few and poor?” Smallpox demanded.

“Oh, anybody can see that for himself,” Saynday said. “You can look at a Kiowa camp and tell how small it is. We’re not like the Pawnees. They have great houses, half underground, in big villages by the rivers, and every house is full of people.”

“I like that,” Smallpox observed. “I can do my best work when people are crowded together.”

“Then you’d like the Pawnees,” Saynday assured him. “They’re the ones that almost wiped out the Kiowas; that’s why we’re so few and so poor. Now we run away whenever we see a stranger coming, because he might be a Pawnee.”

“I suppose the Pawnees never run away,” Smallpox sneered.

“They couldn’t if they wanted to,” Saynday replied. “The Pawnees are rich. They have piles of robes, they have lots of cooking pots and plenty of bedding – they keep all kinds of things in those underground houses of theirs. The Pawnees can’t run away and leave all their wealth.”

“Where did you say they live?” Smallpox asked thoughtfully.

“Oh, over there,” Saynday said, jerking his chin to the north.

“And they are rich, and live in houses, with piles of robes to creep into and hide?”

“That’s the Pawnees,” Saynday said jauntily. He began to feel better. The deathly smell was not so strong now. “I think I’ll go and visit the Pawnees first,” Smallpox remarked. “Later on, perhaps, I can get back to the Kiowas.”

“You do that,” directed Saynday. “Go and visit the Pawnees, and when you grow tired there from all the work you have to do, come back and visit my poor people. They’ll do all they can for you.”

“Good,” said Smallpox. He picked up his reins and jerked his weary horse awake. “Tell your people when I come to be ready for me. Tell them to put out all their fires. Fire is the only thing in the whole world that I’m afraid of. It’s the only thing in God’s world that can destroy me.”

Saynday watched Smallpox and his death horse traveling north, away from the Kiowas. Then he took out his flint and steel, and set fire to the spindly prairie grass at his feet. The winds came and picked up the fire, and carried it to make a ring of safety around the Kiowas’ camps.

“Perhaps I can still be some good to my people after all,” Saynday said to himself, feeling better.

And that’s the way it was, and that’s the way it is, to this good day.

Told to Alice Marriott by Frank Givens (Eagle Plume).