BY ZITKALA-SÄ
A WARRIOR'S DAUGHTER
ILLUSTRATED BY E. S. BLUMENSCHEIN.
About the print version
A Warrior's Daughter
Everybody's Magazine
Zitkala-Sa
First Edition
pp. 346-352
John Wanamaker
New York
April 1902
IN the afternoon shadow of a large teepee, with red-painted smoke lapels,
sat a warrior father with crossed shins. His head was so poised that his eye
swept easily the vast level land to the eastern horizon line.
He was the chieftain's bravest warrior. He had won by heroic deeds the
privilege of staking his wigwam within the great circle of teepees.
He was also one of the most generous gift givers to the toothless old people.
For this he was entitled to the red-painted smoke lapels on his cone-shaped
dwelling. He was proud of his honors. He never wearied of rehearsing nightly his
own brave deeds. Though by wigwam fires he prated much of his high rank and
widespread fame, his great joy was a wee black-eyed daughter of eight sturdy
winters. Thus as he sat upon the soft grass with his wife at his side, bent over
her bead work, he was singing a dance song, and beat lightly the rhythm with his
slender hands.
His shrewd eyes softened with pleasure as he watched the easy movements of
the small body dancing on the green before him.
Tusee is taking her first dancing lesson. Her tightly-braided hair curves
over both brown ears like a pair of crooked little horns which glisten in the
summer sun.
With her snugly moccasined feet close together, and a wee hand at her belt to
stay the long string of beads which hang from her bare neck, she bends her knees
gently to the rhythm of her father's voice.
Now she ventures upon the earnest movement, slightly upward and sidewise, in
a circle. At length the song drops into a closing cadence, and the little woman,
clad in beaded deerskin, sits down beside the elder one. Like her mother, she
sits upon her feet. In a brief moment the warrior repeats the last refrain.
Again Tusee springs to her feet and dances to the swing of the few final
measures.
Just as the dance was finished, an elderly man, with short, thick hair loose
about his square shoulders, rode into their presence from the rear, and leaped
lightly from his pony's back. Dropping the rawhide rein to the ground, he tossed
himself lazily on the grass. "Hunhe, you have returned soon," said the warrior,
while extending a hand to his little daughter.
Quickly the child ran to her father's side and cuddled close to him, while he
tenderly placed a strong arm about her. Both father and child, eyeing the figure
on the grass, waited to hear the man's report.
"It is true," began the man, with a stranger's accent. "This is the night of
the dance."
"Hunha!" muttered the warrior with some surprise.
Propping himself upon his elbows, the man raised his face. His features were
of the Southern type. From an enemy's camp he was taken captive long years ago
by Tusee's father. But the unusual qualities of the slave had won the Sioux
warrior's heart, and for the last three winters the man had had his freedom. He
was made real man again. His hair was allowed to grow. However, he himself had
chosen to stay in the warrior's family.
"Hunha!" again ejaculated the warrior father. Then turning to his little
daughter, he asked, "Tusee, do you hear that?"
"Yes, father, and I am going to dance to-night!"
With these words she bounded out of his arm and frolicked about in glee.
Hereupon the proud mother's voice rang out in a chiding laugh.
"My child, in honor of your first dance your father must give a generous
gift. His ponies are wild, and roam beyond the great hill. Pray, what has he fit
to offer?" she questioned, the pair of puzzled eyes fixed upon her.
"A pony from the herd, mother, a fleet-footed pony from the herd!" Tusee
shouted with sudden inspiration.
Pointing a small forefinger toward the man lying on the grass, she cried,
"Uncle, you will go after the pony to-morrow!" And pleased with her solution of
the problem, she skipped wildly about. Her childish faith in her elders was not
conditioned by a knowledge of human limitations, but thought all things possible
to grown-ups.
"Hähob!" exclaimed the mother, with a rising inflection, implying by the
expletive that her child's buoyant spirit be not weighted with a denial.
Quickly to the hard request the man replied, "How! I go if Tusee tells me
so!"
This delighted the little one, whose black eyes brimmed over with light.
Standing in front of the strong man, she clapped her small, brown hands with
joy.
"That makes me glad! My heart is good! Go, uncle, and bring a handsome pony!"
she cried. In an instant she would have frisked away, but an impulse held her
tilting where she stood. In the man's own tongue, for he had taught her many
words and phrases, she exploded, "Thank you, good uncle, thank you!" then tore
away from sheer excess of glee.
The proud warrior father, smiling and narrowing his eyes, muttered approval,
"Howo! Hechetu!"
LIKE her mother, Tusee has finely pencilled eyebrows and slightly extended
nostrils; but in her sturdiness of form she resembles her father.
A loyal daughter, she sits within her teepee making beaded deerskins for her
father, while he longs to stave off her every suitor as all unworthy of his old
heart's pride. But Tusee is not alone in her dwelling. Near the entrance-way a
young brave is half reclining on a mat. In silence he watches the petals of a wild rose growing on the soft buckskin.
"I asked him for his only daughter."
Quickly the young woman slips the beads on the silvery sinew thread, and works
them into the pretty flower design. Finally, in a low, deep voice, the young man
begins:
"The sun is far past the zenith. It is now only a man's height above the
western edge of land. I hurried hither to tell you to-morrow I join the war
party."
He pauses for reply, but the maid's head drops lover over her deerskin, and
her lips are more firmly drawn together. He continues:
"Last night in the moonlight I met your warrior father. He seemed to know I
had just stepped forth from your teepee. I fear he did not like it, for though I
greeted him, he was silent. I halted in his pathway. With what boldness I dared,
while my heart was beating hard and fast, I asked him for his only daughter.
"Drawing himself erect to his tallest height, and gathering his loose robe
more closely about his proud figure, he flashed a pair of piercing eyes upon me.
"'Young man,' said he, with a cold, slow voice that chilled me to the marrow
of my bones, 'hear me. Naught but an enemy's scalp-lock, plucked fresh with your
own hand, will buy Tusee for your wife.' Then he turned on his heel and stalked
away."
Tusee thrusts her work aside. With earnest eyes she scans her lover's face.
"My father's heart is really kind. He would know if you are brave and true,"
murmured the daughter, who wished no ill-will between her two loved ones.
Then rising to go, the youth holds out a right hand. "Grasp my hand once
firmly before I go, Hoye. Pray tell me, will you wait and watch for my return?"
Tusee only nods assent, for mere words are vain.
AT early dawn the round camp-ground awakes into song. Men and women sing of bravery
and of triumph. They inspire the swelling breasts of the painted warriors mounted on prancing ponies bedecked with the green branches of trees.
Riding slowly around the great ring of cone-shaped teepees, here and there, a
loud-singing warrior swears to avenge a former wrong, and thrusts a bare brown
arm against the purple east, calling the Great Spirit to hear his vow. All
having made the circuit, the singing war party gallops away southward.
Astride their ponies laden with food and deerskins, brave elderly women
follow after their warriors. Among the foremost rides a young woman in
elaborately beaded buckskin dress. Proudly mounted, she curbs with the single
rawhide loop a wild-eyed pony.
It is Tusee on her father's warhorse. Thus the war party of Indian men and
their faithful women vanish beyond the southern skyline.
A day's journey brings them very near the enemy's borderland. Nightfall finds
a pair of twin teepees nestled in a deep ravine. Within one lounge the painted
warriors, smoking their pipes and telling weird stories by the firelight, while
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