John Gneisenau Neihardt
"The Triumph of Seha"
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About the print version
"The Triumph of Seha"
The Overland Monthly
John G. Neihardt
n.s. 38
282-284
Frederick Marriot
San Francisco
October 1901
Published: 1901
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The Triumph of Seha
By John G. Neihardt
When Seha had grown to be a tall youth, he said to the old men:
WHEN Seha had grown to be a tall youth, he said to the old men: "Now I am
almost a man, what shall I do?" for being a youth he dreamed of great things.
And the old men answered: "That Wakunda knows; therefore take yourself to a high
hill; there fast and pray until sleep comes and with it a vision."
So Seha arose and laid aside his buffalo skins, and naked he went out on the
prairies. When he had gone far, he climbed to the top of a lonely hill, bare of
grass, strewn with flakes of stone, that made its summit white like the head of
a warrior who had seen many battles.
Then he knelt upon the flinty summit, and raising his palms to the heavens,
he cried: "O Wakunda, here needy stands Seha!" Four times he uttered the cry;
yet there was no sound save that of the crow overhead and the wind in the short
grass of the hillside. Then he fell into an agony of weeping, and wetting his
palms with his tears, he smeared his face with mud. Then he cast his streaming
eyes to the skies and again raised his hands and voice in supplication.
"O Wakunda, Seha is a young man; he would do great things like the old men;
send him a vision."
The night came down and still he held his eyes upon the darkening heavens,
crying for a vision. But only the coyote answered him. The wan stars looked out
of the East and steadily climbed upward, gazing upon his tearful, upturned face.
But when the gray of age began to grow upon the forehead of the Night, he grew
so weary and weak with hunger that he fell forward upon his face and slept. And
lo! the vision came. It seemed that the skies were black and fierce as the face
of a brave with anger; the lightning flashed like the eyes of a hungry wolf in
the darkness; and the thunder shouted like a warrior in the front of the battle.
Then the clouds split and through them rushed a mighty eagle with the lightning
playing on its wings, and its cry was like the shriek of a dying foe, and its
eyes were bright with the vision that sees far. Its wings hovered above him, and
it spoke:
"Seha shall be a seer of things far off; his thought shall be quick as the
lightning, and his voice shall be thunder in the ears of men!"
Seha awoke, and he was shivering with the dews of morning.
Then he arose and walked back to his village, slowly, for his thoughts were
great. Four days he went about the village, speaking to no one; and the people
whispered: "Seha has had a vision; do you not see that his eyes are big with a
strange light?"
One night when the four days had passed, Seha arose from his blankets and
creeping stealthily out of his tepee, he went to the lodge of Ebahami, who was a
great medicine man, for Seha wished to tell of his vision.
Pulling back the buffalo robe that hung across the entrance, he saw the great
man sleeping by a low fire. Entering, he touched the shoulder of the sleeper,
who awoke with a start, and sitting up, gazed at the young intruder. Then Ebahami spoke:
"Seha has come to tell his vision; I knew he would come; speak."
"You are a great man," began Seha, "and your eyes are like the sun's eyes to
see into the shadow; hear me and teach me." Then he told of his vision on the
lonely hill.
As Ebahami listened to the wonderful thing that had befallen the youth, his
heart grew cold with envy; for certainly Wakunda had great things in store for
Seha, and might it not come to pass that the youth should grow to be even
greater in power than Ebahami himself? So when the youth, breathless with the
wonder of the thing he told, ceased speaking, the old man said coldly: "Wakunda
will teach Seha; let him go learn of the wind and the growing things."
Then the youth arose and left the lodge. But the big medicine man slept no
more that night, for jealousy is sleepless.
At that time it happened that the winds were hot from the Southwest, and the
maize grew yellow as the sun that smote it, and the rainless air curled its
blades. And the old men cried to Wakunda for rain; but the skies smote back a
baking glare for answer. Then a great moan went up before the lodge of the big
medicine man: "Ebahami speaks with the thunder spirits; let him pray to them
that we may have food for our children."
And Ebahami shut himself in his tepee four days, fasting, crying to the
thunder spirits and performing strange rites. But every morning the sun rose
glaring like the eye of a strong man who dies of fever, and the hot wind
sweltered up from the southwest, moaning hoarsely like one who moans with
thirst, and the maize heard the moan and wilted.
Then when the people grew clamorous before the lodge of Ebahami, he came
forth and said: "The thunder spirits are sleeping; they are weary and drowsy
with the heat." And the hooting of his people drove him back into his lodge.
Then Seha raised his voice above the despairing murmur of the village,
saying: "Seha is a young man; yet the thunder spirits will hear him, be they
ever so drowsy. Seha will call down the rain."
The murmur of the people ceased, for so strange a light was in the eye of the
youth that they believed. "Let Seha give us rain," they cried, "and he shall be
a great man among us."
Then Seha strode out of the village and disappeared in the hills. His heart
was loud within him as he walked, for would he not be a great man among his
people? He believed in his power with that belief which is the power. All day he
walked, and when the red sun glared across the western hills like an eye
bloodshot with pain he came to a clump of pines that sang upon the summit of a
bluff.
The thunder spirits love the pines, for they rise sternly from the rocks,
reaching their long hands into the clouds, and they cry back at the storm with a
loud voice. Where the pine trees sing, there the thunder spirits sleep, and the
thunder birds, the hawk and the eagle, watch with keen eyes.
Under the trees Seha stood, and raising his hands and eyes to the heavens, he
cried: "Hear Seha, for he is a thunder man; send the big clouds boiling before
the wind; send the rains that my people may have food for their children!"
The pines only tossed their branches above him while they sang softly in the
wind.
"O Thunder Spirits," he cried again, "you are not asleep; I hear you
whispering together in the tree tops. Hear my cry, for am I not a thunder man?"
Then a dead calm grew; the pines were still. Suddenly they groaned with a
cool gust from the East. The groan was like a waking man's groan when he arises
stretching and yawning from his couch.
Then Seha lay down to sleep, for were not the thunder spirits awake?
When the night was late he was awakened by the howl of the thunder. He saw
the quick lightning pierce the boiling darkness in the East; then the rain drops
danced on the dry hills with a noise like the patter of many happy voices.
Seha was glad, and he answered the shout of the thunder. His people in the
village were glad, and their tongues were loud with the name of Seha. The maize
was glad, and it looked up to the kind skies, tossing its arms in exultation.
When Seha returned to the village he was a great man among his people. And
when they asked whence he had such strange power, he said: "I caught it from the
growing of the maize; I heard it in the blowing of the wind."
But there was one who did not greet the mysterious youth. Ebahami shut
himself in his tepee, for had he not failed to awaken the spirits, when a youth
had succeeded?
Ebahami sat sullenly in his tepee, thinking great and fierce thoughts; and
after many days of fasting his magic came back to him. Then he summoned to ...
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