SHAHIEALA       
PRETTY SHIELD OF THE RED RIDING CHEYENNE

A Cheyenne Lance Maiden's Clash With George Custer


"The Cheyenne cannot be
 defeated until the hearts of
its women are torn apart
with lances and thrown to
 the ground.

Then it is finished, no matter
how brave its men,
how swift their horses or how
powerful their weapons."

Open Ear -- Shaman Elder
Of The Red Elk Band
 

 

 

On The Trail

         After a long and dusty day on the trail, with only a few stops to take a hurried bite or two of buffalo jerky and pemmican while switching her lightweight cottonwood and buffalo leather saddle to fresh horses, eleven year old Cricket yearned to dismount. The only daughter of Half-Yellow Face and Star Woman wanted to stretch her legs. Cricket wanted to run and play with her friends from neighboring families, to laugh and shout, to remind everyone that the eleventh moon of 1867, coming up full tonight, setting the prairie ablaze with its cool light when it edged over the horizon, was her twelfth birth moon. Then, when the long trek from Montana ended in a few more days, her family would hold a grand festival in her honor. They would invite the Senior Council Speaker Black Kettle who wore the red vest of leadership, and carried the sacred totem pipe, both of his wives and all the families of the Red Elk Band's leadership group to celebrate her life. Not tonight, Cricket knew because they were still traveling, but soon after they settled into their sheltered winter camp on the Washita River in Kansas. Twelve winters old this moon, she thought proudly -- a good round number for the beloved daughter of a bold horse-master family. And what a festival it would be! Her friends and relatives, the Shahieala they called themselves, the Red Riding Cheyenne people, took every opportunity to make music, to sing and dance, to feast and laugh at jokes and tell tall tales, to play foot and horseback games from the time they could toddle until they grew so feeble they hobbled with walking sticks. The handsome and healthy warrior people, the most independent and democratic men and women on earth, had long enjoyed their affluent and leisure filled lives despite the dark clouds now gathering over their beautiful world. The gleaning white mountains, vast green pastures and the endless blue sky were now at risk of being snatched away, Swarms of invaders were muscling in, with marvelous tools and dangerous weapons, while plotting schemes to wrest away everything loved by the Red Riding People of the Great Northern Plains.

         Cricket's family, the Star Woman--Swaying Willow group of seven souls was trailing a two mile long column of riders, coughing in the trail dust and uncomfortably gritty, although proud to be riding in the Red Elk Band's place of honor. It was in the rear that a raiding band of Pawnee or Absaroka warriors, coming to steal horses or pretty Cheyenne brides and to win prestige for such audacity from their peers, would most likely strike. Therefore, only the most competent families were chosen to watch for danger from the rear and to alert the defenders.

         All of the five hundred or so adults of the Red Elk people were armed with bows and lances or firearms or at least carried steel Bowie knives and trading post tomahawks. Everyone, even the children, rode well trained mounts, although some riders, saddle weary from the entire tenth moon spent in the saddle, were walking and leading their mustangs by their braided leather bridle ropes. Actually, most of the horses, as loyal as family dogs, followed their Cheyenne masters as faithfully as their hounds did. The slender and swift saddle mounts and the stocky and powerful draft animals pulling heavily loaded travois drags, were followed by each family's remount herd of up to a hundred horses. The devout bands and their families prospered year around because of the horses and the buffalo -- both of whom had been given to the Shahieala by the generous and gracious Grandfather God who watched over his children at all times and in every place where one might venture.

         The thousands of unshod hooves kicked up billowing clouds of dust. In the distance, the head of the Red Elk column, led by the revered Black Kettle family, snaked over a rocky crest and dropped out of sight to the south, vanishing into the lengthening velvet shadows cast by the sinking sun. Cricket flicked her beloved mount Dancer with her quirt and pulled alongside Star Woman.

                                           
"Mama, may Rosebud take supper with us? We'll help cook and clean."

"Rosebud again!" Star Woman sighed. "She's always around our lodge. She was there last night, probably the night before and quite possibly the night before that."

"Not since three nights, Mama! I had supper with her last night -- can't you remember anything? We'll cause no trouble; we'll not tease the boys, I promise. There's something important Rosie and I must talk about."
 

         The mother and her pre-teen daughter spoke in the soft, sonorous Shahieala tongue, with the slow rolling consonants of a language so polite it included no curses and few insults. The greedy invaders on the High Plains had initially been deceived by the gracious manners and soft voices of the dozen or so major Northern Cheyenne bands. And confused by way the routine chores of family life were shared equally by Shahieala men and boys with their wives and sisters. Through their generations of leisure in the tall grasses of the rich prairie, a million square mile Garden of Eden, the Red Riding People had developed few rigid male and female roles. They were the ultimate hunters and gatherers in a land so bountiful with game and prolific in wild vegetables, nuts and fruits that anyone who didn't eat just wasn't hungry. Unlike many other tribes and virtually all white societies, the Shahieala society was matriarchal. Each family line descended through the women for they were the ones birthing the children. They sat in governing counsels and owned the lodges and the family horse herds and had the right to choose whom they would take as lovers or husbands. The tale of the Dakota maiden Red Wing, who leaped to her death from the Mississippi River bluffs because her father demanded she marry a man she didn't love, was a white legend rather than a Sioux story. Her Eastern Sioux mother would have sent such an uncouth father packing with only his clothes, weapons and personal mount. Cheyenne women organized warrior sororities and their men pitched in to do whatever family tasks were at hand. Tough horse-master fathers were nannies and cooks and ornate tailors -- while socially sophisticated mothers hunted from horseback, with bows or long lances, within the always dangerous buffalo herds. When necessary, the bronze Amazons fought lance duels with saber wielding yellow leg troopers. Even the haughty European nobles from the Prussian, British and Russian Empires who, during the peaceful years before the great Veho Civil War had come to hunt buffalo with their gracious Shahieala hosts, wrote home that the genderless Cheyenne traditions served the people well in this land of abundance. Unfortunately, after the Confederate War of Rebellion was won, the few polite white guests became a flood of greedy invaders uprooted by the fighting. Many of the ruthless invaders and thieves swarming into traditional Shahieala hunting grounds, were deceived by elaborate Cheyenne manners, a fondness for gaudy ornaments, their endless games, improbable yarns and practical jokes. Many of the trespassers saw as a weakness, the consensus driven governance and leniency toward friends, relatives and children -- and especially by Cheyenne men doing what the invaders scornfully called squaw work. Almost none of the invaders understood Shahieala customs. And therein lay many fatal mistakes for, as their prewar guest Kit Carson wrote to a Boston editor:

The Red Riding people are not only the most gracious ladies and gentlemen of the Great Plains, they are at once and the same time -- in the defense of their lands and people, the god-damnedest, most lethal horse soldiers in the world. These horse lords cannot be intimidated, they are seldom outwitted on the battlefield and their agile, unshod mustangs can outmaneuver cavalry chargers. The warriors are so much at one with their beloved horses that they guide them with their knees so both hands are free to use their weapons. The horses seem to consider themselves equal partners in the buffalo hunts and the cavalry duels. The Cheyenne almost never fight dismounted, for the speed, power and intelligence of their mounts are paramount to their battle tactics.

         The superb light cavalry militia societies, that served the bands as their companies and battalions, were composed of Shahiealas of both genders. While an occasional Omaha, Absaroka, Wichita or Osage girl might train as a warrior in order to fulfill her family's obligations to the band by replacing a brother or father lost in battle or during a buffalo chase gone wrong, only the Northern and Southern Cheyenne women organized formal warrior sororities. While most Shahieala teen age boys joined local chapters of the Red Shield, Dog Soldier or Kit Fox fighting fraternities, creating their own songs and traditions and wearing identifying regalia, many girls became Red Vixens, Brave Hearts or Swallow Sisters. More than one white male guest, during the long years of peace before the war for survival was thrust upon the Shahieala, had won the heart of a talented flautist, singer or dancer, a health healer, a midwife of great wisdom or a designer of elaborate beaded moccasins and belts. Most white men were astonished to discover that a gentle sweetheart would quietly leave her lodge at dawn to hunt buffalo or red elk with the men or ride into battle to raid horses from a competing band of Absarokas, Pawnees or Kiowas. These soft-spoken lance maidens wielded their eight foot long weapons with the skill and courage of Bengal Lancers. Much as their Red Shield or Dog Soldier brothers and cousins, the Red Vixens and Swallow Sisters of the Shahiealas had their own traditions and songs and sorority uniforms -- although when actually confronting enemies, the lance maidens discarded their clothes. The Cheyenne women fought nude except for a breech cloth, their bodies lubricated with bear or buffalo lard so their male enemies with superior upper body strength, couldn't drag them out of their saddles by grasping their clothes or their arms. It was as if the legendary Amazonian cavalry of the Russian Steppes had been born again on the Great Plains of North America.

         Although many in the post Civil War flood of invaders initially failed to perceive the often dangerous and sometimes deadly determination behind the pleasant Shahieala manners, the singing and dancing and the raucous jokes among friends, the white thieves soon learned to dread armed encounters with Cheyenne horse soldiers warriors of either gender. They rode their well trained mustangs into combat with the hot blooded battle lust of Viking berserkers. They fought from a self-induced semi-hypnotic state in which fear and pain ceased to exist. It was uncanny how easily the Red Riding warriors turned their almost supernatural battle lust on and off as required.

         Swaying Willow, Star Woman's sister-wife laughed at Cricket as she looked over her shoulder at the two riders following her. "There's always something important you and Rosebud must talk about. You chatter like a pair of Absaroka magpies."

         "Oh, Auntie Willow! May Rosie come, Mama? Oh, please, please, please!"

         "I would like one night of peace. Without that screech-owl."

         "I'll keep Rosie quiet -- I promise.!"

         Star Woman hesitated and was lost. "Very well, ask Husband and if he agrees, she may come over."

         Cricket squealed in delight and Swaying Willow gently teased Star Woman. "My -- my! Aren't you the tough one -- the Red Riding lance maiden, the battle tactics Counselor for the Swallow Sisters Fighting Society? Star, you are a fraud! Cricket wraps you about her little finger. Ask Yellow!" she mimicked her sister-wife. "Hah! As if Husband would refuse her anything. She'll bring him a horn of cold water and some ripe persimmons, tease him a bit and he'll agree to anything she wants." She shook her head. "Yellow's worse at pampering her than you are. Now, we'll have Rosebud underfoot all evening."

         "Willow!" Star Woman protested mildly, waving her hand at a cloud of gnats crossing the trail at face level. "Just as we flattered Papa! Remember how annoyed Mama would get with us?" She sat her mustang comfortably -- after three decades spent in the saddle she unconsciously adjusted to his movements. The horse was almost an extension of her own mind and body. "We are not like the white spider people; we punish our enemies, not our beloved children. The Veho abuse the most precious things they have -- why -- they beat their own boys and girls. I shall never understand those villains! Childhood is so short and our girl is growing up so quickly. In just one more year or so, she'll be making her first-fast and seeking her adult-name vision. Then, life becomes such a challenge. She's a good Shahieala girl so there's great virtue in being generous while her childhood lasts. Who knows what problems are ahead with everything so unsettled by the wicked Veho invaders."

         They rode silently for a furlong or two, brooding over some recent assaults by the evil spider people. The very word Veho had come from the countless little eight legged spiders who infested the prairie grass, capturing insects in their webs or running them down. Veho was a contraction of the lament, Spiders lurk everywhere and you cannot get rid of them. The name seemed to fit the invaders all too well. The Red Elk Band continued on through the late afternoon, bound toward the clean, cool waters of Persimmon Creek.

         When the family's horses climbed the buffalo trail toward the final crest, Cricket twisted to alert Small Owl, the third woman of the family. "Grandmama! This is the place. We'll camp along Persimmon Creek -- on the south bank." She let Dancer's bridle rope hang lose so she could pick her way over the ridge.

         Small Owl snorted and shook herself awake. "Why, I believe you are right, Child. I hadn't realized we'd ridden so far today."   Her vanity persuaded her that the family didn't know she napped often when on the trail. She stretched and shifted her ancient bones in the saddle and checked the small clay fire pot slung from her saddle by a braided rawhide thong. She blew into it, feeling relief that despite her nap, the hard lump of dried buffalo dung was still glowing red as if a piece of punk, would be ready to start the evening fire when they camped for the night alongside the Persimmon. She added another piece of fuel and blew until it also glowed. She took pride in the fact that for several years now, since she'd accepted this important responsibility for the family, she had never once let the fire perish accidentally between campfires.


         Cricket had reached the crest of the final hill when she let Dancer drift to the right of the trail. The animal was snatching at the few clumps of dry prairie grass overlooked by the herds of horses vanishing into the velvet shadows. Cricket let her forage as she moved in step with the other mounts. Cricket was intent on the valley below, dotted with pin oak, cottonwood and persimmon trees, their leaves a beautiful display of scarlet and gold and starting to fall. "Persimmons! As sweet as Veho sugar," she squealed. "Rosie shall like that."

         Swaying Willow, riding ahead of Star Woman, turned to see how her son Jump-Up was getting along with the travois animals. She saw Dancer drifting toward the west and thought she should motion Cricket back into line. Willow hesitated, Cricket was her sister wife's daughter and she was reluctant to meddle. She reasoned, there were neither ravines here nor dangerous footing on the down hill side. She was distracted when Jump Up waved to her from behind the draft animals.

         "Good lad!" Willow called. "As well as a man could have handled them all day." He grinned, happy with the praise from his mother.

         Willow, somewhat shorter than Star, had never joined a fighting sorority. She had a rounder face and a larger bosom and was much more expressive a woman. She seldom hesitated to tell others what she was feeling, belonged to three clubs and was popular with the young married couples in the band because of her funny stories, sweet songs and her musical ability with a classic Lakota flute of great age and much virtue. It was pretty well accepted across the Red Elk Band, along with some of the Grizzly and Eagle Band younger couples, that inviting Willow to your party would insure its success. Of course, if you were running buffalo or fighting off Absarokas, you wanted Star Woman at your back. It wasn't that either sister was considered superior -- merely different in a society that felt very strongly that no person had any right to criticize another adult about his or her choices -- whether political, culinary or sexual. The Red Riding people lived as they pleased but their lives were governed by ancient traditions. Star was sometimes annoyed by Willow's enthusiasms but as blood sisters they'd always got along well enough to invite her into the lodge as Yellow's second wife.

         Cricket and Dancer had become careless now the day's journey was winding down. The girl was thinking about gathering persimmons with Rosebud and the horse was stretching her long neck, reaching down into a grassy clump -- when a sudden buzzing erupted in Dancer's face. A diamond patterned lance flickered forward, as if a lightening bolt from a cloudless sky, striking Dancer on the jaw. The big rattlesnake clung for a moment sending the horse onto her haunches, stumbling back, neighing shrilly. The rattler fell free and slithered away in the grass. Cricket clung frantically with her thighs, trying to stay in the saddle. She grabbed for the horse's mane, missed and fell, hitting the ground rolling away for her life, throwing her arms around her head for protection from the flailing hoofs. Dancer teetered awkwardly, slipped on the loose footing and tumbled sideways from the crest. A foreleg cracked like a rifle shot and she screamed as if a woman, twisting back and forth in agony. Dancer rolled over and scrambled up on three hoofs, the broken leg dangling. Cricket bounded up, bruised and scraped, seizing the jaw loop bridle to steady the stricken animal.

         Dancer was shuddering, eyes rolling in terror, blowing hard as if after a long gallop. Star and Willow whirled their mounts around and Cricket's older brother, Bright Swan, flogged his horse over the crest, leaving the horse herd, knowing the remounts wouldn't run off until their dominant stallion, Hickory, led them away. Each animal peered at Dancer with wary eyes, ears cocked, looking for the danger she'd alerted them to. They could see nothing threatening so they peered at Hickory for guidance. Bright Swan leaped from his saddle, stumbling as he skidded to a halt, trying to see whether his sister was hurt badly.

         "Are you injured?" He shouted from no more than a foot away.

         Cricket shuddered, too confused to speak. As she stared open mouthed at her crippled mount, an evil premonition darkened her face. She tightened her hold on the bridle. "Oh - oh - Brother!" she stammered. "Look at poor Dancer. What can I do for her?" She twisted toward the rear, looking for her father, breathing hard also, wringing her hands, wanting desperately to comfort her distraught mare.

         Half-Yellow Face pounded up on Hickory, the herd's seed stallion. He vaulted to the ground and landed in the dust beside his daughter Cricket. He felt her arms and legs and ran his hands over her joints. When he found she was bruised and scraped but uninjured, he took the nose loop from his daughter and stooped beside the little mare's dangling leg. His face drooped and he shook his head. "Both bones are shattered. She must have caught it when she fell." He slowly turned toward his daughter, dreading what must inevitably follow, grieving a moment or two before speaking. The horse herd, now that Hickory was waiting quietly beside his master, turned from the people and started cropping what remained of the prairie hay. Yellow finally spoke to his daughter. "I'm so sorry, Baby. I know how you love Dancer." Cricket started to weep and as he tried to gather her in his arms, she pulled away, looking up at him with horror-filled eyes. Surely, she thought, her strong and intelligent father wasn't giving up already. She started sobbing aloud now.

         "Oh, Papa, she's hurt so bad -- you must help her!"   The words tumbled out faster and faster. "Splint her leg with wet rawhide as the healing woman did for Swan when Beans fell on him."

         Half Yellow-Face stared silently toward the west, knowing his limitations far better than his adoring daughter did. He reached for her again. "Cricket -- Oh, dear, dear Cricket!" She came into his arms this time and he brushed her tears. With an arm around her he wondered, not for the first time, how a tough horse master of the Shahieala had fathered such a beautiful, tenderhearted child. Her virtue had to have come from Star! She threw her arms around his neck, burying her face against his shoulder, shuddering as he tried to console her. He whispered. "It's so sad when a good and honest beast goes down. As if losing an old friend -- a member of the family."

         Yellow looked over the crest as the column wound downhill toward the creek, the families unaware of the minor tragedy going on in the rear. He collected his thoughts, knowing the family must not fall behind the rear guard with sundown approaching. He made room for his mother and his wives as the women formed a semi-circle around the injured Dancer and then signaled to his teen age son. He used the universal sign language of the Plains, a valuable skill in a land where a many tribes used scores of languages and dialects.

         "Bright Swan," his hands flashed, "Bring the herd up. We must move on. The rear guard will be on us very soon and we cannot put our family outside their circle of safety."

         Swan nodded and vaulted into the saddle without using the stirrups, raced off and cracked his bull whip behind the remount herd. He drove them past the family, glancing at Dancer, seeing that she was growing weaker from the poison.

         "Papa," Cricket cried clutching his hands. "You and the others go on! I'll stay here and protect Dancer until she gets well."

         He groaned. "Baby - Baby; even if the poison so close to the brain doesn't kill her, wolves shall surely take her tonight. We have but one act of love left to offer your pretty girl." His relentless ebony eyes were more than a little moist as Cricket sobbed uncontrolled, clinging to his hands.

         Willow, Star Woman and Small Owl sat their horses silently, their faces expressionless even as they grieved Cricket's loss. The grandmother was remembering she had seen a flight of black swans at sundown yesterday. A bad omen, everyone said -- a sure sign of death. Praise to the Great Spirit, it was only a horse rather than a person. Star Woman was thinking she'd give anything to be more like Willow, to be filled with soft words through which to sooth pain. How sad it is that twelve year old girls have to learn that life is like being a thistle in a whirlwind, that one has to be tough as well as gentle, calculating as well as generous. Especially now when the Red Riding ways are under attack.

         There had been a time when she'd been more like Cricket -- and as Willow, she admitted. She'd once thought she couldn't hate anyone but that was before the spider people came. She too had been gentle before she'd frozen inside and vowed vengeance on the evil murderers of her parents in their blue trousers with yellow stripes on the legs. Less than a moon before Cricket was born, when Star was heavy and virtually helpless, she'd hidden in the brush beyond her parent's hunting lodge along the Bitter Root River while a dozen of the Veho soldiers lashed her father to a lodge pole and took turns abusing her mother until they were all satiated. They then cut her parents' throats before skinning her mother's breasts to tan as tobacco pouches they sold as trophies to the trading post operators who shipped them east. The spider who told the others what to do, with three yellow stripes on his arms, was whooping with drunken laughter as he fired the lodge and threw both bodies into the flames. She'd vowed twelve kills for the twelve soldiers and now, after many skirmishes and raiding parties, she still had five of the wicked murderers to punish. She'd taken two yellow legs with her buffalo bow, three in hand to hand combat with her lance and two more with a Winchester rifle she'd bought with beaver furs at a trading post in Oklahoma. Now, she extended her hand to Cricket. "Come ride with me, pretty girl." Cricket hardly heard her.

         "Start down the trail, my dears," Yellow told his wives. "We must catch up with the band."

         "Y - y - you're going to shoot her!" Cricket cried, shaking her head, stamping a foot. "I - I - I won't let you." Her fists were clinched, her eyes narrowed. "I won't! I won't! I won't!"

         "Oh, my poor Baby." Yellow groaned as he twisted and peered down the back trail once more. He could see several of the rear guards and their dogs drawing close. His voice took on a sense of urgency. "Get up behind your mother, Cricket and go on to the creek. I shall take care of this and catch up before you reach the water." Half-Yellow Face took her hand, his voice more firm. But the ebony eyes that had peered over his gun sights in scores of raids, skirmishes and battles were filled with love. "I know how you love her. You two traveled many a long trail these last few years. I cannot tell you not to grieve. Indeed, I weep with you, Baby. But, we together shall remember around the campfire those good times you and Dancer had. No one -- not even the powerful Grandfather God, can take those sweet memories from you. We'll make a holy song about Dancer. But, daughter, not even the Everywhere Spirit that inhabits every living thing, can save her now. No prayers, no fasts, no mystic pipes smoked in worship, can possibly undo what has happened. I shall spare her all the pain I can. Make your farewells -- tell your pretty girl you shall always remember her love for you and trust our Grandfather God to welcome her beautiful spirit into the Great Beyond. Weep, my dearest girl, weeping is good -- but remember, you two shall meet once again beyond the sky -- in the spirit land."

         "Is there nothing we can do?" Jump-Up asked in a very small voice.

         "Nothing my son." He lowered his voice. "When it's done, you strip Dancer's saddle and Cricket's gear. Bring them on one of the travois drags. Hurry and don't fall behind the rear guard!"

         Cricket crept to the mare's low-hanging head. She embraced it, sensing the shock setting in, kissing the soft, velvet nose one last time. "I love you!" she cried fiercely, leaping up and running blindly down the trail, only just managing to keep her balance as she plunged toward the creek. Star, Small Owl and Willow trotted their mounts along behind her. Dancer whinnied plaintively, calling her back but Cricket neither turned nor slowed. She ran as fast as she could but was unable to outrun her grief. Bright Swan had driven his charges toward the creek when a heavy pistol shot sent scores of Prairie Chickens twittering skyward.

---

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