 "The
creed of the Little Ones seemed to be Life, inasmuch as they were ever
concerned as a tribe in prolonging it as a species of religious tenet. Old
age was wisdom, and in their rituals everything had reference to the hope,
the struggle, the necessity, the imperative urge to attain old age and
thereby serve Wah-Kon-Tah's purpose. In order to attain old age and
thereby serve Wah'Kon-Tah's law, they had to have valor, and this was an
obsession. They were sometimes as afraid of lacking valor, as they were of
having Wah'Kon-Tah "take away their remaining days, and from all the
"little people" of the earth who had offered themselves to the
Little Old Men, to serve as tribal symbols, they chose the hawk as the
symbol of tribal valor, ruthlessness, swiftness in war, courage in attack,
and artfulness in retreat, and the longevity which they believed he
enjoyed."
"Stern faced Long Knives would talk
with the gentile leaders away from the Place-Of-The-Many-Swans, and if
their own party was a large one, warn them severally about things of which
they knew nothing. They would tell them about people being killed on the
Arkansas and near the Three Forks, and the chieftains would say, "Ho,
ho that is bad, but we do not know about this thing."
The new Long Knives would become very
angry, and spit tobacco juice to one side, and swear that they would
"git even," and 'iffen they had their way there wouldn't be a
goddam Injun left in the country nohow." *
*The Osages, Mathews
Material from the book of the Osages does
show the climate of thinking a little before Dennis and Bertha entered
into a permanent relationship of marriage. Bell and the Joneses Indian
ancestry made it acceptable in the Osage's minds. However, it was not
approved by the general populace this intermarriage between races. |
