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Show 1 :4v v 1 ; f :4 ? - V if I if fSCfe Aw' i T 1 By ELMO SCOTT WATSON tN NOVEMBER 11, 1022, when the Unknown Soldier was enshrined at Arlington cemetery, among the high olticinls and other digni-taries digni-taries who took part in " that impressive ceremony, was the figure of an Indian chief, resplendent In buckskin, scalp shirt, fringed leggings, beaded moccasins mocca-sins and a magnificent war bonnet that swept to the ground. As he stepped forward to place on the white marble tomb a war bonnet and a coup stick, he said In his native tongue. "I feel It nn honor to the red man that lie has taken part in this great event today because it shows that the thousands thou-sands of Indian soldiers who fought in the great war are appreciated by the white man. I am glad to represent repre-sent the Indians of the United States In placing on the grave of this noble unknown warrior this coup stick and war bonnet, every eagle feather of which represents a Jeed of valor by my race. I hope that the Great Spirit will grant that these noble warriors have not given up their lives In vain and that there will be peace to all men hereafter. This is the Indian's hope and prayer." This chief who was chosen as the representative of all the Indian tribes to place the red man's tribute upon the grave of the Unknown Soldier is known among his people, the Ab-sarokees, Ab-sarokees, as Aleek-chea-ahoosh, meaning mean-ing "Many Achievements." Hut the white men who call the Absarokees Crows, he is more commonly known as Chief I'lenty Coups, perhaps the hest known Indian in the United States today. For that reason one of the outstanding biographies of the year is the book "American," published pub-lished recently by the John Day company, com-pany, for "it is "The I.ife Story of a Croat Indian, I'lenty Coups, Chief of the Crows," as he told it to Frank 1!. Linderman through the medium of an Interpreter and the sign language In which both I'lenty Coups and Lin-derman Lin-derman are adepts. "American" is not the first Indian autobiography but it is outstanding because It is the story of a genuinely primitive Indian. When Plenty Coups was born in Montana in the lute '-Ws his people were still living their normal nor-mal nomadic life in the days before the buffalo herds were swept away, and these wild horsemen of the plains were almost untouched by any contact with the whites. Ills early life was lived under tribal conditions, but little lit-tle changed over a period of hundreds of years; In his early mauhood he w itnessed the first conflict between the two races with their Inevitable climax of rlie subjugation of the red and the domination of the white and his declining de-clining years are being passed in an era which is seeing a century of history his-tory concentrated In a decade. So in a sense the life story of this Indian chief is an epitome of 300 years of American history, from savagery to civilization, from a wilderness to the industrial age. I'lenty Coups has remained a boy kll his life and the naturalness of childhood Is reflected throughout his tory "What are your earliest remembrances remem-brances ?" Mr. Linderman asked him and the old man smiled. "Play," he ald happily. "All boys are much alike. Their hearts are young and they let them sing." And in his telling tell-ing of the events of his boyhood and his training at the hands of the elders eld-ers of the tribe, there is food for thought by the white man who believes be-lieves that men of his color are superior su-perior In any way to men whose skins are red. No doubt it will be a shock to most white men to realize that In the eyes of the Indians white children are so disgustedly 111 bred. 1 &'J:")&$ TW' So profiting by the example and the instructions of his elders, I'lenty Coups' boyhood was spent in the kind of play which was the beginning of his education in physical development, in plains and wood craft and in strict self-discipline of body and mind. He and the other boys played at making war, and with great eagerness he looked forward to the day when he might go out on the first war party and have the chance for that distinction distinc-tion so much desired by all prospective prospec-tive warriors Counting coups. This might be accomplished in one of several sev-eral ways. He might strike an enemy with his coup stick, bow or quirt, before be-fore otherwise attacking him, or take his weapon while he was still alive. He might count coups by striking similarly sim-ilarly the first of the enemy's dead or his breastworks under fire or by stealing steal-ing horses from the village of an enemy. en-emy. Unlike the white man's idea it was not so much an honor to be wounded in action. When a warrior who had been wounded donned an eagle feather to commemorate the event, he must slain it red, and such a feather was esteemed less highly than one which bore the distinctive markings showing how a coup was counted. Plenty Coups' young manhood was filled with innumerable skirmishes between be-tween the Crows and their traditional enemies, the Sioux, the Cheyennes, the Arapahoes and the Blackfeet. His first real contact with the white men came when he enlisted as a scout with General Crook and served valorously with that officer In the great battle with the Sioux on the Rosebud. For Americans with their traditional love of "good sportsmanship" there is an Interesting example in Plenty Coups' attitude towards his enemies. In nearly near-ly every case in which he tells of a foeman whom he fought and killed, he ends the story by adding gravely, "He was a good man, that Sioux, and a brave warrior." But the opinions of the white man expressed by this old warrior is not such comfortable reading for those who fondly believe that the white race Is superior to all others. But is good, perhaps, for the exaggerated self-esteem of the "conquering white" to read these words of Tlenty Coups and reflect upon them with an honest mind: "They spoke very loudly when they said their laws were made for everybody ; but we soon learned that although they expected us to keep them, they thought nothing of breaking break-ing them themselves . . . (Their priests) said we might have their religion, re-ligion, but when we tried to understand under-stand it, we found that there were too many kinds . . . this bothered us a good deal until we saw that the white man did not take his religion any more seriously than he did his laws, and that he kept both of them just behind him ... to use when they might do him good in his dealings with strangers.' These were not our ways. We kept the laws we made and lived our religion. We have never been able to understand the white man, who fools nobody but himself. . . . Now, too late, we know that the white man is not wise. He Is smart, not wise, and fools only himself." To read Plenty Coups' story is to realize that he deserves the characterization character-ization of a "great American" by whatever what-ever standards, either white or red, he may be judged. A part of his greatness lies in the adjustment he made between his people and ours, in his patience, his diplomacy and his firmness which saved the Crows from the tragic fate which overtook other Indian tribes. Of them lie says : "We saw that those who made war against the white man always failed in the end' and lost their lands. Look at the Siriped-Feathered-Arrows (Cheyennes). (Chey-ennes). Most of them are living where they hate the ground that holds their lodges. They cannot look at the mountains as I can, or drink good water as I do, every day. Instead In-stead of making a treaty with the white man and by it holding their country which they loved, they fought. Ah! how those warriors fought! And lost all, taking whatever the white man would give. And when the hearts of the givers are filled with hate their gifts are small. "The Cheyennes and the Sioux, who fared a little better, have always been our enemies, but I am sorry for them today. I have fought hard against thera in war, with the white men more than once, and often with my own tribe before the white men came. But when I fought with the white man against them it was not because I j loved him or because I hate.d the Sioux or Cheyennes, but because I ! j saw this was the only way we could keep our land and it was my dream that taught us the way." Although Plenty Coups talked freely about his early life, even to the intimate in-timate details of his dreams and all the other elements which make up the j mysticism of the Indian a rare occurrence oc-currence for the red man to bare his soul to the white man his book tells little of his life after the passing of the buffalo. "The descent into poverty and dependence upon the white man's bsunty broke his spirit. "When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground and they could not lift them up again," he says. "After this nothing happened. There was little singing anywhere." And those mournful words are a fitting requiem for the whole race of red men. |
