The Autobiography of a Winnebago Indian

Dr. Paul Radin

• Publisher: Borodino Books
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781789121032
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Sam Blowsnake (S.B.) was a member of the Winnebago tribe. In this autobiography, translated into English by Dr. Paul Radin, Crashing Thunder describes the life, ways, acculturation, and the peyote cult of his people. He tells about his brother-in-law the shaman, adolescence, initiation into the Medicine Dance, marriage and sexual proximity, entry into the white man's world, traveling with a circus, alcoholism, desire to count coup, the ensuing murder of a Pottawattomie, trial and jail, and his release on a technicality.

PART I. THE STORY OF MY LIFE

1. EARLY CHILDHOOD

Father and mother had four children and after that I was born, it is said.{1} An uncle of mother’s who was named White-Cloud, said to her, “You are to give birth to a child who will not be an ordinary person.” Thus he spoke to her. It was then my mother gave birth to me. As soon as I was born and was being washed—as my neck was being washed—I laughed out loudly.

I was a good-tempered boy, it is said. At boyhood my father told me to fast and I obeyed. In the winter every morning I would crush charcoal and blacken my face with it.{2} I would arise very early and do it. As soon as the sun rose I would go outside and sit looking at the sun and I would cry to the spirits.{3}

Thus I acted until I became conscious.{4}

Then there were not as many white people around as there are now. My father always hunted. Our lodge was covered with rush mattings and we had reed mattings spread over the floor. After my father had hunted for a considerable time in one place we would move away. My father, mother, older sisters, and older brothers all carried packs on their backs, in which they carried many things. Thus we would pass the time until the spring of the year, and then in the spring we used to move away to live near some stream where father could hunt muskrats, mink, otter, and beaver.

In the summer we would go back to Black River Falls, Wisconsin.

The Indians all returned to that place after they had given their feasts. We then picked berries. When we picked berries my father used to buy me gum, so that I would not eat many berries when I was picking.{5} However, I soon managed to eat berries and chew gum at the same time. After a while I learned to chew tobacco and then I did not eat any berries (while picking them). Later on I got to like tobacco very much and I probably used up more value (in tobacco) than I would have done had I eaten the berries.

In the fall of the year we would pick cranberries and after that, when the hunting season was open, I would begin to fast again.

I did this every year for a number of years.

After a while we got a pony on which we used to pack all our belongings when we moved camp. And in addition about three of us would ride on top of the pack. Sometimes my mother rode and father drove the pony when we moved from one place to another.

After I had grown a little older and taller and was about the size of one of my older brothers, all of us would fast together. My father used repeatedly to urge us to fast. “Do not be afraid of the burnt remains of the lodge center-pole,{6} he would say to us. “Those which are the true possessions of men, the apparel of men,{7} and also the gift of doctoring—these powers that are spread out before you—do try and obtain one of them,” he was accustomed to say to us.

I would then take a piece of charcoal, crush it, and blacken my face, and he would express his gratitude to me.

At first I broke my fast at noon and then, after a while, I fasted all night. From the fall of the year until spring I fasted throughout the day until nightfall, when I would eat.{8} After a while I was able to pass the night without eating and after a while I was able to go through two nights (and days) without eating any food. Then my mother went out in the wilderness and built a small lodge. This, she told me, she built for me to fast in, for my elder brother and myself, whenever we had to fast through the night.

There we used to play around. However, before we were able to spend a night at that particular place, we moved away.

2. PUBERTY{9}

After a time I passed from this stage of boyhood into another. I began to use a bow and arrow and I spent my time at play, shooting arrows.

Then I found out that my mother had been told, just before I was born, that she would give birth to no ordinary being, and from that time on I felt that I must be an uncommon person.

At about this time my oldest sister married a holy man. My parents gave her in marriage to him. He was a shaman and he thought a great deal of me.

At this stage of life also I secretly got the desire to make myself pleasing to the opposite sex.

Now at that time the Indians all lived in their lodges and the women were always placed in lodges of their own whenever they had their menses. There the young men would court them at night when their parents were asleep. They would then enter these lodges to court them. I used to go along with the men on such occasions for even although I did not enter the lodge but merely accompanied them, I enjoyed it.

At that time my parents greatly feared that I might come in contact with women who were having their menses, so I went out secretly. My parents were even afraid to have me cross the path over which a woman in such a condition had passed.{10} The reason they worried so much about it at that particular time was because I was to fast as soon as autumn came;{11} and it was for that reason they did not wish me to be near menstruating women, for were I to grow up in the midst of such women I would assuredly be weak and of little account. Such was their reason.

After some time I started to fast again throughout the day and night, together with an older brother of mine. It was at the time of the fall moving and there were several lodges of people living with us. There it was that my elder brother and I fasted. Among the people in these lodges there were four girls who always carried the wood. When these girls went out to carry the wood my older brother and I would play around with them a good deal. We did this even although we were fasting at the time. Of course we had to do it in secret. Whenever our parents found out we got a scolding, and the girls likewise got a scolding whenever their parents found out. At home we were carefully kept away from women having their menses, but we ourselves did not keep ourselves away from such. Thus we acted day after day while we were fasting.

After a while some of the lodges moved away and we were left alone. These lodges moved far ahead of us because we ourselves were to move only a short distance at a time. That was the reason the others moved on so far ahead of us. My father and my brother-in-law went out hunting and killed seventy deer between them and in consequence we had plenty of meat.

3. FASTING

When the girls with whom I used to play moved away I became very lonesome. In the evenings I used to cry. I longed for them greatly, and they had moved far away!

After a while we got fairly well started on our way back. I fasted all the time. We moved back to a place where all the leaders used to give their feasts. Near the place where we lived there were three lakes and a black hawk’s nest. Right near the tree where the nest was located they built a lodge and the war-bundle that we possessed was placed in the lodge.{12} We were to pass the night there, my older brother and myself. It was said that if anyone fasted at such a place for four nights he would always be blessed with victory and the power to cure the sick. All the spirits would bless him.

“The first night spent there one imagined oneself surrounded by spirits whose whisperings were heard outside of the lodge,” they said. The spirits would even whistle. I would be frightened and nervous, and if I remained there I would be molested by large monsters, fearful to look upon. Even (the bravest) might be frightened, I was told. Should I, however, get through that night, I would on the following night be molested by ghosts whom I would hear speaking outside. They would say things that might cause me to run away. Towards morning they would even take my blanket away from me. They would grab hold of me and drive me out of the lodge, and they would not stop until the sun rose. If I was able to endure the third night, on the fourth night I would really be addressed by spirits, it was said, who would bless me, saying, “I bless you. We had turned you over to the (monsters, etc.) and that is why they approached you, but you overcame them and now they will not be able to take you away. Now you may go home, for with victory and long life we bless you and also with the power of healing the sick.{13} Nor shall you lack wealth (literally, ‘people’s possessions’). So go home and eat, for a large war-party is soon to fall upon you who, as soon as the sun rises in the morning, will give the war whoop and if you do not go home now, they will kill you.”{14}

Thus the spirits would speak to me. However if I did not do the bidding of this particular spirit, then another one would address me and say very much the same sort of thing. So they would speak until the break of day, and just before sunrise a man in warrior’s regalia would come and peep in. He would be a scout. Then I would surely think a war-party had come upon me, I was told.

Then another spirit would come and say, “Well, grandson, I have taken pity upon you and I bless you with all the good things that the earth holds. Go home now for the war-party is about to rush upon you.”{15} And if I then went home, as soon as the sun rose the war whoop would be given. The members of the war party would give the war whoop all at the same time. They would rush upon me and capture me and after the fourth one had counted coup, then they would say, “Now then, grandson, this we did to teach you. Thus you shall act. You have completed your fasting.” Thus they would talk to me, I was told. This war party was composed entirely of spirits, I was told, spirits from the heavens and from the earth; indeed all the spirits that exist would all be there. These would all bless me. They also told me that it would be a very difficult thing to accomplish this particular fasting.{16}

So there I fasted, at the black hawk’s nest where a lodge had been built for me. The first night I stayed there I wondered when things would happen; but nothing took place. The second night, rather late in the night, my father came and opened the war-bundle and taking a gourd out began to sing. I stood beside him without any clothing on me except the breech-clout, and holding tobacco in each hand I uttered my cry to the spirits as my father sang. He sang war bundle songs and he wept as he sang. I also wept as I uttered my cry to the spirits. When he was finished he told me some sacred stories, and then went home.

When I found myself alone I began to think that something ought to happen to me soon, yet nothing occurred so I had to pass another day there. On the third night I was still there. My father visited me again and we repeated what we had done the night before. In t...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I. THE STORY OF MY LIFE
• PART II. MY FATHER’S TEACHINGS
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER