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As I spoke to you of respect, now I speak to you of honor. Remember that honor is the other side of the coin from respect. You cannot gain respect if you do not have honor within you, neither can you see the honor in others. In the times of which I speak, horses were new to the Great Prairie and the white people were only a rumor from the East, though some of the People had said they had seen some of them dressed all in furs. Battle between the tribes was often, but not as bloody as might be thought, for often it was that men from one tribe took women from another tribe and made them their wives, and it would be a bad thing for a husband to have a wife complain of her husband to her parents. So often when a kill was possible a warrior would use a coup stick to strike an opponent rather than to kill him as was their right, and some even used their hand to count coup, a very brave act indeed. Coup strikes were seen in many eyes as more noble, more honorable because it was counted as a victory, but it left a warrior to do what was needed of a father or husband or brother. At the time I speak of, such a battle between the Tsitsistas and the Siksikas was about to take place. Many horses had been stolen, and this required retribution. The men who were to fight wore their armor of shells and hardened leather. Each wore their own distinctive war paint. The best horses, too, of both tribes were dressed in battle paint, and festooned with feathers and strips of colorful woven cloth. For one of them, a very young Siksika man who had just taken the journey into warrior status, it was a very nervous time. With others he had hunted deer, and buffalo and bear and lion, but this was the first time he would be hunting a man. Both tribes lined themselves along the top of opposing ridges, all waiting for the war chiefs to give the signal. The young warrior found his stomach twitching and he could hear his heart pounding in his ears. His horse, the only one he had, seemed nervous as well and snorted several times and twitched his ears in all directions as if he were trying to pick up the scent of something wild near by. And suddenly, the young man almost unprepared for it, the Siksika war chief ululated the signal and pushed his own horse down the side of the ridge directly towards the Tsitsistas war chief. The young man ran his horse down the side of the ridge, letting the nervous stomach voice itself in a war cry so very loud that his uncle, racing beside him looked at him and laughed then turned back to his own charge. For the young Siksika warrior the next few moments were a confusion of dust, shouts, an occasional cry of pain or anger, and the loud squeals of the horses from both sides. Twice he had seen a spear point aimed for him, and twice he had avoided it. Then in a small clearing of the dust he saw the war chief of the Tsitsistas standing over an injured horse and shouting in his language, giving directions and encouragements. And his back was to the young man. The young Siksika urged his horse to a charge and turned the spear so he could count coup with the wood and not kill with the tip. The war chief must have heard his horse because he turned around and looked at the Siksika bearing down on him, his lance ready for the kill. And at that moment chief's injured horse jerked upon the reins still in his hand pulling him to the ground at just the same second the young man would have struck him. The Siksika warrior turned around in his own tracks to try again, but by that time the war cheif was surrounded by people from his tribe and there would not be another chance. And beyond the chief he saw his uncle pointing at the Tsitsistas war chief, and then to him while shouting something to another man near him. As if that moment was a signal then the two sides separated and moved back up the ridges they had raced down so soon before then. The battle had been so brief that it looked as if the sun had not even moved. The youth's uncle and several others singled him out when they got to the top of the ridge and rode in tight circles around him cheering his name and giving out loud war cries. The boy was puzzled; he had done nothing to deserve this treatment. The Siksika obviously felt they had won the battle. No one had been killed on either side, though there were many cuts and bruises that could be seen. It was obvious during the race back to the camp that the Siksika thought they had won the battle, for the air was filled with shouts and ululations and much brandishing of spears and arrows and coup sticks, giving the boy no time to ask his uncle why they had treated him so when he had done nothing to deserve it. When they had arrived at their camp he was again singled out. His uncle and the man next to him were calling out his name and saying that he would be a mighty warrior because in his first battle he had counted coup on the Tsitsistas war chief. The boy tried to tell him it wasn't so, that his spear butt had never touched the man, but his uncle could not hear the young man over his own shouts. The women shouted at the men to go get washed up, or the feast would never get finished. The youth was finally alone with another young man only two years older than he. As they washed up in back of tent he told his story; that he never counted coup, that the man had fallen, and that he himself had nearly fallen off of his own horse. The other youth looked at him a minute trying to decide whether to believe the tale or not, and when he looked into the tormented eyes of the celebrated new warrior he knew that what he heard had been the truth. His advice was to not tell anyone else this. "They all think of you as a great warrior with much medicine. Don't let them know any different. Think of all of the women who will want to wed such a great man." The youth didn't know if he liked the leer that was behind the words of the other man. Then there was the food, of which he was given one of the first choices. And there were, like the young man at the stream had noted, many young ladies looking demur with head down and eyes glancing at him from under their eyelashes. This did not help his confusion. The big celebration fire was no different. There were hunting stories, and war stories, and dancing to drums, and suddenly they were all looking at him, ready to hear his story, of how he won the battle by taking down the Tsitsistas war chief. They saw how reluctant he was to speak before them and laughed and teased him for being bashful. And so he rose to stand, now more confused than before. The youth looked all around him, and finally said "Nobody could hear me in the time after the battle, and everyone has been too busy to hear me since then." His voice was steady, but low; not at all like the loud boasts of the others around the circle had been. "I did not count coup on the Tsitsista. He would have killed me easily had not his own horse tripped him. He fell, I did not strike him." He turned in his place and walked out of the now silent fire circle his face ashen, his nerves tingling with embarrassment. He had not taken a dozen steps before a voice calling his name stopped him. It was his uncle. "It would have been a great feat had you counted coup on their chief. And many men would have let everyone think it had happened that way. Time alone will tell if you will be a great warrior. But tonight you have shown that you will be a great man." And the children of the Siksikas went to sleep that night with a deeper understanding of honor than they had known before. And when the story of the warrior who had told the truth was carried by the traders that visited both tribes had been told to the Tsitsistas, their children, too, understood honor a bit better. |
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