Only the spotless and stainless can enter into His presence,
only that which is purified by fire. So--this white dog--a
member of our household, a co-habitant of our wigwam, and on the
smoke that arises from the purging fires will arise also the
thanksgivings of all those who desire that the Great Spirit in His
happy hunting grounds will forever smoke His pipe of peace, for
peace is between Him and His children for all time."
The mournful voice ceases. Again the hollow pulsing of the Indian
drum, the purring, flexible step of cushioned feet. I lift my head,
which has been bowed on the chair before me. It is St. Paul's after
all--and the clear boy-voices rise above the rich echoes of the
organ.
As It Was in the Beginning
They account for it by the fact that I am a Redskin, but I am
something else, too--I am a woman.
I remember the first time I saw him. He came up the trail with some
Hudson's Bay trappers, and they stopped at the door of my father's
tepee. He seemed even then, fourteen years ago, an old man; his hair
seemed just as thin and white, his hands just as trembling and
fleshless as they were a month since, when I saw him for what I pray
his God is the last time.
My father sat in the tepee, polishing buffalo horns and smoking; my
mother, wrapped in her blanket, crouched over her quill-work, on the
buffalo-skin at his side; I was lounging at the doorway, idling,
watching, as I always watched, the thin, distant line of sky and
prairie; wondering, as I always wondered, what lay beyond it.
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