Comanche

THE village of the
Pehnane
, Wasp, band of the Comanche Nation scattered for almost a mile along the Mustang Fork of the upper Pecos River, an area ideally suited to their needs. Numerous canyons, arroyos and valleys in the open timber country offered shelter and protection for the village, along with adequate grazing for its sizeable horse herds. There also could be found a plentiful supply of buffalo. At the right time of the year, the bugling of mate-hunting wapiti mingled with the sudden rushing crash as whitetail deer fled from some suspicious sound; for this was Texas in 1847, before the cattleman came with his long homed ‘spotted buffalo’ or the settler moved in with his towns and long, long before the oil-man came to scar the land with iron monstrosities in search of ‘black gold’.

Centuries of nomadic experience had taught the Comanches how to settle in a new location at frequent intervals, without disturbing the even flow of their lives. On arrival at a new camping ground, the village arose without fuss or argument. The members of each war lodge tended to gather in a group about the tepees of its senior chief, but beyond that nobody objected to who set up house as a neighbour. The village came, rose and continued its normal activities almost as if it had been there since the world began.

Busy women and unmarried maidens went about their daily tasks of preparing and cooking food, scraping or tanning hides for later use, making and repairing clothing or tepees. Old men, aided by their Mexican prisoner-apprentices, built saddles, produced bows or arrows to be bartered to the warriors who had not time to make their own, being engaged in men’s work. Such of the braves who were not away on hunting or raiding expeditions gathered in groups to gamble or talk, sat cleaning and sharpening weapons, trained a favourite horse, or merely lazed away the time while awaiting the arrival of a meal.

It was a normal sort of day, with the ordinary functions of Comanche life taking place. Yet to one man it had become the most important day of his life. In a tepee to the rear of, and away from, the rest of her family’s cluster of dwellings his wife went through the hell of bearing their first child.

Much as he wished to, Sam Ysabel knew he could not show too close an interest in the proceedings taking place inside the birth-tepee. He might be a white man, but had been accepted into the
Pehnane
and adopted as a member of the Dog Soldier lodge and so must adhere to their ways and traditions. No warrior would risk spoiling his war medicine by approaching and entering a tepee in which child-birth was about to happen.

So Ysabel squatted on his heels by the family fire, trying to act unconcerned while making light conversation with his father-in-law, Chief Long Walker. Some of Ysabel’s tension found light relief that Long Walker also showed much interest in the birth-tepee, although the chief tried to hide it as did the big white man. Both hoped for a son to be born. While a girl would be accepted and given loving care, every father secretly hoped his first-born was a son to carry on the family line. Long Walker also hoped for a boy, someone to whom he could pass on the knowledge gained in a life-time of achievement; for it fell mainly on the grandfather to instruct the male child while the father went about the man’s work of hunting, raiding and making war.

Ysabel rose to his feet in a swift, effortless swing, turning to look around the village. Despite his name, he was not Mexican but as Irish as a four-leaved shamrock. Something over six foot in height, he towered over the average Comanches; who tended to be of medium size and stocky. Bare-headed, his shoulder long hair framed a face tanned almost Indian dark. He wore a fringed buckskin shirt hanging outside trousers of the same material. The moccasins on his feet, made, as his clothes had been, by his wife, also sported the traditional Comanche decorative fringing. Around his waist, he wore a belt that supported a long-bladed James Black bowie knife in a decorative sheath, but no hand-gun. So far only a comparative few revolvers had made their appearance in Texas and Sam Ysabel regarded the .36 calibre Paterson Colt as being too light for consideration as a serious weapon. Of course one heard rumours that Yankee, Colt, aimed to bring out a real powerful hand-gun on the lines suggested by Captain Sam Walker of the Texas Rangers. Happen he followed Cap’n Sam’s advice, he ought to turn out something worthwhile. When such a gun came along, Ysabel would make his decision on its merits. Born of black-Irish Kentuckian stock, he regarded the rifle as the ultimate weapon and pistols as toys for the effete gentry’s use.

Among the Comanche in general, and the
Pehnane
in particular, Ysabel had built himself a name as a bone-tough fighting man and bad medicine to cross. No mean achievement in a nation of warriors and when living as a member of the toughest, proudest of all the
Pehnane
war lodges. Certainly Long Walker had no cause to regret allowing the only child of his French-Creole
pairaivo
, senior wife, marry the big white man. Riding as a scout for the U.S. Army against the Mexicans, he brought back much loot. Few of the
Pehnane
braves could equal Ysabel’s skill as a hunter and none even approached him in the accurate use of a rifle. One way and another, Ysabel proved himself to be all that a senior war-chief might desire as a son-in-law.

‘I hope this don’t take long,’ Ysabel said, speaking English although he knew the Comanches’ language as well as his own. Then, remembering where he was, went on so the chief might understand him, ‘I told Cap’n Walker I’d be back in a week at most when I got word that Raven Head Was near her time.’

‘These things can’t be rushed,’ answered Long Walker philosophically, sucking at the stone pipe loaded with a gift of white man’s tobacco.

For so important occasion as the birth of his first grandchild, the chief naturally wore his best clothing. V-necked, long-fringed, decorated with beads, porcupine quills and the scalps of three enemies who had fought well enough to deserve the honour, his buckskin shirt hung over a breechclout coloured blue; the traditional hue for wearing upon such an important day. Close-fitting buckskin leggings extended from each ankle to hip, fringed and decorated by loving hands, and his moccasins bore a polecat’s tail edging instead of the common buckskin fringe. Dressed in such a manner, with tomahawk and knife at his belt, Long Walker figured he could perform his part in the forthcoming proceedings in a manner which did honour to the child soon to arrive.

Although pretending to be laconic and interested in the doings around the camp, Ysabel paid little attention to the familiar scene. Anxiety ate at him for he loved the slender, beautiful Raven Head and was all too aware of the high mortality rate among Comanche women at child-birth. However, he knew that his wife received the best possible attention.

As became the daughter of an important chief and wife of a wealthy, successful warrior, Raven Head did not lie in a small lodge hastily built of brush wood. Despite the fact that it would have to be destroyed after much use, she was given a tepee in which to produce her child.

Inside the tepee all had been prepared. Underfoot the earth was made soft by digging and two pits prepared; in one a fire burned and kept boiling a cooking pot full of water, the other being used as a repository for the after-birth. Raven Head lay on the single bed, hot rocks placed against the small of her back to speed the labour, sipping at the thick soup held to her lips by Raccoon Talker, the medicine woman in attendance. Two women hovered in the background, ready to render aid at Raccoon Talker’s command, howling dolefully and singing mournful songs designed to prevent any of the mother-to-be’s cries of pain reaching the ears of those beyond the tepee walls.

Suddenly Raven Head’s body twisted in a spasm of pain far worse than any felt so far. Twisting her head away from the soup-basin, she clutched wildly at the stout stakes sunk deep into the earth alongside the bed, clinging to it and fighting down a desire to scream. Wise in such matters, Raccoon Talker signalled the assistants forward and passed the basin to one of them. Then the medicine woman gave Raven Head her full attention.

Jumping like a coyote-startled jackrabbit, Ysabel spun around to face the tepee. After a momentary faltering, the women’s prebirth chant resumed; but only for a short time. A thin, coyote-like wail rose faintly, to be drowned out by the opening words of a song of rejoicing. Shortly after Raccoon Talker emerged from the tepee. Carrying the baby’s severed umbilical cord in her hand, she went to hang it among the branches of a near-by hackberry tree. The cord would be watched with interest during the following days. If it remained undisturbed until rotting away, the baby could look forward to a long, eventful, prosperous and successful life.

Standing by the fire, Sam Ysabel fought to hold down his impatience. He wanted to know what had happened inside the tepee, but the appearances must be kept up. On no account would he allow his wife to be mocked at a later date because he broke the strict traditions of his adopted people.

After what seemed like a very long time, Raccoon Talker returned to the tepee. She disappeared inside, to appear a moment later carrying the after-birth wrapped in a piece of skin and bore it away to be thrown into the purifying waters of the river well clear of the camp. Not until that had been done could Long Walker perform his part in the ritual.

‘It is time,
Naravuh
,’ Ysabel said, trying to sound disinterested.

A grin came to Long Walker’s lips at the familiar joking term for an old man; the first time it had been applied to him.

‘So I am a
tsukup
now, am I?’ he replied. ‘Well, maybe it is not so bad as it allows me to go and ask that which we both wish to know.’

While walking towards the tepee, Long Walker wondered if becoming a grandfather really turned him into a
tsukup
, an old man. Certainly he did not feel old, but maybe the brave-hearts would not care to be led on the war or raiding trail by a grandfather. Yet he had no wish to retire from active life. A known warrior might be called into consultation after becoming
tsukup
, but only in an advisory capacity and he could no longer command, that coyote-yip cry from the tepee meant it was too late to change things.

Halting outside the tepee, he called out his name and hoped he would not be answered by the words,
‘Esamop ‘ma’
, meaning he had a granddaughter. The women in the hut only needed to hear his name to know that Long Walker performed a grandfather’s duty by coming to inquire after the baby’s sex.

‘Eh’haitsmai’
one called.

That was what Long Walker had hoped to hear. The words, ‘It is your close friend,’ meant a boy had been born. Under Comanche tradition the maternal grandfather became very close to his grandson and it fell upon the man to see that the boy received correct training to fit him for his place in life.

Even before Long Walker turned to walk away, one of the women emerged and painted a large black dot on the tepee wall. The sign told all who wished to see that a son had been born and the strength of the
Pehnane
increased by another brave-heart warrior. With that part of the ritual completed, the women returned to the tepee’s interior and lent a hand to complete the less dramatic, but more important business of the birth.

Inside the tepee gentle hands washed the baby, applied antelope grass to his body and then dusted it with a powder made from the pulverised dry-rot of a cottonwood tree. After wrapping the squirming, squalling youngster in soft rabbit skins, one of the women carried him to the cradleboard which would form his home, bed and carriage during the first months of his life. Lifting the cradleboard and its tiny burden, she carried both to the bed and showed them to the wan-looking mother. Slowly Raven Head raised a hand to touch the baby’s cheek. She smiled at her son and pointed weakly to the tepee’s door. Nodding her understanding, the attendant took the baby out into the fresh air. Raven Head had made the cradleboard, showing the same loving care which went into all her work. Instead of the basket of rawhide fastened to a flat, angular board, she built a soft buckskin sheath that laced up the front and was firmly anchored to the backboard. In later days the board could be stood on its end out of harm’s way, or carried upon its maker’s back while she went about her work.

Waiting with what patience he could muster, Sam Ysabel thought of the future. In the background people began to gather, waiting until the formalities had been completed before moving up close. Ysabel knew he would have to present the first visitor to inquire about the happy event with a gift; a good horse at least if he hoped to retain his name as a noble, generous
Pehnane
warrior. Well, he could spare it. During his work against the Mexicans, he helped capture the remounts of a Lancer Regiment and received thirty horses for his trouble. Once the Mexican fuss came to an end, Ysabel could return to the village and settle down for a spell watching his son grow up.

At that moment the woman appeared at the tepee door. Throwing aside all pretence of nonchalance, Ysabel strode forward. On reaching the woman, he held out his hands, accepting the cradleboard. With a gentleness that might have surprised his comrades-in-arms, he-held the board before him. His normally expressionless face softened into a smile as he gazed down. A red, button-nosed face twisted into a squall, with a wet mouth open as it wailed, looked up at him.

‘Is Raven Head well?’ he asked.

‘It is too early to say yet,’ the woman replied. ‘But you have a fine son.’

‘That I have,’ agreed Ysabel and looked once more into his son’s red-hazel eyes. ‘Hello, Loncey Dalton Ysabel. That’s your name, boy. And don’t you ever disgrace it.’

As Ysabel said the last words in English, the woman could not understand him. She put the speech down to being some kind of prayer the white man made to whatever strange Great Spirit he worshipped, asking support for the new born through its life. From her experience with Comanche fathers, she doubted if Ysabel would want to take up any more time when he had entertaining to do. Retrieving the cradleboard from the white man’s reluctant fingers, she turned to re-enter the tepee.

Suddenly a cry rose from inside, halting the advance of friends and relatives coming to celebrate the birth. The sound drove into Sam Ysabel like a knife thrust, for it had been that of a woman in mortal pain. At Ysabel’s side, Long Walker also heard, recognised his daughter’s voice and swung to face his son-in-law.

‘Fetch Raccoon Talker back—quickly!’ ordered the chief.