What if First Nations saw the star, the comet or whatever it was? It was 1913, in South Dakota, when the Residential Children were 'treated' to the Christmas story and all the decorations and the story. A Chrsitmas tree brought great interest. The Red Man was introduced and called Santa Claus. A great feast was made by the Sioux people and speeches were made and the children got presents. What could they have wondered? It has been since then that the Christmas Tree became something they wanted to have at Christmas time. This story came down through those ages:
An old French Priest had taught the people the story of Christmas and some of the songs and they were singing and dancing and laughing and having great merriment around a fire. Every tipi had fires within. There was the rich smell of burning pine boughs and the heavy snowfall outside kept the smell down low. Suddenly a small boy wandered into the camp.
The boy came to the circle around the fire and asked for shelter and food, but, he was a stranger and the band was suspicious so the boy was driven away. The boy stopped at the furthest tip[i from the fire. It was the tent of Shining Star, but he, too, drove the boy away with his braided whips.
The boy seemed desperate so he followed around the tipi circle and stopped at each one and asked for shelter and food. Each time he was driven away, sometimes by dogs being 'sicked' on him. The boy ran, tears freezing on his cheeks and he lost his foot-wrappings as he ran off.
As he ran, he noticed one tipi off away from the others. He went to that tipi and begged someone to come out and let him in to get warm and to have food. No one answered so he lifted the door-flap, which was a risky thing to do, and to his surprise he saw a man who was very deformed. His name, he said, was Broken Back.
The boy was going to ask Broken Back's wife for some food and a hide to wrap himself in to get warm. Then he saw that there were children there, in the shadows, and they looked worse than he did. It was clear the whole family was hungry and the mother was making stone soup. The boy could not take food from the poor family and so he bent down, opened the door flap and began to walk away.
Broken Back hobbled out and called the boy back. "What do you want, boy?"
The boy began to cry and he told the man how cold he was and how sad it was that not one tipi invited him in to get warm and to give him some food.
Broken Back took the boy by the hand and led him back into the tipi. He told his wife and children they must share the stone soup. The woman ladled out a small portion of stone soup for each one of them and then the man built up the fire so it was roaring and very warm. They told him he must stay for the night until the storm was over.
The boy settled in and played stick games with the children and then listened to the old man's stories. Soon everyone was sleepy and the mother said it was time to lie down and sleep. She motioned to a pile of hides where the boy could sleep.
The boy stood up and when he did, he kept stretching up and became a man. His clothes changed and he had a beautiful blanket over his shoulders. And then light shone from around his head and he was wearing a beautiful headdress of feathers on it.
He reached his arms out as if to embrace the family and said, "Broken Back and family, you have been kind to a freezing, tried, hungry child, and you shall have plenty all your lives. I bless you!"
Suddenly Broken Back was no longer broken and he was healthy and standing tall, as well. The mother was dressed in beautiful white buckskin instead of her shabby hides. The children were happily tasting wonderful foods and there were lovely smells of cooking fowl and many delicious foods they had not seen for a long time. As well, there were great stores of drying, hanging food hangings from the braces of the tipi.
After the family had time to look around and take in all the beautiful new hides for bedding, and the glorious piles of foodstuff, the man said, "You, Broken Back, shall be the chief of your people and shall be called Holy Mountain."
Outside, the family could hear people gathering. They had heard and what was going on, had lifted the ten flap because there was bright light coming from within the tipi that no small central fire could have created. There they saw the amazing sights and heard Broken Back's new name.
The men grabber their drums and the people began to Round Dance around the family's tipi. The men started a new song, with new words, to go with the new drum song.
By the end of the song sung four times, as is always the case, the boy/man had disappeared.
The snow began to fall again and the night turned from clear and bright with stars, to one of blizzard. All were amazed at this mystery, but, the people slept no more that night. They all realized something magnificent had happened. It was the next day before the Priest came to tell them about Jesus for he had heard of the miracle and the new chief.
Still the people spoke of the Great new Chief, Holy Mountain, and you can still see him in the very South West edge of Alberta. The Mountain's name is Old Chief, a holy mountain, and still given honor bundles and young Kainai men still kneel before him during the Quests, women tie tobacco bundles and the Cree still tie prayer ribbons to the East of him where he can still see them.
This story, of course, is old, but only as old as contact. I grew up at the foot of this mountain. I was blessed to be raised around the Blackfeet and , eventually, went to live and work with the Cree. I know Old Chief Mountain right to the topmost top for I took my Peigan students to hike to the top in our own kind of Quest. We took offerings, saw the buffalo skull at the topmost. We saw the prayer bundles and ribbons. I have seen to the North as far as you can see from the point of his chin. I have seen to the East, to his knees, that are evident in Montana, and East as far as one can see. I have seen how he is nestled with his warriors, the Rocky Mountains to the West. We saw the Many Gray Horses, galloping across the sky above him. We were blessed. I am sure the ones who hike up the shale and struggled to get to the top, never look at Old Chief Mountain the same since then. I have not.
©Carol Desjarlais 12.23.19
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