The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004 Page: 63
660 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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"Every Day Seemed to be a Holiday
getting me loose from the saddle, and I wanted to go to the fire, but
they held me and rubbed my feet and hands until they began to burn,
before they would let me go to the fire. I thought then that they were
being mean to me, not letting me go to the fire, but of course they were
doing the proper thing.
If you ask a Comanche where he lives, he never says a word, but looks
in the direction he lives and sticks out his mouth as if he was going to
whistle. They do lots of their talking by signs and motions. One day I
discovered that one of my teeth was loose, I tried several times to pull it,
but try as I would I could not get that tooth out, so I told my Squaw
Mother about it, and she tried several times before she finally succeed-
ed in getting it out, by just using her fingers. She told me to put it
where I could find it next morning, and for me to take it and go
straight East until just before the sun came up, I should turn my back to
the East, stoop over until I could see between my legs, and just as I first
saw the sun come in sight to throw my tooth directly towards the sun,
throwing it as far as I could, at the same time make a wish and that it
would come true. I did as she told me and when I came back she want-
ed to know what I wished, I did not want to tell her but as she insisted I
told her, I wished my Father would come and get me, she said I should
not have wished that, she said she wanted me to stay with her. That was
one wish that came true. They were not at all sanitary and plenty of
times they cooked meat and ate it, and to me it did not seem clean
enough for a dog to eat, but they seemed to thrive and fatten on all
they ate. I never saw but one sick Indian and that was an old Squaw, she
was so thin and poor I thought it was because they did not give her
enough to eat, but now I feel sure that she had T. B.
Some days they would put her out in the sun on a blanket or buffalo
robe, and I would go and sit by her and talk to her for hours at a time as
I felt so sorry for the poor old creature. The majority of the Indians that
I knew were of a jovial, happy disposition, always friendly and playing
some kind of joke on the other fellow. I think they must have had excep-
tionally good children for in all the time I was with them I do not
remember of seeing them correct or punish one.
One might imagine that the Indians were ignorant, but they were well
educated in legends handed down from generation to generation, as
that was the only way they had of knowing of what happened in the past.
All their history was handed down from one generation to the next.
The Indians had their regular time for worshipping their heavenly
Father, or as they would say our sure enough Father or in their language
"Tobicca," some of them worshipped the moon, while others worshipped
by singing and dancing. One day when coming from getting a jug of water2003
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 107, July 2003 - April, 2004, periodical, 2004; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101224/m1/81/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.