Books: Aborigine

AMERICAN—Frank B. Linderman—John Day ($3.50).

Aleek-chea-ahoosh is Chief of the Absarokees (Crow Indians), has been Chief ever since Author Linderman knew him. Now 82, he is one of the few plains Indians who remembers the time before the white man overran the Northwest. Sitting outside his two-story chief’s house (the only two-story house among the Crows) on Pryor Creek, Mont., he told the story of his life to Author Linderman.

Aleek-chea-ahoosh’s training as a warrior began when he was a few years old, for the Crows were surrounded with enemies: Sioux, Arapahos, Blackfeet, Piegans, Cheyennes, Shoshones, Flatheads, Gros Ventres. As a small boy his elders taught him how to steal meat from his own village, that later he might steal enemy horses, “count coup.” “To count coup a warrior had to strike an armed and fighting enemy with his coupstick, quirt, or bow before otherwise harming him, or take his weapons while he was yet alive, or strike the first enemy falling in battle, no matter who killed him, or strike the enemy’s breastworks while under fire, or steal a horse tied to a lodge in an enemy’s camp, etc.” Aleek-chea-ahoosh, as any student of Crow would know by his name (Plenty-coups—Many Achievements) counted many a coup. He and his braves served with General Crook against the Sioux (1886); in the fight on the Rosebud, Aleek-chea-ahoosh had two horses shot under him. Farsighted, the Crows sided with the whites against the hostile Indians.

Plenty-coups stopped his story with the passing of the buffalo. Said he: “When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground, and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened.” But, says Author Linderman, when the U. S. declared war against Germany, Plenty-coups urged his young men to enlist. The Government recognized his patriotism, chose him to lay the Indian wreath on the Unknown Soldier’s grave at Arlington.

Author Linderman shows Plenty-coups as a kindly, dignified, brave and wise old man. Not all his story was simple; when Linderman had difficulty in following the complications of the ancient tobacco-seed ceremony, Plenty-coups repeated the explanation twice, then said: “Ho! There is Something here! Something that does not wish you to understand. Do not try, Sign-Talker. Let it alone.”

The Author. Frank Bird Linderman, 61, went to Montana in 1885 as trapper, hunter and cowboy. For over 40 years he has lived in a cabin on Flathead Lake, knows the Indians as well as a white man can. He has been made a member of the Chippewas, of the Crees.