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05 Wolakota Project Video Transcripts and URLs.docx · WP-0045. Imported source record; individual Elder status and tribal affiliation are not inferred.
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Interview transcript
Tribe, they were camped by a, it was a canyon, and you look way down and there's a river. And so they were camped there for quite a while, and so one day they decided they wanted to move, so then the men wanted to go scout and look for, so a lot of the men left and they went looking for a new place to live. And they were gone for a couple of days, and this young man was about 15, and he wanted to go hunt. Kind of bored, you know, being around a camp. But there was just him and his mother, and his dad had got killed somewhere down the road, anyway. In some battle, he got killed. So he was taking care of his mother, and he'd go out and hunt, you know, cottontails or squirrels or whatever. He'd go out and hunt. So this one day he was out there and he heard this eagle. He heard this eagle and she was making a sound. So then he hid in here. She came down like that, and she went over the cliff. So he looked down and here there was, right below him, there was a cliff. And he could see that. She must have had a nest because there's a bunch of branches. So he thought, well, I'm going to wait. I'm going to go down there. She had something in her talons, so he knew that she must have had some chicks down there, you know. So he waited until she left. So when she left, he took his rope. There was a tree that was just near, and then the branches were over. So he thought, I'll tie it onto that branch and then I'll go down there and I'll get them eagles. And that they would think a lot of him more if he could get those little eagles. And so he went down. He tied his rawhide rope up there. And he went down there, and sure enough, there were two eagles in that nest. And they ate up whatever she brought. They ate it. So he tied them on his sides like that. He started going up here. He got about halfway up here, that came down there. He hollered around for a while. He didn't know when the mother would be back. Nobody heard him. So whenever she came back, he hid. And it was big enough that, you know, there were things. And then you could tell where she brought like sheep back and stuff to his bones. And so the next day she brought something back. So he went and after she left, he went and he cut it up and he took some of it and he dried it, you know. And they didn't eat everything up. So then he took it and he put it somewhere where he could dry it. And then every day he'd holler, but nobody came. Nobody came. And the eagle, the mother kept coming like that. And the eagles started getting their feathers. They're getting bigger. So he'd share, you know, his, whatever she brought. She'd bring, sometimes she'd bring a whole sheep back. So, and bigger animals, you know. So she had to be a big bird. And so he went, he continued kind of saving, you know, and then eating with the birds. They got used to him, you know. So they were getting really big here. She didn't show up one day. And so, she didn't come back, didn't come back. The birds were hungry, so he'd take what he saved and split it with them, you know. Then pretty soon he stopped eating because he knew they needed more. So whatever he saved up like that, they'd get to eat. And then every day he started going, he started getting a plan, you know. He'd grab them, the eagles, by the legs and he'd go like this until they got, they'd flap their wings, you know, and teach them how to fly. Then he'd put them back in the nest and he'd go again. And here one day when he's doing that, they lifted him off the ground. Oh, you know, there is his hope. You know, we're going to get out of here. So he kept doing that and he was getting to the end of his rope because he started feeding him his rawhide rope. Start giving that to them because there's no more food. And he kept getting at the end of his rope, but he saved enough to tie around his wrist and he was so weak, he got so skinny. And he lost weight and they were getting bigger. And, one day he went like that and they started flapping and they got higher and higher and higher. So he closed his eyes and he, you know, just let them go. And they just kept flapping their wings. Pretty soon his feet touched down. While he was going up, he thought he was falling because of the updraft. So he thought he was falling. Pretty soon his feet touched the ground. So he opened his eyes and he looked around. That tree was behind him. He made it up. They made it up. So, he took these eagles and he carried them. We're going to take them home and celebrate, you know. And here they were gone. They moved. But it hadn't been long enough for that trail to grow over, you know. So he followed that trail and pretty soon in the distance he could see smoke coming up. He thought, oh, they're going to be so glad to see me. We're going to celebrate. So they went, he made it home. Here they were scared of him because he was just skin and bones, you know, just. And, from that time he started, he taught these eagles how to hunt. Go out and hunt, you know, and get something, you know. So all that time, until it took him to get, the days it took him to make it home, he taught these eagles how to hunt it. And they made it back here. He told them who he was. They didn't believe him. And they took him to his mother and she recognized him. She was so happy. And then they went and had a big old party for him, a celebration. And then he took them eagles and they painted them red and then let them go, released them, because he saved them. And they never did find a red eagle feather anyplace. They always looked, thinking maybe, you know, if they shed their feathers. So what I'm thinking is they might've flown to a different place, but they rescued him. And, you know, the story is always how the natives could interact with the animals. And just like the story of our mice being.