The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons in Living

Story Summary: “The Story of the Deer Woman”

The author says he has never seen the Deer Woman, but his grandmother knew a man who did. According to this story, this man ignores his wife because he is always looking for the Deer Woman. This man, whom the author calls “Koskalaka,” Lakota for “young man” (38), lives with his grandmother after his grandfather died. He helps his grandmother with chores, and she tells him stories. One story relates to the Deer Woman. She tells him that this creature can harm his spirit and that her husband had seen the Deer Woman a long time ago. She warns that men who hunt alone are prey to this beautiful woman. The Deer Woman beckons men into her lodge and lies with them as if she is their wife, but then she steals their spirit and disappears. Try as they might, they can never find her again.

The young man grows up to be a successful hunter. After his grandmother dies, he goes hunting with three other hunters. Returning home, he sees a beautiful woman with a soothing voice who invites him into her lodge. She is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, and she has a fire burning in her lodge. Realizing that she is the Deer Woman, he starts to go with her, but he then remembers his grandmother’s advice and starts to turn away. However, then a huge wind developed, and a blacktail deer with a dark stripe across its face—unlike any deer he has ever seen—appears in the Deer Woman’s place. He shoots an arrow towards the deer. He never sees the deer, or the Deer Woman, again. He goes on to get married and have children, and he is a skilled hunter and serves on the council of old men. He is saved because he respects his grandmother and listens to her sage advice.

Story Summary: “Remembering Respect”

The author writes that Luther Standing Bear, one of the Lakota and one of the first Native American writers to be published, spoke about the balanced interaction between different living things. He believed that people had lost this respect, and that they also had lost respect for themselves. The author writes that history is replete with examples of this cruelty, from the Spanish Inquisition to the My Lai Massacre.

Marshall says that in the old days, people lived in tipis that were approximately 16 to 18 feet across. Although three generations often lived in these small spaces, they avoided disputes because they respected each other. They were careful to respect each other’s space, and they sometimes appeared even to be ignoring each other to afford others this space.

He writes that two events showed that the enemies can respect each other. One was a meeting of different Indian tribes at Fort Laramie in Wyoming in 1851, called by US peace commissioners to help settlers traverse the Oregon Trail peacefully. Many Plains tribes showed up. At that time, the Lakota had bad blood with the Crow and the Shoshoni, but during the 40 days of the treaty gathering, there were no conflicts. The whites who had assembled the treaty conference assumed that it was because they had admonished the tribes and told them to remain without conflict, and they also inserted into the Fort Laramie Treaty that there was to be no intertribal conflicts. However, these conflicts began again after the conference. The tribes had enough respect for each other during the gathering not to create conflicts, however.

Later, in contravention of another treaty signed at Fort Laramie, whites built another trail called the Bozeman Trail. This trail resulted in conflicts referred to as Red Cloud’s War, after the Lakota leader. The whites had gone against their word in constructing a trail in Powder River country. In the so-called Fetterman Massacre, troops under Crazy Horse ambushed and killed 80 US Army troops. The Lakota refer to this battle as the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand, and the author writes that it was not a massacre but a hard-fought battle. The Lakota saw a US Army soldier fighting with only a bugle in his hand. In awe of his bravery, they did not scalp him after his death and covered his body with a buffalo robe as a sign of respect.

The author relates the story of a Crow warrior who steals into the Lakota camp to steal a horse. He is seen by two sentinels who plan to shoot him with an arrow as he leaves. On his way out of the camp with the horse, the Crow warrior helps an older woman to carry firewood, as he has respect for his own grandmother. Instead of killing him, the Lakota take back the horse and let the respectful Crow warrior return to his own village.

The Plains Indians so greatly respected the “tatanka” (13), or buffalo, that they gave thanks before and after killing the bison. They also used every part of its body, including its hide, sinews, and hoofs, as a measure of respect for the animal. The author writes that respect for life is rare today. For example, in 1998, 31 horses were discovered shot in Largomarsino Canyon near Reno, Nevada. They were killed in a way that was intended to cause them maximal suffering.

Marshall writes about a friend of his named John “Jay” Massey who was an expert bowhunter. Hunting in Alaska, he and two other hunters came upon a Dall sheep who had never seen humans before and who left from rock to rock with no place to escape. Massey decided not to kill the sheep because he thought it would be murder instead of true hunting, and he had respect for other living creatures.

The author recalls a black beetle, whom he has named Bailey, that he and his family tolerate living in their house and that his children tolerate because they have learned to do so from the adults. He also recalls catching a bat in his house and letting it escape out of respect for another living thing. He believes that people have been influenced by the ranching community to treat wild horses with disrespect, as horses are in competition with livestock. He also thinks that the killing of wild horses is a sign of the widespread disrespect people now have for other living things.

Marshall learned about respect from his grandparents, who told him the story of the Deer Woman. Although he never met the actual Deer Woman, he writes that he has come across her figuratively a few times. He recalls a time when his grandparents, cleaning out a church, found a beehive. His grandmother was able to usher the bees out without hurting any of them, though the priest said that they should have used insecticide.

The author writes that “of all the virtues respect is arguably the one that consistently creates itself in its own image” (55). He writes about how his grandmother had a stroke when she was young. A medicine man visited her and told her that she would recover, and he said that the Great Mystery would send her a reminder to live a good life. A screech owl showed up at his grandmother’s door, so she told the author to treat screech owls with kindness. He always did so out of respect for his grandmother.