Big medicine
Don Coldsmith
Monday, January 22, 2007
LAST WEEK, I wrote about the importance of names. That dealt mostly with European names, as the United States were settled. I began to realize that names are interesting in nearly any culture and often very revealing. Among American Indians, in their hundreds of different cultures, this is especially true.
About 40 years ago, when I was practicing medicine, a very special young couple selected me to supervise the maternity care and delivery of their first child. Both were American Indians, raised in Kiowa tradition. Both were well educated. He was a college professor and the wife was in the process of becoming a nurse. This was before I was writing seriously, but I had some interest in American Indian cultures from youthful reading. I learned a lot in the next few years, which has certainly helped my understanding. I delivered three baby boys of theirs through the years and we became fast friends.
At that time, we had no way to tell whether the expected infant was a boy or girl, but the mother was hoping for a boy. If a boy, the grandfather would name the baby, in keeping with Kiowa tradition. The child would probably be given the grandfather’s name, they said, but no one would know for sure until the event occurred. I was curious. What was grandfather’s name? There was a moment of embarrassment — Well, it does translate rather strangely, — “Bloody Bullets.” There must be a story here!
Still a bit embarrassed, she related the event. Grandpa and some other young men were stealing a few horses out in the “panhandle,” and got into a shooting match with a couple of cowboys. The Kiowas got away and they stretched their wounded comrade out on a blanket to cut the bullets out of his leg. Having been wounded in battle, he was now a warrior. They rolled the bullets out onto the blanket. Now he was a man. He could choose his name as an adult. His choice: “Bloody Bullets.”
Now here, to me, is an historic event. I was to deliver a child which, if a boy, would be named for a warrior, “Bloody Bullets,” who earned the name in a shoot-out over horse stealing from whites. This certainly squeezes history to a generation or two. And, this child would be the son of a Ph.D college professor!
The baby was a boy and the ceremony did take place and the proud parents told me about it. Though tradition suggested the name “Bloody Bullets,” Grandpa apparently decided that this would not be quite appropriate. He proclaimed the child’s name to be “Red Bird.”
A few years later, we met “Bloody Bullets.” We were in Anadarko, Okla., a Kiowa town, in the company of the couple who had been so helpful in educating us to Indian ways. I don’t know how much English the old man might have known, but he smiled and nodded as we shook hands. He was dressed like most people on the street, in blue jeans and a flannel farmers’ shirt. There was nothing to reveal his historic background as “Bloody Bullets.”
The occasion for our presence there was a traditional Warriors Day celebration, their warriors in showy costumes. There were a few Apaches and warriors from other tribes, and for one dance number, these were invited to join in a simple circle dance, with the Kiowas in costume. The announcer kept calling for any other visiting warriors to join. Our friend informed me that I was being invited — I had served in the Army and qualified as a warrior.”
“Will they be offended if I don’t?,” I asked.
“No, but it’s big medicine if you do.”
I went down to the arena and proudly joined in the dance. Nothing was said, but I was told later that it was indeed “big medicine.”
I have to believe it. This, you recall, was before I started to write. I had no idea that I would eventually be writing as a full time job. Even when I did begin to write for the horse magazines, I didn’t dream that I would write dozens of historical novels, mostly from the American Indian point of view.
I have to admit that the participation in the Kiowa Warriors’ Dance so long ago must have been big medicine.
See you down the road.
Author and columnist Don Coldsmith lives in Emporia.