Comanche Woman

A fictional narrative of historical events that occured in the nineteenth century United States of America during the subjucation of the native population.

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After three years absent, I have returned to the Oklahoma Indian Reservation to be with my people, to die with them, as I have lived, loved and suffered with them. It is the winter of 1882.

To my surprise and deep disappointment, there is some excitement going around our camp about the white man's custom they call Christmas. I tried living with my white relatives, the people of my birth, but I remember not their customs nor their ways. I have relearned to read and write in a simple way, and carry a conversation, but it labors me and saps my strength. It casts me into chaos and doubt, and I find myself an alien in both worlds.

A small knocking on my door awakens me. Daylight here is short and cold and bites with hunger. Nights are long and black and laced with twisted dreams. Through the tiny frosted window in the dim gray light of dawn, I can vaguely make out the thermometer in the village square. It reads 17 below, but I already know how cold it is. This small cabin thrown together from mud, rocks and timber is narrow like a cave. Wind cries through the cracks. White man's tools and implements stare back at me: A cast iron stove, cold and useless; no wood to burn. A few metal pots and pans, but no food to cook. The timbers above and beside, like ribs of a cage encase me. By my cot on a wooden crate is a white man's picture image of my grand daughter in her best, most beautiful Indian outfit, but she is gone to the spirit world with her father, my only son. My heart yearns to be with them. We are a defeated people but I'm not quite dead yet. My hope now only: To hold up my head and look the enemy in the eye, that they should remember forever, in their books and revelations, that I am Comanche.

With 60 years on Mother Earth my face is mapped with wrinkles. Cataracts cloud and dim my eyes, My hair, once the color of the sun, now thin and white like dirty snow; and teeth; broken, rotted, wore down. Yet, what people see when they first look at me is my nose, or that is, the lack of it. Where my nose should be... two small holes. When you meet my gaze you will quickly look away and whisper to your friend: “How remarkable! What's her name?”....Oh, yes! I've heard of her, down in Texas they say...”

Allow me then, to tell my story. Go deep into the wrinkles, through the years, through the joy and tears to where it all began.

My birth name was Barbara Rose Baker. I was born the youngest child to Rose Marie and Robert Joseph Baker. I had two brothers, Benjamin and Francis, and a sister, Rebecca. They called me Babsy. We lived then in the region called 'Upper Ohio River Valley'. My family had an adventurous spirit and felt the call of the West. Seven families and friends, fifty six human souls in all, first of the white migration to venture deep into the wilderness. We went forth undaunted with our wagons, horses and cattle...and our superior Christian ways.

It was on the day of my seventh birthday, in the year of 1829, we arrived at our destination to make our first camp on the banks of the Brazos river in Texas. At that time Texas was Mexican Territory. However, Mexico welcomed white settlers, part of their strategy to uproot and diminish the Native Indians.

Beyond the Brazos, westward, lay the vast grasslands of the plains. We knew there were Indians out there. Savages we called them. How many and how savage, we had no idea. My father, a baptist minister and an arrogant optimist wasn't in the least worried: “We came to tame this land, the savages, we shall baptize them and teach them our civilized Christian ways, but first we must build a fortress. Even as God is on our side, it is only prudent that we protect ourselves.”

Three years passed, dreamlike and peaceful. All worked hard with willing hands. We prayed together and gave thanks to the Lord. The cedar post walls of our fortress rose up to the sky, 18 feet high with a catwalk balcony all around the inside perimeter.

It was at the break of dawn they came on a summer morning. The two massive timber-frame gates were swung open for the workers to go to the bountiful fields with teams of mules and horses. My father, as was his custom, stayed behind to secure the gates closed. Out of nowhere they appeared, as if in a mirage, the rising sun behind them. One hundred, maybe two hundred savages painted red and black on white, sat motionless on their painted ponies. Black lances, ominous against the blue sky. He recognized their colors: Comanches, he had seen them before trading horses, pelts, buffalo robes. And he saw these ones and their ponies were dripping wet.

He knew then, they had been hiding in the river. My father, unarmed, raised his hands in peace. Their leader, he wore a wolf's head atop his own, lunged his horse, drove his lance through my father, rode over him. The painted ones poured through the open gates in a river of screaming savages. They took their time: They tortured, mutilated, butchered, burned, raped and murdered.

The Comanches went then to the fields to finish the others. My two brothers were tied to a tree, scalped and left to die, bleeding their young lives into the dry Texas dirt. There were five girls left standing: myself and my sister Rebecca and three others that were my cousins. Our lives spared, to be tied and bound to the backs of the captured horses.

Day into night, into day and night again, we traveled, relentless, in the hot summer wind. On the fourth day Wolf-head tied me to his pony in front of him. My parents, my family, my friends...their scalps hanging there in trophy. Yes! I was terrified. I knew I was on a journey of life or death, but I knew, somehow, that I would live.

We crossed a river where it was wide and shallow. Trees and shrubs faded behind us to give way to tall rough prairie grass. Finally, we reached the camp of our captors in a secluded valley amid rolling hills. On the banks of a river, hundreds of tipis dotted the landscape. Children and dogs ran to greet us with great excitement.

That night after our arrival, Rebecca got a rope around her neck and strangled herself. Wolfhead was very angry. He scalped her and fed her body to the dogs. A few days later a small band of Mexicans came with horses to trade. They left with my three cousins. I never saw them again.

Alone with the Comanches, I was given over to a wife of Wolf-head, to be her servant, her slave. To be whatever she could make me. Wolf-head was a war chief with many wives. This one, her name was Lame Crow. The first thing she did was strip me of my clothes and burn them.

Next, she went to work on my golden hair. She hacked it off with a dull knife and when it didn't hack, she pulled. Later, she forced me to weave it into her own greasy mop. At that time I was holding my nose trying not to smell her. She laughed hysterically as she took the knife and cut off my nose. She pranced about like a pony, my hair bobbing up and down behind her. Some young ones came and joined her, dragging me around with my blood pouring out. They danced and stomped and chanted in their foreign tongue. In that circle of frenzy, something happened inside me. A calmness came and I became detached from them, and from my own body. I was floating above looking down at my own self looking up. I saw myself full grown. I was riding with the wind on a gray spotted pony. My golden hair streamed out behind me like the fire of the sun. Around me, the buffalo; together, we were racing over the prairie. We came to the edge of a cliff. Space and time stood still, until I fell into the abyss, back into myself. A little girl cowering naked, drenched in my own blood, my enemies all around me.

Lying helpless on the ground, insects crawling, mosquitoes and flies feeding on my blood, I envied my sister for being dead. But then someone was holding me, wrapped me in a blanket. I was much overjoyed as was I thinking Rebecca had come back for me. I was being carried by strong arms and laid down gentle inside a tipi, a soothing voice in my ears. There, I first saw her face. It was not my sister. It was Night Eyes...an old woman...my salvation.

Sleep came then, long and deep, the first since my capture. I dreamed I was back in Ohio with my family. We were in the buggy riding to church. The Preacher appeared and preached of the end of the world. My father stood up and told him to go to hell. The preacher replied “We are in hell.” The Indians appeared with Wolf-head leading them down from heaven. He spoke to us and he was then a real wolf, he said “Follow me and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Night Eyes sheltered me for seven days. It was a time of passage, from the old world into the new. She mashed up leaves and roots to make medicine for my nose and my scalp where the hair was ripped out. She fed me strips of roasted meat, and mares milk to drink. Now and then Lame Crow would show her face and try to drag me out but Night Eyes drove her away with curses and a big stick.

Night Eyes became my new mother. She taught me with patience and love, how to speak in her tongue. Bye and bye I ventured out and mingled with the others. In time, they accepted me, and I them. My past before my capture became a dreamworld, fading from my memory.

Sometimes I felt I was living in a new dream, until I would see my reflection in a pool of water...not a dream, but a nightmare.

The one who took my nose taught me, not to help me or better me, but that I may better help her with her daily back-breaking chores: To clean the fat from the hides of the buffalo, the horse, the wolf and the deer. To wash them in the river. To stake them and stretch them in the sun to dry.

To sew garments, tipis, moccasins with needles made of bone. Dig edible roots. Start fire with stick or stone. Dry meat by fire and sun and wind. Braid rope from the grasses and the dried inner bark of the basswood tree. I watched in silence and learned to build traps for small game.

To tell the passage of time by the seasons and the journey of the sun, moon and stars. To understand their spirit world entwined with animals and non living things and how their ancestors are living in these animals, the rocks, the rivers, the trees and the sky.

The seasons passed and I grew stronger. I moved with the Comanche as they hunted and foraged. We followed the buffalo, sometimes far, sometimes not so far. We camped by the river, the flow of life, yet the Comanche never ate the fish or water fowl.

They know themselves as 'Nermernuu':The people who out ride the wind to fight all the time to the end. I became one with them, to see, to think, to feel, to breathe their way to live and die.

Around my waist I tied a short hemp rope, to mark the passage of the seasons. With the coming of the first snow of each winter season I made a single knot. In the summer of the sixth knot, I was with Lame Crow as we washed deer hides in the clear spring water that flowed to the river just beyond. It was around midday, hot and humid. I stood up to stretch my back and wipe the sweat from my brow. Before us, coming up through a draw, five riders slow and cumbersome. Shod hooves shattering the silent stream. Behind them, three pack mules loaded heavy with goods. White men had come to trade. Instantly, terror gripped my heart. I turned away to hide myself. Years later, I would learn that one of those white traders was my uncle who had survived the massacre at the Baker fort. He was searching for his captured nieces.

Three days passed with much singing and dancing. Many of the men were drunk and some women too. On the third night following the visit by the white traders a quietness came over the camp, then suddenly moaning and heaving and a great stench surrounded us. Indians of all ages stumbled from their tipis to crawl on the ground, defecating and vomiting, begging for water.

Five days more and all were dead but a handful. The white men brought more than knives, guns and whiskey. They brought their murdering magic: Cholera.

Wolf-head was dead, and so too, Lame Crow. My loving foster mother, Night Eyes, I held her close to me and wept as she died in my arms. The survivors slouched away, leaving their dead where they lay. I was forbidden to follow. They resented me and suspected white man's magic was at work.

Buzzards appeared, then ravens and wolves to feed on the dead. Quickly, I buried those I could by covering them with rocks. The Comanches believe that a body mutilated will not rest easy in the after-world. Wolf-head and Night Eyes, I placed together under a pecan tree. Lame Crow also, even after what she did to me, it wasn't right to leave her for the scavengers. 

The wolves satiated, lay about and watched my movements. I was sick and weak with hunger, I too had the white man's magic inside me but I fought it off. I crawled to the spring and drank. As I lay down on the ground the wolf pack leader, a female, came and sniffed me. I looked into her gray eyes to tell her I am not afraid, before I fell into a deep sleep. When I awoke the wolves were gone. Under some rocks and wrapped in reeds I found the dried buffalo strips I had hidden away from Lame Crow. I heated them on hot coals to eat ravenous, like a starving dog.

Alone in the camp of death, I must decide: go east and back to the whites, or go join the Kiowa band. They lived and hunted to the north. I had once exchanged words with them. They were friendly and not affronted by me for being white. There was one, a short stocky brave. He had eyes of kindness and spoke soft words. He told me I could live with them if ever I should choose. “Follow the antelope trail north, four days ride and you will find us, or we will find you.”

Deciding then, with my nose gone, no white man will ever want me, except perhaps to be his slave, and I already had my fill of that. First I had to find a pony. I had learned to ride as a child in the dreamworld, but that was with bridle and saddle. With the Indians I rode bareback on a soft blanket of tanned deer hide. The ponies left behind were scattered loosely about. I cornered one and got close enough to lasso. It was a female and she had a slight limp. With my knife I removed a small arrowhead embedded in her left forearm. I cleaned it, dressed it with oil of cedar bark and pecan leaves tied off with buffalo hide. She would need a few days to heal.

While I waited I scoured the deserted camp. Lame Crow had some fine garments, some of which I had fashioned myself: Deerskin dress, ankle length, embroidered with tiny seeds dyed red, yellow and green. I took it, but I didn't wear it, yet. Wolf-head had a son about my size. He survived the murdering magic but he left everything of his possessions. I took his deerskin boots and pants and also a pullover top shirt with colored beads of bone and porcupine quill. I will wear these, to fit easy with the riding of a horse, realizing they are not a female costume, but now I answer to no one; I wear what pleases me. I found a steel knife with elk-horn handle, and a small axe. The wooden handle had writing on it. It took me a minute to recognize, but then the letters jumped out: BAKER...It was my father's axe. His face floated before me, as in a river drowning...and then was gone. In Wolf-head’s tipi I retrieved his bow with a quiver of arrows. I was never allowed to shoot but I watched them practice. For three days I practiced until my pulling fingers were calloused over. I wasn't great, but I felt good enough at close range. I would need this skill to hunt small game.

I checked my pony. She was ready. I filled a water-bag from the spring. A satchel full of dried buffalo strips. A rawhide bag of dried pecan nuts. My hair and skin, I darkened with charcoal and tallow, to conceal my true self.

Across the river in the rolling hills the she-wolf howled. I heard her voice to be a sign from the dead Comanches...Go this way. Mounting my gray spotted pony, I wheeled her round. With gentle touch of hand and heel, I did feel the world turning beneath me. I did feel the Great Spirit embrace me in the rising summer sun. With my face to the warm wind I began my journey.

 Leaving the camp of the Comanches, my people now and forever, their tipis flapping empty in the wind, ghosting in agony with mortal defeat, my heart beating to the dance of death, but also to the dance of life, I knew then, as a certainty, who I am: I am Babsy, Comanche Woman....Comanche Mother...I was not completely alone. I carried within me the Wolf-head child. We rode to meet our destiny.

We followed the river north, along the path worn down by the antelope for thousands of years on their annual migration. Surviving by hunting and scavenging, I never did meet up with the Kiowa, but eventually I encountered some stragglers of my own Comanche band, and reluctantly, they accepted me. I moved with them until my baby came, a boy with golden hair.

Others joined us until we were a band again, a formidable fighting force, roaming wild and free like the angry prairie wind.

I rode with my people on raids, when the moon was full and the night hawk cried. The wind on my face black with war paint, my yellow hair streaming out behind me like a white man's banner. It was a banner...but not for the whites.

 It was the custom for the women to stay in the rear, to watch guard, to care for the children and the horses, to cook and toil at woman's work. That was no longer for me. I had become deadly with the knife and the bow and arrow, and the tomahawk. I was a warrior. I rode up front with the men. I butchered, burned, tortured, murdered. I became more Comanche than the Comanche themselves.

There was a chief amongst us whose name was Spotted Leopard. He was by custom allowed to have two wives. When one was killed by the Blue-coats, he made me his second wife. Him saying to me, “The white man kill my wife, you white woman make replace.” He found it fitting that I replace her, I found it fitting that I was wanted by a man. He treated me well enough until one day he became displeased with something I did, so he slapped me. I slapped him back. He tried to hit me once again but I put my knife through his heart. His other wife was very upset, until I presented her with ten fine horses and all was well again. 

My son with golden hair grew up fast and became a warrior. On his warrior day he was named Yellow Otter, after he swam the red river to raid a Blue-coat soldier camp and swam back with three scalps and five horses.

Those times were the best of times, those few short years lived with freedom beyond words. I could cook my own food, make my own clothes. I could ride and raid and take what I wanted. I was without a permanent mate since Spotted Leopard's unfortunate demise, but I would take a mate when I felt that call of nature.

And as quickly, the time of freedom slipped away like a season into sorrow. The white settlers became more numerous than the stars in the sky with their towns and garrisons dotting the prairie landscape. The soldiers and the Texas Rangers pursued us, relentless. Trapped in a canyon, those who tried to break through were shot, their bodies stacked and burned with the dead horses. It was there Yellow Otter and his wife made their last stand. Their daughter, Crying Dove, was now in my care.

The Blue-coats herded us north, like their cattle, until we reached the Oklahoma territory. Many died along the way and many more lost the will to live, and died upon arrival. My granddaughter, Crying Dove, she was one of them.

The whites soon discovered me, even as I tried to hide myself. Traced me back to my roots, the Baker Fort. Ripped away once more from my people, they took me on a many days journey to put me with strangers, whites, my relatives. I lost my will to live. For weeks, maybe months I was bedridden, barely alive as they tried to shove some disgusting mush down my throat. Slowly, I regained and walked again, but in a trance. My soul wished to die but my body choose to live. 

My memory began then, to come back in little bits and pieces of that time before the Comanche raid on Baker fort. My tongue loosened and some words formed that they could comprehend.

They were not a bad people, but they were not my people. And I told them so, as much I could speak their tongue. I could see they were deeply disappointed in me and would never understand what I had become. They looked down on me with pity and revulsion, as if I were some curse brought upon them. They tried their laying on of hands, by the preacher, to remove the devil inside me. That did not accomplish anything. They tried then, to whip me, like I was a negro slave. Their whipping was nothing to me, except to sap my strength. Reluctantly, they loosed their grip and let me go. A first cousin rode with me back to Oklahoma as the first flurries of snow melted into the earth. He gave me five dollars and told me to have a nice life.

The frozen snow is treacherous outside in the walkways. A young girl has come to walk me to the dining hall. Inside, warm. A wood stove in the center radiating heat and comfort, and Indians of all ages gathered around. An old Indian is talking in the Comanche tongue. It is a soothing, gentle sound, like a soft warm breeze by the river beneath a shade tree. He is arranging a protest march to the Reservation Headquarters for the stronger ones to act out their unhappiness about the rations. He tells them we want more beef, flour, corn, more blankets. Fabric for the women to make clothes. Wood for our stoves...and jobs, work for our young men. And then the murmuring voices go quiet as they listen for his final words:

“My people, my time has passed to out-ride the wind, but I am hopeful for you, my children, my grandchildren, you will out-ride the wind, you will fight all the time to the very end.” And never once, he mentioned Christmas. I knew then, I was back where I belong, with my own people, Comanche.

By John O'Donovan

From: United States