Chief Walking Buffalo Quotes

Twice, Storm Crow sang his death song, loud and unabashed in the presence of his enemies.  Twice, the great Comanche warrior survived and walked over the corpses of the men who’d tried to kill him.  His name rang with power, spoken with pride in the buffalo-skin lodges of the People.  Stories of his raids lit flames in the eyes of young men in camps from the Llano Estacado to the banks of the Rio Grande.  Warriors from many bands answered his calls to the war trail.  Young men wanted to follow him, fight with him, be like him—the great war chief who painted himself in the colors of death and mourning, the warrior who dared follow the Owl and mark its sign on his shield. 

The Prophecy From the place where the sun rises, there will come to the People a great warrior who will stand tall above his brothers and see far into the great beyond with eyes like the midnight sky. This Comanche shall carry the sign of the wolf upon his shield, yet none shall call him chief. To his people shall come much sadness, and the rivers will run red with the blood of his nation. Mountains of white bones will mark where the mighty buffalo once grazed. In the sky, black smoke will carry away the death cries of helpless women and children. He will make big talk against the White-Eyes and fierce war, but the battles shall stretch before him with no horizon. When his hatred for the White-Eyes is hot like the summer sun and cold like the winter snow, there will come to him a gentle maiden from tosi tivo land. Though her voice will have been silenced by great sorrow, her eyes shall speak into his of a morning with new beginnings. She will be golden like the new day, with skin as white as the night moon, hair like rippling honey, and eyes like the summer sky. The People will call her the Little Wise One. The Comanche will raise his blade to slay her, but honor will stay his hand. She will divide his Comanche heart, so his hate that burns hot like the sun will make war with his hate that is cold like the winter snow, and the hate shall melt and flow out of him to some faraway place he cannot find. Just as the dawn streaks the night sky, he will chase the shadows form her heart and return her voice to her. When this is done, the warrior and his maiden shall walk together to a high place on the night of the Comanche moon. He will stand on the land of the Comanche, she on the land of the tosi tivo. Between them will be a great canyon that runs high with blood. The warrior will reach across the canyon to his maiden, and she will take his hand. Together they will travel a great distance into the west lands, where they will give birth to a new tomorrow and a new nation where the Comanche and the tosi tivo will live as one forever.

Those in the tribe who now lived by the Soyapo ways spoke out against this, saying that Nez Perce who were afraid of the new law were like boys who were afraid to become men. They reminded them of the many gifts they had received from other strangers, like the horse, the ways of the buffalo, and the guns and tools and cooking pots. The new ways of the Spaldings were no different. And by doing violence to the Reverend and his family, they were betraying the promise of friendship their ancestors had made to Lewis and Clark. But the angry ones refused to listen. These men are not like Lewis and Clark, they responded. Lewis and Clark brought gifts, not laws. Lewis and Clark did not make the Nez Perce wear different clothes. Lewis and Clark did not make them cut their mother’s flesh to place seeds in the earth so lazy men could get food without going on the hunt. Lewis and Clark did not ask them to become a nation of old women who sat watching plants grow and slow cows walk while Soyapo told them where to live and how to dress and what to eat and how to worship the Creator. In exchange for a life of ease, they said, the Soyapo had given them a life of fear.