I was six years old when Mr. Hall, a missionary, came to us, from the Santee Sioux. He could not speak the Mandan or the Hidatsa language, but he spoke Sioux, which some of our people understood. He was a good singer; and he had a song which he sang with Sioux words. Our people would crowd about him to hear it, for it was the first Christian song they had ever heard.

The song began:

The words are a translation of an English hymn:

It is a custom of my people to give a name to every stranger who comes among us, either from some singularity in his dress or appearance, or from something that he says or does. Our people caught the first two words of the missionary’s song and named him after them, Ho Washte. He is still called by this name.

Mr. Hall had brought his wife with him, and they began building a house with timbers freighted up the river on a steamboat. Our chief, Crow’s Belly, threatened to burn the house, but the missionary made him a feast and explained that he wanted to use the house for a school, where Indian children could learn English. Crow’s Belly thought this a good plan, and made no further trouble.

The school was opened the next winter. It was soon noised in the village that English would be taught in the mission school, and several young men started to attend, my uncle, Wolf Chief, among them. They went each morning with hair newly braided, faces painted, and big brass rings on their fingers. Most of them found school work rather hard, and soon tired of it.

The next fall, my parents started me to school, for my father wanted me to learn English. The mission house was a half mile from our village; I went each morning with a little Mandan companion, named Hollis Montclair. We wore Indian dress, leggings, moccasins, and leather shirt.

At noon Hollis and I would return to the village for our noon meal; and sometimes we would go to school again in the afternoon. We went pretty faithfully all the fall, and until Christmas time, when our teacher told us we were to have a Christmas tree.

Hollis and I had never seen a Christmas tree; and when Christmas day came, we could hardly wait until the time came for us to go to the school house. It was a cheerful scene then, that met our eyes. The tree was a cedar cut on the Missouri bottoms, lighted, and trimmed with strips of bright colored paper. Mr. Hall and his family sat at the front, smiling. My teacher moved about among the children, greeting each as he arrived, and speaking a kind word to those that were shy. About fifteen school children of the age of Hollis and myself were present.

We had music and singing, and Mr. Hall explained what Christmas means, that it is the birthday of Jesus, the Son of God; and that we should be happy because He loved us. Presents were then given us; each child was called by name, and handed a little gift taken from the tree.

And now I grieve to say, that Hollis and I acted as badly as two white children. There was a magnet hanging on the tree, a piece of steel shaped like a horse shoe, that picked up bits of iron. Hollis and I thought it the most wonderful thing we had ever seen. We each hoped to receive it; but it was given to another child. This vexed us; and we left upon the floor the gifts we had received, and stalked out of the room. The last thing I saw as I went out of the door was my teacher with her handkerchief to her eyes. I did not feel happy when I thought of this; but I was an Indian boy, and I was not going to forgive her for not giving me the magnet!

I told the story of the magnet to my parents; and finding I was unwilling to go back to the mission, they sent me to the government school that our agent had just opened; but I did not go there long. I was taken sick, and my former teacher came to see me in our earth lodge. She was so kind and forgiving that I forgot all about the magnet, and when I got well I went back to the mission school.

I grew to love my teacher, although I was always a little afraid of her. We boys were not allowed to talk in study hours; but when our teacher’s back was turned, we would whisper to one another. Sometimes our teacher turned quickly, and if she caught any of us whispering, she would come and give each of us a spat on the head with a book; but it did not hurt much, so we did not care.

We used to sing a good deal in the school. One song I liked was, “I need Thee every hour.” I loved to sing, although the songs we learned were very different from our Indian songs. Indians are fond of music; I have known my grandfather and three or four cronies to sit at our lodge fire an entire night, drumming and singing, and telling stories.

I found English a rather hard language to learn. Many of the older Indians would laugh at any who tried to learn to read. “You want to forsake your Indian ways and be white men,” they would say; but there were many in the village who wanted their children to learn English.

My grandfather was deeply interested in my studies. “It is their books that make white men strong,” he would say. “The buffaloes will soon be killed; and we Indians must learn white ways, or starve.” He was a progressive old man.

I am sorry to say that I played hookey sometimes. Big dances were often held in the village; especially, when a war party came in with a scalp, there was great excitement. The scalp was raised aloft on a pole, and the women danced about it, screaming, and singing glad songs. Warriors painted their faces with charcoal, and danced, sang, yelled, and boasted of their deeds. Everybody feasted and made merry.

When I knew that a dance was going to be held, I would hide somewhere in the village, instead of going to school. The next day my teacher would say, “Where were you yesterday?” “At the dance,” I would answer. She would then tell me how naughty I was; but she never punished me, for she knew if she did, I would leave the school. My parents also scolded, but did not punish me. I am afraid I was a bad little boy!

One day, on my way to school, I was overtaken by a very old white man, with white hair. I had been going to school about a year and could talk a little English.

”What is your name, little fellow?” the old man asked. He had a friendly voice.

“My name is Goodbird,” I answered.

“But what is your English name?”

“I have none.”

“Then I will give you mine,” the old man said, smiling. “It is Edward Moore.”

It is a common custom for an Indian to give his name to a friend; so I did not know the old man’s words were said in fun. At the school, I told Mr. Hall what the old man had said, and he laughed. “I think Moore is not a good name for you,” he said. “Moore sounds like moor, a marshy place where mists rise in the air, but Edward is a very good name.“

So I have called myself Edward Goodbird ever since.

Every Friday Mr. Hall gave a dinner in the mission house to his pupils. We Indian children thought these dinners wonderful. Many of us had never tasted white men’s food; some things, as sour pickles, we did not like. Mr. Hall wanted us to learn to eat white bread and biscuits, so that we would ask our mothers to bake bread at home. He hoped this would be a means of getting us to like white men’s ways.

On Saturdays we had no school, and Mr. Hall would go around the village, shaking hands with the Indians and inviting them to come to church the next morning. Later, Poor Wolf acted as his crier, and on Saturday evenings he would go around, calling out, “Ho Washte, Ho Washte! Come you people, to-morrow, and sit for him!” He meant for them to come to church the next morning and sit in chairs.

Mr. Hall’s janitor, a young Indian named Bear’s Teeth, swept out the mission house, made the fires, and got the school room ready for the services. There was no bell on the mission, so a flag was run up as a signal for the congregation to gather.

Not many came to the services, fifteen or twenty were a usual congregation, sometimes only ten. Mr. Hall preached, and to make his sermons plainer, he often drew pictures on the blackboard.

My father thought the missionary’s religion was good, but would not himself forsake the old ways. “The old gods are best for me,” he used to say, but he let me go to hear Mr. Hall preach. I cannot say that I always understood the sermon. Sometimes Mr. Hall would say, “Thirty years ago, my friends, I saw the light!” I thought he meant he had seen a vision.

But I learned a good deal from Mr. Hall’s preaching; and my lessons and the songs I learned at school made me think of Jesus; but I thought an Indian could be a Christian and also believe in the old ways.

It came over me one day, that this could not be. A story of our Indian god, It-si-ka-ma-hi-di, tells us that the sun is a man, with his body painted red, like fire; that the earth is flat, and that the sky covers it like a bowl turned bottom up; but in my geography, at school, I learned that the earth is round.

In our earth lodge, that night, I said to my parents, “This earth is round; the sun is a burning ball!” My cousin Butterfly was disgusted. “That is white man’s talk,” he grunted. “This earth is flat. White men are foolish!” This I would in no wise admit, and I came home almost daily with some new proof that the earth was round.

As I grew older and began to read books, I thought of myself as a Christian, but more because I went to the mission school, than because I thought of Jesus as my Saviour. I loved to read the stories of the Bible; and Mr. Hall taught me the Ten Commandments. Some of the Indian boys learned to swear, from hearing white men; but I never did, because Mr. Hall told me it was wrong. I thought that those who did as the Bible bade, would grow up to be good men.

I had a cousin, three years older than myself, in the Santee Indian school, who had become a Christian. One day I received a letter from him. “I believe in Jesus’ way,” he wrote. “I believe Jesus is a good Saviour. I have tried His way, and I want you to try to join in and have Him for your Saviour.” This letter set me to thinking.

In these years, my life outside the school room was wholly Indian. We Hidatsa children knew nothing of base ball, or one hole cat, or other white children’s games, but we had many Indian games that we played. Some of these games I think better than those now played on our reservation.

In March and early April, we boys played the hoop game. A level place, bare of snow, was found, and the boys divided into two sides, about thirty yards apart. Small hoops, covered with a lacing of thongs, were rolled forward, and were caught by those of the opposite side on sticks, thrust or darted through the lacings. A hoop so caught, was sent hurtling through the air, the object being to hit some one of the opposing players.

The game was played but a few weeks, for as soon as the ice broke on the Missouri, we boys went to the high bank of the river, and hurled our hoops into the current. We were told, and really believed, that they became dead buffaloes as soon as they had passed out of sight, beyond the next point of land. Such buffaloes, drowned in the thin ice of autumn and frozen in, came floating down the river in large numbers at the spring break-up. The carcasses were always fat, and the frozen flesh was sweet and tender.

After the first thunder in spring, we played u-a-ki-he-ke, or throw stick. Willow rods were cut, peeled, and dried, and then stained red, with ochre, or a bright green, with grass. These rods, darted against the ground, rebounded to a great distance. The player won whose rod went farthest. U-a-ki-he-ke is still played on the reservation.

In June, when the rising waters have softened the river’s clay banks, we fought sham battles. Each boy cut a willow withe, as long as a buggy whip, and on the smaller end squeezed a lump of wet clay. With the withe as a sling, he could throw the clay ball to an astonishing distance. Hidatsa and Mandan boys often fought against one another, using these clay balls as missiles.

It was exciting play, for we fought like armies, each side trying to force the other’s position; when an attack was made, a storm of mud balls would come whizzing through the air like bullets. A hit on the bare flesh stung like a real wound. Once one of my playmates was hit in the eye, and badly hurt. I was just over fourteen, when my parents let me join in the grass dance, or war dance, as the whites call it. The other dancers made me an officer, and my father was so pleased, that he hung up a fine eagle’s feather war bonnet in our lodge. “If enemies come against us,” he said, “my son shall go out to fight wearing this war bonnet!”

One evening, Bear’s Arm, a lad of eighteen years, came in from hunting a strayed pony; he was much excited. “I saw two Sioux in war dress, hiding in a coulee,” he told us.

Our warriors ran for their ponies. “Put on your war bonnet,“ my father said to me. “I am going to take you in the party. Keep close to me; and if there is a fight, see if you cannot strike an enemy!“

We rode all night, Bear’s Arm leading us. We reached the coulee and surrounded it a little before daybreak, and with the first streak of dawn, we closed in, our rifles ready; but we found no enemies.

This was my one war exploit.