eagles and chicken spirits

Eagles and Chicken Spirits
by John Rustywire.

It was a dream and it went like this...One day, when I was 13, my cousin Silas and myself went way up on the mountain where the cliffs were, we found a spot within reach of a tree top and so we were able to crawl up onto the tree. On one of the branches we found an eagle nest, it was big enough we could have layed on it like a bed. We found a small eagle and not knowing any better we took it from there and put it in a gunny sack and went home.


A little ways off from the house we built a big bird cage and put the
eagle in it and hid it in the cedars. We fed it rabbits and soon it got to be so big it outgrew the cage in two weeks. It was all white, down feathers it looked like someone had used a blow dryer on it and it was a puff ball. It started to turn gray and just outgrew the cage.

We realized we could not keep it, because it would tear into us when we reached into the cage. We had to let it go so we took it back to the forest.

I told my father what happened and he was pretty upset about it, then he told us he done the same thing when he was young. He spoke of using a rabbit as bait, to lure an eagle into a trap, where you sit under tree branches and reach up and grab it and wrestle it down. Those eagles are pretty tough, when they lay their claws into you, they can really squeeze you. He related that he had done this to pick a feather from the tail, the long middle feather. This feather is used for ceremonies.

We lived next to my grandparents, their home or house was small, two ooms. My grandpa made it fancy by using those old time fancy tin design square panels about 18 inches by 18 inches and nailed all close together inside the house. When they were young they were in too much of a hurry to put in an inside wall so it was the outside wall nailed to studs and the fancy tin squares nailed all over inside. He said it was like a ceiling he saw in Albuquerque one time and thought it would be good in case he made the place into a trading post. We laughed at the thought because if were to you put a store counter in there it would take up all the space. People would have to pretty skinny to get in there.

Anyway my dad sat us down outside and told us about this feather he got. We followed him to the chicken coup and he got a long chicken feather and brought out a basket, one used for ceremonies and after a while with his back turned to us, he said I will show how to make this feather dance. He told us the eagle feather is special and that medicinemen could make them dance in the basket.

After a while my father put the basket down with the feather in it, and put it a ways a way from us. He looked at us and said, because you took that baby eagle from it's nest you will have the eagle spirit with you to follow you around and you might have bad luck.

He said to show you what I have said is true, the chickens who are friends of the eagle will follow you around from now on and there feather will dance to let you know their chicken spirit is following you. He stepped away from the basket and sure enough after he started to sing a song, the feather stood up and danced. We marvelled at the site and he said, the chicken spirit is going to follow you because the eagles don't fool around with kids like you, they have more serious things to do.


My father walked away and left us there. We looked at the basket and the feather and thought about the chicken spirits following us around...we then left and after a few years asked him how he did it and he would just sit there and laugh....