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MARX, ENGELS, AND MARXISMS

The Rise and Fall of

Communist Parties in
France and Italy
Entangled Historical Approaches

Marco Di Maggio
Marx, Engels, and Marxisms

Series Editors
Marcello Musto
York University
Toronto, ON, Canada

Terrell Carver
University of Bristol
Bristol, UK
The Marx renaissance is underway on a global scale. Wherever the critique
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 Marco Di Maggio

The Rise and Fall

of Communist Parties
in France and Italy
Entangled Historical Approaches
Marco Di Maggio
Department of History Anthropology Religions, Performing
Arts
Sapienza University of Rome
Rome, Italy

ISSN 2524-7123 ISSN 2524-7131 (electronic)

Marx, Engels, and Marxisms
ISBN 978-3-030-63256-4 ISBN 978-3-030-63257-1 (eBook)
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 Preface

On the occasion of the centennial of the foundation of the French

Communist Party (PCF, December 30, 1920) and that of the Italian
Communist Party (PCI, January 21, 1921), this book is an attempt at
synthesis, re-elaboration, and adaptation for an international readership
of research conducted by the author over the last decade.1
Because of the ideological and political controversy which has accom-
panied it, the history of communism as a scientific discipline has long
been characterized by a dualism in which one side emphasizes national
specificities and the other focuses on the international dimension repre-
sented by each party’s link with the Soviet Union. Regarding commu-
nism in Italy and France, the notion of vertical dependence, according
to which communism is a global phenomenon with a Soviet center, is at
the origin of the tendency to assign a preponderant significance to the
link between the Western parties, the Soviet Union, and the countries
of the Socialist bloc. This reading, in addition to emphasizing material
and political dependence on the Soviet center, looks at the communist

1 M. Di Maggio, Les Intellectuels et la stratégie communiste. Une crise d’Hégémonie

(1958–1981), Paris: Les Editions Sociales, 2013; Ibid., Alla ricerca della Terza Via al
Socialismo. I Pc italiano e francese nella crisi del comunismo (1964–1984), Napoli: Edizioni
Scientifiche Italiane, 2014; Ibid., (Editor), Sfumature di rosso. La Rivoluzione russa nella
Politica italiana del Novecento, Torino: Accademia University Press-Biblioteca di Historia
Magistra, 2017; Ibid., Fra socialdemocrazie e Perestrojka. Le relazioni internazionali del
Pci di Alessandro Natta (1984–1988), in “Studi Storici”, 1/2020, 193–227.

xiii
xiv PREFACE

political culture as a doctrinal universe that allows the Western commu-

nist parties to set themselves up as the opposition in the national system.
Furthermore, the absolutization of the relationship of dependence on the
Soviet center has led some scholars to insert communist parties such as the
Italian and French within the group of totalitarian movements, accusing
them, for example, of having an instrumental relationship with democracy
and anti-fascism.
On the other hand, the desire to prioritize the national dimension in
the history of the communist parties has been expressed both in the choice
of subjects for study as well as in methodological orientations, with the
publication of numerous works on training and rootedness in the national
social and political fabric as well as the contribution made by the Western
communists to the development of democracy and the welfare state. This
type of approach, especially in countries like Italy and France, where
communism had a mass dimension, has in many cases shown a tendency
to relativize, if not minimize, the international and global dimension of
the communist phenomenon, in some cases going as far as downplaying
the originally revolutionary and anti-system matrix of these parties and
their evolution during the twentieth century.2
Finally, some scholars in the area of comparative history have stressed
the differences between the PCI and the PCF, emphasizing a bifurca-
tion in their evolution starting at the end of the 1950s.3 This type of
scheme has also fed a political-ideological debate related to the events in
the Italian and French left-wing after 1968.
For this work the methodological approach of entangled history was
adopted, which tends to surpass the comparative methodology.4 In a

2 For a reflection on trends in the historiography of Italian and French communism see
M. Di Maggio, G. Sorgonà, Nazionale e internazionale. Itinerari della storiografia sul
comunismo italiano e francese, in “Historia Magistra”, n. 16, 2014, 101–115.
3 D. Blackmer and S. Tarrow (Editors), Communism in Italy and France, Princeton,
Princeton Legacy Press, 1977; B. Groppo and G. Riccabboni (Editors), La sinistra e il
1956 in Italia e Francia, Padova, Liviana 1987; M. Lazar, Maisons rouges. Les Partis
communistes français et italien de la Libération à non jours, Paris, Perrin, 2002; S.
Cruciani, L’Europa delle sinistre. La nascita del mercato comune europeo attraverso i casi
francese e italiano (1955–1957), Roma, Carocci, 2007; M. Bracke, Which Socialism, Whose
Detente? West European Communism and the Czechoslovak Crisis of 1968, Budapest: Central
European University Press, 2007.
4 M. Werner, B. Zimmermann, Penser l’histoire croisée: entre empirie et réflexivité in
“Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales”, 2, 2003, 7.
 PREFACE xv

study of the political history of ideas and the history of political move-
ments such as this, if a comparative approach seeks to analyze different
political phenomena in their national dimension, highlighting differences
and similarities, the entangled historical approach—which some have
tried, in turn, to insert into the dimension of global history—presupposes
a more solid common ground, determined by a relationship of interde-
pendence between national and international which allows the reconstruc-
tion of relationships, reciprocal influences, exchanges, and the circulation
of ideas and analysis.5 The entangled history approach makes it possible,
for example, to highlight the way in which the positions of the Italian
communists, which had been defined as their reformist attitude within
the communist movement,6 contribute to the growing contradictions and
troubles in the PCF; or how the French party limits, and in some cases
determines the failure of efforts at reforming communism promoted by
the PCI, contributing to the Italian party’s international isolation, and
pushing it to intensify relations with social-democracy.
From a general point of view, the analysis and historical reconstruc-
tion contained in the following pages is developed along two main lines:
the first focuses on the ways in which the leadership of the two commu-
nist parties of mass dimensions in the Western world view the social
economic and cultural changes in their own countries, the evolution of
the bipolar and European world, and above all the process of fragmenta-
tion and progressive crisis that affects the international Communist move-
ment from the late 1950s until the collapse of the USSR. The second line
is the analysis of some elements of these parties’ theoretical-ideological
production, which is the work of top politicians as well as intellectuals
who are individually placed at various levels of the leadership.

5 Regarding the new historiographical approaches to the history of communism, see: S.

Wolikow, Problèmes méthodologiques et perspectives historiographiques de l’histoire comparée
du communisme in “Cahiers d’histoire. Revue d’Histoire critique”, n. 112–113, July-
December 2010, 19–24; S. Pons, S. Smith (Editors), The Cambridge History of Commu-
nism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017; A Hobel, Il comunismo inter-
nazionale nella prospettiva della storia globale, in “Ricerche di storia politica”, 1, 2020,
43–57.
6 Pons, M. Di Donato, Reform Communism, in Pons, S. Smith (Editors), The Cambridge
History of Communism, vol. III, J. Furs, Pons, M. Selden (Editors), Endgames? Late
Communism in Global Prospective: 1968 to the Present, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 2017, 190–202.
xvi PREFACE

In this way an effort was made to keep the plane of political history and
that of ideological history together, inserting them into the relationship
of interdependence between national and international. This relationship
is not only ideological-cultural in nature, but is also the result of a spatial-
temporal condition (in our case that of the evolution of Western European
society and political systems) in which the national particularity of Italian
and French communism, and their character as movement parties rather
than party-states in power, fits into the specificity of Western Europe and
establishes a dialectical relationship with the policies of the other parties
and the Socialist states. This relationship unfolds in the context of the
evolution of the Communist movement as a global phenomenon that
is not reducible solely to the history of the Soviet center, and whose
ideological heritage cannot be reduced only to the doctrinal corpus of
Marxism-Leninism.7
In 1966, Eric Hobsbawm, in a review of Lire la Capital by Louis
Althusser, identifies four main trends in the Marxist rethinking begun in
1956: the first consisted of a sort of “archaeological operation” aimed at
tracing the theoretical stratifications accumulated on the original thought
of Marx; the second tried to identify and to follow the various original
theoretical strands produced on the basis of Marxism; the third began to
account for the different intellectual developments that were external to
Marxism, which had been excluded during the Stalinist period; the fourth,
finally, was expressed in the desire for a return to analysis of the real
world after two decades in which “the official interpretations had become
increasingly detached from reality”.8 All the communist parties and the
theoretical and intellectual debates which take place within them are
impacted, in different forms and degrees, by the breakdown of ideological
unity, and are traversed by these four currents.
This book inquires into the link between the theoretical problems
created by the end of ideological monolithism and the big strategic ques-
tions which face the two major Communist parties of the capitalist world
starting with the 20th Congress of the CPSU. The way in which these
questions develop over three decades is examined, as is the way this link

7 A. Agosti, Ascesa e declino del comunismo europeo, in P. Bairoch, E. J. Hobsbawm

(Editors), Storia d’Europa, V, Torino, Einaudi, 1996, 1057; M. Di Maggio (Editor),
Histoires croisées du communisme italien et français, special issue of “Cahiers d’histoire.
Revue d’histoire critique”, n. 112–113, July-December, 2010.
8 Hobsbawm, I Rivoluzionari, Torino, Einaudi, 175.
 PREFACE xvii

is structured and evolves within the two parties operating in their specific
national and the Western European context, which find themselves in a
very particular position in the international communist movement.
To understand this particularity it is worth summarizing some long-
standing aspects which, grafted on to the national contest, characterized
the political culture of the Italian and French Communists. Some of these
elements, and their evolution in the period 1956–1991, will be at the
center of our analysis.
In a troubled and contradictory journey that began in the early 1930s,
the politics of popular fronts allows some national communisms to get
out of the bottlenecks and isolation into which they had slipped in the
previous decade, which saw Stalin’s rise to the leadership of the USSR
and the international communist movement. With the 7th Comintern
Congress in August 1935, anti-fascism starts to become the main road
for the nationalization of some communist parties.9
In the era of the French popular front, the PCF represents an expe-
rience of nationalization of communism which is partially alternative to
that of the German communism of the preceding decade.10 Along with
the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, the French experience profoundly
influences the political culture of the leadership of the Italian Communist
Party.
Therefore, between the 1930s and 1940s, frontism becomes a central
element in the political culture of Western European communism. The
most important communist parties of this region of the world begin to
adopt new cultures and language, and discover a source of national legit-
imization which up to that time had been rejected and denigrated; the
defense of democracy and the expansion of social and political rights, to
be won through struggles for demands carried out in the context of the
bourgeois parliamentary institutions, begin to assume great importance in
the strategic debate of the Western European communist parties. Set out
this way, frontism, in its varying national declinations, becomes an element
which differentiates the Western communisms from other communisms:
from those in the colonial and Asian countries, which are structured
around the question of nation building and accelerated modernization,

9 Wolikow, L’Internazionale comunista. Il Comintern e il sogno infranto del partito

mondiale della rivoluzione (1919–1943), Roma, Carocci, 2016, 127–154.
10 Ibid., 87; R. Martelli, J. Vigreux, Wolikow, Le Parti Rouge. Une Histoire du Pcf
(1920–2020), Paris, Armand Colin, 2020, 51–74.
xviii PREFACE

and from those of the socialist parties in power in post-war Western

Europe. The latter, following the Soviet model, place the construction of
an authoritarian State at the center of the socialist project and a system of
economic, political, and military relations gravitating around the USSR.
In the period that runs from 1917 to the beginning of the Cold War,
the terms of the relationship between the Soviet center and the other
communist parties are defined through the primacy of the USSR, the
role played by the Communists in the anti-colonial revolutions of vast
regions of Asia, and the capacity of some European parties to win primacy
in the anti-fascist struggle and encourage the access of large sectors of
the popular classes to the national political life. However, from 1947 the
Soviet leadership concentrates on consolidating its internal and external
empire, and Soviet policy during the Cold War appears to be inspired by
a closed and defensive conception, where the reference to global revolu-
tion takes on an essentially ideological character, functional to legitimize
and support the policy of power. In this context, any effort to expand
the margins of autonomy of each party raises the issue of reconfiguring
the internal balances in the communist movement, and of a more or less
implicit questioning of the primacy of the USSR within the international
communist movement.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, when the socialist camp
ends up occupying large regions of the world, the Communist movement
does not seem to have a hegemonic projection which goes beyond the
ideological dimension and the foreign policy of the Socialist states. Faced
with the complexity and growing heterogeneity of the postwar world, and
the primacy of the state element, represented by the centrality of the inter-
ests of the power policy of the USSR, it becomes increasingly difficult to
develop and deploy a strategic project that holds the prospect of global
revolution together with the specificity of national ways to socialism, the
latter of which continue to impose themselves in the objective reality
of the various geographical contexts. Especially from the second half of
the 1950s, when the global revolutionary movement regains vigor with
the national liberation struggles in Asia and the southern hemisphere,
the Soviet Union supports these movements in order to use them for
the consolidation of its own power policy. In this phase the Socialist
 PREFACE xix

camp is impacted by decolonization and by the movements which arise

in advanced capitalist countries, and finds itself increasingly divided.11
Alongside the progressive economic and social decay of the USSR,
brought to light by historiography after the opening of the archives,12
from the second half of the 1950s communism as a global phenomenon
is affected by a process of political, cultural, and symbolic erosion. This
process precedes and accelerates the crisis of Soviet socialism as a political
and social system, as well as the ability of the communist parties that are
not in power to represent, in their individual national contexts, the inter-
ests of the popular classes and to build hegemony on the new forms of
social conflict.
As mentioned, from the mid-1930s anti-fascism and frontism became
the tools, for the PCF as well as the PCI, for guiding the process of
the nationalization of the popular masses in their respective countries.13
However, the development of this model is not free from contradictions;
in the first place, the only partial transformation of the policy of popular
fronts—also solely on the level of theory and political culture—from a
defensive strategy useful for opposing fascism to a hegemonic project for
socialist revolution in advanced capitalist countries, is once again a result
of the centrality of the interests of the Soviet state. This primacy manifests
itself on various occasions: for example, in the criticisms aimed at the PCF
regarding its desire to enter the government of the Socialist Léon Blum
in 1936, but above all in the German-Soviet pact of August 1939, which
required all of the communist parties to put aside anti-fascism.14
The frontist paradigm begins to be recovered only two years later,
with the Nazi-fascist aggression against the Soviet Union in June 1941.
Despite this, the return to anti-fascism does not fail to show its fragility,

11 Pons, The Global Revolution. A History of International Communism (1917–1991),

Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, 231–254.
12 N. Werth, Storia della Russia nel Novecento, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2000; M. Lewin,
Le siècle soviétique, Paris, Fayard 2003; A. Graziosi, L’URSS dal trionfo al degrado. Storia
dell’Unione sovietica, 1945–1991, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2008.
13 G. Caredda, Il Fronte popolare in Francia (1934–1938), Torino, Einaudi, 1977; A.
Agosti (Editor), La stagione dei fronti popolari, Bologna, Cappelli, 1987; F. De Felice
(Editor), Antifascismi e resistenze, Annali della Fondazione Istituto Gramsci, Roma, 1997;
Wolikow, A. Ruget (Editors), Antifascime et Nation. Les gauches européennes au temps du
Front populaire, Dijon, Presses Universitaires de Dijon, 1997.
14 Wolikow, L’Internazionale comunista, 170–205.
xx PREFACE

and its instrumentality in the political culture of the Soviet leadership.15

Nonetheless, at the end of the Second World War the anti-fascist and fron-
tist paradigm is placed at the center of the Western European communist
parties’ identity and their conception of the transition to socialism. This
increases their specificity within the international communist movement,
and is one of the essential conditions for the hegemony of these parties
within the national left-wing.
For the Western parties, with the end of the Second World War and
the aftermath of the national resistances, the question begins to be raised,
often in implicit, partial, and contradictory forms, of a way to socialism
that is distinct from that followed in the Soviet Union, and from the type
being built in the popular democracies of Eastern Europe and Asia.16
In Western Europe, where the communist parties have mass dimen-
sions, they assume a particular position within the society and national
political systems; that of anti-system parties - of organizations committed
to the radical transformation of the economic and social order even
beyond the confines of the nation-state—and that of subjects which at
the same time bring the demands of the social conflicts back within the
institutions of representative democracy, and through this role encourage
the participation of the popular masses in political life. This dual position,
which marks the nature of the Italian and French parties, characterizes
their specificity in the context of the communist phenomenon as a whole.
This position, and its determinations and representations on the plane
of political culture and ideology, evolves in the context of the Cold War.
Reflection on national ways becomes severely limited (the case of the
PCI17 ) or set aside (the case of the PCF18 ) with the birth of Cominform
in 1947. It begins returning to importance with the end of the 1950s,
de-Stalinization, the repression of the Hungarian revolt, the end of the
unity of the international communist movement provoked by the Sino-
Soviet split, the intensification of the decolonization process, international

15 Pons, The Global Revolution, 102–114.

16 Pons, L’Urss, il Pci nel sistema politico della guerra fredda, in R. Gualtieri (Editor),
Il Pci nell’Italia repubblicana, Roma, Carocci, 2001, 3–46.
17 G. Fiocco, Togliatti, il realismo della politica: una biografia, Roma, Carocci, 2018,
207–214.
18 Martelli, Vigreux, Wolikow, Le Parti Rouge, 120–124.
 PREFACE xxi

détente, and the socio-cultural changes that impact Western society in the
first half of the Golden age.
The goal of this book is thus to analyze the evolution of the political
cultures of Italian and French communism in the phase which opens with
the failure of Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization and the beginning of interna-
tional détente, and concludes with the collapse of real socialism and the
end of twentieth century communism.
Between the late 1950s and the end of the 1980s, the Italian and
French Communist parties pass from exercising great influence on their
respective national political contexts (an influence which reached its apex
in the mid-1970s) to a condition of growing marginality. During the
1980s this condition, in different forms and time frames, reveals these
parties’ inability to halt the decline of their political and cultural influence
over the popular classes.
The evolution of the political culture of the two parties will be consid-
ered as the theoretical-doctrinal universe which regulates the functioning
of the two organizations, guarantees the legitimacy of their leadership,
structures the action of the two parties in the national social and political
space, and defines their international action. The political discourse, both
in its public representation and its internal structuring, will be analyzed as
a strategic project based on the horizon of social and political transforma-
tion. This element, albeit in differing national and temporal declinations,
structures the identity and the very nature of the communist parties. As
such, it allows us to identify the common thread in their political cultures,
and to look, from the perspective of the political history of ideas, at the
crisis of some of the cultural and political forms of the twentieth century
workers’ movement, which, in the last two decades of the 1900s, char-
acterized the end of the Golden Age and the affirmation of neoliberal
hegemony.

Rome, Italy Marco Di Maggio

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 67. THE WOMAN WHOSE BREASTS
WERE CUT OFF.[68]
In olden times when the Arikara lived in a village, there was a man
who had a beautiful woman. This woman gave birth to a baby boy.
One time when the child was about five years old the father went off
on a hunt. While he was gone another young man, who was very
handsome came and courted the woman. She liked the young man
and did as he wanted her to do. They loved one another so much
that they finally agreed that they would find a plan whereby either
they could get rid of the husband or the woman would feign sickness
and death. If she pretended to be dead she was to be placed upon
an arbor instead of being buried; so the woman feigned sickness
when her husband came home. She pretended to die, and they
placed her upon an arbor. Her lover killed three dogs, skinned them,
took the dogs up to the arbor and untied the girl. The dogs were
placed upon the arbor, so that when the dog meat decayed it would
smell. The young man brought leggings, moccasins, blankets, and
beads, and in these the girl dressed as a boy. Her breast was tied
with wide strings, so that not much of it appeared. They went off to
another village, which was about four miles from the original village,
where they lived happily. The young woman passed herself for a
young man from the other village.
After they had stayed a long time in the village the woman grew
anxious to see her child, so they painted up as men, and went and
sat upon a rock that was by a spring. There they watched for the
child to come to get water. One day the woman’s boy came to get
water from the spring, and she recognized him. After she had seen
the boy she wanted to take him up in her arms, but the young man
said, “No!” The woman insisted, and said, “He will not find me out.”
They went closer, and when the boy came where they were standing
by the tree the woman spoke to her boy, and said, “Boy, will you let
me drink out of your bucket.” The boy looked at the woman for a long
time. He went into his lodge and told his father that he had seen his
mother. The father would not believe it, but the boy said, “There are
two people standing yonder, and one of them is my mother.”
The father thought, to make sure that it was true, that he would
send for them. He had some dried buffalo meat boiled, and sent an
invitation for the two young men to come and eat in his lodge. In the
meantime he had sharpened a long knife and placed it under the
meat. “Now,” he said, “if it is true that that woman is not a man, but
my wife, I will find out. There are two things she is to do when she
enters the lodge. First, when she enters and steps over the ridge
inside of the lodge, he will step forward as he steps; and if she is a
female she will step over the ridge with her foot sidewise. The
second thing is, when they have eaten and when I offer them the
pipe to smoke, I shall know she is a female if the person refuses to
smoke.”
The two young men were sent for. They came, and the real young
man entered the lodge, and stepped over the ridge straight forward,
while the next young man, instead of walking straight forward like the
first, moved her leg over sidewise. By this the husband knew that the
person was not a man. He let them eat, and after they had eaten, the
man filled the pipe and gave it to them. When the female took the
pipe, instead of trying to smoke she put the pipe up to her mouth,
and instead of drawing the smoke she blew into the pipe. The
husband now took out his knife, and said: “I wanted to find you out.
You are my wife.” The woman screamed, and asked him to forgive
her, saying she would live with him and try to be a good woman. The
young man ran away. But the husband was angry, and said: “You are
dead to me any way, but rather than that your breasts be tied down
to make you look like a man I will cut them off, so that your breasts
will be smooth.” The husband took his knife out and cut her breasts
off. The woman ran and fell at the entrance and died. She was taken
up by her people and buried. The man went to the place where he
supposed he had laid his wife, and there were three dead dogs. He
knew by this that the two had played a trick on him. The girl’s
parents never said anything, but they were glad that the woman was
dead. Nothing more was said about it.

FOOTNOTES:
[68] Told by Young-Hawk.
 68. THE WATER-DOGS.[69]
Once there was a young man who slept outside of the lodge. He
heard dogs bark at night, and as it was moonlight he saw a dog
coming out of the river carrying her little ones in her mouth, one at a
time, into the hills, to a spring. This young man saw the water-dog
carrying its young ones. His name was Poor-Bear. He died shortly
after he saw the dogs. At another time an old woman went to get
some water out of the river, at or about the same place the water-
dogs were seen. As she stooped to dip the water up she heard the
dogs chattering in the water. She became frightened. She went
home with the water and told the story. She became sick and died
shortly afterward.
These water-dogs are supposed to be very powerful in killing
people. They are hardly ever seen by people, and when they are
seen the person who sees them generally dies.

FOOTNOTES:
[69] Told by Two-Hawks.
 69. TWO-WOLVES, THE PROPHET.[70]
On what we call “Stevenson Flat” is a good piece of timber. There
the Arikara were camped a long time ago. One day everybody
turned out on the hills some few miles away on a buffalo chase.
While they were making preparations to go home there came up a
very bad storm. The hunters were scattered in small groups, some
fleeing with the wind, others heading toward their camp. Two-
Wolves, a rather quiet but good-hearted fellow, was rather slow
about getting away. He was left all by himself in the storm. He stayed
out all night and was missed the next night. They thought that he
was a victim of the bad storm. His relatives mourned for him, and
when the storm was over they set out to look around for him and to
bring home their meat. Two-Wolves had been pitied by a Prairie-
Chicken that had saved his life. The ruling power, Waruhti, had given
him power to understand the speech of Thunder. The hunters met
Two-Wolves coming home, and as they rushed up to greet him and
inquire of his troubles he answered that he was all right.
A long time after this had happened Two-Wolves began to practice
his power. The men began to be interested in him. He always had
his lodge full. A few of the wonderful things that he did are these:
Once a man named Two-Bears had a herd of ponies. They were
badly disturbed by a horse owned by a man named Roving-Coyote.
One day as Two-Bears was driving his herd to water, this horse
acted very badly, cutting out the mares and chasing the horses. Two-
Bears grew tired of the horse’s behavior and took a strong, sharp-
pointed ash stake and threw it at him. The horse was badly injured
by the pin and died. Roving-Coyote, wondering who could have
killed his horse, made up his mind to find out. He took the matter to
Two-Wolves. “Aye! I want to find out who shot my pony. I do not want
to make any trouble, but I want to know who did it.” “Yes,” said Two-
Wolves, “my father will be the one to decide, but I will perform the
ceremony to him.” He called all the men together that belonged to
his fire. He then asked the crier to call all over the village: “O! people
of this village! Two-Wolves wants the man who killed the horse
belonging to Roving-Coyote to report to his lodge.” The crier
repeated this over and over. When all had heard he went into the
lodge again. While the ceremony had been going on black clouds
rose in the west, and “Ah ho! Ah ho!” was repeatedly said by Two-
Wolves. “Now my father is coming.” He called again for the man to
hurry, saying there was no use of secrecy and that he should know.
Another call was given, and the Thunder was heard in the distance.
Two-Bears did not believe that Two-Wolves could learn anything
from Thunder, and so would not come. Thunder told Two-Wolves
that Two-Bears was the man who had killed the horse. When Two-
Bears did not come, Two-Wolves sent his servant to tell him to come
right away. When he had come he was greeted heartily by Two-
Wolves and placed beside him. “I am glad you have come. Now I
want to say that my father says you are the man that killed Roving-
Coyote’s horse.” “Yes,” said Two-Bears, “I know now that you are a
wonderful man. I did what you have accused me of. Ah! my friend,”
said he to Roving-Coyote, “you know how trying your horses are
sometimes, and we lose our temper and are sorry for it afterwards. I
did kill your horse with a picket pin, but I did not think you would find
it out. I have nice ponies, and you may have your choice for my
deed.”
Another time an old brave named Wolf-Chief could not believe that
such a thing as to understand the speech of Thunder was possible.
Whenever he heard a call from Two-Wolves he would remark: “Now,
what has that young rascal heard from the Big-One. We are gifted
with power from different sources and we do not send out criers to
make it public. Oh! grandson, if you will show us that you are
something more than a man to go on the war-path and bring home
scalps and ponies, then we will believe your doings.” Two-Wolves
heard all of these things, but never said anything. One day as it was
raining and thundering Two-Wolves heard his father speaking, telling
him to get Wolf-Chief and speak to him about his making fun of him,
and to have him kill a black dog that he had and perform the
ceremony with the feast. Two-Wolves sent out a crier to call for the
man that would not believe Two-Wolves’ prophecies. The caller
passed by Wolf-Chief’s lodge and Wolf-Chief remarked, “Well, that
young rascal has something up again.” Again the crier was out
saying that the man who ridiculed Two-Wolves was wanted at Two-
Wolves’ lodge, right away. At the third call he did not come, but Wolf-
Chief knew he was the man wanted. Two-Wolves then sent a
servant to tell Wolf-Chief that he was wanted. When the servant
arrived at Wolf-Chief’s he found the old brave making arrows.
“Nawa, you look as though you had something to say,” said Wolf-
Chief. “Yes,” said the servant, “you are wanted at Two-Wolves’.” “I
will come,” said he. He laid his work aside and went on to answer the
call. He was greeted cheerfully and seated beside Two-Wolves. “I
called you here to remind you that I have heard all the ridicule you
have made, but I did not mind it until my father himself spoke to me
of it, and that is why I have you here. You are to stop your jesting
and make a feast for my father’s ceremony with the black dog my
father said that you have.” “Ah, my grandson! You are wonderful. I
know now, and I will do as you have asked me, and the servant will
go with me and bring the dog you speak of.”
Two-Wolves sent out only one war-party, and it was a failure. He
gave out notice that he was to be a leader of a war-party. The party
was held back on account of the rain, and he prophesied that there
was a party of five enemies near on foot, and if they did not hurry
they would miss them. On their way they saw the footprints of five
men that had already passed. Two-Wolves was disappointed by the
slowness of the party, and on their way he gave notice that no bird of
any kind should be killed. This same day, the picket men found a
bunch of buffalo. They gave chase and killed several. Strike-Enemy
sacrificed one buffalo to his sacred bundle. The men got together
around the meat. An eagle flew around them. It came nearer and
nearer. They knew that the prophet had forbidden any birds to be
killed. The temptation was so great that finally one took his musket
and shot the eagle. Two-Wolves on hearing this was displeased. He
warned the party to remain together, for they were to meet a party of
seven. Sure enough, the scouts saw seven men in a party, but the
men saw the scouts and they escaped. Two-Wolves called the party
together and told them that he was discouraged by their errors and
would not go further. They returned home. Two-Wolves lived a long
time, doing good work, discovering thieves, and prophesying many
wonderful things. At last he was taken sick and died.

FOOTNOTES:
[70] Told by Strike-Enemy.
70. HOW THE MEDICINE-ROBE SAVED
THE ARIKARA.[71]
A long time ago I joined a war-party. We went south, into the
western part of the Sioux country, known as Nebraska. We came to
an old village site. At this village site we found four large mounds
where there had stood the four lodges of the bundle lodges. On the
east side was a mound. The old men sat down by this mound and
smoked. The oldest of the men told us that once the Arikara lived
here; that while they were having their medicine ceremonies in one
of these lodges a Sioux or one of some other tribe came and went
through the village.
Now, there was one lodge where all the people, except one young
woman who had just married, had gone to see the medicine-men’s
ceremony. While she was keeping the fire up and had the entrance
fast, she saw at the top of the opening a man, an enemy, peeping
down and looking at her. She sat and watched the enemy. He
crawled from the lodge, then dug in the side of the lodge. She kept
running around, until she went to the fire and poured water over it, so
that the fire went out. After a while her husband came. She told him
about the enemy. The young man accused his wife of having her
lover around. The next day the young man went to the timber and
gathered a lot of dried willows and some dry grass. This he took to
his lodge. He placed the dry wood by the entrance. That evening the
young man hid in the lodge, and allowed his wife to remain in the
lodge as before. When it became dark, the enemy came and looked
through the opening he had made the night before. The enemy then
walked to the entrance and found the entrance open. So he walked
in. The husband then arose from his hiding place. He caught the
enemy from behind, so that he held his arms. The woman took the
grass and willow limbs and threw them upon the hot coals, so that
there was a big blaze. She then went out and screamed, “My man
has an enemy in our lodge!” The men ran into the lodge, and there
was the young man, holding on to the enemy. The enemy was
overpowered, and a seat was given him.
The man had long hair. His face was painted. Bunches of
medicine were tied upon his head. On his right arm was tied a
rattlesnake skin. On his left arm was tied the shell of a turtle. The tail
was upon it. The man made signs and said: “Next month, all of you
people will be killed by the southern tribe of Indians. You make fun of
me, but it is true. I came to capture a woman.” The man was then
taken to the Awaho-bundle’s lodge. There they had singing. In a few
days the man was placed upon a scaffold of four ash timbers, and
his hands and feet were tied with strong buffalo strings. He was left
upon the scaffold to die, but the man was a wonderful man, for he
shook his arms and the strings became loose. The people saw it,
and they tied him again. Every time the man shook his arms he
broke loose. One of the old priests was selected to stab the man to
death. The man was left upon the scaffold, and his body dried.
One night as the medicine-men were having their ceremony this
man who had been put upon the scaffold came into the lodge. All the
medicine-men ran out of the lodge. Word was sent to the man who
was the keeper of the wonderful robe.[72] He went into the lodge and
found the dead man lying upon a buffalo robe. The man wrapped the
dead man in the robe and packed him to the river. He threw him into
the river, saying, “You wonderful man, I throw you into the river, and
your bones shall stay here.” The man went to the lodge. Sweet grass
and wild sage were burned in the lodge. The medicine-men then
resumed their performances. In about a month the medicine-men’s
ceremony was over. Each medicine-man took his medicine things to
his lodge and wrapped them up.
The month came to an end and the Indians looked for the enemy.
One fine day the Indians saw the Sioux coming from over the hills.
There were so many that the people became scared. The keeper of
the holy robe sat down in his lodge. The men were going out to meet
and fight the enemy. The enemy were so numerous that the
medicine-man with the holy robe and the robe’s belongings made
medicine-smoke, then laid down the gourd [rattle]. He took the robe
and wrapped it about his body, the hair side turned out. The inside
had the sun, moon, and stars upon it. He then took an eagle wing in
his left hand, the gourd in his right hand, went out and climbed upon
the top of his lodge. By this time the enemy were close to the village.
This man upon the lodge then shook himself, and shook the robe
towards the sun, then he closed the robe. While he was doing this
the enemy noticed some of their men fall off from their horses,
bleeding from their lungs and seeming to be out of their heads. The
enemy saw the man upon the lodge. They became scared. A shout
was heard. The enemy gave way and ran; for the power of the man
was so great that whoever came under his power ran into the village,
powerless to defend himself. The enemy gave way, and there was
great slaughtering. The village was saved.
The wonderful man went into his lodge and made sweet-smelling
smoke, passed his robe over the smoke several times, then wrapped
it and hung it up. The gourd was then passed over the smoke and
hung up by the robe. The medicines were then passed over the
smoke and put away. The man had red clay all over his body while
going through this performance. He also passed smoke all over his
body, and said: “I am satisfied. Our village is saved. The enemy are
killed. Scalps will be brought in, so we can have great rejoicing.”
Scalps were brought, and there was great rejoicing. There were
three different kinds of scalp dances given by the women. One was a
dance learned from the Cheyenne, another from the Grosventre, and
another from the Pawnee. Of course, they had their own scalp-
dance, but these three were the best dances.
Some years after, some of the Sioux visited the Arikara, and they
told of the strange man, and that he was a Wichita. The Sioux also
said that at that time many tribes had got together to annihilate the
Arikara.
 FOOTNOTES:
[71] Told by Sitting-Bear.
[72] The tribal medicine of the Arikara.
 71. THE MEDICINE BEAR SHIELD.[73]
I was fourteen winters old when my father died. I did not go to see
him buried, for I was feeling very bad. After the people had come
away from where my father was buried I went to the place. There
was the grave. The people had stuck two forks in the ground and
placed a pole across the forks. Then some poles were placed on the
sides, and instead of piling stones and dirt over the grave a buffalo
robe was spread over it, so that there was no dirt. Stones were
placed on the robe where it touched the ground. I cried and cried,
and in the evening I fell asleep. I dreamed I had seen a Bear
standing by my father’s grave, and I was scared. The Bear spoke,
and I always believed that it was my father who spoke to me, and
said: “My son, the shield was upon the grave; some one has
removed it. Find it; it is yours.” I slept a long time, for when I woke it
was nearly daylight. I stood up and cried again, and stood by the
grave all day. I was young. There were many enemies in the country,
but I did not care. In the evening I saw clouds coming from the west.
Soon a rain storm came, but I did not go home. When it began to
pour I ran to a steep bank. There was a crevice. I crawled in there
and lay down. It was now dark. I did not go to sleep, for I kept my
eyes upon the grave. There was a lightning flash. The flash struck
near the grave. I saw standing by the grave a Bear, its paws upward
toward the sky. It became dark again. I kept my eyes upon the grave.
Again the lightning flashed and again the lightning struck by the
grave, where I saw the lightning come together and form a circle with
a black mark upon the center. On each side of the black mark were
black spots, as if the circle had eyes and nose. I watched the circle,
and I was satisfied that the black center mark was a Bear. The two
marks I saw were Bear’s ears. On each ear I saw branches of cedar
and pine. As it was dark the circle gradually disappeared, and I saw
in its place a rainbow. Then it disappeared. The rain storm passed,
and I crawled out from the place and went to the grave and began to
cry. I cried all night, and also the next day. In the evening I fell
asleep. In my dream I saw my father, who told me that a shield was
placed upon his grave, and that Howling-Wolf had taken the shield
from the grave. My father further told me that the shield belonged to
me and that I must get it and make another one such as I had seen
the night before. He further told me to go home and get the shield.
I awoke in the morning and went home. I asked my people who
took the shield from my father’s grave, and they told me that some
one had taken it from the grave. I told them who had it, and my
mother went to the lodge of the man, who said, “Yes, I took it, but I
threw the cover away, for I intended to make a new cover for it.” The
frame of the shield was given up by the man to me. I took it home,
and I had my people make another cover, a cover I had seen myself
upon my father’s grave. You see the picture of the Bear as I saw it. It
is throwing up white-dust. The left side of the shield is a Bear’s ear.
Inside of it are cedar berries. The right ear has pine cones in it. I
hunted, and I killed a deer. The deer skin was tanned and these
things were put upon the tanned buckskin—the picture of the Bear
and Bear’s ears. On a buffalo hunt I killed a buffalo bull and made
the inner shield. This I did by getting the whole breast hide of a bull.
After I got it I spread it upon the ground. I took all of the meat off. I
then dug a hole and made a big fire in it. When the fire went down
and there were only coals and hot stones I spread the hide over the
bed of coals and drove stakes around the hide, so that the hide
when it shrunk pulled the stakes up. As the hide shrunk it became
thick. While hot, I cut around the rim until I got it of the right size.
Now a ceremony was in order. Songs were sung while the covering
of the shield was being painted as you now see. The red, downy
eagle feather was put there for the first lightning, which was very red.
The ears were put upon the shield, so the shield would have
understanding. There are three songs that are sung when the shield
is being made. The shield was made, and I hung it up. In the night I
took it into the lodge. Before sunrise I would take the shield and
hang it up so that it faced towards the east.
When I saw fifteen winters I joined a war-party. After we had gone
several days we saw a Sioux coming. We hid away in a ravine and
as he came near where we were I jumped up, holding the shield in
front of me. Another man in our party shot and hit the Sioux in the
breast. I struck the Sioux with my bow and counted my first coup. I
returned to where the Sioux fell, for I had run beyond. I jumped upon
the Sioux and took only his scalplock. This I took to my grandfather,
who took the scalp to the lodge of the holy bundle. The ceremony of
offering the scalp to the gods was performed. After this ceremony
the chiefs had their ceremony, and I was made a chief. I was invited
to sit among the great chiefs. An old man arose and, taking up a
buckskin shirt, called me to him. He put the buckskin shirt upon me.
He said: “My son, I put upon you a dress that is white; there are no
marks upon the shirt. It is fringed upon the sleeves and body with
ermine. You are now a young chief. See that you are always brave
and as you strike enemies and scalp them make marks upon your
shirt, so that these chiefs who are present here will be proud that you
wear their shirt. When you come to old age this shirt will be covered
with many marks, representing your deeds in battles.” After this
ceremony I again joined other war-parties. I gave many scalps to my
grandfather. When the enemy attacked our village I wore my shield,
and though the enemy shot at me I was never hit. When the battle
would be over there would be young men brought in from the
battlefield wounded.
Another time my people had what is now known as the “sun
dance.” My grandfather took me in and placed me upon the ground.
He spoke to the old warriors, and said: “Medicine-men and warriors,
I bring this young man into this lodge. I want you, medicine-men, to
paint him and place this lariat rope upon the pole, and cut upon his
back so that he will swing. Warriors, in cutting upon his back, tell of
your great deeds, so that my grandson will overtake your great
deeds in his life and become a great man. I have many ponies to
give you, and his mother and relatives will give you presents.” Two of
the medicine-men arose and painted my body. Then one of the
medicine-men spoke, and said: “Warriors, the young man is ready to
be cut upon the back.” One warrior arose and came to where I lay.
This warrior told of his great deeds, then cut me upon my right
shoulder-blade. It hurt, but I kept courage. The next man then came
and put a stick through the cut and tied it with the buckskin string.
The next warrior came and told of his great deeds, then cut upon my
left shoulder and ran the stick through, tying the buckskin. Each of
these men received a fine pony from my friends, also all the gifts
brought in by my friends. The warriors now pulled the lariat rope, so
that I now swung about four feet from the ground. I swung there one
day and one night. One of my related warriors seeing me swing
there so long arose, and said: “Medicine-men and warriors, this is
the youngest man ever brought into such a lodge as this. I have a
present of a fine racing pony for him. Now cut these strings.” When
he said this, many of my friends came in and spread presents of
robes and other presents. No sooner would the giver place the
presents than some one would come and take them away. A warrior
arose and came where I hung. He told of fighting a duel with a Sioux
and how he had cut him up with a knife. This man’s name was
Bloody-Knife. He cut the strips of skin, and I fell to the ground. I was
taken out of the lodge. Then I was fed with pounded corn and tallow.
A few days after, the Sioux attacked our village and again I counted
coup and also struck the enemy. I had an easy time in battle; I think
it was because of the sufferings I went through in the ceremony. I
danced the sun dance many times after that, but always suffered, for
the old medicine-men had died and young men took their places.

FOOTNOTES:
[73] Told by Strike-Enemy.
 72. THE CRUCIFIED ENEMY.[74]
Many years ago there stood a village made of earth-lodges. In the
village there were some people who wanted to go on a buffalo hunt.
They were mostly young men and young women. The older people
were left in the village. After many days the enemy were seen in the
distance.
The old people who remained in the village were somewhat
confused and frightened. When the enemy approached, the men
marched out and fought them desperately. Finally the people of the
village retreated. They all got inside of their lodges. The men stood
by their doors, fighting the enemy. In one of the lodges sat an old
man. He was putting on his medicine paint and costumes. After he
had finished he went out, having a gourd in his hand, but no weapon.
He went on top of the lodge and sang some of his most sacred
songs, that there might come aid from some of the gods. When the
enemy saw him they were much amazed, and very much afraid of
him. Some one said that he knew the old medicine-man, and that
they could not do anything to him, for he was a medicine-man who
had the power to mesmerize. So they all ran, crying: “We can not do
anything with him! Hurry on, before he works on us!” The old man
ran behind them. One young man on the enemy’s side was wounded
and brought into the village. He was taken into the medicine-lodge,
and they all saw him. He had been one of the bravest men, and had
all kinds of medicines on his head and around his neck. Finally it was
agreed that he should be tied up to a wooden cross and be placed
outside of the village. They did this, and the man died. After a while
he lost all of his flesh, but the bones were left on the cross.
 Many young men used to go outside of the village near the cross
to play at games. One day while they were playing, the bones of the
man on the cross fell to the ground, rose up and ran toward the
village. Everybody ran away, because of the ghost. The ghost ran
toward the medicine-lodge and ran inside, but no one would go in,
for everyone was afraid. At last one brave man came forward who
dared to go in. He looked all around and found the man from the
cross under some blankets upon the altar. He called to the others.
They all came in and saw the ghost lying there. They gathered the
bones and bundled them up in an old basket, then threw them away.
After this had passed, the party that had gone on a buffalo hunt
returned with lots of dried meat. Of course, the people who stayed
were very glad to see them again. The happenings and results were
told to them.

FOOTNOTES:
[74] Told by Hawk.
 73. HOW A SIOUX WOMAN’S SCALP
WAS SACRIFICED.[75]
In the fall there were five or six of us who went on the war-path.
We came to the Pine Ridge Agency, and there hid, close to where
the Sioux got their water. Two women came down to the spring to
get water. We all ran towards the women. The women ran. One
young man caught up with one woman, grabbed at her hair, took his
knife, and took the scalp off from the right side of the woman’s head.
The woman ran into the camp.
We returned to our leader and gave the scalp to him. The leader
then said, “We must hurry home.” We walked all day and all night,
and another day and night. The next day we found the thick timber,
and there we lay down to rest. When we woke up, the leader took
the fat off from the scalp. He then called one of the men. He then cut
the fat, making it into five pieces. Facing the east, he placed four of
the five pieces in his hand—one on each corner of his palm—and
the fifth piece he placed in the center of the palm. He then took the
pieces, one at a time, beginning with the one on the southeast
corner, then the southwest corner, then the northwest corner, then
the northeast corner, and placed them in a similar position upon the
ground, which was to show that the scalp was to be offered to the
gods. We then went home.
We gave the scalp to one of the high priests, who held the scalp
ceremony. At this ceremony we used the fire-sticks to make the fire
for burning this scalp. The scalp was burned. After the burning of the
scalp the people turned out, passing their holy bundles and medicine
bags over the smoke. The priest stood to the west of the burning
scalp and recited a ritual, calling on the gods. The young men and
children who wanted their names changed gave presents to the
priests, who changed their names for them.

FOOTNOTES:
[75] Told by Sitting-Bear.