Distinctly Montana Magazine

M Y M O N T A N A H O M E 9 2 A BOUT HALF A MILE WEST OF THE TOWN OF PRYOR, AT THE BASE OF THE PRYOR MOUNTAINS, LIES A VERDANT GREEN FIELD DOTTED WITH OCCASION- AL COTTONWOOD SHADE TREES. Pryor Creek wends lazily along the western edge, and in the middle lies a rustic old house, constructed by hand. Handsome and modest, stately in its way but not luxurious, the home is made of rough-hewn logs and boasts two covered porches and a second floor—relatively rare for the time, and for being so far out west. It's a far cry from one of the Copper King's man- sions or a cattle magnate's manor. But sometimes, it is not the opulence or grandeur of a home that makes it exceptional, but the human story and the history it represents. Visions are essential to the Crow tribe. Traditionally, adolescents would purify themselves with a steam bath and then go to a secluded area, often the Pryor Moun- tains, enduring four days without food or water until they achieved a trance state. In the old days, they would often add self-injury to the ritual, cutting off a piece of a finger as Chief Plenty Coups did, or dragging a buffalo skull affixed to their chest via piercings behind them. Then, if the spirits were willing, some sort of guardian spirit (many times one of the legendary "little peo- ple" of the Pryors) would appear and usher them toward wisdom. These visionary episodes are striking— Plenty-Coups's biographer, Frank Linder- man, recounts how the Chief told him of the vision of one of his friends, Medicine Raven, who at the age of 19 foretold "wag- ons flying through the air" and died years before such a thing would come to pass. Linderman went on to say that "Old Indians have told me that dreams foretold the coming of white men years before they appeared on this continent, and that even the clothes and weapons of the strangers had been minutely described by men who saw them in their dreams," noting that "Crows saw steamboats on the Missouri River very early, but this could not have led them so far as to foretell railroads, flying machines, and many-storied buildings where white men 'lived one above another.'" by JOSEPH SHELTON CONST RUCTED FROM A VISION JOSHUA GROSS T H E E X T R A O R D I N A R Y H O M E O F C H I E F P L E N T Y C O U P S

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