L.R.298.b.2, 4(145)

Head-and-shoulders full-face profile of Wet, a noted Apsaroke leader. His biography is given in volume 4 of The North American Indian, p.207. 'Born about 185I. Mountain Crow; Whistle Water clan; Fox society. As a boy he was a natural leader among his companions, planning and conducting mock war-parties, captaining sham battles, imitating all that warriors did. He fasted on the small nearby hills just as did the men in the mountains. When he was sixteen, having already accompanied a warparty, his father, Daghkyusih, Blown Down, made the morning-star medicine for him and bade him go, with the medicine bundles on his back, into the mountains for a real fast. He climbed many of the high peaks in the Bighorn and Pryor mountains, seeking a guardian spirit. At length the morning star appeared before him as a war-chief and explained the secrets of the medicine bundles. He was dressed in a long deerskin shirt, from the shoulders of which hung scalps and weasel-tails, indicating that he was a chief. Spots of white paint were at the temple. As he turned to go, the tails of foxes could be seen at the heels of his moccasins, showing that he possessed many war-honors. On the back of the shirt was painted his image, in the centre of which appeared eagle-feathers. A few steps away the spirit looked back and said, "My child, you shall be as I am." Wet returned to his father's lodge, and after the usual purification in the sweat-lodge, described his vision. Soon afterward the old man sent his son with a war-party, which had not gone far when he charged upon an antelope hunter, killed and scalped him in plain view of the other Lakota, and with the scalp dangling from his belt dashed across the plain, swam the Bighorn, then in flood, and from the other bank waved the scalp in defiance. Wet became a great war-leader and a man whose words in council always commanded respect. He counted two dakshe and several secondary coups; he also captured a gun and a tethered horse. He threw away many wives as offerings to the spirits.'