FOOTNOTES:
[35] Told by Strike-Enemy.
35. THE FIVE TURTLES AND THE BUFFALO DANCE.[36]
In olden times, while the people had their village upon the Missouri River, five soft-shell Turtles came out from the river and went into the village. The two on each side of the middle one received a bunch of eagle feathers on the head. They were placed with the fifth, which had black feathers. When this Turtle saw that its feathers were black, it was mad. It told the people that it was going away, and it marched back into the river. The people gave it smoke from their sacred pipes. The Turtle paid no attention to it, but went into the river, so there were but four left. These four Turtles were to remain with the people.
These Turtles died. The people made them into drums. Some years afterwards they changed these drums into rawhide drums, making them in imitation of the Turtle drums. They organized a dance known as the “Buffalo dance.” These Turtles were drums. They danced four days and four nights, and although this was a Buffalo dance, there was one mysterious being in the crowd who had a bunch of feathers of the magpie growing up all over his head. Pieces of skins of animals were strapped over his back, and he had a buffalo beard about his ankles, also about his waist. His face was painted with all colors. Sub eius inguinibus palus erat qui penem simulabat. Ex illo autem, dum saliebat et quasi equus acer huc et illuc currebat, palus semper pandebat. Ubicumque mulierem videbat, eam circumibat motusque dabat quasi cum ea concumberet.
Now, in this village there was a young girl who was never permitted to be out of the lodge while this Buffalo dance was going on and this being was dancing around. The girl asked her parents to place a buffalo rawhide in front of the lodge, over the entrance, that she might be permitted to peep out and look at the being. She became bold, and went out from behind the hide. She was seen by this being. Ille motus dedit quasi cum ea concumberet. Puella in domicilium rediit; posteaque per menses magis atque magis gravida fiebat. Iam tandem puerum parit. Anum comitem habet, quæ autem reperire non potest. The mother told them that the child had been born, so the people looked around with lights, trying to find the child. They looked everywhere, but could not find the child. After a while they found the child standing under the altar, grinning. The child looked to be about two years old, and had teeth. It walked about constantly, just as its father did, and was like him in appearance. Finitimi repperunt eam numquam virum cognovisse, sed ab eo monstro per eius motus gravidam factam esse. The people caught the child and killed it. They put it into a bag and threw the bag into the river.
The father of the child heard about this. He went to another wonderful man who could see better in the night than in the day and asked him to help him find the child. The man consented. He took his medicines, put them upon himself and led the man to the very spot where he had danced and where he had made the motions. Then the medicine-man led the mysterious being into the lodge of the girl who had given birth to the child. He showed where the boy had been born, where he had run, where he had stood under the sacred bundle, how the people caught him and killed him, and how the people had taken him to the river and thrown him in. They went down to the river. The medicine-man took a big rock and told the strange being that when he should throw the rock into the waters, the waters would part, and that he must be quick to jump in and get the boy. The man threw the stone up into the air, and as it fell into the water, the waters parted, and they could see the boy lying there. The man jumped in and pulled him out. When the boy was pulled out the father cried, and said that he wanted this wonderful man to select a place to bury him, for he was a strange child. The man led this mysterious being about the hill on the Missouri River, and there the man took his club, and striking the largest stone that the people knew of, he split it in two. They buried the child between the two stones, and then went home. The mysterious being then married the girl who had given birth to the mysterious little boy who, immediately after his birth, got to dancing and running around as his father had always done in dances.