MATO TIPI.
FIG. 188.—Bear Butte, South Dakota. (Copyright by Grabill, 1890.)
§ 137. Eight miles from Fort Meade, S. Dakota, is Mato tipi, Grizzly bear Lodge, known to the white people as Bear Butte. It can be seen from a distance of a hundred miles. Of this landmark Bushotter writes thus:
“The Teton used to camp at a flat-topped mountain, and pray to it. This mountain had many large rocks on it, and a pine forest at the summit. The children prayed to the rocks as if to their guardian spirits, and then placed some of the smaller ones between the branches of the pine trees. I was caused to put a stone up a tree. Some trees had as many as seven stones apiece. No child repeated the ceremony of putting a stone up in the tree; but on subsequent visits to the Butte he or she wailed for the dead, of whom the stones were tokens.” (See § 304.)