The men enter the sweathouse, while the two women go to the west side and sit down facing the east. The medicine woman is on the north side with the bundle before her. After the men have entered, the fire is lighted and some of the attendants (builders of the sweathouse) lift the buffalo skull to the top of the sweathouse where it faces the east. Prayers and the usual sweathouse procedure now follow while the stones and a pail of water are passed in by an attendant. The covers are then drawn down and the vapor bath taken.
After the ceremony the procession returns to the medicine woman's tipi. The cover is removed from the sweathouse and the buffalo skull placed on top where it remains.
Should there be more than one medicine woman, another sweathouse is made on the east side of the camp circle and the others grouped around them equally.
Since after the sweathouse ceremony there is formal singing in the tipi until far into the night, it may be said that during the four days of the fast the ceremonies begin with the sweathouse at sundown, while on the fifth day the ceremony begins in the morning and ends at sundown.
To this generalized statement the following account from a Piegan may be added:—
Now, when the first sweathouse is to be made, orders are given in the morning to one of the societies to get the willows to make the hundred-willow sweathouse. Another man is to get the creeping juniper to use in the smudge place in the medicine lodge, and still another is to cut out the smudge place. The moves are short. The people all move camp, as before, and the society goes on ahead and stakes out the camping ground. When the tipis are pitched at the new camping ground, the society comes in with the willows and the rocks for the sweathouse. They circle once around to the right of the lodges and stop outside of the circle, west of the medicine lodge. They must neither eat nor drink while building the sweathouse. They gather wood from among the tipis until they have enough to heat the rocks. Robes for covering the sweathouse are borrowed from the people of the camp. One man goes to the medicine lodge and digs out the smudge place.
When the sweathouse is ready for the medicinemen, four of the men who helped in the construction go and inform the men and women. They carry the parfleche with the tongues in it on a robe, each man holding a corner. The two medicinemen take the lead, the two women follow, then come the four men with the parfleche. Four stops are made before they reach the sweathouse. The instructor leads, and is followed in single file by the other man, and the two women walking very slowly and singing. They march once around the sweathouse in the direction of the sun. The other old men who are to join them and the two medicinemen go in while the two women remain seated on a robe just west of it with the parfleche beside them. A smudge is made with sweetgrass, and a crescent-shaped place marked out between the square hole and the rear of the sweathouse and live coals are placed on the dot in front of the crescent. A song is sung while the smudge stick is taken up and a man goes after the coal for the smudge. The sweetgrass is placed on the live coal and the two songs for the smudge are sung: "Spring grass I take. Where I sit is powerful." A pipe is handed in and the pipe bowl and stem painted red. The man holds the pipe over the smudge and prays for the one who gave it to him and then passes it to the last man to his right who lights it and all smoke it. When the pipe is all burnt out, the man who blessed it, takes it, and with a red-painted stick loosens the ashes and empties some of them on the southeast corner of the square hole in the sweathouse, then on the northwest corner, on the northeast, and finally in the center.
After this the buffalo skull is brought in and the songs of the buffalo sung while the same man paints it with black and red dots, the left half black and the right half in red. Grass is stuffed into the eyes and nose of the skull which is passed out through the west of the sweathouse and placed on the earth taken out of the hole in the sweathouse. An extra buffalo horn wrapped with swamp grass is brought in and given to the man who paints it red and sings while doing so: "Chiefs of other tribes I want to hook." He throws the horn out and all the men of this society who remain near the sweathouse try to catch it. The one who captures it is considered lucky and he is supposed to capture a gun in the next battle he witnesses.
The men in the sweathouse all undress and as they pass their robes and moccasins out through the west of the sweathouse and the door, the buffalo songs are sung. The two medicinemen only wear a robe and moccasins when they go into the sweathouse. While singing, the forked stick is taken up and one of the outsiders goes for the heated stones, stopping four times before he brings them in. One of the men who is inside takes the stone with two straight sticks and places it on the southeast corner of the hole, the same is done with four more stones which are placed on the southwest, the northwest, the northeast corner and the fifth is placed in the bottom of the hole at the center. When a sixth stone is placed in the hole, they are all rolled to the bottom of the hole. Water and a horn spoon or wooden bowl is brought in.
A little water is thrown on the stones to wash them, the curtains are lowered, and prayers to the sun, moon, and stars, and earth begin. In groups of four, sixteen medicine lodge songs are sung. The curtains are raised and four more songs are sung; the sweathouse is opened and four songs are sung, until the sixteen have been completed. The two medicinemen go out through the west of the sweathouse while the rest go through the door. The men dress, and the parfleche containing the tongues is opened and the tongues given to the members of the society who made the sweathouse. The medicinemen and women do not eat. After all are provided with the tongues a piece is broken off each and while all hold the pieces up a prayer is said and the piece of tongue placed on the ground. Then they all begin to eat. After this the robes are all returned to their owners, the buffalo skull placed on top of the frame of the sweathouse with the nose pointed towards the east and the medicinemen and women return in single file while four men follow behind carrying the empty parfleche. The men who belong to the society may now eat and drink as they wish.
The Dancing Lodge.
The dancing lodge may be said to take its origin on the fourth day, by which time the medicine woman has her tipi in place near its site and the camp circle has been formed. In construction, nine forked tree trunks about nine feet in height are set in a circle. Across their tops, except the eastern face, are laid stringers about fifteen feet long of the same material.[10] In the center, is another forked tree trunk much higher than the other (this we shall call the sun pole) connected with each of the stringers by a rafter. Green boughs are placed thickly against the outside of the lodge. On the inside, at the rear, is a booth screened and roofed with boughs. The material is cottonwood. That other woods were occasionally used, is attested by the fact that a locality is known as "the place of sweet pine dancing lodge."
Some informants claim that in former years each band was required to furnish two rafters, a post, a rail, and their proportionate amount of boughs. Two rafters were used instead of one as now, each band furnishing the section opposite their place in the circle. The contradiction between the number of bands and the size of the dancing lodge seems not to have troubled our informants. Now, the young men go out during the early part of the fourth day to cut the poles and boughs. This is done without ceremony. A crier usually rides around the camp circle reminding the various bands of their duty. Formerly, the young women went out on horseback to drag in the poles and brush. On this occasion, they dressed in the best costumes and used the finest horse trappings obtainable. The men cut the poles and brush, hitching them to the drag ropes with their own hands. As the procession galloped toward the camp circle, the men rode behind, shooting and yelling. In recent years, the men bring the material in on wagons without demonstration.
Men of some prominence are selected to dig the holes for the posts. The posts are erected and the stringers put in place, excepting one on the west side nearly opposite the entrance. The rafters are leaned against the stringers, ready to be pushed in place and the green boughs piled up at convenient places near by.