Dr. T. M. Bridges
Indian sweat house covered; fire in foreground.
One chilly day I was out hunting chickens, and was quite a distance from camp when a heavy rainstorm came and soaked me through before I could get home. That night I coughed and coughed so that nobody in our tepee could sleep. The next day mother wanted to dig a hole for me. I told her that I did not want a hole dug for me until I was dead. She begged me to take a sweat.
“Not much,” I said, “no more of your jumping into springs for me.” I had not forgotten how they tried to cure my sore legs with a salt-springs bath.
She said that it would not hurt me. But I told her that I was played out and I would not do it.
“Well,” she said, “you need not jump into the cold water. The heat of the rocks and the steam from the ground will sweat you enough.”
“You had better do it,” said Washakie, “before you get sick in bed.”
“All right,” I said, “go to digging.”
Very soon she had the hole dug and everything ready, then she said, “Come now, pull off your clothes and get in here.”