“Pull off nothing,” I said.
“You must,” she said.
“Jerk them off,” urged Washakie; “I will hold this buffalo robe over you so that you will not be seen.”
Dr. T. M. Bridges
Framework of an Indian sweat house.
So off came my clothes and into the hole I went. I got over the rocks just the way an old sitting hen does over her eggs. Mother gave me a cup of water and I poured it over the heated boulders. She stood there to keep the robe over the hole and kept asking me if I was sweating. I told her that I was getting wetter than a fish; but for some cause she kept me for quite a while, then she jerked off the robe and whack! three or four buckets of cold water came all over me. Oh, I jumped out of that hole in a hurry!
Washakie stood there with the robe, threw it over me, carried me into the tepee and put me to bed. Then he threw more robes over me, and how I did sweat! It was rough doctoring, but it cured my cold all right.
This was after Washakie and his party had got back from Salt Lake. They were gone twenty-two days instead of fifteen. Washakie had disposed of his robes and skins at a good price, and he had sold the two horses, so he came back pretty well outfitted for the winter. He had twenty-four blankets, a lot of calico, some red flannel for the tongues of moccasins, some underclothing for me, and about a peck of beads of all colors and sizes. The beads were to swap for tanned buckskin, and the blankets for buffalo robes. He brought me a butcher knife, a new bridle, two pounds of candy, and a lot of fishhooks. I felt “heap rich” and very happy.
