“Gun given me by old medicine-men.
Gun given me by old medicine-men.
Gun given me by old medicine-men.”
The old woman had a buffalo robe over her shoulders, and she held in her hands a mysterious-looking thing dotted with spots of white clay and painted in black. At the top of it were red feathers. The object was a gun, a thing to kill with, to shoot medicine. Now, at this time, the old woman wanted to show the power of this mysterious object. She ran around the lodge and then placed the object upon the ground. She ran to it. She wrestled with it. She covered it with her robe. Now she lifted it. She ran around, and all at once she began to groan—as if in pain. At last she called for help, for she was in misery. The people went to her, and there they found the old woman in travail. She was cared for, and she gave birth to a child, who was to become a great medicine-man among the people and a leader in the medicine dance. The medicine-animals rejoiced and sang their songs again with joy.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Told by White-Bear.
32. THE VILLAGE-BOY AND THE WOLF POWER.[33]
In olden times there was a village, and in this village was a man who had five children—four girls and a boy. In the dances, the girls would go out and take part, although the boy never went on the war-path, and never left the village. For this reason the people called the boy “Village-Boy.”
After a time the people began to make fun of the girls for dancing when their brother had never gone out on the war-path nor taken part in the battle, fought near the village. The girls were sorry. The boy saw that the girls were being made fun of for dancing when he had not gone on the war-path. The young man told his father that he was going up on a high mound where there was a graveyard. The father was glad of this. The boy put black soot upon his face, and he stuck some grass arrows in his hair. He went up into the graveyard, and there he stood, mourning.
While he was there, a big white timber Wolf came to him and asked him what he was crying about. The boy told him that he was a poor boy; that he had never been on the war-path, nor taken a scalp; that he had four sisters who danced in the scalp-dance and were ridiculed for dancing when their brother had never been on the war-path. The Wolf told the boy not to cry, for he would take care of him. The Wolf then told the boy that he would look after him; that he should go into the village; and that the first time there was a war-party he should join it and start out with it; that he, the Wolf, would find him and lead him to the enemy’s camp.