Enough has been said of these mystery ceremonies to indicate that they were very remarkable. The circumstances under which they were performed would seem to remove them from the more commonplace tricks of professional jugglers. And I have never found any one who could even suggest an explanation of them.
As might be inferred, these mysterious doings greatly impressed the Pawnees; and the older men among them have a vast store of reminiscences of past dances, which they delight in repeating. In the course of a long talk with Bear Chief one evening, he recounted a number of instances which he had seen. He said:
“A man in our tribe was blind; he could not see. He could travel in the night as well as we can in the day, but when daylight came he could see nothing. At one time he called together his relations, and told them that, though blind, he wished to lead out a war party. He said, ‘I know that I, with my party, will kill an enemy.’ They started out, a young man leading him by the hand all day long. After they had been out several days, he told the young men to be ready, that the next morning he was going to kill an enemy. The next morning, while they were traveling along, they saw an enemy, and surrounded and killed him. They took the scalp and brought it home, and he had great credit, because, being blind, he had killed an enemy. They were all surprised that a blind man should have killed an enemy. He sacrificed the scalp to Ti-ra´-wa, and was made a warrior, and went to the sacred lodge and told the story of his campaign, and was made a warrior—a blind warrior.
“It was a wonderful thing for a blind person to be able to travel in the night. This must have come from Ti-ra´-wa.
“One of the wonderful things done by this man was at a medicine dance. Everybody was there. He stood up with his bearskin over him, and was led out before the people. A cedar branch was given him, and he sharpened the end where it had been cut off, and stuck it in the ground. Everybody was now asked to pull up this branch, and many tried to do so, but the strongest men in the tribe could not move it. He could pull it up, as if it were stuck in the mud. He thrust the pointed end in the ground again, and asked the doctors to pull up the cedar branch. They tried to do so, but could not stir it. The chiefs also were asked to try to do this. They tried, but could not move it. Something seemed to hold it in the ground. After everybody had tried to pull it up, and failed, this blind man went to it, and taking hold of it, pulled with all his strength, and pulled up with it about six feet of roots. There lay the tree with all it roots fresh and growing.
“There was, in my young days, a certain brave man in the tribe. His name was Elk Left Behind. He was so brave that, when the Sioux surrounded him, he would kill so many that he would scare the rest away. In one of the doctors’ dances he had the skin of a fawn in his hands. He called out to the people, ‘Now, you people, watch me; look close and see what I shall do, and you will find out what my bravery is, and that it all comes from this that you see.’ In our presence he shook this fawn skin, and the fawn slipped out of his hands and then stood before him, a living fawn looking at him. ‘That is what I mean,’ said he. ‘If the enemies surround me, that is the way I come out of it. The fawn can run so fast that it can never be caught, nor can it ever be shot.’
“This man was wonderful. He used to imitate the deer and the elk. He could never be driven into timber or brush, or where there were thickets. He said, ‘If I am ever wounded, it will be when I go into timber or brush.’ He always wanted to be in the open plain where he could be surrounded. He never ran to the timber for shelter.
“If they suspected that the Sioux were coming to attack the village, he would load a gun and shoot it off. If the ball came back to him, there were no Sioux coming. If it did not, then they would be coming. When I was present it always came back to him. There were no Sioux coming.
“At one time in the doctors’ dance I saw him driving ten young men, who pretended that they were deer. He had a gun and loaded it, and shot the ten men, one after another, through the side. They fell down wounded, and then got up and limped off half dying. He drove them around the ring so that the people might see their wounds. After they had looked at them, he went up to the first and slapped him on the back, and the ball dropped out of him on to the ground, and the man straightened up, healed. So he did to all, up to the tenth man, and they were all healed. This was wonderful.
