I fly around with it,
I fly around with it,
To make me see my children,
To make me see my children.
This song was composed by a woman of the southern Arapaho. The reference is not entirely clear, but it is probable that in her trance vision she saw her children in the other world playing the game mentioned, and that afterward she made the game sticks and carried them in the dance, hoping by this means to obtain another vision of the spirit world, where she could again talk with her children who had gone before her to the shadow land. In one Ghost dance seven different women carried these game sticks.
The băti′qtûba (abbreviated ti′qtûp) game of the Arapaho and other prairie tribes somewhat resembles the Iroquois game of the “snow snake,” and is played by children or grown persons of both sexes. It is a very simple game, the contestants merely throwing or sliding the sticks along the ground to see who can send them farthest. Two persons or two parties play against each other, boys sometimes playing against girls or men against women. It is, however, more especially a girl’s game. The game sticks (bătĭqta′wa) are slender willow rods about 4 feet long, peeled and painted and tipped with a point of buffalo horn to enable them to slide more easily along the ground. In throwing, the player holds the stick at the upper end with the thumb and fingers, and, swinging it like a pendulum, throws it out with a sweeping motion. Young men throw arrows about in the same way, and small boys sometimes throw ordinary reeds or weed stalks. Among the Omaha, according to Dorsey, bows, unstrung, are made to slide along the ground or ice in the same manner.
69. Yĭ′hä′ä′ä′hi′hĭ′
Yĭ′hä′ä′ä′hi′hĭ′, Yĭ′hä′ä′ä′hi′hĭ′,
Hä′nänä′hi′gutha′-u ga′qaä′-hu′hu′,
Hä′nänä′hi′gutha′-u ga′qaä′-hu′hu′.