My day, I have made it holy.’
“The morning star went out and the sun blazed over the edge of the earth. The blindness came. I prayed hard, ‘Let me see!’ I danced hard, like a homesick runner going home. The blindness did not go away. The darkness was burning hot. It pressed down upon me with great power. I did not float on the drumbeats and the singing. I worked hard to keep on dancing. My tongue was a stranger in my mouth. It was hard to blow upon my eagle-bone whistle. I kept on trying to pray and to remember, ‘Hold fast, there is more.’ I held fast, but I could not see. Someone put the slippery bark into my mouth. It was not easy to chew, but it helped a little. That day, it was like dancing always, but I held fast; and the drums stopped and the singing. I slept there on the ground, and had bad dreams about rivers too far off to reach, or they were not there when I came to where I saw them.
“The third day was harder, and it was very hot. I could not see, and my tongue filled my mouth. Afterwards I heard that five of the dancers fell down that day and could not get up. They had to be carried out. Charging Cat was one of them; but High Horse and Kicking Bear went through. I prayed to see, but it was only words. I kept on dancing because I remembered, ‘Hold fast, there is more!’
“That night I dreamed of crawling around in the dark trying to find water. Afterwhile I heard a voice, and I knew it was my father. I could not see him, but his voice was like a wind out in the night, everywhere, nowhere: ‘Let your heart be strong—it is nearly finished—you will see—you will see!’
“Then the attendant was shaking me awake.
“It was going to be the last day. When I got up from the ground, my body felt dead and it was hard to lift. But when I looked at the morning star above the pale streak yonder, my father’s words seemed to fill the hollow world that listened, and a power ran through me stronger than ever before. While a holy man was praying, the power in me grew; and when the drums began and the singers sang, my heart sang too.
“‘See where the sacred sun is walking!
In the blue robe of morning he is walking,
With his power greenward walking,
Hey-o-ha, hey-o-ha