“Anyone could give thanks for food,” the old man replied. “A woman could do that. Maybe she has been cooking meat, and before she puts it out, she takes a tender piece and holds it up and says, ‘Wahnagi, eat this for me.’ She is making a thank offering to the spirits by sharing her meat with them before she eats any herself. War parties would do this too when they sat down to eat. But thanking the food was different. Not everyone could do that.
“They used to say it was not easy to walk the road of difficulties through this world; but of all the hard things, four things were hardest. Getting food was the first, and without food there is nothing else. The second hardest thing was losing your oldest child. The third was losing your woman. The fourth was having to fight a big war party when yours was small. I had an uncle when I was a boy, and his name was Flying By. Once I asked him, ‘Uncle, what is the hardest thing you have known?’ And he said, ‘My nephew, it was not any of the four hardest things people talk about.’ Then he told me of a time when he was out hunting alone over by Mini Shoshay [the Missouri], and a party of Rees chased him. He got away, for he had a good start, and hid in the thick willow brush that grew in a swamp. It was getting dark, so the Rees did not find him. He was afraid to leave the brush or make any noise. But he was not alone there. The whole nation of mosquitoes was camped in that swamp, and they were singing and dancing and feasting all night long. My uncle was the meat. ‘Nephew,’ he said, ‘there are not four, but five hardest things, and that is the hardest.’ But my uncle was always joking.
“Getting food is the hardest thing, and without it there is nothing. It is great to be brave in battle, but a great warrior must look to the food and remember the old and needy.
“So my mother borrowed some more pots from her friends who came over to help her cook the meat for the feast; and these brought with them some of the tenderest meat they had, for they wanted to help in the giving. And when the meat was all tender and the soup smelled good, I had to go all around the village, inviting the very oldest people. Kicking Bear, High Horse, and Charging Cat went along with me, because we had been brothers in a great deed. When I came to an old man, maybe he was so old that he dozed most of the time, and he would be sitting with his chin on his chest and his nose almost on his chin, and his hair, thin and white like mine, over his eyes. So I would tap him on the shoulder, and he would look up and blink, with his head shaking. ‘Heh! heh! heh!’ he would say, wondering what was wrong, for he had been far away in a dream, maybe. Then I would say, ‘Grandfather, we are going to thank the food over at our lodge, and we want you to come and help us; for we are only young men and you are gan inhuni [come to old age] and you are wise.’ And when the old man was awake and understood, maybe he was so pleased that he would cackle when he thanked me; and maybe he would show only two teeth, and neither a friend to the other. And maybe he would say, ‘You thought I was sleeping when you came; but I was just sitting here thinking about the time when I was a fine, brave young man like you. I was a good dancer, and I was good-looking too! The girls all liked me!’ Then maybe he would giggle and poke me in the ribs.
“Or maybe it would be a woman so very old that she could not get fat any more, and she was all skin and bones. And maybe she would be nodding over a moccasin she had been trying to bead for a long while, and her hands were like eagle claws, and her eyes dim, so that the moccasins did not ever get finished. And she would look up and squint hard at me, and say, ‘Are you not so-and-so’s son?’ And it would be somebody whose name I had not heard. I would tell her my father’s name, and she would look troubled. Then she would thank me and smile at us just like our own grandmothers, and tell us we were fine boys.
“While we were going around inviting old people, my step-father went over to see Blue Spotted Horse and asked him to thank the food for us. He could do this because he was old and very wise. Also he was a holy man. He had taught me when I went on vision quest, and he had helped me in the sun dance. I was like a younger grandson to him.
“The feast was ready, so we were waiting for the old people. We could see them coming from all over the village, bringing their cups and knives with them. They were all three-legged, the way I am now, for near the end of the black road there is a cane. Some of them would be all bent over and they would be holding their heads up like turtles to see where the pots were steaming. I was a boy, straight and tall, then, and that is the way they looked to me. Some would be holding their hands on their backs where it hurt them to walk. Some of them would be hurrying and some would not be hurrying at all; but one would be coming no faster than the other.
“We could hear them making songs as they came, and when they got near enough, maybe the song would be like this:
“‘Hi-a-he! Hi-a-he!
Eagle Voice, you are brave, they say,