At 8 o’clock she was seized with the first stage of labor, and her mother at once made a fire in the fireplace, and a low, heavy stool, cut from a solid block, was placed in front of it. The woman took her seat upon the stool, with her back to the fire, wearing her cotton gown, woven dress and belt, and a small blanket around her.
The doctress ([Fig. 19]) and sister of the woman’s husband, who had been summoned, arrived almost immediately. The father and husband removed their moccasins and the women had their legs and feet bare. The father took his seat upon a low chair in front of his daughter, the doctress sat to her left, clasping an ear of yellow and purple corn, and the writer by the side of the doctress, holding a medicine-stone which had been given her some days previously by the doctress to be used on this occasion. The husband sat upon his wadded blanket against the wall, and by his side were his two sons and his sister, she having with her an infant and a child some 2 years of age. The night was warm and the door of the room was left open.
Fig. 19.—Sia doctress.
The ho´naaite laid three small buckskin medicine bags on the floor in front of him (one containing shell mixture, another the pollen of edible and medicinal plants, and the third a plant medicine powdered), and, holding the quill ends of two eagle plumes between his hands, he repeated in a low tone the following prayer;
I´-i-wa-u-wak´ nai´-she-eh shan´-nai ha´-arts. Nai´-she-eh pitonipina-mu-ᵗsa. Na´-wai-pi-cha-u-wak. I-i-wa-u-wak´, na´-wai-pi-cha-u-wak.
Mĭsh´-ᵗcha hätch-ᵗse ko´-ta-wa oh-wi-chai-ni u-wak. Nŏw´-a-muts Pi-to-ni p´i-na-mu-ᵗsa. Ya´-ya ko´pĭsh-tai-a ha´-arts shan´-nai Nai´-she-eh u-wak´, pi-to-ni pi-na-mu-ᵗsa.
Na´-wai-pi-cha u-wak.
The unexpressed idea is that the child is to be received upon its sand bed, which is symbolic of the lap of its mother earth. That it will be as one without eyes, and it will not know its father’s Ko´pĭshtaia. May the Ko´pĭshtaia make its heart to know them.
Free translation: “Here is the child’s sand bed. May the child have good thoughts and know its mother earth, the giver of food. May it have good thoughts and grow from childhood to manhood. May the child be beautiful and happy. Here is the child’s bed; may the child be beautiful and happy. Ashes man, let me make good medicine for the child. We will receive the child into our arms, that it may be happy and contented. May it grow from childhood to manhood. May it know its mother Ût´sĕt, the Ko´pĭshtaia, and its mother earth. May the child have good thoughts and grow from childhood to manhood. May it be beautiful and happy.”