American Indian life

by Unknown

Then the spirits presiding over the earth and those living under the earth, they also gave me a trial. A rotten log was placed before me. I breathed upon it, I spat water upon it, and the log rose up, a living man. He walked away. This power of spitting upon people, of squirting water upon people, I received from an eel; from an eel that was the chief of all the eels, an eel that lives in the center of the ocean, in the very deepest part of the ocean. He is perfectly white. He it is, who blessed me. Therefore it is that I can use water and that the water I possess is inexhaustible. This is what he told me.

Then I came to the people of the earth. Before I came, they all had a council meeting about me. When I came, I entered a lodge and there I was born again. I thought that I had entered a lodge, but it was really my mother’s womb that I had entered. Not even then, at my birth, did I lose consciousness. As I grew up I fasted again, and then again all those who had blessed me before sent their blessings to me once more. It is for that reason that I am the dictator over all these spirits. Whatever I say will be so.

Now the tobacco you offered me is really not for myself, but for the spirits, because I have really been sent here by the spirits to get tobacco for them. Here, there is a sick person and you have offered me tobacco. That is what I am on earth for: to accept this offering. I tell you that this patient will live.

You will live, patient, so help yourself as much as you can and make yourself strong. Now as I offer tobacco to the spirits, you must listen, and if you feel that I am telling the truth, then you will gain strength thereby.

Here is tobacco for you, O Fire! I offer tobacco to you. You promised me that if I offered tobacco to you, you would grant me my request. That you promised, if I placed tobacco upon your head. Did you not say that to me after I had fasted for four days and you had blessed me? Now here there comes a plea from a human being, from one who wishes to live. Here, the tobacco is yours and I ask that within four days, he be restored to his usual health. I ask that he regain his former health and be even as the rest of us. I offer tobacco to you, grandfather. Here it is.

May you, O Buffalo, also add your strength, add your power. Six days I fasted and then you sent your spirit upon me. I entered your lodge, your lodge that is in the center of this earth. You Buffalo, you who are pure white in color, you blessed me. So likewise did the buffaloes with the four different colors. Those blessings that you bestowed upon me, those I now want. The gift of being able to breathe upon man, you gave me. You told me I would not fail. Now that is what I desire. Therefore it is that I ask that you add your strength as you promised, for they, the people, have given me plenty of tobacco.

Now you, O Grizzly Bear, here is tobacco. At a place called Pointed-hill there is a spirit in charge of a dancing lodge. Now all those in that lodge blessed me and said that I would be able to kill anything that confronted me; that I would also be able to restore to life whatever I wished. Here I have opportunity of giving life to a man. I want him to live. They have given me tobacco. Here it is. When I was a ghost you took me to your home, and after I had fasted for ten days you blessed me. Those things with which you blessed me, those are the things that I now want. The people are offering you tobacco, grandfathers,—here it is.

Now you, chief eel in the center of the ocean, you too blessed me after I had fasted for eight days. With your power of breath did you bless me, with your inexhaustible wealth of water. You gave me the gift of using it whenever I treated a patient. That is what you told me. All the water in the ocean you told me I could use. You blessed me with all the objects that exist in the ocean. Now here is a man desiring life, and I too wish him to live. It is for that reason that I speak to you in this way. As I now squirt water upon him, may it be as though it were your power. O grandfather, I offer you tobacco. Here it is. Here is tobacco for you.

Now you who are above, Turtle, you who are in charge of a doctors’ lodge, you blessed me after I had fasted seven days and you carried me, in spirit, to your home. There in your home I found all the birds who have sharp claws and you all blessed me and you told me that however bad the pain was, you would be able to extract it. Therefore it was that you named me the extractor of pain. Now here comes a man with an intense pain inside of him. I am the one to remove it for him, for I am the one you blessed and whom you taught that in nothing would he fail. I am going to heal this man. Here is the tobacco.

You of the snake home, you the perfectly white one, Rattlesnake! Did you not bless me after I had fasted for four days? You said that on an occasion like this, you would help me. You blessed me with your rattles that I was to use as gourds. You blessed me and told me that I would accomplish all that I attempted, by the use of the rattle. I offer you tobacco therefore, that I may make this sick person live when I shake my gourd. That life would be opened before him, that is what you told me, grandfather.