“I will be good, I will be good!” I would cry, as I ran to my father. I knew he would not let the owl hurt me.
My old grandfather, Missouri River, taught me of the gods. He was a medicine man and very holy, and I was rather afraid of him. He used to sit on the bench behind the fire, to smoke. He had a long pipe, of polished black stone. He liked best to smoke dried tobacco blossoms which he first oiled with buffalo fat.
One day, as he sat smoking, I asked him, “Grandfather, who are the gods?”
Missouri River took a long pull at his pipe, blew the smoke from his nostrils, and put the stem from his mouth. “Little granddaughter,” he answered, “this earth is alive and has a soul or spirit, just as you have a spirit. Other things also have spirits, the sun, clouds, trees, beasts, birds. These spirits are our gods. We pray to them and offer them food, that they may help us when we have need.”
“Do the spirits eat the food?” I asked. I had seen my grandfather set food before the two skulls of the Big Birds’ ceremony.
“No,” said my grandfather, “They eat the food’s spirit; for the food has a spirit as have all things. When the gods have eaten of its spirit, we often take back the food to eat ourselves.”
“How do we know there are gods, grandfather?” I asked.
“They appear to us in our dreams. That is why the medicine man fasts and cuts his flesh with knives. If he fasts long, he will fall in a vision. In this vision the gods will come and talk with him.”
“What are the gods like?” I asked.