Spotted Eagle danced and prayed and made motions toward the storm clouds, which continued to spread, until they passed over the camp with a heavy rain.
The Blackfoot were hero worshipers. They believed that men who were brave and were successful in war attained a certain power to help relatives who were ill. For this reason Wolf Plume, a famous warrior, stood before the people and prayed:
“Sun, have pity and hear me.
My mother is ill. May she become strong and well.”
After this prayer, Wolf Plume enacted a sham battle—a night attack he had made on a hostile camp. He built a miniature lodge of branches; he showed how he entered the tepee of an enemy and took two scalps.
Then Big Beaver came forward with his sister and said:
“Hear, men and women, for what I speak is true. In the winter-moon I went with Two Eagles on a visit to the Crow Indians. We crossed the Yellowstone River on the ice and my partner was drowned. I thought my time to die had also come. But I made a vow to the Sun—if I ever came out of [[314]]that danger alive, my sister would come forward with me and take one of the sacred tongues at the next Sun Dance.”
Then his sister held up a tongue and prayed to the Sun; while Big Beaver announced that he gave his saddle horse and its equipment to Spotted Eagle, the medicine man, and asked him to pray for him.
Then a woman aroused the interest of all by singing a mourning song to her dead lover, saying:
“The dancing-lodge is the place where I was last with my lover.