I rode to the large decorated tepee of Mad Wolf, and was greeted by my Indian sister, Strikes-on-Both-Sides. She wore a dress of fine deerskin with beaded stripes. Her leggings and moccasins were decorated with colored porcupine quills. She had white shell ear-rings, and necklaces of elk teeth and deer bones. She shouted, “The Light-Haired-One has come back”; then saying to me, “I am glad that you [[55]]are still smiling,” she took my hand and led me inside the lodge to Mad Wolf and her mother, Gives-to-the-Sun.
On the day appointed for the Beaver Ceremony, the chief’s family rose before sunrise to cook food for the feast and prepare for many visitors. They made ready a kettle of service-berry soup and tongues; also dried meat mixed with wild cherries, and dried bear-berry leaves for smoking. I helped in the feast with a supply of raisins and fresh meat, dried berries, and a roll of strong Hudson Bay tobacco, which they liked to smoke mixed with bear-berry leaves. I also gave a blanket with colored stripes. It was looked upon as my offering to the Beaver Bundle; so during the ceremony it lay under the Bundle.
When the sun was high over the eastern horizon, the guests began to arrive. The head men of the tribe came with their families: White Calf, the head-chief; White Grass, a judge and medicine man; Heavy Breast, Middle Calf, Medicine Wolf, Elk Chief, Bear Child; Ear-Rings, a doctor and medicine man; and Double Runner. The tepee was filled to the door with eleven men, seventeen women and ten children. Mad Wolf as director of the ceremony, sat at the back and in the center. The men were on his left, the women and children on his right. The beaver men had seats in the front row. Beside Mad Wolf was White Calf, the head-chief, then White Grass, the medicine man, who helped him in conducting the ceremony. I was next to Maka, an Indian of unusual appearance. He was short and stout with a large head which was crowned with a heavy mass of hair.
While they were waiting for the ceremony to begin, Mad Wolf said to White Calf, so that all in the lodge could hear:
“Because you are my friend, I ask you to make the choice of a name for my white son.” After that, the venerable chief sat in silence for a while, his head bowed and eyes closed, trying to think of a suitable name. [[56]]
In the meantime, Middle Calf mixed the tobacco and filled the pipes; he had charge of the smoking outfit, while Bear Child looked after the incense of sweet grass.
The ceremony began by Bear Child taking a forked stick and selecting a live coal from the fire. He laid it on the ground in front of Mad Wolf, who placed upon it dried sweet grass. And the rising smoke soon filled the tepee with incense. Mad Wolf held up his right hand to command attention; then swaying his body to and fro, he chanted:
“I am the Morning Star, child of Sun and Moon,
My power is very strong.”
He held both hands in the smoke, and, placing them upon the sacred bundle, sang a chant to the Sun. Then he raised his hands from the bundle and laid them upon his breast—the sign that Sun Power was thus communicated.