I20 Field Columbian Museum — Anthropology, Vol. IX. 



The songs are said to relate to the growing earth. Thus in the 

 song the pipe was directed to the great medicine-spirit overhead, 

 who took it to the four medicine-spirits, who drew to it the Hght 



by the light of the day. The medicine- 

 spirit of the north, who smoked the pipe in 

 the night, received it first, and the medi- 

 cine-spirit of the east is supposed to finish it. 



The Completion of the Lodge. 



The warriors, with the greatest enthu- 

 siasm and rivalry, lifted the remaining 

 cross-bar into place, and then the sixteen 

 rafters or reach-poles were placed in posi- 

 tion, over which they spread canvas tipis.* 

 This work, owing to the great eagerness 

 of the men, consumed an almost incredibly 

 short space of time, during which the 

 Sun Dance priests, who had retired a short 

 way toward the south after the raising of 

 the center fork, remained seated. It was then half-past five o'clock. 



Fig. 56. 1 lie i^i^idi^e-inakei's 

 wife carrying the skull. 



The Priests Enter the Lodge. 



When the lodge had been completed, the Chief Priest with his 

 two hands took the two hands of the Lodge-maker's wife and caused 

 her to make four passes toward the 

 skull and then pick it up. (See Fig. 

 56.) She started in a stooping posture, , ' ' 

 and carried it slowly and deliberately 

 by way of the south to the east of the 

 entrance of the lodge, where she 

 stopped, motioned the skull four 

 times, and proceeded into the lodge by 

 way of the south, until she came to 

 a point half-way between the wall of 

 the lodge and the center-pole. There 

 she stopped, motioned the skull four 

 times toward the ground, and put it 

 down, groaning all the while as if in 

 travail. The Chief Priest, just after 

 she had taken up the skull, took up 



4f-: 



Fic. 



Sun Dance lodge, 1901. 



♦Formerly brave warriors vied among themselves for the privilege of using their valuable 

 buffalo skin tipis for this purpose which, of course, after the ceremony were useless. 



