84 Field Columbian Museum — Anthropology, Vol. IX. 



their performance and under the headings of the third and fourth 

 days, respectively. 



The Chief Priest, the Lodge-maker, and his wife began fasting 

 on the afternoon of the previous day and spent the night in the 

 Lone-tipi. Here they were joined before sunrise by a few of the 

 priests. We may consider first the secret and then the public rites 

 of the day. 



SECRET RITES OUTSIDE THE LONE-TIPI. 



Before considering the rites performed this morning by the Lone- 

 tipi priests outside the lodge, it is necessary to recall that in 1901 

 Wolf-Face had been chosen to spy out the center-pole. 



Wolf-Face Selects the Center-Pole Tree, 1901. 



On this morning, therefore, Wolf-Face, completely clad in buck- 

 skin, wearing a war bonnet, and mounted on a pony bearing his war- 

 medicine paint, rode alone into the timber and selected a suitable 

 tree for the center-pole. Pausing before it, he addressed it as he 

 would a person, relating a war story in which he recounted his ex- 

 ploits against the Pawnee. Then he struck the tree, counting coup 

 on it, as if it were an enemy. 



The Priests Search for a Larger Earth. 



Early in the morning the Lodge-maker, the Chief Priest, Big- 

 Horse, Dragon-Otter, and the assistant Chief Priest left the Lone- 

 tipi in the order named, the Lodge-maker carrying in his arms the 

 sacred bundle and its pipe, and the Chief Priest a live coal. The 

 Lodge-maker and Chief Priest wore their buffalo robes, wool side 

 out. Formerly the Lodge-maker wore also a buffalo-scalp head-dress; 

 this is now in possession of the Northern Cheyenne. They slowly 

 walked forward about a hundred yards in front of the tipi, halting 

 four times, until they came to the place where the Lodge-maker had 

 advanced from the line, and deposited the bundle on the ground, 

 then they rejoined the priests and sat down in line about twenty 

 feet behind the bundle.* 



The Lodge-maker lighted his pipe from the coal which the Chief 

 Priest had carried, and after taking a few whiffs, passed it to Big 



*On this journey they look for and make a larger earth. They especially desire to know 

 more about the earth. The stopping four times on the way is symbolic of their having traveled 

 all over this earth to see it. This rite is also compared to the four movements which the Lodge- 

 maker will make on the following night in the Sun Dance lodge, when he rests his elbow on his 

 knee and waves the incense during the singing of the four sacred songs. The latter rite, however, 

 is said to be of a higher order. 



