2 1 hid Columbian Museum — Anthropology, Vol. IX 



animals, they became confused and unconscious. Two of these arrows 

 possessed power over men, and the other two possessed power 

 over buffalo and other beasts, and so two of them were 

 called "man-arrows," and two of them "buffalo-arrows." The 

 two man-arrows affected even' person. The man-arrow points 

 killed women if they passed in front of the points, or if the 

 points were held towards them. For this reason no women 

 were allowed in the arrow ceremony. Another reason is that 

 the original Prophet decreed that no women should take part 

 in the ceremony, or see these arrows. To this day none of the Cheyenne 

 women know how the arrows look, and every Cheyenne is afraid 

 to go in front of the points of the two man-arrows. These arrows 

 were very strong and very effective when the tribe was still in its 

 free state. If the people were hungry, and had nothing to live on, 

 all they had to do was to find a herd of buffalo and have the keeper 

 of the two buffalo-arrows point them towards the herd. The Cheyenne, 

 who had no horses in those days, could go up to the buffalo and kill 

 all they desired by means of these arrows. When they did this the 

 rule was to take everything except the head, and to leave the horns 

 on, and to leave the backbone attached to the head and the tail. 

 Every animal killed with the medicine-arrows had to be treated in 

 that way. These arrows made the buffalo crazy. They had no 

 will of their own, but would run in a circle until the Cheyenne had 

 killed all they wanted, and then they would dash off. The Cheyenne 

 used these arrows to kill all beasts they desired to eat, but only when 

 they had to do so. 



These sacred arrows are somewhat different from ordinary Chey- 

 enne arrows. They are about thirty-six inches long, one-half an inch 

 in diameter, round, very straight, with flintstone points. The points 

 are tied in at the end, and over each of the four arrow points is tied 

 a covering of white, downy eagle feathers. At the other end are whole 

 wing feathers of the eagle, split in two, and tied on each side of the 

 arrows. The shafts are also partly covered with the white, downy feath- 

 ers of an eagle. All the feathers are painted red. On each of the 

 four arrows are painted figures of the world, the blue paint meaning 

 blue heavens, the sun, moon, stars, the red paint meaning the earth. 

 Buffalo and other animals are also painted. So these sacred arrows 

 are held symbolic of the Great Medicine, who made the sun, moon, 

 and! the stars, and the earth. When the great Prophet, the real 

 Prophet, who brought these four sacred arrows, returned to his people, 

 he did what the Croat Medicine taught him while inside of the earth, 

 and to this day the whole medicine-arrow ceremony is performed 



