42 Field Columbian Museum — Anthropology, Vol. IX. 



the robe out. At that time the medicine-men were the only ones 

 who wore their robes in that way. 



There were among the Cheyenne certain men of extraordinary 

 intelligence and superhuman powers. At certain times these great 

 i medicine-men would come together and put up a lodge, where they 

 \ would sit in a large circle. They would chant and go through curious 

 rituals. Each man would rise and by incantation perform before 

 the crowd as no other man could perform. When the boy was about 

 ten years old he desired to go and take part in one of the magic dances 

 given by the great medicine-men. He insisted that his grandmother 

 go to the chief of the medicine-men and gain for him admission to 

 the dance. His grandmother told one of the medicine-men of the 

 boy's desire, and so they let him enter the lodge. When the boy 

 went into the lodge the chief said to him, "Where do you want to 

 live?" (Where do you want to sit?) Without ceremony the boy 

 took his seat beside the chief. He wore his robe, and had the man 

 who brought him in paint his body red, with black rings around his 

 face, and around each wrist and ankle. The performance began 

 at one end of the circle. When the boy's turn to perform came he 

 told the people what he was going to do. With sweet grass he burned 

 incense. Through the incense he passed his buffalo sinew bow-string 

 east, south, west, and north. Then he asked two men to assist 

 him while he performed. First he had them "tie his bow-string 

 around his neck, then cover his body with his robe, then pull at the 

 ends of the string. They pulled with all their might, but they could 

 not move him. He told them to pull harder, and as they pulled at 

 the string again his head was cut off and rolled from under his robe, 

 and his body was left under the robe. They took his head and placed 

 it under the robe with his body. Next they removed the robe, and 

 there sat a very old man in place of the boy. They covered the old 

 man with the robe, and when they removed the robe again, there 

 was a pile of human bones with a skull. They spread the robe over 

 the bones, and when it was removed there was nothing there. 

 Again they spread the robe, and when they removed it, there was 

 the boy again. 



After the magic dance the Cheyenne moved their camp and 

 hunted buffalo. The wonderful boy and a crowd of other boys went 

 out by themselves to hunt buffalo calves that might be returning to 

 the place where they last saw their mothers. They saw five or six 

 calves, one of which was a two-year-old. The wonderful boy asked 

 the other boys to surround the calves so that he might kill the two- 

 year-old. They chased the calves and killed the two-year-old with 



