Oct., 1903. Arapaho Traditions — Dorsey and Kroeber. 403 



about daybreak, on the third night, Blue-Feather fell asleep and began 

 to snore. The story was being told and came to a close when this 

 man was sleeping. Calf-Boy tried to wake him up ; he raised his head, 

 but he would not answer. (This is the reason that the people keep close 

 to a dying person. When a person is unconscious the folks raise the 

 head and talk to comfort the sick. Because the man did not keep awake 

 and get through with the tales for four days and four nights, just so 

 with the people ; very few ever get to be a hundred years old. Most of 

 them die at the third period.) When this happened, the buffalo began 

 to get up and walk around in all directions, walking over Blue- Feather, 

 who fell asleep (dead). Those who were sitting quite a distance from 

 the center when the story was being told, came to the center spot and 

 walked around, and also walked over this man. Blue-Feather was all 

 gone. The buffalo trampled him all into dust. The walking of the 

 herd on Blue-Feather caused a cloud of dust to rise, which reached the 

 sky. 



The people at the camp-circle saw a cloud of dust which reached the 

 sky, which meant that Blue-Feather had perished. All the different 

 kinds of birds and animals were employed to search for the body. The 

 crow got to the spot and heard a person groaning, but failed to find the 

 remnants of Blue-Feather; so with the rest of the birds. The birds 

 would tell the same story about the person groaning a short distance 

 from the bare ground. Blue-Bird (not the man) finally reached the 

 spot, jumped around from one place to another until he found a tiny 

 piece of this eagle breath-feather headdress lying on the ground 

 groaning. This piece of eagle breath-feather was that of a man lying in 

 agony. So Blue-Bird took this piece of eagle breath- feather and carried 

 it to the camp-circle and dropped it in the center. The people knew 

 that a piece of headdress was brought back, so they erected a sweat- 

 lodge in the center. This piece of headdress was taken inside. 



The son of Blue- Feather (by Elk- Woman) came out with his bow 

 and four arrows. Two arrows were painted black and two painted red. 

 The boy took the black arrow and shot it up in the air, and said in a 

 loud voice, "Get out of the way, father!" The sweat-lodge moved at 

 the bottom. He stepped away from the lodge and with a red arrow 

 he shot it up in the air again, crying," "Get out of the way, father !" The 

 lodge moved on the sides. He got away from the lodge a little farther 

 off and shot the black arrow up in the air, and said in a loud voice, "Get 

 out of the way, father!" The sweat-lodge moved at the top. The next 

 time he walked away quite a distance and shot the red arrow up in the 



