126 Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XXI, 



wandered about mourning and discovered a nest of eggs, one of which 

 was different from the rest. He carried it away and dreamt about it. 

 It entered his body through his mouth. Thereafter, whenever the people 

 had a Tobacco dance at a certain song the egg would come out of his 

 mouth, but afterwards go in again. This feature was so conspicuous 

 that the name of the chapter was altered accordingly. Still later it was 

 renamed for the Duck. Once Fire-weasel and his adopter were taking 

 part in a Tobacco dance. At the appropriate song the ' father' spat 

 out the egg and gave it to Fire- weasel to hold during the dance, after 

 which he swallowed it again. 



Arm-round-the-neck says the founder of the chapter was the 

 father of Three-foretops (i'g-api ria-rawic), a middle-aged man living at 

 Lodge Grass. He has seen him show up the egg at a daytime dance 

 and when people had done looking at it he put it back into his mouth 

 again. Unlike the people who exhibited their batsird'pe at the Bear Song 

 dance Three-foretops' father did not go into a trance during his exhibi- 

 tion. He adopted a man who also spat forth an egg, but thereby he did 

 not lose his own power. This second man showed the egg more 

 frequently than his Master. However, my informant was inclined to 

 regard his performances as spurious; the egg he exhibited was too round 

 for a real egg and too heavy in proportion to its size. 



Fire- weasel said that he himself once found a little smooth stone in 

 a nest of eggs and has kept it ever since. He dictated the following two 

 songs of his chapter: 



1. 



ba-watsirik- ; i'g-e batsirik-. 



Something I am hunting; eggs I am hunting. 



2. 



kam-bi-re'k'u-rak, barewik*. i'g'e bQcbi barewik'. 



If someone sends me somewhere, I shall go. Eggs to eat I shall go. 



At Pryor I purchased a blanket which Henry Russell's wife had 

 worn when a member of the Egg chapter (see Fig. 3). The visionary 

 who had seen the blanket originally and from whom my informants 

 had obtained it was dead in 1910, besides the Russells had left the Egg 

 people and joined the Otters, hence they were less reluctant to part 

 with the object than would otherwise have been the case. What they 

 actually purchased was the right to have such a blanket made as the 

 visionary described; for this Henry paid him a horse worth $62. Then 



