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



nating her office would be most naturally translated 'leader' but in order 

 to distinguish her from the woman who actually leads the chapter 

 out of the preparatory lodge I will call her the Medicine-bearer. Many 

 regard this as the greatest office in the society. As in the case of the 

 Mixer privilege, it seems to be actually held by a married couple, but 

 the wife generally takes the lead in the march and carries the sacred 

 object. Naturally each district of the Reservation requires a distinct 

 Medicine-bearer, and in regard to the sacred objects carried some differ- 

 entiation has developed. The ancient leading medicine was an otterskin, 

 which was associated with certain other sacred emblems. 1 Thus, at 

 Pryor the husband of the otter-bearer showed me the elkskin headband 

 with feathers in the back which he wears in the procession and the eagle 

 feather fan he carries on this occasion. Among the Lodge Grass Indians 

 One-blue-bead distinguished three officers connected with the otter 

 medicine, the otter-bearer, an old man of the Otter chapter wearing a 

 crown of white feathers, and another old man carrying a Tobacco sack 

 with meadowlarks and having his head likewise decorated with these 

 birds; these three medicines, otter, crown, and meadowlarks, were 

 regarded by my informant as forming a single medicine. 



Medicine-crow thus accounted for the substitution of a crane for 

 the otter medicine among the Lodge Grass people One of his particular 

 friends had been killed by the Dakota and Medicine-crow went round 

 the prairie mourning and fasting near the camp in quest of a vision. 

 On the third day he was very thirsty, lay down on his stomach and fell 

 asleep. His father had had a vision of a crane, and Medicine-crow then 

 also saw a crane. "It walked up to me, wearing about its neck a scalp 

 with blood trickling from it. I looked round and saw the cherries were 

 ripe. I woke up and began to think I should kill a Dakota when the 

 cherries should be ripe, I went out and killed a Dakota at the time in- 

 dicated in my sleep." The crane, according to this informant, is sup- 

 posed to be the cleverest of animals. There are only two men at Lodge 

 Grass (1910) who had it for their medicine. Medicine-crow bought crane 

 power from another man so as to make his own still greater and it has 

 been used in recent times to take the lead. Gray-bull said the crane 

 had superseded the otter in Lodge Grass about 1895 Before that the 

 otter had been used by the Crow as far back as he could remember. 

 Medicine-crow's wife had acted as crane-bearer until Bright-wing's wife 

 bought the privilege from her for two horses. 



1 Curtis (IV, 66) says the skin is that of either an otter or beaver because both were water animals 

 with power to bring rain on the crop. 



