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



A certain man by the name of Blanket-owner was refused admission to the 

 society. He went about crying on the Rosebud. One day, when driving horses to 

 water in the springtime, he saw some prairie-chickens dancing and watched their 

 movements. One of the birds on the outskirts said: " All of you, come hither, now 

 let us have a Tobacco dance." The headman said, " Go and fetch my drum." 

 Another chicken went to the brush and when he came out he was transformed into a 

 person with a drum painted yellow, which he gave to the prairie-chicken headman. 

 He said, " When I sing the song, let your wings droop and drag on the ground." 

 Then he sang the first song: 



tsitsk-aka"ta, tsitsk-akatawe napure t^ 



Little prairie-chickens, little prairie-chickens, breasts outward a little put, 



dfpe Oopik*. 



your tail is square. 



He sang the next song: 



awaxawe h^reriek', bi ik* akawe, bapakurita 



Mountains among them be, look at me day after day 



b! fk-akawe. 



me look at. 



(This means that the dance will last for a long time.) 



The prairie-chicken then spoke to the man: " You have been refused admission. 

 Go back with those sixteen members, have children, 1 and dance with them. We'll 

 see which of us is stronger, they or I. Do not let yourself be adopted by any of them 

 now; for all that, you will have more children than any of the rest." 



Some time after this the visionary with his wife entered the next Tobacco dance. 

 " How do you come in?" " I have joined you. You refused to adopt me. Now I 

 make a dance of my own. You are dancing without a drum, I'll make a drum and 

 dance with it." So he had one made exactly as he saw it in his vision, with yellowish- 

 brown paint, and used it to dance with. He said, " I'll have more children than you. 

 You have only sixteen members in all." Thereupon he began to adopt some new 

 members every year till he had seventeen. " We'll plant Tobacco now." He had a 

 dream in which he saw the cactus-berry, onion, beaver dirt, and mole dirt. He made 

 a collection of these substances and plants and said he was going to use them. Thus he 

 began to plant mixed Tobacco. He said that he had a dream ordering the planting of 

 Tobacco. By this time the Founder, his ' son,' and his ' grandson ' were all dead. 

 The fourth novice said to Blanket- owner, " I will join you." Then Blanket-owner 

 refused to allow it. So the man refused gave him a horse and was then allowed to 

 look at the mixture. " This is the proper mixture, but we have never used it hereto- 

 fore. Let each take half of it, then we'll dance together." The other man asked, 

 " What shall we use to start with?" Blanket-owner said, " I'll get some buffalo 

 tongue and bones, we'll chop the bones fine, make tallow out of it, and we'll make 

 and use hash." They had a planting without songs. 



'That is: "proceed to adopt outsiders." 



