496 



BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[BULL. 61 



LEGEND OF GHOST HILL 



About 8 miles southeast of F(jrt Yates is a high butte known as 

 Ghost Hill. (PI. 81.) The following legend (given by 8iya'ka) 

 and song (recorded by Two Shields) are connected with this butte: 



When Sitting Bull and his band were brought from Canada they camped one winter 

 on the lowhind beside the Missouri River, a few miles below F'ort Yates. It was a 

 large camp, including many hostile Indians, who were afterward located at Pine 

 Ridge and at Cherry Creek in the Cheyenne River Reservation. Among these Indians 

 was a particularly handsome young man, who was very fascinating to the young 

 women. One day he disappeared. As no trace of liim could be foimd, his parents 

 consulted a man who had some sacred stones, giving him a horse and asking that he 

 would tell them of their son. This man said that during the next night the voice 

 of the missing man would be heard passing through the camp, and that all must* follow 

 the voice. On the night designated all the camp was on the alert; just before dawn 

 they heard the voice of the young man approaching. His parents and friends, recog- 

 nizing the voice, began to lament, and the dogs barked as at the approach of a person. 

 The voice passed through the camp, singing a love song, then turned and came back, 

 retracing its way toward tliis hill. The people followed, but could not go as fast as the 

 voice, wliich gradually became more distant until it was lost in the darkness. 



Fig. 42. Plot of song No. 218. 



This incident seemed to make the grief of the young man's parents more acute, 

 and they went again to the owner of the stones, to whom they gave another horse, 

 asking him to tell who had killed their son. The man said he had been murdered by 

 10 men, who were jealous of him, and that one ot these men would die in 10 days, 

 another in 10 days after the first, and so on until all were dead. This came to pass i\a 

 he predicted. The parents of the missing man then went again to the owner of the 

 sacred stones and begged to know where they could find the body of their son. The 

 man said that their son had been chased a long distance by his enemies and finally 

 had been killed far trom home, and that his body had been devoured by wolves. He 

 also told the parents to follow the voice (which was still heard at intervals singing the 

 same song) and to keep following it until they reached the place where the voic-e 

 disappeared, where they would see their son. The next time they heard the 

 voice they hastened toward the place whence it came and saw at some distance before 

 them a figure wrapped in a gray Army blanket. They followed it but never could 

 quite overtake it. Sometimes they would feel its presence behind them, and on 

 looking back, would see it, but it never quite overtook them. It always lollowed 

 the path toward Ghost Hill, and the parents thought it disappeared in the side of the 

 hill. Accordingly they dug into the side of the hill and made diligent search, but 

 the body of the young man was never found. A man named Walking Elk lived at 

 the foot of (jhost Hill. He had a large family, the members of which died one after 

 another. He laid their deaths to the ghost and shot at it with his ritle. The last 

 appearance of the ghost was about the year 1889. It is said that a similar figure 

 wrapped in a gray Army blanket was later seen at Pine Ridge and on the Rosebud 

 Reservation. 



