MICHELSON. | ORIGIN OF THE WHITE BUFFALO DANCE, 71 
They started forth. He was only dreaming this. The other began 
to lead him; that he was first led east, he thought of himself. Yonder 
he was come to the underworld. 
“T have blessed this, our grandchild. This was why I blessed him, 
because he made himself stumble around from hunger. That was 
why I pitied him from his cries. So I thought, ‘Now I am going to 
bless him,’”’ he said. “Verily I have told him what I think of him. 
I have spoken to him the correct number of times. I have just now 
spoken to him four times, when we started to come here. I have first 
brought our grandchild in for you. Just now I am taking him in 
your (pl.) places in order, but he must make his speeches in the 
festivals of his gens.° His word shall be just like this.’ Now I 
have told you what I think of our grandchild,” said the one by whom 
he was taken around. And then he sat down after he was addressed. 
“Come here and sit down in front of me,’’ he was told. Then he 
went there and sat down. He was stroked on his head once. After 
he had been stroked on the head, ‘“‘Now, my grandchild, we the 
manitous have now blessed you; you haye now in you our word. 
You must truly listen to me, for I will bless you also. Your life will 
be just like this. Just what this one thinks of you, the same will I 
think of you too. As he instructs you in this religion, just so 1 will 
tell the truth if you really believe in this religion. And from that 
(your fellow) people will never besick. We think of not only yourself, 
but all of you in the gens so that your lives will be strong. But you 
must always tell ane Spirit of Fire whatever you want. He is the 
one to whom you shall tell the truth. He is the one whom we shall 
not deceive. We shall always know from him whatever you say, 
and whatever you ask us. And if you have done exactly right in 
your worship, then we shall think ‘that’s right.’ How pray could 
we think ‘no’? No. ‘To be sure, they believed us. They did the 
right thing. They did just exactly as we instructed them,’ that is 
what we will think of you. So that is why we will believe you. 
We can’t possibly feel ‘no’ toward you. Of course if you do not do 
as we tell you, that wouldn’t do. Then you would be practically 
6 The festivals of the gentes are the most important existing ceremonies of the Fox Indians. William 
Jones renders ‘‘ gens festivals”’ by ‘‘feast of the clan(s)’’ in his Fox Texts, and his Notes on the Fox Indians 
(J. A. F., xxiv: 220) and by ‘‘feast ceremony of (his) clan’’in his Kickapoo Tales. The objection to these 
renditions is that they suggest that the Foxes and Kickapoos are organized in clans, whereas they are 
organized in gentes. The translation ‘‘feast dance of the clans”’ (article Kickapoo in the Handbook of 
American Indians) is open to the same objection, and also to another in that it assumes that dancing is an 
integral and essential part of the ceremony , whereas in winters the festivals oceur, but there is no dancing. 
“ Peast festival” (article For in the Handbook) is a clumsy alliterative translation. The term “gens festi- 
val’’ (article Sauk in the Handbook) is the most satisfactory one. In previous publications I have used 
“clan feast,’’ which is based on Jones’s ‘‘feast of the clan.”’ 
7 Free translation: ‘‘shall go through”’ literally. 
