MICHELSON. ] ORIGIN OF THE WHITE BUFFALO DANCE. 145 
“Now, [ will hire you,” he told the Indians. “‘ You will kill nothing 
but the turkeys,” he said to them. 
They were very willing. They killed nothmg but the turkeys. 
They killed many. Then they brought them to the place where that 
man was. 
“Now you must begin at once to pick the feathers, for | am going 
to do something,” he told them. 
Then it is said, ‘Now we are going to give a gens festival with 
these turkeys,” he told them. 
“Well, pray, in what are we going to cook them?” the ceremonial 
attendants thought. 
Then it is said that man began a speech: ‘“‘ Now this is what will 
happen to us. We have lost all our possessions, your kettles, in fact 
you have lost all your possessions. Verily, at this time you shall 
see all that you have lost,” he told the people. ‘‘ But you must first 
place new dirt here very carefully. You will place new dirt covering 
a large space. You must do this in haste. Even the body of the 
one who was drowned will be lying here on his belly. That is why 
I say, ‘do not bother with him;’ thus I say to you. But he shall not 
be alive; that is the way it shall be,” he said. 
After he spoke, there were many people digging to put on new 
dirt. In a short time they were finished. 
“Now then, spread some things here for him to lay his head on; 
you will do it for him,” he said. 
Early the next morning those who were the ceremonial attendants 
woke up. Lo, there they saw a corpse stretched out and their things 
were there. Each of their belongings were there. No one lost a 
thing. Even the person who had died at some lonely place was 
lying there stretched out. 
Then it is said he at once commenced his gens festival. And some 
of them buried that man. They had some great feasts, though it is 
said they did not dance together. He just gave a big gens festival; 
the sacred pack was not taken down. It was just there hanging. 
No dancing songs were sung. They only feasted. The people had 
four feasts, it is said. 
Then it is said, after they ate, he spoke to the people: “ Now, my 
fellow people, truly I think of myself, ‘the manitou knows me.’ 
This is why I mention this to you, because the way I have brought 
you through looks very difficult. And this which you have lost, 
you are able to see it here right now. You see them all. You will 
lose nothing. You will see those things exactly where you lost them 
over there. You must have thought ‘we have lost them.’ No, here 
they are, all of them. Some one will just say it, if he says, ‘I lost 
