MICHELSON. ] ORIGIN OF THE WHITE BUFFALO DANCE, 173 
It is said he was also very much liked by them. ‘Our father,” 
was what those young girls said of him; they really loved him. 
Soon, it is said, he gave a gens festival. Sure enough the old 
woman did not have to clear the things away. The young girls did 
all the clearing. The old woman just simply started to go out. 
Then she was unable not to look at the ceremonial attendants, thus 
making her son weary by acting so. She used to be a very kind- 
hearted woman, it is said. Then after having the maidens she no 
longer was a kind-hearted old woman. 
Then that man commenced his gens festival. That man who held 
the gens festival was rather ashamed, because his mother was watch- 
ing very closely. ‘‘Gracious! my mother is behaving too badly,” he 
thought. “It may be because my mother is too old a woman, is 
why she does not mind me,” he thought of his mother. 
Then it is said that night his mother slept too much. She had 
died while sleeping. Then he looked at his mother and found that 
all her ribs had slipped out of joint. ‘O, my mother is really dead,”’ 
he told those who lived with them. All of those with whom they 
were living wept. 
Then it is said he hired (persons) to bury his mother. Then they 
remained sitting there, while the people brought the things with 
which she was to lie. Nearly all the people came to know how she 
looked for the last time. 
When those whom he hired began to dress her suitably, it is said 
she had already turned into stone. ‘She has turned into stone!” 
they said. When they looked at her closely, behold, she had certainly 
completely turned into a granite rock. 
Then, ‘‘Now do not dress her up in finery in any way,” said he 
whose mother she was. 
After they had dug the grave, the diggers went over to get her. 
Then, it is said, all of them carried her. It is said that they brought 
her with difficulty yonder where they were to bury her. 
Then they only wrapped her up in buckskin. After wrapping her 
up, ‘‘Now uncoyer her face,” they said among themselves. When 
the older people uncovered her face, lo! she was gone. ‘‘She is not 
here,” said some one who uncovered her face. 
Then they looked at her; truly she had already disappeared. Then, 
it is said, they refilled that hole. After it was filled up, then the 
young maidens wept bitterly. They were unable to refrain from 
crying. Then all of them did not eat a thing for four days. 
After they had not eaten in four days, they were reproved by that 
man. “My daughters, that is just the end of her life. It can not 
be helped, she died of old age, so stop fasting,” he told them. So 
they fasted no more. Then he was the only man there, for they 
were all young maidens, and all of them were quiet. 
