MICHELSON. ] THE LITTLE SPOTTED BUFFALO. bills 
also. If any one at all wishes to worship this way, at the very time 
he is about to speak he should first stop to give the Spirit of Fire a 
smoke. At the time the ceremonial attendants have made (the food) 
boil, then he should begin to speak: ‘ Now, Spirit of Fire, I burn this 
tobacco for you. Verily, there is no place where you are not heard. 
Such is your reputation. I pray that you will tell it uprightly for 
me. Verily, you must truthfully tell how I worship,’ he says to the 
Spirit of Fire; ‘and I likewise make the One-who-lies-with-his-eye- 
looking-through-in-the-smoke-hole first smoke my tobacco,’ he says 
to him, ‘yea, this is what I say to him,’ he says to him. Then he 
asks of him that he live long and that he be given one slice in return 
(i. e., victory over the enemy). That is how he who was first 
blessed was instructed by that old man. That is all he was told by 
him at that time. 
IT shall likewise relate (what happened) subsequently. That little 
(stone) buffalo is not (fully) constructed. He is painted in a very 
spotted manner. When they talk about him he is held upside down. 
Some are in the habit of saying that he (the stone buffalo) is completely 
constructed. Yetitisnotso. This is how that buffalo is: Two feet 
are broken off. Now there are two (remaining). When the four 
legs are broken off, that will be as far as this earth exists, I have often 
heard those who take care of it say, and (it has been so) from the 
time when the one blessed died down to the present. That is all. 
This is how I observed them, (this is) as far as I know about it, (this 
is) when I first began to carefully consider anything. I used to serve 
as a ceremonial attendant. Only once in a while did I serve as a 
ceremonial attendant. That verily is what they did. They prayed 
to the Spirit of Fire the very first when they worshipped. And while 
they were still dancing there, there was a prayer. 
Verily, I shall now relate how the one who as if directs the people 
makes his speech. Formerly it was a warrior who did this. This is 
what he says while they are still dancing for the first time: “ Hello, 
hello! Dance women, youths! That is exactly how our venerable 
man who first performed this (ceremony) urged us. Dance! There 
is life there. Whoever dances for this religion shall truly obtain (long) 
life from it. Dance, women, youths. ‘Oh that is surely so,’ our old 
people will think and those who blessed them. Whoever is called 
‘Muddy-Body’ will approve of it. Oh they surely must have told 
each other that there was life (in it), so be it. He who concerned 
himself in the distant past with the religions and those who remember 
the little buffaloes who are their guardian spirits, also all to whom I 
am related, so be it; also those who have taken care of the religion 
down to the present time—if you please the ones who furnished this 
4 The sense, even if rendered rather freely. 
