360 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194 



Black Medicine is given medicine and he vomits up the small fish and shells 

 he had eaten while in the snake's mouth.*' 



Two Men travel on and reach a wood lodge (eagle trapping lodge) occupied by 

 eagle people. They learn that one of the eagle children is ill because a mysterious 

 elk stuck his horn in the boy's leg and the birds know of no way to get it out. 

 Black Medicine uses black medicine to remove the horn and pus. [Myth here 

 provides the supernatural basis for doctoring with black medicine, a root of the 

 red baneberry, and lancing with an arrowpoint.] Two Men stay with the eagles 

 through the winter until the bald eagles, the scouts for the other big birds, come 

 north in the early spring. Bald Eagle stops and sings a sacred song belonging to 

 the Big Bird bundle rites. 



Bald Eagle states that there are many people around Devils Lake while the 

 people living along the Missouri have many offerings out also in anticipation of 

 the return of the big birds from the south. Offerings consisting of food and pieces 

 of hide on sticks are placed at the edge of the villages. The eagles travel north- 

 ward to receive their offerings and Two Men travel afoot. 



Two Men find a large snake with a head on each end. Finding no way to get 

 around the snake, they burn a hole through it. Black Medicine eats some of the 

 meat and slowly turns into a similar snake. He is carried westward overland and 

 put into the Missouri River at Bird Bill Butte. Black Medicine announces that in 

 the future he is to be known as Grandfather. One head is at Bird Bill Butte, 

 the other at Thunder Creek. 



Grandfather announces through his brother that people may make offerings 

 to him and the other six holy people of the Missouri River by placing objects on 

 the river bank and they will have a long life. [This transformation provides 

 the supernatural setting for the origin of the Missouri River rites, also for certain 

 beliefs and practices relating to the Big Bird rites.] 



Grandfather announces that he cannot return with his brother because the big 

 snake in the river wants him. He teaches him the Missouri River songs and the 

 rites which are to be performed, and tells his brother to inform the people that 

 when a man braids his hair and ties it up in a knot, that will be the sign he is to 

 have a long hfe. He tells his brother that all offerings to the Missouri River must 

 be made when there is no ice on the river, announces that he will be seen for the 

 last time the next year at Thunder Creek [on the west bank of the Missouri a 

 few miles below the present town of Sanish, N. Dak.] when the Juneberries are 

 ripe, and asks that their parents come to see him. 



He promises to help the people when crossing the Missouri and to notify the 

 other six gods living in the river to do likewise. [This provides the origin of rites 

 at the time of making a bullboat to insure good luck to those using it.] He says 

 that he eats the large intestines and that anyone can make offerings of dried 

 intestines, call him Grandfather, and ask for good luck when crossing the river. 



Black Medicine gives his sweetheart to his brother to marry and they go up- 

 stream to see him when the Juneberries are ripe. They offer him and the other 

 six gods seven cornballs and then return to the village at sunset after the large 

 snake has appeared for the last time. 



It was about this time that the people began to leave Painted Woods and 

 Charred Body Creek to settle at Knife River. The Hidatsa now had left Devils 

 Lake, settled with the Mandans, and had been frightened away by two owls. 

 Then they moved northward to Knife River also. 



Packs Antelope was a great hunter because he had the medicines of the Sacred 

 Arrows which came from Two Men. The arrows would protect him if he went to 



^1 He vomited out the same things when Charred Body and First Creator freed him from the spring. 



