128 DAKOTA GRAMMAR, TEXTS, AND ETHNOGRAPHY. 
and ask the spirits. While she was going on this errand he went around and reached 
the house of spirits first, and he instructed them how to answer his mother. 
The mother came home crying. When the boy asked her what employment had 
been assigned to him, she had to reply, ‘The work that I think difficult.” But the 
boy said, ** Never mind, mother, soon we will be rich.” Then he went away and 
brought home a horse; and again he brought home cows, sheep, and all kinds of 
domestice animals. 
One day his mother came home from the village crying, and told her son of a 
plan to take off his head the next day at noon if he did not get possession of the chief's 
wife’s finger ring. He told her to be quiet, and said, “That is nothing.” Then in 
the evening he took his own clothes and stuffed them. He made a ladder, and taking 
the stuffed man and the ladder he went to the chief’s house. The ladder he placed 
upright and looked in at a window. The chief was lying asleep with a pistol in his 
hands. As the young man shoved up the window he held in it the grass man. The 
chief was waked by the noise and fired his pistol. Cheezhon, which was the young 
man’s name, let fall the grass man, and while the chief went to seek the man he 
supposed he had killed, Cheezhon made his way to the chamber, and said to the 
chief’s wife, ‘* Hand me the finger ring; that was not Cheezhon, but I have killed 
him.” Whereupon she gave it, and he took it home. Afterwards the chief came in 
and said to his wife, ‘‘ Hand me the finger ring; that was not Cheezhon, but I have 
killed him.” To which she replied, It was but just now you said that, and i gave 
up the ring.” To which he said, “ Really, that was Cheezhon, and you gave it to him 
after all!” 
In the meantime Cheezhon reached his home, and saying to his mother, * See, 
this is what you eried for,” he handed her the ring. 
Sometime after this his mother came home from the village again erying, when 
Cheezhon said, ‘* Mother, what do you mean? When we were not rich you did not 
cry, but now we are rich you are always crying.” On which the mother said, ‘* My 
son, the chief said that he himself would come and take you.” But Cheezhon made 
light of this also, and said, ‘* Mother, that is nothing.” In the meantime he went on 
making a small whistle, which he finished. Then he told his mother to fill a large 
entrail with blood and put it under her clothes. ‘ When he comes,” said he, ‘I will 
stab you with this knife, but I will only run it into the entrail, but as there will be 
blood he will think I have killed you; and when I blow on this whistle you will stand 
up again.” 
On the morrow at noon the chief came and saw Cheezhon stab his mother. He 
was much astonished, and said, ‘ Cheezhon, you were always a fool, but this beats all 
the rest.” But Cheezhon replied, “* What do you mean by saying that? I have done 
this that I may bring my mother to life again.” So he took up his whistle and blew 
upon it, and his mother stood up. The chief then offered him any sum he might name 
for the whistle. But Cheezhon said, ‘I have paid a great sum for the whistle, and I 
do not want to sell it. When anyone asks me to bring back to life one who is dead, I 
can do it by means of this, so I value it very highly.” But the chief repeated that he 
would give him any sum, and Cheezhon named five hundred dollars. 
This was given and the whistle taken home. Then the chief called all the people 
together, and said he would do a thing. Then all the principal men came, and the 
