62 TRUE STORIES OF THE HEAVENLY BEINGS. 
the heavens. The people became afraid, and began to mourn, thinking 
that the world was coming to an end. But the leader of the people 
said, ‘‘Remember the words of Pahokatawa.’’ The people recalled the 
words, and they knew then that it was not time. They went out and 
tried to catch the meteors. Some of the old people, who are living 
now, remember the time, and say that the stars flew around like birds. 
Two or three years after this happened, while the Pawnee were upon 
a buffalo hunt, two men were walking over the prairie, when they 
came to a barren place. There was no grass growing there and the 
men wondered why. It was a smooth, round place. In the center 
they saw a stone sticking out and upon this stone were many colors. 
They began to digit out. It was the shape of a turtle. The legs and 
head and even the eyes were imprinted upon it. They went home and 
told the people. When Big-Eagle, the chief of the Skidi, heard of it, he 
told them that Pahokatawa had promised them a meteor. They went 
to the place with ponies and found the meteor. They placed it upon a 
pony. It was very heavy and the people could not carry it. There 
were only a few people who were allowed to see it. When this thing 
was taken into the village the people gathered around it and offered 
tobacco and smoke to it. Priests were sent for and they were the ones to 
offer the smoke from the pipe. This meteor was carried by these peo- 
ple wherever they went, the old people believing that it was part of 
the Morning-Star. They kept it with the Morning-Star bundle. When 
the people moved away from Nebraska into Oklahoma they placed the 
stone upon a high hill in the western part of the state. Lone-Chief, a 
Skidi, still living, was one of the party who took the stone upon the hill 
and placed it there. He thinks the white people have discovered it and 
taken it away. The people speak of this meteor as having wonderful 
powers about it. Whenever the warriors were about to go out upon the 
war-path they went to where this meteor was kept, offered smoke and 
prayers to it, and then they were successful in overcoming the enemy and 
capturing their ponies. The people believed that as long as this stone 
was present with them bad disease could not enter their camp. 
16. BUFFALO-WIFE AND CORN-WIFE.* 
There was a young man who would never go to herd the ponies, nor 
join war parties, as his companions did, but always remained at home. 
When he was about twenty years of age, he selected a hill and there 
he used to climb every day and sit upona pile of stones, and look 
1Told by Buffalo, Skidi. This variant of a well-known tale teaches reverence 
and respect for both the corn and the buffalo, and also explains the part played by 
the buffalo and the corn in the make-up of the sacred bundles. 
