86 TRUE STORIES OF THE HEAVENLY BEINGS. 
20. SPOTTED-HORSE; A BRAVE AND A CHIEF.’ 
A long time ago, when the Skidi had their village upon the Loupe River 
in Nebraska, a Skidi had a wonderful dream. He saw a man in his 
dream. The man had a robe over his body and the robe was turned out 
so that the man could see the drawings uponit. The robe had drawings 
of spotted ponies. The man also had around his shoulders a buffalo 
lariat rope. In his arms he carried a small bundle. This man spoke 
to the Skidi man and said: ‘‘Go and stand upon that high hill four days 
and four nights, and these things that I have here will be explained to 
you.”’ The next day the man went upon the hill and mourned for four 
days, and on the fourth night the being appeared to the man in another 
dream and said to him that he had done as he told him to do, and said: 
‘“‘T give you this.”’ It was a round thing which looked like a sun-glass. 
The being said: ‘‘Use this when you light your pipe, just before attack- 
ing the enemy. I will teach you how to make the pipe. The bowl must 
be of blue stone. The stem must be about seven inches long and is to 
have no hole through it. You must kill a certain animal that you will 
find in the southern country. Place these things in a bundle and call it 
holy-bundle, and carry this bundle whenever you go on the war-path.”’ 
This man went home and a few days afterwards he found a blue stone 
and made the bowl for the pipe. This bowl was very small. He tooka 
limb of ash and made a stem, not putting any hole through the stem. 
In his wanderings he found the thing that looked like a sun-glass. The 
man knew that this must be what the being told him he would find, and 
that he must light his pipe with it. He went on the war-path, and while 
he was gone he wandered away from the others and he found the animal 
that the being showed him in the dream. The animal was sitting upon a 
limb sleeping. The man took his bow and an arrow and shot the animal 
and killed it. He skinned it and carried it around while on the war-path. 
When they stopped for rest the man would pick up stones and rub upon 
the skin, so that it became tanned and soft. 
When this man returned home he invited a few of his friends and 
told them of what he saw upon the hill. He told his friends that now he 
1Told by Good-Chief, who at the time of his death last year was the oldest chief 
of the Skidi. His father, in turn, was in his time hereditary head chief of the Skidi 
and was the keeper of the chief’s bundle. This tale is traditional history and is 
explanatory of the warrior’s bundle, the most interesting feature of which was a 
small pipe with a holeless stem. When near the village of the enemy the owner 
held the filled pipe towards the sun, and attempted to smoke it. If successful it 
was an omen from the gods that he was to be victorious. If he did not succeed 
in smoking it the war party returned to their homes. The bundle differs from the 
ordinary warrior’s bundle and is supposed to have had its origin from the sun. 
