252 THE ORIGIN OF MEDICINE CEREMONIES OR POWER. 
fast. They finally came to the stream and the man was beginning to 
get sick. They went into the stream, and as the boy went through the 
water, hekeptrepeating: “‘Itiscomingup. Itiscomingup. Be ready 
as soon as the thing sticks its head out of my mouth to pull it out.” 
When the water came upto his neck he told the others to watch; that itwas 
coming. As soon as they saw the thing stick its head out of his mouth 
one of the men grabbed it quickly and threw it on the bank of the river. 
The young medicine-man fell down and disappeared in the water as the 
thing was taken out of him. In a little while the young medicine-man 
stood up and said, ‘‘He is dead.” 
It was then early morning. They unsaddled their ponies and let 
them graze around while they cooked a little breakfast for themselves 
and ate. Then they took the animal that was lying on the bank and 
burned it up. The young medicine-man told the others that they must 
not tell the other party about his vomiting up this animal; but that they 
should tell about the death of the Potawatami. While they were on 
the bank of the creek, their friends came from the other side of the creek 
and said that when they left the Potawatami village there was a great 
commotion, for one of the Potawatami had died early that morning. 
The other people knew that the young medicine-man had thrown up 
the animal about the same time, but they said nothing. Then they 
all marched back to their homes together. 
The people had gathered their corn and were about to go on their 
winter hunt. On that hunt they killed many buffalo. Then, in the 
spring, they went to the other villages, planted their corn, and again went 
hunting. That time the young medicine-man told his relatives to have 
the men kill buffalo and dry the meat; that he wanted to give them a 
medicine-men’s sleight-of-hand ceremony. The meat was brought into 
the medicine-men’s lodge where the young medicine-man was with the 
many young men, to whom he was teaching the mysteries of medicine. 
At that time many wonderful sleight-of-hand performances took place. 
On the last day of the final ceremony, before daylight, the young medi- 
cine-man went to the timber with some other young men, cut down a 
cottonwood tree, and dragged it up to the lodge; and there they set 
the cottonwood tree in front of the lodge, so that it would always stand 
there and would grow. The sleight-of-hand performances continued and 
the young medicine-man did many wonderful things. When he put 
the tree outside of the lodge, it was the most wonderful thing that had 
ever been done; so that the other medicine-men had to keep quiet and 
had to acknowledge this young medicine-man as the leading medicine- 
man. 
