THE THUNDER-BIRD CEREMONY. 315 
us. I will continue to dig around, and suddenly I will straighten up, 
walk around the bank, and hit him upon the back of his head with my 
hoe; then we will kill him.’’ His companion said: ‘‘Go at once and do 
as you have said. I will keep on digging.’”’ The one who first spoke 
straightened up and walked around as though he were looking for arti- 
chokes. When he came around behind the stranger he took his hoe and 
struck him behind the head, and the man fell. Then he called for his 
companion and they killed him. They took up their sacks of artichokes 
and ran home. 
When they reached the village they told the people that they had 
killed a strange man and that the man lay along the bank where they had 
dug artichokes. The men did not believe them, but notwithstanding 
they went to the place and there they found the strange man. The man 
had on a robe with the hair side out. His face was painted with blue 
mud and red streaks of paint. His hair was roached and covered with 
soft downy feathers, and a long downy feather stuck through his scalp- 
lock. His head was covered with blood, so that every man who came 
to the place thought the man had been scalped and would not touch the 
head. The people removed his robe and saw around his shoulders a 
black hair lariat rope. Some people said, ‘‘He must have been a war- 
rior.’’ Others said, ‘‘No, he is a wonderful man.’”’ They all went home 
and had war dances and in the night the women gave scalp dances. 
Two or three days after the man had been killed, an old man took 
the hand of his grandson, who was four or five years old, and led him to 
the place where the dead man lay. When they got there the man gave 
the boy a stick and said, ‘‘ Now, grandchild, strike the enemy and count 
coup on him.’” The boy struck the man, and then he saw the long 
downy feather upon the dead man’s head. He said, ‘‘Grandfather, let me 
take the downy feather from the dead man’s head.”’ The old man took 
his knife and cut the scalp-lock where the feather was stuck in, and then 
gave the stick to the boy tocarry to the village. When they got to their 
lodge the boy placed in front of it the pole that had the scalp and the 
downy feather attached to it. 
The next night the boy in a dream saw the man who was daubed with 
blue mud. The downy feather was in his scalp-lock. The man said: 
*“My son, I came to your people to talk to them, and they killed me. I 
am not a man; I am Thunder-Bird, the bird that flies away up in the 
heavens. Look at me.’’ The boy looked, and there just where the man 
had stood was standing a tall bird. This bird had long legs and its bill 
was very long. It waslikeacrane. It opened its wings and the boy saw 
upon its breast the downy feather that the man had had in his scalp-lock. 
