THE BUFFALO MEDICINE DANCE. 373 
I shall make you a great medicine-man. I shall give you the Buffalo 
dance.” The Buffalo then gave the boy a whistle and some roots. 
“These roots you shall give to wounded people when you doctor them. 
When I am dead take my tail and a piece of my scalp, dry them, and use 
them for yourself. Whenever you see a place where there are many 
buffalo, where the buffalo bulls have made their water, take up the mud, 
place it in a buffalo bladder and keep it. When you are about to dance, 
take a small piece of this ball which I have given you and chew it. Then 
take a little of the root and chew it. Then take some of the mud from 
the ball and put it upon your face and more upon your nose and more 
upon your body. When the medicine and the ball have reached your 
stomach then your spirit shall turn into a Buffalo spirit, so that when you 
dance the people who are looking on can not help but be under your 
influence and they will give you many presents. ‘You shall do the same 
thing when you are doctoring a wounded man. Sickness I can not 
doctor. When a person is wounded, then you can doctor, but when he 
is sick from disease, you can not.”’ 
The boy went back to the village and told his father all that the 
Buffalo had said, and gave him the things which the Buffalo had given 
him. These things which the boy received from the Buffalo were made 
mysteriously by the Buffalo. They were not handed to the boy, but the 
boy picked them up when the Buffalo spoke to him. When the father 
heard of what the boy had seen, he asked the boy to take him to the 
place where the Buffalo was, and there they found that the Buffalo had 
died. Then the boy told the father to take off the tail for him and also 
a piece of the scalp. The boy stayed around near the Buffalo for several 
days. His father knew where his boy was, so he did not worry about him. 
Several months afterwards the people had their medicine ceremony. 
The boy took his things and went into the medicine-lodge and did just 
as the Buffalo hadtold him. He put the Buffalo robe over his shoulders 
when he danced, and it changed into different colors, and the people all 
wondered and gave the boy many presents. After the dancing was over, 
many medicine-men spoke and asked where he had learned the dance. 
The boy told them that the spirit of the poor Buffalo had taught him, 
and so they called his dance the Buffalo dance. 
