408 THE ORIGIN OF MEDICINE CEREMONIES OR POWER. 
this dance you ate nothing, neither did you drink.”” Then the big white 
Swans in the center spoke and said: ‘‘ My son, we are leaders of this dance. 
When you go home our spirits will go with you. You shall from this 
time on dream of this dance and dream of all that you are to do and then 
you will have the ceremony. You shall always give this dance at the 
time when the Buffalo bulls get upon high hills and stand there, for it 
was at that time that you found the birds dancing in the timber.”” When 
the Swans had finished, the Owls circled around and began tosing. The 
man learned the songs which were sung by the Owls, and then he was 
told to go home and start the dance. 
When the young man started the dance he had visions, so that he 
knew clearly the rites which he was to perform. After the first dance 
the boy knew the ceremony and gave many Sun dances during the sum- 
mers. 
109. THE SKELETON-MAN AND THE SUN DANCE.’ 
A long time ago a man and his wife went off from the village on a 
hunt. They came to a thickly timbered country, and there made a 
little grass-house. Every day the man would go hunting, while the woman 
would stay in the house. One evening the man came home and brought 
meat with him. They sat outside of the grass-house and cooked the 
meat on coals. While they were cooking the meat they heard somebody 
coming from the timber. The man told the woman to go into their 
lodge, and the woman went in. After a while the man entered also and 
they lay down. The man took his bow and arrows and placed them 
beside him and put his knife under the mat. Soon he heard a noise and 
so he reached for his bow, and called, ‘‘Who are you?” As he spoke, 
the being, who had entered, turned into a skeleton and dropped to the 
ground with a rattling of bones. The man told the woman to get up and 
to put the bones into a robe and to place them somewhere in the lodge, 
but the woman was frightened and would not do it. Then the man 
gathered the bones in his arm and placed them in a corner of the lodge. 
As he lay them down a voice whispered to him and said: “I am 
Knee-Prints-upon-the-River-Banks.”’ Then the man began to cry. 
The next day the man sent his wife home, for she was frightened. 
When she reached her village she told the people what had happened, 
and they made fun of her. The people said: ‘‘ You should have remained 
with your husband.’”’ This mysterious being called to the man as soon 
1Told by Big-Crow, Skidi. This tale is also a fragment of the Skidi origin of 
the Sun dance. 
