THE SKELETON-MAN AND THE SUN DANCE. 409 
as his wife was gone and said: ‘‘I come to smoke with you.” The man 
filled his pipe, lighted it, and handed it to the mysterious being and he 
heard only one whiff, and then the mysterious being whispered and said: 
‘Fill the pipe again; I did not get enough smoke.”’ The man blew his 
breath into the pipe and there was nothing in it. Then this mysterious 
being spoke and said: ‘‘I control all the animals and the birds. I will 
now give you a dance which will be known as the Whistle dance. If you 
will stay here I will teach you just what to do.”’ The man remained 
with this mysterious being and he learned the ceremony of the Sun dance. 
This ceremony was known only to Pipe-Chief, an old Skidi priest, 
who is now dead. 
110. THE WOMAN WHO WAS BEWITCHED BY A FOX.’ 
A long time ago, when the Kitkehahki lived near Nemaha, Nebraska, 
something wonderful happened. My grandmother did not see it, but 
her grandmother told her. One day some women went out to gather 
wood. While they were gathering dry limbs, one of the young girls 
strayed away. She came to a tree that had been broken by wind. The 
hollow trunk of the tree lay upon the ground. Some mysterious power 
prompted her to look into the hollow log and there she saw a child. The 
child had a very small face and scarcely any hair, and its arms were very 
thin and its finger nails were long. The child looked at the girl and 
reached out its long, thin arms to her. The girl was so frightened that 
she did not know what todo. She stood up and looked to see where the 
other women were, but she could not see them. She looked into the 
hollow tree again and there was the child grinning and making motions 
with its hand as if calling to her. The girl was so frightened that she 
could not run. Her scalp seemed to draw up in a knot upon the top of 
her head. Again she looked, and the child was still there. This time 
the girl noticed that the child had yellow paint all over its face, and 
black paint close to the hair. The girl ran to where the women were 
gathering wood. She told them that she wanted them to go and see the 
child. The women went. They looked into the hollow tree, but no 
child was there. The girl was disappointed, and she began to scream. 
The scream was that of a fox and the women saw a fox running from 
them. Something was exerting a mysterious influence over the girl. 
She wanted to run to the fox, and she screamed and yelled like a fox. 
1 Told by Good-Food-in-Kettle, Kitkehahki. The moral of this story is similar 
to that of No. 101, except that in this case women are warned to be careful of the 
animals they encounter while away from home, especially in the timber. 
