116 TRADITIONS OF THE ARIKARA. 
place a buffalo rawhide in front of the lodge, over the entrance, that 
she might be permitted to peep out and look at the being. She be- 
came bold, and went out from behind the hide. She was seen by this 
being. Ille motus dedit quasi cum ea concumberet. Puella in domi- 
cilium rediit; posteaque per menses magis atque magis gravida fiebat. 
Iam tandem puerum parit. Anum comitem habet, que autem reperire 
non potest. The mother told them that the child had been born, 
so the people looked around with lights, trying to find the child. They 
looked everywhere, but could not find the child. After a while they 
found the child standing under the altar, grinning. Tihe child looked 
to be about two years old, and had teeth. It walked about constantly, 
just as its father did, and was like him in appearance. Finitimi rep- 
perunt eam numquam virum cognovisse, sed ab eo monstro per eius 
motus gravidam factam esse. The people caught the child and killed 
it. They put it into a bag and threw the bag into the river. 
The father of the child heard about this. He went to another 
wonderful man who could see better in the night than in the day and 
asked him to help him find the child. The man consented. He took his 
medicines, put them upon himself and led the man to the very spot 
where he had danced and where he had made the motions. Then the 
medicine-man led the mysterious being into the lodge of the girl who 
had given birth to the child. He showed where the boy had been 
born, where he had run, where he had stood under the sacred bundle, 
how the people caught him and killed him, and how the people had 
taken him to the river and thrown him in. They went down to the 
river. The medicine-man took a big rock and told the strange being 
that when he should throw the rock into the waters, the waters 
would part, and that he must be quick to jump in and get the boy. 
The man threw the stone up into the air, and as it fell into the water, 
the waters parted, and they could see the boy lying there. The man 
jumped in and pulled him out. When the boy was pulled out the father 
cried, and said that he wanted this wonderful man to select a place 
to bury him, for he was a strange child. The man led this myster- 
ious being about the hill on the Missouri River, and there the man 
took his club, and striking the largest stone that the people knew of, 
he split it in two. They buried the child between the two stones, and 
then went home. The mysterious being then married the girl who 
had given birth to the mysterious little boy who, immediately after his 
birth, got to dancing and running around as his father had always 
done in dances. 
