THE WOMAN WHOSE BREASTS WERE CUT OFF. 155 
6¢. THE WOMAN WHOSE BREASTS WERE CUT OFF.* 
In olden times when the Arikara lived in a village, there was a 
man who had a beautiful woman. This woman gave birth to a baby 
boy. One time when the child was about five years old the father 
went off on a‘hunt. While he was gone another young man, who was 
very handsome came and courted the woman. She liked the young 
man and did as he wanted her to do. . They loved one another so much 
that they finally agreed that they would find a plan whereby either they 
could get rid of the husband or the woman would feign sickness and 
death. If she pretended to be dead she was to be placed upon an arbor 
instead of being buried; so the woman feigned sickness when her hus- 
band came home. She pretended to die, and they placed her upon an 
arbor. Her lover killed three dogs, skinned them, took the dogs up to 
* the arbor and untied the girl. The dogs were placed upon the arbor, 
so that when the dog meat decayed it would smell. The young man 
brought leggings, moccasins, blankets, and beads, and in these the 
girl dressed as a boy. Her breast was tied with wide strings, so that 
not much of it appeared. They went off to another village, which was 
about four miles from the original village, where they lived happily. 
The young woman passed herself for a young man from the other 
village. 
After they had stayed a long time in the village the woman grew 
anxious to see her child, so they painted tp as men, and went and sat 
upon a rock that was by a spring. There they watched for the child 
to come to get water. One day the woman’s boy came to get water 
from the spring, and she recognized him. After she had seen the boy 
she wanted to take him up in her arms, but the young man said, “No!” 
The woman insisted, and said, “He will not find me out.” They went 
closer, and when the boy came where they were standing by the tree 
the woman spoke to her boy, and said, “Boy, will you let me drink out 
of your bucket.’’ The boy looked at the woman for a long time. He 
went into his lodge and told his father that he had seen his mother. 
The father would not believe it, but the boy said, “There are two peo- 
ple standing yonder, and one of them is my mother.” 
The father thought, to make sure that it was true, that he would 
send for them. He had some dried buffalo meat boiled, and sent an in- 
vitation for the two young men to come and eat in his lodge. In the 
meantime he had sharpened a long knife and placed it under the meat. 
“Now,” he said, “if it is true that that woman is not a man, but my 
wife, I will find out. There are two things she is to do when she enters 
the lodge. First, when she enters and steps over the ridge inside of the 
*Told by Young-Hawk. 
