84 TRADITIONS OF THE CADDO. 
50. THE POWER OF BUFFALO AND BEAR.* 
One time when the animals spoke many languages, and yet under- 
stood one another, Bear and Buffalo met. They commenced telling 
each other about the powers that each received from the Father and 
when these powers should be used. Said the Bear: ‘‘Once upon a 
time I was a human being and lived like a human being, and went 
with the people from place to place. When they camped in the open, 
my family always made a camp near by in the timber or mountains, for 
we liked to climb the trees and play among the rocks. One night I 
had adream. I dreamed that I was as you see me now, and I heard 
some one telling me of the many things that I had within my power 
to do. I was shown the place where I should stay, and I was given 
the paws and claws and the sharp teeth which I now possess. Then 
I dreamed that a human being was pursuing me and shooting at me 
with his arrows, and I knew that he was trying to kill me for food, as 
he does any other animal. JI awoke from sleep and found that all I had 
dreamed was true, and from that time I have been as I am now. I left 
the people and began a new life in the mountains and woods, and from 
that time the people have hunted me and have tracked me with dogs. 
Now they call me Bear, meaning ‘the mountain animal.’ I have told 
youall.’’ Buffalo began to speak: ‘‘I, too, was like a human being and 
my ways were like their ways when we first came to dwell upon the 
earth. My people were called the Buffalo people because our oldest 
chief was named Buffalo. One time our chief was taken away from us 
and we never knew what became of him, though we were told that the 
Great-Powerful-One had taken him to another world, and that some day 
we were all going to that other world, and that we would meet our chief 
there. We lived with the people and traveled with them, going behind 
them. ‘The people began to enter this world, but we were forbidden to 
enter because some one had made a mistake that caused us to stay back 
where we came from. We found out that the person who had made this 
mistake was Coyote, and so our people began at once to pray that the 
Father would give him powers and teach him so that he might enter the 
world and take us along, that we might be with the people. Wedo not 
know how we came to be as we are now, but we know that in order to be 
in the same world as the people are we had to change into wild animals, 
and that for the love of the people we had to be their game, and we were 
to be killed and eaten by them. ‘Then we were given powers to be 
dangerous, and these horns on our heads were given to us to fight with.”’ 
* Told by White-Bread. 
