ll the wives to take care of the heads. The wives took the brains
out of the buffalo skull and mixed them with the largest part of the
liver, and after mixing well, used the brains and liver in tanning the
hides. Then the wife was told to take out the tripe and skin it, for they
used the skin as a bucket with which to carry water when they got home.
They had strips of rawhide about three feet long and a quarter of an inch
wide and tied the meat so that they could carry it home on the horses.
They took the backbone after it had been cleaned of the flesh, and tied
the meat to that and threw it over the back of the horse so that the load
would not hurt the back of the horse. When we got home with the meat we
unloaded. The men who had gone without their wives simply got off their
horses and went into the tepee. The women rushed out to get the meat.
Then the women took the horse with the meat on it to their father-in-law.
Then the mother-in-law hurried to get the meal, taking the ribs of the
buffalo, setting them up against the fire to roast. After the meat was
cooked it was cut in slices and placed in a wooden bowl, and the
mother-in-law took the meat over to the lodge of her son-in-law. That was
all we had for our meal. We had no coffee or anything else to eat, but we
made a good meal from the meat of the buffalo. Then the son-in-law said
to his wife: Your mother has been feeding me all the time, now you go out
and catch that mare and give it to her as a present. There was plenty of
meat in the camp and then we boys would go out and play buffalo. We would
take a long piece of rawhide, fasten a piece of meat to it, and one of us
would drag it along while the others fired arrows into it--the arrows we
used for killing squirrels and birds. When we chased the boy dragging the
piece of meat he would stop after we overtook him, and paw the dust and
would imitate the buffalo bull, and pick up the piece of meat and swing it
round his head, all the while we were trying to shoot arrows into it. But
sometimes in the swinging of the meat with the arrows in it a boy would
get hit, and then he would run back and fall down, and we would run back
to him and say that he had been hooked. He would be groaning all the
time. Then we would pick up weeds and squeeze the juice out of them,
acting as though we were doctors. About that time night came on, and the
chiefs sent for Four Bear, and Four Bear would go around and tell the
peo