n escapes being
wounded by an enemy, people say he has seen the buffaloes in his
dreams, and they have helped him.

Men who dream of the buffaloes act like them and dance the
buffalo-bull dance. Then the man who acts the buffalo has a real
buffalo inside of him, people say, a little hard ball near the
shoulder blade; and therefore he is very hard to kill. No matter how
often he is wounded, he does not die.

People know that the buffaloes live in earth lodges; so they never
dance the buffalo dance vainly.

THE BUFFALO BEING

_Teton_

Once upon a time, a Buffalo Being attacked a party of Indians. He
killed one of them, but the others ran away and climbed a tree. The
Buffalo Being followed them and rushed at the tree. He rushed many
times, knocking off piece after piece of the tree, until very little
was left.

Then the frightened Indians lighted some tinder, and threw it far off
into the tall grass. The fire scorched the Buffalo Being's eyes, and
injured his horns. The hard part of the horn slipped off, leaving only
the softer part, so that he could no longer injure any one.

But the Buffalo Being was still dangerous. At last one of the Indians
slipped down the tree, with his bow and arrow. He killed the Buffalo
Being. Then all the men came down the tree and skinned the animal and
cut up the flesh. Into the buffalo-skin robe they placed the body of
the dead Indian. But suddenly another Buffalo Being appeared. The
Indians again climbed the tree. But this Being only walked four times
around the dead Indian. Then he said, "Arise to your feet."

At once the dead man came to life. The Buffalo Being said to him,
"Hereafter you shall be mysterious. The sun, the moons, the four
winds, day and night shall be your slaves."

Then it was so. The Indian could take the form of a fine plume, which
was blown against a tree. It would stick to the tree and wave many
times in the breeze.

[Notes: GERMAN KNIGHTS AND INDIAN WARRIORS

_The German knights are from a sketch in a Ms., dated 1220, in the
University of Leipzig. The sketch was copied from Rudolph Cronau's
"Geschichte der Solinger Klingenindustrie." They are Knights of the
13th century._

_The Indian warriors were drawn by an Apache Indian at Anadarko, in
1884, though the insignia is really that of the Cheyenne Indians._

_The comparison and contrast are made by the Bureau of Ethnology._]

[Illustration: _Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution_]