resented them in our play; then learned to
emulate them in our lives.

No people have a better use of their five senses than the children of
the wilderness. We could smell as well as hear and see. We could feel
and taste as well as we could see and hear. Nowhere has the memory been
more fully developed than in the wild life, and I can still see wherein
I owe much to my early training.

Of course I myself do not remember when I first saw the day, but my
brothers have often recalled the event with much mirth; for it was a
custom of the Sioux that when a boy was born his brother must plunge
into the water, or roll in the snow naked if it was winter time; and if
he was not big enough to do either of these himself, water was thrown
on him. If the new-born had a sister, she must be immersed. The idea
was that a warrior had come to camp, and the other children must display
some act of hardihood.

I was so unfortunate as to be the youngest of five children who, soon
after I was born, were left motherless. I had to bear the humiliating
name "Hakadah," meaning "the pitiful last," until I should earn a more
dignified and appropriate name. I was regarded as little more than a
plaything by the rest of the children.

My mother, who was known as the handsomest woman of all the Spirit Lake
and Leaf Dweller Sioux, was dangerously ill, and one of the medicine men
who attended her said: "Another medicine man has come into existence,
but the mother must die. Therefore let him bear the name 'Mysterious
Medicine.'" But one of the bystanders hastily interfered, saying that an
uncle of the child already bore that name, so, for the time, I was only
"Hakadah."

My beautiful mother, sometimes called the "Demi-Goddess" of the Sioux,
who tradition says had every feature of a Caucasian descent with the
exception of her luxuriant black hair and deep black eyes, held me
tightly to her bosom upon her death-bed, while she whispered a few words
to her mother-in-law. She said: "I give you this boy for your own. I
cannot trust my own mother with him; she will neglect him and he will
surely die."

The woman to whom these words were spoken was below the average in
stature, remarkably active for her age (she was then fully sixty), and
possessed of as much goodness as intelligence. My mother's judgment
concerning her own mother was well founded, for soon after her death
that old lady appeared, and declared that Hakadah was too young to live
without a