he lead and the rest follow
in a sort of obstacle race. The top must spin all the way through. There
were bars of snow over which we must pilot our top in the spoon end of
our whip; then again we would toss it in the air on to another open spot
of ice or smooth snowcrust from twenty to fifty paces away. The top that
holds out the longest is the winner.

Sometimes we played "medicine dance." This, to us, was almost what
"playing church" is among white children, but our people seemed to think
it an act of irreverence to imitate these dances, therefore performances
of this kind were always enjoyed in secret. We used to observe all the
important ceremonies and it required something of an actor to reproduce
the dramatic features of the dance. The real dances occupied a day and
a night, and the program was long and varied, so that it was not easy
to execute all the details perfectly; but the Indian children are born
imitators.

The boys built an arbor of pine boughs in some out-of-the-way place
and at one end of it was a rude lodge. This was the medicine lodge
or headquarters. All the initiates were there. At the further end or
entrance were the door-keepers or soldiers, as we called them. The
members of each lodge entered in a body, standing in single file and
facing the headquarters. Each stretched out his right hand and a prayer
was offered by the leader, after which they took the places assigned to
them.

When the preliminaries had been completed, our leader sounded the big
drum and we all said "A-ho-ho-ho!" as a sort of amen. Then the choir
began their song and whenever they ended a verse, we all said again
"A-ho-ho-ho!" At last they struck up the chorus and we all got upon
our feet and began to dance, by simply lifting up one foot and then the
other, with a slight swing to the body.

Each boy was representing or imitating some one of the medicine men.
We painted and decorated ourselves just as they did and carried bird or
squirrel skins, or occasionally live birds and chipmunks as our medicine
bags and small white shells or pebbles for medicine charms.

Then the persons to be initiated were brought in and seated, with much
ceremony, upon a blanket or buffalo robe. Directly in front of them
the ground was levelled smooth and here we laid an old pipe filled with
dried leaves for tobacco. Around it we placed the variously colored
feathers of the birds we had killed, and cedar and sweetgrass we burned
for incense.