Finally those of us who had been selected to perform this ceremony
stretched out our arms at full length, holding the sacred medicine bags
and aiming them at the new members. After swinging them four times, we
shot them suddenly forward, but did not let go. The novices then fell
forward on their faces as if dead. Quickly a chorus was struck up and
we all joined in a lively dance around the supposed bodies. The girls
covered them up with their blankets, thus burying the dead. At last we
resurrected them with our charms and led them to their places among the
audience. Then came the last general dance and the final feast.

I was often selected as choir-master on these occasions, for I had
happened to learn many of the medicine songs and was quite an apt mimic.
My grandmother, who was a noted medicine woman of the Turtle lodge, on
hearing of these sacrilegious acts (as she called them) warned me that
if any of the medicine men should discover them, they would punish me
terribly by shriveling my limbs with slow disease.

Occasionally, we also played "white man." Our knowledge of the pale-face
was limited, but we had learned that he brought goods whenever he came
and that our people exchanged furs for his merchandise. We also knew
that his complexion was pale, that he had short hair on his head and
long hair on his face and that he wore coat, trousers, and hat, and
did not patronize blankets in the daytime. This was the picture we had
formed of the white man.

So we painted two or three of our number with white clay and put on them
birchen hats which we sewed up for the occasion; fastened a piece of
fur to their chins for a beard and altered their costumes as much as
lay within our power. The white of the birch-bark was made to answer for
their white shirts. Their merchandise consisted of sand for sugar, wild
beans for coffee, dried leaves for tea, pulverized earth for gun-powder,
pebbles for bullets and clear water for the dangerous "spirit water." We
traded for these goods with skins of squirrels, rabbits and small birds.

When we played "hunting buffalo" we would send a few good runners off on
the open prairie with a supply of meat; then start a few equally swift
boys to chase them and capture the food. Once we were engaged in this
sport when a real hunt by the men was in progress; yet we did not
realize that it was so near until, in the midst of our play, we saw
an immense buffalo coming at full speed directly toward us