Part 5 (1/2)
”I know what you young men have been saying; one of you is good; the other is wicked,” she said.
She laid down the pipe on the ground and at once became a buffalo cow.
The cow pawed the ground, stuck her tail straight out behind her and then lifted the pipe from the ground again in her hoofs; immediately she became a young woman again.
”I am come to give you this gift,” she said. ”It is the peace pipe.
Hereafter all treaties and ceremonies shall be performed after smoking it. It shall bring peaceful thoughts into your minds. You shall offer it to the Great Mystery and to mother earth.”
The two young men ran to the village and told what they had seen and heard. All the village came out where the young woman was.
She repeated to them what she had already told the young men and added:
”When you set free the ghost (the spirit of deceased persons) you must have a white buffalo cow skin.”
She gave the pipe to the medicine men of the village, turned again to a buffalo cow and fled away to the land of buffaloes.
A BASHFUL COURTs.h.i.+P
A young man lived with his grandmother. He was a good hunter and wished to marry. He knew a girl who was a good moccasin maker, but she belonged to a great family. He wondered how he could win her.
One day she pa.s.sed the tent on her way to get water at the river. His grandmother was at work in the tepee with a pair of old worn-out sloppy moccasins. The young man sprang to his feet. ”Quick, grandmother--let me have those old sloppy moccasins you have on your feet!” he cried.
”My old moccasins, what do you want of them?” cried the astonished woman.
”Never mind! Quick! I can't stop to talk,” answered the grandson as he caught up the old moccasins the old lady had doffed, and put them on. He threw a robe over his shoulders, slipped through the door, and hastened to the watering place. The girl had just arrived with her bucket.
”Let me fill your bucket for you,” said the young man.
”Oh, no, I can do it.”
”Oh, let me, I can go in the mud. You surely don't want to soil your moccasins,” and taking the bucket he slipped in the mud, taking care to push his sloppy old moccasins out so the girl could see them. She giggled outright.
”My, what old moccasins you have,” she cried.
”Yes, I have n.o.body to make me a new pair,” he answered.
”Why don't you get your grandmother to make you a new pair?”
”She's old and blind and can't make them any longer. That's why I want you,” he answered.
”Oh, you're fooling me. You aren't speaking the truth.”
”Yes, I am. If you don't believe--come with me _now!_”