"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 COURTSHIP
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 passed 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.
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