She cut off her hair, cut gashes
in her cheeks and sat before the corpse with her robe drawn over
her head, mourning for her dead. Nor would she let them touch the
body to take it to a burying scaffold. She had a knife in her
hand, and if anyone offered to come near the body the mother would
wail:
"I am weary of life. I do not care to live. I will stab myself
with this knife and join my daughter in the land of spirits."
Her husband and relatives tried to get the knife from her, but
could not. They feared to use force lest she kill herself. They
came together to see what they could do.
"We must get the knife away from her," they said.
At last they called a boy, a kind of simpleton, yet with a good
deal of natural shrewdness. He was an orphan and very poor. His
moccasins were out at the sole and he was dressed in wei-zi (coarse
buffalo skin, smoked).
"Go to the tepee of the mourning mother," they told the simpleton,
"and in some way contrive to make her laugh and forget her grief.
Then try to get the knife away from her."
The boy went to the tent and sat down at the door as if waiting to
be given something. The corpse lay in the place of honor where the
dead girl had slept in life. The body was wrapped in a rich robe
and wrapped about with ropes. Friends had covered it with rich
offerings out of respect to the dead.
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