§ 197. After the reading of the paper, Capt. John G. Bourke, U.S. Army, remarked that he had seen the sun dance of the Dakota several times, and once had enjoyed excellent opportunities of taking notes of all that occurred under the superintendence of Red Cloud and other medicine men of prominence. Capt. Bourke kindly furnished the author with the following abstract of his remarks on this subject: In June, 1881, at the Red Cloud Agency, Dakota, there were some twenty-eight who went through the ordeal, one of the number being Pretty Enemy, a young woman who had escaped with her husband from the band of Sitting Bull in British North America, and who was going through the dance as a sign of grateful acknowledgment to the spirits. The description of the dance given in the account of Bushotter tallies closely with that which took place at the Red Cloud ceremony, with a few very immaterial exceptions due no doubt to local causes. [Illustration: Bureau of Ethnology Eleventh Annual Report. Plate XLIX. [image] GAST LITH. CO. A SUSPENDED DEVOTEE.] § 198. At Red Cloud, for example, there was not a separate buffalo head for each Indian; there were not more than two, and with them, being placed erect and leaning against a frame-work made for the purpose, several elaborately decorated pipes, beautiful in all that porcupine quills, beads, and horsehair could supply. Buffaloes had at that time disappeared from the face of the country within reach of that agency, and there was also an increasing difficulty in the matter of procuring the pipestone from the old quarries over on the Missouri River [sic].[164] § 199. First, in regard to securing the sacred tree, after the same had been designated by the advance party sent out to look for it. The medicine men proclaimed to the young warriors that all they were now to do was just the same as if they were going out to war. When the signal was given, the whole party dashed off at full speed on their ponies, and as soon as we arrived at the tree, there was no small amount of singing, as well as of presents given to the poor. Next, a band of young men stepped to the front, and each in succession told the story of his prowess, each reference to the killing or wounding of an enemy, or to striking _coup_, being corroborated by thumping on the skin which served the medicine men as a drum. § 200. The first young man approached the sacred tree, swung his brand-new ax, and cut one gash on the east side; the second followed precisely the same program on the south side; the third, on the west side, and the fourth, on the north side, each cutting one gash and no more.