PRAYER TO GHOSTS.—“Spirits of our dead relatives, I make this feast for you to call you all around me. I smoke this tobacco which has been inclosed with your hair; be near us and hear. My friends are around me, and you are called to the feast. Call on all the spirits of our dead friends to aid in giving us what we ask. Make the buffalo come near and the clouds and wind fair to approach them, that we may always have meat in camp to feed us and you. Help us in every way; let our children live. Let us live. Call on all these spirits and ask them to assist you in helping us. “If we hunt, be with us. If we go to war, be with us. Enable us to revenge some of your deaths upon our enemies. They have killed you; they have brought our hearts low. Bring their hearts low also. Let us blacken our faces. Keep us from harm, rest quiet, we will not cease to cry for and remember you. You are remembered in this feast, eat some of it [here small bits are scattered around]. This to you, my father. This for you, my grandfather, my uncle, my brother, the relations of all present eat, rest in quiet, do not let disease trouble us. We eat for you, we cry for you, we cut ourselves for you.” In conclusion, if the spirit addressed be recently dead they will all cry, and some of the immediate relatives cut their legs and arms, but if it is a feast to the memory of those long since dead some of the concluding words are left out. There is a good deal of repetition and often a long prayer is said, but the above is in amount what they ask. For the previous ceremony before the prayer is said, see the article where feasts to the dead are described. THE MOON They say the moon is a hot body and derives its light from its own nature, not as a reflection of the sun’s rays; that it is eaten up monthly or during a given period by a great number of moles, which they call we-as-poo-gah (moon nibblers). These moles are numerous all over the prairies, have pointed noses, no teeth, and burrow in the ground. They (the Indians) believe that in eating up the moon their noses are burned off, their teeth worn out, and for their damage have been cast down from above, where they are doomed to burrow in the earth and get nothing to eat. The same operation is going on all the time by other moles, who in their turn will be thrown down. They think Wakoñda causes a new moon to grow when the old one has been destroyed. The moon is not supposed to be an abiding place for beings, but is worshipped and sacrificed to on account of its affording light by which to travel at night. They take the dark part of the face of the moon to be a large light Man holding kettle in each hand. Stars are other bodies of fire far off, which they admit may be the residences of spirits or beings, though no great stress is laid on the idea. They are not regarded as parts of a system. Except the Polar Star and the Ursa Major, but few of the planets, if any, are known. PARENTAL AFFECTION