When you come to the edge of the lake you will look about for a staff to support you as you work in the water. You will choose the willow for your staff, for it is a tree that clings persistently to life. By this act you will make an appeal to the great Life-giving Power for a long and fruitful life for yourself and the little one. With the willow staff in your hands you will step into the water and take up from the soft earth beneath a root of the sacred plant, the ṭse´-wa-the. You will find clinging to the root some of the soft earth from which the plant draws nourishment and strength. Take this bit of soil and touch your forehead and body with it, an act which will be as a sign that you appeal to the earth wherein there is Life-giving Power. When you have performed this act return the root to the earth beneath the water, with the wish that the plant shall forever be plentiful. Then gather enough of the roots to satisfy the little one and yourself. The maize is another sacred life-giving plant. You raise this plant from year to year. When you prepare the ground for planting the seed you will take one grain and put it in a hill, you will press down upon it the soil with your foot, and say: “My father-in-law bade me do this, as an expression of my faith that the sky and the earth will yield to me not only one ear of maize but one animal as well, or even one herd of animals.” In the next hill you will put two grains, in the next three, the next four, the next five, the next six, and in the seventh seven, always repeating the words at each planting. The ceremony closes with the end of the special instructions given to the mother of the child blessed and named, and as each member of the gentes who had taken part in the rite rises to go he makes some pleasant remarks to the father and the mother. When the mother goes to her field to plant the seeds of the maize she remembers the instructions and follows them in every detail. As the maize matures and the ears are still green and tender the mother cuts the stalks from the hills she had ceremonially made, leaving the ears on the stalks. She ties the stalks in bundles, and, with the aid of friends, carries them home to her house. She then prepares a feast to which she invites the man who had acted as Xo´-ḳa at the ceremonial naming of her child. He in turn invites some of his friends who had acted as Xo´-ḳa in child-naming ceremonies to come and share in the feast prepared for him. If among the invited guests there happens to be a member of the Tho´-xe gens, learned in the rituals, he is requested by the honored guest to recite the maize wi´-gi-e of his gens. A paraphrase is here given of the wi´-gi-e which the Tho´-xe recite to give pleasure to the host and to the guests. The mythical story points to mid-heaven as the region of the conception of life forms, and as the starting point of the Osage people in their journey to earth, the region of actual birth into bodily existence.