“As I entered, they gave me a buffalo skull to carry because I was the principal dancer. We went around the ring from left to right, which is walking in a sacred manner, and stopped facing the place where the sun comes up. I put the skull down in front of me with the nose to the coming day. Low down at the rim of earth yonder was a faint streak of light. The morning star was big and bright and still. As I gazed at it, I wanted to cry, but I could feel something like wings lifting me too. It was the same way the star looked down at me that time after I dreamed beneath my father’s scaffold and heard him tell me always to be kind to old people and never to be afraid of anything. Then the drummers began singing to the coming sun, and their drumsticks, with bison tails fastened on the ends, made a slapping sound.” The old man ceased. Getting to his feet with some difficulty, he danced feebly, keeping time with drums long silent and blowing on his whistle pointed towards no earthly dawn. “So!” he said at length with a little cackling laugh and panting like a runner. “_Washtay!_ It was good. But I cannot dance very well any more. There is no strength in what I eat these days.” Seated again, he waited until normal breathing was restored, and then: “We danced to the drums and the singing, and I stared at the place where the sky was getting white. Sometimes I could not feel the ground at all, for something seemed to lift me and it was like floating on drumbeats and singing. Then suddenly the great round sun leaped yellow and glaring over the edge of the world, and all the people cried out together with one voice. “The singing and drumming stopped now, and they led us dancers back to the sacred tree, placing us in a circle around it. I had the bison skull in front of me. Chagla told me I must put it in a certain place that was prepared near the tree. There was a heap of white clay, and into this I thrust the skull three times. The fourth time I pushed it deep and left it there. So Maka’s sacred gift of the bison to the people was given back to the giver with thanks. Also at that place there were two forked sticks in the ground with another stick lying across. Against this I must set my pipe with the stem pointed up. This was a gift to Wakon Tonka and the life-giving sun.