“The attendants began painting the dancers again after they had rubbed our bodies with the sacred sage. My body they painted red all over, except from the elbows and knees down, and that was blue for the power to make live and to destroy, as before. My body was red to make me holy, for through me a sacred gift would come to the people. From each wrist they hung an eagle feather, and one was tied in my hair, standing up. These were for the Great Mysterious One whose gift would come through me, and whose strength must be mine. When this was done, Blue Spotted Horse came and painted something on my back. It was a flying eagle, for the one that spoke to me with my father’s voice in my vision on the hill when I was a boy and Blue Spotted Horse prepared me for my quest. That is why I am Eagle Voice. So it was painted on my back. “While this was being done, another holy man came with some sacred sage to where I had placed the bison skull. He was wearing a bison robe painted half yellow and half red. Into the eye sockets and the ear and nose holes of the skull he thrust the sage. Then he sang a bison song: “‘A sacred nation, they are appearing. They are appearing, may you behold! The bison nation, they are appearing! May you behold!’ “As he was singing the bison song, all at once the sage was blown out of the holes with great power, and a deep bellowing came forth. I do not know how this was, but I saw and heard; and I could feel the power growing in me, so that I felt strong as a bison and light as an eagle floating. “When I was painted, they hung the bison skull on my back with a thong across the back of my neck and under my arms. Then they turned me to the blazing sun, and I stared straight at it. The burning blindness turned dark. I heard Blue Spotted Horse praying, and then, far off, I felt the knife in the flesh of my chest and the thong pushed through. If it hurt, I do not remember. I think the power lifted me above my body. “When the drums and singing began again, I swung backward, leaning from the thong in my breast. It was like waking all at once from a dream. I forgot that I wanted to see. I wanted to cry out, but I did not. It was pulling the raw heart out of my breast. I wanted to stop dancing, but I kept on. This is the first time I ever told anybody; but now I am too old to be ashamed. I forgot to pray. I just kept saying to myself, ‘Hold fast, hold fast, hold fast.’ All the power had left me alone with my body in the burning dark, and my heart was tearing from its roots. “This was always; and then it was not. Maybe my body was still dancing on the ground; I do not know. I was swinging in a great hollow night, back and forth, farther and farther, farther and farther. I was doing this always; I could not stop; I could not get loose. There was no one to cry to, there was nothing to grasp, for everywhere it was empty.