“But we were living on a big island, and the Wasichus were like great waters washing all around it, nibbling off the edges, and it was getting smaller, smaller, smaller. It is very small now. The people have lost the sacred hoop, the good red road, the flowering tree. We young men heard the others talk about Wasichus killing bison along Shell River where the iron road had cut the herd in two; and beyond that, farther towards where you are always facing [south], the land stank with bison rotting. I heard them say Wasichus killed the bison for their tongues, so many that no man could ever count them. Our old men remembered Wooden Cup and what he saw and said before our grandfathers were born. But I was young. Sometime we would get together and kill all the Wasichus. We were young and we would do great deeds and make a story for our grandchildren, and for theirs, and theirs. “I think I was maybe seventeen winters old when I heard about horseback soldiers with their wagons in Pa Sapa [the Black Hills], and Long Hair [Custer] was their chief. That was the first time I heard his name. Maybe I helped to kill him two grasses after that, for I was fighting on the hill where he died; but I never saw him. I think if our people had been living in one hoop, he and all his soldiers would have died in Pa Sapa that time. Maybe that would have been better. I do not know. “It was our land and it was _wakon_; for it was promised to us in a vision so long ago that the fire and the bow were new to our fathers then, and the sacred pipe had not yet been given to us. “I will tell you what I heard the old men tell about Pa Sapa, and they heard it from old men, and they from others; and no one knows how long ago it was. The people were living then in a land that is many, many sleeps yonder [pointing southeast]. Towards where you are always facing [south], there was a great water [Gulf of Mexico]. Towards where the sun comes up, there was a great water [the Atlantic]. The people had become many, and I think they were not a nation yet. All were relatives, but sons did not know their fathers, nor fathers their sons, nor brothers their sisters. These people ate small animals and birds that they could kill with rocks or maybe slingshots, and also roots and berries that they could find. Their knives were only sharp pieces of rock or shells; and all they ate was raw, because they had no fire.