“Or maybe there was meat to be cut in long thin strips and hung on the drying racks--such thin strips that it was just like unwinding a bundle of meat, around and around. The women used to hold their strips up, to see whose was longest; and the strips my grandmother cut were always a little thinner and longer than the others. “And maybe there was going to be a new baby in a tepee, and it would need a good start in this life; for it is not easy to live on this earth. So the parents would think of two women who were good and wise and nobody could say anything bad about them. They would be grandmothers, for who can be wise and young too? And the parents would ask these old women to come over and help the baby. So they would come when it was the right time. And when the baby was brought forth in this world, the first grandmother would cut and tie the cord. Then she would clean out the baby’s mouth with her forefinger, and when she did that her good spirit would get into the baby so that it would be like her. “Then the second grandmother would take some of the inside bark of the chokecherry that had been soaked and pounded soft, and with this she would wash the baby; and if it was a girl she would say to it: ‘I am a good woman; I have worked hard; I have raised a family; and I always tried to get along with everybody. You must always try to do the same way.’ After that she would make it dry and rub it all over with grease and red paint, because red is a sacred color. Then she would take some soft powder that she had made by powdering dry buffalo chips and she would put this in a piece of hide that had been tanned very soft and fasten it around the baby’s rump, so that it could be kept dry and clean. “And always there were little girls who had to learn how to be good women; and a grandmother would teach them, because she had been a woman so long that she knew how better than her daughters did; and, anyway, everything was done better when she was young. “The first thing this grandmother gave to a little girl was a deer-hide pouch with everything in it that a woman needs to make a home--a knife, an awl, a bone needle, and some fine sinew for sewing. And she would say, ‘You must always keep this with you whatever happens and never let it go if you want to be a real woman and good for something. With this you can always make a home.’ It was the way a grandfather gave a little boy a bow and arrows, a knife, and a rawhide rope for taming horses. “And when a little girl was still so little that she could not yet do much with a knife or needle, the grandmother would teach her the rolling game. There was a stick about as long as my finger with three short twigs on one end so that it would stand up; and the little girl had to roll a small round stone at this to knock it over. It was very hard to do, and she had to keep on trying and trying, so that she learned to be patient like a good woman.