he unsuspicious animals, we can readily conceive that many arrows must
have been shot without effect, for one that brought down the game.

Certain ingenious methods were therefore devised to insure the taking of
game in large numbers at one time. This was especially the case with the
buffalo, which were the food and raiment of the people. One of these
contrivances was called pis'kun, deep-kettle; or, since the termination of
the word seems to indicate the last syllable of the word _ah'-pun,_ blood,
it is more likely deep-blood-kettle. This was a large corral, or enclosure,
built out from the foot of a perpendicular cliff or bluff, and formed of
natural banks, rocks, and logs or brush,--anything in fact to make a close,
high barrier. In some places the enclosure might be only a fence of brush,
but even here the buffalo did not break it down, for they did not push
against it, but ran round and round within, looking for a clear space
through which they might pass. From the top of the bluff, directly over
the pis'kun, two long lines of rock piles and brush extended far out on the
prairie, ever diverging from each other like the arms of the letter V, the
opening over the pis'kun being at the angle.

In the evening of the day preceding a drive of buffalo into the pis'kun a
medicine man, usually one who was the possessor of a buffalo rock,
In-is'-kim, unrolled his pipe, and prayed to the Sun for success. Next
morning the man who was to call the buffalo arose very early, and told his
wives that they must not leave the lodge, nor even look out, until he
returned; that they should keep burning sweet grass, and should pray to the
Sun for his success and safety. Without eating or drinking, he then went up
on the prairie, and the people followed him, and concealed themselves
behind the rocks and bushes which formed the V, or chute. The medicine man
put on a head-dress made of the head of a buffalo, and a robe, and then
started out to approach the animals. When he had come near to the herd, he
moved about until he had attracted the attention of some of the buffalo,
and when they began to look at him, he walked slowly away toward the
entrance of the chute. Usually the buffalo followed, and, as they did so,
he gradually increased his pace. The buffalo followed more rapidly, and the
man continually went a little faster. Finally, when the buffalo were fairly
within the chute, the people began to rise up from behind the rock piles
which th