set before a stranger? You
have a pis'kun down there, and must get plenty of fat meat. Give me some
pemmican." "We cannot do that," the old woman replied, "because there is a
big snake here, who is chief of the camp. He not only takes the best
pieces, but often he eats a handsome young woman, when he sees one." When
K[)u]t-o'-yis heard this he was angry, and went over and entered the
snake's lodge. The women were cooking up some sarvis berries. He picked up
the dish, and ate the berries, and threw the dish out of the door. Then he
went over to where the snake was lying asleep, pricked him with his knife,
and said: "Here, get up. I have come to see you." This made the snake
angry. He partly raised himself up and began to rattle, when K[)u]t-o'-yis
cut him into pieces with his knife. Then he turned around and killed all
his wives and children, except one little female snake, which escaped by
crawling into a crack in the rocks. "Oh, well," said K[)u]t-o'-yis, "you
can go and breed young snakes, so there will be more. The people will not
be afraid of little snakes." K[)u]t-o'-yis said to the old woman, "Now you
go into this snake's lodge and take it for yourself, and everything that is
in it."

Then he asked them where there were some more people. They told him that
there were some people down the river, and some up in the mountains. But
they said: "Do not go there, for it is bad, because Ai-sin'-o-ko-ki (Wind
Sucker) lives there. He will kill you." It pleased K[)u]t-o'-yis to know
that there was such a person, and he went to the mountains. When he got to
the place where Wind Sucker lived, he looked into his mouth, and could see
many dead people there,--some skeletons and some just dead. He went in, and
there he saw a fearful sight. The ground was white as snow with the bones
of those who had died. There were bodies with flesh on them; some were just
dead, and some still living. He spoke to a living person, and asked, "What
is that hanging down above us?" The person answered that it was Wind
Sucker's heart. Then said K[)u]t-o'-yis: "You who still draw a little
breath, try to shake your heads (in time to the song), and those who are
still able to move, get up and dance. Take courage now, we are going to
have the ghost dance." So K[)u]t-o'-yis bound his knife, point upward, to
the top of his head and began to dance, singing the ghost song, and all the
others danced with him; and as he danced up and down, the point of the
knife