I have said we Hidatsas believed that an earth lodge was alive; and that its soul, or spirit, dwelt in the four big roof posts. We believed, indeed, that this world and everything in it was alive and had spirits; and our faith in these spirits and our worship of them made our religion.

My father explained this to me. “All things in this world,” he said, “have souls, or spirits. The sky has a spirit; the clouds have spirits; the sun and moon have spirits; so have animals, trees, grass, water, stones, everything. These spirits are our gods; and we pray to them and give them offerings, that they may help us in our need.”

We Indians did not believe in one Great Spirit, as white men seem to think all Indians do. We did believe that certain gods were more powerful than others. Of these was It-si-ka-ma-hi-di, our elder creator, the spirit of the prairie wolf; and Ka-du-te-ta, or Old-woman-who-never-dies, who first taught my people to till their fields. Long histories are given of these gods.

Any one could pray to the spirits, receiving answer usually in a dream. Indeed, all dreams were thought to be from the spirits; and for this reason they were always heeded, especially those that came by fasting and suffering. Sometimes a man fasted and tortured himself until he fell into a kind of dream while yet awake; we called this a vision.

A man whom the gods helped and visited in dreams, was said to have mystery power; and one who had much mystery power, we called a mystery man, or medicine man. Almost every one received dreams from the spirits at some time; but a medicine man received them more often than others.

A man might have mystery power and not use it wisely. There once lived in our village a medicine man who had one little son. On day in summer, the little boy with some playmates crossed a shallow creek behind the village in search of grass for grass arrows. It happened that the villagers’ fields were suffering from drought, and that very day, some old men brought gifts to the medicine man and asked him to send them rain.

The medicine man prayed to his gods, and in an hour rain fell in torrents. The little boys, seeking to return, found the creek choked by the rising waters; greatly frightened, they plunged in, and all got safely over but the medicine man’s little son; he was drowned.

The medicine man mourned bitterly for his son, for he thought it was he that had caused the little boy’s death.

Believing as he did that the world was full of spirits, every Indian hoped that one of them would come to him and be his protector, especially in war. When a lad became about seventeen years of age, his parents would say, “You are now old enough to go to war; but you should first go out and find your god!” They meant by this, that he should not risk his life in battle until he had a protecting spirit.

Finding one’s god was not an easy task. The lad painted his body with white clay, as if in mourning, and went out among the hills, upon some bluff, where he could be seen of the gods; and for days, with neither food nor drink, and often torturing himself, he cried to the gods to pity him and come to him. His sufferings at last brought on delirium, so that he dreamed, or saw a vision. Whatever he saw in this vision was his god, come to pledge him protection. Usually this god was a bird or beast; or it might be the spirit of some one dead; the bird or beast was not a flesh-and-blood animal, but a spirit.

The lad then returned home. As soon as he was recovered from his fast, he set out to kill an animal like that seen in his vision, and its dried skin, or a part of it, he kept as his sacred object, or medicine, for in this sacred object dwelt his god. Thus if an otter god appeared to him, the lad would kill an otter, and into its skin, which the lad kept, the god entered. The otter skin was now the lad’s medicine; he prayed to it and bore it with him to war, that his god might be present to protect him.

Indians even made offerings of food to their sacred objects. They knew the sacred object did not eat the food; but they believed that the god, or spirit, in the sacred object, ate the spirit of the food. They also burned cedar incense to their sacred objects.

The story of my uncle Wolf Chief, as he was afterwards called, will show what sufferings a young man was willing to endure who went out to seek his god. He was but seventeen when his father, Small Ankle, said to him, “My son, I think you should go out and seek your god!” The next morning my uncle climbed a high butte overlooking the Missouri, and prayed:

For three days and nights, my uncle prayed; and in this time he had not a mouthful of food, not a drop of water to drink. The fourth day his father came to him. “My son,” he said, “perhaps the gods would have you become a great man: and they are trying you, whether you are worthy. You have not suffered enough!”

“I am ready, father,” said my uncle.

Small Ankle fixed a stout post in the ground and fastened my uncle to it with thongs, so that all day he was in great suffering.

In the evening, Small Ankle came and cut him loose. “You have suffered enough, my son,” he said; “I think the gods will now pity you and give you a dream!”

He took my uncle home and gave him something to eat and drink; then he laid the boy tenderly upon a pile of buffalo skins, before his own medicines.

For a long time, my uncle could not sleep for the pain from his wounds. A little before daylight, he fell into a troubled dream. He heard a man outside, walking around the earth lodge. The man was singing a mystery song; now and then he paused and cried, “You have done well, Strong Bull!”

Small Ankle was very happy when my uncle awoke and told him his dream. He knew that one of the gods had now come to his son to protect him and help him; and he called the boy by his new name, Strong Bull, that the god had given him.

Other men had different dreams. My grandfather once told me of a man who had a vision of four buffalo skulls that became alive.

Many years ago when our villages were on Knife River a man named Bush went out to find his god. He sought a vision from the buffalo spirits; and he thought to make himself suffer so that the spirits might pity him. He tied four buffalo skulls in a train, one behind another, and as Bush walked he dragged the train of skulls behind him.

He made his way painfully up the Missouri, mourning and crying to the gods. The banks of the Missouri are much cut up by ravines, and Bush suffered greatly as he dragged the heavy skulls over this rough country.

Fifty miles north of the villages, he came to the Little Missouri, a shallow stream, but subject to sudden freshets; he found the river flooded, and rising.

He stood on the bank and cried: “O gods, I am poor and I suffer! I want to find my god. Other men have suffered, and found their gods. Now I suffer much, but no god answers me. I am going to plunge into this torrent. I think I shall die, yet I will plunge in. O gods, if you are going to answer me, do it now and save me!“

He waded in, dragging the heavy skulls after him. The water grew deeper. He could no longer wade, he had to swim; he struck out.

He wondered that he no longer felt the weight of the skulls, and that he did not sink. Then he heard something behind him cry, “Whoo-oo-ooh!” He looked around. The four buffalo skulls were swimming about him, buoying him up; but they were no longer skulls! Flesh and woolly hair covered them; they had big, blue eyes; they had red tongues. They were alive!

Bush himself told this story to my grandfather.

It should not be thought that Bush was trying to deceive when he said he saw these things. If one had been with him when he sprang into the torrent, and had cried, “Bush, the skulls are not alive; it is your delirium that makes you think they live!” he would have answered, “Of course you cannot see they are alive! The vision is to me, not to you. The flesh and hair and eyes are spirit flesh. I see them; you see only the skulls!”

A man might go out many times thus, to find his god. If he had ill success in war, or if sickness or misfortune came upon him, he would think the gods had forgotten him; and he would throw away his moccasins, cut his hair as for mourning, paint his face with white clay, and again cry to the gods for a vision.

A medicine man’s visions were like other men’s; but we gave them more heed, because we thought he had more power with the gods. We looked upon a medicine man as a prophet; his dreams and visions were messages to us from the spirits; and we thought of his mystery power as white men think of a prophet’s power to work miracles. Our medicine men sought visions for us, and messages from the gods, just as white men’s preachers study to tell them what God speaks to them in His Book.

A medicine man had much influence in the tribe. He cured our sick, called the buffalo herds to us, gave us advice when a war party was being formed, and in times of drought prayed for rain.

Worshipping as we did many gods, we Indians did not think it strange that white men prayed to another God; and when missionaries came, we did not think it wrong that they taught us to pray to their God, but that they said we should not pray to our own gods. “Why,“ we asked, “do the missionaries hate our gods? We do not deny the white men’s Great Spirit; why, then, should they deny our gods?”

Sometimes Indians who seek to join the mission church, secretly pray to their own gods; more often an Indian who accepts Jesus Christ and tries to follow Him, still fears his old gods, although he no longer prays to them.

Many older Indians, who do not know English, look upon Jesus Christ as they would upon one of their own gods; a story will show how His mission is sometimes misunderstood.

On this reservation lives a medicine woman, named Minnie Enemy Heart. When a girl, she went to the mission school and learned something about Jesus Christ. Afterward, as her fathers had done, she went into the hills to seek her god. She says that she fasted and prayed, and Jesus came to her in a vision. One side of his body was dark, like an Indian; the other side was white, like a white man. In His white hand he carried a lamb; in the other, a little dog.

Jesus explained the vision. “My body,” He said, “half dark and half white, means that I am as much an Indian as I am a white man. This dog means that Indian ways are for Indians, as white ways are for white men; for Indians sacrifice dogs, as white men once sacrificed lambs. If the missionaries tell you this is not true, ask them who crucified me, were they Indians or white men?”

Many Indians believe this vision. More than fifteen have left the Catholic priest to follow Minnie Enemy Heart, and three or four have left our Protestant mission.

To us Indians, the spirit world seemed very near, and we did nothing without taking thought of the gods. If we would begin a journey, form a war party, hunt, trap eagles, or fish, or plant corn, we first prayed to the spirits. A bad dream would send the bravest war party hurrying home.

If our belief seem strange to white men, theirs seemed just as strange to us.