My mother, who was known as the handsomest
woman of all the Spirit Lake and Leaf Dweller
Sioux, was dangerously ill, and one of the medi-
cine men who attended her said: "Another
medicine man has come into existence, but the
mother must die. Therefore let him bear the name
'Mysterious Medicine.'" But one of the by-
standers hastily interfered, saying that an uncle of
the child already bore that name, so, for the time,
I was only "Hakadah."

My beautiful mother, sometimes called the
"Demi-Goddess" of the Sioux, who tradition
says had every feature of a Caucasian descent with
the exception of her luxuriant black hair and deep
black eyes, held me tightly to her bosom upon
her death-bed, while she whispered a few words to
her mother-in-law. She said: "I give you this
boy for your own. I cannot trust my own
mother with him; she will neglect him and he will
surely die."

The woman to whom these words were spoken
was below the average in stature, remarkably ac-
tive for her age (she was then fully sixty), and
possessed of as much goodness as intelligence. My
mother's judgment concerning her own mother
was well founded, for soon after her death that
old lady appeared, and declared that Hakadah