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were sickness medicines that came to him later in life. I do not know how
he received his medicine for black powder, but when he was a very old
man, and had no further use for his powers, he told me about crane and
knife. This was how he gained his crane medicine.

“He had many dreams about the crane after he was married. At the
end of a year he divorced his first wife and went to hunt on the Parsnip
river. It was the end of winter, when the cranes return from the south.
As he crossed the summit of a mountain, alone, a crane flew close to his
head and called ‘Loud noise close to sky, let us play for the people over
yonder.’ My grandfather, realizing that he was to receive a new name
and medicine power, lay down and slept; as he slept the crane came and
sang to him all through the night, leaving him at daybreak. Thus he
received medicine for crane, and with it a new name and a song.

“Knife medicine he received in another way. He dreamed so fre-
quently of a knife that at last he felt sure that he would receive medicine
from it. He was hunting once on the mountains, all alone, when he heard
a voice say ‘ Marten, I am lonely. I have been here a long time and wish
to go back to mankind. Help me.’ My grandfather could see no one, but
as he walked along, searching, he saw a knife lying on the ground beside a
hole from which it had just appeared. He picked it up, saying to himself,
‘Now I have medicine for knife,’ continued his hunting, and at night
returned to his home. On this occasion, and also when he received medi-
cine for black powder, he obtained neither a song nor a new name.

“To cure the sick he used one or other of these three medicines,
knife, crane and powder. He sat down beside the patient, closed his eyes,
and sang his crane song. When he was using the powder medicine, he
laid his black powder beside him, and as he sang his medicine power issued
from his lips like a hiccough. Then he mixed some of the powder with
water and rubbed it on his patient. He shaped his hand into a funnel,
blew the medicine from the powder into the man’s body and once more
sang his medicine song. Now he left him, and, going into the sweat-house
for an hour or two, discovered whether his patient would live or die. A
patient who was to live would begin to recover immediately.

“T never saw him use his crane medicine, only the crane song. The
knife that he found served him for every purpose, not for healing alone.
The medicine power was not in the knife, but in himself; it was but a
symbol or token of his power, and for healing he often used some other
knife. He hardened its blade in the fire and rubbed it over the place where
the patient felt pain, saying ha ha ha ha ha ha. Then, as when using- the
powder, he blew the medicine into the man’s body and retired to the sweat-
house to learn whether he would recover.

“My grandfather could kill people with the knife medicine. He could
take a piece of iron, rub it between his hands, point it in the direction of
his victim, praying that it would enter his body, and cause the man
immediate pain. Another medicine man, discovering the cause of the pain
in the sweat-house, would suck a piece of iron from the patient’s body.

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