84 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899
reservation that he might enjoy more personal comfort than was possible in the primitive conditions in which he lived, he said: " I cannot live in a white man's house of any kind. The sacred articles committed to my care must be kept in an earth lodge, and in order that I may fulfil my duties toward them and my people, I must live there also, so that as I sit I can stretch out my hand and lay it upon mother earth."
While the vastness and the beauty of the Capitol and the Library of Congress gave him pleasure, they did not appeal to him, for such buildings, he said, were unfitted to contain the sacred symbols of the religion of his ancestors, in the service of which he had spent his long life.
He admired at a distance the Washington monument, and when we visited it he measured the base, pacing and counting his steps. Then he stood close to the white shaft and looked up, noting its great height. We went inside, and when asked which he would take, the elevator or the stairs, he replied : " I will not go up. The white man likes to pile up stones, and he may go to the top of them ; I will not. I have ascended the mountains made by Ti-ra'-wa."
Equally characteristic was his interview with the Com- missioner of Indian Affairs. When introduced, he said : "lam glad to see you and to take you by the hand. Many chiefs of my tribe have done so ; I never expected to do it. I have nothing to ask of you ; nothing to tell you. I came here to talk of the religion of my fathers which I follow. You can ask my sister [referring to me] what I have said."
The weeks spent with this old man will ever be memorable. He illustrated the persistency of belief, and the dignity of un- wavering trust in the power and care of the gods of his fathers. Of the genuineness of his statements there can be no doubt. He had not in the least been thrown off his mental balance by the insistence of his new and strange surroundings. While he had been forced to conform to some of our modes of living, the
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