From Pawnee Folklore
(Told by Young-Bull, Pitahauirat. This tale is of what is commonly known as the Stone-Medicine, owing to the fact that the fossil used on the altar was believed by outsiders to be a large stone. By the medicine-men themselves, however, it was regarded as the bone of a great giant.)
In olden times when the medicine-men began to have their performances there was s society known as Stone-Medicine-Men. They began to get ready to have their ceremony. These people were called Stone-Medicine-Men, for at the altar sat a large white stone, so it seemed to the people; but when I was taken into the lodge to be taught the mysteries of these medicine-men I found it different. The old man to whom I gave presents, so that he would teach me, told me to sit down with him in one of the lodges of the animals – that is, inside of the earth-lodge. He did this because he wanted me to hear the story which he had to tell about this stone which was placed at the altar. The old man told me this:
Many, many years ago, when our people lived upon the Republican River, we used to go hunting in the western part of what is now Kansas. Upon our journey on one of these hunts we stopped near a place where there was a big mound known as the Swimming-Mound. Here one man went upon the hill and into the timber. There he wandered until he became tired, when he lay down upon this high mound. While asleep he saw a man standing near him. The man was of large stature, and spoke to him in his dream and said: “My son, I have come to you. Many of my people were drowned here in this place, and here our bones rest. The people make light of our bones when they find them. I will now tell you that when you find some of these old bones they have curative powers. Upon the south side of the hill you will find a bone. That is a bone of one of my thighs. Take it, wrap it up, and my spirit will be with that bone and I will be with you and I will give you great power.” The man awoke, looked around, but could see nobody. Then he went to the side of the hill and there sticking out he found this supposed stone. The man began to dig out the bone. When he got the bone out it was the thigh bone of a giant. Upon the bone were carvings of a woman and a man. On one side was the carving of a skull, at another place bow and arrows, and around the thigh were several stars. Around the joint was carved the sun, and at another place the moon was carved. The man took the thigh bone home with him and placed it in a buffalo robe and hung it up in his tipi.
Once in a while the keeper of the thigh bone had a dream of this man, and it taught him how to hold the ceremony and where to place the bone. Sometimes when this man was asleep he would hear singing. Then somebody would say: “Listen carefully to the song which you hear, for they are your songs. You must learn them and sing them in your ceremonies.” The man would listen, and after a while he got so that he could sing the songs himself. Several years afterwards he was told by the person he saw in the dream to have a ceremony. The man sat down in his lodge and invited several other medicine-men to sit down with him. He placed a young buffalo robe in front of the altar, and placed some calico upon the robe. He put the thigh bone upon the calico. When the other men entered, he seated them and began to sing about the thigh bone. Every time he mentioned the thigh bone in the song he spoke of it as a stone. The people began to call these people the Medicine-Stone-People.
When I approached the altar in one of the ceremonies to pray to it, I saw the pictures upon the thigh. I also found out that instead of a stone it was a bone which we had before us. The man who was the keeper of the thigh bone became a very great man. He never rode on horse-back when upon the war-path, for he had the strength of a giant. He killed a buffalo with one shot from his bow and arrow and carried the meat upon his back. This man became a great medicine-man. In all his doctoring, instead of giving herbs and roots to the sick, he took the dust from the bone, gave it to the people, and it cured them. Many years ago the people were visited by a disease known as smallpox. It was very bad. All those people who went and touched the thigh bone did not get sick. All those who took sick and drank of tea made from the thigh bone became well. The people thought that this must be a wonderful stone, and they never knew what it was until some of the men gave it presents in order to come close to the owner and found out that it was a thigh bone instead of a stone. These medicine-men who belonged to this society have all died. There were no descendants, and the whole ceremony and everything connected with it are lost.
Source:
The Pawnee Mythology: Part 1, George A. Dorsey, 1906
Kotharian Lightning 