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010 - Dance In A Buffalo Skull · Old Native American Legends

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  Speaker 1: Old Indian Legends by Zitkala Shah. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Old
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  Speaker 1: Indian Legends Section ten Dance in a buffalo skull. It
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  Speaker 1: was night upon the prairie. Overhead, the stars were twinkling
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  Speaker 1: bright their red and yellow lights. The moon was young,
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  Speaker 1: a silvery thread among the stars. It soon drifted low
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  Speaker 1: beneath the horizon. Upon the ground, the land was pitchy black.
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  Speaker 1: There are night people on the plain who love the dark.
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  Speaker 1: Amid the black level land, they meet to frolic under
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  Speaker 1: the stars. Then, when their sharp ears hear any strange
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  Speaker 1: footfalls nigh, they scamper away into the deep shadows of night.
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  Speaker 1: There they are safely hid from all dangers. They think.
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  Speaker 1: Thus it was that one very black night, afar off
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  Speaker 1: from the edge of the level land, out of the
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  Speaker 1: wooded river bottom, glided forth to balls of fire. They
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  Speaker 1: came farther and farther into the level land. They grew
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  Speaker 1: larger and brighter. The dark hid the body of the creature.
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  Speaker 1: With those fiery eyes. They came on and on just
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  Speaker 1: over the tops of the prairie grass. It might have
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  Speaker 1: been a wildcat prowling low on soft, stealthy feet. Slowly,
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  Speaker 1: but surely, the terrible eyes drew nearer and nearer to
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  Speaker 1: the heart of the level land. There, in a huge
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  Speaker 1: old buffalo skull was a gay feast and dance. Tiny
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  Speaker 1: little field mice were singing and dancing in a circle
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  Speaker 1: to the boom boom of a wee wee drum. They
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  Speaker 1: were laughing and talking among themselves while their chosen singers
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  Speaker 1: sang loud a merry tune. They built a small open
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  Speaker 1: fire within the center of their queer dance house. The
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  Speaker 1: light streamed out of the buffalo skull through all the
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  Speaker 1: curious sockets and holes. A light on the plain in
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  Speaker 1: the middle of the night was an un unusual thing,
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  Speaker 1: But so merry were the mice that they did not
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  Speaker 1: hear the king king of sleepy birds, disturbed by the
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  Speaker 1: unaccustomed fire. A pack of wolves, fearing to come nigh
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  Speaker 1: this night fire, stood together a little distance away, and,
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  Speaker 1: turning their pointed noses to the stars, howled and yelped
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  Speaker 1: most dismally. Even the cry of the wolves was unheeded
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  Speaker 1: by the mice within the lighted buffalo skull. They were
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  Speaker 1: feasting and dancing. They were singing and laughing, those funny
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  Speaker 1: little furry fellows. All the while. Across the dark from
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  Speaker 1: out the low river bottom came that pair of fiery eyes,
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  Speaker 1: now closer and more swift, now fiercer and glaring. The
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  Speaker 1: eyes moved toward the buffalo skull. All unconscious of those
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  Speaker 1: fearful eyes. The happy mice nibbled at dried roots and venison.
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  Speaker 1: The singers had started another song. The drummers beat the time,
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  Speaker 1: turning their heads from side to side in rhythm. In
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  Speaker 1: a ring. Around the fire hopped the mice, each bouncing
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  Speaker 1: hard on his two hind feet. Some carried their tails
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  Speaker 1: over their arms, while others trailed them proudly along. Ah.
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  Speaker 1: Very near are those round yellow eyes. Very low to
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  Speaker 1: the ground, They seemed to creep, creep toward the buffalo skull.
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  Speaker 1: All of a sudden they slide into the eye sockets
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  Speaker 1: of the old skull. Spirit of the buffalo squeaked a
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  Speaker 1: frightened mouse as he jumped out from a hole in
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  Speaker 1: the back part of the skull. A cat a cat
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  Speaker 1: cried other mice as they scrambled out of holes both
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  Speaker 1: large and snug, noiseless, they ran away into the dark
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  Speaker 1: and of Section ten. Recording by Robert Scott, July the
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  Speaker 1: thirty first, two thousand and seven.