It was a Shoshone man who told me this one... Its about a little girl named "daughter of lame horse"... because she befriended a lame horse as a child and was unseparable from him.

As her southern tribe at that time in history, followed the buffalo trail, the lame horse also followed the buffalo (mustangs love to eat buffalo grass) and as it was lame, followed far behind and she would walk with the horse talking to it all the way...

Well... daughter of lame horse had lost her father that summer from a buffalo hunt, and it had been that horse that he had been riding... the horse survived, but her father had perished...  That horse was all she had left of her father... and she didn't treat it like a big dog either, to her, that was a replacement for her father.

After her father died, she was sad for many months, but had forgotten to cry... She would push the tears back because she felt they would make her weak...  After a few months, daughter of lame horse began dreaming bad dreams.

In her dreams a grey grizzly would chase her out of bed, through the back of her teepee and out onto the plains until she couldn't run anymore and would run so far north, that it would be snowing in the great white forests of the blackfeet indians that wore great coats of grizzly skins.  They were even more hideous to her than the grizzly and the fear was so strong, she would wake up screaming...

In the morning on the first day, she went to the lame horse to say good morning, and he spoke for the first time "good morning daughter, did you sleep well?"  She was shocked!

"Father?  You can speak?"

He answered with another question: "Did you dream last night?"  and she was open mouthed... galking in surprise....

"why yes I did" she stuttered... "I dreamt a Great Grizzly was chasing me north, as far as the blackfeet indians."

"you know daughter, it is wonderful that you had that dream, but it is wrong that you ran... You must confront the Grizzly and ask him why he hunts you."

"but he was going to rip me to shreds!" said the girl...

and lame horse looked at her with such caring and love, said simply: "you cannot die in a dream.  The land of dreams is already the land of the spirits, and when you are there, you are spirit, you cannot die in dreams dear daughter, if the Grizzly were to kill you, you would only be reborn into something beatiful, such as a bird, or a flower... no, you must NEVER run from your dreams, for they are sacred, and Grandfather Bear has something to tell you that is very urgent, but you do not listen...  We can only die while we are awake.  In sleep, when you run from a dream, it is fear itself you run from... you must be humble with the Bear spirit that is chasing you, or else, you must call upon your totem to protect you...."

"but I have no totem father" she said meekly...

"Ah, but you do!" said lame horse, "when you were born, your parents received a dream from Thunderbird himself, telling them that until your first menstruation, you would be protected by the spirit of the horse, that is why I am allowed to speak, and why you can hear my voice... on my last buffalo charge, I died, it was the great spirit that gave me life again, and since then, although I am lame, I have great powers!  You must call on me to protect you when Bear is chasing you...  Bear is not just a spirit of war, he is also a spirit of healing, and he has something to tell you, you must listen!"

"I will try father" said daughter of lame horse, but she was terrified and scared, just thinking about it... So she tried, for 14 nights she tried to confront Bear in her dreams, telling herself each night over and over, that on this night she would face him, and for 13 of those 14 nights she ran away... On the 14th night, she was running toward the snow, and as she felt that nipping of ice, she realized, "wait, we traveled south months ago we are not in Black Feet country, How could I be here in the snow?"  so, she turned immediately and looked Bear straight into his eyes; praying deeply for the help of lame horse or ready for death...

Bear swatted her furiously and sent her flying into a tree where she felt as if her entire body had been broken and mangled...  Then suddenly she spoke to bear; "Why do you hunt me OH Great Grandfather Bear!  Why do you leave the good fishing there in the west, the slumber of winter and the land of our cousins to hunt me in the south where there is only buffalo?"

And it was upon speaking, that not only did Bear stop and sit down, but also, lame horse appeared in the dark of night, frozen under the snow, dead just outside the wood, his head painted for the buffalo hunt and soon it melted away, to reveal her perished father, frozen and forgotten there months ago, and she was filled with an awful emotion of sadness and pain that made her eyes water and the sound of loss filled her bosum with such agony that what she had kept in for those many months was now launched forth in such sobbing that it awoke her fallen father's dead body that looked at her in astonishment...

"daughter of mine", said her father proudly "Bear has only been trying to tell you that you MUST NEVER fear to shed a tear.  You are not weak because you grieve, but the longer you do not let me go, and let the tears flow freely as they will, I will never go to the Happy Hunting Grounds and be kept here in the land of the spirits until I find a way to help you understand that your strength is not measured in how well you hold a tear, but in how well you face that which you fear.  If you do not face your fears in life, they will hunt you down and kill you in the land of the living! That is what he has been trying to tell you."

After that dream, daughter of lame horse soon became one of the most courageous youths in the tribe, even more fearless than the strongest of boys.  Able to do things that others would not, and when her menstruation came, she was given great medicine, that made her very wise, and in time, became the wisest member of the tribe and the most powerful with the spirits, able to cure even the worst of ailments.  She became so powerful, that even the BlackFeet would travel peacefuly to her in search of a cure, and her tribe was never touched again by unnatural death, every last member taking the journey with pride, until it was her day to take the journey...