As a child she had been to the Sun Dances; she had taken part in those annual rites, and by them she had learned the restoration of her people in the presence of Tai-me. She was about seven when the last Kiowa Sun Dance was held in 1887 on the Washita River above Rainy Mountain Creek. The buffalo were gone. In order to consummate the ancient sacrifice—to impale the head of a buffalo bull upon the medicine tree—a delegation of old men journeyed into Texas, there to beg and barter for an animal from the Goodnight herd. She was ten when the Kiowas came together for the last time as a living Sun Dance cidture. They could find no buffalo; they had to hang an old hide from the sacred tree. Before the dance could begin, a company of soldiers rode out from Fort Sill under orders to disperse the tribe. Forbidden without cause the essential act of their faith, having seen the wild herds slaughtered and left to rot upon the ground, the Kiowas backed away forever from the medicine tree. That was July 20, 1890, at the great bend of the Washita. My grandmother was there. Without bitterness, and for as long as she lived, she bore a vision of deicide.
童年时她跳过太阳舞，也参加过那些一年一度的祭典，从中她体会到了她的民族在太米出现后的复苏。克尔瓦人18S7年在雨山溪流上的维吉塔河边最后一次跳太阳舞时她大约七岁。水牛已经没有了。为了圆满完成这次古老的祭祀——需要把公水牛的头刺穿在驱魔架上———一队老人代表长途跋涉去德克萨斯，到那里去乞讨，然后用乞讨的东西从古德奈特牧民那里换取水牛。当克尔瓦人最后一次保留着太阳舞的文化聚在一起那年她十岁。他们找不到水牛；于是不得不在驱魔架上挂上一张旧兽皮。在舞会开始以前，一队战士从福特希尔突袭而来奉命驱散这个部落。毫无理由地被禁止了信仰的基本活动，亲眼看到野生畜群被屠杀，然后放任尸体在土地上腐烂，克尔瓦人永远地从驱魔架前退去了。那发生在1890年7月20日，在维吉塔河拐弯处。当时我祖母就在那里。没有太多痛苦，因为只要她活着，她就能忍受亲眼看见神灵被杀害。
Now that I can have her only in memory; I see my grandmother in the several postures that were peculiar to her: standing at the wood stove on a winter morning and turning meat in a great iron skillet; sitting at the south window, bent above her beadwork, and afterwards, when her vision had failed, looking down for a long time into the fold of her hands; going out upon a cane, very slowly as she did when the weight of age came upon her;
虽然祖母只存在于我的记忆中，我却似乎能够清晰地看到她个人所特有的几种姿势：在冬季的清晨站在木制的火炉边翻着一个大铁煎锅里面的烤肉，坐在南面窗前，手里捻着念珠；后来，当她失去了视力的时候，她就低头久久凝望着自己合十的双手；拄着拐杖出门，当年事已高的时候就走得尽可能地慢；