He looked at the five large bundles and thought: “Could these be the bodies of my uncles?” He felt the presence of spirits, heard their voices. They told him to build a little lodge of willow sticks and hides and put the five bundles inside in a circle, to put red-hot stones from the fire into the middle of it, to take water in an animal skin bag and pour it over the rocks.

He thanked the rocks. He said, “ You brought me here.” He covered the lodge up so that no hot air could escape. It was dark inside. Stone Boy saw something moving in the darkness. The souls were returning to the bodies in their bundles. When he poured water over the rocks for the fourth time, his uncles came alive again. They started talking and singing. He told them, “The rocks saved me, and now they saved you. And from now on this sweat house shall be sacred to us. It will give us good health and will purify us.” That was the first inipi.

This story gives us a hint of how old the sweat bath is, that it was the first of our many rites. It tells us about the sacredness of the stones which were the first things we worshiped.

Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions, p. 176