Leaderless and without direction, the seven Pte families were adrift in their new world. They did not know how to feed themselves or where to find water. Fortunately for them, their relatives Wazi and Kanka came to their aid. Wazi and Kanka had been banished from the underworld a long time ago and since then had learned to live on this earth. Somehow they found the seven families, and being good relatives, they nourished and comforted them.

Richard Red Owl’s painting depicts the scene the morning after the families emerged from the world below. Richard suggests that his swirling colors represent all the peoples of the world: “I have the whole world in here with my different shades of tans and browns.” He says the curvilinear forms suggest the hand motions of Lakota storytellers: “You know, they usually talk with their hands.” The forms also recall the artistic influence of Oscar Howe on Richard’s work: “I always admired Oscar Howe’s paintings because the motion in them told you things.”

At the center of the painting is a red disk, a depiction of Wi, the Sun. He is near to the curving horizon to reflect the morning time mentioned in the passage. It is red, Richard says, “because it was the birth of the Indian nation.” Above it is a yellow sun suggesting a short passage of time. Beneath it, near the bottom of the painting, an undulating grayish blue line flows up the canvas from a representation of the Wind Cave opening, then goes through a meandering valley of dark brown with tufts of buffalo grass along its banks and angles eastward out onto the plains and the rising sun. Silhouettes of the emerging families circle up from either side of the cave opening. Facing opposite directions on either side of the red disk, Kanka and Wazi share meat and water with their Pte relatives, nourishing and comforting them.

Richard’s knowledge of the narrative flows from his understanding that “there might be different versions of the story, but we know where we came from and we kept track of these stories in different ways for many generations.”

In the morning the people did not know where to go. They were hungry and thirsty. Then the old man and the old woman appeared and they gave them food and drink.