The shaman took Sam by the arm and pulled him toward the center of the clearing. A pine tree, stripped of its branches and looking like a pole, lay on the ground there, its length pointing away from them. At its side Sam could see dark lumps that he knew would soon be attached to the stubby remnants of its branches. Those lumps were medicine bundles, cloth streamers, stuffed totemic images, and bundles of feathers. The pine would be raised to stand in a dark hole dug to receive it. It was to be the sprouting tree, a central component of this open-air medicine lodge.