THE purification ceremony is not an everyday ritual of United States presidential politics.
The newly named Awe Kooda Bilaxpak Kuuxshish – better known as Barack Obama – faced east, the symbolic source of new life. His adopted Crow father, Hartford Black Eagle, prayed over him.
They then walked arm in arm with Black Eagle's wife, Mary, t
o a podium, where Mr Obama promised to live up to the meaning of his new name, "One who helps people throughout the land".
"I want you to know that I will never forget you," Mr Obama told the crowd, who had not seen a visitor of such political importance since Lady Bird Johnson went to the Montana reservation in the 1960s. "You will be on my mind every day that I am in the White House."
Often paid scant attention in US presidential elections, Native Americans are taking an unusually high profile in the final stretch of the Democratic primary campaign. Both Mr Obama and Hillary Clinton have visited reservations in the rugged western states of Montana and South Dakota, which today hold the final contests in the drawn-out state-by-state battle.
One Montana tribe, the Crow Nation, has ceremonially adopted Mr Obama. The Crow chairman, Carl Venne, said the Illinois senator was the first presidential candidate ever to visit his tribe in south-eastern Montana. "Never before have we had such hope for a candidate, except maybe a Kennedy," he said.
In previous elections, the Democratic candidate has been decided long before primary voting in Montana and South Dakota, and Mr Obama is looking finally to wrap up the nomination today.
Just above 1 per cent of the US population is Native American, but almost 9 per cent of South Dakota's roughly 800,000 residents are American Indian – the third highest population in the country. About 6 per cent of Montana's slightly larger population are American Indian. Those voters are traditionally Democratic, though Republicans have worked hard to woo them in recent elections.
Poverty is widespread among many tribes, especially in remote areas of the western states, and many Native Americans see Democrats as more sympathetic to issues important on the reservations, including jobs and better health care and education.
As with all voters, Native Americans are divided.
In a speech last week on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation, Mrs Clinton touted jobs for those out of work and better healthcare. She has also pledged to increase money for employment and to fight diabetes among Indian youths. She has also benefited from her husband's record.
Thomas Shortbull, the president of South Dakota's Oglala Lakota College, supports her because Bill Clinton, as president, worked to get more education and housing money to reservations in the 1990s.
"We know what we'll get with a Clinton administration and we don't know what we'll get with an Obama presidency," he said.
Geri Small, the Northern Cheyenne president in Lame Deer, Montana, has also endorsed the New York senator. As for the adoption of Mr Obama by the Crow tribe next door, her assistant, Clara Caufield, scoffed: "We take our traditions more seriously than that. The Crow adopt people at the drop of a hat."
However, should the Democrats lose in the November presidential election, some say the Republican, John McCain, represents a better-than-usual second choice for Native Americans.
Ms Caufield said: "Hillary and Obama are getting up to speed on Indian affairs, while McCain in Arizona already represents the largest Native American community in the country, the Navajos."
Mr McCain has twice served as chairman of the US Senate committee on Indian affairs and is knowledgeable about the complex issues facing Native Americans. Many also respect his past military service.
One prominent Native American who has worked with Mr McCain is Elouise Cobell, a Montana member of the Blackfeet tribe. She is leading a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against the US government, claiming tribes were cheated for more than a century out of payments made for the rights to mine, farm and graze on their land.
"He's sympathetic, but that's the problem we have here with Indian issues," Ms Cobell said about Mr McCain.
"We get a lot of promises, especially around election time. But then nobody does anything about it, so what good are all these words and promises?"
