This reminds me of a poem by Leslie Marmon Silko, of Laguna Pueblo. From her book Storyteller

SKELETON FIXER

What happened here?
she asked
Some kind of accident?
Words like bones
scattered all over thet place. . . .

Old Man Badger traveled
from place to place
searching for skeleton bones.
There was something
only he could do with them.

On the smooth sand
Old Man Badger started laying out the bones.
It was a great puzzle for him.
He started with the toes
He loved their curve
like a new moon,
like a white whisker hair.

Without thinking
he knew their direction,
laying each toe bone
to walk east.
"I know,
it must have been this way.
Yes,"
he talked to himself as he worked.

He strung the spine bones
as beautiful as any shell necklace.

The leg bones were running
so fast
dust from the ankle joints
surrounded the wind.

"Oh poor dear one who left your bones here
I wonder who you are?"
Old Skeleton Fixer spoke to the bones
Because things don't die
they fall to pieces maybe,
get scattered or separate,
but Old Badger Man can tell
how they once fit together.

Though he didn't recognize the bones
he could not stop;
he loved them anyway.

He took great care with the ribs
marveling at the structure
which had contained the lungs and heart.
Skeleton Fixer had never heard of
such things as souls.
He was certain
only of bones.

But where a heart once beat
there was only sand.
"Oh I will find you one--
somewhere around here!"
And a yellow butterfly
flew up from the grass at his feet.

"Ah! I know how your breath left you--
Like butterflies over an edge,
not falling but fluttering
their wings rainbow colors--
Wherever they are
your heart will be."

He worked all day
He was so careful with this one--
it felt like the most special of all.
---Old Man Badger didn't stop
until the last spine bone
was arranged at the base of the tail.

"A'moo'ooh, my dear one
these words are bones,"
he repeated this
four times
------Pa Pa Pa Pa!
------Pa Pa Pa Pa!
------Pa Pa Pa Pa!
------Pa Pa Pa Pa!

Old Coyote Woman jumped up
and took off running.
She never even said "thanks."

Skeleton Fixer
shook his head slowly.

"It is surprising sometimes," he said
"how these things turn out."
But he never has stopped fixing
the poor scattered bones he finds.

A piece Of A Bigger Story They Tell Around Laguna and Acoma Too
---------------------------------From A Version Told by Simon J. Ortiz