Napioa is the Secondary Creator of the Indians. There are two kinds of
stories told concerning him. One class reveals him in the character of a
good man, and the other class as a bad man. He is not, however, a man,
but a supernatural being, able to perform deeds which no human being
could perform. The Indians do not know the manner of his birth, nor the
place from whence he came. He is still living in a great sea away in the
south. He made his home for a long time at the source of the Old Man’s
River, in Alberta, where may be seen the lake from which he drank, the
stones which he threw along the ground when he was sporting, and the
indentations in the ground showing where he lay. At the Red Deer River
there is a high ridge, where there is a land-slide, down which Napioa
slid as a toboggan slide.
One day, as he was travelling across the prairie, he saw a bird which
threw its eyes upward, and said, “Tuhu!” As he came up to the place
where the bird was, he said, “Let me see how you do that?” After being
told to repeat this word and throw his head back, he felt quite elated.
He was so much overjoyed that he threw his eyes up repeatedly. He was
standing under a tree, and as he threw his eyes upward they were caught
in the branches of the tree, and he lost his sight. He then went off
alone. As he wandered on his journey he kept beckoning in different
directions, so that if any one saw him he would receive help and find
his people. A woman saw him throwing his arms about as if desiring some
one to come to him, and at once she went and asked him what he wanted.
He said, “Take me to the place where the people are.” She took him and
led him along by means of a stick, the woman going in front and Napioa
following. He was afraid that she might leave him, so he tied a bell to
her dress, that he might follow her should she try to escape. Nothing
eventful happened until they crossed a river, when he inquired, “Are
there any buffalo to be seen?” The woman answered, “Yes, there are some
at the river now.” He told her to point his arrow toward the buffalo,
that he might shoot one. She did so; but he missed the buffalo, and then
he shouted that the arrow did not belong to him. Again he commanded her
to point an arrow in the right direction; but the buffalo were not
killed, and again he asserted that the arrow did not belong to him.
After several attempts he shot a buffalo, and then called out, “That was
my arrow.” He bade the woman skin the animal, cut up the meat, and bring
it to the camping ground. While she was doing this he said that he would
put up the lodge. He sought the lodge-poles; and as he brought them one
by one, he failed to find those that he had already placed on the
ground. He had quite a number of lodge-poles arranged here and there,
but owing to his blindness he could not collect them. When the woman
returned she asked him why he had so many poles, and none arranged in
their proper places. “That you might choose the best ones,” he replied.
Thus was Napioa ever crafty, never allowing any one to say that there
was anything wrong with him. The lodge being prepared, and supper ended,
Napioa went to sleep. As he lay with his hair drawn over his eyes, the
curiosity of the woman tempted her to lift the hair that she might see
his face. As she slowly lifted his locks she gazed into the empty
sockets from which his eyes had been torn, and suddenly seized with
terror, she fled from the lodge and sped her way through the darkness.
Napioa heard the bell, and springing from his grassy bed, pursued her,
guided by the ringing of the bell. She ran in different directions; but
he was fast gaining upon her when she tore the bell from her dress, and
as she threw it one way she ran in another direction, and thus escaped
from the wiles of Napioa.
The dwellers in the Western lodges have many legends relating to places
of historical interest in the country, and these throw a flood of light
on the religious ideas, migrations, social and domestic customs,
political life, and other matters of interest connected with the tribes
comprising the Blackfoot Confederacy. Some of the legends are local, and
when told by the aged men as they sit around their camp-fires, vary
somewhat in detail according to the intellectual ability, inventiveness,
and strength of memory of the narrator. I have listened to some of these
legends as told over and over again for the past nine years, and I find
that the young men are not able to relate them as accurately as the
aged; besides, as the country is becoming settled with white people,
they are less disposed to tell to others their native religious ideas,
lest they are laughed at because of not believing the same things as
their superior brethren of the white race. As the children grow up they
are forgetting these things, and the years are not far distant when the
folk-lore of the Blackfeet will be greatly changed, and many of their
traditions forgotten.