Blackfeet Tales of
Glacier National
Park
BY
JAMES WILLARD SCHULTZ
_With Illustrations_
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1916
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY JAMES WILLARD SCHULTZ
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published April 1916_
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
[Illustration: THE NARROWS, UPPER ST. MARY'S LAKE, WITH BARING'S
BASIN IN THE BACKGROUND
_Page 214_]
TO
LOUIS WARREN HILL, ESQ.
TRUE FRIEND TO MY BLACKFEET PEOPLE, AND
THE ONE WHO HAS DONE MORE THAN ANY OTHER
INDIVIDUAL, OR ANY ORGANIZATION, TO MAKE THE
WONDERS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK ACCESSIBLE
TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
BY
THE AUTHOR
GLACIER NATIONAL PARK,
SEPTEMBER 10, 1915.
Contents
I. TWO MEDICINE 1
HUGH MONROE 1
THE WOMAN WHO EARNED A MAN'S NAME 12
THE STORY OF THE THUNDER MEDICINE 23
II. PU-NAK´-IK-SI (CUTBANK) 43
HOW MOUNTAIN CHIEF FOUND HIS HORSES 49
WHITE FUR AND HIS BEAVER CLAN 59
THE STORY OF THE BAD WIFE 85
OLD MAN AND THE WOMAN 98
III. KI-NUK´-SI IS-SI-SAK´-TA (LITTLE RIVER) 110
OLD MAN AND THE WOLVES 112
NEW ROBE, THE RESCUER 129
IV. PUHT-O-MUK-SI-KIM-IKS (THE LAKES INSIDE): ST.
MARY'S LAKES 146
THE STORY OF THE FIRST HORSES 158
ONE HORN, SHAMER OF CROWS 182
THE ELK MEDICINE CEREMONY 199
NA-WAK´-O-SIS (THE STORY OF TOBACCO) 216
V. IKS-I´-KWO-YI-A-TUK-TAI (SWIFT CURRENT RIVER) 226
THE JEALOUS WOMEN 227
VI. NI-NA US-TAK-WI (CHIEF MOUNTAIN) 233
THE WISE MAN 235
Illustrations
THE NARROWS, UPPER ST. MARY'S LAKE, WITH
BARING'S BASIN IN THE BACKGROUND _Frontispiece_
UPPER TWO MEDICINE LAKE AND RISING BULL MOUNTAIN 8
PI´-TA-MAK-AN (RUNNING EAGLE) FALLS 12
AT UPPER TWO MEDICINE LAKE 20
Showing Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill,
Yellow Wolf, and the author
MOVING CAMP FROM TWO MEDICINE 42
OUR CAMP ON CUTBANK RIVER 46
Showing Wonderful Runner and Little Plume
Mountains
STREAM FROM UNNAMED GLACIER POURING INTO CUTBANK
CANYON 52
THE BEAVER DAM 60
BIGHORN COUNTRY. HEAD OF CUTBANK RIVER 80
CUTBANK RIVER. A GOOD TROUT RIFFLE 84
BLACK BULL AND STABS-BY-MISTAKE NEAR LOWER END
OF CUTBANK CANYON 96
STABS-BY-MISTAKE, SUN WOMAN, AND HER SON, LITTLE
OTTER, IN CUTBANK CANYON 106
BIG SPRING PAINTING AUTOBIOGRAPHY ON THE FLESH
SIDE OF A TANNED ELK-SKIN 110
SUN WOMAN 128
CAMP NEAR LOWER END OF UPPER ST. MARY'S LAKE 146
AT THE NARROWS, UPPER ST. MARY'S LAKE 152
GOING-TO-THE-SUN MOUNTAIN 156
GOING-TO-THE-SUN CHALET, UPPER ST. MARY'S LAKE 180
OPENING OF THE ELK MEDICINE PIPE CEREMONY 206
ELK MEDICINE PIPE DANCE 210
TAIL-FEATHERS-COMING-OVER-THE-HILL PROPITIATING
THE DREADED UNDER-WATER PEOPLE AT UPPER TWO
MEDICINE LAKE 212
ICEBERG LAKE 226
EN ROUTE TO ICEBERG LAKE 234
GLACIER ON TRAIL TO ICEBERG LAKE 240
_From photographs by R. W. Reed_
BLACKFEET TALES OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK
I
TWO MEDICINE
_July 12, 1915._
HUGH MONROE
After an absence of many years, I have returned to visit for a time my
Blackfeet relatives and friends, and we are camping along the mountain
trails where, in the long ago, we hunted buffalo, and elk, and moose,
and all the other game peculiar to this region.
To-day we pitched our lodges under Rising Wolf Mountain, that massive,
sky-piercing, snow-crested height of red-and-gray rock which slopes up
so steeply from the north shore of Upper Two Medicine Lake. This
afternoon we saw upon it, some two or three thousand feet up toward
its rugged crest, a few bighorn and a Rocky Mountain goat. But we may
not kill them! Said Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill: "There they
are! Our meat, but the whites have taken them from us, even as they
have taken everything else that is ours!" And so we are eating beef
where once we feasted upon the rich ribs and loins of game, which
tasted all the better because we trailed and killed it, and with no
little labor brought it to the womenfolk in camp.
Rising Wolf Mountain! What a fitting and splendid monument it is to
the first white man to traverse the foothills of the Rockies between
the Saskatchewan and the Missouri! Hugh Monroe was his English name.
His father was Captain Hugh Monroe, of the English army; his mother
was Amélie de la Roche, a daughter of a noble family of French
_émigrés_. Hugh Monroe, Junior, was born in Montreal in 1798. In 1814
he received permission to enter the employ of the Hudson's Bay
Company, and one year later--in the summer of 1815--he arrived at its
new post, Mountain Fort, on the North Fork of the Saskatchewan and
close to the foothills of the Rockies.
At that time the Company had but recently entered Blackfeet territory,
and none of its _engagés_ understood their language; an interpreter
was needed, and the Factor appointed Monroe to fit himself for the
position. The Blackfeet were leaving the Fort to hunt and trap along
the tributaries of the Missouri during the winter, and he went with
them, under the protection of the head chief, who had nineteen wives
and two lodges and an immense band of horses. By easy stages they
traveled along the foot of the Rockies to Sun River, where they
wintered, and then in the spring, instead of returning to the
Saskatchewan, they crossed the Missouri, hunted in the Yellowstone
country that summer, wintered on the Missouri at the mouth of the
Marias River, and returned to Mountain Fort the following spring with
all the furs their horses could carry.
Instead of one winter, Monroe had passed two years with the tribe, and
in that time had acquired a wife, a daughter of the great chief, a good
knowledge of the language, and an honorable name, Ma-kwi´-i-po-wak-sĭn
(Rising Wolf), which was given him because of his bravery in a battle
with the Crows in the Yellowstone country.
During Monroe's two years' absence from the Fort, another _engagé_ had
learned the Blackfeet language from a Cree Indian, who spoke it well,
so that this man became the interpreter, and Monroe was ordered to
remain with the Piegan tribe of the Blackfeet, to travel with them,
and see that they came annually to the Fort to trade in the winter
catch of furs. And this exactly suited him; he much preferred roaming
the plains with his chosen people; the stuffy rooms of the Fort had no
attractions for a man of his nature.
How I envy Hugh Monroe, the first white man to traverse the plains
lying between the Upper Saskatchewan and the Upper Missouri, and the
first to see many portions of the great stretch of the mountain region
between the Missouri and the Yellowstone. He has himself often told me
that "every day of that life was a day of great joy!"
Monroe was a famous hunter and trapper, and a warrior as well. He was
a member of the Ai´-in-i-kiks, or Seizer band of the All Friends
Society, and the duty of the Seizers was to keep order in the great
camp, and see that the people obeyed the hunting laws--a most
difficult task at times. On several occasions he went with his and
other bands to war against other tribes, and once, near Great Salt
Lake, when with a party of nearly two hundred warriors, he saved the
lives of the noted Jim Bridger and his party of trappers. Bridger had
with him a dozen white men and as many Snake Indians, the latter
bitter enemies of the Blackfeet. The Snakes were discovered, and the
Blackfeet party was preparing to charge them, when Monroe saw that
there were white men behind them. "Stop! White men are with them! We
must let them go their way in peace!" Monroe shouted to his party.
"But they are Snake white men, and therefore our enemy: we shall kill
them all!" the Blackfeet chief answered. However, such was Monroe's
power over his comrades that he finally persuaded them to remain
where they were, and he went forward with a flag of truce, and found
that his friend Jim Bridger was the leader of the other party. That
evening white men and Snakes and Blackfeet ate and smoked together! It
was a narrow escape for Bridger and his handful of men.
Monroe had three sons and three daughters by his Indian wife, all of
whom grew into fine, stalwart men and women. Up and down the country
he roamed with them, trapping and hunting, and often fighting hostile
war parties. They finally all married, and in his old age he lived
with one and another of them until his death, in 1896, in his
ninety-eighth year. We buried him near the buffalo cliffs, down on the
Two Medicine River, where he had seen many a herd of the huge animals
decoyed to their death. And then we named this mountain for him. A
fitting tribute, I think, to one of the bravest yet most kindly men of
the old, old West!
* * * * *
At the upper east side and head of this beautiful lake rises a
pyramidal mountain of great height and grandeur. A frowse of pine
timber on its lower front slope, and its ever-narrowing side slopes
above, give it a certain resemblance to a buffalo bull. Upon looking
at a recent map of the country I found that it had been named "Mount
Rockwell." So, turning to Yellow Wolf, I said: "The whites have given
that mountain yonder the name of a white man. It is so marked upon
this paper."
The old man, half blind and quite feeble, roused up when he heard
that, and cried out: "Is it so? Not satisfied with taking our
mountains, the whites even take away the ancient names we have given
them! They shall not do it! You tell them so! That mountain yonder is
Rising Bull Mountain, and by that name it must ever be called! Rising
Bull was one of our great chiefs: what more fitting than that the
mountain should always bear his name?"
"Rising Bull was a chief in two tribes," Yellow Wolf went on. "In his
youth he married a Flathead girl, at a time when we were at peace
with that people, and after a winter or two she persuaded him to take
her across the mountains for a visit with her relatives. Rising Bull
came to like them and all the Flathead people so well that he remained
with them a number of winters, and because of his bravery, and his
kind and generous nature, the Flatheads soon appointed him one of
their chiefs. When he was about forty winters of age, some young men
of both tribes quarreled over a gambling game and several were killed
on each side. That, of course, ended the peace pact; war was declared,
and as Rising Bull could not fight his own people, he came back to us
with his Flathead wife, and was a leader in the war, which lasted for
several years. When that was ended, he continued to lead war parties
against the Crows, the Sioux, the Assiniboines, and the far-off
Snakes, and was always successful. Came the dreadful Measles
Winter,[1] and with hundreds of our people, he died. He left a son,
White Quiver, a very brave young warrior, and two years after his
father's death, he was killed in a raid against the Crows."
[1] The winter of 1859-60.
[Illustration: UPPER TWO MEDICINE LAKE. RISING BULL MOUNTAIN
ON RIGHT]
"Ai! Rising Bull was a brave man. And oh, so gentle-hearted! So good
to the widows and orphans; to all in any kind of distress! We must in
some way see that this mountain continues to bear his name," said
Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill.
And to that I most heartily agree.
_July 15._
We are a considerable camp of people: Yellow Wolf, my old uncle-in-law;
Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill, another uncle-in-law; Big Spring;
Two Guns; Black Bull; Stabs-by-Mistake; Eagle Child; Eli Guardipe, or
Takes-Gun-Ahead. And with them they have their eleven women and fourteen
children. All are my especial friends, and all the men have been to
war--some of them many times--and have counted _coup_ upon the enemy.
Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill has many battle scars on different
parts of his body. I was with him when he got the last one, in a fight
with the Crees. The bullet struck him in the forehead, ripped open the
scalp clear to the back of his head, but did not penetrate the skull. He
dropped instantly when struck, and we at first thought that he was dead.
It was some hours before he regained consciousness.
With all these men, and especially Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill
and Guardipe, I hunted and traveled much in the old days. Naturally,
we spend much of our time telling over this-and-that of our
adventures. Meantime the children play around, as happy as Indian
children ever are, and their mothers do the lodge work, which is
light, and gather in groups to chat and joke. The boys have just been
skipping stones on the smooth surface of the lake. The number of skips
a stone makes before it finally sinks, denotes the number of wives the
caster will have when he reaches manhood.
Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill and Two Guns are medicine men. The
former has the Elk medicine pipe, the latter the Water medicine pipe,
both ancient medicines in the tribe. They are spiritual, not material,
medicines. In fact, they are the implements used in prayers to the sun
and other gods, and each carries with it a ritual of its own.
Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill has just told me that we will have
some prayers with his pipe a few days from now. I shall be glad to
take part in it all once more.
_July 16._
Again my people are filled with resentment against the whites. I told
them this afternoon that the falls in the river between this and the
lower lake had been given a foolish white men's name. I could not tell
them what it was, for there is no Blackfeet equivalent for the word
"Trick." But what a miserable, circus-suggesting name that is to give
to one of the most beautiful of waterfalls, and the only one of its
kind in America, and in all the world, for all I know! A short
distance below the outlet of the upper lake the river sinks, and a
half-mile farther on gushes into sight from a jagged hole halfway up
the side of a high and almost perpendicular cliff.
"In the long ago we named that Pi´tamakan Falls," said
Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill.
"Yes? And who was he?" I asked, although I had a fair recollection of
the story of that personage. But I had forgotten the details of it,
and wanted them all.
"Not he, but she!" he corrected me.
"But Pi´tamakan (Running Eagle) is a man's name," I objected.
"True. But this woman earned the right to bear a man's name, and so it
was given her. She was the only woman of our people to receive that
honor, so far as I know. Listen! You shall hear all about it."
THE WOMAN WHO EARNED A MAN'S NAME
"As a girl, her name was Weasel Woman. She was the eldest of two
brothers and two sisters, and when she had seen fifteen winters both
their father and mother died. But unlike children in such circumstances,
they did not give up their lodge and scatter out to live with
relatives and friends. Said Weasel Woman: 'Somehow, some way, we can
manage to live. You boys are old enough to hunt and bring in meat and
skins. We three sisters will keep the lodge in good order, and tan the
skins for our clothing and bedding, and other uses.' And as she said, so
it was done, and the orphan family prospered.
[Illustration: PI´-TA-MAK-AN (RUNNING EAGLE) FALLS
The greater part of the stream gushes from the orifice a third
of the way up the cliff]
"But Weasel Woman was not satisfied. Many young men and many old and
rich men wanted to marry her, and to all she said 'No!' so loudly, and
so quickly, that after a time all knew that she would not marry.
Wherever a party of warriors gathered for a dance or a feast, there
she was looking on, listening to their talk, and giving what help she
could. And when a party returned from war, she was loudest in praising
them. All she talked of, all she thought about, was war.
"On an evening in her twentieth summer a large party of warriors
started out to cross the mountains and raid the Flatheads. They
traveled all night, and when daylight came found that Weasel Woman was
with them.
"'Go back! Go home!' the war chief told her. But she would not
listen.
"'If you will not let me go with you, I shall follow you,' she said.
"And then spoke up the medicine man of the party: 'Chief,' said he, 'I
advise you to allow her to go with us; something tells me that she
will bring us good luck.'
"'Ah! As you advise me, so shall it be,' said the war chief; and the
woman went on with them. No man of that party teased her, nor bothered
her in any way: every one of them treated her as they would a sister.
It was the strangest war party that ever set forth from any tribe of
the plains!
"It was at the edge of Flathead Lake that they discovered the enemy, a
large camp of the Flatheads and their friends, the Pend d'Oreilles.
When night came they went close up to it, and the woman said to the
war chief: 'Let me go in first. Let me see what I can do. I feel that
I shall be successful in there.'
"'Go!' the chief told her, 'and we will wait for you here, and be
ready to help you if you get into trouble.'
"The woman went into the camp, where all the best horses of the
people--their fast buffalo runners, their racers, and their
stallions--were picketed close to the lodges of the different owners
of them. If she was afraid of being discovered and killed, she never
admitted it. The dying moon gave light enough for her to see the size
and color of the horses. She took her time and went around among them,
and, making her choice, cut the ropes of three fine pinto horses, and
led them out to where the party awaited her. There she tied them, and
went back into camp with the chief and his men and again came out with
three horses. Said she then: 'I have taken enough for this time. I
will await you here and take care of what we have.'
"The men went back several times, and then, having all the horses that
they could drive rapidly, the party struck for the mountains, and in
several days' time arrived home without the loss of a man or a horse.
"A few days after the party came into camp the medicine lodge was put
up, and on the day that the warriors counted their _coups_, and new
names were given them, an old warrior and medicine man called Weasel
Woman before the people, and had her count her _coup_--of going twice
into the enemy's camp and taking six horses. All shouted approval of
that, and then the medicine man gave her the name, Pi´-ta-mak-an, a
very great one, that of a chief whose shadow had some time before gone
on to the Sand Hills.
"After that Pi´tamakan, as we now may call her, did not have to sneak
after a party in order to go to war with them: she was asked to go.
And after two or three more successful raids against different
enemies, the Crows, the Sioux, and the Flatheads, she herself became a
war chief, and warriors begged to be allowed to join her parties,
because they believed that where she led nothing but good luck would
come to them. She now wore men's clothing when on a raid. At home she
wore her woman clothing. But even in that dress she, like any man,
gave feasts and dances, and the greatest chiefs and warriors came to
them, and were glad to be there.
"On her sixth raid, Pi´tamakan led a large war party against the
Flatheads, and somewhere on the other side of the mountains fell in
with a war party of Bloods, one of our brother tribes of the North.
For several days the two parties traveled along together, and then one
evening the Blood chief, Falling Bear, said to Pi´tamakan's servant:
'Go tell your chief woman that I would like to marry her.'
"'Chief, you do not understand,' the boy told him. 'She is not that
kind. Men are her brothers, and nothing more. She will never marry. I
cannot give her your message, for I am afraid that she would be angry
with me for carrying it to her.'
"On the next day, as they were traveling along, the Blood chief said
to Pi´tamakan: 'I have never loved, but I love now. I love you; my
heart is all yours; let us marry.'
"'I will not say "yes" to that, nor will I say "no,"' the woman chief
answered him. 'I will consider what you ask, and give you an answer
after we make this raid.'
"And with that the Blood chief said no more, but felt encouraged: he
thought that in time she would agree to become his woman.
"That very evening the scouts ahead discovered a large camp of
Flathead and Kootenai Indians, more than a hundred lodges of them, and
when night came both parties drew close in to it. Pi´tamakan then
ordered her followers to remain where they were and told the Blood
chief to say the same thing to his men. She then told the Blood chief
to go into the camp and take horses, and he went in and returned with
one horse.
"'It is now my turn,' said Pi´tamakan, and she went in and brought out
two horses.
"The Blood chief went in and brought out two horses.
"Pi´tamakan went in and brought out four horses.
"The Blood chief went in and brought out two horses.
"Pi´tamakan went in and brought out one horse. And then she said to
the Blood chief: 'Our men are becoming impatient to go in there and
take horses. We will each of us go in once more, and then let them do
what they can.'
"So the Blood chief went in for the fourth and last time, and came
back leading four horses, making nine in all. And then Pi´tamakan went
in and cut the ropes of eight horses, and safely led them out, making
in all fifteen that she had taken. The warriors then went in, making
several trips, and then, with all the horses that could be easily
driven, the big double party headed for home.
"On the next day, as Pi´tamakan and the Blood chief were riding
together, he said to her: 'I love you so much that I can wait no
longer for my answer. Give it to me now. I believe that you are going
to say, "Yes, I will be your woman."'
"Said Pi´tamakan: 'I gave you your chance. It would have been yes had
you taken more horses than I did from the camp of the enemy. But I
took the most; therefore I cannot marry you.'
"That was her way of getting around saying 'no' to the chief. She had
beaten him, an old, experienced warrior, in the taking of the enemy's
horses, and he could not ask her again to become his woman. It is said
that he felt very badly about it all.
"Pi´tamakan now carried a gun when she went to war, and used it well
in several fights with the enemy, counting in all three _coups_, each
one of them the taking of a gun from the man she herself killed. And
then, _haiya_! On her ninth raid she led a party against the
Flatheads, and while she and all her men were in the camp, choosing
horses and cutting their ropes, the Flatheads discovered them and
began firing, and she and five of her men were killed. And so passed
Pi´tamakan, virgin, and brave woman chief of our people. She died
young, about seventy winters ago."
* * * * *
Okan, his vision, is the name the Blackfeet have for the great lodge
which they annually give to the sun, and for the four days of ceremonies
attending its erection and consecration. In our vernacular it is the
medicine lodge. I asked Yellow Wolf this afternoon why this river was
named Nat´-ok-i-o-kan, or, as we say, Two Medicine Lodge River, and he
replied that when the Blackfeet first took this great country from the
Crows, they built a medicine lodge on the river, just below the buffalo
cliffs. The next summer they built another one in the same place, and
owing to that the river got its name.
[Illustration: AT UPPER TWO MEDICINE LAKE
Left to right: Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill, Yellow Wolf,
and the author, relating his killing of a grizzly at this
particular place, in the long-ago]
Yes, this was once the country of the Crows. But the Blackfeet saw and
coveted it. It was about two hundred years ago, as near as I can learn,
that they came into it from their original home, the region of Peace
River and the Slave Lakes, and little by little forced the Crows
southward until they had driven them to the south side of the
Yellowstone, or Elk River, as it is known to the various Indian
tribes of the plains.
Perhaps, in the first place, the Blackfeet coveted more than anything
else the cliffs on the Two Medicine,--just above Holy Family
Mission,--where the buffalo were decoyed in great numbers and stampeded
in a huge waterfall of whirling brown bodies to death on the rocks
below.
The Blackfeet call such a place--there were several of them--a
_pi´skan_, a trap. Extending back from the cliff, for a mile or more
out on the plain, were two ever-diverging lines of rock piles, like a
huge letter V. Behind these the people concealed themselves, and the
buffalo caller, going out beyond the mouth of the V, by certain antics
and motions aroused the curiosity of the herd until it finally
followed him into the V. Then the people began to rise up behind it,
and the result was that, unable to turn either to the right or left,
from fear of the two lines of shouting, robe-waving stampeders, it was
driven straight to the cliff and over it.
When I first saw the place, there were at the foot of the cliffs tons
and tons of buffalo horn tips, the most time-resisting of any portion
of a buffalo's anatomy.
* * * * *
Last night, while the pipe was going the rounds, I asked what had
become of old Red Eagle's Thunder Medicine Pipe, and was told that it
was still in the tribe, Old Person at present being the owner of it.
Said Two Guns: "That is one of the most ancient and most powerful
medicines we have. Do you know how it came into our possession?"
THE STORY OF THE THUNDER MEDICINE
"It was in the long ago. Our fathers had no horses then, but used dogs
to carry their belongings.
"One spring, needing the skins of bighorn to tan into soft leather for
clothing, the tribe moved up here to the foot of the Lower Two
Medicine Lake, and began hunting. Many men would surround and climb a
mountain, driving the bighorn ahead of them, their dogs helping, and
at last they would come up to the game, often several hundred head,
on the summit of the mountain. The dogs were then held back, and the
hunters, advancing with ready bow and arrows, would shoot and shoot
the bighorn at close range and generally kill the most of them.
"One day, while most of the men were hunting, three young, unmarried
women went out to gather wood, and while they were collecting it in
little piles here and there, a thunderstorm came up. Then said one of
them, a beautiful girl, tall, slender, long-haired, big-eyed, 'O
Thunder! I am pure! I am a virgin! If you will not strike us I promise
to marry you whenever you want me!'
"Thunder passed on, not harming them, and the young women gathered up
their firewood and went home.
"On another day these three young women went out again for firewood,
one ahead of another along the trail in the deep woods, and Mink
Woman, she who had promised herself to Thunder Man, was last of the
three. She was some distance behind the others and singing happily as
she stepped along, when out from the brush in front of her stepped a
very fine-looking, beautifully dressed man, and said: 'Well, here I
am. I have come for you.'
"'No, not for me! You are mistaken. I am not that kind; I am a pure
woman,' she answered.
"'But you can't go back on your word. You promised yourself to me if I
would not strike you, and I did not harm you. Don't you know me? I am
Thunder Man.'
"Mink Woman looked closely at him, and her heart beat fast from fear.
But he was good to look at, he had the appearance of a kind and gentle
man, and--although thoughtlessly--she had made a promise to him, a
god, and she could not break it. So she answered: 'I said that I would
marry you. Well, here I am, take me!'
"Her two companions had passed on; they saw nothing of this meeting.
Thunder Man stepped forward, and kissed her, then took her in his
arms, and, springing from the ground, carried her up into the sky to
the land of the Above People.
"But the two young women soon missed her. They ran back on the trail,
and searched on all sides of it, and called and called to her, and of
course got no reply: 'She may have gone home for something,' said one
of them, and they hurried back to camp. She was not there. They then
gave the alarm, and all the people scattered out to look for her. They
hunted all that day, and wandered about in the woods all night,
calling her name, and got no answer.
"The next morning Mink Woman's father, Lame Bull, made medicine and
called in Crow Man, a god who sometimes lived with the people. 'My
daughter, Mink Woman, has disappeared,' he told the god. 'Find her,
even learn where she went, and you shall have her for your wife.'
"'I take your word,' Crow Man answered him. 'I believe that I can
learn where she went. I may not be able to get her now, but I will
some time, and then you will not forget this promise. I have always
wanted her for my woman.'
"Crow Man went to the two young women and got them to show him where
they had last seen Mink Woman. He then called a magpie to him, and
said to the bird: 'Fly around here and find this missing woman's
trail.'
"The bird flew around and around, Crow Man following it, and at last
it fluttered to the ground, and looked up at him, and said: 'To this
spot where I stand came the woman, and here her trail ends.'
"'Is it so!' Crow Man exclaimed. 'Well stand just where you are and
move that long, shining black tail of yours. Move it up and down, and
sideways. Twist it in every direction that you can.'
"The magpie did as he was told, and Crow Man got down on hands and
knees, and went around, watching the shifting, wiggling, fanning tail.
Suddenly he cried out: 'There! Hold your tail motionless in just that
position!' and he moved up nearer and looked more closely at it. The
sun was shining brightly upon it, and the glistening black feathers
mirrored everything around. They were now spread directly behind the
bird's body, and reflected the tree-tops, and the sky beyond them.
Long, long, Crow Man stared at the tail, the people looking on and
holding their breath, and at last he said to Lame Bull, 'I can see
your daughter, but she is beyond my reach: I cannot fly there. She is
up in sky land, and Thunder Man has her!'
"'_Ai! Ai!_ She did promise herself to him the other day, if he would
spare us,' one of the two wood gatherers said, 'but she did not mean
it; she was only joking. It is no joke!'
"Lame Bull sat down and covered his head with his robe, and wept, and
would not be comforted.
"Thunder Man took Mink Woman to sky land with him, and somehow, from the
very first she was happy there with him; she seemed to forget at once
all about this earth and her parents and the people. It was a beautiful
land up there: warm and sunny, a country just like ours except that it
had no storms. Buffalo and all the other animals covered the plains, and
all sorts of grasses and trees and berry-bushes and plants grew there as
they do here.
"But although Mink Woman was very happy there, Thunder Man was always
uneasy about her, and kept saying to his people, 'Watch her constantly;
see that she gets no hint of her country down below, nor sight of it. If
she does, then she will cry and cry, and become sick, and that will be
bad for me.'
"Thunder Man was often away, and during his absence his people kept a
good watch on Mink Woman, and did all they could to amuse her; to keep
her interested in different things. One day a woman gave her some
freshly dug _mas_,[2] and she cried out: 'Oh, how good of you to give
me these! I must go dig some for myself!'
[2] _Mas._ I know not the English name for this edible root. The
French voyageurs' name for it was _pommes blanches_.
"'Oh, no! Don't go! We will dig for you all that you can use,' the
women told her, but she would not listen.
"'I want the fun of digging them for myself,' she told them. 'Somewhere,
some time back, I did dig them. I must dig them again.'
"'Well, if you must, you must,' they answered, and gave her a digging
stick, and cautioned her not to dig a very large one, should she find
it, for that _mas_ was the mother of all the others, and was constantly
bringing forth new ones by scattering her seed to the winds. She
promised that she would not touch it, and went off happily with her
digging stick and a sack.
"Well, Mink Woman wandered about on the warm grass and flower-covered
plain, digging a _mas_ here, one there, singing to herself, and thinking
how much she loved her Thunder Man, and wishing that he would be more
often at home. He was away the greater part of the time. Thus wandering,
in a low place in the plain she came upon a _mas_ of enormous size;
actually, it was larger around than her body! 'Ha! This is the mother
_mas_; the one they told me not to dig up,' she cried, and walked around
and around it, admiring its hugeness.
"'I would like to dig it, but I must not,' she at last said to herself,
and went on, seeking more _mas_ of small size. But she could not forget
the big one; she kept imagining how it would look out of the ground; on
her back; in her lodge, all nicely cleaned and washed, a present for
Thunder Man when he should return home. She went back to it, walked
around it many times, went away from it, trying to do as she had been
told. But when halfway home she could no longer resist the temptation:
with a little cry she turned and never stopped running until she was
beside it, and then she used the digging stick with all her strength,
thrusting it into the ground around and around and around the huge
growth and prying up, and at last it became loose, and seizing it by its
big top leaves, she pulled hard and tore it from the ground, and rolled
it to one side of the hole.
"What a big hole it was! And light seemed to come up through it. She
stepped to the edge and looked down: upon pulling up the huge _mas_
she had torn a hole clear through the sky earth! She stooped and
looked through it, and there, far, far below, saw--
"Why, everything came back to her when she looked through it: There
it was, her own earth land! There was the Two Medicine River, and
there, just below the foot of its lower lake, was the camp of her
people! She threw away her digging stick, and her sack of _mas_, and
ran crying to camp and into Thunder Man's lodge. He was away at the
time, but some of his relatives were in the lodge, and she cried out
to them: 'I have seen my own country; the camp of my people. I want to
go back to them!'
"Said Thunder Man's relatives to one another: 'She has found the big
_mas_, and has pulled it up, and made a hole in our sky earth! Now,
what shall we do? Thunder Man will be angry at us because we did not
watch her more closely.' Thinking of what he might do to them in his
anger, they trembled. They tried to soothe Mink Woman, but she would
not be comforted; she kept crying and crying to be taken back to her
father and mother.
"Thunder Man came home in the evening, and upon learning what had
happened, his distress was as great as that of Mink Woman, whom he
loved. When he came into the lodge she threw herself upon him, and
with tears streaming from her eyes, begged him to take her back to
her people.
"'But don't you love me?' he asked. 'Haven't you been happy here?
Isn't this a beautiful--a rich country?'
"'Of course I love you! I have been happy here! This is a good
country! But oh, I want to see my father and mother!'
"'Well, sleep now. In the morning you will likely feel that you are
glad to be here, instead of down on the people's earth,' Thunder Man
told her. But she would not sleep; she cried all night; would not eat
in the morning, and kept on crying for her people.
"Then said Thunder Man: 'I cannot bear to see--to hear such distress.
Because I love her, she shall have her way. Go, you hunters, kill
buffalo, kill many of them, and bring in the hides. And you, all you
women, take the hides and cut them into long, strong strips and tie
them together.'
"This the hunters and the women did, and Thunder Man himself made a
long, high-sided basket of a buffalo bull's hide and willow sticks.
This and the long, long one-strand rope of buffalo hide were taken to
the hole that Mink Woman had torn in the sky earth, and then Thunder
Man brought her to the place and laid her carefully in the basket,
which he had lined with soft robes: 'Because I love you so dearly, I
am going to let you down to your people,' he told her. 'But we do not
part forever. Tell your father that I shall soon visit him, and give
him presents. I know that I did wrong, taking you from him without his
consent. Say to him that I will make amends for that.'
"'Oh, you are good, and I love you more than ever. But I must, I must
see my people; I cannot rest until I do,' Mink Woman told him, and
kissed him.
"The people then swung the woman in the basket down into the hole she
had torn in the earth, and began to pay out the long rope, and slowly,
little by little, the woman, looking up, saw that she was leaving the
land of the sky gods. Below, the people, looking up, saw what they
thought was a strange bird slowly floating down toward them from the
sky. But after a long time they knew that it was not a bird. Nothing
like it had ever been seen. It was coming down straight toward the
center of the big camp. Men, women, children, they all fled to the edge
of the timber, the dogs close at their heels, and from the shelter of
thick brush watched this strange, descending object. It was a long, long
time coming down, twirling this way, that way, and swaying in the wind,
but finally it touched the ground in the very center of the camp circle,
and they saw a woman rise up and step out of it. They recognized her:
Mink Woman! And as they rushed out from the timber to greet her, the
basket which had held her began to ascend and soon disappeared in the
far blue of the sky.
"All the rest of that day and far into the night, Mink Woman told her
parents and her people about the sky gods and the sky earth, and even
then did not tell it all. Days were required for the telling of all
that she had seen and done.
"Not long after Mink Woman's return to the earth and her people,
Thunder Man came to the camp. He came quietly. One evening the door
curtain of Lame Bull's lodge was thrust aside, and some one entered.
Mink Woman, looking up from where she sat, saw that it was her sky god
husband. He was plainly dressed, and bore a bundle in his arms:
'Father!' she cried; 'here he is, my Thunder Man!' And Lame Bull,
moving to one side of the couch, made him welcome.
"Said Thunder Man: 'I wronged you by taking your daughter without your
permission. I come now to make amends for that. I have here in this
bundle a sacred pipe; my Thunder pipe. I give it to you, and will
teach you how to use it, and how to say the prayers and sing the songs
that go with it.'
"Said Lame Bull to this man, his sky god son-in-law, 'I was very angry
at you, but as the snow melts when the black winds[3] blow, so has my
anger gone from my heart. I take your present. I shall be glad to
learn the sacred songs and prayers.'
[3] The "Chinook" wind. It is generally accompanied by dense black
clouds that obscure the mountains.
"Thunder Man remained for some time, nearly a moon, there in Lame
Bull's lodge, and taught the chief the ceremony of the medicine pipe
until he knew it thoroughly in its every part. 'It is a powerful
medicine,' Thunder Man told him. 'It will make the sick well; bring
you and your people long life and happiness and plenty, and success to
your parties who go to war.'
"And as he said it was, so it proved to be, a most powerful medicine
for the good of the people.
"Thunder Man's departure from the camp was sudden and unexpected. One
evening he was sitting beside Mink Woman in Lame Bull's lodge, and all
at once straightened up, looked skyward through the smoke hole, and
appeared to be listening to something. The people there in the lodge
held their breath and listened also, and could hear nothing but the
chirping of the crickets in the grass outside. But Thunder Man soon
cried out: 'They are calling me! I have to go! I shall return to you
as soon as I can finish my work!' And with that he ran from the lodge
and was gone. And Mink Woman wept.
"Who can know the ways of the gods? Surely not us of the earth.
Thunder Man promised to return soon, but moons passed, two winters
passed, and he came not to Lame Bull's lodge and his woman. But soon
after he left so suddenly, Crow Man returned from far wanderings and
heard all the story of the god and Mink Woman. He made no remark about
it, but spent much time in Lame Bull's lodge. Then, after many moons
had passed, he said to the chief one day: 'Do you remember what you
once promised me? When your daughter so suddenly disappeared you
promised that if I would even find her, or tell you whither she had
gone, you would give her to me when she was found. Well, here she is:
fulfill your promise!'
"'But she is no longer mine to give. She now belongs to Thunder Man,'
the chief objected.
"'Let me tell you this,' said Crow Man: 'You promised to give her to
me if I would even tell you where she had gone. I did that. And now,
as to this Thunder Man, he will never return here because he knows
that I am in the camp, and he fears me. So you might as well give me
your daughter now, as you will anyhow later.'
"'Ask her if she will marry you. I agree to whatever she chooses to
do,' Lame Bull answered.
"Crow Man went outside and found Mink Woman tanning a buffalo robe: 'I
have your father's consent to ask you to marry me. I hope that you
will say yes. I love you dearly. I will be good to you,' he told her.
"Mink Woman shook her head: 'I am already married. My man will soon be
coming for me,' she answered.
"'But if he doesn't come, will you marry me?' Crow Man asked.
"'We will talk about that later. I will say now, though, that I like
you very much. I have always liked you,' she replied.
"More moons passed, and as each one came, Crow Man never failed to ask
Mink Woman to marry him. She kept refusing to do so. But after two
winters had gone by, and Thunder Man still failed to appear and claim
her, why, her refusals became faint, and fainter, until, finally, she
would do no more than shake her head when asked the great question.
Then, at last, in the Falling Leaves moon of the second summer, when
Crow Man asked her again, and she only shook her head, he took her
hand and raised her up and drew her to him and whispered: 'You know
now that that sky god is never coming for you. And you know in your
heart that you have learned to love me. Come, you are now my woman.
Let us go to my lodge, my lodge which is now your lodge.'
"And without a word of objection Mink Woman went with him. Ai! She
went gladly! She was lonely, and she had for some time loved him,
although she would not acknowledge it.
"It was a good winter. Buffalo were plentiful near camp all through
it, and Crow Man kept the lodge well supplied with fat cow meat. He
and Mink Woman were very happy. Then came spring, and one day, in new
green grass time, Thunder Man was heard approaching camp, and the
people went wild with fear; they believed that he would destroy them
all as soon as he learned that Mink Woman had married Crow Man. They
all crowded around his lodge, begging him to give her up, to send her
at once back to her father's lodge.
"But Crow Man only laughed: 'I will show you what I can do to that sky
god,' he told them, and got out his medicines and called Cold-Maker to
come to his aid. By this time Thunder Man was come almost to camp; was
making a terrible noise just overhead. But Cold-Maker came quickly,
came in a whirling storm of wind and snow. Thunder Man raged, shooting
lightning, making thunder that shook the earth. Cold-Maker made the
wind blow harder and harder, so that some of the lodges went down
before it, and he caused the snow to swirl so thickly that the day
became almost as dark as night. For a long time the two fought,
lightning against cold, thunder against snow, and little by little
Cold-Maker drove Thunder Man back: he could not face the cold, and at
last he fled and his mutterings died away in the distance. He was
gone!
"'There! I told you I could drive him away,' said Crow Man. 'Mink
Woman, you people all, rest easy: Thunder Man will never again attempt
to enter this camp.' And with that he told Cold-Maker that he could
return to his Far North home. He went, taking with him his wind and
storm. The sun came out, the people set up their flattened lodges, and
all were once more happy.
"And Lame Bull, he retained the pipe, and found that its medicine was
as strong as ever. And from him it had been handed down from father to
son and father to son to this day, and still it is strong medicine.
"Kyi! That was the way of it."
[Illustration: MOVING CAMP FROM TWO MEDICINE
The end of the procession]
II
PU-NAK´-IK-SI (CUTBANK)
_July 18._
Down came our lodges this morning, and to-night we are camped in
Cutbank Canyon, just below the great beaver ponds some six or seven
miles from the head of the stream. When I first saw these ponds, years
and years ago, they were dotted with beaver houses, and at dusk one
could see the busy woodcutters swimming from them in all directions to
get their evening meal of willow or quaking aspen bark, preparatory to
beginning their nightly work of storing food for winter use. I never
killed a beaver, but I have torn down beaver dams in order to watch
the little animals repair them. Beavers have a language as well as
men: there was always a chief engineer who told the workers just what
to do, and he himself rectified their mistakes.
We are encamped right on the main war road of the Blackfeet into the
country of the West Side tribes. Once, when camped here with the Small
Robes (I-nuk´-siks), the band, or gens, of which I was a member, I saw
a party of our young men make their preparations and start westward on
a raid. They gathered in a sweat lodge with an old medicine man, who
prayed earnestly for their success while he sprinkled the hot rocks
with water, and dense steam filled the place. And at dusk, carrying in
painted rawhide cylinders their war finery, and in little sacks their
extra moccasins, awl and sinew for repairs, and their little paint
bags, they stole out in single file from the camp and headed for the
summit of the range.
Every evening, during their absence, the old medicine man rode all
through the camp, shaking his medicine rattles, singing the song for
the absent, calling over and over each one's name, and praying for his
safe return.
And then, one morning some two weeks later, they came into camp with a
rush, driving before them sixty or seventy horses that they had taken
from the Kootenais. And two carried a slender wand from which dangled
a scalp. They came in singing the song of victory; and then the war
chief shouted: "A multitude of the enemy are on our trail. Break camp,
you women, and move down river. Take your weapons, you men, and turn
back with us!"
We took our weapons. We mounted our horses and rode like mad up the
old war trail, and within a half-hour sighted the enemy, forty or
fifty of them, strung out in a long, straggling line, according to the
strength and speed of each one's horse. We exchanged a few shots with
the lead riders; one fell; the rest took their back trail, and how
they did go up the steep incline to the summit, and over it. We did
not pursue them: "Let them go!" Bear Chief shouted. "We have many of
their horses; we have scalped three of them; let them go!"
We "let them go!" and, indeed, that was the wiser way: they could have
made a stand at the summit and shot us down as fast as we came on.
The old war road! How many of my people have traveled over it, some
of them never to return. It was along this road that Pi´tamakan,
virgin woman warrior, led her warriors in what was to be her last
raid! But how many, many times our people have come rushing homeward
over it, singing their songs of victory, waving the scalps they have
taken, and driving before them great bands of the horses of the Pend
d'Oreilles, the Snakes, the Nez Percés, and other tribes of the
Columbia River watershed.
The names the Blackfeet have given to the four world directions are
most significant of their entry into this Missouri River country.
North is _ap-ut´-o-sohts_: back, or behind direction. South,
_ahm-ska´-pohts_, is ahead direction. East is _pi-na´-pohts_:
down-river direction; and west is _ah-me´-tohts_: up-river direction.
I have told why the Two Medicine was so named, when the Blackfeet came
into the country from the Far North, and drove the Crows before them.
This river they named Pu-nak´-ik-si (Cutbank), because its narrow
valley for a long way up from its junction with the Two Medicine is
walled in by straight-cut cliffs.
[Illustration: OUR CAMP ON CUTBANK RIVER
On left is O-nis-tai´-mak-an (Wonderful Runner), and on right,
Ki-nuk´-sa-po-pi (Little Plume Mountain)]
The Cutbank River Valley, like those of all the other streams of the
country, has been the scene of many a fight between the Blackfeet and
their enemies, in which the Blackfeet were generally the victors. A
remarkable instance of an old woman's bravery occurred just below here
some forty years ago.