Blackfeet, in need of the skins of elk and bighorn for making
"buckskin" for light clothing and moccasin tops, were here hunting,
and one evening all the men gathered in old Running Crane's lodge for
prayers with his beaver medicine. An old woman, named Muk-sin-ah´-ki
(Angry Woman), was sitting in her lodge by herself because there had
not been room for her in the crowded beaver medicine lodge. But she
was listening to the distant singing, and saying over the prayers at
the proper time, her heart full of peace and love for the gods.
As she sat there at the back of the lodge, she suddenly noticed that
the doorway curtain in the upper part was being slowly pulled aside to
the width of a hand, and in that small space an eye glared at her for
a time, and then the curtain dropped back to place.
"That was the eye of an enemy," she said to herself. Her heart
throbbed painfully; and for the time her thoughts were confused. Then,
suddenly, some one, perhaps the sun himself, told her to take courage.
She took courage: she stole out of the lodge to see what that enemy
was doing. There was a moon; bright starlight; the night was almost as
light as day; and she had no more than left the lodge than she saw the
man walking here, there, examining the buffalo runners, the best and
swiftest horses of the people, all picketed close to the lodges of
their owners. Whenever the man's back was toward her, she hurried her
steps; got closer and closer to him; and then, suddenly, she sprang
and seized him from behind and shouted: "Help! Help! I have seized an
enemy!"
In the beaver medicine lodge the men heard her and came running to
her relief. She had the man down; he was struggling to rise; but the
sun must have given her of his power: she held him firmly until they
came, and they seized him, and White Antelope stabbed him to death. He
was a Gros Ventre.
HOW MOUNTAIN CHIEF FOUND HIS HORSES
"Nephew, listen! Magic took place here in the long ago," said Yellow
Wolf as we sat around his lodge fire this evening.
"The Ah´-pai-tup-i[4] were hunting on this Cutbank stream, every day
or two moving nearer and nearer to the mountains. At one of their
camping-places some distance below here, Mountain Chief lost his two
fast buffalo runners, and although all the young men of the camp
scattered out to look for them, they could not be found. Camp was
moved nearer to the mountains, and after a few days moved again, this
time to this very place where we are now encamped.
[4] Ah´-pai-tup-i (Blood People). One of the twenty-four gentes of
the Pi-kun´-i, or "Piegan" Blackfeet.
"The loss of the two buffalo runners was all that Mountain Chief could
think about. As they could not be found, he felt sure that some enemy
had stolen them.
"There was a Kootenai Indian visiting in camp, and one day he entered
Mountain Chiefs lodge, and said to him: 'You are grieving about the
loss of your two fast horses. Now, if you will do as I say, perhaps I
can find them for you.'
"'Whatever you ask, that shall be done,' Mountain Chief told him.
"'First, then, you must give me a robe, a good bow, and a quiver of
arrows,' said the Kootenai.
"'They are yours; there they are: my own weapons, that robe. Take them
when you want them,' said the chief.
"'I will take them later,' said the Kootenai. 'And now, call in your
leading men.'
"Mountain Chief went outside and shouted the names of the men he
wanted: a medicine man; several old, wise men; some warriors of great
name. They came and were given seats in his lodge, each man according
to his standing in the tribe. Said the Kootenai then: 'I have a sacred
song that I want you all to learn. I will sing it over three or four
times, then you sing it with me.'
"He sang the song. It was low in tone, and slow; a strange and beautiful
song that gripped one's heart. But it was not hard to learn; after the
Kootenai had sung it over four times, all there could sing it with him.
"Then the Kootenai told Mountain Chief to have the women build for him a
little lodge there inside the big lodge. This they did by leaning the
sticks of two tripods against one of the poles of the lodge, their lower
ends making a half-circle, and then covering them with buffalo leather.
Into this little enclosure crept the Kootenai, taking with him a bird
wing-bone whistle, and a medicine rattle, and as soon as he was inside
he ordered the women to smooth down carefully the leather coverings so
that he would be in the dark. He then said to the people, sitting there
in the big lodge: 'We will now sing the song four times. It is a call
song to all living things: the birds, the animals, the trees, the
rocks--yes, even they have life. All will come when we sing this song,
and we will question them as to the whereabouts of the two missing
horses.'
"They sang the song four times, and then the Kootenai, alone in his
dark little lodge, sang another song, keeping time to it with his
rattle, and the people, listening, heard outside the sighing of the
wind through a big pine tree, although no such tree was near; and the
Kootenai questioned the pine tree, and it answered that it had no
knowledge of the missing horses.
"Then, at his summons, came the different birds and the animals; one
could hear outside the flutter of their wings, the tread of their
feet; and the Kootenai questioned them, and one by one they answered
that they had not seen the horses. Came then a big rock, hurtling down
through the sky and through the smoke hole of the lodge right into
the fireplace, scattering ashes and coals all around the lodge, and
frightening the people sitting there. And the Kootenai questioned it,
and it answered that it knew nothing of the lost horses.
[Illustration: STREAM FROM UNNAMED GLACIER POURING INTO CUTBANK
CAÑON]
"'Let us sing the sacred song again,' the Kootenai called out from his
dark little lodge, and the people sang it with him, not once, but four
times. The Kootenai then blew his whistle four times, four long, loud
whistles. At the time there was no wind, but soon they heard, far off,
the roar of an approaching wind of terrible force. Said the Kootenai
then: 'I have called him, he is coming, Old-Man-of-the-Winds: be not
afraid; he will not harm you.'
"He came with dreadful whirlwinds of his making. Winds that shook the
lodge, and made the lodge ears hum with the noise of that of a hundred
swarms of bees. And then, suddenly, the wind fell, and outside the
people heard this wind god ask: 'Why have you sung--why have you
whistled for me--what is it you want to know?'
"The Kootenai answered: 'Mountain Chief, here, has lost his two best
horses. Fast buffalo runners they are; both black; one with a white
spot on his side. I called you to ask if you have seen them anywhere?'
"'No, I have not seen them,' Old-Man-of-the-Winds answered. 'As you
know, I belong on the west side of this Backbone-of-the-World. It is
from there that I start the winds that blow over your country. I have
been no farther out than here. No, I have not seen the horses.'
"'Now I am depressed,' the Kootenai exclaimed. 'I did not expect to
learn much about this from the birds, the animals, trees, and rocks,
even the bumblebee could tell me nothing; but I felt that you would
surely know where the two horses are!'
"'Well, I have a friend who can tell you what you want to know,' said
Old-Man-of-the-Winds. 'He is Red-Top Plume. He lives in the clouds; he
can see the whole country; undoubtedly he can tell you where those
horses are.'
"'He is a stranger to me. How shall I find him--this Red-Top Plume?'
the Kootenai asked; and all the people held their breath, waiting to
hear the answer. Here was sacred talk; talk of a man with a god, and
about gods: they could hardly believe that it was real, that which
they were hearing.
"Answered Old-Man-of-the-Winds: 'Watch the clouds. When you see one of
them turning from white to red, as the sun goes down to his lodge on
his island in the great sea, you will know that Red-Top Plume is there
above you. That red cloud is his plume. Yes, when you see that, sing
your song again four times; blow your whistle again four times, and he
will answer you.'
"And with that the wind suddenly started to blow from the east, and
Old-Man-of-the-Winds went with it back to his western home, and they
heard him no more.
"From his dark little lodge in the big lodge, the Kootenai called out
to Mountain Chief: 'Go, stand outside your lodge, watch for a cloud
turning red, and when you see it, come inside and tell me that it is
there above us.'
"Mountain Chief went outside. He looked up and saw but a few small,
white, slowly drifting clouds in the sky. There were four of them
straight above him. These drifted toward one another, and he cried
out: 'A sign! A sacred sign! Four small clouds are getting together
to make one large cloud!'
"And at that all the people in the lodge cried out: 'The sacred number!
Oh, sun! Oh, Above People all! Pity us! Pity us all! Allow us to survive
all dangers! Give us long life and happiness!'
"And then, as the sun was setting, Mountain Chief cried out: 'The four
are now one large cloud, and its edge is beginning to turn red! Ai!
The red, the sacred color, spreads over it!'
"His voice trembled. Himself, he trembled; for he knew that he was
looking--not at an ordinary cloud, but at Red-Top Plume himself, the
great cloud god!
"'Come in! Come in!' the Kootenai cried to him. And he went back into
the lodge and joined in the singing of the sacred song. Four times
they sang it, oh, how earnestly! The Kootenai then blew his wing-bone
whistle four times. Followed a silence; the people scarcely daring to
breathe. And then they heard outside, in a deep and beautiful voice:
'I am Red-Top Plume! Why have you called me here?'
"'Red-Top Plume! God of the clouds! Pity us!' the Kootenai answered.
'It is a matter of horses; of two fast buffalo runners; both black;
one with a white spot on its side. We have lost them. Have you--oh,
have you seen them anywhere?'
"'That is a small thing to call me down about,' the sky god answered;
'but, since I am here, I will tell you what I know: Yes, I have seen
them. I saw them just now as I came down to earth. They are standing
beside the spring just up the hill from where you camped when you lost
them.'
"'Ah! Ah! Ah!' the people exclaimed in hushed voices. And the Kootenai,
questioner of gods and unafraid, cried out: 'Red-Top Plume! Sacred
plumed god of the clouds! You are good to us. Tell us, now, what we can
do for you--what sacrifice to do?'
"But he got no answer. Red-Top Plume had gone--gone back to his home
in the sky, and the people, rushing out from the lodge, looked up and
saw him moving slowly eastward, his beautiful plumes redder than ever.
And while the Kootenai and Mountain Chief and the other warriors made
sacrifice to him, some young men mounted their horses and rode back to
the camping-place where the two horses had been lost, and lo! they
found them near the spring where Red-Top Plume had told that they were
standing."
_July 22._
Even in my day the many beaver dams in this wide canyon were in good
repair, and the ponds were dotted with inhabited beaver lodges. There
are few of the little woodcutters here now, but in time to come, under
the sure protection of the supervisor of this Glacier National Park,
they will become as numerous as they were before the white man came.
Talk about beavers to-night brought out a most interesting story by
Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill. Said he: "Beavers build a great
dam, often working moons and moons to complete it. Then, when it is
finished, and a great pond created, they build their lodges in the
backed-up water, and cut their winter supply of cottonwood, willow,
and quaking aspen, which they tow out in convenient lengths and sink
in deep water around the lodges.
"Now, after a few winters, they have to move on and build another
dam-and-pond, for they will have used up all the available trees and
willows around the first pond. But that is still their pond, the clan
that built it, and in time, when a new growth of food trees has sprung
up around it, they return there, repair the dam, build new lodges, and
remain as long as the young trees last."
WHITE FUR AND HIS BEAVER CLAN
"Away back in the ancient days, when our first fathers were able to
talk with the animals, a beaver chief named White Fur, with his
family and his relatives, built a big dam on this river. You can
still see the remains of it, willow-grown, and it still backs up some
water, a pond as large in extent as the camp of our tribe. But in the
old days that dam extended from one side to the other of the valley,
and the water it backed up was more than a pond: it was a small lake.
Above here, there is a swift stream of white water rushing down the
north side of the valley from great ice banks in the mountains. Well,
just below its junction with the river is where White Fur built the
dam.
"Time passed. The sons of other beaver clans came and married the
daughters of White Fur's clan, and took them off, and the sons of his
clan went out and found wives and brought them home. The clan
increased; the pond became full of lodges; the trees were cut in
greater number each succeeding summer. So it was that, when the ice
went out one spring, White Fur went around and around the pond,
examining the remaining food trees, and saw that there remained only a
few more than enough for the coming winter. It was no more than he
expected; his last hurried look around, just before the freeze-up in
the fall, had warned him that the food supply was getting small.
[Illustration: THE BEAVER DAM]
"He went home, and called a council, told what he had learned on his
round, and then said:--
"'We must move out from here as soon as the ice breaks up next spring,
and when we go we must know just where we are going; we cannot afford
to lose time hunting for a good place to make a new home. Now, who
will start out on discovery?'
"'I will!' his eldest son, Loud Slap, first answered. He was so named
because he could tail-slap the water louder than any one else in the
whole gens.
"Now, Loud Slap was White Fur's favorite son, and next to himself the
best, the wisest dam-builder in the gens. The chief wanted to keep him
at home, for going on discovery was very dangerous. But for very shame
he could not order him to remain and let some other take the risk. So,
with sinking heart, he said: 'You spoke up first, my son, so you shall
be the first one to look for a new home for us. I have had a dream, and
I want you to find out if it told me truth: Go down this river a little
way beyond the edge of the pines, look north, and you will see a big
ridge with a low gap in it. Go up through that gap, and down the other
side, and you will soon come to a small branch of a good-sized stream;
look at all the branches of that stream for a good home for us, and come
back and tell us all about it. Make that crossing through the gap in the
daytime, for then the most of our enemies, the mountain lion, the fisher
and the wolverine, the wolf and the coyote, are generally asleep. Night
is the time that they do their murdering work.'
"'As you say, so I will do,' Loud Slap answered.
"And the next morning, some time before daylight, he started down
river on his dangerous trail of discovery. Below his pond there were
other ponds; and as he swam through them many of the beavers living
in them asked him where he was going.
"'Out on discovery; our food trees will last us only this coming
winter; we have to find a new home,' he answered them all.
"On he went, through the last of the ponds, down the river, swimming
fast, so very fast that his big webbed hind feet, swiftly kicking,
made the water foam past his breast. He had started out too early;
when he passed the last of the pines, daylight was still some time
off, so he dived under a pile of driftwood, then crawled up into it,
found a good resting-place on one of the logs and went to sleep, sure
that none of the prowlers could reach him there.
"The sun shining down through the little openings in the driftwood
pile awakened him. He slipped down into the water, made a dive, and
came up out in the middle of the river. Near by was a high, sloping
bank bare of trees and brush; he swam to shore, climbed it, looked
north, and saw the big ridge and the big, low gap in it. He looked all
around; no animals were in sight except a few elk, and he knew that
they would not harm him: he began waddling toward the gap.
"The sun was hot. Loud Slap's legs were short; his body fat and heavy;
there was no water; he soon became very tired and thirsty, and the top
of the gap seemed to be a long way off. More and more often he had to
stop and rest, but he kept saying to himself: 'I will not give up! I
will not give up!'--and at last he arrived at the top of the gap.
Close up to the top on the other side were thick, cool groves of
quaking aspen and willows; as far as he could see, the valley below
him and its far side was one green growth of trees, and he knew that
somewhere down there was water, plenty of it. Down he went, oh, how
easily, on the steeper places just pushing a little with his hind feet
and sliding along on his belly. He soon came to a small stream of
running water and drank and drank of it, rolled over and over in its
shallowness until wet all over, and then he followed it down. Other
little streams came into it, and at last it became so deep that he
could swim. After a time he came to where this stream joined a much
larger one, and he turned and went up it, and away up in the timber
found where a dam could be built that would form a very large pond,
and best of all the quaking aspens and willows were everywhere there
growing so closely together that they formed a food supply that would
last a number of winters.
"That night Loud Slap slept in a hole that he dug in a bank of the
stream. This is the one which we long ago named Ki-nuk´-si
Is-si-sak´-ta. I understand that the white people have another name
for it.[5]
[5] Ki-nuk´-si Is-si-sak´-ta (Little River). By the whites named
Milk River.
"Early next morning Loud Slap came out of his hole, cut down a small
quaking aspen, and ate all he wanted of its bark. He then swam down
the stream, turned up its little fork, and before the sun was very
high left it and took his back trail up through the gap, and before
noon was going down the long slope to Cutbank River. The going was
easy. But one thing troubled him: the risk that he ran traveling there
in that open, waterless country. Whenever he came to a patch of buck
brush or a clump of tall grass, he would sit up and look all around to
see if any enemy was near; and then he would go on, keeping as close
to the ground as possible. Twice he saw a coyote in the distance, and
sat motionless until the animal moved on out of sight. And then, when
almost to the river, sitting up and looking out from a brush patch, he
saw a wolverine coming straight toward him. He trembled; he shivered.
'Now is my end come!' he said to himself, and imagined how it was
going to feel to be bitten and clawed and torn to death. Because of
his helplessness, because he could in no way defend himself, he wept;
but silently.
"On came the wolverine, sniffing the ground; sniffing the rocks; the
weed growths; and once, when he turned and looked back, Loud Slap
threw himself flat there in the brush; he had not dared move before.
The wind was from the southwest; the wolverine was coming from the
west, and that was one thing in Loud Slap's favor. But on which side
of that patch of brush would he pass? If to the north, then he would
scent the beaver-odor trail, follow it, and all would be over. If he
passed to the south of the patch, and not too close, then all would be
well. From where he lay, flat on the ground in the brush, Loud Slap
could see nothing but the brush stems in front of his nose; but
presently he heard, close to the patch and to the west of it, the
sniff! sniff! sniffle! of his enemy. He closed his eyes; his body
shook with fear; he could almost feel strong, sharp-fanged jaws
closing upon his neck! The suspense was terribly hard to bear! And
then, after what seemed to be a whole moon of time, he heard the
sniffling close in front of him; then faint and fainter off in the
direction of the river; and presently he opened his eyes, little by
little rose up, and looked out from his hiding-place. Lo! Wolverine
had come close, _close_ to the brush patch, and south of it, and then
had turned, and was now walking slowly toward the river! 'My enemy
passes! I survive!' Loud Slap said to himself, and would have sung had
he dared. Oh, yes, beavers sang in those days, as you shall learn.
"Loud Slap watched the wolverine go on down the valley, and then
waddled to the river as fast as he could work his legs. How good it
felt, that plunge into the cool water from the bank! and, once into
it, he made it foam as he swam homeward against the swift current.
Long before night he climbed the dam of the upper pond, and a little
later entered his father's lodge. 'Ha! Back so soon! What found you,
my son?' old White Fur asked.
"'A fine stream there on the other side of the gap. A place to dam a
large pond. Plenty of food bark trees,' Loud Slap answered, and then
told carefully all about the place, and about his narrow escape from
the wolverine. Then his mother went swimming from lodge to lodge of
the gens, calling all the heads of the families, and when they had
gathered in White Fur's lodge he told again of his find and of the
dangers of the trail. All went home pleased that he had found such a
good place for a new home for them.
"White Fur and his whole gens worked very hard that summer to get in
sufficient food bark sticks for the winter supply. They had to drag
the last of them a long way to water, and they kept at it long after
the snow came, and until the ice and cold weather prevented further
cutting. The trails they left in the snow, just before the pond froze
over, were a sure call to their passing enemies, and they halted and
lay in wait beside them, and killed in all five of the members of the
gens, one of them Loud Slap's oldest son. A lynx was seen to spring
upon him and carry him off, as he was going out to finish cutting down
a large tree.
"The winter passed. When spring came, there was still considerable
food bark untouched on the underwater piles, but, oh, how glad the
beavers were to be able to swim about again, and eat fresh bark from
living tree branches. All were anxious to start at once for the new
home across the ridge, but White Fur would not permit it. From the
pressure of the winter snows the dead grass of the past summer lay
flat: 'We must wait until the new grass grows high enough to conceal
us,' he said, 'and then we will go.'
"Of course, he meant those that would be able to go: females with
newborn young were to remain where they were until the young should be
old enough to travel, and then they were to cross the ridge and join
their mates. The new grass came, and when it was a little higher than
the top of a beaver's back, old White Fur and Loud Slap led all those
who could go, about fifty of them, down the river on the way to the
stream beyond the gap. White Fur had already talked with the chief who
lived in the next pond below, and he had promised to keep all
newcomers from occupying the pond that White Fur and his gens were
leaving for a time.
"The travelers saw no enemy on the trail up through the gap, and, upon
arriving at the place that Loud Slap had discovered, were well pleased
with it. That very evening, after a heavy meal of bark, they began
work on the dam, and by morning had much willow brush laid, butts to
the current, across the stream. Night and day, with little rest, they
toiled to complete the dam, of sticks and stones and sod and earth,
and within two moons' time they finished it, and had a pond large
enough and deep enough for the lodges of the gens, and all the food
sticks they would need to sink for winter use. Then, one evening, came
those who had been left behind, came with their strong and half-grown
young, and all began at once to cut and bring in and sink the winter
food supply. Long before winter set in they had stored more than they
could possibly use, and from that time until the ice formed they did
nothing more than strengthen the dam, and eat and sleep, and play
about in the water.