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A long time ago there were four
Blackfeet, who went to war against the Cree. They
traveled a long way, and at last their horses gave out,
and they started back toward their homes. As they were
going along they came to the Sand Hills; and while they
were passing through them, they saw in the sand a fresh
travois trail, where people had been traveling.
One of the men said: "Let us follow
this trail until we come up with some of our people.
Then we will camp with them." They followed the trail
for a long way, and at length one of the Blackfeet,
named E-k[=u]s'-kini, a very powerful person, said to
the others: "Why follow this longer? It is just
nothing." The others said: "Not so. These are our
people. We will go on and camp with them." They went on,
and toward evening, one of them found a stone maul and a
dog travois. He said: "Look at these things. I know this
maul and this travois. They belonged to my mother, who
died. They were buried with her. This is strange." He
took the things. When night overtook the men, they
camped.
Early in the morning, they heard,
all about them, sounds as if a camp of people were
there. They heard a young man shouting a sort of war
cry, as young men do; women chopping wood; a man calling
for a feast, asking people to come to his lodge and
smoke, all the different sounds of the camp. They looked
about, but could see nothing; and then they were
frightened and covered their heads with their robes. At
last they took courage, and started to look around and
see what they could learn about this strange thing. For
a little while they saw nothing, but pretty soon one of
them said: "Look over there. See that pis'kun. Let us go
over and look at it." As they were going toward it, one
of them picked up a stone pointed arrow. He said: "Look
at this. It belonged to my father. This is his place."
They started to go on toward the pis'kun, but suddenly
they could see no pis'kun. It had disappeared all at
once.
A little while after this, one of
them spoke up, and said: "Look over there. There is my
father running buffalo. There! he has killed. Let us go
over to him." They all looked where this man pointed,
and they could see a person on a white horse, running
buffalo. While they were looking, the person killed the
buffalo, and got off his horse to butcher it. They
started to go over toward him, and saw him at work
butchering, and saw him turn the buffalo over on its
back; but before they got to the place where he was, the
person got on his horse and rode off, and when they got
to where he had been skinning the buffalo, they saw
lying on the ground only a dead mouse. There was no
buffalo there. By the side of the mouse was a buffalo
chip, and lying on it was an arrow painted red. The man
said: "That is my father's arrow. That is the way he
painted them." He took it up in his hands; and when he
held it in his hands, he saw that it was not an arrow
but a blade of spear grass. Then he laid it down, and it
was an arrow again.
Another Blackfoot found a buffalo
rock, I-nis'-kim.
Some time after this, the men got
home to their camp. The man who had taken the maul and
the dog travois, when he got home and smelled the smoke
from the fire, died, and so did his horse. It seems that
the shadow of the person who owned the things was angry
at him and followed him home. Two others of these
Blackfeet have since died, killed in war; but E-k[=u]s'-kini
is alive yet. He took a stone and an iron arrow point
that had belonged to his father, and always carried them
about with him. That is why he has lived so long. The
man who took the stone arrow point found near the
pis'kun, which had belonged to his father, took it home
with him. This was his medicine. After that he was badly
wounded in two fights, but he was not killed; he got
well.
The one who took the buffalo rock,
I-nis'-kim, it afterward made strong to call the buffalo
into the pis'kun. He would take the rock and put it in
his lodge close to the fire, where he could look at it,
and would pray over it and make medicine. Sometimes he
would ask for a hundred buffalo to jump into the
pis'kun, and the next day a hundred would jump in. He
was powerful.
The
Race
Once Old Man was traveling around, when
he heard some very queer singing. He had never heard
anything like this before, and looked all around to see
who it was. At last he saw it was the cottontail
rabbits, singing and making medicine. They had built a
fire, and got a lot of hot ashes, and they would lie
down in these ashes and sing while one covered them up.
They would stay there only a short time though, for the
ashes were very hot.
"Little Brothers," said Old Man,
"that is very wonderful, how you lie in those hot ashes
and coals without burning. I wish you would teach me how
to do it."
"Come on, Old Man," said the
rabbits, "we will show you how to do it. You must sing
our song, and only stay in the ashes a short time." So
Old Man began to sing, and he lay down, and they covered
him with coals and ashes, and they did not burn him at
all. "That is very nice," he said. "You have
powerful medicine. Now I want to know it all, so you lie
down and let me cover you up."
So the rabbits all lay down in the
ashes, and Old Man covered them up, and then he put the
whole fire over them. One old rabbit got out, and Old
Man was about to put her back when she said, "Pity me,
my children are about to be born."
"All right," replied Old Man. "I
will let you go, so there will be some more rabbits; but
I will roast these nicely and have a feast." And he put
more wood on the fire. When the rabbits were cooked, he
cut some red willow brush and laid them on it to cool.
The grease soaked into these branches, so, even today if
you hold red willow over a fire, you will see the grease
on the bark. You can see, too, that ever since, the
rabbits have a burnt place on their backs, where the one
that got away was singed.
Old Man sat down, and was waiting
for the rabbits to cool a little, when a coyote came
along, limping very badly. "Pity me, Old Man," he said,
"you have lots of cooked rabbits; give me one of them."
"Go away," exclaimed Old Man. "If
you are too lazy to catch your food, I will not help
you."
"My leg is broken," said the coyote. "I can't catch
anything, and I am starving. Just give me half a
rabbit."
"I don't care if you die," replied
Old Man. "I worked hard to cook all these rabbits, and I
will not give any away. But I will tell you what we will
do. We will run a race to that butte, way out there, and
if you beat me you can have a rabbit."
"All right," said the coyote. So
they started. Old Man ran very fast, and the coyote
limped along behind, but close to him, until they got
near to the butte. Then the coyote turned round and ran
back very fast, for he was not lame at all. It took Old
Man a long time to go back, and just before he got to
the fire, the coyote swallowed the last rabbit, and
trotted off over the prairie.
Blackfoot Mythology |
