ks (The Lakes Insid

ust

ding the Arctic and the Atlantic waters, and made camp here

ins, was my favorite hunting ground after the buffalo were exte

R END OF UPPER

that valiant and much beloved missionary, Father De Smet, S.J., was visiting the various tribes of this Northwest country, Monroe was engaged to take him to a conference with the North Blackfeet, then camping on the Saskatchewan River. En route they camped at the foot of the lower of these lakes, and there erected a large woode

avily timbered valley and mountain slopes, and of the great variety and numbers of fur animals that were found here. The valley swarmed with elk and deer; there were countless flocks of bighorn and goat

o feed upon the quantities of meat that had been placed inside to decoy them, but they could not jump out. Often, of a morning, the trapper and his sons would find ten or more big wolves imprisoned in the trap, and, powder and ball being very costly, they would kill them with bow and arrows, skin them, and drag the carcasses to t

even the mother had guns, flintlocks, and a good supply of powder and ball. Early one morning a large war party was discovered approaching the camp, sneaking from bush to bush, some crawling on all fours through the high grass. Lizzie opened fire upon them and killed her man, and then the fire became general on both sides. But the Monroes, in their trenches surrounding the lodge, had the best of it from the start, and eventually made

Reservation, and started northward. There was no trail after leaving the crossing of Little or Milk River, and we struck up country toward the big gap in the mountains, in which we knew the lakes must lie, and that evening camped on the shore of a large prairie lake th

al known to us as the Rocky Mountain ibex. We had seen several skins of them, bought from the Stony Indians by Captain John Healy, of Fort Whoopup and Fort Benton fame, but none of us nor any man of our acquaintance-and we knew every trapper and trader in the country-had ever seen one of the animals alive. Of course we found none, as thi

ve with whitefish and Mackinaw, Dolly Varden, and cutthroat trout. During the summer of this year I named Red Eagle Mountain and Red Eagle Lake, after my uncle-in-law, Red Eagle, owner of the Thunder medicine pipe, and one of the most high-minded, gentle-hearted Indians that I ever knew. In the autumn of this year Dr. George Bird Grinnell joined me, and we hunted arou

WS. UPPER ST

lso for a very good reason. Some members of that tribe were encamped beside me at the foot of the upper lake. I noticed often that they would ride out of camp at daylight an

t on afoot for a couple of hundred yards. Then, looking down into a coulée, we saw a dozen or more bighorn in the bottom of it and killed four of them. They had been eating salty clay and drinkin

Malcolm Clark, and arrest him. By mistake he struck the camp of Heavy Runner and his band of friendly Indians, and, although the chief came running toward him waving his letters of recommendation and his Washington medals, Baker ordered his men to begin firing, and a terrible massacre ensued, the Indians firing not one shot in defense, a

davit by the late Joseph Kipp, who was B

r in honor of Dr. Grinnell, and also named the mountain to the north of it after him. On the following day we were joined by Lieutenant-now Major-J. H. Beacom, Third Infantry, and he gave my Indian name, Apikuni, to the high mountain between Swift Current and the South Fork of Kennedy Creek. Upon our return to Upper St.

y's Valley and discovered the great sheet of ice which we named the Blackfeet Glacier. We at the same time named Gun-Sight Pass, and named the peak just west of the glacier,

-THE-SUN

er, the mountain has always been considered unclimbable. But after long search, and with no little risk, Mr. Walker finally worked out a way up the wall, and out upon the extre

ust

tion, and killed two fat young rams. I went fishing, and in the first pool of the river below the upper lake, caught several two- and t

ence that befell him when once wintering here with me. He was chasing a wounded elk on the slope of Single-Shot Mountain, and stepped upon a sharp, snow-covered knot that pierced his foot through and t

OF THE FI

tive would take him in for a short time, and, getting tired of him, send him on to another lodge. And wherever he went, his beautiful young sister went with him. Often, in good weather, when camp was moved, the two would stay at the old camp-ground, living on cast-away meat so long as it lasted, and then they would overtake the camp and go into the nearest lodge, and at least be sure of a meal. They were generally barefooted and always shabbily dressed

he could, often running, and perspiration streamed from his body and his breath came short and fast in loud wheezes. Suddenly, while running, he felt something give way with a snap in his left ear, felt something moving out from it, and reaching up he pulled from it a long, round, waxy object that looked like a worm. He held it in his hand and ran on, a

lo, and just before the boy appeared he had killed one, and was butchering it when he saw the boy approaching him. This hunter, Heavy Runner, was a chief, and one of the kindes

covered with dust. You must be very tired. Take this piece of tripe and eat it. And now let me tell you something: from this day you are to be my boy.

glad to be your son. I will do all that I can to deserve what you give me. And now, let me tell you something. As I was running away back there on the trail, and breathing hard, first in one ear, and then in t

ear. Then, remembering, he said more gently: 'You take a good rest while I finish butchering this animal and packing t

y boy?' she asked. And then, she cried, and said that she would not have him for a son, and ran from the lodge. People gathered around and pitied her and said that s

oy, and he is my boy. He is no longer deaf; he was never crazy. He is a good boy and I shall make a man, a chief of him. See that you treat him well, even if you cannot love him. And believ

f to please Heavy Runner. He went hunting with him, and brought home heavy loads of the meat that he killed, and in every possible way was

n one thing he was very different from the other young men of the camp: he made no close friends, and when not needed by Heavy Runner he wandered much by himself. Exceptin

y Runner: 'Tell me. What mus

, and of very kind heart; full of pity for the poor and the old

chief. What is the first th

medicine. That is, something that will make you favored by the gods, and brin

and the medicine men and braves, and let me hear from them where they went, and what

king only the great of the tribe to come to it. They came, filling the lodge, and then, when the pipe was going the round of

ey did; what they saw; what narrow escapes from death they had. And at

y youth about my adventure? Why, I

o know; you might tell it him in a

razy, and would not understand; but I will tell it so th

and on the morning after the seventh night I arrived at the shore of a small lake. There I met a stranger man who asked me what I sought, and I told him that I was wandering in search o

ived at a long, wide lake running away back in the mountains. I looked at it, looked at the mountains, turning this way, that way, and when I turned a last time, lo! there in

you not afraid to come to this, the

nor any animal of the earth, the sky, or the deep waters. And at that

his medicine robe, and taught me the prayers and ceremony that goes with it. I asked him what kind of a robe it was, and he answered that it was the skin of an

i-ta (elk-dog).

ve one of those elk

. I have the robe. Here it is, proof of all that I have told you. Ah! And this crazy y

r: 'My chief, you know that I am not crazy. I feel that I must go on adventure, and I want to go where Spotted Bear went, and prove to him that

shall start to-morrow, taking with you all the moccasins and other things you

ry. Straight south he went, by day and by night, resting and sleeping at long intervals, and then only for a very short time. On th

k you?' th

The way to become a chi

ake, and there you will meet a man who can help you if he cares to do so. It may be that he will

ble to drag one foot after the other, he came to the great lake, and some distance back from its shore fell down on the grass and fell into a sound sleep. It was late afternoon when he awoke, and, opening his eyes, he was surprised to s

iting here a long time for you to awa

ong Arrow answered, and sprang up,

e cried out: 'Do not be afraid, follow me!' And having said

d he went on down the sloping, sandy bottom of the lake, and soon saw, close ahead, a large, fine lodge, on which were painted in red and black the figures of two strange animals. The boy, arrived at the doorway of the lodge, changed suddenly from a snipe back to his natural self, and cried out: 'Follow me! Here you will be welco

war clothes, weapons, handsomely painted and fringed pouches of sacred medicines, and

lodge. Not long ago a man of your people came here, but he was afraid; he would not follow my son. And there he made a great mistake. I was going to give him the most valuable present ever given by gods to men. As it was, I went out to him where he sat far back from the shore, and gave him the tanned hide

ight. They were far larger than an elk, of shining black color, had tails of long hair, and there was long hair all along the top of their necks and hanging down their fo

o together. You have noticed that my father always keeps his feet covered with the black robe; that when he arises and goes out of the lodge he is very careful to keep the

t to see those feet

t all of the time and bringing in much meat. And what time he was not hunting, he would sit close to the herd of beautiful elk-dogs and

is right knee raised the robe and Long Arrow saw his left foot; and lo! it was not a human foot: it was the hoof, the round, hard hoof of an elk-dog! He gave a cry of surpris

no pains to conceal his feet: both of the

an now tell me what I shall give you,'

right out; ask for the thre

'Give me three things: your black robe, y

my band of elk-dogs. The robe and the belt are the elk-dog medicine. Without them you could never catch and use the animals. There are many prayers and song

d repeat every one of them perfectly, and dance the dances as well a

nes are to be in your hands. You may start for home to-morrow.

will not at first follow you, but on the third day of your homeward journey you will hear them coming behind you. Even then you must not look back, but keep on walking. After a time they will come on right beside you, and with a rope that I shall give you,

shall I do,' Lo

r in mind and obeying carefully the old man's instructions. At times he had his doubts of the old man. Perhaps a big joke was being played upon him; the elk-d

ht and mounted one of them, and rode on. How happy he was! He realized what this would mean for himself and for the people. These elk-dogs would rapidly increase in number; there would soon be enough of them for all the people, and then they wo

es, resting in the warm sunshine. The first to discover him gave a shout of surprise and alarm. All the people sprang up and stood gazing at

temptuously used Long Arrow, who had not had the courage to follow the boy-snipe into the water. Again he cried out:

s came up and crowded around him and the one of them that he had been riding. 'Heavy R

animals. Said the youth then: 'Only father and mother that I ever knew, I have brought to you, excepting one female and one male, all these strange and useful animals. As you see, the

cried. But his wife could say nothi

the strange black

s in the daytime,' Long Arrow answered. And after picketing the animal he had ridden

N CHALET, UPPER

he told about Spotted Bear's cowardice in failing to follow the boy-snipe into the water, and he fled from the lodge, and his chieftainship dropped from him as he fled. Ever afterward he was no more than a woman in that great camp; never again was he allowed to sit with the chiefs

although the medicine men made sacrifice to them and prayed them to show themselves. They did discover, however, that above this lake was anothe

ust

hand to hand on many rounds, we had more tales, strange and weird, of the people of the ancient days. One that our ho

N, SHAME

ot of the mountains. One of the great chiefs of the tribe was One Horn. Very brave he was, and very rich, for his band of horses numbered more than a hundred head. He had two wives, sisters, but no children. Many orphans called him father, for he had poor ol

edge of the plain, saw them quietly feeding at a distance, and then saw something else: two men asleep in a coulée close under the little rise. They were, he thought, young men of the camp, watchers of the horse herds, and he concluded to surprise them and

turned and ran, he fired an arrow at him and struck him in the back, but he kept on running, the arrow dangling and swaying from his back, and he soon dis

hat he could put an end to it all. He counted up the different tribes with whom his people were at war-the Sioux, the Assiniboines, Cheyennes, Pawnees, Snakes, Bannocks, Pend d'O

to do, and kept his horses close in around his lodge. Late that night, when all the camp was asleep, down came the lodge, the pack and travois horses were quietly loaded, and he and his women headed southward, he driving his big herd in the lead. The next morning the people found that they had a my

the big prairies at the foot of the lower one of these Inside Lakes. It was then dusk, but not so dark but what they could see that there was a big camp of people at the edge

that there were two huge bears painted on its new white leather skin. He turned and hurried to the lodge of the head chief of the camp, aroused him, and cried: 'Here is a mystery; something to be looked into: just outside t

d farther out grazed a large band of them, mostly grays and blacks. It was evident that the owner of the lodge was a chief, a bear medicine man, a very rich man. The Crow chief thrust aside the door curtain of the lodge, and entered, the oth

he Crow chief signed to the s

up my lodge beside you. You shall know! I have come to try to make peace between your people and my pe

ace between us would be good for us both. I will

f dried meat and back fat, and they ate with the outside chief. Then they smoked again and went home, the Cr

He found assembled there all the head men of the tribe, and the chief told him that, after long talk,

Make us a long visit, and during it we will decide together where an

you for the rest of this moon.' And all those present

each other's lodge, and together were invited to other lodges to feast and smoke,

r Mountain brothers at the foot of the lakes. Among others came a man who was always counting his coups. In a gathering of the warriors he would wait

et camp, and they were discovered and surrounded by all the warriors of the tribe. His friend soon fell, as full of arrows as a porcupine is full of quills, but that he, charging this way, that way, shooting arrows fast and ki

of course, 'We have all of us here told about our fig

have been just the common experiences of those who

reat thing that you have don

What I have done would not inte

aid: 'This is a poor kind of a friend for you to have

that he is a chief, that he has a bi

l ways, the River Crow laughing shrill

s turn to talk, he drew an arrow from his quiver, laid it on the ground in front of him, and said: 'There! No one here, nor in the camp of the Mountain Crows and the camp of the River Crows, has ever equaled what that stands for

er asleep near our camp. I crept up to them and shouted, thinking that they were our horseherd watchers, and when they sprang up, I saw that they were enemies. I shot one of them dead.

g lie!' the River C

And he laid them beside the arrow in front of the boaster. All there saw at once that they were exactly like it in every way, had the same private mark just back of the point. And suddenly, with jeers and cries of 'Liar!' 'Coward!' they took handfuls of

e Mountain Crow chief and said to him: 'That Blackfoot has shamed me. I was a chief, but now all people l

end! We have smoked together, have eaten together. I cannot all

n were at home, he came again. And this time he said: 'Let me do what I want to do; you kno

was great. His women were getting old. He wanted that beautiful girl. And at last he gave way to the temptation: 'It shall be as you wish,' he told the man. 'All is arranged for to-morrow; we go

ering and packing in of the meat. They were no sooner gone than one of the Crow chief's women hurried to One Horn's lodge and told

embraced and kissed him as though she would never let him out of her arms. Thi

laves. See now what you have done by coming to try to make peace wit

her. 'These Crows will not kill me, a bear medicine man, and a chief. They

f to come out. He did come out, also dressed for battle, and One Horn cried out to him, at the same time making signs, so that he would be sure to understand, 'Your plot is discovered. So you and that River Crow are going to kill me. Where is he? Call him. I want to fight you both. I am a bear. I fig

re beginning to show their anger and shame at his betrayal of a friend

: 'Your plan to kill the Blackfoot is discovered, and he is dressed and armed and mounted, waiting to fi

for the River Crow camp on Little River, and fear was with him. He often looked back to see if he were being pur

. We will not stay another day with these treacherous Crows,' he told them

n that he was sorry for what he had done, very sorry that he had ever listened to the River C

Horn answered the woman. And he and his outfit started f

er of the North, and had no sooner set up their lodge than One Horn called a

them. 'I now know the Crows. They are liars all, and not to

eet, and the war was started. Little by little, summer after summer, they drove the Crows southward, killing many of them, and were not satisfied until they for

k-ta. Elk River; the Y

ust

MEDICINE

fit, and that he was sure that it would cure me of my illness. We had it this morning, and to-night I have a normal pulse and the fever has left me. I will not go so far as to say that it was his prayers that cured me,-prayers far better, far more earnest than those of any Christian preacher I ever heard,-but yet, I am well! To me, all religions are nothing more than the codified superstitions of the age

the ceremony, I must tell som

leave the body and go on far adventure. Their name for this is Ni-pup′-o-kan (my dream; my vision); and when they awake the

at will into the form of man. It was in that long ago time that a man seeking knowledge, and praying earnestly for it

or help. What is it you want? Perha

people from sickness; some way to give them lon

ted with a down-hanging set of tail feathers of the sage hen, and wound with strips of the fur of the bear and various water animals. And with it, wrapped in clean buckskins, were the skins of birds and animals, all those that live upon the water and in the water, and feed upon the life in the water, fish, and all the various water insects. A

y's St. Mary's Camp and I went to him and asked if he would take moving pictures of the ceremony, provided the Indians were willing to have him do it. He enthusiastically replied that he would be very glad to take it all in with his crank-machine, so I we

put in school and taught the white men's religion and manner of living, will know nothing about the way their fathers lived unless I put it all down in writing for all time to come. T

ight. The whites take our children from us and teach them false beliefs. But they teach them to read, and it may be, that, after we have all gone on to the Sand Hills,[12] they will read o

er-life abode of the Blackfeet. Their shadows th

" all cried, and I sen

f it, and so for all time to come is preserved

s time we threw the front of it wide open, so that the

ving near, to help him out. Chief Crow is also a medicine man, his wife, of course, a medicine woman, and he owns the Seizer's medicine pipe. Four other medicine men were there, all of them taking part in the ceremony.

ed in various wrappings, and a buffalo rawhide painted pouch containing sacks of various colored sacred paints. On Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill's left sat his medicine wife. I took my seat

nd. The opening song then began, the song of Po-no-kai′-?t-s?n-in-ah (Elk-Tongue Chief). Oh, how I would like to inscribe that song here! Alice Fletcher says-and I know that she is right-that all Indian music is classical. But their tonal scale is far different from ours;

E ELK MEDICIN

the wife of Chief Crow, both medicine women; Chief Crow, medicine man, lifti

her man grasped handfuls of it and stroked their bodies, thus purifying themselves before handling the medicines. Then, all present joining in, they sang the song of the real bear, the grizzly, while the medicine woman unfastened the outer wrapping of the m

fore the other, representing the deliberate, ponderous tread of the animals as they traveled to and from the water. When that song was finished-and

es of triumph, of victory; and all the medicine men beginning a solemn chant to the Sun, Chief Crow advanced, received from the medicine wife of my old friend the sacred stem, and, extending the fan of feathers drooping from it, held it aloft and danced in time wit

ed-painted wooden flute that goes with the medicine, and the latter, holding it aloft, danced with it almost to the doorway of the lodge, where he blew several soft, clear notes to the four corners of the earth, and then returned the flute to the woman. This was the Elk Medicine whistle, for imitating the weird call of that animal, and was used just now to call him, the ancient Elk god, to give me his favor, his

ese plains and mountains and knew not want. And not so very long ago they were a tribe of three thousand members, and now they number only eight or nine hundred, and those who have gone have mostly gone from

ICINE P

the column and carr

ust

domain. We had a little fire close to the water's edge, and having filled and lighted his pipe with a coal taken from it with his sacred red tongs, old Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill smoked and made his prayers, at the sam

d went all up the beautiful lake, past Red Eagle, and Little Chief, and Almost-a-Dog Mountains to the head of the lake, and

at mountains. The people-the Blackfeet-learning of this were greatly distressed. The far side of the mountains, away west and still westward to the shores of the Everywhere-Water, was the country o

WO MEDI

Hill (with pipe) propitiating

ain, and other-side tribes shall come to you and ask permission to kill a few of them now an

ome distance. There were no buffalo, not even a few straggling bulls on the other side, and they wondered how Old Man was keeping them back. They soon learned. In a vision it was revealed to an old medicine man that a huge god, a man of enormous stature, was pa

ain slope practically bare from snow. And passing the mouth of the creek just above the camp, I remembered that I had named it after Thomas, and Colonel Robert, and the Honorable Cecil Baring, of London, with whom I often hunted back in the eighties. In those days there were many bighorn and goats, and

can get a shot?" asked Colonel Baring, and

f so fast as he did! And he kept coming, falling, sliding, rolling, and then Colonel Baring fired and dropped the goat, and man and animal came the rest of the way to the foot of the place together! We had been too much concerned for the safety of our friend to laugh, but

and at sunset were back in our lodges. For some of us it is a last trip over the old, familiar ground. My

e children had been put to bed and all was quiet, Takes-Gun-Ah

AK′-

t he had a vision and learned that this plant was strong medicine; that, when smoked in a pipe, which his vision explained to him how to make, it would be the right thing with which to offer prayers to

formed a society of themselves and no others, for the raising of the weed and its proper uses. But they were very stingy with this weed, which they

th his woman and his pack dogs, and moved up to the river running out of the Inside Lakes, and there set up his lodge. Said he then to his woman: 'I have come up here to get medicines; in some way to find things that will enable me to become a raiser of na-wak′-o-sis. If I

rd singing; beautiful singing; but look where she would she could see no singers. She spoke to the man about it when

ver cuttings upon the sandy bottom, and by that she knew that the lodge had been set up above a bank beaver's home, and that beavers were the singers. She went back to the lodge, lay down and put

although his woman could hear it plainly. So now the woman got her knife and cut a round hole in the ground, and Lone Bull laid his head in it and could then hear the singing. He told her to make the hole d

me!' he cried. 'Oh, my young br

Close the hole that you have made, because the l

ey had changed themselves from beavers to men. They took seats, and then one of them s

his great desire to obtain na-wak′

or the ceremonies a skin of every animal and bird that is of the water, one of each except the beavers, and of them there must be two. You know these animals and birds: otter, mink, muskrat; different kinds of ducks; the fish hawk, and all the other bi

h me everything,' Lone Bull told th

woman to cure, and night after night the beavers taught him their medicine, all the sa

him some stalks of na-wak′-o-sis, the top

ile of old dry logs, dry brush and weeds, and set it afire. The heat from it will burn the ground, burn the sod, and make everything soft under it. Then, when the place has cooled, gather from around badger holes, squirre

g each row of seed, singing the sacred songs, your feet lightly pressing down the ground over the seed. At the end of a row you must step across to the next row, and dance backward on that one, and forward on the next, and so on until the last row has been pressed down, and all your songs have been sung. Then you can go away from the place for a time. Return after one moon has pa

e helping him in every way. People hunting from down Chief Mountain way came and saw his growing plants, and went home and told about them. The four medicine

af was cut into fine pieces! They cried from grief! Then they said among themselves: 'Na-wak′-o-sis we must have or ou

saw that he had the sacred plants. The h

ting, and we will help you gather it, and yo

of my planting for your own use, and you shall pay me well for it. The rest, excepting what I need,

praise and honor for it all, and he lived to great age. Kyi! Why not? He

one of the most weirdly beautiful places in this whole country. There, the other day, an employee was putting up a tabl

uddenly exclaimed: "Why, over there is a peak t

ered; and painted another arrow and

," the tourist said. "Will you plea

ainted another arrow pointi

gh s