Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National ParkSchultz, James Willard
History
Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park
Schultz, James Willard
Glacier National Park (Mont.); Indians of North America -- Folklore; Siksika Indians -- Folklore
"'These,' said he, 'are the children of the big-leaved plants; put
them into the ground and they will grow and make other plants that
bear children. And now, I must tell you just how to plant: Gather a
great, long, wide pile 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, squirrel holes, and wherever you can find
it, plenty of the brown earth they have thrown out, and mix it with
the burned black earth, so that it will not pack hard around the
seeds, and keep them from coming up into the sunlight.
"'After you have taken all the seeds from the stems, you must put them
in a sack and not touch them again with your hands. With an antelope
horn you will make row after row of little holes all across the burned
ground and only a hand apart, and with a buffalo-horn spoon drop a
seed into each hole. When that is done, and it will require a long
time, you and yours are to dance along 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 passed, and you will find that the young plants have grown above
the ground. Watch them, that insects do not destroy them. Give them
water if the rains fail you. They will grow all summer, and fade with
the ripening of the choke-cherries. Cut them then, care well for them,
and you and your people will have a plenty for your winter smokes and
ceremonies. There! I have told you all!'
"It was planting-time then. Lone Bull moved right up to the foot of
the lower one of the Inside Lakes, and did everything that he had been
told to do, his wife 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 men just laughed. 'Ha!' They
cried. 'He has no _na-wak´-o-sis_! He wanted to join us and we would
not let him into our society. He but plants some useless weed.'
"But later on, just as their planting was getting ripe, a terrible
hailstorm came along and destroyed it all; every leaf was cut into
fine pieces! They cried from grief! Then they said among themselves:
'_Na-wak´-o-sis_ we must have or our medicines will be without power.
It may be that this Lone Bull really has the true plants: let us go up
and see them.'
"They went, all the people with them, and saw that he had the sacred
plants. The hailstorm had come nowhere near his place.
"Said they to him then: 'You have a big planting, and we will help you
gather it, and you and we four will use it. You shall join us.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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