Once there was an old man and woman whose three daughters married a young man. The old people lived in a lodge by themselves. The young man was supposed to hunt buffalo, and feed them all. Early in the morning the young man invited his father-in-law to go out with him to kill buffalo. The old man was then directed to drive the buffalo through a gap where the young man stationed himself to kill them as they went by. As soon as the buffalo were killed, the young man requested his father-in-law to go home. He said, “You are old. You need not stay here. Your daughters can bring you some meat.” Now the young man lied to his father-in-law; for when the meat was brought to his lodge, he ordered his wives not to give meat to the old folks. Yet one of the daughters took pity on her parents, and stole meat for them. The way in which she did this was to take a piece of meat in her robe, and as she went for water drop it in front of her father’s lodge.

Now every morning the young man invited his father-in-law to hunt buffalo; and, as before, sent him away and refused to permit his daughters to furnish meat for the old people. On the fourth day, as the old man was returning, he saw a clot of blood in the trail, and said to himself, “Here at least is something from which we can make soup.” In order that he might not be seen by his son-in-law, he stumbled, and spilt the arrows out of his quiver. Now, as he picked up the arrows, he put the clot of blood into the quiver. Just then the young man came up and demanded to know what it was he picked up. The old man explained that he had just stumbled, and was picking up his arrows. So the old man took the clot of blood home and requested his wife to make blood-soup. When the pot began to boil, the old woman heard a child crying. She looked all around,but saw nothing. Then she heard it again. This time it seemed to be in the pot. She looked in quickly, and saw a boy baby: so she lifted the pot from the fire, took the baby out and wrapped it up.

Now the young man, sitting in his lodge, heard a baby crying, and said, “Well, the old woman must have a baby.” Then he sent his oldest wife over to see the old woman’s baby, saying, “If it is a boy, I will kill it.” The woman came into look at the baby, but the old woman told her it was a girl. When the young man heard this, he did not believe it. So he sent each wife in turn; but they all came back with the same report. Now the young man was greatly pleased, because he could look forward to another wife. So he sent over some old bones, that soup might be made for the baby. Now, all this happened in the morning. That night the baby spoke to the old man, saying, “You take me up and hold me against each lodge-pole in succession.” So the old man took up the baby, and, beginning at the door, went around in the direction of the sun, and each time that he touched a pole the baby became larger. When halfway around, the baby was so heavy that the old man could hold him no longer. So he put the baby down in the middle of the lodge, and, taking hold of his head, moved it toward each of the poles in succession, and, when the last pole was reached, the baby had become a very fine young man. Then this young man went out, got some black flint [obsidian] and, when he got to the lodge, he said to the old man, “I am the Smoking-Star. I came down to help you. When I have done this, I shall return.”

Now, when morning came, Blood-Clot (the name his father gave him) arose and took his father out to hunt. They had not gone very far when they killed a scabby cow. Then Blood-Clot lay down behind the cow and requested his father to wait until the son-in-law came to join him. He also requested that he stand his ground and talk back to the son-in-law. Now, at the usual time in the morning, the son-in-law called at the lodge of the old man, but was told that he had gone out to hunt. This made him very angry, and he struck at the old woman, saying, “I have a notion to kill you.” So the son-in-law went out.

Now Blood-Clot had directed his father to be eating a kidney when the son-in-law approached. When the son-in-law came up and saw all this, he was very angry. He said to the old man, “Now you shall die for all this.” “Well,” said the old man, “you must die too, for all that you have done.” Then the son in-law began to shoot arrows at the old man, and the latter becoming frightened called on Blood-Clot for help. Then Blood-Clot sprang up and upbraided the son-in-law for his cruelty. “Oh,” said the son-in-law, “I was just fooling.” At this Blood-Clot shot the son-in-law through and through. Then Blood-Clot said to his father, “We will leave this meat here: it is not good. Your son-in-law’s house is full of dried meat. Which one of your daughters helped you?” The old man told him that it was the youngest. Then Blood-Clot went to the lodge, killed the two older women, brought up the body of the son-in-law, and burned them together. Then he requested the younger daughter to take care of her old parents, to be kind to them, etc. “Now,” said Blood-Clot, “I shall go to visit the other Indians.”

So he started out, and finally came to a camp. He went into the lodge of some old women, who were very much surprised to see such a fine young man. They said, “Why do you come here among such old women as we? Why don’t you go where there are young people?” “Well,” said Blood-Clot, “give me some dried meat.” Then the old women gave him some meat, but no fat. “Well,” said Blood-Clot, “you did not give me the fat to eat with my dried meat.” “Hush!” said the old women. “You must not speak so loud. There are bears here that take all the fat and give us the lean, and they will kill you, if they hear you.” “Well,” said Blood-Clot, “I will go out to-morrow, do some butchering, and get some fat.” Then he went out through the camp, telling all the people to make ready in the morning, for he intended to drive the buffalo over [the drive].

Now there were some bears who ruled over this camp. They lived in a bear-lodge [painted lodge], and were very cruel. When Blood-Clot had driven the buffalo over, he noticed among them a scabby cow. He said, “I shall save this for the old women.” Then the people laughed, and said, “Do you mean to save that poor old beast? It is too poor to have fat.” However, when it was cut open it was found to be very fat. Now, when the bears heard the buffalo go over the drive, they as usual sent out two bears to cut off the best meat, especially all the fat; but Blood-Clot had already butchered the buffalo, putting the fat upon sticks. He hid it as the bears came up. Also he had heated some stones in a fire. When they told him what they wanted, he ordered them to go back. Now the bears were very angry, and the chief bear and his wife came up to fight, but Blood-Clot killed them by throwing hot stones down their throats

Then he went down to the lodge of the bears and killed all, except one female who was about to become a mother. She pleaded so pitifully for her life, that he spared her. If he had not done this, there would have been no more bears in the world. The lodge of the bears was filled with dried meat and other property. Also all the young women of the camp were confined there. Blood-Clot gave all the property to the old women, and set free all the young women. The bears’ lodge he gave to the old women. It was a bear painted lodge.

“Now,” said Blood-Clot, “I must go on my travels.” He came to a camp and entered the lodge of some old women. When these women saw what a fine young man he was, they said, “Why do you come here, among such old women? Why do you not go where there are younger people?” “Well,” said he, “give me some meat.” The old women gave him some dried meat, but no fat. Then he said, “Why do you not give me some fat with my meat?” “Hush!” said the women, “you must not speak so loud. There is a snake-lodge [painted lodge] here, and the snakes take everything. They leave no fat for the people.” “Well,” said Blood-Clot, “I will go over to the snake-lodge to eat.” “No, you must not do that,” said the old women. “It is dangerous. They will surely kill you.” “Well,” said he, “I must have some fat with my meat, even if they do kill me.”

Then he entered the snake-lodge. He had his white rock knife ready. Now the snake, who was the head man in this lodge, had one horn on his head. He was lying with his head in the lap of a beautiful woman. He was asleep. By the fire was a bowl of berry-soup ready for the snake when he should wake. Blood-Clot seized the bowl and drank the soup. Then the women warned him in whispers, “You must go away: you must not stay here.” But he said, “I want to smoke.” So he took out his knife and cut off the head of the snake, saying as he did so, “Wake up! light a pipe! I want to smoke.” Then with his knife he began to kill all the snakes. At last there was one snake who was about to become a mother, and she pleaded so pitifully for her life that she was allowed to go. From her descended all the snakes that are in the world. Now the lodge of the snakes was filled up with dried meat of every kind, fat, etc. Blood-Clot turned all this over to the people, the lodge and everything it contained. Then he said, “I must go away and visit other people.”

So he started out. Some old women advised him to keep on the south side of the road, because it was dangerous the other way. But Blood-Clot paid no attention to their warning. As he was going along, a great windstorm struck him and at last carried him into the mouth of a great fish. This was a sucker-fish and the wind was its sucking. When he got into the stomach of the fish, he saw a great many people. Many of them were dead, but some were still alive. He said to the people, “Ah, there must be a heart somewhere here. We will have a dance.” So he painted his face white, his eyes and mouth with black circles, and tied a white rock knife on his head, so that the point stuck up. Some rattles made of hoofs were also brought. Then the people started in to dance. For a while Blood-Clot sat making wing-motions with his hands, and singing songs. Then he stood up and danced, jumping up and down until the knife on his head struck the heart. Then he cut the heart down. Next he cut through between the ribs of the fish, and let all the people out.

Again Blood-Clot said he must go on his travels. Before starting, the people warned him, saying that after a while he would see a woman who was always challenging people to wrestle with her, but that he must not speak to her. He gave no heed to what they said, and, after he had gone a little way, he saw a woman who called him to come over. “No,” said Blood-Clot. “I am in a hurry.” However, at the fourth time the woman asked him to come over, he said, “Yes, but you must wait a little while, for I am tired. I wish to rest. When I have rested, I will come over and wrestle with you.” Now, while he was resting, he saw many large knives sticking up from the ground almost hidden by straw.[168] Then he knew that the woman killed the people she wrestled with by throwing them down on the knives. When he was rested, he went over. The woman asked him to stand up in the place where he had seen the knives; but he said, “No, I am not quite ready. Let us play a little, before we begin.” So he began to play with the woman, but quickly caught hold of her, threw her upon the knives, and cut her in two.

Blood-Clot took up his travels again, and after a while came to a camp where there were some old women. The old women told him that a little farther on he would come to a woman with a swing, but on no account must he ride with her. After a time he came to a place where he saw a swing on the bank of a swift stream. There was a woman swinging on it. He watched her a while, and saw that she killed people by swinging them out and dropping them into the water. When he found this out, he came up to the woman. “You have a swing here; let me see you swing,” he said. “No,” said the woman, “I want to see you swing.” “Well,” said Blood-Clot, “but you must swing first” “Well,”‘ said the woman, “Now I shall swing. Watch me. Then I shall see you do it.” So the woman swung out over the stream. As she did this, he saw how it worked. Then he said to the woman, “You swing again while I am getting ready”; but as the woman swung out this time, he cut the vine and let her drop into the water. This happened on Cut Bank Creek.

“Now,” said Blood-Clot, “I have rid the world of all the monsters, I will go back to my old father and mother.” So he climbed a high ridge, and returned to the lodge of the old couple. One day he said to them, “I shall go back to the place from whence I came. If you find that I have been killed, you must not be sorry, for then I shall go up into the sky and become the Smoking-Star.” Then he went on and on, until he was killed by some Crow Indians on the war-path. His body was never found; but the moment he was killed, the Smoking-Star appeared in the sky, where we see it now.

Tales of the North American Indians, by Stith Thompson [1929] and is now in the public domain’

(BLACKFOOT: Wissler and Duvall, Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History, ii, 53)

“Do you know the stories of Glooscap?” I asked an Indian.
In reply he told me how tales of Glooscap were handed down from one generation of Indians to another. How in his boyhood days the Indian children used to gather in a large wigwam and hear from  their chief  the stories and legends of their race.

” Glooscap was a great spirit”, he said,”but there is a greater spirit, Uckcheeginupt, who made Glooscap. Uckcheeginupt, the greatest spirit of all, made the world. He then took rest and lay on the ground to see what he had done and he found a stone image like a person. He spoke to it and asked,”What are you doing here?” There was no reply.

” Uckcheginupt asked a second time,”What are you doing here?” Still there was no reply, “Then Uckcheginupt stooped and blew his breath into the image’s mouth and the image became alive.

“Your first man made of mud, not so good, ours from stone,” said the Indian.

“Uckcheeginupt said to the man, “Sit up,” and he sat up.
“Stand up,” and he walked.

“Stop,” and he stopped.

“Uckcheeginupt named him Glooscap. Uckcheeeginupt then told Glooscap to take his bow and clear the brook which was muddy and make a passage for the water to the sea.

“After Glooscap had done his day’s work he went to his wigwam. Before sundown he noticed a young girl coming along the path over which he had come. She came to the front of the wigwam and stood there.

“‘What are you doing here?’ Glooscap asked her.

“‘I am come to help you. I’m smart, I’m young,’ she said.

“At the end of the second day’s work, a young man came up the same path as had the girl and stood at the door of the wigwam.

“Glooscap said,’Come in. What are you doing here?’

“”I am come to help you. I’m smart. I’m young,’ he said.

“Glooscap then asked, ‘Where did you come from?’

” The young man answered, ‘I came from the sky.’

“‘The young man broke the news where we came from,” the Indian broke off to say. “Our grandfathers came from the sky. Adam and Eve came from the earth. Bishops and them have various notions as to our origin. They say we came from China, Beehring Strait and so on. We know we came from the sky.

” The next day Glooscap finished up the work” said the Indian resuming his story. “Then Glooscap said to the girl,” Here’s the trees but no leaves and no flowers and no buds. I want you to put leaves on the trees; on the hackmatack, fir, spruce and pine,put needles. Burrs also put on the trees. The burrs have seeds in them. In these trees there will be birds who will sing for you.’

“The young girl put leaves and burrs on the trees, and flowers on the shrubs beneath the trees all through the forest. ‘I have left my pets, the birds, in heaven,’ she said,’If there is any way to get them I’ll be glad.’

” Glooscap furnished a great eagle called Culloo to bring the birds down. The birds brought their songs with them from the other world and filled the forest with music. Each one had his own song, from the smallest to the greatest.

“To the young man Glooscap said, “We want animals.”

“‘I will use the same bird,’ the young man said. He sent him back to the heavens and Culloo brought down the animals. The stars were named up in the sky and when the young man sent Culloo up, he mentioned by name the ones Culloo was to bring down and they all became animals of the earth; but they were first stars in the sky.

“Our old people used to teach us about the sky.” said the Indian. “On dark nights they would point up and say to us. ‘That star is the Bear and these near by are the Bear’s den.” They would name as many as fifty or one hundred stars to us.

“The work of the young man and the girl suited Glooscap. He said to them, “I am going to marry you together and you will have children and they will have children. Go and make your wigwam and live. The man can go out in the forest and hunt the animals and the woman can cook them.

“Glooscap performed great miraces which have been handed down from generation to generation.” continued the Indian, “but he went away from this earth. Glooscap said, “There will be white people come and take all this forest from you but I go north to make you a happy hunting ground where no white man shall ever enter. You can’t come there till after your death. You’ve got to die here. If you are wicked there is a place of darkness forever- no sun there. The wicked Indian will have to hunt his game in the dark.”

“Glooscap prophesied that no live Indian would ever see the end of the world. “But I’ll come/’ he said , ‘and rise you from the mounds and I’ll call you down from the crotch of the trees and from the scaffolds of the air.’ ‘

As opposed to the other Navajo [Diné] Chant Ways, which are used to effect a cure of a problem, the Blessingway [Hózhójí] is used to bless the “one sung over,” to ensure good luck, good health and blessings for all that pertains to them. It is sometimes referred to by English speaking Diné as being “for good hope.” Blessingway [Hózhójí] ceremonies are performed for expectant mothers shortly before birth is due. Young men leaving for the armed forces will have a Blessingway [Hózhójí] given for them by their families before they leave. The Blessingway [Hózhójí] ceremony is performed frequently.

Kluckhohn and Leighton report, in their study done in the 1940′s, that a family would rarely go six months without having a Blessingway [Hózhójí] ceremonial performed at least once in their hooghan. The Blessingway [Hózhójí] holds historical precedence over all of the other chants, being given to the Earth Surface People shortly after the Emergence into this world. It is in the Blessingway [Hózhójí] chant that the most complete account of the Navajo [Diné] origin myth is recounted including the origin of the Blessingway [Hózhójí] ceremony itself. The first Blessingway [Hózhójí] was held by the Holy People [diyin diné] when they created mankind. They taught them both ritual and skills; Changing Woman [Asdz nádleehé] gave them some songs [sin]. Blessingway [Hózhójí] is most closely connected with Changing Woman [Asdz nádleehé] and is the only ceremony where she is depicted in drypaintings ['iikááh].

The name of the rite, Hózhójí, is translated Blessingway, but that is certainly not an exact translation. In the Navajo language [diné bizaad] the term encompasses everything that is interpreted as good – as opposed to evil, favorable for man. It encompasses such words as beauty, harmony, success, perfection, well-being, ordered, ideal. The intent of this rite is to ensure a good result at any stage of life, and therefore the translation of Blessingway.

All Blessingway [Hózhójí] ceremonies begin with the chief hooghan songs as evidence of the Navajo concern with the hooghan as the paradigm for the ordered universe. Every Blessingway [Hózhóójí] ceremony reemphasizes the hooghan as “the place home.” The sacred mountains [dzi dadiyinífíí], the four cornerposts of the Navajo universe, which support the Sky [Yáh], the roof of this world: Blanca Peak [Sisnaajiní] in the east [ha'a'aah], Mount Taylor [Tsoodzi] in the south [shádi'ááh], the San Francisco Peaks [Dook'o'oosííd] in the west ['e'e'aah] and Hesperus Peak [Dibéntsaa] in the north [náhooks], plus Huerfano Mountain [Dziná'oodIII in the center ['aníí] and Gobernador Knob [Ch'óol''] to the east of center are all a part of Hózhójí. Gobernador Knob [Ch'óol''] represents the conical type of hooghan and Huerfano Mountain [Dziná'oodIII represents the round roof type hooghan. Thus the two mountains[dzi] which are the sites of the birth and early home of Changing Woman [Asdz nádleehé] and her adopted family, the First Man [Átsé hastiin] group, are found well within the boundaries of diné bikéyah.

The ceremony has the dignity of great simplicity despite the rich, complicated and beautiful ideas upon which it is based. On the first night [t'éé'] a few songs [sin] are sung. The next day [j] there is a ritual bath in yucca [tsá'ászi'] suds with songs [sin] and prayers [sodizin]. That night [t'éé'] there is an all night sing. The use of both pollen [tádídíín] and cornmeal [naad' ak'n] is prominent in this ceremony. Drypaintings ['iikááh] in the Blessingway [Hózhójí] are made of only vegetal materials (cornmeal [naad' ak'n ], pollen [tádídíín] and crushed flower petals, such as larkspur) on buckskin ['abaní]. The only drypaintings ['iikááh] in which Changing Woman [Asdz nádleehé] appears is in the Blessingway [Hózhójí] ceremony. The Blessingway ceremony ends with the Twelve-Word (stanza) song in which the repeated presence of the 4 words: Sa’ah naaghéi, Bik’eh hózhó, which are interpreted for us in the statement of philosophy of the Navajo Community College, act simultaneously to correct any errors in the ceremony, assure the pleasure of the Holy People [diyin diné], and to remind everyone present of the goals and ideals of the Navajo culture. In the words of the Blessingway singer, Frank Mitchell:

“So for each verse in the song, you say, ‘Sa’ah naaghéi, Bik’eh hózhó.’ The phrase is a holy being. You see, these songs, when they were turned over to the Earth People, were to be used in a certain way. If you leave out those words, then the holy beings feel slighted. They know you are singing, they are aware of it. But if you omit those words, then they feel it and they are displeased. Then, even though you are singing, whatever you are doing over the one-sung- over has no effect.

If you forget to mention those holy words in one song, and in the next song you think of it, then you will mention them. That makes up, somewhat, for their having been left out before. That is the reason that at the conclusion of your songs, you will say a prayer in your own words. You ask the holy beings to help you and to go through these songs with you; that also helps to make up for what you may have left out.”

This account is taken from Blessingway by Leland C. Wyman (c) 1970 Leland C. Wyman University of Arizona Press; and Navajo Blessingway Singer, the Autobiography of Frank Mitchell, 1881-1967 edited by Charlotte J. Frisbie and David P. McAllester (c) 1978, University of Arizona Press

Once there was a time when men knew no joy. Their whole life was work, food, digestion, and sleep. One day went by like another. They toiled, they slept, and they awoke again to toil. Monotony rusted their minds.

In these days there was a man and his wife who lived alone in their dwelling not far from the sea. They had three sons, all spirited lads, anxious to be as good huntsmen as their father, and even before they were full grown they entered into all kinds of activities to make them strong and enduring. And their father and mother felt proud and secure in the thought that the boys would provide for their old age and find them food when they could no longer help themselves.

But it happened that the eldest son, and after a while the second one, went a-hunting and never came back. They left no trace behind; all searches were in vain. And the father and mother grieved deeply over their loss and watched now with great anxiety over the youngest boy, who was at this time big enough to accompany his father when he went hunting. The son, who was called Ermine (Teriak) liked best to stalk caribou, whereas his father preferred to hunt sea creatures. And, as hunters cannot spend all their lives in anxiety, it soon came about that the son was allowed to go where he pleased inland while the father rowed to sea in his kayak.

One day, stalking caribou as usual, Ermine suddenly caught sight of a mighty eagle, a big young eagle that circled over him. Ermine pulled out his arrows, but did not shoot as the eagle flew down and settled on the ground a short distance from him. Here it took off its hood and became a young man who said to the boy: “It was I who killed your two brothers. I will kill you too unless you promise to hold a festival of song when you get home. Will you or won’t you?”

“Gladly, but I don’t understand what you say. What is song? What is a festival?”

“Will you or won’t you?”

“Gladly, but I don’t know what it is.”

“If you follow me my mother will teach you what you don’t understand. Your two brothers scorned the gifts of song and merrymaking; they would not learn, so I killed them. Now you may come with me, and as soon as you have learned to put words together into a song and to sing it–as soon as you have learned to dance for joy, you shall be free to go home to your dwelling.”

“I’ll come with you,” answered Ermine. And off they set.

The eagle was no longer a bird but a big strong man in a gleaming cloak of eagles’ feathers. They walked and they walked, farther and farther inland, through gorges and valleys, onward to a high mountain, which they began to climb.

“High up on that mountain top stands our house,” said the young eagle. And they clambered on over the mountain, up and up until they had a wide view over the plains of the Caribou hunters.

But as they approached the crest of the mountain, they suddenly heard a throbbing sound, which grew louder and louder the nearer they came to the top. It sounded like the stroke of huge hammers, and so loud was the noise that it set Ermine’s ears a- humming.

“Do you hear anything?” asked the eagle.

“Yes, a strange deafening noise, that isn’t like anything I’ve ever heard before.”

“It is the beating of my mother’s heart,” answered the eagle.

So they approached the eagle’s house, that was built right on the uttermost peaks.

“Wait here until I come back. I must prepare my mother,” said the eagle, and went in.

A moment after, he came back and fetched Ermine. They entered a big room, fashioned like the dwellings of men, and on the bunk, quite alone, sat the eagle’s mother, aged, feeble, and sad. Her son now said: “Here’s a man who has promised to hold a song festival when he gets home. But he says men don’t understand how to put words together into songs, or even how to beat drums and dance for joy. Mother, men don’t know how to make merry, and now this young man has come up here to learn.”

This speech brought fresh life to the feeble old mother eagle, and her tired eyes lit up suddenly while she said: “First you must build a feast hall where many men may gather.”

So the two young men set to work and built the feast hall, which is called a kagsse and is larger and finer than ordinary houses. And when it was finished the mother eagle taught them to put words together into songs and to add tones to the words so that they could be sung. She made a drum and taught them to beat upon it in rhythm with the music, and she showed them how they should dance to the songs. When Ermine had learned all this she said: “Before every festival you must collect much meat, and then call together many men. This you must do after you have built your feast hall and made your songs. For when men assemble for a festival they require sumptuous meals.”

“But we know of no men but ourselves,” answered Ermine.

“Men are lonely, because they have not yet received the gift of joy,” said the mother eagle. “Make all your preparations as I have told you. When all is ready you shall go out and seek for men. You will meet them in couples. Gather them until they are many in number and invite them to come with you. Then hold your festival of song.”

Thus spoke the old mother eagle, and when she had minutely instructed Ermine in what he should do, she finally said to him: “I may be an eagle, yet I am also an aged woman with the same pleasures as other women. A gift calls for a return, therefore it is only fitting that in farewell you should give me a little sinew string. It will be but a slight return, yet it will give me pleasure.”

Ermine was at first miserable, for wherever was he to procure sinew string so far from his home? But suddenly he remembered that his arrowheads were lashed to the shafts with sinew string. He unwound these and gave the string to the eagle. Thus was his return gift only a trifling matter. Thereupon, the young eagle again drew on his shining cloak and bade his guest bestride his back and put his arms round his neck. Then he threw himself out over the mountainside. A roaring sound was heard around them and Ermine thought his last hour had come. But this lasted only a moment; then the eagle halted and bade him open his eyes. And there they were again at the place where they had met. They had become friends and now they must part, and they bade each other a cordial farewell. Ermine hastened home to his parents and related all his adventures to them, and he concluded his narrative with these words: “Men are lonely; they live without joy because they don’t know how to make merry. Now the eagle has given me the blessed gift of rejoicing, and I have promised to invite all men to share in the gift.”

Father and mother listened in surprise to the son’s tale and shook their heads incredulously, for he who has never felt his blood glow and his heart throb in exultation cannot imagine such a gift as the eagle’s. But the old people dared not gainsay him, for the eagle had already taken two of their sons, and they understood that its word had to be obeyed if they were to keep this last child. So they did all that the eagle had required of them.

A feast hall, matching the eagles, was built, and the larder was filled with the meat of sea creatures and caribou. Father and son combined joyous words, describing their dearest and deepest memories in songs which they set to music; also they made drums, rumbling tambourines of taut caribou hides with round wooden frames; and to the rhythm of the drum beats that accompanied the songs they moved their arms and legs in frolicsome hops and lively antics. Thus they grew warm both in mind and body, and began to regard everything about them in quite a new light. Many an evening it would happen that they joked and laughed, flippant and full of fun, at a time when they would otherwise have snored with sheer boredom the whole evening through.

As soon as all the preparations were made, Ermine went out to invite people to the festival that was to be held. To his great surprise he discovered that he and his parents were no longer alone as before. Merry men find company. Suddenly he met people everywhere, always in couples, strange looking people, some clad in wolf skins, others in the fur of the wolverine, the lynx, the red fox, the silver fox, the cross fox–in fact, in the skins of all kinds of animals. Ermine invited them to the banquet in his new feast hall and they all followed him joyfully. Then they held their song festival, each producing his own songs. There were laughter, talk, and sound, and people were carefree and happy, as they had never been before. The table delicacies were appreciated, gifts of meat were exchanged, friendships were formed, and there were several that gave each other costly gifts of fur. The night passed, and not till the morning light shone into the feast hall did the guests take their leave. Then, as they thronged out of the corridor, they all fell forward on their hands and sprang away on all fours. They were no longer men but had changed into wolves, wolverines, lynxes, silver foxes, and red foxes–in fact, into all the beasts of the forest. They were the guests that the old eagle had sent, so that father and son might not seek in vain. So great was the power of joy that it could even change animals into men. Thus animals, who have always been more lighthearted than men, were man’s first guests in a feast hall.

A little time after this it chanced that Ermine went hunting and again met the eagle. Immediately it took off its hood and turned into a man, and together they went up to the eagle’s home, for the old mother eagle wanted once more to see the man who had held the first song festival for humanity.

Before they had reached the heights, the mother eagle came to thank them, and lo! The feeble old eagle had grown young again.

For when men make merry, all old eagles become young.

The foregoing is related by the old folk from Kanglanek, the land which lies where the forests begin around the source of Colville River. In this strange and unaccountable way, so they say, came to men the gift of joy.

And the eagle became the sacred bird of song, dance and all festivity.

http://www.indigenouspeople.net/joy.htm

Fifty years ago the name Blackfoot was one of terrible meaning to the white traveler who passed across that desolate buffalo-trodden waste which lay to the north of the Yellowstone River and east of the Rocky Mountains. This was the Blackfoot land, the undisputed home of a people which is said to have numbered in one of its tribes the Pi-k[)u]n’-i 8000 lodges, or 40,000 persons. Besides these, there were the Blackfoot and the Bloods, three tribes of one nation, speaking the same language, having the same customs, and holding the same religious faith.

But this land had not always been the home of the Blackfoot. Long ago, before the coming of the white men, they had lived in another country far to the north and east, about Lesser Slave Lake, ranging between Peace River and the Saskatchewan, and having for their neighbors on the north the Beaver Indians. Then the Blackfoot were a timber people. It is said that about two hundred years ago the Chippeweyans from the east invaded this country and drove them south and west. Whether or no this is true, it is quite certain that not many generations back the Blackfoot lived on the North Saskatchewan River and to the north of that stream.[1] Gradually working their way westward, they at length reached the Rocky Mountains, and, finding game abundant, remained there until they obtained horses, in the very earliest years of the present century. When they secured horses and guns, they took courage and began to venture out on to the plains and to go to war. From this time on, the Blackfoot made constant war on their neighbors to the south, and in a few years controlled the whole country between the Saskatchewan on the north and the Yellowstone on the south.

It was, indeed, a glorious country which the Blackfoot had wrested from their southern enemies. Here nature has reared great mountains and spread out broad prairies. Along the western border of this region, the Rocky Mountains lift their snow-clad peaks above the clouds. Here and there, from north to south, and from east to west, lie minor ranges, black with pine forests if seen near at hand, or in the distance mere gray silhouettes against a sky of blue. Between these mountain ranges lies everywhere the great prairie; a monotonous waste to the stranger’s eye, but not without its charm. It is brown and bare; for, except during a few short weeks in spring, the sparse bunch-grass is sear and yellow, and the silver gray of the wormwood lends an added dreariness to the landscape. Yet this seemingly desert waste has a beauty of its own. At intervals it is marked with green winding river valleys, and everywhere it is gashed with deep ravines, their sides painted in strange colors of red and gray and brown, and their perpendicular walls crowned with fantastic columns and figures of stone or clay, carved out by the winds and the rains of ages. Here and there, rising out of the plain, are curious sharp ridges, or square-topped buttes with vertical sides, sometimes bare, and sometimes dotted with pines, short, sturdy trees, whose gnarled trunks and thick, knotted branches have been twisted and wrung into curious forms by the winds which blow unceasingly, hour after hour, day after day, and month after month, over mountain range and prairie, through gorge and coulee.

These prairies now seem bare of life, but it was not always so. Not very long ago, they were trodden by multitudinous herds of buffalo and antelope; then, along the wooded river valleys and on the pine-clad slopes of the mountains, elk, deer, and wild sheep fed in great numbers. They are all gone now. The winter’s wind still whistles over Montana prairies, but nature’s shaggy-headed wild cattle no longer feel its biting blasts. Where once the scorching breath of summer stirred only the short stems of the buffalo-grass, it now billows the fields of the white man’s grain. Half-hidden by the scanty herbage, a few bleached skeletons alone remain to tell us of the buffalo; and the broad, deep trails, over which the dark herds passed by thousands, are now grass-grown and fast disappearing under the effacing hand of time. The buffalo have disappeared, and the fate of the buffalo has almost overtaken the Blackfoot.

As known to the whites, the Blackfoot were true prairie Indians, seldom venturing into the mountains, except when they crossed them to war with the Kutenai, the Flatheads, or the Snakes. They subsisted almost wholly on the flesh of the buffalo. They were hardy, untiring, brave, ferocious. Swift to move, whether on foot or horseback, they made long journeys to war, and with telling force struck their enemies. They had conquered and driven out from the territory which they occupied the tribes who once inhabited it, and maintained a desultory and successful warfare against all invaders, fighting with the Crees on the north, the Assinaboines on the east, the Crow on the south, and the Snake, Kalispel, and Kutenai on the southwest and west. In those days the Blackfoot were rich and powerful. The buffalo fed and clothed them, and they needed nothing beyond what nature supplied. This was their time of success and happiness.

Crowded into a little corner of the great territory which they once dominated, and holding this corner by an uncertain tenure, a few Blackfoot still exist, the pitiful remnant of a once mighty people. Huddled together about their agencies, they are facing the problem before them, striving, helplessly but bravely, to accommodate themselves to the new order of things; trying in the face of adverse surroundings to wrench themselves loose from their accustomed ways of life; to give up inherited habits and form new ones; to break away from all that is natural to them, from all that they have been taught to reverse their whole mode of existence. They are striving to earn their living, as the white man earns his, by toil. The struggle is hard and slow, and in carrying it on they are wasting away and growing fewer in numbers. But though unused to labor, ignorant of agriculture, unacquainted with tools or seeds or soils, knowing nothing of the ways of life in permanent houses or of the laws of health, scantily fed, often utterly discouraged by failure, they are still making a noble fight for existence.

Only within a few years since the buffalo disappeared has this change been going on; so recently has it come that the old order and the new meet face to face. In the trees along the river valleys, still quietly resting on their aerial sepulchres, sleep the forms of the ancient hunter-warrior who conquered and held this broad land; while, not far away, Blackfoot farmers now rudely cultivate their little crops, and gather scanty harvests from narrow fields.

It is the meeting of the past and the present, of savagery and civilization. The issue cannot be doubtful. Old methods must pass away. The Blackfoot will become civilized, but at a terrible cost. To me there is an interest, profound and pathetic, in watching the progress of the struggle.

[1]: For a more extended account of this migration, see American Anthropologist, April, 1892, p. 153.

Handbook of American Indians, 1906