Blackfoot Lodge Tales eBook

George Bird Grinnell
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 372 pages of information about Blackfoot Lodge Tales.

Blackfoot Lodge Tales eBook

George Bird Grinnell
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 372 pages of information about Blackfoot Lodge Tales.

After this, Old Man kept on, travelling north.  Many of the animals that he had made followed him as he went.  The animals understood him when he spoke to them, and he used them as his servants.  When he got to the north point of the Porcupine Mountains, there he made some more mud images of people, and blew breath upon them, and they became people.  He made men and women.  They asked him, “What are we to eat?” He made many images of clay, in the form of buffalo.  Then he blew breath on these, and they stood up; and when he made signs to them, they started to run.  Then he said to the people, “Those are your food.”  They said to him, “Well, now, we have those animals; how are we to kill them?” “I will show you,” he said.  He took them to the cliff, and made them build rock piles like this; and he made the people hide behind these piles of rock, and said, “When I lead the buffalo this way, as I bring them opposite to you, rise up.”

After he had told them how to act, he started on toward a herd of buffalo.  He began to call them, and the buffalo started to run toward him, and they followed him until they were inside the lines.  Then he dropped back; and as the people rose up, the buffalo ran in a straight line and jumped over the cliff.  He told the people to go and take the flesh of those animals.  They tried to tear the limbs apart, but they could not.  They tried to bite pieces out, and could not.  So Old Man went to the edge of the cliff, and broke some pieces of stone with sharp edges, and told them to cut the flesh with these.  When they had taken the skins from these animals, they set up some poles and put the hides on them, and so made a shelter to sleep under.  There were some of these buffalo that went over the cliff that were not dead.  Their legs were broken, but they were still alive.  The people cut strips of green hide, and tied stones in the middle, and made large mauls, and broke in the skulls of the buffalo, and killed them.

After he had taught those people these things, he started off again, travelling north, until he came to where Bow and Elbow rivers meet.  There he made some more people, and taught them the same things.  From here he again went on northward.  When he had come nearly to the Red Deer’s River, he reached the hill where the Old Man sleeps.  There he lay down and rested himself.  The form of his body is to be seen there yet.

When he awoke from his sleep, he travelled further northward and came to a fine high hill.  He climbed to the top of it, and there sat down to rest.  He looked over the country below him, and it pleased him.  Before him the hill was steep, and he said to himself, “Well, this is a fine place for sliding; I will have some fun,” and he began to slide down the hill.  The marks where he slid down are to be seen yet, and the place is known to all people as the “Old Man’s Sliding Ground.”

This is as far as the Blackfeet followed Old Man.  The Crees know what he did further north.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Blackfoot Lodge Tales from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.