It is said that once in early times the men determined that they would use antelope skins for their women’s dresses, instead of cowskins.  So they found a place where antelope were plenty, and set up on the prairie long lines of rock piles, or of bushes, so as to form a chute like a >.  Near the point where the lines joined, they dug deep pits, which they roofed with slender poles, and covered these with grass and a little dirt.  Then the people scattered out, and while most of them hid behind the rock piles and bushes, a few started the antelope toward the mouth of the chute.  As they ran by them, the people showed themselves and yelled, and the antelope ran down the chute and finally reached the pits, and falling into them were taken, when they were killed and divided among the hunters.  Afterward, this was the common method of securing antelopes up to the coming of the whites.

EAGLES

Before the whites came to the Blackfoot country, the Indian standard of value was eagle tail-feathers.  They were used to make war head-dresses, to tie on the head, and to ornament shields, lances, and other weapons.  Besides this, the wings were used for fans, and the body feathers for arrow-making.  Always a wary bird, the eagle could seldom be approached near enough for killing with the bow and arrow; and, in fact, it seems as if it was considered improper to kill it in that way.  The capture of these birds appears to have had about it something of a sacred nature, and, as was always the case among wild Indians when anything important was to be undertaken, it was invariably preceded by earnest prayers to the Deity for help and for success.

There are still living many men who have caught eagles in the ancient method, and, from several of these, accounts have been received, which, while essentially similar, yet differ in certain particulars, especially in the explanations of certain features of the ceremony.

Wolf Calf’s account of this ceremony is as follows:—­

“A man who started out to catch eagles moved his lodge and his family away from the main camp, to some place where the birds were abundant.  A spot was chosen on top of a mound or butte within a few miles of his lodge, and here he dug a pit in the ground as long as his body and somewhat deeper.  The earth removed was carried away to a distance, and scattered about so as to make no show.  When the pit had been made large enough, it was roofed over with small willow sticks, on which grass was scattered, and over the grass a little earth and stones were laid, so as to give the place a natural look, like the prairie all about it.

“The bait was a piece of bloody neck of a buffalo.  This, of course, could be seen a long way off, and by the meat a stuffed wolf skin was often placed, standing up, as if the animal were eating.  To the piece of neck was tied a rope, which passed down through the roof of the pit and was held in the watcher’s hand.