Most persons have an entirely erroneous idea of the purpose of this annual ceremony.  It has been supposed that it was for the purpose of making warriors.  This is not true.  It was essentially a religious festival, undertaken for the bodily and spiritual welfare of the people according to their beliefs.  Incidentally, it furnished an opportunity for the rehearsal of daring deeds.  But among no tribes who practised it were warriors made by it.  The swinging by the breast and other self-torturings were but the fulfilment of vows, sacred promises made in time of danger, penances performed, and not, as many believe, an occasion for young men to test their courage.

From the Indians of the tribe, the Medicine Lodge woman receives a very high measure of respect and consideration.  Blackfoot men have said to me, “We look on the Medicine Lodge woman as you white people do on the Roman Catholic sisters.”  Not only is she virtuous in deed, but she must be serious and clean-minded.  Her conversation must be sober.

Before the coming of the whites, the Blackfeet used to smoke the leaves of a plant which they call na-wuh’-to-ski, and which is said to have been received long, long ago from a medicine beaver.  It was used unmixed with any other plant.  The story of how this came to the tribe is told elsewhere.[1] This tobacco is no longer planted by the Piegans, nor by the Bloods, though it is said that an old Blackfoot each year still goes through the ceremony, and raises a little.  The plant grows about ten inches high and has a long seed stalk growing from the centre.  White Calf, the chief of the Piegans, has the secrets of the tobacco and is perhaps the only person in the tribe who knows them.  From him I have received the following account of the ceremonies connected with it:—­

[Footnote 1:  The Beaver Medicine, p. 117.]

Early in the spring, after the last snow-storm, when the flowers begin to bud (early in the month of May), the women and children go into the timber and prepare a large bed, clearing away the underbrush, weeds and grass and leaves and sticks, raking the ground till the earth is thoroughly pulverized.  Elk, deer, and mountain sheep droppings are collected, pounded fine, and mixed with the seed which is to be sown.

On the appointed day all the men gather at the bed.  Each one holds in his hand a short, sharp-pointed stick, with which to make a hole in the ground.  The men stand in a row extending across the bed.  At a signal they make the holes in the ground, and drop in some seed, with some sacred sarvis berries.  The tobacco song is sung by the medicine men, all take a short step forward, make another hole, a foot in front of the last, and then drop in it some more seed.  Another song is sung, another step taken, and seed is again planted; and this continues until the line of men has moved all the way across the bed, and the planting is completed.  The tobacco dance follows the planting.