STORIES OF OLD MAN

THE BLACKFOOT GENESIS

All animals of the Plains at one time heard and knew him, and all birds of the air heard and knew him.  All things that he had made understood him, when he spoke to them,—­the birds, the animals, and the people.

Old Man was travelling about, south of here, making the people.  He came from the south, travelling north, making animals and birds as he passed along.  He made the mountains, prairies, timber, and brush first.  So he went along, travelling northward, making things as he went, putting rivers here and there, and falls on them, putting red paint here and there in the ground,—­fixing up the world as we see it to-day.  He made the Milk River (the Teton) and crossed it, and, being tired, went up on a little hill and lay down to rest.  As he lay on his back, stretched out on the ground, with arms extended, he marked himself out with stones,—­the shape of his body, head, legs, arms, and everything.  There you can see those rocks to-day.  After he had rested, he went on northward, and stumbled over a knoll and fell down on his knees.  Then he said, “You are a bad thing to be stumbling against”; so he raised up two large buttes there, and named them the Knees, and they are called so to this day.  He went on further north, and with some of the rocks he carried with him he built the Sweet Grass Hills.

Old Man covered the plains with grass for the animals to feed on.  He marked off a piece of ground, and in it he made to grow all kinds of roots and berries,—­camas, wild carrots, wild turnips, sweet-root, bitter-root, sarvis berries, bull berries, cherries, plums, and rosebuds.  He put trees in the ground.  He put all kinds of animals on the ground.  When he made the bighorn with its big head and horns, he made it out on the prairie.  It did not seem to travel easily on the prairie; it was awkward and could not go fast.  So he took it by one of its horns, and led it up into the mountains, and turned it loose; and it skipped about among the rocks, and went up fearful places with ease.  So he said, “This is the place that suits you; this is what you are fitted for, the rocks and the mountains.”  While he was in the mountains, he made the antelope out of dirt, and turned it loose, to see how it would go.  It ran so fast that it fell over some rocks and hurt itself.  He saw that this would not do, and took the antelope down on the prairie, and turned it loose; and it ran away fast and gracefully, and he said, “This is what you are suited to.”

One day Old Man determined that he would make a woman and a child; so he formed them both—­the woman and the child, her son—­of clay.  After he had moulded the clay in human shape, he said to the clay, “You must be people,” and then he covered it up and left it, and went away.  The next morning he went to the place and took the covering off, and saw that the clay shapes had changed a little.  The second morning there was still more change, and the third still more.  The fourth morning he went to the place, took the covering off, looked at the images, and told them to rise and walk; and they did so.  They walked down to the river with their Maker, and then he told them that his name was Na’pi, Old Man.