Chapter 6 No.6

Ni-na Us-tak-wi (Chief Mountain)

September 7.

WE came up here the other day to the foot of this great landmark of the country, and made camp beside a running spring in the edge of the timber. The mountain is most appropriately named. It is the outer one of an eastward projecting spur of the range, and is higher than any of the peaks behind it. A chief, a leader, should always be taller, more conspicuous in every way than his followers. This mountain gradually slopes up eastward from the one behind it to an altitude of 9056 feet, then drops in a sheer cliff several thousand feet to its steep slope running down to the plain. From several hundred miles to the north, and an equal distance to the south, and from the Bear Paw Mountains to the east, it can be plainly seen, grim, majestic, a veritable Chief of Mountains, and for that reason the Blackfeet so named it in the long ago.

The way to climb the mountain is by the long, narrow, and in places cut-walled ridge running up toward its summit from the west, and then one has but one cliff to surmount, the one almost at its crest. Only men and goats and bighorn can scale that cliff, but on the extreme summit lies an old buffalo skull, taken there by a Blackfoot in the long ago for a pillow rest while getting his medicine dream. There he fasted for days, and at last, in his weakened condition resulting from want of food and water, got his vision, his medicine which was to be his guardian through life. Who was it that came to him in his fasting dreams? Ancient Buffalo, perhaps; or, maybe, Morning Star. Whoever it was, he went staggering down the mountain and to camp, absolutely certain that he had found his guardian spirit, his medium for favor with the greatest god of all, the Sun, supreme ruler of this earth.

EN ROUTE TO ICEBERG LAKE

We are here again upon our own ground, the Blackfeet Reservation, and so once more have meat in camp, fat bighorn and fat mule deer, killed by our hunters. This was once a great wintering place for deer and elk, and, higher up, for bighorn. Some years ago a hunter, Na-mik′-ai-yi by name, trailed a band of elk around to the ridge behind the mountain and up its narrow way until they came to the foot of the cliff near the summit and could go no farther. There they turned back toward him and he fired one shot and dropped the leader. The others, afraid to try to dash past him, chose the one alternative: they rushed to the high cliff there on the north side of the ridge, and sprang from it, and were all killed by the fall, eighty head of them!

September 8.

Last night, after our feast of ni-tap′-i-wak-sin (real meat) we gathered in Yellow Wolf's lodge for a smoke and a talk, and our host gave us a little story that I must here set down, the story of

THE WISE MAN

"Here, under this mountain, the people were encamped and two of them were Wise Man[13] and his woman. He was so named because he was always finding out how to do useful things.

[13] Mo-k?k′-i In-ah. Back

"Up to the time of this encampment the people had had nothing to wear but the plainest kind of garments, shirts, leggins, gowns, moccasins, all made of plain tanned leather of different kinds. Wise Man thought long about this, and finally said to his wife: 'Let us move away from camp for a time, and go farther into the mountains. I have a plan that I want to try by myself.'

"The next morning they packed their dogs and moved up to the foot of the Inside Lakes, crossed the outlet, and made camp. Wise Man then did some hunting, killed plenty of meat for his wife and the dogs, and began on his plan for making clothing more pleasing to the eye. He went up on the high ridge between the lakes and Little River and dug an eagle trap. That is, he dug a pit somewhat longer and wider than his body, and quite deep, and killed a deer and laid it beside the pit, and slashed its body so that the liver protruded. He then got into the pit, covered the top of it with willow sticks and grass, and waited, hoping that eagles would see the deer and come to eat it. They did come; he could hear the heavy swish of their wings as they sailed down upon it; and as they were eating the liver he would cautiously reach up, grasp them by the legs, pull them down into the pit, and kneeling upon them crush out their life. In this way, one at a time, he caught many eagles, and took them home as he caught them, and took from their bodies the tail feathers, the fluffy plume feathers, and others that he thought would answer his purpose.

"They had a very rank, unpleasant odor, these feathers; so, when he thought that he had enough of them, he had his woman cover the floor of the lodge with a thick layer of sweet sage, upon which he carefully spread them. He then threw a quantity of sweetgrass upon the fire, and, running from the lodge, the two tightly closed it and kept the smoke inside. This last they did three or four times until the feathers lost their bad odor, and were perfumed with the pleasant odor of sweetgrass and sweet sage, both perfumes sacred to the gods, as they afterward learned.

"Winter was now come, and Wise Man began to hunt weasels, brown and common of appearance in summer, but white and beautiful in winter. This was more difficult work than trapping eagles, but by setting many snares he caught during the winter more than a hundred of them. He then made a headdress of some of the eagle tail feathers, and suspended from it a number of weasel skins, and along the seams of his shirt and leggins tied a number of the weasel skins. He then put on the headdress and his ornamental clothes and stood up and asked his woman how he appeared in them.

"'You seem to have become a different man,' she answered. 'You look very brave, very handsome. The clothes are beautiful.'

"'They are of better appearance than they were,' he said, 'but I am not yet satisfied. Perhaps I can improve them; but first I have to do something for you.'

"Wise Man put away his new clothes, and in old ones hunted elk, taking from them their two tushes, and in the evening boring holes in the soft part. Having collected two hundred, he sewed them in rows on the breast and the back of his woman's new gown, and both saw that it was then a handsome gown.

"Said the woman: 'There! We are now complete; we have fine appearance. Let us go home and show the people what we have done.'

"'No,' Wise Man answered; 'something is lacking, something that will make our clothes really beautiful. I have done all that I can without help, and now I shall ask the gods to show me what more to do.'

"Perhaps it was the gods that directed his footsteps the next day. As he was going through the timber he came upon the remains of a porcupine, its quills scattered all around upon the ground. He sat down, took up some and examined them, and the thought came to him that they could be dyed different colors and in some way sewed upon garments and make them of brighter hue. He took all that he could find, and killed several more porcupines, and carried home all the long quills to his woman and told her his plan.

"Said she, 'I know that the yellow moss that grows on pine trees will stain anything a yellow that will not fade, that cannot be washed off. Let us seek for other colors.'

"They sought a long time, finding a green color in a certain wood, a red in the juice of a plant, and then they dyed the quills the three colors. Meantime the woman had been trying different ways to fasten the quills to leather, and now, by flattening them, turning in the ends, and sewing them side by side with very fine sinew and with the finest of bone needles, she succeeded in making long bands of them of different designs in the various colors. She was a long, long time making them, but at last she made enough of the bands to sew onto the arms of Wise Man's shirt, and down his leggins, and upon the neck front-and-back of her gown. Each was so pleased with the appearance of the other then that they kissed and almost cried with joy. Early the following morning they packed up, crossed the river, and started for the camp, still here at Chief Mountain. As soon as they came in sight of it they stopped, put on their fine clothes, and then went on. The people saw them approaching, but not until they were right close to the camp were they recognized. Then what a crowd surrounded them, staring at their beautiful garments, asking questions without end, and as soon as they learned how this had all been done, they began at once to gather material for similar clothing. And Wise Man, of course, became a great man in the tribe, for to him was due the discovery of the way to make beautiful things."

GLACIER ON TRAIL TO ICEBERG LAKE

September 9.

Although nothing has been said, we have not been so cheerful as usual for the past few days, for all have known that we must soon part and go our several ways. Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill is a sick man, and Yellow Wolf but little better, so to-night we decided to break camp in the morning. To-morrow night each family will be at home on Cutbank, Willow Creek, Two Medicine, and Badger, all streams of the Reservation, and I shall be upon my way to the Always-Summer-Land.

Well, we have had a pleasant time these past two months, traveling and camping along our old trails, and yet the evenings around the lodge fires have not been of unalloyed joy: all have been tinged with sad memories of other days; of deep regret that the old days-days when we had all this great country to ourselves-are gone forever. And so, to-night, after our quiet, last evening meal together, we had no story-telling, no passing of the pipe; none had the heart for it; and I am writing these last words by the light of a dying fire, true symbol of the passing of all things. And now, by its last, blue flicker, I write-

THE END

Transcriber's Note

Names may appear both in hyphenated and unhyphenated forms, e.g. Pi′-ta-mak-an and Pi′tamakan. These are preserved as printed.

Both ap-ut′-o-sohts and Ap-ut′-o-sosts appear in the book, referring to 'North.' It is possible that Ap-ut′-o-sosts is a printer error, as compass directions seem to end in ~ohts, but as the transcriber was unable to establish this as a certainty, it is preserved as printed.

Minor punctuation errors have been repaired.

The following amendments have been made:

Page vii-Is-i-sak′-ta amended to Is-si-sak′-ta-Ki-nuk′-si Is-si-sak′-ta (Little River)

Page 143-warror amended to warrior-It struck the old warrior fair in the ribs.

The frontispiece illustration has been moved to follow the title page. Other illustrations have been moved where necessary so that they are not in the middle of a paragraph.