August 27
Because we were to-day to embark upon the deep, dark waters of this lake, we yesterday had a little ceremony on the shore, beseeching the dread Under-Water People to have pity upon us and allow us to pass in safety over their domain. We had a little fire close to the water’s edge, and having filled and lighted his pipe with a coal taken from it with his sacred red tongs, old Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill smoked and made his prayers, at the same time casting into the water a little sack of his medicines as a sacrifice to the gods. It was a short ceremony, but satisfied even the most timid of the women that all would be well with them during their voyage upon the lake.
And so, where we once had rude rafts of logs, lashed together with rawhide ropes, we this morning embarked in good boats and went all up the beautiful lake, past Red Eagle, and Little Chief, and Almost-a-Dog Mountains to the head of the lake, and looking back at the slope of Milk River Ridge saw the far-apart, enormous footprints of Heavy Runner, keeper of the buffalo.
Away back in ancient times, after Old Man had made buffalo and they had increased and covered the plains, they had great desire to wander westward and see what might be on the other side of the great mountains. The people—the Blackfeet—learning of this were greatly distressed. The far side of the mountains, away west and still westward to the shores of the Everywhere-Water, was the country of their enemies, many tribes of them, and should they get possession of the buffalo herds they would never let them return. What to do about it they had no idea, so they called upon Old Man for help.
Said he: “I made the buffalo to be plains animals, and here upon these plains they shall remain, and other-side tribes shall come to you and ask permission to kill a few of them now and then. So, don’t worry. Go home now and attend to your affairs. All shall be well with you.”
The people went home. They saw that the buffalo remained upon the plains in apparently as great numbers as ever. But some of the hunters, to learn for sure if they were all there, ascended the different passes of the mountains and went down the other side for some distance. There were no buffalo, not even a few straggling bulls on the other side, and they wondered how Old Man was keeping them back. They soon learned. In a vision it was revealed to an old medicine man that a huge god, a man of enormous stature, was patrolling the mountains from far south to the everlasting snow of the north, and with a club driving the buffalo back eastward as fast as they came anywhere near the summit of the range. And so it was that the other tribes—those of the west—never got the buffalo.
On our way down the lake we passed the beautiful Sun Camp and the chalets of the Great Northern, perched upon the very spot where Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill and I killed many a bighorn and goat in times gone by. It was a favorite wintering place of the animals, for the winds kept the steep mountain slope practically bare from snow. And passing the mouth of the creek just above the camp, I remembered that I had named it after Thomas, and Colonel Robert, and the Honorable Cecil Baring, of London, with whom I often hunted back in the eighties. In those days there were many bighorn and goats, and not a few grizzlies back in the basin at the head of the creek. And what amusing and sometimes exciting adventures we had with them! One morning we espied a big “billy” goat on a ledge, and just as we saw him he moved to the back side of it and lay down, showing only an inch or two of the top of his back.
“Who will go up and rout him out, so that I can get a shot?” asked Colonel Baring, and Jack Bean, of Yellowstone fame, volunteered.
It was to be a steep, almost straight-up climb, so Jack laid down his rifle and started without encumbrance of any kind. At last he reached the shelf and stood up on it, and that “billy” came for him, head down! And Jack! Never have I seen a man come down a dangerous cliff so fast as he did! And he kept coming, falling, sliding, rolling, and then Colonel Baring fired and dropped the goat, and man and animal came the rest of the way to the foot of the place together! We had been too much concerned for the safety of our friend to laugh, but when he at last stood up and faced us, bloody, half-naked, but not seriously hurt, we roared. But Jack never even smiled: “Who would have thought that a blankety-blank goat would go for a fellow!” he exclaimed; and he went to the creek to repair the damages to his person.
On this day, halting here and there along the lake, we took some views of the scenery and of our people, and at sunset were back in our lodges. For some of us it is a last trip over the old, familiar ground. My two old friends, Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill and Yellow Wolf, must soon go on to their Shadow Land!
We were not too tired to-night for story-telling, so, after the children had been put to bed and all was quiet, Takes-Gun-Ahead gave us the following, the story of tobacco, which is called
Na-Wak′-o-Sis
“In that long ago time when the earth was young, and people had not long been made, a man threw some weeds upon a fire and found that the odor, the smoke from their burning, was very pleasant. That night he had a vision and learned that this plant was strong medicine; that, when smoked in a pipe, which his vision explained to him how to make, it would be the right thing with which to offer prayers to the gods. He also taught the man the prayers and all the ceremony that went with the prayers; and told him how to plant the weeds, from the seeds on their tops, so that he could always have plenty of it.
“This man was very much pleased with what he had learned. He went to his three brother medicine men and told them all about it, and the four of them formed a society of themselves and no others, for the raising of the weed and its proper uses. But they were very stingy with this weed, which they named na-wak′-o-sis, and would only now and then give the people a leaf of it, although they raised large numbers of the stalks in every summer time.
“A young man named Lone Bull was very anxious to become a member of this medicine society, but because he had no medicines and knew not the rites of it, he was told that he could not join it. At that time the camp of the people was close under Chief Mountain. He left it, with his woman and his pack dogs, and moved up to the river running out of the Inside Lakes, and there set up his lodge. Said he then to his woman: ‘I have come up here to get medicines; in some way to find things that will enable me to become a raiser of na-wak′-o-sis. If I can do that, I shall be of great help to the people. Now, then, I am going to hunt and collect all the medicine skins I can find, and you stay at home, take care of the lodge, gather wood, and cook what meat we need. I shall bring in plenty of fat meat along with the skins.’
“The man went hunting every day, and the woman remained at home. One day, when the man was gone, she thought she heard singing; beautiful singing; but look where she would she could see no singers. She spoke to the man about it when he came home that evening, and made him feel uneasy: ‘If you hear it again, look about more carefully,’ he told her.
“She heard it the next day, and this time located it, right under the lodge. She went out to the bank of the river and looked at the bank: there, under the water, were beaver holes in it, and beaver cuttings upon the sandy bottom, and by that she knew that the lodge had been set up above a bank beaver’s home, and that beavers were the singers. She went back to the lodge, lay down and put her ear to the ground, and could then hear them plainly, and was pleased. Their singing was so good that it was all that she could do to stop listening to them and begin cooking the evening meal.
“When Lone Bull came home that night she told him what she had learned, but he could hear nothing, although he put his ear close to the ground. Nor could he hear the singing the next evening, nor the next, although his woman could hear it plainly. So now the woman got her knife and cut a round hole in the ground, and Lone Bull laid his head in it and could then hear the singing. He told her to make the hole deeper; larger. She did so, and cut clear through the ground, and looking down he could see the beavers sitting in their home, singing beautiful songs, and dancing strange and beautiful dances in time to them.
“‘Younger brothers, have pity on me!’ he cried. ‘Oh, my young brothers, teach me your medicine!’
“They looked up and saw him, and one answered: ‘Close the hole that you have made, because the light disturbs us, and we will soon be with you.’
“They soon came in through the doorway, four fine-looking men, beautifully dressed. They had changed themselves from beavers to men. They took seats, and then one of them said to Lone Bull: ‘Elder brother, what is it that you want of us? How can we help you?’
“Lone Bull told them what it was: his great desire to obtain na-wak′-o-sis and grow it for the people.
“‘We have that plant; like us it is from the water, a water medicine,’ the beaver man told him; ‘but before you can use it you have much to do, much to learn. You have to learn all our songs and prayers and dances and different ceremonies, and gather for the ceremonies a skin of every animal and bird that is of the water, one of each except the beavers, and of them there must be two. You know these animals and birds: otter, mink, muskrat; different kinds of ducks; the fish hawk, and all the other birds that get their food from the life of the water. Why? Because there are two great life-givers of this world: the sun, which gives heat, and water, that makes growth, and in our ceremonies the skins of these different animals are symbols of the water.’
“‘I shall collect them all, so teach me everything,’ Lone Bull told them. And they began that very night.
“Day after day Lone Bull hunted the animals and birds, brought in their skins for his woman to cure, and night after night the beavers taught him their medicine, all the sacred prayers and dances and ceremonies of it. And at last he knew them all thoroughly.
“Then, one night, the beaver chief handed him some stalks of na-wak′-o-sis, the top stems all covered with little round seeds.
“‘These,’ said he, ’are the children of the big-leaved plants; put them into the ground and they will grow and make other plants that bear children. And now, I must tell you just how to plant: Gather a great, long, wide pile of old dry logs, dry brush and weeds, and set it afire. The heat from it will burn the ground, burn the sod, and make everything soft under it. Then, when the place has cooled, gather from around badger holes, squirrel holes, and wherever you can find it, plenty of the brown earth they have thrown out, and mix it with the burned black earth, so that it will not pack hard around the seeds, and keep them from coming up into the sunlight.
“‘After you have taken all the seeds from the stems, you must put them in a sack and not touch them again with your hands. With an antelope horn you will make row after row of little holes all across the burned ground and only a hand apart, and with a buffalo-horn spoon drop a seed into each hole. When that is done, and it will require a long time, you and yours are to dance along each row of seed, singing the sacred songs, your feet lightly pressing down the ground over the seed. At the end of a row you must step across to the next row, and dance backward on that one, and forward on the next, and so on until the last row has been pressed down, and all your songs have been sung. Then you can go away from the place for a time. Return after one moon has passed, and you will find that the young plants have grown above the ground. Watch them, that insects do not destroy them. Give them water if the rains fail you. They will grow all summer, and fade with the ripening of the choke-cherries. Cut them then, care well for them, and you and your people will have a plenty for your winter smokes and ceremonies. There! I have told you all!’
“It was planting-time then. Lone Bull moved right up to the foot of the lower one of the Inside Lakes, and did everything that he had been told to do, his wife helping him in every way. People hunting from down Chief Mountain way came and saw his growing plants, and went home and told about them. The four medicine men just laughed. ‘Ha!’ They cried. ‘He has no na-wak′-o-sis! He wanted to join us and we would not let him into our society. He but plants some useless weed.’
“But later on, just as their planting was getting ripe, a terrible hailstorm came along and destroyed it all; every leaf was cut into fine pieces! They cried from grief! Then they said among themselves: ‘Na-wak′-o-sis we must have or our medicines will be without power. It may be that this Lone Bull really has the true plants: let us go up and see them.’
“They went, all the people with them, and saw that he had the sacred plants. The hailstorm had come nowhere near his place.
“Said they to him then: ‘You have a big planting, and we will help you gather it, and you and we four will use it. You shall join us.’
“Lone Bull laughed long before he answered: ‘I need no help from you. You shall each have a little of my planting for your own use, and you shall pay me well for it. The rest, excepting what I need, I shall give to the people, and hereafter they will always have all that they need of the plants.’
“And as he said that he would do, so he did, and the people gave him great praise and honor for it all, and he lived to great age. Kyi! Why not? He had the beaver—the water medicine! It is a powerful medicine to this day!”
A visitor in our camp this evening told a tale that ill pleases us. There is a tourist camp away up in Gun-Sight Pass, one of the most weirdly beautiful places in this whole country. There, the other day, an employee was putting up a table on which were painted arrows pointing to the different mountains, the name of each peak alongside its particular arrow.
A tourist standing near and watching the work suddenly exclaimed: “Why, over there is a peak that has no name. Can you not name it after me?”
“Certainly I can,” the employee answered; and painted another arrow and inscribed beside it: “Lehnert Peak.”
“And over there is a fine waterfall,” the tourist said. “Will you please name it after my little daughter?”
“Sure!” said the man; and painted another arrow pointing to “Mary Frances Falls.”
Enough said!