blackfoot legend

Story of the Ancient Blackfeet

Blackfeet of the Plains

Long, long ago, before our fathers or grand-fathers were born, before the white people knew anything about the western half of North America, the Indians who told these stories lived on the Western plains.

To the west of their home rose high mountains, black with pine-trees on their lower slopes and capped with snow, but their tents were pitched on the rolling prairie. For a little while in spring this prairie was green and dotted with flowers, but for most of the year it stretched away brown and bare, north, east, and south, farther than one could see.

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The Buffalo Rock

A Blackfoot Legend

The buffalo rock, as called by the Blackfeet Indians, was usually a fossil shell of some kind, picked up on the prairie. Whoever found one was considered fortunate, for it was thought to give a person great power over buffalo. The owner put the stone in his lodge, near the fire, and prayed over it. This story reveals not only the use of such a rock, but also a common method of hunting buffalo before the Indians had horses.

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Origin of the Buffalo Dance

When the buffalo first came to be upon the land, they were not friendly to the people. When the hunters tried to coax them over the cliffs for the good of the villages, they were reluctant to offer themselves up.

They did not relish being turned into blankets and dried flesh for winter rations. They did not want their hooves and horn to become tools and utinsels nor did they welcome their sinew being used for sewing. "No, no," they said. We won't fall into your traps. And we will not fall for your tricks."

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