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This story goes
back many years, to a time before the Indians went to
war against each other. Then there was peace among all
the tribes. They met, and did not kill each other. They
had no guns and they had no horses. When two tribes met,
the head chiefs would take each a stick and touch each
other. Each had counted a coup on the other, and they
then went back to their camps. It was more a friendly
than a hostile ceremony.
Oftentimes, when a party of young
men had gone to a strange camp, and had done this to
those whom they had visited, they would come back to
their homes and would tell the girls whom they loved
that they had counted a coup on this certain tribe of
people. After the return of such a party, the young
women would have a dance. Each one would wear clothing
like that of the man she loved, and as she danced, she
would count a coup, saying that she herself had done the
deed which her young lover had really done. Such was the
custom of the people.
There was a chief in a camp who had
three wives, all very pretty women. He used to say to
these women, whenever a dance was called: "Why do not
you go out and dance too? Perhaps you have some one in
the camp that you love, and for whom you would like to
count a coup" Then the women would say, "No, we do not
wish to join the dance; we have no lovers."
There was in the camp a poor young
man, whose name was Api-kunni. He had no relations, and
no one to tan robes or furs for him, and he was always
badly clad and in rags. Whenever he got some clothing,
he wore it as long as it would hold together. This young
man loved the youngest wife of the chief, and she loved
him. But her parents were not rich, and they could not
give her to Api-kunni, and when the chief wanted her for
a wife, they gave her to him. Sometimes Api-kunni and
this girl used to meet and talk together, and he used to
caution her, saying, "Now be careful that you do not
tell any one that you see me." She would say, "No, there
is no danger; I will not let it be known."
One evening, a dance was called for
the young women to dance, and the chief said to his
wives: "Now, women, you had better go to this dance. If
any of you have persons whom you love, you might as well
go and dance for them." Two of them said: "No, we will
not go. There is no one that we love." But the third
said, "Well, I think I will go and dance." The chief
said to her, "Well, go then; your lover will surely
dress you up for the dance."
The girl went to where Api-kunni as
living in an old woman's lodge, very poorly furnished,
and told him what she was going to do, and asked him to
dress her for the dance. He said to her: "Oh, you have
wronged me by coming here, and by going to the dance. I
told you to keep it a secret." The girl said: "Well,
never mind; no one will know your dress. Fix me up, and
I will go and join the dance anyway." "Why," said
Api-kunni, "I never have been to war. I have never
counted any coups. You will go and dance and will have
nothing to say. The people will laugh at you." But when
he found that the girl wanted to go, he painted her
forehead with red clay, and tied a goose skin, which he
had, about her head, and lent her his badly tanned robe,
which in spots was hard like a parfleche. He said to
her, "If you will go to the dance, say, when it comes
your turn to speak, that when the water in the creeks
gets warm, you are going to war, and are going to count
a coup on some people."
The woman went to the dance, and
joined in it. All the people were laughing at her on
account of her strange dress, a goose skin around her
head, and a badly tanned robe about her. The people in
the dance asked her: "Well, what are you dancing for?
What can you tell?" The woman said, "I am dancing here
today, and when the water in the streams gets warm next
spring, I am going to war; and then I will tell you what
I have done to any people." The chief was standing
present, and when he learned who it was that his young
wife loved, he was much ashamed and went to his lodge.
When the dance was over, this young
woman went to the lodge of the poor young man to give
back his dress to him. Now, while she had been gone,
Api-kunni had been thinking over all these things, and
he was very much ashamed. He took his robe and his goose
skin and went away. He was so ashamed that he went away
at once, traveling off over the prairie, not caring
where he went, and crying all the time. As he wandered
away, he came to a lake, and at the foot of this lake
was a beaver dam, and by the dam a beaver house. He
walked out on the dam and on to the beaver house. There
he stopped and sat down, and in his shame cried the rest
of the day, and at last he fell asleep on the beaver
house.
While he slept, he dreamed that a
beaver came to him a very large beaver and said: "My
poor young man, come into my house. I pity you, and will
give you something that will help you." So Api-kunni got
up, and followed the beaver into the house. When he was
in the house, he awoke, and saw sitting opposite him a
large white beaver, almost as big as a man. He thought
to himself, "This must be the chief of all the beavers,
white because very old." The beaver was singing a song.
It was a very strange song, and he sang it a long time.
Then he said to Api-kunni, "My son, why are you
mourning?" and the young man told him everything that
had happened, and how he had been shamed. Then the
beaver said: "My son, stay here this winter with me. I
will provide for you. When the time comes, and you have
learned our songs and our ways, I will let you go. For a
time make this your home." So Api-kunni stayed there
with the beaver, and the beaver taught him many strange
things. All this happened in the fall.
Now the chief in the camp missed
this poor young man, and he asked the people where he
had gone. No one knew. They said that the last that had
been seen of him he was traveling toward the lake where
the beaver dam was.
Api-kunni had a friend, another
poor young man named Wolf Tail, and after a while, Wolf
Tail started out to look for his friend. He went toward
this lake, looking everywhere, and calling out his name.
When he came to the beaver house, he kicked on the top
and called, "Oh, my brother, are you here?" Api-kunni
answered him, and said: "Yes, I am here. I was brought
in while I was asleep, and I cannot give you the secret
of the door, for I do not know it myself." Wolf Tail
said to him, "Brother, when the weather gets warm a
party is going to start from camp to war." Api-kunni
said: "Go home and try to get together all the moccasins
you can, but do not tell them that I am here. I am
ashamed to go back to the camp. When the party starts,
come this way and bring me the moccasins, and we two
will start from here." He also said: "I am very thin.
The beaver food here does not agree with me. We are
living on the bark of willows." Wolf Tail went back to
the camp and gathered together all the moccasins that he
could, as he had been asked to do.
When the spring came, and the grass
began to start, the war party set out. At this time the
beaver talked to Apikunni a long time, and told him many
things. He dived down into the water, and brought up a
long stick of aspen wood, cut off from it a piece as
long as a man's arm, trimmed the twigs off it, and gave
it to the young man. "Keep this," the beaver said, "and
when you go to war take it with you." The beaver also
gave him a little sack of medicine, and told him what he
must do.
When the party started out, Wolf
Tail came to the beaver house, bringing the moccasins,
and his friend came out of the house. They started in
the direction the party had taken and traveled with
them, but off to one side. When they stopped at night,
the two young men camped by themselves.
They traveled for many days, until
they came to Bow River, and found that it was very high.
On the other side of the river, they saw the lodges of a
camp. In this camp a man was making a speech, and
Api-kunni said to his friend, "Oh, my brother, I am
going to kill that man today, so that my sweetheart may
count coup on him." These two were at a little distance
from the main party, above them on the river. The people
in the camp had seen the Blackfeet, and some had come
down to the river. When Api-kunni had said this to Wolf
Tail, he took his clothes off and began to sing the song
the beaver had taught him. This was the song:
I am like an island, For on an
island I got my power. In battle I live While people
fall away from me.
While he sang this, he had in his
hand the stick which the beaver had given him. This was
his only weapon.
He ran to the bank, jumped in and
dived, and came up in the middle of the river, and
started to swim across. The rest of the Blackfeet saw
one of their number swimming across the river, and they
said to each other: "Who is that? Why did not some one
stop him?" While he was swimming across, the man who had
been making the speech saw him and went down to meet
him. He said: "Who can this man be, swimming across the
river? He is a stranger. I will go down and meet him,
and kill him." As the boy was getting close to the
shore, the man waded out in the stream up to his waist,
and raised his knife to stab the swimmer. When Api-kunni
got near him, he dived under the water and came up close
to the man, and thrust the beaver stick through his
body, and the man fell down in the water and died.
Api-kunni caught the body, and dived under the water
with it, and came up on the other side where he had left
his friend. Then all the Blackfeet set up the war whoop,
for they were glad, and they could hear a great crying
in the camp. The people there were sorry for the man who
was killed.
People in those days never killed
one another, and this was the first man ever killed in
war.
They dragged the man up on the bank, and Api-kunni
said to his brother, "Cut off those long hairs on the
head." The young man did as he was told. He scalped him
and counted coup on him; and from that time forth,
people, when they went to war, killed one another and
scalped the dead enemy, as this poor young man had done.
Two others of the main party came to the place, and
counted coup on the dead body, making four who had
counted coup. From there, the whole party turned about
and went back to the village whence they had come.
When they came in sight of the
lodges, they sat down in a row facing the camp. The man
who had killed the enemy was sitting far in front of the
others. Behind him sat his friend, and behind Wolf Tail,
sat the two who had counted coup on the body. So these
four were strung out in front of the others. The chief
of the camp was told that some people were sitting on a
hill near by, and when he had gone out and looked, he
said: "There is some one sitting way in front. Let
somebody go out and see about it." A young man ran out
to where he could see, and when he had looked, he ran
back and said to the chief, "Why, that man in front is
the poor young man."
The old chief looked around, and
said: "Where is that young woman, my wife? Go and find
her." They went to look for her, and found her out
gathering rosebuds, for while the young man whom she
loved was away, she used to go out and gather rosebuds
and dry them for him. When they found her, she had her
bosom full of them. When she came to the lodge, the
chief said to her: "There is the man you love, who has
come. Go and meet him." She made ready quickly and ran
out and met him. He said: "Give her that hair of the
dead man. Here is his knife. There is the coat he had
on, when I killed him. Take these things back to the
camp, and tell the people who made fun of you that this
is what you promised them at the time of that dance."
The whole party then got up and
walked to the camp. The woman took the scalp, knife and
coat to the lodge, and gave them to her husband. The
chief invited Api-kunni to come to his lodge to visit
him. He said: "I see that you have been to war, and that
you have done more than any of us have ever done. This
is a reason why you should be a chief. Now take my lodge
and this woman, and live here. Take my place and rule
these people. My two wives will be your servants." When
Api-kunni heard this, and saw the young woman sitting
there in the lodge, he could not speak. Something seemed
to rise up in his throat and choke him.
So this young man lived in the camp
and was known as their chief.
After a time, he called his people
together in council and told them of the strange things
the beaver had taught him, and the power that the beaver
had given him. He said: "This will be a benefit to us
while we are a people now, and afterward it will be
handed down to our children, and if we follow the words
of the beaver we will be lucky. This seed the beaver
gave me, and told me to plant it every year. When we ask
help from the beaver, we will smoke this plant."
This plant was the Indian tobacco,
and it is from the beaver that the Blackfeet got it.
Many strange things were taught this man by the beaver,
which were handed down and are followed till today.
Blackfoot Mythology |
