Reading Diary Week 10: Blackfoot Stories

Two Fast Runners: A deer and an antelope meet each other on the prairie. They challenged each other to a race. The antelope won the race on the prairie and gained the deer’s gall. The deer was upset and challenged the antelope to a race in the timber. They raced again and the deer won. He received the antelope’s dewclaws. Now no deer have a gall and no antelope have dewclaws.

The Wolf Man: A man moved him and his two wives away from society to make them better wives. They were not happy about this and dug a deep hole to have their husband fall in. He does and the wives leave. A wolf finds the man and calls to his brothers to help him save the man. The man is then turned into part man part wolf. He helps the wolves gain meet from the village. One night they 

capture him and he tells them how this happened. The Wives are never seen after that night.

The Dog and The Root Digger: A man gathered all the game from the prairie. Napi and a young boy went and found all the game and returned them to the prairie. When they got back a raven tried to keep them from getting the buffalo. Napi captured the raven and punished him. He eventually took pity on the raven and told him to turn himself into his true form and return home.

The Camp of the Ghosts: a man’s wife dies. He was very upset and went to ghost country and retrieved her. This took a lot of help from some medicine women. He was able to bring his wife home. One night he was frustrated with the wife and raised a brand from the fire. This is one thing he could never do if he wished to keep his wife. She disappeared and was never seen again.

The Buffalo Stone: This is the story of how the first buffalo stone was found.

How the Thunder Pipe Came: A man and his wife were struck by thunder. Thunder took his wife. The man went to find his wife. With from help from the Raven chief, he was able to get his wife back from the thunder. He was also given the thunder pipe by the thunder.

Cold Maker’s Medicine: An old woman was killing people to eat them. This made the cold make mad. He took broken bow and together they killed the old women.

The Rolling Rock: An old man gives a rock a robe for allowing him to sit on it. Later, it starts raining so he send a coyote to retrieve the robe from the rock. The rock would not allow it and the old man went and took it from the rock. The rock was mad and started rolling after them. It killed many animals that tried to help the old man. A flock of night-hawks broke the rock and saved his life. In return he make them pretty and queer-looking. 

Bear and Bullberries: an old man made fun of a bear and hid many times. Finally, the bear chases him until they got to a big rock. They went round and round the rock. Until the old man found a buffalo horn and made a horrible sound that scared the bear away. He then went to the river and saw bullberries. He dove down but could not get them. He decided to tie a rock to himself and almost drowned. He realized he was just seeing the reflection in the water and beat the bullberry bush.

The Theft from the Sun: An old man tried to still the suns legging but could never get away. The sun eventually gave the old man the leggings. The day the old man used the legging the fire that they caused kept after him and burned the leggings up. 

The Smart Woman Chief: An old man found the first women because men and women used to live separately. He arrange for men to gain wives. He wanted to marry the Woman Chief so he described how he would dress and the leader. The woman chief chose him but he turned her down because he did not recognize her because she was dirty. He was not picked because of this and was angry. He started destroying stuff and the woman chief turned him into a pine tree.  

Bobcat and Birch Tree: An old man tricked prairie dogs into roasting themselves. He ate some and then went to sleep. A bobcat came and ate the rest of his food. He found the bobcat and made it look like it does today. He then told the wind to blow to cool his burned nose. The wind blew too hard and he was being blown away. He grabbed a birch tree and it held him tight. He then made the birch tree look like it does today.   

The Red-Eyed Duck: An old man that was traveling was asked to sing songs for the ducks. They bothered him enough that he agreed. He sang them a song that if they opened their eyes they would turn red. As the ducks danced the old man started killing them. A young duck opened his eyes and saw what the old man was doing. He warned the other ducks and they flew away. The young duck’s eyes were turned red. 

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy: An old man and women were being starved by their son in law. The old man went out every day and helped him hunt but never received any food. One day the old man managed to grab a clot and take it home with him. It turned out to be a baby boy. They named him Kut-O-Yis. 

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy (cont.): Kut grew to a man very quickly. He took his father to kill a buffalo and then killed the son in law. He also punished the daughters but not the youngest as badly. She had been kind to her parents. 

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy (cont. again): Kut left his family to go to another camp. He helped that camp with their mean chief that would take the best meat from them. Kut killed the bear chief and all but a little she bear. He then told the old ladies to move into the bears lodge. 

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy (cont. yet again): Kut saved another village from a snake chief that was being stingy. He then went to the wind sucker and killed it but cutting its heart.  

Kut-O-Yis, The Blood Boy (end): Kut kept destroying bad things. One was a woman that wanted to wrestle. Another a woman that tripped people and they fell into the water and were eaten and lastly a man eater. He gave them all 4 chances not to mess with him and after that he killed them. He had killed 7 bad things.