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-k[)u]nni, and when the chief wanted her for a wife, they gave her to
him. Sometimes Api-k[)u]nni 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-k[)u]nni 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-k[)u]nni, "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-k[)u]nni 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, travelling 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-k[)u]nni 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-k[)u]nni, "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-k)u]nni 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 travelling toward the lake where the beaver dam
was.
Api-k[)u]nni 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-k[)u]nni 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-k[)u]nni 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-k[)u]nni
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-k[)u]nni 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-k[)u]nni
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-k[)u]nni
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.
NEXT