Blackfeet Indian Stories | Page 7

The young bear answered, "My father told me that I should go out and
get this meat and bring it home to him."
Kut-o-yis´ hit the young bear over the head with a stick and it ran home
crying.
When it had reached the lodge it told what had happened and the father
bear said, "I will go over there myself; perhaps this person will hit me
over the head."
When the old women saw the father and mother bear and all their

relations coming they were afraid, but Kut-o-yis´ jumped out of the
lodge and killed the bears one after another; all except one little
she-bear, a very small one, which got away.
"Well," said Kut-o-yis´, "you may go and breed more bears."
He told the old women to move over to the bear-painted lodge and after
this to live in it. It was theirs.
To the old women Kut-o-yis´ then said, "Now, grandmothers, where
are there any more people? I want to travel about and see them."
The old women said, "At the Point of Rocks--on Sun River--there is a
camp. There is a piskun there."
So Kut-o-yis´ set off for that place, and when he came to the camp he
went into an old woman's lodge.
The old woman gave him something to eat--a dish of bad food.
"Why is this, grandmother?" asked Kut-o-yis´. "Have you no food
better than this to give to a visitor? Down there I see a piskun; you
must kill plenty of buffalo and must have good food."
"Speak lower," said the old woman, "or you may be heard. We have no
good food because there is a great snake here who is the chief of the
camp. He takes all the best pieces. He lives over there in that
snake-painted lodge."
The next morning when the buffalo were led in, Kut-o-yis´ killed one,
and they took the back fat and carried it to their lodge. Then Kut-o-yis´
said, "I think I will visit that snake person." He went over and went into
the lodge, and there he saw many women that the snake person had
taken to be his wives. The women were cooking some service berries.
Kut-o-yis´ picked up the dish and ate the berries and threw the dish
away. Then he went up to the big snake, who was lying there asleep,
and pricked him with his knife, saying, "Here, get up; I have come to
visit you. Let us smoke together."
Then the snake was angry and he raised up his head and began to rattle,
and Kut-o-yis´ cut off his head and cut him in pieces. He cut off the
heads of all the snake's wives and children; all except one little female
snake which got away by crawling into a crack in the rocks.
"Oh, well," said Kut-o-yis´, "you can go and breed snakes so there will
be more. The people will not be afraid of little snakes."
Kut-o-yis´ said to the old woman, "Now, grandmother, go into this
snake lodge and take it for your own and everything that is in it."

Then he said to them, "Where are there some more people?" They told
him there were some camps down the river and some up in the
mountains, but they said, "Do not go up there. It is bad because there
lives [=A]i-s[=i]n´-o-k[=o]-k[=i]--Wind Sucker. He will kill you."
Kut-o-yis´ was glad to know that there was such a person, and he went
to the mountains.
When he reached the place where Wind Sucker lived, he looked into
his mouth and saw there many dead people. Some were skeletons and
some had only just died. He went in, and there he saw a fearful sight.
The ground was white as snow with the bones of those who had died.
There were bodies with flesh on them; some who had died not long
before and some who were still living.
As he looked about, he saw hanging down above him a great thing that
seemed to move--to grow a little larger and then to grow a little
smaller.
Kut-o-yis´ spoke to one of the people who was alive and asked, "What
is that hanging down above us?"
The person answered him, "That is Wind Sucker's heart."
Then Kut-o-yis´ spoke to all the living and said to them, "You who still
draw a little breath try to move your heads in time to the song that I
shall sing; and you who are still able to move stand up on your feet and
dance. Take courage now; we are going to dance to the ghosts."
Then Kut-o-yis´ tied his knife, point upward, to the top of his head and
began to dance, singing the ghost song, and all the others danced with
him; and as he danced up and