Reading Notes: Blackfoot Stories: Reading A

 Interesting Characters

1. Napi / Old Man: In different stories, Old Man can either be helpful or unhelpful. Sometimes he acts wisely, but sometimes he acts foolishly, almost dies, and relies on other animals to help him. He is involved in many origin stories, including those of the nighthawk, bullberries, and boulders, so he is obviously very old or lived long ago. In some tales he acts like a god, telling people that no one has the power to fool him.
2. The Cold Maker: The Cold Maker is another old man who is white in appearance, including hair and clothes. He is very powerful—he can see ghosts and gives humans their first medicine pipe. He also has the ability to control the weather just by blowing some down feathers. He has a sense of justice, becoming angry that an old woman was practicing cannibalism and feeding humans to grizzly bears. 
3. The Raven: The Raven is a very powerful creature, being the only thing Thunder fears. Even a raven wing is enough to hold him back. The raven has a lot of wisdom, knowing which medicines to help the man whose wife was stolen by Thunder. The Raven seems neutral with regards to good and evil; knowledge is his main characteristic. The man who was smart enough to capture the buffalo assumed the form of the Raven, though this ultimately couldn't fool Napi.
4. Thunder: Thunder in the Blackfeet stories induces fright in everyone, because he has the ability to kill all animals (except the raven) and take women at will. Although, we also learn that he brings the rains to help plants grow, so at the end of the story humans learn to pray to him.
5. Old Women: Multiple stories in this unit had old women with magical abilities and unnatural knowledge. Two old women led a man to the camp of ghosts and told him exactly how to get there. One had the exact magical objects and detailed instructions needed for the man to return his wife to the living without dying. Another story had a women who would lure people into her hut, kill them, and feed them to grizzly bears that she had somehow befriended. All of these women live alone.
6. Ghosts: Ghosts living in the camp of ghosts have a number of interesting characteristics. They live on Earth beyond the sand hills in a camp very similar to one living humans dwell in. However, it is very hard for them to return to the land of the living, and they hate the smell of a living person.
7. The Sun: The Sun is obviously very powerful, but his character seems to look and act like any other man. He lives in a lodge, goes hunting, and acts like a friend towards the Old Man. However, His lodge can travel over the whole world, and his hunting leggings have the ability to set the brush on fire.

Other Notes: I found it interesting that the magic performed in these stories seems centered around physical objects or medicine, such as the buffalo stone, medicine pipe, worm pipe, strings of eyes, etc. Songs and prayers are mentioned, but far less frequently than objects with hidden power.

Story Source: Blackfeet Indian Stories by George Bird Grinnel (1915).

Image Source: Rising Wolf Mountain in Montana