ETHNOLOGY OF THE BLACKFOOT TRIBES. 209 



The primitive creation is attributed to a superior divinity, whom they 

 call the Creator {Apistotokin) , and sometimes identify with the sun. 

 After this divinity of whom their ideas are very vague had created 

 the watery expanse, another deity, with the aid of four animals, of 

 which the muskrat was the chief, brought some earth from the bottom 

 of the abyss, expanded it to the present continent, and peopled it with 

 human beings. This deity is commonly styled by them the " Old 

 Man " (JYapiw), a name implying, as used by them, a feeling of affec- 

 tionate admiration. He is represented as a powerful but tricksy spirit, 

 half Jupiter and half Mercury. " He appears," writes M. Lacombe, " in 

 many other traditions and legendary accounts, in which he is associ- 

 ated with the various kinds of animals, speaking to them, making use 

 of them, and especially cheating them, and playing every kind of 

 trick." In this being we recognize at once the most genuine and 

 characteristic of all the Algonkin divinities. In every tribe of this 

 wide-spread family, from Nova Scotia to Virginia, and from the Dela- 

 ware to the Rocky Mountains, he reappears under various names 

 Manabozho, Michabo, Wetuks, Glooskap, Wisaketjak, Napiw but 

 everywhere with the same traits and the same history. He is at once 

 a creator, a defender, a teacher, and at the same time a conqueror, a 

 robber, and a deceiver. But the robbery and deceit, it would seem, 

 are usually for some good purpose. He preserves mankind from their 

 enemies, and uses the arts of these enemies to circumvent and destroy 

 them. In Longfellow's charming poem, he is confounded with the 

 Iroquois hero, Hiawatha. In Dr. Brinton's view, his origin is to 

 be found in a Nature - myth, representing " on the one hand the 

 unceasing struggle of day with night, light with darkness, and on 

 the other that no less important conflict which is ever waging be- 

 tween the storm and sunshine, the winter and summer, the rain and 

 clear sky." 



Napiw, the " Old Man," has, it seems, other names in the Blackfoot 

 tongue. He is known as Kenakatsis, "he who wears a wolf -skin 

 robe," and Mik-orkayew, "he who wears a red-painted buffalo-robe." 

 These names have probably some reference to legends of which he is 

 the hero. The name of the Creator, Apistotokin, as explained by M. 

 Lacombe, affords a good example of the subtile grammatical distinc- 

 tions which abound in the Siksika, as in other Algonkin tongues. The 

 expression "he makes," which, like other verbal forms, may be used 

 as a noun, can be rendered in four forms, of varied shades of meaning : 

 Apistototsim signifies "he makes," or "he who makes," when the 

 complement, or thing made, is expressed, and is an inanimate object. 

 Apistotoyeio is used when the expressed object is animate. ApistotaJciw 

 is the indefinite form, used when the complement, or thing made, is 

 not expressed, but is understood to be inanimate ; and, finally, Apis- 

 totokin, the word in question, is employed when the unexpressed object 

 is supposed to be animate. By this analysis we gain the unexpected 



VOL. XXIX. 14 



