NO. 7 SOHON's portraits of INDIANS — EWERS 4I 



erty of his people and his opinion that the area around St. Ignatius 

 Mission was not large enough for the proposed reservation. Bear 

 Track signed both the Flathead and lilackfoot Treaties. (Partoll, 

 1938a, p. 306.) 



Bear Track was famous as a medicine man. He was the maternal 

 grandfather of Martina Siwahsah, who recalled some of Bear Track's 

 remarkable feats. One spring the Indians were camped north of 

 Hamilton in the Bitterroot Valley. A man and his wife went out 

 hunting in the mountains. While his wife remained in the hunting 

 camp, the man went on alone after game. She waited 3 days, but he 

 did not return. Then she went back to the tribe and told Bear Track 

 of her husband's disappearance. He sang, made his medicine, and 

 said, "All I can see is the horse your husband was riding tied to a 

 tree. I don't sec the rider." He described the locality where he saw 

 the horse. Men went to that place. They found the horse tied where 

 Bear Track had indicated and the dead body of the hunter nearby. 

 Apparently he had made a fire, gone to sleep, and a log rolled over 

 and killed him. 



.■\nothcr time the people were hunting buffalo and could find none. 

 Bear Track told the people to erect a long tent. He made his medicine, 

 then told the people, "My power I received from a wliite buffalo calf. 

 The buffalo are coming, and that calf will be in the lead." Next day 

 a herd of buffalo appeared led by a white calf. 



Teit also has reported Bear Track's power to find lost people and 

 to bring the buffalo when they could not be found. He also stated 

 that Bear Track had the power to foresee the approach of parties of 

 enemy horse thieves and to warn his people in advance, as well as 

 the power to foretell the results of battles. (Teit, 1930, pp. 384-385.) 

 Turney-IIigh found that no I-'lalhead shamans were more highly re- 

 spected than those who possessed such powers. (Turney-High, 1937. 

 p. 29.) 



Probably Bear Track was the most successful and most famous 

 medicine man of his day among the Flathead. That he is not men- 

 tioned in the voluminous correspondence of the missionaries is under- 

 standable. It is unlikely that this medicine man of the traditional 

 school looked with much favor upon the "magic" of the whites. 

 Nevertheless, Martina Siwahsah said Bear Track was baptized and 

 given the Christian name of "Alexander." 



She said that Bear Track was married four times. He fathered 10 

 children. He lived to be a very old man, became blind, and died of 

 sickness during the i88o's. Teit dated Bear Track's death about 1880. 

 at over 90 years of age. (Teit, 1930, p. 384.) 



