244 BEPORT — 1888. 



Their Traditions, Beliefs, &c. 



' There was a time,' said 'Bull's Head,' 'when there were no lakes. 

 The lakes and rivers were occasioned by the bursting of the belly of the 

 buffalo. It was when the belly of the buffalo burst that the people 

 divided ; some went to the north and some to the south. For years and 

 years I have been told that the Creator made all people, and I believe it. 

 I have heard my mother and other old people speak of the days when 

 there were no guns and no horses, when our people had only arrows, 

 and had to hunt the buffalo on foot ; that must have been a very long 

 time ago.' 



The Sarcees have a tradition similar to that of the Blackfeet about 

 men and women being first made separately, and then being brought 

 together through the action of the mythical being ' Napiw.' 



They have also a tradition of the flood, which accords in its main 

 features with that of the Ojibways, Crees, and other Canadian tribes. 

 They say that when the world was flooded there were only one man and! 

 one woman left, and these two saved themselves on a raft, on which they 

 also collected animals and birds of all sorts. The man sent a beaver- 

 down to dive and it brought up a little mud from the bottom, and this 

 the man moulded in his hands to form a new world. At first the world 

 was so small that a little bird could walk round it, but it kept getting- 

 bigger and bigger. ' First,' said the narrator, ' our father took up his 

 abode on it, then there were men, then women, then animals, then birds. 

 Our father then created the rivers, the mountains, the trees, and all the 

 things as we now see them.' 



When the story was finished I told the narrator that the Ojibway 

 tradition was very mnch the same as theirs, only that they said it was a 

 musli-rat that brought up the earth and not a beaver. Upon this five or 

 six of the men who were squatting around inside the teepee smoking- 

 cried, ' Yes, yes ! The man has told you lies ; it was a musk-rat, it was 

 a musk-rat ! ' 



Tt seems dubious whether the Sarcees are sun-worshippers ; but, like 

 the Blackfeet, they call the sun ' our father,' and the earth ' our mother.' 

 They also engage each summer in the ' sun-dance.' They depend also for 

 guidance in their actions on signs in the sky and on dreams. They think 

 they know when there is going to be a fight by the appearance of the 

 moon. One of their number, named 'Many Swans,' says he is going to 

 have a good crop this year, for he dreamed that a white woman came 

 down from above and asked to see his garden, and he showed his garden 

 to the woman, and it was all gi'een. 



' Bull's Head ' had no theory to give as to the cause of thunder ; he 

 knew that Indians of other tribes said it was a big bird flapping its 

 wings, but his people did not say so ; they did not know what it was ; 

 neither had they anything to say about an eclipse. 



Manner op Living. 



The Sarcee Indians are at present all pagans ; they appear to have no 

 liking for the white people, and the white people seem to have little 

 liking for them, and would gladly deprive them of their Lands and drive 

 them away farther into the wilderness were they permitted to do so. 

 But the paternal Government, as represented by the Indian Department, 



