186 EEPOET— 1887. 



people.' He took out the lower rib from his right side, and he said, ' It 

 shall be a womaD,' and he let it go, and he looked on it, and he saw a 

 woman. He then took a I'ib from the left side, and said, ' Let it be a boy,' 

 and it was a boy. Napi also made a number of men with earth. Napi 

 and the men went one way, the woman went another way. And the 

 woman made women of earth in the same way as Napi had made men. 



At Morley, opposite the Rev. John Macdougall's house, and down the 

 river, said Big Plume, there is a little stream ; they call it the men's 

 kraal or enclosure ; on one side of the stream is a cut bank and big stones ; 

 this was the men's boundary, beyond which they were not to pass. They 

 used to hunt buffalo, and drive them over the cut bank ; they had plenty 

 of meat ; they had no need to follow the buffaloes ; they hid themselves 

 behind the big stones and uttered a low cry; this guided the buffalo to the 

 cut bank, and when they wei'e over the bank they shot them with their 

 stone aiTows and ate the meat. 



One day Napi went out on a long journey. He got as far as High 

 River. There he saw lots of women together, with the woman made from 

 his rib, who acted as their chief. There were no men and no boys there. 

 There were a great number of teepees. Napi was alone. He told the 

 women, ' I have come from the men.' The woman chief said to him, ' Go 

 home ; bring all your men ; stand them all on the top of this stone ridge ; 

 our women shall then go up one by one, and each take a man for a 

 husband.' When they were all up there, the chief woman went up first 

 and laid hold on Napi to take him, but Napi drew back ; the chief woman 

 had put on an old and torn blanket, and had rubbed all the paint off her 

 face, and had no ornaments on her. JSTapi did not like her aj)pearance, 

 and so he rejected her addresses. He did not know that she was the 

 chief woman. She then went back to the women, and, pointing to Napi, 

 said, ' Don't any of you take him.' She then dressed herself in her best, 

 and painted her face, and put on her ornaments, and went and chose 

 another man. All the women did the same. Thus all the men had wives, 

 and Napi was left standing alcne. The chief woman then cried aloud, 

 ' Let him stand there alone like a pine tree.' Napi then began breaking 

 away the stony ridge with his heel, till there was only very little of it 

 left. The woman then shouted, ' Be a pine tree.' And the pine tree 

 stands there now alongside the big stones, and they still call it the 

 women's kraal. Napi's flesh is in the pine tree, but his spirit still 

 wanders through the earth. 



The boy made from Napi's left rib fell sick. The woman took a stone 

 and threw it in the water, and she said, ' If the stone swims the boy will 

 live,' but the stone sank and the boy died ; and so all people die now. If 

 the stone had floated, all people would have lived. 



First Appearance of the White Man. — The Sai-u (Sioux?) were the first 

 to see the white men. The Crees first brought the news to the Blackfeet. 

 That was the first time they saw axes and knives and tobacco. The Crees 

 said they heard guns firing. The white men were shooting buffaloes with 

 guns. The white men took them to their teepees, and showed them their 

 guns and knives. The white men came from the far east. They call 

 white men ' Napi-akun,' but cannot tell whether this has any reference to 

 Napi the Ancient. 



Eclipse of the Sun. — They say that the sun dies, and that it indicates 

 that some great chief has either just died or is just going to die. 



How their Arts originated. — Napi gave them the first specimens of 



