198 REPORT— 1887. 



DOW occupy the country which the Kootenais formerly possessed, on the 

 east side of the mountains, it is clear that the Blackfeet must have ex- 

 pelled the Kootenais from that country, and very probably have con- 

 quered and absorbed some portion of the tribe. It is to this quarter, 

 therefore, that we should naturally look for the strange element in the 

 Blackfoot language. We find, accordingly, that the word for 'sun,' 

 which in the Blackfoot language is totally different from the correspond- 

 ing word in all other Algonkin tongues, bears an evident resemblance 

 to the Kootenai name of that luminary. In Blackfoot the word is natos 

 or nahisi ; in Kootenai it is natanih. The words diifer merely in their 

 terminations. There can hardly be a doubt that, when the Blackfeet 

 borrowed from their former neighbours their most peculiar and remark- 

 able religious ceremony, they borrowed also the name of the sun-deity to 

 whose worship it was devoted. 



Two of the legends given by Mr. Wilson deserve notice in this con- 

 nection. He was informed that the Snake Indians first had horses, and 

 ■that these came out of the ' big salt water ' which has tides. This event 

 is combined with another — that of the carrying away of a Blackfoot 

 woman to the south by 'the snakes.' The snakes are the Shoshonees. 

 This widespread people, whose bands wandered over a vast region, from 

 California to Texas, were in former days among the most inveterate 

 enemies of the Blackfeet. To the ti-adition related by Mr. Wilson some 

 facts may be added from the statements of Mr. Schultz. He mentions 

 that horses were first known to the Blackfeet about the beginning of the 

 present century, and that ' they were stolen from the south.' Putting all 

 these circumstances together, we are warranted in concluding that the 

 Blackfeet first obtained horses by capturing them from the Shoshonees 

 in a war which was kept in memory not only by this event, but also by 

 tlie fact that a Blackfoot woman was made prisoner and cai^ried off by 

 the enemy. From the prisoners whom they made in turn the Blackfeet 

 learnt that the strange animals which they had taken came from the 

 great salt water. Horses were probably first known to the Shoshonees in 

 California, where they were introduced by the Spaniards in the latter part 

 of the last century. The Shoshonees would learn from the Spaniards 

 that the horses had come originally across the ocean. This information 

 passing from tribe to tribe over the continent reached the Blackfeet in 

 the shape of the myth which Mr. Wilson has obtained. What is chiefly 

 to be noted is that this myth, which by its form might be thousands of 

 years old, has yet unquestionably originated within less than a century. 



This modem shaping of the Blackfoot mythological stories is also 

 apparent in the account of the making of the first woman and man from 

 the ribs of Napi. This portion of the creation myth, which does not 

 appear in the version furnished to me by Father Lacombe, is evidently a 

 novel feature, derived very recently from the missionary teachings. 



We are now prepared to find an event of not very ancient history 

 involved, as may reasonably be conjectured, in the remarkable tradition 

 obtained by Mr. Wilson concerning the women who lived by themselves 

 in a district adjoining the land of the Blackfeet, and who finally took 

 husbands from among the latter. This story holds apparently an impoi't- 

 ant place among the Blackfoot legends. A coi'respondent, who has paid 

 much attention to such subjects — Mr. George Bird Grinnell, Ph.D., of 

 New Tork (editor of ' Forest and Stream ') — sends it to me as he learnt 

 it from his Blackfoot (Peigan) guide during a hunting tour in the Far 



