ON THE NORTH-WESTEKN TEIBES OF CANADA. 199 



"West two years ago. In this form the story does not appear to have 

 anything directly to do with the creation. It becomes one of the many 

 tales in which the ' Old Man ' (Napi) is represented as playing the fool, 

 and as tricked by other powers or by mortals. In reference to his name, 

 which Mr. Wilson and others write Nafi, and Father Lacombe Napiw, 

 and which 2Ir. Grinnell renders ' Old Man,' it may be mentioned that 

 Napi is an adjective, signifying ' old.' Used as a name, it might be ren- 

 dered ' The Old One ' (in French, Le Vieux ; in German, Ber Alte). 

 Napiiv is a verbal form, used also as a name, and signifying, properly, 

 ' He who is old.' The following is the legend as told to Mr. Grinnell : — 



' As Old Man was going along he came to a big lodge, which was the 

 woman's home. He went in. The women said to him, " Do you think 

 that you have men for husbands for us? " He said, "Who is chief 

 here ? " A woman replied, " That woman behind is chief." He said to 

 the chief woman, " To-morrow let those women come to the valley. A 

 Peigan will be there, finely dressed, with leggings trimmed with weasel- 

 skin ; very handsome is his wearing apparel." The chief woman replied, 

 " Let the others wait. I am first chief woman ; I will be the first to take 

 a husband." Now Old Man wanted very much to have the chief woman 

 for his wife, although she did not look nicely. She had been making 

 dried raeat, and her hands and arms and clothing were covered with 

 blood and grease. The next day the chief woman came to the valley, 

 and there she found many men. In the midst of them was Old Man, 

 splendidly dressed, with weasel-ski q leggings. As soon as she saw him 

 the chief woman recognised Old Man ; so she let them all go, and went 

 back to the women. To them she said, " You can take any of these men 

 except the finely dressed man who sta^nds in the middle. Do not take 

 him, for he is mine." Then she put on her best apparel, and went to the 

 valley. The women went to look for husbands. Old Man [who wished 

 to be chosen by the chief woman] stayed far behind [so that he should not 

 be taken by any of the others] . All the women chose husbands, and took 

 all the men to their lodges. One man was still left unchosen — it was Old 

 Man. The chief woman said, " Old Man thought I was a fool. Now we 

 will make a bufi^alo piskan [enclosure], and I will change him into a pine 

 log, and we will use him for a part of the fence. So Old Man is the fool, 

 and not the woman." ' 



As we know the legend of the origin of horses had a recent historical 

 foundation, so we may also conclude that this story of the women and 

 their choice of husbands, coupled with the rejection of Napi, had its 

 origin in some actual occurrence of perhaps no very remote date. We 

 know, from other noted traditions — such as the ' Rape of the Sabines ' 

 and the capture of wives for the children of Benjamin — how such mar- 

 riages by wholesale, as they might be styled, are likely to take place. If 

 there ever was a camp of Indian women with whom no men were found, 

 we may be tolerably sure that they were the survivors of a war in which 

 all the fighting men of their tribe had been slain. The band of Kootenais, 

 who formerly dwelt east of the Rocky Mountains, was certainly not dis- 

 lodged by their Blackfeet enemies without a desperate war, in which, as 

 a natural and almost inevitable result, the men would be killed — perhaps 

 in a fight at a distance from their homes — and the women, who were left 

 at home, would be afterwards made prisoners, and would become the 

 wives of the conquerors. Such events are of common occurrence in Indian 

 history. The liberty given to the captive women, when once received as 



