E-text prepared by Janet Kegg and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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Many Blackfeet names and words in the printed book from which this e-text is taken had vowels with breves or macrons over them, diacritical marks that cannot be reproduced in this e-text. The first time such a word appears within a story the marks are represented using [=x] for a vowel with a macron and [)x] for a vowel with a breve (example: M[=a]-m[)i]n´). Subsequent appearances of the word do not have the vowels so marked.
Author of _Blackfeet Lodge Tales_, _Trails Of The Pathfinders_, etc.
Those who wish to know something about how the people lived who told these stories will find their ways of life described in the last chapter of this book.
The Blackfeet were hunters, travelling from place to place on foot. They used implements of stone, wood, or bone, wore clothing made of skins, and lived in tents covered by hides. Dogs, their only tame animals, were used as beasts of burden to carry small packs and drag light loads.
The stories here told come down to us from very ancient times. Grandfathers have told them to their grandchildren, and these again to their grandchildren, and so from mouth to mouth, through many generations, they have reached our time.
TWO FAST RUNNERS THE WOLF MAN KUT-O-YIS´, THE BLOOD BOY THE DOG AND THE ROOT DIGGER THE CAMP OF THE GHOSTS THE BUFFALO STONE HOW THE THUNDER PIPE CAME COLD MAKER'S MEDICINE THE ALL COMRADES SOCIETIES THE BULLS SOCIETY THE OTHER SOCIETIES THE FIRST MEDICINE LODGE THE BUFFALO-PAINTED LODGES MIKA´PI--RED OLD MAN RED ROBE'S DREAM THE BLACKFEET CREATION OLD MAN STORIES THE WONDERFUL BIRD THE RABBITS' MEDICINE THE LOST ELK MEAT THE ROLLING ROCK BEAR AND BULLBERRIES THE THEFT FROM THE SUN THE SMART WOMAN CHIEF BOBCAT AND BIRCH TREE THE RED-EYED DUCK THE ANCIENT BLACKFEET
Once, a long time ago, the antelope and the deer happened to meet on the prairie. They spoke together, giving each other the news, each telling what he had seen and done. After they had talked for a time the antelope told the deer how fast he could run, and the deer said that he could run fast too, and before long each began to say that he could run faster than the other. So they agreed that they would have a race to decide which could run the faster, and on this race they bet their galls. When they started, the antelope ran ahead of the deer from the very start and won the race and so took the deer's gall.