The great Northwest—that wonderful frontier that called to itself aworld's hardiest spirits—is rapidly becoming a settled country; andbefore the light of civilizing influences, the blanket-Indian hastrailed the buffalo over the divide that time has set between thepioneer and the crowd. With his passing we have lost much of theaboriginal folk-lore, rich in its fairy-like characters, and itsrelation to the lives of a most warlike people.
There is a wide difference between folk-lore of the so-called Old Worldand that of America. Transmitted orally through countless generations,the folk-stories of our ancestors show many evidences of distortion andof change in material particulars; but the Indian seems to have beentoo fond of nature and too proud of tradition to have forgotten orchanged the teachings of his forefathers. Childlike in simplicity,beginning with creation itself, and reaching to the whys and whereforesof nature's moods and eccentricities, these tales impress me as beingwell worth saving.
The Indian has always been a lover of nature and a close observer ofher many moods. The habits of the birds and animals, the voices of thewinds and waters, the flickering of the shadows, and the mysticradiance of the moonlight—all appealed to him. Gradually, heformulated within himself fanciful reasons for the myriadmanifestations of the Mighty Mother and her many children; and a poetby instinct, he framed odd stories with which to convey hisexplanations to others. And these stories were handed down from fatherto son, with little variation, through countless generations, until thewhite man slaughtered the buffalo, took to himself the open country,and left the red man little better than a beggar. But the tribalstory-teller has passed, and only here and there is to be found apatriarch who loves the legends of other days.
Old-man, or Napa, as he is called by the tribes of Blackfeet, is thestrangest character in Indian folk-lore. Sometimes he appears as a godor creator, and again as a fool, a thief, or a clown. But to theIndian, Napa is not the Deity; he occupies a somewhat subordinateposition, possessing many attributes which have sometimes caused him tobe confounded with Manitou, himself. In all of this there is a curiousecho of the teachings of the ancient Aryans, whose belief it was thatthis earth was not the direct handiwork of the Almighty, but of a meremember of a hierarchy of subordinate gods. The Indian possesses thehighest veneration for the Great God, who has become familiar to thereaders of Indian literature as Manitou. No idle tales are told ofHim, nor would any Indian mention Him irreverently. But with Napa itis entirely different; he appears entitled to no reverence; he is astrange mixture of the fallible human and the powerful under-god. Hemade many mistakes; was seldom to be trusted; and his works and pranksrun