THE LEGEND OF SHEEP CREEK.
Napioa, the Old Man, the Secondary Creator of the Blackfeet, was travelling one day with the Kit-Fox, near Sheep Creek, which is located about twenty-five miles south of Calgary, in the Provisional District of Alberta. As they travelled together they saw a large rock, and Napioa felt constrained to make an offering of his robe to it. He presented the robe, and, with the Kit-Fox as his companion, departed. He had not proceeded far upon the way, when perceiving that it was going to rain, he told his companion to return and ask the rock to give him back his robe, as he was afraid of being drenched with the rain. The rock refused to give the robe to the Kit-Fox, and then Napioa, becoming angry, said: “That old rock has been there for a long time and never had a robe. It has always been poor. I will go back myself and take away my robe.”
He returned and took the robe by force, and then the rock became very angry, and followed them, determined to punish them. Napioa fled south toward High River, and the Kit-Fox, anxious for his own safety, hid in a hole in the ground. Napioa saw an old buffalo bull, and he called to him for help; but when the buffalo came to his rescue the rock ran over him and crushed him to death. Then two bears came to help Napioa, and they two were killed by the rock. Two small birds with very large, strong bills came to help him, and they attacked the rock, breaking off pieces from it as they suddenly pounced upon it and then flew upward. In a short time they killed the rock, and Napioa was saved. The Indians then named the stream “Oqkotoqseetûqta” (the Rock Creek, or Stony Creek), but it is called by the white people at the present day “Sheep Creek.”