The Great Salt Lake Trail

by Henry Inman; Buffalo Bill

They left him something to eat and built a fire for him. Then they drove a stake in the ground and stretched a lariat to the Stinking Water so that he could drink, and they also stretched another lariat to the timber, and told him to follow that and he could get wood. Thus they left him, and shortly after their departure another party of Crows came along, and they, too, had a blind man with them; so they concluded to follow the example of the first party, and leave him to keep the first blind man company.

The two blind men sat down and spent their time in telling stories; but the two hunting-parties were detained, and the two blind men ran out of provisions, and became very hungry. They sat at their fire and wondered what they should do for something to eat. Finally they could stand it no longer, and one of them suggested that they go down to the river and catch a fish to eat.

“No,” said the other; “Sak-a-war-te (the Great Spirit of the Crows) told our people to hunt the buffalo, and it would make him very angry for us to catch and eat fish”; but hunger getting the better of him, he consented.

They went down to the water, and it was not long before they caught a large fish. They came back to their teepee, made a fire, and proceeded to cook their fish. They were sitting on either side of the fire talking, and when the fish was done, Sak-a-war-te came quietly in and took the fish out of the pot over the fire. Soon they discovered that their fish was gone, and then they began to accuse each other of having taken it. From words they came to blows, and while they were fighting, Sak-a-war-te was standing there and laughing at them. At last he spoke to them and told them to stop fighting—that he, Sak-a-war-te, had taken the fish to try them.

He then said that they were bad Indians; they had broken his commands to his people, which was to kill only the buffalo. But he said he would try them again. He told them to go to the Stinking Water, and take some mud and rub it on their eyes, then to wash it off and they would see. Then he told them they must obey him and go hunt the buffalo. Then he left them.

They did as he told them to do, and in a short time they could see. Then they sat down and talked over matters; but their hunger increasing and the hunting-parties not returning, they at last were compelled to go down to the river and catch another fish.

They had no sooner landed a fish than they both lost their sight again. In remorse they sat by their fire once more, and again Sak-a-war-te came to them, and told them what bad Indians they had been, but said he would try them once more. So he told them a second time to go down to the river, to take mud and apply it to their eyes, then wash it off, and when they had received their sight, they should never again take fish, for if they did they would become blind and never again recover their sight. They must hunt only the buffalo. They did as the Great Spirit had told them to do, and immediately received their sight once more. Then they went and made them bows and arrows, as Sak-a-war-te had said they should, and while they were thus employed, their friends returned from the hunt and gave them food. The hunters were very much surprised to find that the men had recovered their sight, and when they were told how it was accomplished, all said they would ever after be good Indians and hunt only the buffalo.

The Blackfeet Indians are divided into three tribes, and each tribe again divided into Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans. This confederation, while distinct, is regarded as a nation, and one of the stipulations was that there should never be any clashing between them; but notwithstanding this there have been many bloody fights.

According to tradition, they once lived much farther east and north, near the Saskatchewan country. Two or three hundred years ago they were driven from there by hostile tribes, and they slowly moved to the Rocky Mountains, where they have remained.

Their country, like that of the Crows, is a magnificent region —a perfect paradise for a people who subsisted wholly on wild game. Such subsistence was a necessity, too, for their mountainous range belongs to that arid portion of our mid-continent area where, without irrigation, it is doomed to a hopeless bondage of sterility. Millions of buffalo and antelope roamed the plains, and in the forest-fringed valleys and on the pine-clad divides, elk, deer, and mountain sheep flocked in immense numbers.