Rising Wolf, the White Blackfoot / Hugh Monroe's Story of His First Year on the Plains

by James Willard Schultz

As soon as we went into camp the chiefs put the hunting law into effect: from that time no one was allowed to hunt buffaloes when and where he willed. A watch was kept upon the herds, and when one came close to camp the chiefs' crier went all among the lodges calling out that the herd was near, and that all who wished to join in the chase should catch up their runners and gather at a certain place. From there the hunters would go out under the lead of some chief, approach the herd under cover, and then dash into it and make a big run, generally killing a large number of the animals. The strict observance of this law meant plenty of buffalo meat for all the people all the time, secured close to camp instead of far out on the winter plains. There was no law regarding the hunting of the mountain game, the elk, deer, and bighorns. They were not killed in any great number, for they became poor in winter, whereas the buffaloes retained their thick layer of fat until spring. And buffalo meat was by far the best, the most nutritious, the most easily digested. One never tired of it, as he did of the meat of other game.

When the leaves began to fall the real work of the winter was started, the taking of beavers for trade at our Mountain Fort. The streams were alive with them, and so tame were they that numbers were killed with bow and arrow. I myself killed several in that way, lying in wait for them at dams they were building, or on their trails to their wood cutting and dragging operations. But when winter came, and the ponds and streams froze over and they retired to their snug houses in the ponds, and dens in the stream banks, the one way then to get them was by setting traps, through the ice, at the entrances to their homes; they came out daily to their sunken piles of food sticks, dragged back what they wanted and ate the bark, and then took the stripped sticks out into the water, where they drifted off with the current.

By the time real winter set in, about all the beavers for miles around had been caught, and then most of the trappers rested. Red Crow, however, was so anxious to obtain pelts enough for the purchase of one of our company guns that he would not stop, and finally persuaded his father to allow us to go over on the head of Arrow River and trap there for a time. Red Crow's mother, Sis-tsa-ki, wanted to go with us, but Lone Walker said that he couldn't possibly spare his sits-beside-him wife, but another one, named Ah-wun-a-ki (Rattle Woman), and Red Crow's sister, Mink Woman, were allowed to go along to look after our comfort. A small lodge, lining and all, was borrowed for our use, and we started out in fine shape, taking five pack and travois horses to carry our outfit, and each riding a good horse. We made Arrow River that day, and camped pretty well on the head of it before noon the next day.

"Now, then, mother, and brother, and sister," said Red Crow after we had unpacked the horses, "we shall eat only the very best food here, and to begin, we will have stuffed entrail for our evening meal. Put up the lodge, you two, and get plenty of wood for the night, and Rising Wolf and I will go kill a fat buffalo cow."

There were a number of small bands of buffaloes in the breaks of the valley, and approaching the nearest one of them, I shot a fine young cow. We butchered it, took what meat we wanted, and a certain entrail that was streaked its whole length with threads of soft, snow-white fat. When we got to camp with our load, Rattle Woman took this entrail from us, washed it thoroughly in the stream, and brought it back to the lodge. She then cut some loin meat, or, as the whites call it, porterhouse steak, into small pieces about as large as hazel nuts and stuffed the entrail with it, the entrail being turned inside out in the process. Both ends of the entrail were then tied fast with sinew thread, and she placed it on the coals to broil, frequently turning it to keep it from burning. It was broiled for about fifteen minutes, shrinking considerably in that time, and was then thrown into a kettle of water and boiled for about fifteen minutes, and then we each took a fourth of its length and had our feast. Those who have never had meat cooked in this manner know not what good meat is! The threads of white fat on the entrail, it was turned inside out, you remember, gave it the required richness, and the tying of the ends kept in all the rich juices of the meat, something that cannot be done by any other method of cooking. The Blackfoot name for this was is-sap-wot-sists (put-inside-entrail). Their name for the Crows was Sap-wo, an abbreviation of the word, and I have often wondered if they did not learn this method of meat cooking from them during some time of peace between the two tribes.

There were so many of us in Lone Walker's family that we never had enough is-sap-wot-sists, the highest achievement of the meat cooker's art. But here on Arrow River the four of us in our snug lodge, with game all about us, had it every day, with good portions of dried berries that we had taken from the abandoned Crow camp. We certainly lived high! Red Crow had four traps, I had five. We set them carefully in ponds and along the stream, and each morning made the round of them, skinned what beavers we caught, and took the hides to the woman and girl to flesh and stretch upon rude hoops to dry. We had success beyond my wildest dreams, our traps averaging six beavers a night. It was virgin ground; traps had never been set there, the beavers were very unsuspicious and tame, and very numerous. The days flew by; our eagerness for our work increased rather than diminished. I was to be no gainer by it in pounds, shillings, and pence; whatever fur I caught was the property of the Company, but that made no difference; my ambition was to become an expert trapper and plainsman, and in that way get a good standing with the Company.

At the end of a month there we had a visit from Lone Walker's nephew. The chief had become uneasy about us, and had sent him to tell us to return. We were doing too well to go back then, and answered that we would trail in before the end of another month. We were really in no danger; the weather was cold, except for an occasional Chinook wind, there was considerable snow on the ground, and even in mild winters war parties were seldom abroad. So we trapped on and on, killed what meat we wanted,—oh, it was a happy time to me. Nor were our evenings around the lodge fire the least of it. My companions night after night told stories of the gods; stories of the adventures and the bravery of heroic Blackfeet men and women, all very interesting and instructive to me. At last came a second summons from Lone Walker for us to return, and this time we heeded it; we had anyhow pretty well cleaned out the beavers, getting only one or two a night for some time back. But Red Crow had to go in for more horses before we could move, the horses we had with us not being enough to pack our catch, and the lodge and other things. We took in with us, in ten skin bales, two hundred and forty beaver skins and nine otter skins, of which a few more than half were mine! Our big catch was the talk of the camp for several days.

Several evenings after our return to camp an old medicine man told me that, according to a vision he had had, he was collecting enough wolf skins for a big, wolf robe couch cover, and that I could go with him the next morning if I would like to see how he caught the animals. He had completed his trap the day before, and thought that there were already in it all the wolves that he needed.

Of course, I wanted to learn all I could about trapping, and so rode down the valley with him the next morning. About three miles below camp we entered a big, open bottom and he pointed to his trap, away out in the center of it. In the distance it appeared to be a round corral, and so it was, a corral of heavy eight-or nine-foot posts set closely together in the ground, and slanting inward at an angle of thirty or forty degrees. At the base the corral was about twelve feet in diameter. In one place a pile of rocks and earth was heaped against it, and when I saw that I did not need the old man's explanation of how he caught the wolves; they jumped into the corral from the earth slant to the top of it, enticed there by a pile of meat, and, once in, they could not jump high enough to get out.