“Ah!” exclaim these red children of nature when they see one of these Psyches of the prairie flitting from flower to flower over the green meadow, “ah, see him now. He is gathering the dreams which he will bring to us in our sleep.”
If you see the sign for the butterfly which is something like a maltese cross painted on a lodge, you will know that the owner was taught how to decorate his lodge, in a dream by an apunni,—butterfly. A Blackfeet woman embroiders a butterfly on a piece of buckskin and ties it on her baby’s head when she wishes to put it to sleep. Wrapped in their blankets the Indians stood about Blackfoot village as we came in reminding us of Longfellow’s address to “Driving Cloud:”
“Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city’s
Narrow and populous street, as once by the margin of rivers
Stalked those birds unknown which have left to us only their footprints.
What in a few short years will remain of thy race but footprints?
How canst thou tread these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies?
How canst thou breathe this air who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains?”
When one has trod the velvety green turf of the prairies and breathed the sweet air of the mountains he is quite ready to sympathize with “Driving Cloud.”
The government schools for the Blackfeet Indians are located in a valley beyond Blackfoot village. The schools are conducted exactly as our public schools are, only that the Blackfeet children must go to school ten months in the year. Think of that, boys and girls. During July and August these dusky redskins get a vacation, which they spend with their parents and for the time being return to the savage state. The agent told me they were always quite wild upon their return to school after two months of hunting, fishing and living in tepees.