Week 9: Blackfoot, Part A

An antelope and a deer argued over who could run faster. The set up a race to decide the winner and they bet their gall. They raced in the prairie and the antelope won. The deer said if they raced in the woods it would win. So, they set up another race this time in the woods and they bet their dewclaws. During this race the deer easily won and took the antelopes dewclaw. This is why the deer has no gall, and the antelope has no dewclaw.

Wolf Howling

A man had two wives, both of which weren’t very nice to him. They didn’t do anything to help around the house. So he moved them away from the rest of the camp to see if that would make them focus more on their wife duties. The wives planned to kill their husband so that they could move back with the rest of the camp. He fell into a hole that they dug, and so the wives headed back to camp and pretended to mourn. The man didn’t die though, he just couldn’t get out of the hole. A pack of wolves found him and helped him out of the hole. They adopted him into their pack and turned him into a man wolf. He then helped the wolves steal the animals from the camp. They people soon found out what was going on and the wolf-man told them how his wives tried to kill him. So the people in the camp decided to punish them.

Bibliography:
Blackfeet Indian Stories by George Bird Grinnell (1915).