e Mighty Mother and her many children; and a poet
by instinct, he framed odd stories with which to convey his
explanations to others. And these stories were handed down from father
to son, with little variation, through countless generations, until the
white man slaughtered the buffalo, took to himself the open country,
and left the red man little better than a beggar. But the tribal
story-teller has passed, and only here and there is to be found a
patriarch who loves the legends of other days.

Old-man, or Napa, as he is called by the tribes of Blackfeet, is the
strangest character in Indian folk-lore. Sometimes he appears as a god
or creator, and again as a fool, a thief, or a clown. But to the
Indian, Napa is not the Deity; he occupies a somewhat subordinate
position, possessing many attributes which have sometimes caused him to
be confounded with Manitou, himself. In all of this there is a curious
echo of the teachings of the ancient Aryans, whose belief it was that
this earth was not the direct handiwork of the Almighty, but of a mere
member of a hierarchy of subordinate gods. The Indian possesses the
highest veneration for the Great God, who has become familiar to the
readers of Indian literature as Manitou. No idle tales are told of
Him, nor would any Indian mention Him irreverently. But with Napa it
is entirely different; he appears entitled to no reverence; he is a
strange mixture of the fallible human and the powerful under-god. He
made many mistakes; was seldom to be trusted; and his works and pranks
run from the sublime to the ridiculous. In fact, there are many
stories in which Napa figures that will not bear telling at all.

I propose to tell what I know of these legends, keeping as near as
possible to the Indian's style of story-telling, and using only tales
told me by the older men of the Blackfeet, Chippewa, and Cree tribes.

CONTENTS

WHY THE CHIPMUNK'S BACK IS STRIPED
HOW THE DUCKS GOT THEIR FINE FEATHERS
WHY THE KINGFISHER ALWAYS WEARS A WAR-BONNET
WHY THE CURLEW'S BILL IS LONG AND CROOKED
OLD-MAN REMARKS THE WORLD
WHY BLACKFEET NEVER KILL MICE
HOW THE OTTER SKIN BECAME GREAT MEDICINE
OLD-MAN STEALS THE SUN'S LEGGINGS
OLD-MAN AND HIS CONSCIENCE
OLD-MAN'S TREACHERY
WHY THE NIGHT-HAWK'S WINGS ARE BEAUTIFUL
WHY THE MOUNTAIN-LION IS LONG AND LEAN
THE FIRE-LEGGINGS
THE MOON AND THE GREAT SNAKE
WHY THE DEER HAS NO GALL
WHY INDIANS WHIP THE BUFFAL