Blackfoot lodge tales : the story of a prairie people / by George Bird Grinnell.

  • George Bird Grinnell
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Blackfoot lodge tales : the story of a prairie people / by George Bird Grinnell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    seen in the story of E-kus'-kini, p. 90. Owls are thought to be the ghosts of medicine men. The Blackfeet do not consider the Sand Hills a happy hunting ground. There the dead, who are themselves shadows, live in shadow lodges, hunt shadow buffalo, go to war against shadow enemies, and in every way lead an existence which is but a mimicry of this life. In this respect the Blackfeet are almost alone. I know of scarcely any other American tribe, certainly none east of the Rocky Mountains, who are wholly without a belief in a happy future state. The Blackfeet do not especially say that this future life is an unhappy one, but, from the way in which they speak of it, it is clear that for them it promises nothing desirable. It is a monotonous, never ending, and altogether unsatisfying existence, — a life as barren and desolate as the country which the ghosts inhabit. These people are as much attached to life as we are. Notwithstanding the unhappy days which have befallen them of late years, — days of privation and hunger, — they cling to life. Yet they seem to have no fear of death. When their time comes, they accept their fate without a murmur, and tranquilly, quietly pass away.
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