Perspective Two: South

THE STORY OF SOKITAPIWAI/BLACKFOOTII

PERSPECTIVE TWO: SOUTH

Leroy Little Bear

Pre-History

Hundreds of generations of people have come and gone on the northwestern plains since before and after the melting of the glaciers that covered the northern part of the North American continent. The appearance of human beings in the Americas is a matter of continuing debate. Most western scientific authorities still adhere to the Bering Strait theory. That theory says humans migrated into the Americas from what is now Eastern Siberia, Mongolia, and China over a land bridge that once existed in the area of the Bering Strait. But that theory is rather speculative and, in spite of its popularity, there is no hard core scientific proof for it. It is a product of the linear historical and Christian school of thought. That school of thought originates from the bible where there is a very singular historical beginning of human beings from Adam and Eve found in the Genesis creation story.iii According to Elaine Dewar, “The physical anthropologists pointed every which way; some said there was one expansion out of Africa, others thought many changes occurred to particular settings and were past around through constant human intermingling. The geneticists spoke of American Adams and Eves with time frames that varied by tens of thousands of years and a point of origin conveniently on the boundary line between Europe and Asia.”iv

In a similar manner, an increasing number of archeologists are having doubts about the Bering Strait theory. Some are suggesting that there was no ice free corridor during the last ice age for humans to go south from Alaska to South America. But, in fact, “As far as Alejandra Duk-Rodkin was concerned, the evidence showed that that human beings moved up into the north from the south” v. In like manner, Barney Reeves believes that people first came from the southeast into northern Alberta and not from north to south. vi Dewar concludes the Bering Strait story is not credible. vii “The story’s simplicity is its best selling point. In science, as in narratives of all kinds, the simplest explanation is considered most likely to be true.” viii

The Napi version of the Blackfoot creation story corroborates the theory of a migration from the south to the north. “So he went along, traveling northward, making things as he went along,…….” ix When Napi reached the vicinity of the North Saskatchewan River, “This is as far as the Blackfeet followed Old Man. The Crees know what he did further north.”x

A Notion of History

The New Lexicon Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language (Encyclopedic Edition) defines ‘history’ as “a record of past events, usually with an interpretation of their cause and an assessment of their importance.”xi This definition is based on western notions of time where events are recorded in a very linear progressive order from past to present. But Blackfoot people have a very different notion of time and, consequently, a different notion of history. Blackfoot think of time on two levels which operate simultaneously. On the first level is the operational level. At this level, Blackfoot operate on a two-day operational sense. There is ‘now’, “tomorrow”, and “the day after tomorrow” and, backwards, “now, “yesterday”, and ‘the day before yesterday’. Beyond the two-day limit, forward or backward, past, present, and future, amalgamate and become one and the same. This is not to say that Blackfoot people are incapable of thinking of the distant past or future but, in fact, leads to a good recollection of the past. One of the implications arising out of the Blackfoot notion of operational time is that ancestors are always only two days away. The stories, the songs, the ceremonies, and the teachings are never more than two days old in the memory of the people.

In addition to the operational sense of time, is the cosmological notion of time. It is at this level, for instance, medicine wheels enter into the time notions of Blackfoot people. One of the functions of medicine wheels is to make alignments with stars using the spokes of the medicine wheel. Alignments are used to indicate the timing of certain events, be they ceremonies, camp movements, or otherwise. At this level, Blackfoot time is very exact. At the operational level, time is not an important referent as it is in Western society. Space/land is the more important referent. I will explain more later.

Blackfoot Philosophy

For one to appreciate Blackfoot notions of history, one has to also be appreciative of the philosophy and paradigmatic aspects of Blackfoot thought. Similar to other North American Indians, Blackfoot philosophy consists of and includes ideas of constant motion/flux, all creation consisting of energy waves, everything being animate, all of creation being interrelated, reality requiring renewal, and space as a major referent. Gary Witherspoon observes, “the assumption that underlies this dualistic aspect of all being and existence is that the world is in motion, that things are constantly undergoing processes of transformation, deformation, and restoration, and that the essence of life and being is movement.”xii

As regards interrelations, the TASK FORCE ON THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AND ITS IMPACT ON THE INDIAN AND METIS PEOPLES OF ALBERTA states:

The wholistic view leads to an implicit assumption that everything is interrelated. Interrelatedness leads to an implicit idea of equality among all of creation. Equality is brought about by the implicit belief that everything- humans, animals, plants, and inorganic matter- has a spirit. Anthropomorphic factors are not important because metamorphosis readily occurs. The common denominator is the spirit.xiii

Blackfoot philosophy incorporates the idea of renewal. There is a tacit assumption that, in the cosmic flux, there exists a particular combination of energy waves that allow for our continuing existence. If those particular combinations of energy waves dissolve, this particular reality we are in will disappear into the flux. Cajete writing about Native science observes, “Chaos is both movement and evolution. It is the process through which everything in the universe becomes manifest and then returns to the chaos field. The flux, or ebb and flow, of chaos appear in everything and envelopes us at all times and in all places. From the evolving universe to the mountain to the human brain, chaos is the field from which all things come into being. No wonder Native science envisions the spirit of the natural world alive with disorder becoming order and all the mystery of mirrored relations.”xiv Ramifications of the idea of renewal manifest in a large number of renewal ceremonies such as sweat lodge, sun dance, medicine bundle openings, and the like.

Space is a very important referent in the minds of Blackfoot peoples. Certain events, patterns, cycles, and happenings are readily observable on and from the land, for example, animal migrations, cycles of plant life, seasonal rounds, and so on. The cosmos is also observable and its patterns detected from particular spatial locations. Vine Deloria, Jr. in GOD IS RED states:

In shifting from temporal concepts to spatial terms, we find that a revelation is not so much the period of time in which it occurs as the place it may occur. Revelation becomes a particular experience at a particular place, no universal truth emerging but an awareness arising that certain places have a qualitative holiness over and above other places. The universality of truth then becomes the relevance of the experience for a community of people, not its continual adjustment to evolving scientific and philosophical conceptions of the universe. Holy places are well known in what have been classified as primitive religions. The vast majority of Indian tribal religions have a center at a particular place, be it river, mountain plateau, valley, or other natural feature. xv

Examples of holy places for Blackfoot include Chief Mountain on the Blackfeet Reservation in the state of Montana, the Belly Buttes on the Blood Indian Reserve, and the hot springs in Banff National Park.

The paradigmatic aspects of Blackfoot philosophy outlined above, in a very brief overview manner, result in a notion of history that emphasizes place, renewal, interrelationship, and constant flux rather than temporal and chronological ordering of past events.

Storytelling and Blackfoot Beginnings

History for the Blackfoot is contained in the stories, ceremonies, songs, and places. First Rider observes, “Storytelling, for Bullchild is the passing down of the history and teachings of Creator Sun. For Ortiz, storytelling is not just the words and listening but the actual living of the story.”xvi

The Supreme Court of Canada, in Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, says the following about oral traditions:

Oral accounts of the past include a good deal of subjective experience. They are not simply a detached recounting of factual events but, rather, facts enmeshed in the stories of a lifetime. They are also likely to be rooted in particular locations, making reference to particular families and communities. This contributes to a sense that there are many histories, each characterized in part by how a people see themselves, how they define their identity in relation to their environment, and how they express their uniqueness as a people.xvii

History, for the Blackfoot is contained in the rich oral traditions of the Blackfoot. History is a renewal process where stories are told and re-told again; where ceremonies are performed and re-performed again; where songs are sung and sung over again; where stories, ceremonies, and songs are done at the same places over and over again.

For the Blackfoot, similar to the scientific notions of the beginning of existence where out of nowhere and without much reference to time, place and cause, the BIG BANG THEORY occurred, Napi appears on the scene. First Rider, writing about Napi states, “…..one can see that there is no great concern about how the trickster figure came into being and the scope and limits of his nature and powers. He or she just is.”xviii Napi came from the south and was traveling north. In the process of his northward progression, S/he taught the Blackfoot all that they are and all that they know.

There was a time long ago when all of the earth was under water. Napi, being a curious being, wanted to find out what was under the water. He decided to have some animals dive into the water to go and explore. First he sent the duck. The duck could not stay under water for very long and came back to the surface. Next he sent the otter. It came back with nothing. Then Napi sent the badger. It also came back empty handed. Napi then sent the muskrat. Muskrat was determined to find something under the water. He had been gone so long that Napi was ready to give up on him, thinking that Muskrat must have drowned, when Muskrat came to the surface out of breath but holding a little piece of mud in its paws.

Napi took this little piece of mud and blew on it. The mud began to expand and it continued to expand till it became the land we now know.

Napi traveled about the land placing rocks in long rows to make mountains. He scratched and gouged the earth to make rivers, valleys, and lakes. He next made all the plant life, grass on the plains, trees in the river valleys and mountains, berries and flowers of all kind. He made different animals and birds to live in different places on the land. Napi was quite pleased with all his creation. To him it was very beautiful. But he needed someone to share all this beauty with him. So from a clump of clay he made himself a wife and child. Together they made people and taught them how to live.

Napi and his wife had an agreement that he should have the first say about everything that should happen. His wife agreed providing that she should have the second say about everything that should happen. In making humans, for instance, Napi determined that human beings should have eyes and mouths. Napi’s wife determined where those would be located on the anatomy. Napi determined that humans should have fingers, she determined how many and where. There was one important thing that they could not quite agree on and that was how long humans should live. Napi said to his wife, “I will throw this buffalo chip into the water, and if it floats, humans will die for four days and come back to life. If it sinks they will die forever”. But she said, “No, let me throw this rock into the water, and if it floats, people will die for four days and come back to life. If it sinks they will die forever”. Before Napi had a chance to say anything she threw the rock and the rock sank to the bottom. Upon reflection, they thought it was a good idea that people die forever. They thought that if people lived forever, they will not care and feel for each other.

Shortly after it was determined that people will live die forever, the child of Napi and his wife got sick and died. She felt really sorry losing her child. She begged Napi to change their agreement about death. But Napi said it was too late, that they could not undo what they had already done.

The first people were naked, cold, and starving. Napi came along and showed the people how to hunt animals for food, shelter, and clothing.

He showed them how to gather plants for food and medicine. He showed them how to get powers from animals and which sites on land were more sacred than others, all for their survival.

Napi climbed a high mountain and looked over all his wonderful work. Being very pleased with himself, he decided to have a little bit of fun by sliding down the mountain. In Blackfoot myths it is known as the Napi’s sliding place. Traveling further north, when he crossed the North Saskatchewan River he disappears from the Blackfoot. It is at this point, that Blackfoot would say that you would have to ask the Crees about Napi’s doings in Cree country.xix

Blackfoot Territory

There are some authorities that surmise the Blackfoot have not always been on the northern plains but that they migrated onto the plains just before or just after the Europeans came to the Americas. But Ewers observes:

Unlike many of the other tribes of the northern Great Plains region the Blackfeet have no clear cut tradition of migration on the plains from the eastern or northeastern forests. Their language may serve as a clue to their origin. The fact that nearly all of the many other tribes of Indians that speak dialects of the great Algonkian family of languages live to the east of the Blackfeet, has led most students to conclude that probably at some distant time, perhaps before Columbus discovered America, the Blackfeet migrated from the forests of the northeast to become plainsmen. Certain it is that the first whitemen to visit them, in the 18th century, found them living on the northern plains. No other tribe of the northern plains has a better right to the general title of Plains Indians.xx

Traditional Blackfoot territory included a vast tract of land: from the North Saskatchewan River in the north to the Yellowstone River in State of Montana to the south; from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the confluence of the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers south to the Cypress Hills to the east. This was the land given to the Blackfoot. “In later times once, Napi said, “Here I will mark you a piece of ground,” and he did so. Then he said: “There is your land, and it is full of all kinds of animals, and many things grow in this land. Let no other people come into it.”xxi According to Joseph Campbell, a very well known authority on mythology, “People claim the land by creating sacred sites, by mythologizing the animals and plants – they invest the land with spiritual powers. It becomes like a temple, a place for meditation.”xxii In accordance with this theory, Blackfoot have many sacred sites and stories about those sites all over Blackfoot territory. Sacred sites include the hot springs in and around present day Yellowstone National Park, Chief Mountain, Sacred Springs (Banff National Park), Belly Buttes (Blood Indian Reserve), Blackfoot Crossing (Blackfoot Reserve) and the Cypress Hills to name a few. Blackfoot, also, have many stories about many different places throughout traditional Blackfoot territory. ‘Napi and the Rock’ and ‘The Making of the Oldman River’ are examples xxiii Blackfoot have also marked their territory with numerous other pieces of evidence be they tipi rings, writings on boulders, buffalo jumps, and medicine wheels. Usually each of these pieces of evidence has a story that goes with it.