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019 - Ni-na Us-tak-wi Chief Mountain · Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park

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  Speaker 1: Section nineteen of Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park by
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  Speaker 1: James Willard Schultz. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Section nineteen nina Ustaqui Chief Mountain, September seventh. We came
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  Speaker 1: here the other day to the foot of this great
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  Speaker 1: landmark of the country, and made camp beside a running
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  Speaker 1: spring in the edge of the timber. The mountain is
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  Speaker 1: most appropriately named. It is the outer one of an
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  Speaker 1: eastward projecting spur of the range, and is higher than
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  Speaker 1: any of the peaks behind it. A chief. A leader
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  Speaker 1: should always be taller, more conspicuous in every way than
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  Speaker 1: his followers. This mountain gradually slopes up eastward from the
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  Speaker 1: one behind it to an altitude of nine thousand fifty
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  Speaker 1: six feet, then drops in a sheer cliff several thousand
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  Speaker 1: feet to its steep slope running down to the plain.
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  Speaker 1: From several hundred miles to the north and an equal
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  Speaker 1: distance to the south, and from the Bare Palm mountains
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  Speaker 1: to the east, it can be plainly seen grim majestic,
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  Speaker 1: a veritable chief of mountains, and for that reason the
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  Speaker 1: black Feet so named it in the long ago. The
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  Speaker 1: way to climb the mountain is by the long, narrow
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  Speaker 1: and in places cut walled ridge running up toward its
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  Speaker 1: summit from the west, and then one has but one
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  Speaker 1: cliff to surmount, the one almost at its crest. Only
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  Speaker 1: men and goats and bighorn can scale that cliff. But
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  Speaker 1: on the extreme summit lies an old buffalo skull taken
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  Speaker 1: there by a Blackfoot in the long ago for a
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  Speaker 1: pillow rest while getting his medicine dream There he fasted
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  Speaker 1: for days, and at last, in his weakened condition resulting
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  Speaker 1: from want of food and water, got his vision, his
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  Speaker 1: medicine which was to be his guardian through life. Who
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  Speaker 1: was it that came to him in his fasting dreams,
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  Speaker 1: ancient buffalo perhaps, or maybe morning Star? Whoever it was,
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  Speaker 1: he went staggering down the mountain and to camp, absolutely
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  Speaker 1: certain that he had found his guardian spirit, his medium
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  Speaker 1: for favor with the greatest god of all, the Sun,
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  Speaker 1: supreme ruler of the Earth. We are here again upon
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  Speaker 1: our own ground, the black Feet Reservation, and so once
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  Speaker 1: more have meat in camp, fat bighorn and fat mule
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  Speaker 1: deer killed by our hunters. This was once a great
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  Speaker 1: wintering place for deer and elk, and higher up for Bighorn.
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  Speaker 1: Some years ago, a hunter, namik Alibi by name, trailed
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  Speaker 1: a band of elk around to the ridge behind the
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  Speaker 1: mountain and up its narrow way until they came to
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  Speaker 1: the foot of the cliff near the summit, and could
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  Speaker 1: go no farther. There they turned back toward him, and
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  Speaker 1: he fired one shot and dropped the leader. The others,
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  Speaker 1: afraid to try to dash past him, chose the one alternative.
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  Speaker 1: They rushed to the high cliff there on the north
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  Speaker 1: side of the ridge, and sprang from it, and were
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  Speaker 1: all killed by the fall, eighty head of them. September eighth,
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  Speaker 1: last night, after our feast of nitapewachsen real meat, we
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  Speaker 1: gathered in Yellow Wolf's Lodge for a smoke and a talk,
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  Speaker 1: and our host gave us a little story that I
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  Speaker 1: must here set down, the story of the Wise Man
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  Speaker 1: end of section nineteen