Long before the horse had changed the lives of the Blackfoot people, they hunted as far North as the Saskatchewan River, and to the east of Eagle Hills and ventured South only when they were joined by their Shoshoni friends. Travel was measured by a day's walk, and limited to the goods that a dog could carry on a travois. No white man intruded upon the land, and no European goods had yet infiltrated the lives of the people in that territory.
Trouble started when two children were playing on the outside of the camp. The children were playing a Shoshoni game. On that fateful day an angry father clubbed a Blackfoot boy to death. While the ensuing threats escalated an older Blackfoot elder sat down with his hands held high, a well known sign that he did not want to fight. Unfortunately, he was killed in the confusion and anger and the two tribes parted forever. Thereafter the Blackfeet had no mercy for their enemy.
The camp moved from that place and in the camp lived a poor young man named White Clay. He lived with his grandmother. He hunted for her and since he was poor he could not afford to acquire the holy things nor could he afford fine clothing. Because the Blackfoot people were at peace he was not able to earn battle honors. White Clay was in love with a married woman, and she was in love with him. He had never tried to win her because he was ashamed of being poor. He realized that her recent marriage was no problem; she had become the fourth wife of an older man specifically so she could marry White Clay later. The old man had only one real wife and she was as old as he. The other two women, like White Clay's woman, were only under his holy protection.
This was a common practice, so much so that there was a dance that was performed by the wives. It was customary for them to wear the clothing of their lovers during the dance to reveal to everyone their true sweethearts.
White Clay's beloved was married to one of the most powerful men in the Blackfoot nation. Not only was he rich, but he possessed the sacred beaver bundle, which was the most important religious object in the camp. He was a kindly man who was devoted to his people and to his faith in the spiritual world.
One evening when the camp criers announced that the women's dance would be held, the man noticed that his young ward had made no move to join the other women. "What's this?" he chided her, "you haven't gone to the dance? Don't you have a lover then?"
The woman knew that White Clay was ashamed of being poor, but she wanted everyone to know that she loved him. She also understood that she had to do something to make him break out of the despondency and challenge him to win the right to demand her as his wife.
When she went to his lodge, she discovered that he was out hunting, so she asked the grandmother for his clothes.
"Oh my poor girl," said the old woman, "those clothes are not beautiful at all and such a young woman as you shouldn't wear them. They wouldn't suit you."
"It doesn't matter. Give them to me anyhow. Those are the clothes that I want."
She put on his badly worn shirt and leggings, tied a strip of wolf skin in her hair, and wrapped his old robe around her. The skin was scabby – it was never properly tanned – and was so worn that it was round in shape. People always laughed at this garment and had given the poor man the nickname of scabby-round-robe.
As she approached the dance, the woman cut a small stick on which she smeared white clay and decorated with bird feathers, just like her lover carried. Then, dressed in this shabby costume, she joined the other women in the dancing circle. She was newly married and people had tried to guess the name of her lover. Now they saw her and laughed that she had chosen White Clay, the poorest man in the camp.
While she was dancing, her lover returned from the hunt and watched in surprise and humiliation as the beautiful woman paraded proudly in his clothes. As she moved to the rhythm to the drums, she constantly pointed her feathered stick along the downstream course of the river. White Clay could not stand the jokes from the people around him, but before he fled, he asked his comrade, Double Runner, to report anything his sweetheart said or did.
The old man in charge of the dance was puzzled by the young woman's performance, so he halted the drum. "This girl has come to dance tonight for the first time in her life," he said. "We want her to let us know what she intends to do." The woman stood defiantly in front of the whole camp and then, speaking as though she was the man whose clothes she wore, she again pointed her stick downstream and exclaimed, "When the river gets warm next summer, I will show you what I will do. I will go to war."
The drums rolled and the people applauded, for they understood that she had challenged her lover and if he failed to go to war he would lose her forever. Not only that, but he would be branded a coward. Yet White Clay was a man without spiritual protectors and without power. Even in daily life the world was filled with dangerous forces that could cause a man to be trampled by a stampeding herd of buffalo or attacked by a grizzly bear. Nothing happened by accident; all the good and the evil that occurred in the world was controlled by spiritual forces. If a man went to war, the dangers were even greater, and only if someone possessed his own spiritual powers could he expect to overcome all the dark forces that awaited him on the war trail.
It was autumn, and already the few leaves were turning yellow and the grass was crispy brown. In a few weeks, the first flakes of snow would swirl down from the north and soon everyone would be huddled in their lodges, venturing out only when the air was cold and clear. Then, wearing sturdy snowshoes, the men would set out with spears in their hands to trap the unwary buffalo in snow-filled coulees. In weather like that, no man could search for spiritual help.
As soon as he learned about his sweetheart's challenge, White Clay gathered his few belongings and headed upstream from the camp, vowing not to return until he could meet his challenge. After traveling for several days, he came to a small stream where beavers had built a dam. Out in the pond he could see the rough pile of sticks and the mud that marked their lodge.
White Clay knew that the beavers possessed great magical powers, so he dug a pit near the shore of the pond and made a shelter for himself. He watched the beavers as they busily cut saplings and hauled the branches to their lodge for the winter supply of food. Guided by their actions he gathered bull-berries and hunted buffalo and stored the food in his own shelter.
And there he stayed for the winter, praying and seeking spiritual guidance. At last he had a vision in which a young beaver came to his shelter and told him to close his eyes. When he opened them he found that he was inside the beaver lodge in the middle of the pond. Only now, the lodge had become a teepee and the beavers had taken on human form.
"My son," said the beaver man, "sit down and tell me why you are here."
When White Clay explained his problem, the beaver man offered to help him and to teach him the songs and rituals that would protect him from his enemies. As the lessons drew to a close, one of the young beavers took the man aside. "When our father offers you a gift," he said, "and tells you to choose whatever you wish, take the thing that is the closest to the door, for that is the best our father has, and has strong power."
As predicted, the beaver man offered White Clay a gift. The Blackfoot looked at all the fine costumes and wonderful articles hanging on the walls and for a few moments he was tempted. But remembering the words of the young beaver; he said "I'll take the object that is closest to the door."
"But that's just a stick that is used to close the door. It is no good for anything."
"That's what I want." Four times the beaver man urged him to take something else, but each time White Clay chose the stick.
"Very well," said the beaver man, "you have been good and remained true to your choice. This is my strongest instrument of power.
When White Clay awoke, he was back in his crude shelter, the strange stick by his side.
He seemed a different man when he returned to the Blackfoot camps in the spring. Though still poor, he was now calm and self-assured. He spoke to no one about his experiences, but the stick – with a rawhide cord attached to each end – was worn proudly like a bandolier. Shortly afterwards White Clay was one of the first to join a huge war party that was being organized against the Shoshonis. White Clay was the first to volunteer. But the others laughed at him, still remembering the frightened man who had fled when his sweetheart had danced.
The others set out, but White Clay and his friend Double Runner followed resolutely in the rear. They stayed just out of sight of the main party so that no one would try to force them to back to camp. From the valley of the Red Deer River, the party marched out to the plains, the scouts constantly on the move, running ahead of the others watching for signs of danger. A restless milling of a buffalo herd or a few antelope bouncing across the distant prairies could signal the presence of enemy hunters. A scent of smoke in the air or the noisy scolding of a magpie might reveal a party of Shoshoni warriors hidden in a nearby coulee.
But the prairies were devoid of enemies as the Blackfoot ventured south. Not until they were almost in sight of the Bow River did their scouts report that the main Shoshoni camp had been found. It was located in the valley along the south bank of the Bow near a major crossing known as "Ridge under the water."
As the Blackfoot warriors approached the river, they boldly marched down the narrow coulee that led to the broad valley below. The Shoshoni, seeing them approach, pointed and milled restlessly. A few minutes later, the two enemy camps stared at each other from across the wide expanse of the Bow River, then began shouting and making defiant gestures. Because it was spring, and the river was high, the only safe crossing was a narrow ridge a foot under the water where the men had to walk in single file. The only crossing nearby was several miles upstream.
The leader of the Shoshoni realized that the Blackfoot were in no position to attack. So using a form of sign language, universal to the Plains Indians, he challenged any of his enemy to meet him in single combat. Meanwhile, White Clay and Double Runner had circled west of the main party and watched from a hill upstream as the challenge was delivered. Without hesitation White Clay said, "I'm going to kill the great Chief. Stay here. Don't go farther down stream. I'm going to bring you the body of the Snake (Shoshoni) chief."
Stripping down to his breechcloth, White Clay remembered the prayers and the songs given to him by the beaver man. As he slipped into the water he sang, "When you try hard to escape danger, when we dive we are safe." He took the beaver stick in his teeth and, without weapons, he floated downstream towards the crossing.
The Blackfoot were surprised and excited when they saw someone floating down the river towards the Shoshoni camp. None of the warriors or chiefs could recognize him in the water and they knew that no one had left their war party, so his identity was a mystery. The Shoshoni saw him too, and hooted and jeered when they noticed he was unarmed. All he had was a strange stick in his mouth.
At last White Clay reached the ridge that marked the river crossing. As his feet touched the gravelly bottom, he arose and waded toward the enemy. "Here I am," he shouted defiantly to the Shoshoni. "Tell your chief to come into the water and here we will meet in combat."
Giving a loud war cry, the Shoshone leader grabbed his spear and jumped into the water. As he waded along the ridge, White Clay steadily backed away, as though afraid of the oncoming enemy. As the people saw the Blackfoot come to the river shore across from them they came to shore. White Clay's feet welcomed feeling the bank ledge under the water with pebbles and small stones under foot as he came ashore on the other side.
He was singing the Beaver song all the while:
I am an island,
From an island I got my powers
In battle I live
While people fall away from me.
While he said this, he had his hand on the stick which the beaver had given to him. This was his only weapon.
The other Blackfoot saw one of their people swimming across the river, and they said to one another, "Who is that? Why did no one stop him?" While he was swimming, the man who was the leader came down to the riverbank; he said: "Who can this man be, swimming across the river? He is a stranger. I will go and kill him." As the boy was getting closer, the man waded out in the stream up to his waist, and raised his knife to stab the swimmer. When White Clay got near him he dived under the water and came up close to the man, and thrust the beaver stick through his body, and the man fell down in the water and died. White Clay caught the body, and dived under the water with it, and came up on the other side where he had left his friend. Then all the Blackfoot sent up a war whoop, for they were glad, and they could hear a great crying in the camp across the water. The people there were sorry for the man who was killed.
People in those days never killed one another, and this was the first man ever killed in a war.
They dragged the man up on the bank, and White Clay said to his brother Double Runner, "Cut off those long hairs on the head." The young man did what he was told. He scalped him and counted coup on him: and from that time forth, people when they went to war, killed one another and scalped the dead enemy, as this poor young man had done. Two others of the main party came to the place, and counted coup. From there, the whole party turned about and went back to the village whence they had come.
When they came in sight of the lodges, they sat down in a row facing the camp. The man who killed the enemy was sitting far in front of the others. Behind him sat his friend Double Runner and behind him sat the two others who had counted coup on the body. So these four were strung out in front of the others. The chief of the camp was told that some people were sitting on a hill nearby, and when he had gone out and looked, he said: "There is someone sitting way in front. Let somebody go and see about it." A young man ran out to where he could see, and when he had looked, he ran back and said to the chief, "Why, that man in front is the poor young man."
The old chief looked around and said: "Where is that young woman, my wife? Go and find her." They went to look for her, and found her out gathering rosebuds, for while the young man whom she loved was away, she used to go out and gather rosebuds and then dry them for him. When they found her, she had a bosom full of them. When she came to the lodge, the chief said to her: "There is the man you love, who has come. Go and meet him." She made ready quickly and ran out to meet him. White Clay said, "Give her the hair of the dead man. Here is his knife. There is the coat he had on, when I killed him. Take these things back to the camp, and tell the people who made fun of you that this is what you promised them at the time of that dance."
The whole party then got up and walked into camp. The woman took the scalp, knife, and coat to the lodge, and gave them to her husband. The chief invited White Clay to come to his lodge to visit him. He said, "I see that you have been to war, and that you have done more than any other of us has ever done. This is a reason why you should be a chief. Now take my lodge and this woman, and live here. Take my place and rule these people. My other two wives will act as your servants. When White Clay heard this, and saw the young woman sitting there in the lodge, he could not speak. Something seemed to rise up in his throat and choke him.
So this young man lived in the camp and was known as their chief.
After a time, he called the people together in council and told them of the strange things the beaver had taught him, and the power that the beaver had given him. He said, "This will be a benefit to us while we are a people now, and afterwards it will be handed down to our children, and if we follow the words of the beaver we will be lucky. This is the seed that the beaver gave to me and told me to plant every year. When we ask for help from the beaver, we will smoke this plant.
This plant was the Indian Tobacco, and it is from the beaver that the Blackfoot got it. Many strange things were taught to the man by the beaver, which were handed down and followed to this day.