The people were traveling by the beautiful water falls between two lakes. The people complained about that name of the falls given by the white people as it was foolish. They said the name of the falls was Pi tamakan (Running Eagle). "The name appears to be that of a man," said one of the younger men in the party who then asked for the story.
"Yes, my brother, that is a man's name but it is the name of a woman who earned the right to bear a man's name. She was the only woman of our people to receive that honour, so far as I know. Listen! You shall hear all about it."
The Woman Who Earned A Man's Name
As a girl, her name was Weasel Woman. She was the eldest of two brothers and two sisters, and when she had been fifteen winters both their father and their mother died. But unlike children in such circumstances, they did not give up their lodge and scatter out to live with relatives and friends. Said Weasel Woman: "Somehow, some way, we can manage to live. You boys are old enough to hunt and bring in meat and skins. We three sisters will keep the lodge in good order and tan the hides for our clothing and bedding and other uses." And as she said, so it was done, and the orphan family prospered.
But Weasel Women was not satisfied. Many young men and many old rich men wanted to marry her, and to all she said "No!" so loudly, and so quickly, that after a time all knew that she would not marry. Whenever a party of warriors gathered for a dance or a feast, there she was looking on, listening to their talk, and giving what help she could. And when a party returned from war, she was loudest in praising them. All she talked of, all she thought about, was war.
On an evening in her twentieth summer a large party of warriors started out to cross the mountains to raid the Flatheads. They traveled all night and when daylight came, they found that Weasel Woman was with them.
"Go back! Go home!" the war chief told her. But she would not listen.
"If you will not let me go with you, I shall follow you," she said.
And then spoke up the medicine man of the party: "Chief," said he, "I advise you to allow her to go with us: something tells me that she will bring us good luck."
"Ah! As you advise me, so shall it be," said the war chief; and the woman went on with them. No man of that party teased her nor bothered her as they would a sister. It was the strangest war party that ever set forth from any tribe of the plains!
It was at the edge of Flathead Lake that they discovered the enemy, a large camp of the Flatheads and their friends, the Pend'Orielles. When night came, they went close up to it, and the woman said to the war chief: "Let me go in first. Let me see what I can do. I feel that I shall be successful in there."
"Go!" the chief told her, "and we will wait for you here, and be ready to help you if you get into trouble."
The woman went into the camp, where all the best horses of the people – their fast buffalo runners, their racers, and their stallions – were picketed close to the lodges of the different owners. If she was afraid of being discovered and killed, she never showed it. The dying moon gave enough light for her to see the size and colour of the horses. She took her time and went among them, and, making her choice, cut the ropes of three fine pinto horses and led them out to where the party awaited her. There she tied them, and went back into the camp with the chief and his men and again came out with three horses. Said she then: "I have taken enough for this time. I will await you here and take care of what we have."
The men went back several times, and then, having all the horses they could drive rapidly, the party struck for the mountains, and in several days' time arrived home without the loss of man or horse.
A few days after the party came into camp the medicine lodge was put up, and on that day the warriors counted their coups, and new names were given, and old warrior and medicine man called Weasel Woman before the people and had her count her coups – of going twice into the enemy's camp and taking six horses. All shouted approval of that, and then the medicine man gave her the name Pi tamakan, a very great name, that of a chief whose shadow had some time before gone to the Sand Hills.
After that Pi tamakan, as we now may call her, did not have to sneak after a war party in order to go to war with them: she was asked to go. And after two or three more successful raids against different enemies, the Crows, the Sioux, and the Flatheads, she herself became a war chief, and warriors begged to be allowed to join her parties because they believed that where she led nothing but good luck would come to them. She now wore men's clothing on a raid. At home she wore her woman's clothing. But even in that dress she, like any man, gave feasts and dances, and the greatest chiefs and warriors came to them, and were glad to be there.
On her sixth raid, Pi tamakan led a large war party against the Flatheads, and somewhere on the other side of the mountains fell in with a war party of Bloods, one of our brother tribes of the North. For several days the two parties traveled together, and then one evening the Blood chief, Falling Bear, said to Pi tamakan's servant, "Go tell your chief woman that I would like to marry her."
"Chief, you do not understand," the boy told him. "She is not that kind. Men are her brothers, and nothing more. She will never marry. I cannot give her your message, for I am afraid that she would be angry with me for carrying it to her."
On the next day, as they were traveling on, the Blood chief said to Pi tamakan: "I have never loved, but I love now, I love you: my heart is all yours; let us marry."
"I will not say 'yes' to that, nor will I say 'no,'" the woman chief answered him. "I will consider what you ask, and give you an answer after we make this raid."
And with that the Blood chief said no more, but felt encouraged: he thought that in time she would agree to become his woman.
That very evening the scouts ahead discovered a camp of Flathead and Kooteney Indians, more than a hundred lodges of them, and when night came, both parties drew close in to it. Pi tamakan then ordered her followers to remain where they were and told the Blood chief to say the same thing to his followers. She then told the Blood chief to go into the camp and take horses, and he went in and returned with one horse.
"It is now my turn," said Pi tamakan, and she went in and brought out two horses.
The Blood chief went in a brought out two more horses.
Pi tamakan went in again and brought out four horses.
The Blood chief went back in and brought out two more horses.
Pi tamakan went in and brought out one more horse. And then she said to the Bood chief: "Our men are becoming impatient to go in there and take horses. We shall each of us go in once more, and then let them do what they can."
So the Blood chief went in for the fourth time and last time and came back leading four horses making nine in total. And then Pi tamakan went in and cut the ropes of eight horses making fifteen in total. The warriors all went in and with all the horses that could be easily driven, the big double party headed home.
On the next day, as Pi tamakan and the Blood chief were riding together, he said to her: "I love you so much that I can wait no longer for my answer. Give it to me now. I believe that you are going to say, 'Yes I will be your woman.'"
Said Pi tamakan, "I gave you your chance. It would have been yes if you had taken more horses than I did from the enemy camp. But I took the most; therefore I cannot marry you."
That was her way of getting around saying "no" to the chief. She had beaten him, an old, experienced warrior, in the taking of the enemy's horses, and he could not ask her again to become his woman. It is said that he felt very badly about it all.
Schultz, James W. (1916) Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park, this tale is one of several versions told by the Blackfoot and Blackfeet Nations.