Waterton Lakes, origin of beaver bundle
K. Lugthart photo

Oral traditions include history, stories, and mythology, and each is different.

History is important to all peoples, and particular methods are developed by all oral cultures to engage the collective memory. Oral history is often told in a ceremonial way, with the history of the people being related through songs, told in a particular sequence, reflecting their historical relationships. The words of songs remain the same, even over centuries of change. By encoding history in songs, the Nitsitapi (Blackfeet) remember their history from generation to generation.

Stories are always tied to particular people, animals, events, and places. When Nitsitapi pass a particular place, they might be reminded of stories of their family and tribe, of battles with enemies, or of any unusual event that stands out. These stories are about events that actually happened, but they are embellished and altered a little with each telling. In this way, they are different from ceremonial stories of history.

Myths are another expression of a culture's stories. Although myths are by definition fiction, they generally hold some core of fact important to the people. Myths help to convey the essence of a people, if not the factual history.

Percy Bullchild, a Piegan, explains the importance of oral history among Blackfeet people:

"We Indians do not have written history like our white friends. Ours is handed down from generation to generation orally. In this way we have preserved our Indian history and our legends of the beginning of life. All history the Native learns by heart, and must pass it on to the little ones as they grow up. We Natives preserved our history in our minds and handed it down from generation to generation, from time unknown, orally. From the time human life began" (Bullchild 1985:2-3).

The oral traditions of the Nitsitapi carry them back to "time immemorial." How long is that? Anthropologists disagree about how long Blackfeet people have lived in their homeland. Some say the Blackfeet have existed in the Upper Missouri country only a few hundred years; others believe several thousand years is more accurate. The boundaries of the territory change through time.

For now, relax. Don't get mired in this argument; instead, let the stories carry you into a different world where quantification is less important than experience.

A century ago Chief Brings-Down-the-Sun told Walter McClintock about the Old North Trail:

"There is a well-known trail we call the Old North Trail. It runs north and south along the Rocky Mountains. No one knows how long it has been used by the Indians. My father told me it originated in the migration of a great tribe of Indians from the distant north to the south, and all the tribes have, ever since, continued to follow in their tracks.

"The Old North Trail is now becoming overgrown with moss and grass, but it was worn so deeply, by many generations of travelers, that the travois tracks and horse trail are still plainly visible...

"In many places the white man's roads and towns have obliterated the Old Trail. It forked where the city of Calgary now stands. The right fork ran north into the Barren Lands as far as people live. The main trail ran south along the eastern side of the Rockies, at a uniform distance from the mountains, keeping clear of the forest and outside of the foothills. It ran close to where the city of Helena now stands and extended south into the country inhabited by a people with dark skins and long hair falling over their faces.

"My father once told me of an expedition from the Blackfeet that went south by the Old Trail to visit the people with dark skins. Elk Tongue and his wife, Natoya, were of this expedition, also Arrow Top and Pemmican, who was a boy of 12 at that time. He died only a few years ago at the age of 95. They were absent four years. It took them 12 moons of steady traveling to reach the country of the dark-skinned people, and 18 moons to come north again. They returned by a longer route through the "High Trees" or Bitterroot country, where they could travel without danger of being seen. They feared going along the North Trail because it was frequented by their enemies, the Crows, Sioux, and Cheyennes.

"I have followed the Old North Trail so often that I know every mountain, stream, and river far to the south as well as toward the distant north" (Brings-Down-the-Sun in McClintock 1992: 434-437).