How the Old Man Made People
~   Blackfoot   ~

Long ago, when the world was new, there was no one living in it at all, except
the Old Man, Na-pe, and his sometimes-friend and sometimes-enemy A-pe'si, the
Coyote, and a few buffalo. There were no other people and no other animals. But
the Old Man changed all that. He changed it first because he was lonely, and
then because he was lazy; and maybe be shouldn't have, but anyway, he did. And
this was the way of it.

Na-pe was sitting by his fire one day, trying to think of some way to amuse
himself. He had plenty to eat--a whole young buffalo; no need to go hunting. He
had a lodge; no work to do; and a fire. He was comfortable, but he wasn't
contented. His only companion, A-pe'si the Coyote, was off somewhere on some scheme of
his own, and anyway he had quarreled with A-pe'si, and they were on bad terms;
so even if he had been there, Old Man would still have been lonely. He poked
some sticks in the fire, threw a rock or two in the river, Lit his pipe, and
walked around. . . then sat down, and thought how nice it would be to have someone
to smoke with, and to talk to. "Another one, like me," he thought. And he
poked some more sticks in the fire, and threw some more rocks in the river.

Then he thought, "Why not? I am the Old Man! I can make anything I want to. Why
shouldn't I make another like me, and have a companion?" And he promptly went
to work.

First, he found a little still pool of water, and looked at his reflection
carefully, so as to know just what he wanted to make. Then he counted his bones as
best he could, and felt the shape of them.

Next, he went and got some clay, modeled a lot of bones, and baked them in his
fire. When they were all baked, he took them out and looked at them. Some of
them were very good, but others were crooked, or too thin, or had broken in the
baking. These he put aside in a little heap.

Then he began to assemble the best of the clay bones into a figure of a man. He
tied them all together with buffalo sinews, and smoothed them all carefully
with buffalo fat. He padded them with clay mixed with buffalo blood, and
stretched over the whole thing skin taken from the inside of the buffalo. Then he sat
down and lit his pipe again.

He looked at the man he had made rather critically. It wasn't exactly what he
had wanted, but still it was better than nothing.

"I will make some more," said Na-pe.

He picked the new man up and blew smoke into his eyes, nose, and mouth, and the
figure came to life. Na-pe sat him down by the fire, and handed him the pipe.
Then he went to get more clay.

All day long Na-pe worked, making men. It took a long time, because some of the
bones in each lot weren't good, and he must discard them and make others. But
at last he got several men, all sitting by the fire and passing the pipe
around. Na-pe sat down with them, and was very happy. He left the heap of discarded
bones where they were, at the doorway of his lodge.

So Na-pe and the men lived in his camp, and the men learned to hunt, and Na-pe
had company, someone to smoke with, and they were all quite contented.

But the heap of leftover bones was a nuisance. Every time one of the men went
in or out of Na-pe's lodge, they tripped over the bones. The wind blew through
them at night, making a dreadful noise. The bones frequently tumbled over,
making more of a disturbance. Na-pe intended to throw them in the river, but he was
a bit lazy, and never got around to it. So the leftover bones stayed where they
were.

By this time A-pe'si, the Coyote, was back from wherever he had been. He went
around the camp, looking the men over, and being very superior, saying that he
didn't think much of Na-pe's handiwork. He was also critical of the heap of
bones at the door of the lodge. "I should think you would do something with
them--make them into men," said A-pe'si, the Coyote.

"All right, I will," said Na-pe. "Only they aren't very good. It will be
difficult to make men out of them!" "Oh, I'll help, I'll help!" said A-pe'si. "With
my cleverness, we will make something much better than these poor creatures of
yours!" So the two of them set to work. The discarded bones, clicking and
tattling, were sorted out, and tied together. Then Na-pe mixed the clay and the
buffalo blood to cover them. He fully intended to make the bones into men, but
A-pe'si the Coyote kept interfering; consequently, when the job was done, the
finished product was quite different. Na-pe surveyed it dubiously, but he blew the
smoke into its eyes and nose and mouth, as he had with the men. And the woman
came to life.

A-pe'si and Na-pe made the rest of the bones into women, and as they finished
each one they put them all together, and the women immediately began to talk to
each other. A-pe'si was very pleased with what he had done. "When I made my
men," said Na-pe, "I set them down by the fire to smoke."

And even to this day, if you have one group of men, and another of women, the
men will want to sit by the fire and smoke. But the women talk. And whether it
is because they were made out of the left-over bones that clicked and rattled,
or whether it is because A-pe'si, the Coyote -- who is a noisy creature himself
-- had a part in their making, no one can say.