Medicine HAT

How Medicine-Hat Got Its Name 

- a Blackfoot story

Once there was a man named Spider whose wife ran away with a man named Eagle-Bull. The woman's name was Badger-Woman. Eagle-Bull took the woman to a place on Elk River. They went down this river to a place where there was a bend in the channel, and on one side was a cut bank with a projecting point. Near by they made a shelter of logs. After a while the man told the woman that he was going to dig a pit for an eagle-trap: so he went up on the point. When he came back, he told her that he had finished the hole for the pit. Then he took some meat from the neck of an animal and went up to the trap. Then he fixed everything, put the meat on top, and went down into the trap. 

Now there were a great many eagles about, but every time one was about to alight on the trap, there was a sound as if some people were riding around, and at once the eagles would fly up. When the man came back home, he told the woman that he had had no luck, because someone made the eagles fly away when they were about to alight. 

The next day he tried again, but the same thing happened. Then he prayed to this mysterious presence, asking it to take pity on him and to permit him to catch some eagles promising that he would give it some of the feathers. Then he went down to another place to make a trap; and when he was in this trap he heard someone singing in the old trap. Looking in that direction, he saw a medicine head-dress sticking up. He could just see it. The song that he heard was, "I have power to call eagles to this place," etc. 

Now, while this was going on, the man heard 2 eagles alight near his trap, but someone scared them up as before. He stayed in the trap a long time, but, not having had any luck, he went to sleep. Now in his sleep he dreamed he heard some one say, "If you kill your wife and use her for bait, it will be better." 

When he awoke he thought to himself, "Well, I suppose I may as well do it, for I want to catch eagles." 

So he went home to his camp; but the woman came out to meet him, and her manner changed his mind. He thought to himself, "Now I ran away with her, and I do not like to do this." He had a little bob-tailed dog, so he determined to use it for bait. He killed it, and carried some of the meat to the trap again. Now, while he was waiting, the dream-person spoke to him again, telling him that he did not eat dog-meat, and asked again for his wife. 

Now, when the man went home, he made up his mind to get sight of this mysterious person. So when he awoke in the morning he got up, went out at once and looked around. He saw many birds, some perched and others walking around. By watching them, he discovered that it was a raven that had spoken to him. This raven became a person. It was a woman, and she wore the head-dress he had seen sticking from the trap. Now this woman appeared before him and said, "I have been trying to help you. My man here wants a woman to eat." 

Now Eagle Bull was very much discouraged. He did not know what to do about it. So he passed by the camp and down over the ridge, looking for buffalo. Once when he turned back, he saw an Assiniboine. He approached him, and finally they met. The Assiniboine was nearly starved. He had been looking for buffalo, but failed to find any. Eagle-Bull pretended to take pity on him, and invited him to his camp, saying, "I have plenty of meat. I can feed you." 

The Assiniboine said, "All right, but first I must get a drink." 

So they went to the water, and when the Assiniboine stooped down to drink, Eagle-Bull knocked him on the head with a stone and killed him. Then he butchered him. When he came home, he said to his wife, "Now I have some bait for the trap." 

When he went out again to the trap, he put 1/2 of the bait on the old trap, saying, as he did so, "Here is human flesh for bait." 

Then he went into the other trap and placed bait upon it. The eagles flew down. Finally the pit was full of birds. So he called his wife over and told her to take them to camp, and all day she kept taking them over. Now all this time he could hear the dream-person in the other trap singing, as if he were greatly pleased. The words of the songs were, "I am eating a person. I give you all the eagle-trap power." 

Once the dream-person said to him, "You are to trap 4 days, and then quit. Put all the eagles around your camp; but the catch of the last 2 days you are to put around in the inside of the lodge." 

Now the husband of the wife was looking for her. He knew what had happened. He followed their trail, found their camp, and watched from a distance. He had another wife, whom he told of his discovery, and promised her that he would not kill the runaways, but steal up and catch them. The runaway woman had taken a young child. This was the reason he hunted for her. So he stole quietly up to the camp and saw that they were cooking meat. He came quietly to the door and stood there looking in. 

Then he spoke, saying, "You have many eagles." 

At this, Eagle-Bull and the woman sprang up badly frightened; but he called to them, "Do not run. I shall not do you any harm. You, my wife, can have this person for your husband; but I want the child." 

Then Eagle-Bull said to him, "My friend, if you want your wife back for a time, it is all right with me. Then she can come to me again." 

" No," he replied. 

"Well," said Eagle-Bull, "you see there are a great many eagles inside and outside. Take your choice." 

The man chose those on the outside. 

"Now," said Eagle-Bull, "I will give you this power also." 

So he transferred it to him. 

He said, "You must kill a coyote and use it for bait; when so used, you must turn the head to the sun and the feet to the north. (Before this time, antelopes were used.) Before you go into the trap, you must sing my song, and, standing on the south side, call out, inviting the wolf to eat and smoke; also the ravens, the crows, the magpie, the eagle, and other birds, to come and get something to eat." 

Now when Spider did all this he caught many eagles.

Now, some time after this, Spider got power from a magpie. He fed the magpie's children, and they told him to go to that place to trap. So the next year he said to his wife, "We shall go back to the place and trap eagles and feed the magpie-children." 

So they started. The All-Comrades tried to stop him, but he told them that he was only going after some arrows. and would soon come back. As soon as he was out of sight, he went over to the place, caught many eagles, and returned to camp. 2 days after he had done this, he was caught by a man who wished to sell a medicine-pipe. The object of his selling was to find out where the man caught his eagles. 

Spider had many good horses; so he said, "There are my horses and some good travois-dogs, you can have them for the pipe." "Oh!" said the seller, "I do not want such things for the medicine-pipe. I do not want anything like that. I will just give it to you. But there are two things I want to know. I want to know where eagles are caught, and how to get them. I just want to know something about them. Don't give me all the power for eagle-catching; keep some of it for yourself. You may need it. I should like to know the place for three years." 

"Well," said Spider," you can use it four years." 

"All right," said the man. 

So when autumn came Spider showed the medicine-pipe man the place, how to catch eagles, and fixed him up. They stole out of camp so that no one would follow them. "Now," said he, "you must feed the magpie-children. They are the ones that helped me. If they are gone, you must put food for them anyway. In the winter you must put food in the brush to feed their children." 

Now the ridge where this happened is called "Praying for Medicine" (si'kapls'tan!).

Anthropological Papers American Museum of Natural History, Vol. II, 1908.

from Archives of Blue Panther