BLACKFOOT SNOW TIPI: Part 1

Last night when the fire was starting to burn low in my family’s tipi I knew my mother would soon tell me to crawl into my sleeping robes. But I did not want to go to sleep yet so I though very hard on what I could say or do to prolong the time for going to sleep. I though to say, when Mother told me to go to sleep, that I needed to relieve myself. But then I thought again. To do that I would have to go outside in the freezing darkness where the snow was very deep and I did not want to do that.

Thinking of the cold winter blowing outside our lodge gave me a very good idea. Since winter, at night, is the proper time to tell stories I though to ask Old Grandfather a question that would lead to a story. And hopefully it would be a very long story. This is what I asked Old Grandfather.

“Why are there snow storms and blizzards in winter, Old Grandfather?” I asked. And this is what he told me.

“Blizzards and very bad storms come because the Blackfeet have a Snow Tipi,” he said. I waited for a very long time for him to continue. When I could see there was a serious chance that Old Grandfather might nod off to sleep I asked him this. I said, “Old Grandfather, where did the Snow Tipi come from?”

Old Grandfather jerked awake and looked around, then went on to explain that the Snow Tipi was given to us by Es-to-nea-pesta, Maker of Storms and Blizzards. This tipi has great power and whenever it is pitched there is sure to be cold weather and winds. According to Great Grandfather it all came about in this way.

One morning, a very long time ago a hunter called Na-toia-mon, or Sacred Otter, and his son had been very successful hunting buffalo. They were very busy skinning the buffalo and cutting up the meat and did not notice a great storm that was coming. When they did see the terrible Ma-kai-peye, or blizzard, it was nearly on top of them. They were caught out in the open on the Great Plains with no shelter to cover them. They tried to huddle behind the dead buffalo but that did no good. So this is what they did.

Na-toia-mon took the fresh hide of the buffalo and made a low shelter behind the bull’s carcass and he and his son crawled inside. Soon the drifting snow covered their shelter and that made it warm and comfortable inside.

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