The reader of these Blackfoot stories will not fail to notice many curious
resemblances to tales told among other distant and different peoples. Their
similarity to those current among the Ojibwas, and other Eastern Algonquin
tribes, is sufficiently obvious and altogether to be expected, nor is it at
all remarkable that we should find, among the Blackfeet, tales identical
with those told by tribes of different stock far to the south; but it is a
little startling to see in the story of the Worm Pipe a close parallel to
the classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. In another of the stories is an
incident which might have been taken bodily from the Odyssey.

Well-equipped students of general folk-lore will find in these tales much
to interest them, and to such may be left the task of commenting on this
collection.




STORIES OF ADVENTURE



THE PEACE WITH THE SNAKES


I

In those days there was a Piegan chief named Owl Bear. He was a great
chief, very brave and generous. One night he had a dream: he saw many dead
bodies of the enemy lying about, scalped, and he knew that he must go to
war. So he called out for a feast, and after the people had eaten, he