The Brainfriendly Museum Using Psychology And

Neuroscience To Improve The Visitor Experience

Annalisa Banzi download

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-brainfriendly-museum-using-
psychology-and-neuroscience-to-improve-the-visitor-experience-
annalisa-banzi-44705146

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

The Brainfriendly Workplace Why Talented People Quit And How To Get
Them To Stay Friederike Fabritius

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-brainfriendly-workplace-why-
talented-people-quit-and-how-to-get-them-to-stay-friederike-
fabritius-46518454

Brainfriendly Strategies For The Inclusion Classroom Insights From A

Neurologist And Classroom Teacher Willis J

https://ebookbell.com/product/brainfriendly-strategies-for-the-
inclusion-classroom-insights-from-a-neurologist-and-classroom-teacher-
willis-j-1555800

Differentiation And The Brain How Neuroscience Supports The

Learnerfriendly Classroom 2nd David A Sousa

https://ebookbell.com/product/differentiation-and-the-brain-how-
neuroscience-supports-the-learnerfriendly-classroom-2nd-david-a-
sousa-47575148

Differentiation And The Brain How Neuroscience Supports The

Learnerfriendly Classroom 1st Edition David A Sousa

https://ebookbell.com/product/differentiation-and-the-brain-how-
neuroscience-supports-the-learnerfriendly-classroom-1st-edition-david-
a-sousa-5478584
Head First Agile A Brainfriendly Guide To Agile And The Pmiacp
Certification Andrew Stellman

https://ebookbell.com/product/head-first-agile-a-brainfriendly-guide-
to-agile-and-the-pmiacp-certification-andrew-stellman-5682916

The Friendly Orange Glow The Untold Story Of The Plato System And The
Dawn Of Cyberculture Brian Dear

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-friendly-orange-glow-the-untold-
story-of-the-plato-system-and-the-dawn-of-cyberculture-brian-
dear-48646604

The Friendly Orange Glow Brian Dear

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-friendly-orange-glow-brian-
dear-53700046

The Friendly Orange Glow Brian Dear

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-friendly-orange-glow-brian-
dear-6822180

A Friendly Rest Room Developing Toilets Of The Future For Disabled And
Elderly People Jfm Molenbroek

https://ebookbell.com/product/a-friendly-rest-room-developing-toilets-
of-the-future-for-disabled-and-elderly-people-jfm-molenbroek-2512108
The Brain-Friendly Museum

The Brain-Friendly Museum proposes an innovative approach to experiencing

and enjoying the museum environment in new ways, based on the systematic
application of cognitive psychology and neuroscience.
Providing practical guidance on navigating and thinking about museums in
different ways, the book is designed to help develop more fulfilling visitor
experiences. It explores our cognitive processes and emotions, and how they
can be used to engage with and enjoy the museum environment, regardless of
the visitor’s background, language, or culture. The book considers core
cognitive processes, including memory, attention, and perception, and how
they can successfully be applied to the museum environment, for example, in
creating more effective displays. Using evidence-based examples throughout,
the book advocates for a wellbeing approach improving visitor experience,
and one that is grounded in research from psychology and neuroscience.
This book is a must-read for all museum practitioners and psychologists
interested in the relationship between cultural heritage, psychology, and
neuroscience. It will also be of great interest to art therapists, neuroscientists,
university students, museum stakeholders, and museum lovers.

Annalisa Banzi is an art historian and researcher at CESPEB with a Ph.D.

in psychology applied to museum studies. She has an interdisciplinary spe­
cialisation in museum studies, psychology, and neuroscience which aims to
improve the dissemination of museum contents and to develop visitors’ mental
wellbeing and satisfaction.
The Brain-Friendly
Museum
Using Psychology and Neuroscience
to Improve the Visitor Experience

Edited by Annalisa Banzi

Cover image: Getty
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Annalisa Banzi; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of Annalisa Banzi to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-1-032-30330-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-30329-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-30453-1 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003304531

Typeset in Bembo
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
To Giacomo

(A.B.)
Contents

List of Contributors xi
Foreword by John H. Falk xiii
Acknowledgements xvi

1 The Brain-Friendly Museum: How Psychology and

Neuroscience Can Help Museums to be Brain-Friendly
and Promote Wellbeing 1
ANNALISA BA N ZI

What Is a Brain-Friendly Museum? 2

2 Emotions: The First Connection to Our Cultural Heritage 6

ANNALISA BA N ZI
Emotion in Cognitive Psychology 7
Effects of Cognition on Emotion 8
Effects of Emotion on Cognition 9

3 Perception and Museum Display 19

ANNALISA BA N ZI
Visual Perception Processes 21
2D Patterns and 3D Objects 27
Visual Imagery and Visual Perception 31
The Complex Issue of Motion 33

4 Attention, Memory, and Learning in Museums 37

ANNALISA BA N ZI
Focused Auditory Attention, Focused Visual Attention, and Divided
Attention 37
Short-term Memory, long-term Memory, and Learning 42
viii Contents
Long-term Memory Systems 46
Practical Application of Psychology and Neuroscience in the Museum
Environment 50

5 What is the Right Language and Type of Communication

to Engage Different Kinds of Museum Audiences? 58
ANNALISA BA N Z I
A Brief Introduction on Language in Cognitive Psychology 60
Some of the Main Features of Speech Perception and Reading 61
A Few Notes on Speaking and Writing 64

6 Problem Solving, Decision-Making, Judgement,

Reasoning, and Creativity: The Role of Museums in the
Visitors’ Cognitive Growth 68
ANNALISA BA N Z I
Forms of Thinking 70
Problem Solving, Analogical Problem Solving, and Expertise 71
Decision-making and Judgement 74
Forms of Reasoning 76
Human Thinking and Rationality 77
Think like Leonardo 78

7 Museums, The “Magic Box”, and Neuroscience Tools 83

ANNALISA BA N Z I
Tools for Assessing Brain Activity 84
The US Case 84
The Italian Case 85
How to Involve Visitors in Museum Experiments. Some Practical
Advice 87

8 Museums: How They Foster Wellbeing. A Round-Up of

Initiatives 90
ANNALISA BA N Z I
Museotherapy, Art Therapy, and Museums 91
Museums, Hospitals, and Healthcare 94
Slow Looking and Mindfulness 97

9 Parallel Worlds: Popular Education Through

Neuroscience and the Fine Arts 105
C RIS TIA N Z AE L Z E R AN D S TE PHE N L E GA R I
 Contents ix
Scientists and Education 106
The Partnership 107
Parallel Worlds 107
The Colloquiums 108
The Talks 109
The Workshops 113

10 The Museum and Quality of Life 118

VINC ENZA F ERR ARA

11 Unlocking Value in Museums and Art Galleries Through

Measuring Wellbeing 130
ROBERT M . SAD LE I R
Wellbeing and Existing Performance Measurement 131
Case study: Measuring Wellbeing via Activity Flow: Christchurch Art
Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetū, New Zealand 132
Generating Wellbeing to Unlock Value 133
Will Museums and Art Galleries Become Living Rooms? 133
MAGs and a healthier SMART city 134
Brain Capital Versus Digital Disruption—the Dilemma of
Brain-friendly Museums 136
Conclusion: MAGs are Wealth Generators of the Future 137

12 The Museum’s Mind: A Genetic Code for Cultural

Exhibitions 140
MA URIZIO F OR TE A N D E V A PI E T R ON I
Introduction 140
A Methodological Approach to Create a “genetic code” of the
Museum 142
The Virtual Museum’s Mind 143
Conclusions 145

13 Virtual Reality and Neuroarchaeology: Visual Perception

and Cognition of an Archaeological Excavation 147
MA URIZIO F OR TE , L E O N A RD E . W HI T E , K A T E ST RANEVA , A ND
SEAN WOY TOW I T Z
Introduction 147
Spatial Embodiment, Memory, and Sensorimotor Skills 148
Vulci: A Virtual Excavation 148
Eye-tracking: A Form of Cognitive Experience Measurement 149
x Contents
Methods: Web-based Eye-tracking 150
Preliminary Results 152
Conclusions and Future Perspectives 155

An End That is a Beginning by Annalisa Banzi 159

Index 161
Contributors

Annalisa Banzi Ph.D., Position and affiliation: Researcher–CESPEB

Vincenza Ferrara, Position and affiliation: Director of Art and Medical
Humanities Lab - Pharmacy and Medicine Faculty – Sapienza University of
Rome. Autobiographical note: Vincenza Ferrara. Art historian. Director of
Art and medical humanities lab – Sapienza University of Rome. Her
research topic is the promotion of the cultural heritage in the School and
Medical Education field in order to improve learning and promote
museums. She is an expert and trainer of Visual Thinking Strategies.
Maurizio Forte Ph.D., Position and affiliation: Distinguished Professor of
Classical Studies, Art, Art History and Visual Studies, Duke University.
Autobiographical note: Maurizio Forte, professor of Classical Studies, Art
History and Visual Studies, is director of the Dig@Lab at Duke University.
He was a pioneer in digital technologies applied to heritage and
archaeology and he published several books and over 200 scientific papers.
Stephen Legari MA, MSc(A), Position and affiliation: Program Officer, Art
Therapy, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Autobiographical note: Stephen
Legari is a registered Canadian Art Therapist and licensed couple and family
therapist. He has worked extensively in both community and clinical
settings. Since 2017, Stephen has been Program Officer for Art Therapy at
the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Eva Pietroni, Position and affiliation: Senior Researcher at CNR Institute of
Heritage Sciences (ISPC). Autobiographical note: Eva Pietroni is a Senior
Researcher at CNR ISPC, Conservator of BB.CC., art historian and musician.
Her research concerns virtual museums and museum technologies, digitisation,
virtual reconstruction, new forms of narration, and interaction based on the
hybridisation of media, user experience design. In this domain, she coordinates
national and international projects.
Robert Sadleir, Position and affiliation: Co-founder, QWB Lab Ltd.
Autobiographical note: Robert Sadleir is a Co-founder of QWB Lab
Ltd., a firm unlocking the value of the cultural sector by measuring
xii Contributors
wellbeing. He is a technical expert for British Standards on sustainable
communities and SMART cities. He has a Bachelor of Economics
University of Sydney, MA University of Geneva, and a MTS Harvard
University.
Kate Straneva, Position and affiliation: Undergraduate Student majoring in
Computer Science and Biology. Autobiographical note: Kate Straneva is a
recent graduate of Duke University where she majored in Computer
Science and Biology. Kate is interested in a career in the biotechnology
space.
Leonard White Ph.D., Position and affiliation: Associate Professor in
Neurology, Duke University School of Medicine. Autobiographical note:
Leonard E. White is a neuroscientist and educator at Duke University who
studies human and non-human neuroanatomy and the relationships
between the structure and function of neural circuits in the brain.
Sean Woytowitz, Position and affiliation: Undergraduate Researcher, Duke
University (Trinity College of Arts and Sciences). Autobiographical note:
Sean Woytowitz is a senior at Duke University majoring in psychology and
preparing to attend medical school next year. He is from San Diego,
California and is currently studying mental health and how it relates to
diversity and the human condition.
Cristian A. Zaelzer-Pérez Ph.D., Position and affiliation: Founder &
President of the Convergence Initiative. Autobiographical note: Cristian
Zaelzer-Perez is a Chilean-Canadian neuroscientist, artist, graphic designer,
educator & science communicator that explores new ways to engage
(neuro)science with different communities. In 2016, he founded the
Convergence Initiative to create bridges between neuroscience and art,
connecting institutions that work and research those fields and the students
they teach.
Foreword

As public institutions go these days, museums are relatively old, having been
around in some form or another for hundreds of years. However, the appearance
and focus of today’s museum bear only a passing resemblance to its ancestors. The
collection, preservation and study of precious objects and ideas remain a central
activity of most museums, but increasingly these activities have become mere
means to a greater end, the goal of supporting the public’s learning and
enjoyment. Reflective of this growing commitment to the public, museum
professionals have become increasingly focused on learning how best to improve
the quality of their offerings; how best to enhance the experience of the millions
of people who annually engage with museums. In response to this growing
interest in improving the museum, experience has been development of an
expanding number of resources on the subject. Every year, dozens of new books
and hundreds of journal articles are written about the museum experience. Every
year, scores of researchers and practitioners deliver conference presentations on the
latest and greatest approaches for improving the public’s museum experience. I
confess to being one of those adding to this growing pile of resources. In fact, I
probably am one of the most prolific generators of such books, articles and talks,
having been at this task for nearly half a century. Year after year, I have strived to
better understand why people visit museums, what they do there, and what they
take away from their museum experiences. In pursuit of this objective, I have
conducted many hundreds of studies, written more than a dozen books, several
hundred articles and given many hundreds of talks on the museum experience; all
in an effort to turn my understandings into better museum practice.
Thus, it is from this perspective, the perspective of someone who has long
toiled in the trenches of thinking long and hard about how best to analyse the
public’s museum experiences and convert those analyses into useful ideas for
museum practice, that I came to know Annalisa Banzi. Dr. Banzi reached out
to me to talk about her work and mine. I was delighted to make her
acquaintance, to “talk shop” with her about studying visitors. Ultimately, she
asked, and I agreed to write the Foreword for this book: The brain‐friendly
museum. Using psychology and neurosicnece to improve the visitor
experience.
xiv Foreword
I was happy to discover that in this new book, Dr. Banzi makes an important
contribution to the growing museums studies literature. Hers, as suggested above,
is far from the first book seeking to apply insights from the field of psychology to
the topic of museum visitor experiences, but her focus on the latest insights and
tools from the brain sciences are quite unique. It is fair to say, largely due to the
work of the brain sciences, we have discovered more in just the past couple of
decades about how the mind works than was known in all the previous decades
combined. The insights and understandings of human thinking and behaving
being developed by these investigations continues to grow at a rapid pace. Thus,
this volume can only begin to provide a foundation, an initial sense of how to
create a brain-friendly museum. Like all complex edifices, and the museum
experience certainly represents a complex edifice, a sound and strong foundation
is essential. The foundational understandings about the museum experience
presented in this book will provide museum professionals with the secure launch
pad they need in order to re-think their practices and create new approaches and
innovations for today’s and tomorrow’s visitors. Dr. Banzi covers a lot of ground
in her book, touching on a vast array of cognitive psychology and neuroscience
topics. Included are discussions about perception, attention, memory and learning.
Also covered are current understandings of the nature of language and
communication, problem solving, decision-making, judgement, reasoning and
creativity. But what I most appreciate and applaud her for, is that she begins by
focusing on emotions, and ends by focusing on wellbeing. If I had to summarise
what I have learned about the museum experience over my decades-long research
career, I would say the visitor’s museum experience always begins with emotions,
and always ends with wellbeing.
As stated by Dr. Banzi, the brain-friendly museum must be an institution that
respects the importance of human emotions. For years, cognitive psychologists
essentially ignored emotions, assuming they were only marginally relevant for
understanding how people think, learn and make decisions. Thanks in large part
to advances in the neurosciences, it is now apparent that virtually everything
going on in the brain, including awareness and perception, learning and decision-
making, all involve the emotions. As a consequence, it is now widely accepted,
that far from being marginally important, emotions are actually a consistent and
central feature of all human cognition. To understand why people use museums,
what they do there, and what they learn, requires understanding something about
the role emotions play in all of these different stages of the museum experience.
Unfortunately, as a consequence of their long neglect as a topic of study, and
despite the current appreciation of their importance, emotions remain poorly
understood and largely under-studied; including within the museum context.
This is likely to be an area of ever-increasing investigation in the coming decades
and we can look forward to significant improvements in museum practice as
greater understanding develops for how to most effectively harness the power of
user’s emotions.
In a similar way, the other major “new frontier” for understanding museum
experiences is wellbeing. As I discuss at length in my latest writings, I now believe
 Foreword xv
that the fundamental reason people use museums, as well as the fundamental
benefit they derive from those experiences is wellbeing. Like emotions, it is only
recently that brain scientists have come to appreciate just how fundamental a
process the pursuit of well-being is for humans. As I have argued, wellbeing is so
fundamental that it cannot be understood through an exclusively psychological
lens. Well-being is a basic biological process, a mechanism for achieving balance
with one’s world. In fact, the need to achieve well-being balance is at the core of
what it means to be alive, and the pursuit of wellbeing underlies everything
people do. As researchers, and museum professionals, come to more fully
understand the fundamental importance of well-being, it too is likely to
become an area of ever-more intensive focus. As my research has shown,
humans are strongly drawn to museum experiences because they believe these
experiences support and enhance some aspect of their wellbeing. Thus, the
question for museum professionals will increasingly become, not if it is possible to
create museum experiences that support wellbeing, but rather in what form, in
what ways, and to what degree can we create museum experiences that maximally
achieve this outcome?
In conclusion, this is a book well worth reading. The brain‐friendly
museum. Using psychology and neurosicnece to improve the visitor
experience. is rich in detail and enriched by numerous real-world examples.
It will serve as a handy reference for years to come and I look forward to
having it in an easily accessible place on my bookcase for just that purpose.

John H. Falk, Ph.D.

Institute for Learning Innovation
Author of: The Value of Museum: Enhancing Societal Well-Being
Born to Choose: Evolution, Self and Well-Being
Learning from Museums
The Museum Experience
Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience
Acknowledgements

I would like to wholeheartedly thank all the people who have been very important
in the creation and writing of this book. None of this would have been possible
without the invaluable advice or contributions of: my family, Andrew Mashigo,
Annalisa Ferroni Bismut, Annelise Ream, Attilio Maranzano, Brita Köhler,
Catterina Seia, Ceri McLardy, Christian Cataldo, Clelia Valdesi Valeri, Cristian
Perez-Zaelzer PhD, Daniele Monti, Danny Meadows, Emilie Coin, Eva Pietroni,
Flora Santorelli, Giuliano Gaia, Hakan Johansson, Johanna Bokedal, Kate Straneva,
Khyati Sanger, Laura Vigo, Lauren Ellis, Marco Toscano, Marko Daniel, Michelle
Harrell, Nicolò Scialanga, Nivedita Menon, Paola Azzola, Patrizia Vaccaro, Phil
Terry, Pietro Nozza, Prof. Francesca Pazzaglia, Prof. John H. Falk, Prof. Leonard
White, Prof. Maurizio Forte, Prof. Michael W. Eysenck, Prof. Riccardo Manzotti,
Prof. Vincenzo G. Dovì, Prof. Vincenza Ferrara, Radhika Bhartari, Riccardo
Betti, Robert Sadleir, Rosanna and Nicola Labianca, Sabine Doolin, Sean
Woytowitz, Sonia D’Arcargelo, Stefano Verri, Stephen Legari, Susan Comber,
and Zhisheng Wang.
Annalisa Banzi
1 The Brain-Friendly Museum
How Psychology and Neuroscience
Can Help Museums to be Brain-
Friendly and Promote Wellbeing
Annalisa Banzi

Imagine a couple of friends visiting a museum. As soon as they look at the

displayed objects, they pay attention to and read the captions as well. They will
likely compare these objects with others previously seen, recalling the in-
formation stored in long-term memory. They will use their language skills to share
thoughts on what they are learning, which may be affected by their emotional
state. They will also decide how much time to spend on the tour, and maybe
they will have to solve some problems (e.g., being thirsty, being tired, and
needing a restroom) while walking through the galleries.
The mental processes described above represent major aspects of human
cognition. They are interdependent, meaning that each of them depends on
other processes and structures. Cognitive psychology aims at analysing these
internal processes by observing the behaviour of individuals who perform several
cognitive tasks. It has also recently begun to investigate emotions and their
relationship to cognition. It is one of the main approaches to understanding
human cognition along with cognitive neuropsychology (an approach that
studies patients with brain damage), computational cognitive science (an ap-
proach that develops computational models of human cognition), and cognitive
neuroscience (an approach that takes into account both behaviour and brain
activity). In this book, the term cognitive psychology is used in the broadest
sense proposed by Eysenck and Keane (2020), which encompasses all of these
approaches. However, I will not explicitly mention notions and findings related
to brain-damaged patients to avoid overloading the reader.
Every aspect studied by cognitive psychology is important in the museum
experience. Once the needs of the brain are met, visitors will have a better
chance of appreciating our heritage. Taking cognitive processes and emotions
into consideration saves us from designing inadequate museum experiences. For
instance, as we know, the crowding of objects in the exhibition rooms is
harmful to the perception of an individual object for various reasons: perceptual
aspects (the objects are too close), attention-related aspects (too many stimuli can
be distracting), semantic satiety (too many experiences of the same type), and
memory difficulties in remembering the objects seen (Antinucci, 2006).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003304531-1
2 Annalisa Banzi
What Is a Brain-Friendly Museum?
The brain-friendly museum (BFM) is an institution based on the respect of
human beings’ cognitive processes and emotions as well as on the protection,
preservation, dissemination, and appreciation of our tangible and intangible
heritage for the purposes of education, study, and enjoyment. The specific
tasks and mission of museums have already been addressed by museum experts.
However, I believe that the definition of the museum should include re-
specting the needs of our brains. It is a fundamental condition for a greater
appreciation by visitors of our heritage.
While I was attending university, I often worked as a museum guide. It was
a job that helped me to delve into some topics related to art history from
different standpoints. I am mentioning this because in that period I realised
that there were visitors who were very interested in the topics and contents
introduced in the exhibitions, and they wanted to learn about them but they
couldn’t “absorb” all the information. Even if they were interested and en-
thusiastic about the displayed objects, and even if I was doing my best to share
with them some information about these artworks, I noted that their mem-
ories of the contents were vivid for a short period of time. After a few museum
halls and new concepts were added, the previous information was “blurred”.
The groups of visitors who were not familiar with the content of the ex-
hibition were the most disadvantaged. During that period I started thinking
how I could have been of help to these museumgoers. The literature (e.g.,
Antinucci, 2007) remarks that this problem exists and we should take it into
consideration. That’s why my first interest, which started during the Ph.D.
programme, was devoted to studying how to adapt the psychology knowledge
and techniques to foster visitors’ memory. My first concern was to give some
support to help them remember better what they wanted to learn. Of course,
emotions are great allies to memorise contents; however, there are other as-
pects that can help this process. Psychology over time has developed many
techniques and methods that could be applied to the museum environment.
In recent years, I enlarged this objective by introducing the idea that all
cognitive processes and emotions can be of help to a meaningful museum
experience. This is why I am developing the BFM approach which aims at
embracing all these processes.
The role that psychology (in particular the cognitive branch) can play in the
museum environment has already been mentioned above. Together with
neuroscience, it is one of the main disciplines involved in the BFM approach.
Let’s now introduce the role of the latter and its contribution to the
achievement of meaningful visitors’ experiences. As we will see, we can take
into account the findings collected by neuroscience and also we can use its
tools (chapter 7) to assess museumgoers’ skills once psychological concepts
have been applied to the museum setting. In this regard, note that the Peabody
Essex Museum (USA) is mentioned several times in this book as it is the first
institution that officially introduced neuroscience into its strategy. However,
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
or five elk, and left it to take the very fresh trail of a moose. Takes-
Gun-Ahead was in the lead, and within ten minutes he saw the
animal not fifty yards away, standing partly concealed behind a
clump of willows and watching our approach. Its head was in plain
view, and he fired and struck it just at the base of the ear, and it fell,
gave a convulsive kick or two, and was dead when we got to it. It
was a three-year-old bull, and carried a very ordinary set of antlers,
velvet-covered and still soft at the points. I dressed the carcass while
my companion went back for a horse, and before noon we had real
meat—ni-tap′-i-wak-sin—in camp. We distributed it among the
lodges, and there was great rejoicing. Later in the day, Two Guns
and Black Bull brought in a fine buck mule deer, and at sunset Big
Spring returned with the meat and skin of a yearling ram that he
had killed on the outer point of Divide Mountain. It was like old
times,—the camp red with meat,—and we all felt rich and happy.
The killing of the moose in this particular place brought out a lot of
reminiscences of happenings here on Little River in other days, and
of them all I think that Takes-Gun-Ahead’s story was the best. As the
pipe went the first round after our feast of roast moose ribs in Black
Bull’s lodge, said he: “I will tell you the story of

“OLD MAN AND THE WOLVES

“One day in that long ago time, Old Man was wandering along the
edge of this forest, having come over from Cutbank way. He was
feeling very lonely, and wondering what he could do to have a more
lively time, when, as he approached the river here, probably right
where we are camped, he saw a band of six wolves sitting on the
bank, watching him. He stopped short, watched them for a time,
and then approached them, whining out: ‘My younger brothers! My
younger brothers! I am very lonely! Take pity on me: let me be a
wolf with you!’
“As I have said, the wolves were six: the old father and mother, their
two daughters, and their sons, Heavy Body and Long Body. The old
father wolf answered Old Man. ‘Just what do you mean?’ he asked.
‘Is it that you want me to change you into a wolf—that you want to
live just as we do?’
“‘I want to live with you, hunt with you,’ he answered, ‘but I don’t
want to be changed wholly into a wolf. Just make my head and neck
to look like yours, and put wolf hair on my legs and arms, and that
will be about enough of a change. I will keep my body just as it is.’
“‘Very well, we will do that for you,’ said the old wolf; and he took a
gray medicine and rubbed it on Old Man’s head and neck and legs
and arms, and made the change. ‘There!’ said he. ‘My work is done.
I would like to have made you all wolf, your body as well as the rest
of you, but you will do as you are; you are quite wolf-like. And now,
let me tell you something about our family. My old wife and I don’t
hunt much. Your two younger brothers there are the runners and
killers, and their sisters help in the way of heading off and confusing
the game. Your younger brother there, Long Body, is the swiftest
runner, but he hasn’t the best of wind. However, he generally
overtakes and kills whatever he chases. Your other younger brother,
Heavy Body, is not a fast runner, but he has great staying power,
never gets winded, and in the end brings down his game. And now
you know them. Whenever you feel like hunting, one or the other of
them, as you choose, will go with you.’
“‘You are very kind to me,’ said Old Man. ‘I am now very tired, but
to-morrow I shall want to hunt with one or the other of them.’
“‘We are also tired; we have come a long way; it is best that we all
rest during this night,’ said the old wolf; and he led the way up to
the top of a high ridge on the north side of the valley, where all lay
down.
“‘But why rest out on top of this barren, windy place, instead of in
the shelter of the timber?’ Old Man asked, his teeth beginning to
chatter from the cold.
“‘We never rest in the timber,’ the old wolf replied. ‘There enemies
would have a good chance to take us unawares. Here we can see
afar everything that moves, and as one or another of us is always on
watch, we can keep out of danger. Also, we can look down and see
the different kinds of game, and make our plans to chase what we
want, head it off, tire it out, and kill it. We always, summer and
winter, do our resting and sleeping on high places.’
“Before the night was far gone, Old Man became so cold that he
trembled all over, and, try as he would, he could not keep his jaws
together.
“‘You annoy us with your tremblings, and your teeth chatterings; you
keep us from sleeping,’ the old wolf complained.
“‘Well, I shall not annoy you long,’ Old Man answered, ‘because I
shall soon freeze to death!’
“The old wolf aroused his wife and children: ‘This tender-bodied
elder brother of ours is freezing. I suppose we have to protect him.
Lie down in a circle around him and cover him with your tails,’ he
told them.
“They did so, and he was soon overcome with heat: ‘Take your ill-
smelling tails from my body; I am wet with perspiration!’ he gasped.
They removed their tails and he soon began to shiver. ‘Put them
back! I freeze!’ he cried; and they did as he commanded. During the
night he had them cover him many times with their tails, and as
many times remove them. He passed a miserable night, and so did
the wolves, for he kept them from sleeping.
“At break of day all arose, and, looking down into the valley, saw a
lone, buck mule deer feeding farther and farther away from the
timber. They made a plan for capturing it. They all sneaked around
into the timber, and then Long Body and Old Man crept down the
valley until the buck saw them and ran, and then they chased it.
Long Body soon pulled it down, and Old Man came up in time to
seize and break its neck, and felt very proud of himself. The other
wolves soon came to the kill, and all feasted. The carcass lasted
them two days.
“Again and again they went to the top of the ridge to pass the night,
and Old Man soon became so used to the cold that he did not need
tail covering. When the deer was eaten, they killed another one, and
then a buffalo bull, which lasted them some days. Then, after two
failures in chasing antelope and some hungry days, Long Body killed
a big bull elk, just outside the timber here. They were several days
eating it, but at last all the meat and the soft bones were finished,
and nothing but the backbone and the hard leg bones remained.
Said the old wolf then: ‘We must be saving of what we have left, for
it may be some time before we can make another killing. To-day we
will take turns chewing the upper bone of a hind leg.’
“They gathered in a small circle with one of the bones, noses to the
center, and the old wolf said to Old Man: ‘Now, while this chewing is
going on, bone splinters are bound to fly. You must keep your eyes
tight shut until it comes your turn to chew, else you may get a
splinter that will blind you.’
“Old Man did as he was told. The old wolf began the chewing, and
after gnawing off the end of the bone, and getting a little of the
marrow, called out to his wife that it was her turn to chew and
passed her the bone. And so from one to another it went around the
circle until Long Body got it, and Old Man’s turn came next. His
curiosity now got the better of him: he just had to see what was
going on, and slowly opened one eye, the one next to Long Body. All
the wolves had their heads to the ground or resting on their fore
paws, and all—even Long Body, busily chewing the bone—kept their
eyes tight shut. ‘Huh! This is a queer way to feast,’ Old Man said to
himself, and just then a splinter flew from the bone and struck his
open eye, not putting it out, but causing him great pain and making
him very angry. ‘I will pay him for that!’ he thought, and waited his
turn at the bone, becoming more and more angry as he waited.
“‘Your turn, Old Man,’ said Long Body after a time, and passed him
the bone. Old Man took it, chewed it for a time, looking sharply at all
the wolves. All had their eyes tight shut, so, raising the bone as high
as he could, he brought it down with all the force of his arm upon
Long Body’s head and killed him. The other wolves, hearing his
twitching, as he died, opened their eyes, saw him dead, and Old
Man staring in horror at what he had done.
“‘Oh, what have you done! You have killed your younger brother!’
the old wolf cried.
“‘I didn’t mean to,’ Old Man answered. ‘When he was chewing the
bone he let a splinter fly, and it struck me in this eye. I meant to
punish him a little for being so careless, but I did not mean to kill
him. I must have struck harder than I thought to do.’
“‘You had your eyes open! It was your fault that you got the
splinter!’ the old wolf said; and then he and all the rest began
grieving for their dead.
“All the rest of that day, and all through the night, they howled and
howled, and Old Man thought that he would go mad from the
mournfulness of it all. He was very sorry—he hated himself for what
he had done in his anger.
“The mourning-time over, the wolves dug a hole in the ground and
buried Long Body, and then scolded Old Man. ‘Had you killed my son
intentionally,’ the old wolf concluded, ‘we would have had your life in
payment for his life. As it is, we will give you one more trial: see that
such an accident as that never again occurs!’
“‘Younger brother,’ said Old Man, ‘I am grieving and very restless
because of what I have done. I want to be moving; to be doing
something. Let Heavy Body go with me up in this pine forest, and
we will try to kill something.’
“The old wolf remained silent for some time, thinking, and at last
answered: ‘Yes, I will allow him to go with you, and remember this:
if anything happens to him, we shall hold you responsible, and great
will be your punishment!’
“The two started off, and Old Man said to his partner, ‘In some ways
I am wiser than you. I have this to say, and you must heed it:
Whatever you start after, be it deer or elk or moose, and no matter
how close you may get to it, if it crosses a stream, even a little
stream that you can jump, stop right there and turn back. Mind,
now, even if a few more leaps will get you to the animal’s throat,
you are not to make those leaps if it crosses a stream. Should you
keep on, death in some form will get you.’
“‘How do you know this?’ Heavy Body asked.
“‘I may not tell you all that I know,’ Old Man replied. ‘I have given
you the warning; heed it.’
“They went farther up in the timber, and after some nosing of trails
started a big bull moose, and took after it, Heavy Body running far in
the lead. He was fast gaining upon it, was almost at its heels, when
it jumped into a wide, long pond, really a widening of the creek, and
started swimming across it to an island, and from that to the other
shore. Heavy Body thought of Old Man’s warning, but said to
himself: ‘He doesn’t know everything. I must have that moose!’ And
into the water he went and started swimming toward the island. And
just as he was nearing it a water bear sprang from the shore, and
killed him, and dragged him to land, and Old Man appeared at the
edge of the pond just in time to see the bear and her two nearly
grown young begin feasting upon her kill. With a heart full of rage
and sorrow, he turned back into the timber and considered how he
could revenge the death of Heavy Body.
“Two mornings later, just before daylight, Old Man came again to the
shore of the pond, and close to the edge of the water took his stand
and gave himself the appearance of an old stump. Soon after sunrise
the old water bear, coming out from the brush on the island, saw it,
sat up and stared at it, and said to herself: ‘I do not remember
having seen that stump before. I suspicion that it is Old Man, come
to do me harm. I saw him right there when I killed the wolf.’
“She stared and stared at the stump, and at last called out her
young, and said to one of them: ‘Go across there and bite, and claw
that stump. I believe that it is Old Man. If it is, he will cry out and
run when you hurt him.’
“The young bear swam across and went up to the stump, and bit,
and clawed it, and hurt Old Man. He was almost on the point of
giving up and running away, when it left him and went back to the
island and told the old one that the stump was a stump, and nothing
else. But the old one was not satisfied. She sent the other young
one over, and it bit and clawed Old Man harder than its brother had,
but he stood the pain, bad as it was, and that young one went back
and also said that the stump was just a common old stump and
without life.
“But the old water bear was not yet satisfied. She went across
herself, and bit and tore at the stump with her claws, and what Old
Man had suffered from the others was nothing compared to what he
endured from her attack. He stood it, however, and at last, satisfied
that her children had been right, that this was a stump and nothing
else, she left it and started back for the island. Then it was that, just
as she was entering the water, Old Man picked up the bow and
arrows he had made during the two days back in the timber and
shot an arrow into her, well back in the loin; but she dove under
water so quickly that he could not see whether he had hit her or not.
She swam under water clear around back of the island, and went
ashore where he could not see her. He turned, then, and went away
back in the timber, and slept all the rest of the day and all of the
following night.
“Early the next morning he was approaching the pond by way of the
stream running from it, when he saw a kingfisher sitting on a limb of
a tree overhanging the water, and looking intently down into it:
‘Little brother, what do you there?’ he asked.
“‘The old water bear has been shot,’ the bird answered. ‘She bathes
in the water, and clots of blood and pieces of fat escape from the
wound, and when they come floating along here I seize them, and
eat them.’
“‘Ha! So I did hit her!’ Old Man said. ‘How badly, I wonder?’
“He went on up the shore of the stream, trying to think of some way
to get complete revenge for the death of Heavy Body, when he
heard some one out in the brush chanting: ‘Some one has shot the
old water bear! I have to doctor the old water bear! Some one has
shot the old water bear! I have to doctor the old water bear!’
“He went out to see who this might be, and found that it was the
bull frog, jumping about and making the chant after every jump. He
went to him and asked if the bear was much hurt?
“‘There is an arrow in her loin,’ the frog answered, ‘and as soon as I
find a certain medicine plant, I shall pull the arrow out and apply the
crushed plant to the wound. I believe that I can save her life.’
“‘That you never will,’ Old Man said, and fired an arrow into him, and
killed him. He then took his skin, put it on, tore up a handful of a
green plant, and swam to the island. As soon as he reached the
shore he began chanting as the frog had done: ‘Some one has shot
the old water bear! I have to doctor the old water bear!’ And so,
chanting and jumping, he followed a trail into the brush and came
upon the old bear and her two young. She was lying on her side,
breathing heavily, and her eyes were shut. Old Man bent over her,
and, firmly grasping the arrow, shoved it in until it pierced her heart,
and she gave a kick and died! He then picked up a club and killed
the two young. ‘There! That ends the water bear family. I was crazy
ever to have made her and her husband!’ he exclaimed.
“Casting off the frog skin now, he with great difficulty floated the
three bears from the island to the shore of the pond. There, a short
distance back from it, he found a bowl-shaped depression in the
ground. Into this he dragged the carcasses of the bears, after
skinning them and taking off all the fat from their meat and insides,
and then he tried out the fat and poured the oil over them,
completely covering them and filling the depression. He then called
the animals. ‘All you who would be fat, come bathe in this oil,’ he
shouted. And on all sides the animals heard and began to come in.
The bears—real bears, the grizzly and the black—came first and
rolled in the oil, and ever since that time they have been the fattest
of all animals. Then came the skunk; next the badger; after him the
porcupine, and rolled in the oil and got fat. The beaver came and
swam across the oil. All that part of him above the water as he
swam—his head and the forward part of his back—got no fat, but all
the rest of his body—his sides, belly, and tail—became extremely fat.
Last of all the animals came the rabbit. He did not go into the oil,
but, dipping a paw into it, rubbed it upon his back between his
shoulders and upon the inside of each leg. That is why he has no fat
on other parts of his body.
“‘Well, there!’ Old Man exclaimed, after the rabbit had gone. ‘I have
done some good. I have avenged the death of my wolf partner and
have made fat many of my younger brothers!’ And with that he
started off seeking more adventures.
“Kyi! My story ends.”

August 4.

Not for many years, I am sure, have my relatives and friends here
been so happy as they are just now. Instead of beef or no meat of
any kind, as is generally the case with them when at home,—some
die every winter from want of food,—they have now in every lodge
real meat; meat of moose and elk and bighorn, and so are living
much as they did in the days before the white men overran their
country and killed off their game.
 SUN WOMAN, DAUGHTER OF TAKES-GUN-AHEAD AND WIFE OF STABS-BY-
MISTAKE

A happy heart sharpens one’s wits. All day yesterday, as I knew, my

two old relatives, Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill and Yellow Wolf,
were considering what other one of the tribal stories about the Little
River country would most please me. I had told them that I could
not put them all down—could use only two or three of the most
interesting ones. And so, when we all gathered in Yellow Wolf’s
lodge last evening, and the pipe was lighted and started on the
round of our circle, he said that it had been decided that I should
have the story of the rescue of a boy from the Crows, and that he
would tell it. It was called, he said, the story of
 “NEW ROBE, THE RESCUER

“In the long ago, before our forefathers had taken this country from
the Crows, they were one summer camping and hunting on the Big
River of the North.[7] Came the evening of a long, hot day, and a
boy of eight or nine winters—Lone Star was his name—failed to
return to his parents’ lodge. The chiefs ordered the camp crier out,
and he went all among the lodges, shouting the news, and asking if
any one had seen the boy? None had; so then the chiefs ordered all
the men and youths to go out and try to find him. All that moonlit
night, and all the next day, they searched the surrounding country,
but got no trace of him. Every alighting buzzard was marked down,
but in every instance it was found to be feasting upon the remains of
game that the hunters had killed. So then, although his body could
not be found, most of the people believed that the boy was dead.
His beautiful sister, Red Cloud Woman, and his father, Black Bear,
thought otherwise; they believed that he had been stolen by the
enemy, and publicly, all through the camp, the two went, the girl
vowing that she would marry whoever would find her brother, the
old man adding that she had his permission to make the vow.
[7] Ap-ut′-o-sosts O′muk-at-ai (Big River of the North). The
Saskatchewan. Back

“There was in the camp a very poor young man, named New Robe.
So poor was he that he had never owned a new robe, nor a new
shirt, nor leggins, nor even new moccasins. His father and mother
were dead, and always, as far back as he could remember, he had
worn nothing but the used clothes the charitable had given him. He
had never been to war, had never done anything to make a name for
himself, but now he was eager to start in quest of the missing boy.
He had long loved the girl, but had never even spoken to her. He
now went to her and said: ‘Tell no one about it. Just silently pray for
me. I am going to travel far in search of your brother.’
“Said the girl: ‘This is not a time for me to hide my heart from you. I
have watched you, loved you for a very long time. But what could I
say? Nothing. Well I knew that my people would not allow me to
marry one so poor as you. But now there is hope for us; somehow I
believe that this trouble is to be the means of bringing us together.’
And with that she kissed him, and he went quietly out from camp,
unobserved by any one, and started southward on his quest.
“Many days later, in the valley of Old Man’s River, New Robe came
upon an old camp-ground of the enemy—Crows, of course, for that
was then their country. From it he found that they had moved south,
and he followed their trail, ever along the foot of the mountains, and
knew that he was fast overtaking them. At the River-of-Many-Chiefs-
Gathering[8] he found live coals in the ashes of their abandoned
fireplaces, and so, upon arriving at the top of the ridge overlooking
this stream, he was not surprised to see the lodges of the great
Crow camp here—right here where we are encamped to-night. They
were set up in a great circle, and in the center of it was a huge
lodge covered with old lodge skins: the Crows were having their
medicine lodge ceremonies!
[8] St. Mary’s River. Back

“As soon as night came and before the moon arose, New Robe
descended the hill and entered the camp. The people were all of
them gathered at the medicine lodge, singing and dancing, and
fulfilling their vows to the sun, so he went from one living lodge to
another, looking into each for some sign of the missing boy. By the
time he had made the round of the lodges of half of the circle it was
midnight, and the people were beginning to go home to sleep. He
left the camp and went back on the ridge, having found no trace of
the one for whom he searched.
“The next night New Robe descended the ridge and searched the
lodges of the other half of the circle, and found not what he sought.
When he had finished, the people were still gathered at the medicine
lodge, and, desperate, and knowing well the great risk that he would
incur, he went toward it, and stood at the outer edge of the great
crowd and watched the ceremonial dancing of the different warrior
clans. He kept his face partly concealed with his old robe, and
moved from place to place around the outer circle of the people, and
none observed him, so intent were they upon watching the dancers.
“At last, during a quiet interval between dances, he imagined that he
heard some one groaning, but, look where he would, he could see
no one in distress, nor could he locate the exact place from which
the groaning came. It was a light-voiced groaning, such as a child
would make; he felt sure that it came from little Lone Star,
somewhere in that great lodge, and in great pain. He left the place,
went outside the circle of lodges, and lay down.
“It was long past midnight when the people returned to their lodges.
Then, as soon as the camp became quiet, New Robe returned to the
medicine lodge, and, listening, heard faint groaning and located it. It
came from the top of the center post, where all the sacrifices to the
sun were hung. He was sure then that it was no other than Lone
Star up there, lashed to the post, a living sacrifice to the sun, and
there to die!
“Well he knew that there, within the lodge, were sleeping the
women who had vowed to build the great structure in honor of the
sun. And there, too, in his secret, walled-off little inner lodge, slept
the medicine man whose duty it was to drive back approaching
thunderclouds and rain. He had to risk awakening them! He had at
least to attempt to rescue the boy! So, casting off his robe, he
climbed the outer wall of the lodge, and from it crawled along one of
the big long poles that slanted up to the center post. There he found
Lone Star, firmly lashed to one of its forks, and so far gone that he
could no longer even groan.
“Silently, very carefully, New Robe unwound the lashing, and then,
fastening an end of it under the boy’s arms, let him down to the
ground. He then descended, and found that the boy was so numb
that he could not walk. There was but one thing to do then. He took
the helpless one upon his back, stole out of the lodge, and started
with him across the big camp-ground. Dawn had come. As he was
passing the circle of lodges, an early riser, a woman, saw him and
with her shrieks aroused all the near-by sleepers. They rushed out,
warriors and youths, the women following, and overtook him. He
made no resistance. He could have left the boy and made his own
escape, but he would not do that. Several old warriors seized him
and the boy, and hurried them to the lodge of the head chief, the
women and the youths following and crying out that they be killed.
Inside the lodge, the chief motioned them to seats, and in signs
asked New Robe what he had to say for himself.
“‘I came not to harm you,’ New Robe answered, ‘nor to take from
you anything that is yours. I came to find this boy, and take him
back to his mourning father and mother and sister. And where did I
find him! Tied to the center post of your medicine lodge, there to die
from want of water and food, a living but dying sacrifice to the sun!
That were too cruel a thing to do. I ask you not to put him back
there. If he is to die, I die with him. Shoot us, stab us, kill us in any
way you choose, so that our death be quick!’
“The chief gave him no answer to that. He counseled with the other
chiefs for a long time, and at last signed to him: ‘You are so brave
that we shall give you and the boy a chance for your lives. You are
to remain here in this lodge to-day, to-night, to-morrow, and the
following night. My young men will keep watch on you, so do not
attempt to escape. On the morning following your second night
here, you are to be given your chance to leave us unharmed. I shall
not now tell you what that chance will be.’ And then, turning to his
men, he gave them certain orders, and they hurried from the lodge.
“During the two days and two nights, New Robe prayed as he never
had before, prayed for strength and courage to succeed in whatever
he should be told to do. The people of the lodge treated him and the
boy well. They did not want for food, nor anything else that would
make for their comfort. Early in the morning after the second night,
the chief signed to him: ‘It is not my fault, nor the fault of my under
chiefs, that you have to undergo this trial for your life and that of the
boy this day. My people were crying for your lives; they wanted to
drag you two out from here and fill your bodies with arrows. I did
not want them to do that; my council of chiefs did not want it done;
so we counseled together and hit upon a way to give you a chance
for your lives. It is not an easy thing that you have to attempt, but I
hope you will succeed. And, whatever happens, believe this: I have
done the best for you that I could!’
“A little later, soon after the morning meal, the chief signed the two
captives to follow him, and led them to the medicine lodge. In front
of it were seven fresh buffalo bull heads which a number of men
were skinning, and out in front of them, in a great half-circle, were
gathered every man, woman, and child of the Mountain Crow tribe.
New Robe wondered what was to be done with the seven buffalo
heads; he suspected that they were to be in some way used in his
trial for life.
“‘Come!’ the chief signed, and led him and the boy to the entrance
of the medicine lodge. There they stood, the mark of many flashing,
angry eyes, and presently the skinners finished their work, and an
old chief placed the shining skulls in a line out from the doorway of
the lodge, each one of them a long step distant from another.
“Again the head chief made signs to New Robe: ‘There is your trial
for life,’ he said. ‘You are to take the boy on your back, and step
from one to the other of those skulls until you step upon the last
one; pass from it to the ground. If you succeed in doing that, you
and the boy are free to go to your home, and none of my people
shall harm you on your way. But should you slip from a skull, and
even so much as touch the ground with your toe, to save your
balance, then the warriors standing out there will fall upon you, and
kill you both.’
“New Robe looked long at the seven skulls, considering what he
should do. Being freshly skinned, he knew that they were very
slippery. And then, which would be safest, to step slowly, carefully,
from one to another, or make a run across them touching each one
quickly, lightly? They were far apart; too far for slow, deliberate
stepping; he concluded that the thing to do was to start running
from the back of the lodge, and go along the line of them as fast as
he could with his burden. He signed to the chief that he would do
that, and led the boy to the back of the lodge.
“While going there another thought came to him. He got back of the
boy, and stooped, and while pretending to fix the young one’s belt
and leggins, kept spitting in two places upon the ground. He then
stepped squarely in each pool of the spit and then upon soft ground,
and coated his moccasin soles with the sandy earth. Then, suddenly
swinging the boy to his back, and running swiftly across the lodge,
he lit upon the first skull with his right foot, and went leaping on
from one to another as fast as he could with the weight upon his
back. The third skull began to turn with him, and he made a weak
leap from it, barely alighting upon the next. But it held firm and he
made a sure leap from it to the next, and from that to the next, and
then, stepping squarely upon the seventh, and last skull, passed
from it to the ground, and released the boy from his back.
“The crowd stood silent, sullen, watching him. The head chief came
to his side and spoke to them, and they suddenly broke out in loud
cheers. The chief then signed to New Robe: ‘There is one thing more
you are asked to do before we send you home. You do not have to
do it, but we hope that you will. Come with me!’
“They went to the lodge of a young chief, and when they were
seated, the chief signed to New Robe: ‘My father, once a great chief,
is an old man. He does not want to die of old age and long and
painful illness, and he wants a chance to kill one more enemy before
he dies. He wants to fight you. If he kills you, then that will be good.
If you kill him, then you shall have his war horse and all his
weapons, and I will give you a fine present, and you and the boy
shall go to your home in perfect safety. Now, what say you to that?’
“‘I have no weapons,’ New Robe objected.
“‘Weapons you shall have,’ the other replied. ‘All the warriors of the
camp are anxious to loan you what they have. You shall go with me
and examine what they have until you find just what you want.’
“New Robe considered the matter. If he won out, what honor, what a
coup it would be to return to his people with the weapons and the
war horse of his enemy. If he lost, if he was killed—a sudden doubt
struck him, and he asked: ‘If I fall, what will become of the boy?’
“‘We promise you now,’ the chiefs both answered, ‘that in that case
some of us will take the boy to within sight of the camp of your
people, and send him safely to it.’
“‘I take your word for that, and now give me weapons,’ said New
Robe.
“He was offered his choice of many bows and spears, war clubs and
knives, but took only a short, lithe bow and a handful of well-
feathered arrows. Then, standing within the circle of the lodges, he
awaited the coming of the old chief. He soon appeared, wearing a
beautiful war costume and riding a sorrel pinto war horse. And now,
dressed as he was, and easily controlling his fiery-tempered mount,
he did not seem to be so very old; at a distance one would have
thought him a young warrior. His weapon in hand was a long, scalp-
tufted spear. On his back he carried a bow and otter-skin quiver of
arrows, and in his belt, in a handsome sheath, quill-embroidered,
was his knife. Said New Robe to himself: ‘He looks strong, he is
brave. Well, I too must be brave, and watchful.’
“Forth and back across the other side of the big circle rode the old
man, singing a war song, brandishing his spear, keeping his prancing
war horse well in hand. And then, suddenly urging him forward, he
came swift as the wind at New Robe. And he, dropping his tattered
wrap, awaited his coming with ready bow. On he came, shouting his
war cry, and when quite close New Robe let fly his long and heavy-
shafted arrow. It struck the old warrior fair in the ribs. He flinched,
the mounting blood choked off his war cry, but on he came, and
with a last great effort hurled his spear, and fell from his horse and
died,—died without knowing that the weapon had passed high over
New Robe’s head!
“And then what a shout went up from all the people! Shouts of
honor for the old chief who had preferred death in battle instead of
in his lodge, and shouts too for the young man who had so bravely
faced him. New Robe knew not what to do. He stood looking this
way, that way, uncertainly. Then came to him the son of the old
dead chief and signed to him to take the horse and the weapons of
his enemy, and he did so. Then the young man brought to him
another horse, a big and gentle black: ‘I said that I would give you
something,’ he signed, ‘and here it is. The boy can ride it home. You
may go now, both of you, and go without fear of pursuit: not a man
in this camp shall follow you!’ And without wasting any time the two
mounted the horses and rode northward away from the camp.
“In the Blackfeet camp Lone Star’s father and mother grieved more
and more for the loss of him, but his sister, Red Cloud Woman,
would not believe that he was dead; had somehow faith that he was
alive; that New Robe would find him, and bring him safely home.
And at last, when she saw that her father and mother were likely to
go mad from grief, she told them that New Robe had gone in search
of the boy, and that she would marry him, even if he returned alone.
Morning after morning she went up on a butte close to camp and
watched the great plain stretching away to the south, and all day
long, and often on her couch at night, prayed for the safe return of
brother and lover.
“And then, at last, after many, many days of worried watching, she
saw two riders coming from the south across the plain, and, sure
that they were those she had been praying for, ran to meet them.
They were the missing ones. They sprang from their fine horses, and
she kissed first her brother and then clung to New Robe: ‘I am right
now your woman,’ she cried, and kissed him again. ‘And I am proud
to be your woman,’ she went on, ‘so take me up behind you and we
will all ride home!’
“She got up behind him on his prancing war horse, and as they rode
in he quickly told her of his adventures, and how, at last, he had
fought and killed the old war chief, and for that had been given the
two horses and all the weapons and fine war clothes she saw. So it
was that, coming into camp, she had the tale of his brave deeds to
shout to the people, and they, gathering close around, honored his
name and gave him a chief’s greeting. Yes, the poor orphan had
within the length of one moon become a chief, and had made a
mourning father and mother happy. That very night he and Red
Cloud Woman were given a lodge of their own, and their happiness
was complete.”
 IV
Puht-o-muk-si-kim-iks (The Lakes
Inside): St. Mary’s Lakes

August 10.

W
E left Little River on the 5th, crossed the big ridge dividing
the Arctic and the Atlantic waters, and made camp here on
the big prairie at the foot of the Upper St. Mary’s Lake.
In the old days this great valley, hemmed in by gigantic mountains,
was my favorite hunting ground after the buffalo were exterminated
and there was no more sport to be had upon the plains.
 CAMP NEAR LOWER END OF UPPER ST. MARY’S LAKE

Hugh Monroe, or Rising Wolf, was, of course, the first white man to
see these most beautiful of all our Northern Rockies lakes; with the
Piegan Blackfeet he camped at them in 1816, and long afterward,
with his growing family of hardy sons and daughters, this became
his favorite hunting and trapping ground. When, in the 1830’s, that
valiant and much beloved missionary, Father De Smet, S.J., was
visiting the various tribes of this Northwest country, Monroe was
engaged to take him to a conference with the North Blackfeet, then
camping on the Saskatchewan River. En route they camped at the
foot of the lower of these lakes, and there erected a large wooden
cross, and named the two sheets of water, St. Mary’s Lakes. Later
on, the Stevens expedition named them Chief Mountain Lakes, but
that name did not last. Monroe and his brother trappers were all
Catholics, and they continued to use the name that the great priest
had given them, and on the maps they are St. Mary’s Lakes to-day.
During my long friendship with him, Monroe told me many stories of
his adventures here in early days. This was his favorite mountain
resort on account of the great numbers of moose that inhabited the
heavily timbered valley and mountain slopes, and of the great
variety and numbers of fur animals that were found here. The valley
swarmed with elk and deer; there were countless flocks of bighorn
and goats on the mountains, and herds of buffalo everywhere along
the lower lake, and below it; but Monroe liked best of all the flesh of
moose, and killed large numbers of them every season that he
camped here.
His method of catching wolves was simple and unique. He would
build an oblong, pyramidal log pen about eight by sixteen feet at the
base, and eight feet in height, the last layer of logs being placed
about eighteen inches apart. Easily climbing the slope of this, the
wolves would jump down through the narrow aperture at the top to
feed upon the quantities of meat that had been placed inside to
decoy them, but they could not jump out. Often, of a morning, the
trapper and his sons would find ten or more big wolves imprisoned
in the trap, and, powder and ball being very costly, they would kill
them with bow and arrows, skin them, and drag the carcasses to the
river and cast them into it, then take the hides home and peg them
on the ground to dry. In this manner they would often, in the spring,
have several hundred wolf pelts to pack in to Fort Benton for sale,
and prime pelts sold at five dollars each, in trade. Their catch of
beaver, otter, mink, martin, and fisher was also large.
Monroe always camped at the foot of the lower lake, near the outlet,
and was there more than once attacked by roving war parties of
Assiniboines, Crows, and even the Yanktonais. The horses were kept
at night in a strong corral just back of the lodge, and in the daytime
were watched by some member of the family while they grazed on
the rich prairie grasses. All the family—John and François, the sons,
Millie and Lizzie, the daughters—and even the mother had guns,
flintlocks, and a good supply of powder and ball. Early one morning
a large war party was discovered approaching the camp, sneaking
from bush to bush, some crawling on all fours through the high
grass. Lizzie opened fire upon them and killed her man, and then the
fire became general on both sides. But the Monroes, in their
trenches surrounding the lodge, had the best of it from the start,
and eventually made the enemy retreat with a loss of five of their
number. Late the following night the Assiniboines crept in to make
another attack, but the Monroes were expecting them, waiting for
them, and in the bright moonlight could take fairly accurate aim.
They again drove them off, with a loss of two more of their number,
and that time they kept going. Nothing more was seen of them. But
for some days the Monroes did not venture far from their camp.
I first saw the St. Mary’s Lakes in October, 1882, in company with
Charles Phemmister, James Rutherford, Charles Carter, and Oliver
Sanderville, all old plainsmen, good company, and best of hunters.
We outfitted for the trip at the Old Agency, on Badger Creek,
Blackfeet Reservation, and started northward. There was no trail
after leaving the crossing of Little or Milk River, and we struck up
country toward the big gap in the mountains, in which we knew the
lakes must lie, and that evening camped on the shore of a large
prairie lake that was black with ducks. I shot a dozen or more of
them as they flew over a long point, and to my surprise and delight
found that they were all canvasbacks and redheads, and very fat
from feeding upon the wild celery beds of the lake. I named the
sheet of water Duck Lake.
The next day we made a trail down the long hill, and camped at the
foot of the lower lake, close to the outlet. Then began two weeks of
most glorious sport. We shot elk, deer, and several grizzlies in the
valley, and bighorn on a mountain that I named Flat Top, and
combed that mountain from one end to another and on all sides for
an animal known to us as the Rocky Mountain ibex. We had seen
several skins of them, bought from the Stony Indians by Captain
John Healy, of Fort Whoopup and Fort Benton fame, but none of us
nor any man of our acquaintance—and we knew every trapper and
trader in the country—had ever seen one of the animals alive. Of
course we found none, as this sub-Arctic animal, which we later
learned is a true antelope, and not an ibex or goat, seldom leaves
the high cliff mountains for the outer and lower ones of the range.
When, later, we did find them, we in our ignorance named them
Rocky Mountain goats, and that is the common name for them to-
day, despite the fact that they are antelopes.
On this first visit to the St. Mary’s Lakes country I was so impressed
by the grandeur of its mountains, the beauty of its many lakes, and
its plenitude of game, that thereafter for many years it was, more
than anywhere else, my home. In 1883 I brought out to the lakes a
good boat that I had had built for me at Fort Conrad, and with it
learned that both lakes were alive with whitefish and Mackinaw,
Dolly Varden, and cutthroat trout. During the summer of this year I
named Red Eagle Mountain and Red Eagle Lake, after my uncle-in-
law, Red Eagle, owner of the Thunder medicine pipe, and one of the
most high-minded, gentle-hearted Indians that I ever knew. In the
autumn of this year Dr. George Bird Grinnell joined me, and we
hunted around the lower lake, and went up Swift Current far enough
to see what we thought would possibly prove to be a glacier. We had
not then time to learn if our surmise was correct. During our hunt
Dr. Grinnell killed a large ram at long range, offhand, with one shot
from his old Sharp’s rifle, on the mountain next above Flat Top, and I
therefore named it Single-Shot Mountain.
 AT THE NARROWS. UPPER ST. MARY’S LAKE

In the summer of this year I also named Divide Mountain, because it

is the outermost mountain on the Atlantic-Arctic watershed. At the
same time I named Kootenai Mountain, also for a very good reason.
Some members of that tribe were encamped beside me at the foot
of the upper lake. I noticed often that they would ride out of camp
at daylight and return at noon or a little later with all the bighorn or
goat meat that their horses could carry, and finally I asked them
where they went to make their killings so quickly.
“Come with me to-morrow and I will show you something,” one of
them answered. And the next morning I rode with him up Red Eagle
Valley and part way up a mountain, where we tied our horses and
went on afoot for a couple of hundred yards. Then, looking down
into a coulée, we saw a dozen or more bighorn in the bottom of it
and killed four of them. They had been eating salty clay and drinking
from a salt spring that oozes from the ground there, so I named the
place Kootenai Lick, and also gave the mountain the name Kootenai.
Thereafter I knew where to go for bighorn when I wanted one.
In 1884 I named Almost-a-Dog Mountain, after one of the few
survivors of the Baker massacre, which took place on the Marias
River, January 1, 1870. At that time Colonel E. M. Baker, with a
couple of companies of cavalry from Fort Shaw, Montana, was trying
to find the camp of Owl Child, a Piegan Blackfoot, and murderer of a
settler named Malcolm Clark, and arrest him. By mistake he struck
the camp of Heavy Runner and his band of friendly Indians, and,
although the chief came running toward him waving his letters of
recommendation and his Washington medals, Baker ordered his men
to begin firing, and a terrible massacre ensued, the Indians firing not
one shot in defense, as about all the able-bodied men were at the
time on a buffalo hunt. When the firing was over, two hundred and
seventeen old men and women and children lay dead and dying in
their lodges and in the camp. The soldiers then shot the wounded,
collected the lodges and property of the Indians in great piles, and
set fire to them and departed.[9]
[9] The above is an extract from an affidavit by the late Joseph
Kipp, who was Baker’s scout and guide at the time. Back

In the autumn of 1885 Dr. Grinnell, J. B. Monroe, and I made a trip

up Swift Current River, and discovered and roughly measured the big
glacier at the head of its middle fork, Dr. Grinnell killing a big ram on
the ice while we were traversing it and avoiding its deep crevasses.
That evening Monroe and I named the glacier in honor of Dr.
Grinnell, and also named the mountain to the north of it after him.
On the following day we were joined by Lieutenant—now Major—
J. H. Beacom, Third Infantry, and he gave my Indian name, Apikuni,
to the high mountain between Swift Current and the South Fork of
Kennedy Creek. Upon our return to Upper St. Mary’s Lake, Dr.
Grinnell named Little Chief Mountain, Monroe gave Citadel Mountain
its name, and I named Yellow Fish, Goat, Going-to-the-Sun, and
Four Bears Mountains. Yellow Fish (O-to-ko′-mi) was an Indian who
often hunted with us, and Four Bears (Nis-su′-kyai-yo) was the
Blackfeet camp crier, and a most amusing man.
It was in 1886, I believe, that we three, and my old-time friend,
William Jackson, one-time scout for General Custer and General
Miles, cut a trail to the head of the St. Mary’s Valley and discovered
the great sheet of ice which we named the Blackfeet Glacier. We at
the same time named Gun-Sight Pass, and named the peak just
west of the glacier, Mount Jackson. It should be Sik-si-kai′-kwan
(Blackfeet Man), Jackson’s Indian name. He was a grandson of Hugh
Monroe, a real plainsman, and one of the bravest men I ever knew.
 GOING-TO-THE-SUN MOUNTAIN

Going-to-the-Sun has been climbed this day, and a flag has been
planted upon its summit, by Paul E. Walker, Esq., of Topeka, Kansas.
Owing to a high cliff upon its upper shoulder, the mountain has
always been considered unclimbable. But after long search, and with
no little risk, Mr. Walker finally worked out a way up the wall, and
out upon the extreme crest, and was undoubtedly the first man,
white or red, ever to stand there. He reports that a magnificent view
of the mountains and plains is to be had from the great height.

August 12.

We have more real meat in camp. Yesterday Black Bull went up

under the north point of Flat Top Mountain, which is on the Indian
Reservation, and killed two fat young rams. I went fishing, and in
the first pool of the river below the upper lake, caught several
two- and three-pound cutthroat trout. We had a great feast in the
evening—roast bighorn ribs, broiled trout, a quantity of blueberries,
and so on.
After the feast was over came story-telling time, and we heard this
man’s and that man’s experiences in hunting in this vicinity in other
days, Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill relating a hard experience
that befell him when once wintering here with me. He was chasing a
wounded elk on the slope of Single-Shot Mountain, and stepped
upon a sharp, snow-covered knot that pierced his foot through and
through, and kept him laid up for two months. Yellow Wolf then
related an old-time tale, which incidentally gave the reason for
naming these two sheets of water the Inside Lakes. He called it, he
said,—

“THE STORY OF THE FIRST HORSES

“In that long-ago time when the people had only their great, wolf-
like dogs for carrying their belongings, there were two very poor
orphans, a brother and sister, in the camp. The boy was very deaf,
and because he seemed not to understand what was shouted at
him, he was believed to be crazy, and not even the relatives of his
dead father and mother cared to have him in their lodges. One
would keep him for a time and tell him to go, and then another
relative would take him in for a short time, and, getting tired of him,
send him on to another lodge. And wherever he went, his beautiful
young sister went with him. Often, in good weather, when camp was
moved, the two would stay at the old camp-ground, living on cast-
away meat so long as it lasted, and then they would overtake the
camp and go into the nearest lodge, and at least be sure of a meal.
They were generally barefooted and always shabbily dressed. It was
a hard life that they led. And because he was so deaf, and believed
to be crazy, the boy had not even one playmate in all the camp, nor
had his sister, for she knew that it was her duty to be always at his
side. There came a time, however, when a childless woman, wife of
a great and rich chief, wanted the girl to raise as her own daughter,
and after many days the boy persuaded her to be adopted, and he
was left alone and more lonely than ever.
“Not long after this separation, the camp moved one day, and the
boy, Long Arrow, remained at the old camp-ground to live there as
long as he could on the leavings of the people. At last he finished
the last scrap of thrown away or forgotten meat and started to
overtake the camp. The day was hot, terribly hot, but despite that
the boy traveled as fast as he could, often running, and perspiration
streamed from his body and his breath came short and fast in loud
wheezes. Suddenly, while running, he felt something give way with a
snap in his left ear, felt something moving out from it, and reaching
up he pulled from it a long, round, waxy object that looked like a
worm. He held it in his hand and ran on, and noted that with the left
ear he could plainly hear his footsteps upon the trail. A little later
something snapped in his right ear, and began to move out of it, and
he took from it another worm-like substance, and keeping both in
his hand, ran on. He could now hear plainly with both ears, and so
happy was he that he felt almost as though he could fly.
“But that was not all the good that was to come to him that day.
Early in the morning a hunter had left camp with his pack dogs, and
had taken the back trail in search of buffalo, and just before the boy
appeared he had killed one, and was butchering it when he saw the
boy approaching him. This hunter, Heavy Runner, was a chief, and
one of the kindest men in the whole camp. He had long thought to
do something for this boy, and now, when he saw him coming, he
said to himself: ‘The time has come. I shall do something for him!’
“The boy came to him and his kill, and he shouted to him, at the
same time making signs: ‘Sit you down, my boy, and rest. You are
wet with sweat, and covered with dust. You must be very tired. Take
this piece of tripe and eat it. And now let me tell you something:
from this day you are to be my boy. I adopt you. You shall have a
place in my lodge; good clothes; a good bed. Try to be good, and
deserve it all. I am going to try to make a man of you.’
“‘Heavy Runner, your kind words make me want to cry,’ said the boy,
his voice trembling, tears dropping from his eyes. He swallowed
painfully, brushed away the tears, sat up straight, and went on: ‘I
shall be glad to be your son. I will do all that I can to deserve what
you give me. And now, let me tell you something. As I was running
away back there on the trail, and breathing hard, first in one ear,
and then in the other, something broke with a snapping noise and
out came these two worm-like things, and at once hearing came to
me. I believe that I could hear a mouse walking if he were away out
there beyond your kill.’
“‘Now, that is good news, and a good sign!’ Heavy Runner shouted.
He was not yet used to the fact that the boy could hear. Then,
remembering, he said more gently: ‘You take a good rest while I
finish butchering this animal and packing the dogs, and then we will
each take what meat we can carry and go home. Yes, boy, you have
a home now, and a good one.’
“That evening, when Heavy Runner told his woman that he had
adopted Long Arrow, she made a great outcry: ‘How could you, and
without asking me, adopt that deaf, crazy boy?’ she asked. And then,
she cried, and said that she would not have him for a son, and ran
from the lodge. People gathered around and pitied her and said that
she was right; that the boy was crazy and deaf and worthless, and
would not mind, and as soon as he got good clothes he would run
off and again live at old campgrounds.
“After a time she went back to her lodge, and as soon as she
entered it Heavy Runner said to her: ‘Now, at once, cease your
crying, and take the anger from your heart. I have adopted this boy,
and he is my boy. He is no longer deaf; he was never crazy. He is a
good boy and I shall make a man, a chief of him. See that you treat
him well, even if you cannot love him. And believe this: if you do not
treat him well, you shall be the one to suffer. To-morrow morning,
begin making some good moccasins for him. I, myself, shall cut out
his clothes, and he can sew them.’
“So began a new life for Long Arrow. If the woman did not love him,
she at least treated him well. He did everything that he could think
of to please Heavy Runner. He went hunting with him, and brought
home heavy loads of the meat that he killed, and in every possible
way was of use to him. And yet he was not satisfied; he kept saying
to himself: ‘I want to do something great for this man who is so
good to me!’
“Time passed. The boy grew up to be a fine young man; good of
heart and of fine appearance; and at last Heavy Runner’s woman
loved him as though he were her own son. But in one thing he was
very different from the other young men of the camp: he made no
close friends, and when not needed by Heavy Runner he wandered
much by himself. Excepting his sister, whom he frequently took for
long walks, he had little to say to any one, and so the people, all but
she and his foster parents, continued to believe him crazy.
“One evening he said to Heavy Runner: ‘Tell me. What must one do
to become a chief?’
“‘One must be very brave, must be fearless when facing the enemy,
and of very kind heart; full of pity for the poor and the old and the
sick, and always anxious to help them,’ the chief replied.
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com