This brings the 2007 NCDE mortality number to 25. From the article: "According to Servheen, the 25 suspected killed in the northern Rockies is “a little above average, but not too bad. Of course, every grizzly counts.” The annual mortality numbers will become more important when the population estimate for the NCDE is released later this spring, because what are deemed acceptable mortality rates are determined by the overall population. If the population numbers are high, then more bears can be lost without affecting a future delisting push on the NCDE.

I've been meaning to mention the Blackfeet bear stories recorded by Percy Bullchild and Walter McClintock. They recorded stories of hunting bears, bears helping wounded Blackfeet warriors, and warriors returning to life as bears to haunt the landscape. What's even more interesting when looking at the stories recorded is their cultural perspective: Bullchild was Blackfeet, and retells Blackfeet stories in order to reclaim them from White culture, and McClintock lived among the Blackfeet in the late 19th century, recording stories as a anthropologist.

These days, some modern Blackfeet say that grizzly bears have never been hunted. There seems to be split opinions on this, as there are in white culture: some landowners like bears, or at least tolerate them, while a few don't, with varying results. Grizzly bears are illegally killed all along the Front, and poaching on the Blackfeet Nation is as bad as anywhere else.

There are stories that Blackfeet are never mauled by grizzlies: whites are, but never Blackfeet. I've heard that Blackfeet don't like to go into the mountains because of grizzlies, that the Blackfeet have had trouble since reservation days learning to live near the mountains. We used to be a prairie people, we didn't live up against the Front, I've been told.

I don't know what is true, and probably never will. And I wouldn't be able to understand, anyway, as I'm not Blackfeet, and I'm not going to claim an understanding of Blackfeet traditions and life. It's an illustration of the width and breath of stories and human nature.

Percy Bullchild's The Sun Came Down: The History of the World as My Blackfeet Elders Told It was published in 1985. He has extensively told and developed the full spectrum of Blackfeet stories. It's in paperback, with a new introduction by Woody Kipp, author of Viet Cong at Wounded Knee: The Trail of a Blackfeet Activist.

This is from his introduction:

"I'm a Blackfeet Indian from Browning, Montana. We are all of the former Tribe of the Piegans. Others of this former tribe are in Canada - the Kainais of the Bloods, the North Piegans, and North Blackfeet tribe or band, all in Alberta, Canada. Our four tribes were once one big Tribe of the Piegans. We were split by the coming of the white man and their international boundary that presently divides the United States and Canada.

"I do not have a good education of the white man language, I cannot speak it fluently. Unfortunately, I only went to the sixth grade and I couldn't speak English before going to school. And so the white man language is still very foreign to me. With what little education I have, I'm going to try to write the Indian version of our own true ways in our history and our legends.

"Most written history of us Indians, the Natives of this North American continent, and the South American continent too, has been written by non-Indians. But this is our history and our legends of our beginning, the very beginning of all life. Most of these are so false and smearing that it gets me mad. That's the very reason why I'm writing now"

I'm glad Blackfeet stories have been (and still are) told by Blackfeet. There are all kinds of problems with stories recorded by and researchers and anthropologists of the 19th Century: translations, completeness, context, you name it. Setting down an oral history story to paper is problematic and doesn't address the nature of the story in flux. Stories change through time, and we'll never know what McClintock really heard or what versions of stories there once were.

But, I wonder if it matters? Is that too harsh of a judgement? If the spirit of the story remains, does the exact story - and the precise details were in it - matter? If the spirit of the story travels through time, we will receive it and retransmit it, as long as there are tellers and as long as the story is a story.

The spirit of the story resides in the culture and the language that it encompasses. If the culture remains alive and if the original language is used, I think the story can continue, no matter what the precise details.

Walter McClintock recorded several stories of the both the feared and the friendly Medicine Grizzly in The Old North Trail, originally published in 1910.

"The Medicine Grizzly of Cutbank Canyon" is a story about a Gro Ventres warrior who was killed in a battle with the Blackfeet in Cutbank Canyon. Cutbank Pass was a travel route over the continental divide between the Flathead Valley and the eastern prairie, and eastern nations such as the Kootenai and Salish crossed the divide to hunt buffalo, and the Blackfeet went west for horses. In the canyon below was good grazing and water, and it was the site of many fights.

McClintock writes that the Gro Ventres chief is the lone survivor of an evening ambush, and he holds out all night in the underbrush, roaring like a grizzly and challenging the Blackfeet. They finally kill him the next day, and find a grizzly bear claw on his necklace. The next year, a huge grizzly begins to haunt the canyon, the spirit of the warrior, the story goes. The bear lives for many years, haunting the canyon.

I've heard some Blackfeet say the bears' presence is still in Cutbank Canyon, and it is a place to be respected.

McClintock also records "The Legend of the Friendly Medicine Grizzly." A Blackfeet named Nis-ta-e is wounded in a horse stealing raid on the Snakes. He eventually runs out of strength and resigns to dying far from home. A grizzly bear finds him, and carries him for four days, feeding him and eventually delivering him back to his bands' camp on the Marias River (called the Bear River in Blackfeet). Nis-ta-e invites the bear and his companion coyote to stay, but the bear says it is late in the fall, and he must hibernate. As the bear and coyote leave, the bear asks one favor of Nis-ta-e: never hunt a grizzly when in a winter den.

Grizzly bears helping Blackfeet and Blackfeet helping bears in return are story themes that are repeated in different ways. Another of McClintock's books, Old Indian Trails, was published first in Great Britain and was out of print for some time due to copyright reasons. Much material is duplicated between this book and The Old North Trail, but not this:

The story begins with a Blackfeet man traveling alone in the mountains in the fall when the days are getting short. One of his children has died, and he is wandering by himself, taking time away from the rest of the band. He is alone and sad, but confident:

The only animal to be feared was the grizzly bear, and I knew he would do me no harm, because I am the guardian of the bear medicine. Through its wonderful power I have cured many people.

One rainy night, he finds a cave to stay in and builds a fire. When he wakes before first light, he hears something outside the cave, and from the sound of the footsteps he knows it is a big animal.

My back was towards the mouth of the cave, so I turned my head very slowly, very carefully, and saw close to the entrance a huge grizzly bear. Then I said to myself: "If this bear is angry, he has caught me in a trap." I have often laughed at animals in traps, but I did not feel like laughing this time.

Again I said to myself: "This grizzly can do me no harm; my Bear Medicine will protect me; it has often helped me cure the sick; besides, I have always had a friendly feeling for bears, as if they were my relatives; I must be bold and make a strong talk; I must make this bear understand that I am his friend."

Then I thought: "Perhaps he intends on playing with me before he kills me." And this made me feel very strange. Now, all this time the bear did not move. He stood with his head down and gazed into the mouth of the cave. Oh! How big he looked! He stood high in front and had a broad head; and his great feet had long sharp claws. He did not make a sound, but I knew he was angry; his hair stood straight up on his back.

Then he remembers what an old medicine man once told him about what to do when confronted by a bear - that a bear never harms a person who does not move and talks to him in a friendly voice.

So I lay with my arms stretched out and head on my hands, like a bear does. Thus I lay and looked straight into his eyes. And then I began talking in a friendly way, using the softest and kindest voice I knew. I flattered him the best I could. I said: "Brother Bear, you are very good looking; you have nice eyes and white teeth; you are big and strong. I have never killed bears; I do not care to hunt them. Yes! I have always liked bears I look upon them as my relatives."

While I talked, his hair began to flatten, so I talked again harder than ever. I kept on flattering him; I told him some of the secrets of my Bear Medicine. I saw that he liked my talk; he was in a good humor; and then I began to pray, saying:

Brother Bear, Pity me! I am poor and in trouble.
Brother Bear, I am keeper of the Bear Medicine.
Brother Bear, it is I who guard the Bear Secrets.
Brother Bear, I ask you to go away and leave me in peace.

Now, the bear was no longer angry. The hair on his back all went down smooth. Soon he turned and walked slowly from the cave; after that I saw him no more.

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January: climate change ≈ February ≈ March

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