Book Description

J. W. Schultz (1859-1947) was an author, explorer, and historian known for his historical writings of the Blackfoot Indians in the late 1800s, when he lived among them as a fur trader. In 1907, Schultz published My Life as an Indian, the first of many future writings about the Blackfeet that he would produce over the next thirty years. Schultz lived in Browning, Montana. "Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park" is by the Plains veteran, J. W. Shultz, and is "real stuff," vivid and exciting, with the value that comes from firsthand knowledge.Schultz is most noted for his 37 books, most about Blackfoot life, and for his contributions to the naming of prominent features in Glacier National Park. In the mid-1880s, Schultz began to spend more time in the Two Medicine and Saint Mary Lakes region of what is now Glacier National Park guiding and outfitting local hunters. Thus began decades of Schultz naming features in the Glacier regions for clients and friends, and to honor traditional Indian names.In his 1916 book "Blackfeet Tales" Schultz writes: "AFTER an absence of many years, I have returned to visit for a time my Blackfeet relatives and friends, and we are camping along the mountain trails where, in the long ago, we hunted buffalo, and elk, and moose, and all the other game peculiar to this region." Also during this reunion with his Blackfeet relatives, Schultz takes the time to record the many Blackfeet legends and stories told around the campfire. Schultz also relates his conversations with the Blackfeet over land rights issues, as in the following exchange: "At the upper east side and head of this beautiful lake rises a pyramidal mountain of great height and grandeur. A frowse of pine timber on its lower front slope, and its ever-narrowing side slopes above, give it a certain resemblance to a buffalo bull. Upon looking at a recent map of the country I found that it had been named "Mount Rockwell." So, turning to Yellow Wolf, I said: "The whites have given that mountain yonder the name of a white man. It is so marked upon this paper." The old man, half blind and quite feeble, roused up when he heard that, and cried out: "Is it so? Not satisfied with taking our mountains, the whites even take away the ancient names we have given them! They shall not do it! You tell them so! That mountain yonder is Rising Bull Mountain, and by that name it must ever be called! Rising Bull was one of our great chiefs: what more fitting than that the mountain should always bear his name?"Contents:I. Two MedicineII. Pu-nak-ik-si (cutbank)III. Ki-nuk -si Is-si-sak'-ta (little River)IV. Puht-o-muk-si-kim-iks (The Lakes Inside) St. Mary's LakesV. Iks-i'-kwo-yi-a-tuk-tai (Swift Current River)VI. Ni-na Us-tak-wi (chief Mountain)