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<P><FONT size=4><SPAN class="detailheadline style9"><STRONG>Students find
tribe's buffalo stone story hidden away</STRONG></SPAN><BR></FONT><SPAN
class=detailbyline><EM>By BETSY COHEN of the Missoulian</EM></SPAN></P>
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<TD class="cutline style10"><B>Glen Still Smoking II</B> holds a 1889
letter he found in the Smithsonian archives that his
great-great-great-great-grandfather Mountain Chief wrote to the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Still Smoking is one of five University of
Montana student researchers who are spending the month of June in
Washington, D.C., locating and copying documents relating to Montana's
Indian tribes. <BR>DAVE BECK photo</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></DIV><!-- end photo -->
<DIV id=story>As far back as he can remember, Glen Still Smoking II has known
the story of the buffalo stone.<BR><BR>Called iniskim by traditional members of
his Blackfeet tribe, the small stone, usually a fossilized shell found on the
Montana prairie, is used in a ritual for calling buffalo.<BR><BR>Often the stone
is in the shape of an animal, and is considered an important medicine object,
Still Smoking said.</SPAN>
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<TD align=middle></TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><SPAN class=detailstory>One of
its magical qualities is how it is found.<BR><BR>“You don't look for it,” the
University of Montana student explained. “It chirps, it calls out to be
found.”<BR><BR>Several years ago, a buffalo stone called to Still Smoking's
father, a stone he gave to his son.<BR><BR>Still Smoking carries it with him,
and he packed this special gift when he headed to the Smithsonian Institute
earlier this month as part of a historic UM student research team tasked with
locating, assessing, copying and bringing home the millions of documents and
records pertaining to Montana's Indian tribes.<BR><BR>The students are three
weeks into the monthlong project; already, the five have discovered stories of
their ancestors and their tribes.<BR><BR>So it was with great awe and excitement
last week when Still Smoking came upon a document from the mid-1800s, a 35-page,
detailed retelling of the buffalo stone story and its meaning.<BR><BR>What he
learned is that the story he was told as a boy is very much the same story told
on the faded parchment.<BR><BR>At the time, the discovery was the highlight of
his trip, but then, two days later at the Library of Congress, Still Smoking and
Helen Cryer came upon a 90-minute Blackfeet audio recording taken in 1898 by
Walter McClintock.<BR><BR>On this recording, one of the earliest recordings ever
made, a Blackfeet named Cream Antelope tells the story of the buffalo
stone.<BR><BR>“This whole experience has been pretty monumental for me,” Still
Smoking said. “It's the first time I have been on the East Coast - there are a
lot of new sights, and I've already gone through three disposable
cameras.”<BR><BR>“I can't believe I'm here,” he said. “I'm learning quite a bit
about my tribe and my people.”<BR><BR> <BR><BR><B>The First Buffalo
Stone</B><BR><BR>One time long, long ago, before we had horses, the buffalo
suddenly disappeared. All the hunters killed elk, deer and smaller game animals
along the river bottoms then. When all of them were either killed or driven
away, the people began to starve. They were camped in a circle near a buffalo
drive. Among them was a very, very poor old woman, the second wife of her
husband. Her buffalo robe was old and full of holes; her moccasins were old and
were torn to shreds by the rocks she walked over.<BR><BR>While gathering wood
for the fire one day, she thought she heard someone singing a song. The song
seemed quite close, but when she looked around, she saw no one. Following the
sound and looking closely, she found a small rock that was singing, “Take me! I
am of great power. Take me! I am of great power.”<BR><BR>When the woman picked
up the rock, it told her what to do and taught her a special song. She told her
husband her experience and then said, “Call all the men together and ask them to
sing this song that will call the buffalo back.”<BR><BR>“Are you sure?” asked
her husband.<BR><BR>“Yes, I am sure. First get me a small piece of the back of a
buffalo from the Bear-Medicine man.” Then she told her husband how to arrange
the inside of the lodge in a kind of square box with some sagebrush and buffalo
chips. “Now tell the men to come and ask them for the four rattles they use.” It
is a custom for the first wife to sit close to her husband in their lodge. But
this time, the husband told the second wife to put on the first wife's dress and
sit beside him. After all the men were seated in the lodge, the buffalo stone
began to sing, “The buffalo will all drift back. The buffalo will all drift
back.”<BR><BR>Then the woman said to one of the younger men, “Go beyond the
drive and put up a lot of buffalo chips in line. Then all of you are to wave at
the chips with a buffalo robe, four times, while you shout like you were
singing. The fourth time that you shout, all the chips will turn into buffalo
and will go over the cliff.”<BR><BR>The men followed her directions, and the
woman led the singing in the lodge. She knew just what the young man was doing
all the time, and she knew that a cow-buffalo would take the lead. While the
woman was singing a song about the leader that would take her followers over the
cliff, all the buffalo went over the drive and were killed.<BR><BR>Then the
woman sang a different song: “I have made more than a hundred buffalo fall over
the cliff, and the man above hears me.”<BR><BR>Ever since then, the people took
good care of a buffalo stone and prayed to it, for they knew that it had much
power.</SPAN> </DIV></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient <A title="http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007" href="http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007" target="_blank">used cars</A>.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>