Prairiemary, Blackfeet and Fossil Legends

Mary Scriver e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago, telling me of a large and powerful mythic creature from Blackfoot legend known as a "water bull." Mary suggested that it might have its origins in tribal memories of mammoths from the Pleistocene and asked what I thought. I replied that was possible, but also to remember that extinct Pleistocene bison were much larger than the modern species and that could be a possibility, too.

I was able to refer Mary to an interesting book, Adrienne Mayor's Fossil Legends of the First Americans. I e-mailed her a reference from the book to baculites, marine cephalopod fossils, with surface fractal patterns. When these erode, the small pieces resemble four legged animals, and the Blackfeet (among others) invested them with the ability to summon bison herds. They are called iniskim, or buffalo calling stones. That immediately clicked with Mary, who has an immense fund of knowledge about iniskim, and has previously written a tourist brochure about them.

Mary has gotten a copy of Mayor's book, and has an initial post up about it at Prairiemary. She has such a depth and breadth of knowledge of Blackfeet culture, I know she will take Mayor's starting points on the interplay of fossils and Blackfeet religion and history and vastly expand them. I look forward to reading more about Mary's research.