Sioux

BEFORE there were any people on the earth, Gitche Manito hunted the buffalo. He killed them and cooked them before his camp fire on the Red Rocks, on the top of the Coteau des Prairies, the Mountain of the Prairies. So the blood of the buffaloes ran over the rocks and made them red.

Gitche Manito was then a very large bird. We can still see his tracks in the red stone. Now it happened a large snake crawled out of its hole to eat the eggs of the Bird. Then at once the egg hatched out in a clap of thunder.

Gitche Manito took a piece of stone to throw at the snake. He shaped it in his hands like to a man.

Now this man’s feet stood fast in the ground where he was. Thus he stayed for many ages; therefore he grew very old. He was older than a hundred men at the present time. At last another tree grew beside him. It grew a long while, until a snake bit off the roots. Then the two people left the pipestone quarry. They wandered away. They were the grandfathers of all the tribes.