There’s a place just north of the Milk River, west of Writing-on-Stone, where large mounds of rocky, dusty soil appear and a coulee winds its way, tough prairie grass and shrubby sage along the bottom. There are silty streams of pale damp earth, their edges scattered with haphazard groups of large stones lichen patched in shades of red and rust and black. Large stones also sit atop the various mounds while the silty ground below holds footprints of various animals that have walked through, my prints joining them.

Yesterday the west wind whipped between these mounds and on the top it was too cold and strong to stand for long without getting all the warmth driven from my body. But on a sheltered eastern side of one of the hilly mounds, I sat and opened Napi’s Dance and read aloud to the land.

The Sweetgrass Hills rose up in the southeast, snow-covered already, blue-gray above the dry brown grasslands on the border of winter.

This fulfilled a promise I made – to read aloud to the land, in gratitude and in recognition of its great presence. And the land listened.

Pretty sweet day indeed.

On a hill in the southeast of what is now called Alberta was a large black stone. From the time it had fallen, a meteorite, the stone had grown in size and in importance. It was sacred to the various tribes and camps who hunted or passed nearby and they would stop to leave offerings, prayers and respect. Called Old Man Buffalo Stone, the Iron One, the Black Rock, and the Manitou Stone, it gave assurance to the plains people. The prophecy shared among the tribes stated that if the Iron One was ever moved then starvation, war and disease would quickly follow.

Napi’s Dance includes some of the story of the Black Rock and the period of disruption, upheaval and loss that followed its theft from where it stood. The Wesleyan minister George McDougall ordered his son to remove the stone. This was part, it seemed, of the minister’s plan to prove that the white man’s god was superior to the “superstitions” of the natives.

I found it curious that the stone was believed to have grown larger in the years after it landed on the hilltop. This recalled a story written by China Gallant in Longing for Darkness that told of a Tara image appearing on a rock in Pharping, Nepal. The image had grown steadily since it was first noticed. Gallant interviewed a Buddhist priest who had seen it when it was only four inches high and it was, at the time she interviewed him, around twelve inches. The Buddhist priest, Chos Kyi Nyima Rinpoche, who teaches Buddhist Studies at Bodh Gaya, India, explained why he believed it was possible for this Tara to grow out of rock. He explained that the Western mind has been working with the power of material substance for some time, but the power of mental substance and the power of concentration can accomplish incredible things as well. He told her that the power of prayers and blessings could bring such “self-arising” phenomenon about.

The idea that prayers and blessings could bring about the growth of even rocks brought a new intrigue to the Black Stone story. Several measurements of the Rock that were made after it was taken to McDougall’s mission site near Leduc,then to the Victoria University in Ontario, then to the University of Toronto and then to the Royal Ontario Museum recorded its weight as 386 pounds. Yet by the time Old Man Buffalo Stone was brought back to Alberta in the 1970’s it was recorded as weighing 320 pounds. When prayers and blessings are no longer extended to these “self-arising” objects, does their growth reverse?

Just a thought.

To this day, the Black Rock, now located at the Provincial Museum in Edmonton, Alberta, receives regular offerings of tobacco, beads and presumably prayers.

My friend asked this question. “Why is your book titled Napi’s Dance?”

“It’s from the story,” I said, “when Buffalo and Wolf saw the great changes coming.”

Here is the place…

“Napi has another story in mind now,” said Buffalo.

Wolf looked over to Buffalo.”We are all in Napi’s dance, old friend. We move and act out the parts given us. When Old Man says, ‘No more,” we howl and bellow our lament, we struggle to extend our time of glory as long as we can, for that is the way given us to carry out our part. But when Napi sweeps his great hand to remove this bit of play, our story will go, the way a child builds a camp of mud in the sand by the river and sweeps it away in one playful gesture. Yes, this part in its beauty is nearly done.

“Yet we never know what story Napi builds next, do we Wolf?”

Greetings – As the author of Napi’s Dance I welcome you to this blog site.   Napi’s Dance is published by Second Story Press and tells the story of the land that is now mainly southern Alberta.  It was the time when the world of the indigenous people who belonged to that land experienced the great disruption of the trader and settler migrations. Two women, one of the Blood (or Kanai) people and one of British heritage, are brought together in circumstances larger than their individual lives.  

Maybe it’s always that way – what appears as ordinary events are larger than we recognize.

From time to time I’ll write about the events and background to the story; and about the story to come. Hope you enjoy the posts.