While trapping in Montana during the 1880s, young Frank B. Linderman befriended the Kootenai Indians. At their campfires he heard about Skinkoots the coyote, Co-pee the owl, Frog Chief, and the other animal people. The telling impressed him, and in 1926 he was able, from long familiarity, to translate the tales for Kootenai Why Stories. Old-Man appears as the flawed undergod known by different names to other tribes, a figure provoking more hilarity than reverence. The frog is another prominent character in this northwestern Indian lore. Also recognizable for their distinctive attributes are...

The Indians of the northwestern plains always laughed at the tales about Old-man, heard around the lodge fire in the wintertime after sunset. For a powerful character, he was comically flawed. Old-man made the world but sometimes forgot the names of things. Victim and victimizer, he seemed closer to common experience than the awesome god Manitou. Frank B. Linderman thought Old-man was, under different names, a god for many Indian communities. These stories-collected from Chippewa and Cree elders and first published in 1920-are full of wonder at the way things are. Why children lose their...