The primitive creation is attributed to a superior divinity, whom they call the Creator (Apistotokin), and sometimes identify with the sun. After this divinity—of whom their ideas are very vague—had created the watery expanse, another deity, with the aid of four animals, of which the muskrat was the chief, brought some earth from the bottom of the abyss, expanded it to the present continent, and peopled it with human beings. This deity is commonly styled by them the "Old Man" (Napiw), a name implying, as used by them, a feeling of affectionate admiration. He is represented as a powerful but tricksy spirit, half Jupiter and half Mercury. "He appears," writes M. Lacombe, "in many other traditions and legendary accounts, in which he is associated with the various kinds of animals, speaking to them, making use of them, and especially cheating them, and playing every kind of trick." In this being we recognize at once the most genuine and characteristic of all the Algonkin divinities. In every tribe of this wide-spread family, from Nova Scotia to Virginia, and from the Delaware to the Rocky Mountains, he reappears under various names—Manabozho, Michabo, Wetuks, Glooskap, Wisaketjak, Napiw—but everywhere with the same traits and the same history. He is at once a creator, a defender, a teacher, and at the same time a conqueror, a robber, and a deceiver. But the robbery and deceit, it would seem, are usually for some good purpose. He preserves mankind from their enemies, and uses the arts of these enemies to circumvent and destroy them. In Longfellow's charming poem, he is confounded with the Iroquois hero, Hiawatha. In Dr. Brinton's view, his origin is to be found in a Nature-myth, representing "on the one hand the unceasing struggle of day with night, light with darkness, and on the other that no less important conflict which is ever waging between the storm and sunshine, the winter and summer, the rain and clear sky."
Napiw, the "Old Man," has, it seems, other names in the Blackfoot tongue. He is known as Kenakatsis, "he who wears a wolf-skin robe," and Mik-orkayew, "he who wears a red-painted buffalo-robe." These names have probably some reference to legends of which he is the hero. The name of the Creator, Apistotokin, as explained by M. Lacombe, affords a good example of the subtile grammatical distinctions which abound in the Siksika, as in other Algonkin tongues. The expression "he makes," which, like other verbal forms, may be used as a noun, can be rendered in four forms, of varied shades of meaning: Apistototsim signifies "he makes," or "he who makes," when the complement, or thing made, is expressed, and is an inanimate object. Apistotoyew is used when the expressed object is animate. Apistotakiw is the indefinite form, used when the complement, or thing made, is not expressed, but is understood to be inanimate; and, finally, Apistotokin, the word in question, is employed when the unexpressed object is supposed to be animate. By this analysis we gain the unexpected
