This volume was written and recorded in a time when the great Northwest was rapidly becoming a settled country. With the passing of the traditional ways of the Indian much of the America"s aboriginal folk-lore, rich in its fairy-like characters, and its relation to the lives of its native people has been lost. There is a wide difference between folk-lore of the so-called Old World and that of America. Transmitted orally through countless generations, the folk-stories of our European ancestors show many evidences of distortion and of change in material particulars; but the Indian seems to have been too fond of nature and too proud of tradition to have forgotten or changed the teachings of his forefathers. Childlike in simplicity, beginning with creation itself, and reaching to the whys and wherefores of nature"s moods and eccentricities, these tales impress as being well worth saving. These 22 "Why" stories from the Blackfeet, Chippewa, and Cree tribes were handed down from father to...