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Updated: May 14, 2025
It would be absurd to attribute to the Blackfoot of to-day any such abstract conception of the name of the Creator as that expressed in the foregoing quotation. The statement that Old Man was merely light personified would be beyond his comprehension, and if he did understand what was meant, he would laugh at it, and aver that Na'pi was a real man, a flesh and blood person like himself.
In later times once, Na'pi said, "Here I will mark you off a piece of ground," and he did so. Then he said: "There is your land, and it is full of all kinds of animals, and many things grow in this land. Let no other people come into it. When people come to cross the line, take your bows and arrows, your lances and your battle axes, and give them battle and keep them out.
It is generally believed that Old Man is no longer the principal god of the Blackfeet, that the Sun has taken his place. However this may be, it is certain that Na'pi even if he no longer occupies the chief place in the Blackfoot religious system is still reverenced, and is still addressed in prayer.
The fourth morning he went to the place, took the covering off, looked at the images, and told them to rise and walk; and they did so. They walked down to the river with their Maker, and then he told them that his name was Na'pi, Old Man. As they were standing by the river, the woman said to him, "How is it? will we always live, will there be no end to it?" He said: "I have never thought of that.
This is the word used to indicate any old man, though its meaning is often loosely given as white. An analysis of the word Na'pi, however, shows it to be compounded of the word Ni'nah, man, and the particle a'pi, which expresses a color, and which is never used by itself, but always in combination with some other word.
They began to shoot at the buffalo with the bows and arrows Na'pi had given them, and the buffalo began to fall; but in the fight a person was killed. At this time these people had flint knives given them, and they cut up the bodies of the dead buffalo.
The Blackfoot word for white is Ksik-si-num' while a'pi, though also conveying the idea of whiteness, really describes the tint seen in the early morning light when it first appears in the east the dawn not a pure white, but that color combined with a faint cast of yellow. Na'pi, therefore, would seem to mean dawn-light-color-man, or man-yellowish-white.
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