Wolves At Our Door
Native American Wolf Lore

     A blackfoot woman named Sits By The Door was captured in a crow raid and carried hundreds of miles to Crow country as a prisoner. She escaped with the help of a Crow woman, but nearly starved when she was still far from her people. She watched helplessly as a wolf came close by and lay down, probably waiting for her to die. She told her story to the wolf.

    The next morning there was a freshly killed buffalo calf on the ground next to her. She ate and regained some of her strength, and resumed her journey. She still could barely walk, so the wolf walked next to her and supported part of her weight. They traveled together for days and the wolf continued to bring kills to her.

    By the time she reached her people, she was as strong as before she left. She camped just outside the village because the wolf was still wild, but the camp dogs eventually ran it away.

   The woman became sick and eventually died. It is said that the wolf would look for Sits By The Door from a nearby butte for many years after.

   A woman was hurt and left behind by her people. She ran out of food and nearly starved, but came upon a wolf den and crawled inside. At first the members of the pack were suspicious and afraid of her, but eventually they grew used to her. When they brought food to their pups they allowed her to share the food.

   Eventually she was strong enough to snare rabbits and help with the hunting. She stayed with the pack for many years.

   One day the oldest wolf smelled humans coming, and strangely the woman did also. They were her own people, and she realized she must return to them.

   She reunited herself with the village very slowly. She brought with her the skills of the wolf. She knew from the wolf talk she heard at night and from her sensitive nose, how to predict weather far in advance and to alert the village when game or other humans were nearby.

   Wolf and Raccoon are having an argument, Raccoon was hurling insults at Wolf from the safety of a tree. Wolf was howling at Raccoon about his insulting behavior.

   Wolf soon realized that he would not change Raccoon. Raccoon had to change himself.

   Wolf was bored and went to sleep. Raccoon sneaked out of the tree and put pine sap on Wolf's sleeping eyes.

   When Wolf woke up he couldn't open his eyes. So he called to the birds to help him. The birds liked Wolf because he always left a small part of his kills for them to eat. They pecked at the sap until it was gone.Wolf was grateful and asked if there was anything he could do for them. The birds were all the same kind, and had always wanted to be painted, so Wolf painted them many beautiful colors, all different.

   Fish called to Wolf on the other side, reminding him that Buck was his brother-in-law and he should not kill everyone in the deer village. Wolf was ashamed at his greed and agreed not to kill all the deer. To this day deer often escape by standing motionless and wolves leave some deer behind to have young.