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Old Man and the Great Spirit
There was once a Great Spirit who was good. He made a man and a woman. Then Old Man came along. No one made Old Man. He always existed. The Great Spirit said to him, "Old Man, have you any power?" "Yes," said Old Man, "I am very strong." "Well," said the Great Spirit, "suppose you make some mountains."
So Old Man set to work and made the Sweet-Grass Hills. To do this he took a piece of Chief Mountain. He brought Chief Mountain up to its present location, shaped it up, and named it. The other mountains were called blood colts. "Well," said the Great Spirit, "you are strong." "Now," said Old Man, "there are four of us: the man and woman, you and I."
The Great Spirit said, "All right." The Great Spirit said, "I will make a big cross for you to carry." Old Man said "No, you make another man so that he can carry it." The Great Spirit made another man. Old Man carried the cross a while, but soon got tired and wanted to go. The Great Spirit told him that he could go, but he should go out among the people and the animals, and teach them how to live, etc. Now the other man got tired of carrying, the cross. He was a white man. The Great Spirit sent him off as a traveler. So he wandered on alone.
The man and woman who had been created wandered off down towards Mexico, where they tried to build a mountain in order to get to the sky to be with their children. But the people got mixed up until they came to have many different languages.
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