Blackfeet

(Ethn.) A tribe of North American Indians formerly inhabiting the country from the upper Missouri River to the Saskatchewan, but now much reduced in numbers.

The Blackfeet live on what remains of their ancestral homeland: one reservation in northern Montana and three reserves in southern Alberta, Canada. This Blackfoot Confederacy is made up of three distinct nations who share a common language and a common history: the Kainai or Blood, the Siksika or Blackfoot, and the Northern and Southern Pikuni or Piegan. The Amskapi Pikuni or Southern Piegan live on their reservation in the United States and are known as the Blackfeet.

Blackfeet ancestral territory extends along the east side of the Rocky Mountains from the Yellowstone River in southern Montana, north to the North Saskatchewan River in Canada. Anthropologists believe that the Blackfeet originated in the northeast and migrated to their present location only a few centuries ago, while archaeologists think that their residence reaches back thousands of years. The Blackfeet believe they have always lived in their present location, and their complex mythology speaks of their origin and continued intimacy in this area of North America. The Blackfeet believe that within the earth, the water, and the sky reside a great variety of natural and supernatural beings. Within Blackfeet territory live not only the Niitsitapi—the original people—but also the Suwitapi, the underwater people and the Spomitapi, the sky people.

The Amskapi Pikuni divided themselves into dozens of bands of related families who lived together. Buffalo played a central role in the religious life of the Blackfeet as well as being their major source of food, clothing, shelter, and tools. In addition to the buffalo, the Blackfeet relied on plant roots and berries for subsistence and medicinal plants. Although often described as nomadic, their travels throughout their territory were strategic. The Blackfeet had extensive knowledge of the land and its uses.

The introduction of the horse (roughly 1725–1750) allowed the Blackfeet to travel greater distances, access a wider range of trading partners, and accumulate more food and material goods. Horses also enabled the Blackfeet to become more effective in controlling access within their territory. The earliest recorded contact between non-Natives and the Blackfeet is by David Thompson, an explorer who spent the winter of 1787 to 1788 with the Piegan in southern Alberta. He recorded that the Piegan had guns, metal pots, and other European objects for at least fifty years before his arrival. After initial contacts with traders, the Blackfeet attempted to control European access to their territory, in order to limit their enemies' access to guns, and to ensure they did not become overly dependent on Europeans themselves.

From the sixteenth century through the nineteenth century, European diseases such as smallpox and consumption wreaked havoc with the Blackfeet and diminished their ability to control their territory. Up to 18,000 Blackfeet died from smallpox during the 1836–1837 pandemic. Throughout this time the Blackfeet attempted to live autonomously and to pray for missaamipaitapiisin, a long life.

The Fort Laramie treaty of 1851 and Lame Bull's treaty with the United States (1855) began to define on paper Blackfeet territory. About thirty years later, the buffalo disappeared from the Great Plains. The loss of buffalo destroyed Blackfeet independence. They suffered a debilitating winter in 1883 and 1884 during which many Blackfeet died of starvation. The Blackfeet were forced to sell land on their eastern and western boundaries in 1888 and 1896 for food and moved onto what remained of their homeland.

As the twentieth century began, the Blackfeet needed to find a new livelihood and began to worry about their future, something they had never done before. The buffalo, the key element of their history, religion, and subsistence, were gone. The Blackfeet attempted to cooperate with the U.S. government but consistently struggled for control over their land and themselves. The government wanted the Blackfeet to convert to Christianity and outlawed many Blackfeet religious practices. The government also started numerous agricultural programs on the reservation. These were paid for by the Blackfeet and over the years either failed or had limited success. The government forced Blackfeet children to attend American schools either on or off the reservation. These institutions suppressed the use of the Blackfeet language and lifeways.

In 1915, the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council (BTBC) was created. The BTBC had limited authority and jurisdiction over the reservation but struggled to be heard in federal decision making. In 1934, the Blackfeet voted to accept the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), which empowered the BTBC to incorporate and manage tribal property and income. Although the IRA system gave the Blackfeet more authority, it also introduced a foreign government structure into Blackfeet society.

The Blackfeet of the early 2000s are dramatically different from their ancestors. The Blackfeet continue to be extremely religious people, but the majority of Blackfeet are Christian, with most belonging to the Catholic Church. A small minority of Blackfeet join Blackfeet religious societies. English is the first and only language of most Blackfeet; less than 3 percent are fluent in the Blackfeet language.

Despite these changes, many Blackfeet values remain the same. Blackfeet are strongly connected to their homeland and revere their family bonds. The most important value in Blackfeet society, though, remains generosity. Generous people are held in high esteem and individuals are ridiculed if they accumulate wealth without the intention of sharing their good fortune. Blackfeet people continue to pray for good fortune and a long life, not for themselves, but to share with those around them.

Bibliography

Duvall, D.C., and Clark Wissler. Mythology of the Blackfeet Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. Originally published in 1908 by the American Museum of Natural History.

Ewers, John C. The Horse in Blackfeet Culture: With Comparative Material from Other Western Tribes. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

Farr, William E. The Reservation Blackfeet, 1882–1945: A Photo-graphic History of Cultural Survival. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984.

Grinnell, George Bird. Blackfoot Lodge Tales: The Story of A Prairie People. Williamstown, Mass.: Corner House Publishers, 1972. Originally published in 1892 by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Holterman, Jack, et al. A Blackfoot Language Study. Browning, Mont.: Piegan Institute, 1996.

McClintock, Walter. The Old North Trail; or Life, Legends and Religion of the Blackfeet Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1968. Originally published in 1910 in England.

Rosier, Paul. Rebirth of the Blackfeet Nation, 1912–1954. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.

—Rosalyn LaPier

This page is about the Piegan Blackfeet, the band of the tribe located on the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. For the other Blackfoot bands, see Blackfoot. For the similarly translated former Franco-Algerian population, see Pieds-noir.

The three chiefs--Piegan, by Edward S. Curtis

The Piegan Blackfeet (Aamsskáápipikani (Southern Pikáni/Piegan) or simply as Pikáni in Blackfoot) are a tribe of Native Americans based in Montana. Many members of the tribe currently live as part of the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana, with population centered in Browning. According to the 1990 US census, there are 32,234 Blackfeet.^[1]

Contents 1 Relations and history 2 Authors 2.1 Blackfeet authors 2.2 Other authors who wrote about the Blackfeet 3 See also 4 References 5 Bibliography 6 External links

Relations and history

The Blackfeet are closely related to three First Nations in the Canadian province of Alberta. These First Nations are the Kainai Nation (formerly the Blood), the Northern Peigan and the Siksika Nation. These First Nations and the Blackfeet are sometimes collectively referred to as the Blackfoot or the Blackfoot Confederacy. Ethnographic literature most commonly uses Blackfoot people, and most Blackfoot people use the singular Blackfoot, though the US and tribal governments officially use Blackfeet as in Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Blackfeet Nation as seen on official tribe website. The term Siksika, derived from Siksikáíkoan - "a Blackfoot person" - may also be used in self-identification, as may, in English, "I am Blackfoot" or "I am a member of the Blackfeet tribe."^[2]

The relations of the Blackfoot language to others in the Algonquian language family indicate that the Blackfoot lived in an area west of the Great Lakes. Though they practiced some agriculture, they were partly nomadic. They moved westward partially because of the introduction of horses and guns and became a part of the Plains Indians culture in the early 1800s. However, there is evidence that they were near the Rocky Mountain front for thousands of years before European contact. The blackfoot creation story takes place directly below Glacier National Park in what is referred as 'Badger-Two Medicine'. The introduction of the horse is placed at about 1730. In 1900, there were an estimated 20,000 Blackfoot, while today there are approximately 25,000. The population was at times dramatically lower when the Blackfeet people suffered instances of disease, starvation, and war, such as the starvation year of 1882 when the last buffalo hunt failed or the smallpox epidemic of 1837 which killed 6,000. They had held large portions of Alberta and Montana, though today the Blackfeet Reservation is the size of Delaware, and the three Blackfoot reserves in Alberta have a much smaller area.^[3]

The Blackfeet hold belief "in a sacred force that permeates all things, represented symbolically by the sun whose light sustains all things."^[1]

The Piegan (also Pikuni, Pikani, and Piikáni) are one of the 3 tribes of the Siksiká or Blackfoot confederacy. Its divisions, as given by Grinnell, are : Ahahpitape, Ahkaiyikokakiniks, Kiyis, Sikutsipmaiks, Sikopoksimaiks, Tsiniksistsoyiks, Kutaiimiks, Ipoksimaiks, Silkokitsimiks, Nitawyiks, Apikaiviks, Miahwahpitsiks, Nitakoskitsipupiks, Nitikskiks, Inuksiks, Miawkinaiyiks, Esksinaitupiks, Inuksikahkopwaiks, Kahmitaiks, Kutaisotsiman, Nitotsiksisstaniks, Motwainaiks, Mokumiks, and Motahtosiks. Hayden gives also Susksoyiks. In 1858 the Piegan in the United States were estimated to number 3,700. Hayden 3 years later estimated the population at 2,520. In 1906 there were 2,072 under the Blackfeet agency in Montana, and 493 under the Piegan agency in Alberta, Canada.

The Blackfoot language is also agglutinative. The Blackfoot do not have well documented male Two-Spirits, but they do have "manly-hearted women"^[4] who act in much of the social roles of men, including willingness to sing alone, usually considered "immodest", and using a men's singing style.^[5]

Authors

Blackfeet authors

Stephen Graham Jones (1972- ) has won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Independent Publisher Book Award for Multicultural Fiction and other awards. At public readings he's said that his short story "Bestiary" is not fiction.^[6]

Other authors who wrote about the Blackfeet

George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938) was a non-Indian author, who wrote stories about the Blackfoot Nation during his travels and research as a conservationist and bird-watcher. Grinnell was also an editor of Forest and Stream.^[7]

See also

• Blackfoot

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Blackfeet Religion: Doctrines. University of Cumbria: Overview of World Religions. (retrieved 6 June 2009)
2. ^ Nettl, 1989
3. ^ Nettl, 1989
4. ^ Lewis, 1941
5. ^ Nettl, 1989, p.84, 125
6. ^ "Bestiary"
7. ^ George Bird Grinnell. Minnesota State University, Mankato. (retrieved 6 June 2009)

Bibliography

• Dempsey, Hugh A. and Lindsay Moir. Bibliography of the Blackfoot. (Native American Bibiography Series No. 13) Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1989, ISBN 0-8108-2211-3
• Ewers, John C. The Blackfeet: Raiders on the Northwestern Plains. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958 (and later reprints). ISBN 0-8061-0405-8
• Johnson, Bryan R. The Blackfeet: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing, 1988. ISBN 0-8240-0941-X

External links

• Official Site of the Blackfoot Nation
• Blackfoot - English Dictionary
• Blackfoot Culture and History Links
• Blackfeet Indian History
• Blackfeet Indian Reservation
• Blackfeet Indian Stories by George Bird Grinnell
• Constitution and By-Laws For the Blackfeet Tribe Of The Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana

v • d • e Blackfoot Confederacy Nations: Northern Peigan · South Peigan · Kainai Nation · Siksika Nation Other: Blackfeet Indian Reservation · Blackfoot mythology · Blackfoot music · Blackfoot language

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