Society-BLACKFOOT

The Blackfoot Indians of the United States and Canada were divided
into three main groups: the Northern Blackfoot or Siksika, the Kainah
or Blood, and the Piegan. The three as a whole are also referred to
as the Siksika (translated Blackfoot), a term which probably derived
from the discoloration of moccasins with ashes (Mooney 1910: 570).
The three groups constituted what were apparently geographical-linguistic
groups. All three spoke a language which was a part of the Algonquian
family. According to Wissler (1911), the Piegan and Blood were the
most closely related dialects.

Before the Blackfoot were placed on reservations in the latter half
of the nineteenth century, they occupied a large territory which stretched
from the North Saskatchewan River in Canada to the Missouri River
in Montana, and from long. 105 degrees W to the base of the Rocky
Mountains. The Piegan were located toward the western part of this
territory, in the mountainous country. The Blood were located to the
northeast of the Piegan, and the Northern Blackfoot were northeast
of the Blood.

The Blackfoot were placed on four reservations. The Blackfoot Agency,
the Blood Agency, and the Piegan Agency are all located in Alberta,
Canada. The Blackfoot Reservation in Montana is inhabited by Piegans.
(References to Northern Piegan indicate the Canadian Piegan, while
references to the Southern Piegan indicate the Montana Piegan.) For
a map of the aboriginal territory and the location of the reservations,
see McClintock (1968).

Mooney accepts the estimate of Mackenzie that in 1790 there were approximately
9,000 Blackfoot. According to Ewers, however, in 1832 Catlin estimated
that the Blackfoot numbered 16,500, and in 1833 Prince Maximilian
gave an estimate of 18,000 to 20,000 (Ewers 1958: 60). During the
nineteenth century, there were repeated epidemics of smallpox and
measles, which, together with starvation, decimated the population,
so that in 1909 they numbered only 4,635. The Piegans at Blackfoot
Reservation in Montana constituted almost half of this number, with
2,195. In Alberta, at Piegan Agency, there were 47l; at Blood Agency
there were 1,174; and at Blackfoot Agency, there were 795 (Mooney
1910: 571). Evidence indicates that the Piegan were always the largest
of the three groups. In 1960, the tribal enrollment was 8,456, and
4,850 of these lived on the Blackfoot Reservation in Montana (McFee
1968: 1097).

Although Mooney refers to the three groups as a confederacy, there
was no political structure which would warrant such a term. The three
had a very ambiguous sense of unity. The only times they gathered
together were for ceremonial purposes.

The Blackfoot were typical of the Plains Indians in many aspects of
their culture. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers, who lived in tipis.
They subsisted mainly on buffalo and large mammals and, in addition,
gathered a lot of vegetable foods. Traditions indicate that the buffalo
were hunted in drives, although hunting patterns changed when horses
and guns were introduced. Deer and smaller game were caught with snares.
Fish, although abundant, were eaten only in times of dire necessity
and after the disappearance of the buffalo.

During the summer, the Blackfoot lived in large tribal camps. It was
during this season that they hunted buffalos and engaged in ceremonialism,
such as the Sun Dance. During the winter, they separated into bands
of from approximately 10 to 20 lodges.

According to Hanks and Richardson (1945: 3, 20), the kinship and social
systems were characterized by "anarchistic individualism." They describe
the kinship system as "multilineal" and "multilocal," and they speak
in terms of a balance of lines with a very slight tendency toward
patrilineality. The most basic social unit was the "orientation group,"
which consisted of the household of ego's parents and ego's household
as an adult with a family. Polygyny was practiced and, in fact, was
the general rule.

Band membership was quite fluid. There might be several headmen in
each band, and one of them was considered the chief. Headmanship was
very informal. The qualifications for the office were wealth, success
in war, and ceremonial experience. According to Hanks and Richardson
(1945: 3), authority within the band was similar to the relationship
between landlord and tenant. As long as the headman continued to provide
benefits, people remained with him. But if his generosity should slacken,
people would simply pack up and move.

For each of the three geographical-linguistic groups, the Blood, the
Piegan, and the Northern Blackfoot, there was a head chief. His office
was slightly more formalized than that of the band headman. The primary
function of the chief was to call councils to discuss affairs of interest
to the group as a whole.

When the bands congregated during the summer, they formed distinct
camps which were separated by a stream or some natural boundary when
available. When the Piegan, Blood, and Northern Blackfoot joined together
for ceremonial purposes, each one of the three camped in a circle.

Like other Plains Indian cultures, the Blackfoot had age-graded men's
societies. Prince Maximilian counted seven of these societies in 1833.
The first one in the series was the Mosquito society, and the last
one was the Bull society. Membership was purchased. Each society had
its own distinctive songs, dances, and regalia, and their responsibilities
included keeping order in the camp. There was one women's society.

The religious life of the Blackfoot centered upon medicine bundles
and their associated rituals. These bundles were individually owned
and ultimately originated from an encounter with a supernatural spirit.
These encounters took the form of dreams or visions, which were sought
in a typical Plains type of vision quest. A young man, often under
the tutelage of an older medicine man, would go out to some lonely
place and fast until he had a vision. Many of these men failed and
never had a vision. In this case, they would buy a bundle and its
ritual. Wissler (1912) points out, however, that a man of some importance
was expected to have had a vision experience.

Individual bundles acquired great respect, especially those associated
with success in war. Some of these were headdresses, shirts, shields,
knives, and lances. Painted lodges were considered to be medicine
bundles, and there were more than 50 of them among the three main
Blackfoot groups. The most important bundles to the group as a whole
were the beaver bundles, the medicine pipe bundles, and the Sun Dance
bundle.

Since the Sun Dance was not mentioned by the eighteenth-century explorers,
Ewers feels that it was an early nineteenth-century innovation among
the Blackfoot (Ewers 1958: 174). By the middle of the nineteenth century,
the Sun Dance had become an important ceremony performed once each
summer. The Sun Dance among the Blackfoot was generally similar to
the ceremony that was performed in other Plains societies. There were
some differences, in that a woman played the leading role among the
Blackfoot, and the symbolism and paraphernalia used were derived from
beaver bundle ceremonialism. The Blackfoot Sun Dance included the
following: (1) moving the camp on four successive days; (2) on the
fifth day, building the medicine lodge, transferring bundles to the
medicine woman, and the offering of gifts by children and adults in
ill health; (3) on the sixth day, dancing toward the sun, blowing
eagle-bone whistles, and self-torture; and (4) on the remaining four
days, performing various ceremonies of the men's societies.

Researchers are advised to consult Mooney (1910), for a brief cultural
summary of the Blackfoot, and Ewers (1958), for a more lengthy general
ethnohistory. In addition, Murdock and O'Leary (1975) should be consulted
for further references to literature on the Blackfoot.

A more extensive cultural summary of the Blackfoot, with emphasis
on subsistence patterns and material culture, is available in Forde
(1950: 45-68).

Culture summary by Marlene M. Martin



Ewers, John C. The Blackfeet, raiders on the northwestern plains.
 Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1958.
 xvii, 350 p. illus., maps.
 Forde, C. Daryll.
 The Blackfoot: buffalo hunters of the North American plains.
 In his Habitat, Economy and Society.
 8th ed.
 London, Methuen and Co., 1950: 45-68.
 Hanks, Lucien M. Observations on Northern Blackfoot kinship.
 By Lucien M. Hanks and Jane Richardson.
 American Ethnological Society, Monographs, 9 (1945): 1-31.
 McClintock, Walter.
 The Old North Trail;
 or, Life, legends and religion of the Blackfeet Indians.
 Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1968.
 27, 539 p. illus., map.
 McFee, Malcolm.
 The 150 percent man, a product of Blackfeet acculturation.
 American Anthropologist, 70 (1968): 1096-1107.
 Mooney, James.
 Siksika, U.S.
 Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 30, vol.
 2 (1910): 570-571.
 Murdock, George Peter.
 Ethnographic bibliography of North America.
 4th ed.
 By George Peter Murdock and Timothy J. O'Leary.
 New Haven HRAF Press, 1975.
 5 v. Vol.
 5, pp.
 45-58.
 Wissler, Clark.
 The social life of the Blackfoot Indians.
 New York, American Museum of Natural History, 1911.
 1, 1-64 p. illus.
 Wissler, Clark.
 Ceremonial bundles of the Blackfoot Indians.
 New York, American Museum of Natural History, 1912.
 65-298 p. illus.


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