Would travel to the Arkansas’ hot springs to gather together with other tribes to hunt, trade, and take the healing waters. Even when their peoples were at war, individuals of opposing tribes could come together here in safety and peace.

According to Blackfoot storytellers, their forefathers successfully goaded buffalo to their deaths by “buffalo jumps” only when a gifted shaman oversaw the proceedings. At the start, hunt leaders would position women and children behind piles of stones arranged in a V-shape that narrowed to a point at the edge of a sheer cliff. The buffalo were enticed to enter the wedge by a slow-hobbling man disguised in a fur robe. Other people brought up the rear, yelling and flapping robes and waving the scented smoke of burning cedar in the air. This gave the impression of a terrifying forest fire, causing the great beasts to stampede over the edge of the cliff. Down below, a makeshift enclosure prevented wounded animals from escaping, while arrows and spears rained down from all sides until the lifeless carcasses could be approached by the butchering parties.

Nearby, on the flat prairie, there would be a campsite where women quartered and finally “flaked” the fresh meat, slicing very thin strips and drying them on pole racks. The dried meat was later prepared in various ways; a favorite and highly nutritious method was to pound it with granite pestles, blending in dried berries and buffalo tallow, and finally packing the mix into rawhide containers later winter consumption.

They survived by hunting and gathering in the wooded pockets and broad grasslands of southern Manitoba and western Saskatchewan.

The horse effigy were often used to honor specially trained warrior horses that had distinguished themselves in battle.

Told of an orphan boy, considered dim-witted, who sought this mysterious creature in a spirit lake. After undergoing a series of ordeals, he finally reached the lake and plunged into its waters. Underneath was a sacred landscape, where a spirit chief led him to galloping, lively pono-makita, or “elk dogs.” From the spirit chief the boy requested part of the elk dog herd. When he rode back into his home village, his people thought he was some half-man, half-animal monster. The boy turned the horses over to the people, saying, “Now we no longer need be humble footsloggers, because these animals will carry us swiftly everywhere we want to go. Now buffalo hunting will be easy. Now our teepees will be larger, our possessions will be greater, because an elk dog travois can carry a load ten times bigger that that of a dog.”

After the appearance of horses, teepees doubled in height and Blackfoot women began sewing such large teepees that their hide covers had to be tailored in two halves, with store-bought brass buttons used to fasten them up the western side, while old-fashioned willow pins were used to lace them together on the eastern doorway side.

Blackfoot boys were “age-graded” as they grew up through membership in an advancing series of societies, each with increased responsibilities.

Among the Blackfoot, buffalo-calling ceremonies were performed by members of the all-female mutokaiks, or Buffalo Bull Society.

A Blackfoot four-pole teepee floor plan shows the doorway facing the rising sun. Its steeper rear side braces the tilted structure against prevailing westerly winds, allowing the fire to be directly below the smoke flaps.

In 1839-1840, small pox broke out, killing as many as 8,000 Blackfoot. In 1883-1884, the Montana Blackfoot, already reduced to little more than 2,000 in all, were unable to locate any game due to the buffalo “vanishing”, and were helpless to prevent 600 of their tribe from freezing or starving to death.

The primitive clothing of the Blackfoot was made of the dressed skins of certain animals. Women seldom wore a head covering. Men, however, in winter generally used a cap made of the skin of some small animal, such as the antelope, wolf, badger, or coyote. As the skin from the head of these animals often formed part of the cap, the ears being left on, it made a very odd-looking head-dress. Sometimes a cap was made of the skin of some large bird, such as the sage-hen, duck, owl, or swan.

The ancient dress of the women was a shirt of cow skin, with long sleeves tied at the wrist, a skirt reaching half-way from knees to ankles, and leggings tied above the knees, with sometimes a supporting string running from the belt to the leggings. In more modern times, this was modified, and a woman’s dress consisted of a gown or smock, reaching from the neck to below the knees. There were no sleeves, the armholes being provided with top coverings, a sort of cape or flap, which reached to the elbows. Leggings were of course still worn. They reached to the knee, and were generally made, as was the gown, of the tanned skins of elk, deer, sheep, or antelope. Moccasins for winter use were made of buffalo robe, and of tanned buffalo cow skin for summer wear. The latter were always made with parfleche soles, which greatly increased their durability, and were often ornamented over the instep or toes with a three-pronged figure, worked in porcupine quills or beads, the three prongs representing, it is said, the three divisions or tribes of the nation. The men wore a shirt, breech-clout, leggings which reached to the thighs, and moccasins. In winter both men and women wore a robe of tanned buffalo skin, and sometimes of beaver. In summer a lighter robe was worn, made of cow skin or buckskin, from which the hair had been removed. Both sexes wore belts, which supported and confined the clothing, and to which were attached knife-sheaths and other useful articles.

Necklaces and earrings were worn by all, and were made of shells, bone, wood, and the teeth and claws of animals. Elk tushes were highly prized, and were used for ornamenting women’s dresses. A gown profusely decorated with them was worth two good horses. Eagle feathers were used by the men to make head-dresses and to ornament shields and also weapons. Small bunches of owl or grouse feathers were sometimes tied to the scalp locks. It is doubtful if the women ever took particular care of their hair. The men, however, spent a great deal of time brushing, braiding, and ornamenting their scalp locks. Their hair was usually worn in two braids, one on each side of the head. Less frequently, four braids were made, one behind and in front of each ear. Sometimes, the hair of the forehead was cut off square, and brushed straight up; and not infrequently it was made into a huge topknot and wound with otter fur. Often a slender lock, wound with brass wire or braided, hung down from one side of the forehead over the face.

As a rule, the men are tall, straight, and well formed. Their features are regular, the eyes being large and well set, and the nose generally moderately large, straight, and thin. Their chests are splendidly developed. The women are quite tall for their sex, but, as a rule, not so good-looking as the men. Their hands are large, coarse, and knotted by hard labor; and they early become wrinkled and careworn. They generally have splendid constitutions. I have known them to resume work a day after childbirth; and once, when traveling, I knew a woman to halt, give birth to a child, and catch up with the camp inside of four hours.

As a rule, children are hardy and vigorous. They are allowed to do about as they please from the time they are able to walk. I have often seen them playing in winter in the snow, and spinning tops on the ice, barefooted and half-naked. Under such conditions, those which have feeble constitutions soon die. Only the hardiest reach maturity and old age.

It is said that very long ago the people made houses of mud, sticks, and stones. It is not known what was their size or shape, and no traces of them are known to have been found. For a very long time, the lodge seems to have been their only dwelling. In ancient times, before they had knives of metal, stones were used to hold down the edges of the lodge, to keep it from being blown away. These varied in size from six inches to a foot or more in diameter. Everywhere on the prairie, one may now see circles of these stones, and, within these circles, the smaller ones, which surrounded the fireplace. Some of them have lain so long that only the tops now project above the turf, and undoubtedly many of them are buried out of sight.

Lodges were always made of tanned cow skin, nicely cut and sewn together, so as to form an almost perfect cone. At the top were two large flaps, called ears, which were kept extended or closed, according to the direction and strength of the wind, to create a draft and keep the lodge free from smoke. The lodge covering was supported by light, straight pine or spruce poles, about eighteen of which were required. Twelve cow skins made a lodge about fourteen foot in diameter at the base, and ten foot high. I have heard of a modern one which contained forty skins. It was over thirty foot in diameter, and was so heavy that the skins were sewn in two pieces which buttoned together.

An average-sized dwelling of this kind contained eighteen skins and was about sixteen foot in diameter. The lower edge of the lodge proper was fastened, by wooden pegs, to within an inch or two of the ground. Inside, a lining, made of brightly painted cow skin, reached from the ground to a height of five or six foot. An air space of the thickness of the lodge poles two or three inches was thus left between the lining and the lodge covering, and the cold air, rushing up through it from the outside, made a draft, which aided the ears in freeing the lodge of smoke. The door was three or four foot high and was covered by a flap of skin, which hung down on the outside. Thus made, with plenty of buffalo robes for seats and bedding, and a good stock of firewood, a lodge was very comfortable, even in the coldest weather.

It was not uncommon to decorate the outside of the lodge with buffalo tails and brightly painted pictures of animals. Inside, the space around was partitioned off into couches, or seats, each about six foot in length. At the foot and head of every couch, a mat, made of straight, peeled willow twigs, fastened side by side, was suspended on a tripod at an angle of forty-five degrees, so that between the couches spaces were left like an inverted V, making convenient places to store articles which were not in use. The owner of the lodge always occupied the seat or couch at the back of the lodge, directly opposite the door-way, the places on his right being occupied by his wives and daughters; though sometimes a Blackfoot had so many wives that they occupied the whole lodge. The places on his left were reserved for his sons and visitors. When a visitor entered a lodge, he was assigned a seat according to his rank, the nearer to the host, the greater the honor.

Bows were generally made of ash wood, which grows east of the mountains toward the Sand Hills. When for any reason they could not obtain ash, they used the wood of the choke-cherry tree, but this had not strength nor spring enough to be of much service. I have been told also that sometimes they used hazel wood for bows.

Arrows were made of shoots of the servis berry wood, which was straight, very heavy, and not brittle. They were smoothed and straightened by a stone implement. The grooves were made by pushing the shafts through a rib or other flat bone in which had been made a hole, circular except for one or two projections on the inside. These projections worked out the groove. The object of these grooves is said to have been to allow the blood to flow freely. Each man marked his arrows by painting them, or by some special combination of colored feathers. The arrow heads were of two kinds, barbed slender points for war, and barb less for hunting. Knives were originally made of stone, as were also war clubs, mauls, and some of the scrapers for fleshing and graining hides. Some of the flint knives were long, others short. A stick was fitted to them, forming a wooden handle. The handles of mauls and war clubs were usually made of green sticks fitted as closely as possible into a groove made in the stone, the whole being bound together by a covering of hide put on green, tightly fitted and strongly sewed. This, as it shrunk in drying, bound the different parts of the implement together in the strongest possible manner. Short, heavy spears were used, the points being of stone or bone, barbed.

I have heard no explanation among the Blackfoot of the origin of fire. In ancient times, it was obtained by means of fire sticks, as described elsewhere. The starting of the spark with these sticks is said to have been hard work. At almost their first meeting with the whites, they obtained flints and steels, and learned how to use them.

In ancient times, in the days of fire sticks and even later, within the memory of men now living, fire used to be carried from place to place in a “fire horn.” This was a buffalo horn slung by a string over the shoulder like a powder horn. The horn was lined with moist, rotten wood, and the open end had a wooden stopper or plug fitted to it. On leaving camp in the morning, the man who carried the horn took from the fire a small live coal and put it in the horn, and on this coal placed a piece of punk, and then plugged up the horn with the stopper. The punk smoldered in this almost air-tight chamber, and, in the course of two or three hours, the man looked at it, and if it was nearly consumed, put another piece of punk in the horn. The first young men who reached the appointed camping ground would gather two or three large piles of wood in different places, and as soon as some one who carried a fire horn reached camp, he turned out his spark at one of these piles of wood, and a little blowing and nursing gave a blaze which started the fire. The other fires were kindled from this first one, and when the women reached camp and had put the lodges up, they went to these fires, and got coals with which to start those in their lodges. This custom of borrowing coals persisted up to the last days of the buffalo, and indeed may even be noticed still.
The punk here mentioned is a fungus, which grows on the birch tree. The Indians used to gather this in large quantities and dry it. It was very abundant at the Touchwood Hills (whence the name) on Beaver Creek, a tributary of the Saskatchewan from the south.

The Blackfoot made buckets, cups, basins, and dishes from the lining of the buffalo’s paunch. This was torn off in large pieces, and was stretched over a flattened willow or cherry hoop at the bottom and top. These hoops were sometimes inside and sometimes outside the bucket or dish. In the latter case, the hoop at the bottom was often sewed to the paunch, which came down over it, double on the outside, the needle holes being pitched with gum or tallow. The hoop at the upper edge was also sewed to the paunch, and a rawhide bail passed under it, to carry it by. These buckets were shaped somewhat like our wooden ones, and were of different sizes, some of them holding four or five gallons. They were more or less flexible, and when carried in a pack, they could be flattened down like a crush hat, and so took up but little room. If set on the ground when full, they would stand up for a while, but as they soon softened and fell down, they were usually hung up by the bail on a little tripod. Cups were made in the same way as buckets, but on a smaller scale and without the bail. Of course, nothing hot could be placed in these vessels.

It is doubtful if the Blackfoot ever made any pottery or basket ware. They, however, made bowls and kettles of stone. There is an ancient children’s song which consists of a series of questions asked an elk, and its replies to the same. In one place, the questioner sings, “Elk, what is your bowl (or dish)?” and the elk answers, “Ok-wi-tok-so-ka,” stone bowl. On this point, Wolf Calf, a very old man, states that in early days the Blackfoot sometimes boiled their meat in a stone bowl made out of a hard clayey rock.[1]  Choosing a fragment of the right size and shape, they would pound it with another heavier rock, dealing light blows until a hollow had been made in the top. This hollow was made deeper by pounding and grinding; and when it was deep enough, they put water in it, and set it on the fire, and the water would boil. These pots were strong and would last a long time. I do not remember that any other tribe of Plains Indians made such stone bowls or mortars, though, of course, they were commonly made, and in singular perfection, by the Pacific Coast tribes; and I have known of rare cases in which basalt mortars and small soapstone ollas have been found on the central plateau of the continent in southern Wyoming. These articles, however, had no doubt been obtained by trade from Western tribes.

Serviceable ladles and spoons were made of wood and of buffalo and mountain sheep horn. Basins or flat dishes were sometimes made of mountain sheep horn, boiled, split, and flattened, and also of split buffalo horn, fitted and sewn together with sinew, making a flaring, saucer-shaped dish. These were used as plates or eating dishes. Of course, they leaked a little, for the joints were not tight. Wooden bowls and dishes were made from knots and protuberances of trees, dug out and smoothed by fire and the knife or by the latter alone.

It is not known that these people ever made spears, hooks, or other implements for capturing fish. They appear never to have used boats of any kind, not even “bull boats.” Their highest idea of navigation was to lash together a few sticks or logs, on which to transport their possessions across a river.

Red, brown, yellow, and white paints were made by burning clays of these colors, which were then pulverized and mixed with a little grease. Black paint was made of charred wood.

Bags and sacks were made of parfleche, usually ornamented with buckskin fringe, and painted with various designs in bright colors. Figures having sharp angles are most common.

The diet of the Blackfoot was more varied than one would think. Large quantities of servis berries (Amelanchier alnifolia) were gathered whenever there was a crop (which occurs every other year), dried, and stored for future use. These were gathered by women, who collected the branches laden with ripe fruit, and beat them over a robe spread upon the ground. Choke-cherries were also gathered when ripe, and pounded up, stones and all. A bushel of the fruit, after being pounded up and dried, was reduced to a very small quantity. This food was sometimes eaten by itself, but more often was used to flavor soups and to mix with pemmican. Bull berries (Shepherdia argentea) were a favorite fruit, and were gathered in large quantities, as was also the white berry of the red willow. This last is an exceedingly bitter, acrid fruit, and to the taste of most white men wholly unpleasant and repugnant. The Blackfoot, however, are very fond of it; perhaps because it contains some property necessary to the nourishment of the body, which is lacking in their every-day food.

The camas root, which grows abundantly in certain localities on the east slope of the Rockies, was also dug, cooked, and dried. The bulbs were roasted in pits, as by the Indians on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, the Kalispel, and others. It is gathered while in the bloom June 15 to July 15. A large pit is dug in which a hot fire is built, the bottom being first lined with flat stones. After keeping up this fire for several hours, until the stones and earth are thoroughly heated, the coals and ashes are removed. The pit is then lined with grass, and is filled almost to the top with camas bulbs. Over these, grass is laid, then twigs, and then earth to a depth of four inches. On this a fire is built, which is kept up for from one to three days, according to the quantity of the bulbs in the pit.

When the pit is opened, the small children gather about it to suck the syrup, which has collected on the twigs and grass, and which is very sweet. The fresh-roasted camas tastes something like a roasted chestnut, with a little of the flavor of the sweet potato. After being cooked, the roots are spread out in the sun to dry, and are then put in sacks to be stored away. Sometimes a few are pounded up with sarvis berries, and dried.

Bitter-root is gathered, dried, and boiled with a little sugar. It is a slender root, an inch or two long and as thick as a goose quill, white in color, and looking like short lengths of spaghetti. It is very starchy.

In the spring, a certain root called mats was eaten in great quantities. This plant was known to the early French employees of the Hudson’s Bay and American Fur Companies as pomme blanche (Psoralea esculenta).

All parts of such animals as the buffalo, elk, deer, etc., were eaten, save only the lungs, gall, and one or two other organs. A favorite way of eating the paunch or stomach was in the raw state. Liver, too, was sometimes eaten raw. The unborn calf of a fresh-killed animal, especially buffalo, was considered a great delicacy. The meat of this, when boiled, is white, tasteless, and insipid. The small intestines of the buffalo were sometimes dried, but more often were stuffed with long, thin strips of meat. During the stuffing process, the entrail was turned inside out, thus confining with the meat the sweet white fat that covers the intestine. The next step was to roast it a little, after which the ends were tied to prevent the escape of the juices, and it was thoroughly boiled in water. This is a very great delicacy, and when properly prepared is equally appreciated by whites and Indians.

As a rule, there were but two ways of cooking meat, boiling and roasting. If roasted, it was thoroughly cooked; but if boiled, it was only left in the water long enough to lose the red color, say five or ten minutes. Before they got kettles from the whites, the Blackfoot often boiled meat in a green hide. A hole was dug in the ground, and the skin, flesh side up, was laid in it, being supported about the edges of the hole by pegs. The meat and water having been placed in this hollow, red-hot stones were dropped in the water until it became hot and the meat was cooked.

In time of plenty, great quantities of dried meat were prepared for use when fresh meat could not be obtained. In making dried meat, the thicker parts of an animal were cut in large, thin sheets and hung in the sun to dry. If the weather was not fine, the meat was often hung up on lines or scaffolds in the upper part of the lodge. When properly cured and if of good quality, the sheets were about one-fourth of an inch thick and very brittle.

The back fat of the buffalo was also dried, and eaten with the meat as we eat butter with bread. Pemmican was made of the flesh of the buffalo. The meat was dried in the usual way; and, for this use, only lean meat, such as the hams, loin, and shoulders, was chosen. When the time came for making the pemmican, two large fires were built of dry quaking aspen wood, and these were allowed to burn down to red coals. The old women brought the dried meat to these fires, and the sheets of meat were thrown on the coals of one of them, allowed to heat through, turned to keep them from burning, and then thrown on the flesh side of a dry hide, that lay on the ground near by. After a time, the roasting of this dried meat caused a smoke to rise from the fire in use, which gave the meat a bitter taste, if cooked in it. They then turned to the other fire, and used that until the first one had burned clear again. After enough of the roasted meat had been thrown on the hide, it was flailed out with sticks, and being very brittle was easily broken up, and made small. It was constantly stirred and pounded until it was all fine. Meantime, the tallow of the buffalo had been melted in a large kettle, and the pemmican bags prepared. These were made of bull’s hide, and were in two pieces, cut oblong, and with the corners rounded off. Two such pieces sewed together made a bag which would hold one hundred pounds. The pounded meat and tallow the latter just beginning to cool were put in a trough made of bull’s hide, a wooden spade being used to stir the mixture. After it was thoroughly mixed, it was shoveled into one of the sacks, held open, and rammed down and packed tight with a big stick, every effort being made to expel all the air. When the bag was full and packed as tight as possible, it was sewn up. It was then put on the ground, and the women jumped on it to make it still more tight and solid. It was then laid away in the sun to cool and dry. It usually took the meat of two cows to make a bag of one hundred pounds; a very large bull might make a sack of from eighty to one hundred pounds.

A much finer grade of pemmican was made from the choicest parts of the buffalo with marrow fat. To this dried berries and pounded choke-cherries were added, making a delicious food, which was extremely nutritious. Pemmican was eaten either dry as it came from the sack, or stewed with water.

In the spring, the people had great feasts of the eggs of ducks and other water-fowl. A large quantity having been gathered, a hole was dug in the ground, and a little water put in it. At short intervals above the water, platforms of sticks were built, on which the eggs were laid. A smaller hole was dug at one side of the large hole, slanting into the bottom of it. When all was ready, the top of the larger hole was covered with mud, laid upon cross sticks, and red-hot stones were dropped into the slant, when they rolled down into the water, heating it, and so cooking the eggs by steam.

Fish were seldom eaten by these people in early days, but now they seem very fond of them. Turtles, frogs, and lizards are considered creatures of evil, and are never eaten. Dogs, considered a great delicacy by the Crees, Gros Ventres, Sioux, Assinaboines, and other surrounding tribes, were never eaten by the Blackfoot. No religious motive is assigned for this abstinence. I once heard a Piegan say that it was wrong to eat dogs. “They are our true friends,” he said. “Men say they are our friends and then turn against us, but our dogs are always true. They mourn when we are absent, and are always glad when we return. They keep watch for us in the night when we sleep. So pity the poor dogs.”

Snakes, grasshoppers, worms, and other insects were never eaten. Salt was an unknown condiment. Many are now very fond of it, but I know a number, especially old people, who never eat it.

[1]: See The Blackfoot Genesis, p. 141.]

Handbook of American Indians, 1906

The Blackfoot were a warlike people. How it may have been in the old days, before the coming of the white men, we do not know. Very likely, in early times, they were usually at peace with neighboring tribes, or, if quarrels took place, battles were fought, and men killed, this was only in angry dispute over what each party considered its rights. Their wars were probably not general, nor could they have been very bloody. When, however, horses came into the possession of the Indians, all this must have soon become changed. Hitherto there had really been no incentive to war. From time to time expeditions may have gone out to kill enemies, for glory, or to take revenge for some injury, but war had not yet been made desirable by the hope of plunder, for none of their neighbors any more than themselves had property which was worth capturing and taking away. Primitive arms, dogs, clothing, and dried meat were common to all the tribes, and were their only possessions, and usually each tribe had an abundance of all these. It was not worth any man’s while to make long journeys and to run into danger merely to increase his store of such property, when his present possessions were more than sufficient to meet all his wants. Even if such things had seemed desirable plunder, the amount of it which could be carried away was limited, since for a war party the only means of transporting captured articles from place to place was on men’s backs, nor could men burdened with loads either run or fight. But when horses became known, and the Indians began to realize what a change the possession of these animals was working in their mode of life, when they saw that, by enormously increasing the transporting power of each family, horses made far greater possessions practicable, that they insured the food supply, rendered the moving of the camp easier and more rapid, made possible long journeys with a minimum of effort, and that they had a value for trading, the Blackfoot mind received a new idea, the idea that it was desirable to accumulate property. The Blackfoot saw that, since horses could be exchanged for everything that was worth having, no one had as many horses as he needed. A pretty wife, a handsome war bonnet, a strong bow, a finely ornamented woman’s dress, any or all of these things a man might obtain, if he had horses to trade for them. The gambler at “hands,” or at the ring game, could bet horses. The man who was devoted to his last married wife could give her a horse as an evidence of his affection.

We can readily understand what a change the advent of the horse must have worked in the minds of a people like the Blackfoot, and how this changed mental attitude would react on the Blackfoot way of living. At first, there were but few horses among them, but they knew that their neighbors to the west and south across the mountains and on the great plains beyond the Missouri and the Yellowstone had plenty of them; that the Kutenai, the Kalispel, the Snake, the Crow, and the Sioux were well provided. They soon learned that horses were easily driven off, and that, even if followed by those whose property they had taken, the pursued had a great advantage over the pursuers; and we may feel sure that it was not long before the idea of capturing horses from the enemy entered some Blackfoot head and was put into practice.

Now began a systematic sending forth of war parties against neighboring tribes for the purpose of capturing horses, which continued for about seventy-five or eighty years, and has only been abandoned within the last six or seven, and since the settlement of the country by the whites made it impossible for the Blackfoot longer to pass backward and forward through it on their raiding expeditions. Horse-taking at once became what might be called an established industry among the Blackfoot. Success brought wealth and fame, and there was a pleasing excitement about the war journey. Except during the bitterest weather of the winter, war parties of Blackfoot were constantly out, searching for camps of their enemies, from whom they might capture horses. Usually the only object of such an expedition was to secure plunder, but often enemies were killed, and sometimes the party set out with the distinct intention of taking both scalps and horses.

Until some time after they had obtained guns, the Blackfoot were on excellent terms with the northern Cree, but later the Chippeway from the east made war on the Blackfoot, and this brought about general hostilities against all Cree, which have continued up to within a few years. If I recollect aright, the last fight which occurred between the Pi-kun’-i and the Cree took place in 1886. In this skirmish, which followed an attempt by the Cree to capture some Piegan horses, my friend, Tail-feathers-coming-in-sight-over-the-Hill, killed and counted coup on a Cree whose scalp he afterward sent me, as an evidence of his prowess.

The Gros Ventre of the prairie, of Arapaho stock, known to the Blackfoot as Atsena, or Gut People, had been friends and allies of the Blackfoot from the time they first came into the country, early in this century, up to about the year 1862, when, according to Clark, peace was broken through a mistake.[1] A war party of Snakes had gone to a Gros Ventre camp near the Bear Paw Mountains and there killed two Gros Ventre and taken a white pony, which they subsequently gave to a party of Piegan whom they met, and with whom they made peace. The Gros Ventres afterward saw this horse in the Piegan camp and supposed that the latter had killed their tribesman, and this led to a long war. In the year 1867, the Piegan defeated the allied Crow and Gros Ventre in a great battle near the Cypress Mountains, in which about 450 of the enemy are said to have been killed.

An expression often used in these pages, and which is so familiar to one who has lived much with Indians as to need no explanation, is the phrase to count coup. Like many of the terms common in the Northwest, this one comes down to us from the old French trappers and traders, and a coup is, of course, a blow. As commonly used, the expression is almost a direct translation of the Indian phrase to strike the enemy, which is in ordinary use among all tribes. This striking is the literal inflicting a blow on an individual, and does not mean merely the attack on a body of enemies.

The most creditable act that an Indian can perform is to show that he is brave, to prove, by some daring deed, his physical courage, his lack of fear. In practice, this courage is shown by approaching near enough to an enemy to strike or touch him with something that is held in the hand to come up within arm’s length of him. To kill an enemy is praiseworthy, and the act of scalping him may be so under certain circumstances, but neither of these approaches in bravery the hitting or touching him with something held in the hand. This is counting coup.

The man who does this shows himself without fear and is respected accordingly. With certain tribes, as the Pawnees, Cheyenne, and others, it was not very uncommon for a warrior to dash up to an enemy and strike him before making any attempt to injure him, the effort to kill being secondary to the coup. The blow might be struck with anything held in the hand, a whip, coup stick, club, lance, the muzzle of a gun, a bow, or what not. It did not necessarily follow that the person on whom the coup had been counted would be injured. The act was performed in the case of a woman, who might be captured, or even on a child, who was being made prisoner.

Often the dealing the coup showed a very high degree of courage. As already implied, it might be counted on a man who was defending himself most desperately, and was trying his best to kill the approaching enemy, or, even if the attempt was being made on a foe who had fallen, it was never certain that he was beyond the power of inflicting injury. He might be only wounded, and, just when the enemy had come close to him, and was about to strike, he might have strength enough left to raise himself up and shoot him dead. In their old wars, the Indians rarely took men captive. The warrior never expected quarter nor gave it, and usually men fought to the death, and died mute, defending themselves to the last to the last, striving to inflict some injury on the enemy.

The striking the blow was an important event in a man’s life, and he who performed this feat remembered it. He counted it. It was a proud day for the young warrior when he counted his first coup, and each subsequent one was remembered and numbered in the warrior’s mind, just as an American of today remembers the number of times he has been elected to Congress. At certain dances and religious ceremonies, like that of the Medicine Lodge, the warriors counted or rather re-counted their coups.

While the coup was primarily, and usually, a blow with something held in the hand, other acts in warfare which involved great danger to him who performed them were also reckoned coups by some tribes. Thus, for a horseman to ride over and knock down an enemy, who was on foot, was regarded among the Blackfoot as a coup, for the horseman might be shot at close quarters, or might receive a lance thrust. It was the same to ride one’s horse violently against a mounted foe. An old Pawnee told me of a coup that he had counted by running up to a fallen enemy and jumping on him with both foot. Sometimes the taking of horses counted a coup, but this was not always the case.

As suggested by what has been already stated, each tribe of the Plains Indians held its own view as to what constituted a coup. The Pawnee were very strict in their interpretation of the term, and with them an act of daring was not in itself deemed a coup. This was counted only when the person of an enemy was actually touched. One or two incidents which have occurred among the Pawnee will serve to illustrate their notions on this point.

In the year 1867, the Pawnee scouts had been sent up to Ogallalla, Nebraska, to guard the graders who were working on the Union Pacific railroad. While they were there, some Sioux came down from the hills and ran off a few mules, taking them across the North Platte. Major North took twenty men and started after them. Crossing the river, and following it up on the north bank, he headed them off, and before long came in sight of them.
The six Sioux, when they found that they were pursued, left the mules that they had taken, and ran; and the Pawnee, after chasing them eight or ten miles, caught up with one of them, a brother of the well-known chief Spotted Tail. Baptiste Bahele, a half-breed Skidi, had a very fast horse, and was riding ahead of the other Pawnee, and shooting arrows at the Sioux, who was shooting back at him. At length Baptiste shot the enemy’s horse in the hip, and the Indian dismounted and ran on foot toward a ravine. Baptiste shot at him again, and this time sent an arrow nearly through his body, so that the point projected in front. The Sioux caught the arrow by the point, pulled it through his body, and shot it back at his pursuer, and came very near hitting him. About that time, a ball from a carbine hit the Sioux and knocked him down.

Then there was a race between Baptiste and the Pawnee next behind him, to see which should count coup on the fallen man. Baptiste was nearest to him and reached him first, but just as he got to him, and was leaning over from his horse, to strike the dead man, the animal shied at the body, swerving to one side, and he failed to touch it. The horse ridden by the other Pawnee ran right over the Sioux, and his rider leaned down and touched him.

Baptiste claimed the coup although acknowledging that he had not actually touched the man on the ground that he had exposed himself to all the danger, and would have hit the man if his horse had not swerved as it did from the body; but the Pawnees would not allow it, and all gave the credit of the coup to the other boy, because he had actually touched the enemy.

On another occasion three or four young men started on the warpath from the Pawnee village. When they came near to Spotted Tail’s camp on the Platte River, they crossed the stream, took some horses, and got them safely across the river. Then one of the boys re-crossed, went back to the camp, and cut loose another horse. He had almost got this one out of the camp, when an Indian came out of a lodge near by, and sat down. The Pawnee shot the Sioux, counted coup on him, scalped him, and then hurried across the river with the whole Sioux camp in pursuit. When the party returned to the Pawnee village, this boy was the only one who received credit for a coup.

Among the Blackfoot the capture of a shield, bow, gun, war bonnet, war shirt, or medicine pipe was deemed a coup.

Nothing gave a man a higher place in the estimation of the people than the counting of coups, for, I repeat, personal bravery is of all qualities the most highly respected by Indians. On special occasions, as has been said, men counted over again in public their coups. This served to gratify personal vanity, and also to incite the young men to the performance of similar brave deeds. Besides this, they often made a more enduring record of these acts, by reproducing them pictographically on robes, cow skins, and other hides. There is now in my possession an illuminated cow skin, presented to me by Mr. J. Kipp, which contains the record of the coups and the most striking events in the life of Red Crane, a Blackfoot warrior, painted by himself. These pictographs are very rude and are drawn after the style common among Plains Indians, but no doubt they were sufficiently lifelike to call up to the mind of the artist each detail of the stirring events which they record.

The Indian warrior who stood up to relate some brave deed which he had performed was almost always in a position to prove the truth of his statements. Either he had the enemy’s scalp, or some trophy captured from him, to produce as evidence, or else he had a witness of his feat in some companion. A man seldom boasted of any deed unless he was able to prove his story, and false statements about exploits against the enemy were most unusual. Temporary peace was often made between tribes usually at war, and, at the friendly meetings which took place during such times of peace, former battles were talked over, the performances of various individuals discussed, and the acts of particular men in the different rights commented on. In this way, if any man had falsely claimed to have done brave deeds, he would be detected.

An example of this occurred many years ago among the Cheyenne. At that time, there was a celebrated chief of the Skidi tribe of the Pawnee Nation whose name was Big Eagle. He was very brave, and the Cheyenne greatly feared him, and it was agreed among them that the man who could count coup on Big Eagle should be made war-chief of the Cheyenne. After a fight on the Loup River, a Cheyenne warrior claimed to have counted coup on Big Eagle by thrusting a lance through his buttocks. On the strength of the claim, this man was made war chief of the Cheyenne. Some years later, during a friendly visit made by the Pawnees to the Cheyenne, this incident was mentioned. Big Eagle was present at the time, and, after inquiring into the matter, he rose in council, denied that he had ever been struck as claimed, and, throwing aside his robe, called on the Cheyenne present to examine his body and to point out the scars left by the lance. None were found. It was seen that Big Eagle spoke the truth; and the lying Cheyenne, from the proud position of war chief, sank to a point where he was an object of contempt to the meanest Indian in his tribe.

Among the Blackfoot a war party usually, or often, had its origin in a dream. Some man who has a dream, after he awakes tells of it. Perhaps he may say: “I dreamed that on a certain stream is a herd of horses that have been given to me, and that I am going away to get. I am going to war. I shall go to that place and get my band of horses.” Then the men who know him, who believe that his medicine is strong and that he will have good luck, make up their minds to follow him. As soon as he has stated what he intends to do, his women and his female relations begin to make moccasins for him, and the old men among his relations begin to give him arrows and powder and ball to fit him out for war. The relations of those who are going with him do the same for them.

The leader notifies the young men who are going with him on what day and at what hour he intends to start. He determines the time for himself, but does not let the whole camp know it in advance. Of late years, large war parties have not been desirable. They have preferred to go out in small bodies. Just before a war party sets out, its members get together and sing the “peeling a stick song,” which is a wolf song. Then they build a sweat lodge and go into it, and with them goes in an old man, a medicine-pipe man, who has been a good warrior. They fill the pipe and ask him to pray for them, that they may have good luck, and may accomplish what they desire. The medicine-pipe man prays and sings and pours water on the hot stones, and the warriors with their knives slice bits of skin and flesh from their bodies, their arms and breasts and sometimes from the tip of the tongue, which they offer to the Sun. Then, after the ceremony is over, all dripping with perspiration from their vapor bath, the men go down to the river and plunge in.

In starting out, a war party often marches in the daytime, but sometimes they travel at night from the beginning. Often they may make an all night march across a wide prairie, in passing over which they might be seen if they traveled in the day. They journey on foot, always. The older men carry their arms, while the boys bear the moccasins, the ropes, and the food, which usually consists of dried meat or pemmican. They carry also coats and blankets and their war bonnets and otter skin medicine. The leader has but little physical labor to perform. His mind is occupied in planning the movements of his party. He is treated with the greatest respect. The others mend his moccasins, and give him the best of the food which they carry.

After they get away from the main camp, the leader selects the strongest of the young men, and sends him ahead to some designated butte, saying, “Go to that place, and look carefully over the country, and if you see nothing, make signals to us to come on.” This scout goes on ahead, traveling in the ravines and coulees, and keeps himself well hidden. After he has reconnoitered and made signs that he sees nothing, the party proceeds straight toward him.

The party usually starts early in the morning and travels all day, making camp at sundown. During the day, if they happen to come upon an antelope or a buffalo, they kill it, if possible, and take some of the meat with them. They try in every way to economize their pemmican. They always endeavor to make camp in the thick timber, where they cannot be seen; and here, when it is necessary, on account of bad weather or for other reasons, they build a war lodge. Taking four young cotton-woods or aspens, on which the leaves are left, and lashing them together like lodge poles, but with the butts up, about these they place other similar trees, also butts up and untrimmed. The leaves keep the rain off, and prevent the light of the fire which is built in the lodge from showing through. Sometimes, when on the prairie, where there is no wood, in stormy weather they will build a shelter of rocks. When the party has come close to the enemy, or into a country where the enemy are likely to be found, they build no more fires, but eat their food uncooked.

When they see fresh tracks of people, or signs that enemies are in the country, they stop traveling in the daytime and move altogether by night, until they come to some good place for hiding, and here they stop and sleep. When day comes, the leader sends out young men to the different buttes, to look over the country and see if they can discover the enemy. If some one of the scouts reports that he has seen a camp, and that the enemy have been found, the leader directs his men to paint themselves and put on their war bonnets. This last is a figure of speech, since the war bonnets, having of late years been usually ornamented with brass bells, could not be worn in a secret attack, on account of the noise they would make. Before painting themselves, therefore, they untie their war bonnets, and spread them out on the ground, as if they were about to be worn, and then when they have finished painting themselves, tie them up again. When it begins to get dark, they start on the run for the enemy’s camp. They leave their food in camp, but carry their ropes slung over the shoulder and under the arm, whips stuck in belts, guns and blankets.

After they have crept up close to the lodges, the leader chooses certain men that have strong hearts, and takes them with him into the camp to cut loose the horses. The rest of the party remain outside the camp, and look about its outskirts, driving in any horses that may be feeding about, not tied up. Of those who have gone into the camp, some cut loose one horse, while others cut all that may be tied about a lodge. Some go only once into the camp, and some go twice to get the horses. When they have secured the horses, they drive them off a little way from the camp, at first going slowly, and then mount and ride off fast. Generally, they travel two nights and one day before sleeping.

This is the usual method of procedure of an ordinary expedition to capture horses, and I have given it very nearly in the language of the men who explained it to me.

In their hostile encounters, the Blackfoot have much that is common to many Plains tribes, and also some customs that are peculiar to themselves. Like most Indians, they are subject to sudden, apparently causeless, panics, while at other times they display a courage that is heroic. They are firm believers in luck, and will follow a leader who is fortunate in his expeditions into almost any danger. On the other hand, if the leader of a war party loses his young men, or any of them, the people in the camp think that he is unlucky, and does not know how to lead a war party. Young men will not follow him as a leader, and he is obliged to go as a servant or scout under another leader. He is likely never again to lead a war party, having learned to distrust his luck.

If a war party meets the enemy, and kills several of them, losing in the battle one of its own number, it is likely, as the phrase is, to “cover” the slain Blackfoot with all the dead enemies save one, and to have a scalp dance over that remaining one. If a party had killed six of the enemy and lost a man, it might “cover” the slain Blackfoot with five of the enemy. In other words, the five dead enemies would pay for the one which the war party had lost. So far, matters would be even, and they would feel at liberty to rejoice over the victory gained over the one that is left.

The Blackfoot sometimes cut to pieces an enemy killed in battle. If a Blackfoot had a relation killed by a member of another tribe, and afterward killed one of this tribe, he was likely to cut him all to pieces “to get even,” that is, to gratify his spite to obtain revenge. Sometimes, after they had killed an enemy, they dragged his body into camp, so as to give the children an opportunity to count coup on it. Often they cut the foot and hands off the dead, and took them away and danced over them for a long time. Sometimes they cut off an arm or a leg, and often the head, and danced and rejoiced over this trophy.

Women and children of hostile tribes were often captured, and adopted into the Blackfoot tribes with all the rights and privileges of indigenous members. Men were rarely captured. When they were taken, they were sometimes killed in cold blood, especially if they had made a desperate resistance before being captured. At other times, the captive would be kept for a time, and then the chief would take him off away from the camp, and give him provisions, clothing, arms, and a horse, and let him go. The captive man always had a hard time at first. When he was brought into the camp, the women and children threw dirt on him and counted coups on him, pounding him with sticks and clubs. He was rarely tied, but was always watched. Often the man who had taken him prisoner had great trouble to keep his tribesmen from killing him.

In the very early days of this century, war parties used commonly to start out in the spring, going south to the land where horses were abundant, being absent all summer and the next winter, and returning the following summer or autumn, with great bands of horses. Sometimes they were gone two years. They say that on such journeys they used to go to Spai’yu ksah’ku, which means the Spanish lands Spai’yu being a recently made word, no doubt from the French espagnol. That they did get as far as Mexico, or at least New Mexico, is indicated by the fact that they brought back branded horses and a few branded mules; for in these early days there was no stock upon the Plains, and animals bearing brands were found only in the Spanish American settlements. The Blackfoot did not know what these marks meant. From their raids into these distant lands, they sometimes brought back arms of strange make, lances, axes, and swords, of a form unlike any that they had seen. The lances had broad heads; some of the axes, as described, were evidently the old “T. Gray” trade axes of the southwest. A sword, described as having a long, slender, straight blade, inlaid with a flower pattern of yellow metal along the back, was probably an old Spanish rapier.

In telling of these journeys to Spanish lands, they say of the very long reeds which grow there, that they are very large at the butt, are jointed, very hard, and very tall; they grow in marshy places; and the water there has a strange, moldy smell.

It is said, too, that there have been war parties who have crossed the mountains and gone so far to the west that they have seen the big salt water which lies beyond, or west of, the Great Salt Lake. Journeys as far south as Salt Lake were not uncommon, and Hugh Monroe has told me of a war party he accompanied which went as far as this.

[1]: Indian Sign Language, p. 70.

Handbook of American Indians, 1906

Beaver and the River – Potawatomi

by This story was told to me by my father, so I am retelling the story to you

Many Moons ago, the Beaver was as big as a Warrior! At this time all the animals could talk to everyone and had connection to the Great Spirit!

The Beaver was very lonely and he lived by the River, that ran very peaceful in this area and everyone man and animal loved being beside this gentle giant of a River.

This Beaver watched the Warriors and Maidens come by and he often heard the drums and wanted to join them in their celebrations. There celebrations seem to happen during the change of seasons. Sometimes they happened in between seasons for weddings, births and even deaths. He always wanted to join, but never did because this was for the Tribe only. And he never asked nor did any of the other animals or creatures of the forest. He only watched and listen from a distance.

He watched the Warriors and Maidens of the tribe, but he almost everyday saw a maiden by the river and she admired the beauty of the river. And he was awed by her and her love for nature. She always smiled at him and continued her work.

The beaver decide the next time he saw her, he would come closer enough to talk to her. So, the next day and the days to come he came closer and closer to her. Finally one day he was sitting beside her and spoke to her. They soon fell in love with each other. They both loved the river and all the animals and nature, which they both respected. As time went on they grew more in fond of each other. They couldn’t stand being apart living apart from each other.

One day the maiden’s father came to her and told her that she was coming of age to marry and wanted her to find a warrior to wed. But she didn’t like want to marry any warrior of her tribe, because they were either married already or vain and thoughtless of nature. This saddened the beaver, because she was looking for a mate and he a beaver and would not make a suitable mate for the beautiful maiden.

The beaver, talk to the Great Creator for a answer. How could he be married to this maiden he loved. The Great Spirit thought for a moment and told beaver what he must do. First he must make a canoe for his wife to be. Second, the Great Creator will turn the beaver into a man. Third, that he could never return to the river, not even for a swim or he would return back into a beaver. After he agreed to what he needed to do so that he could be with his Beautiful maiden, he suddenly turned into a handsome Warrior. The beaver thanked the Great Spirit for allowing him to change form from a beaver to a man.

After he changed into a strong man. He walked to the village where his maiden was living, he found her. She looked into his eyes and saw something about this man that she thought she recognized. The man/warrior talked to her and they took long walks together along the river. And soon they became inseparable, because they had fallen in true love for each other.

Soon he told her about what the creator had done for him, so that they may get married. He then gifted her with the canoe he made her. And that he could no longer go for a swim in his river. She could go and enjoy the river in her canoe. He knew he couldn’t join her or else he be turned back into a beaver. This saddened him greatly! Because he loved the river and wanted to be with her every second of the day! The two were married very soon and lived very happily for many months.

One sunny morning the maiden decide to take her canoe on the river. Her husband the beaver/warrior watched her for that is all he could do is watch her. He thought how beautiful she looked in the canoe and how he longed to be with her. As he watch her start to go around the bend in the river, she saw him and turned to smile and wave at her husband. When she did this she leaned to far and the canoe she was in flipped over. He became so upset that he forgot what the Great Creator had told him, and jumped into the river. Only thinking about her drowning and trying to save his beloved wife. All of a sudden he turned back into a Beaver, just like the great spirit had warned him that if he entered the river this would happen to him. He swam in the direction of his wife. But he didn’t find her, only the canoe. After his continually looking for her he came across another beaver. He looked into her eyes and knew that his wife was now a Beaver as well. They swam down stream to where he once lived. And lived there many happy years.

Now the Tribe called this river the Tippy Canoe River in honor of this couple.

Submitted by redbud

The social organization of the Blackfoot is very simple. The three tribes acknowledged a blood relationship with each other, and, while distinct, still considered themselves a nation. In this confederation, it was understood that there should be no war against each other. However, between 1860 and 1870, when the whiskey trade was in its height, the three tribes were several times at swords’ points on account of drunken brawls. Once, about sixty or seventy years ago, the Bloods and Piegan had a quarrel so serious that men were killed on both sides and horses stolen; yet this was hardly a real war, for only a part of each tribe was involved, and the trouble was not of long duration.

Each one of the Blackfoot tribes is subdivided into gentes, a gens being a body of consanguineal kindred in the male line. It is noteworthy that the Blackfoot, although Algonquins, have this system of subdivision, and it may be that among them the gentes are of comparatively recent date. No special duties are assigned to any one gens, nor has any gens, so far as I know, any special “medicine” or “totem.”

Below is a list of the gentes of each tribe.

Gentes:
Blackfoot (Sik’-si-kau)

Puh-ksi-nah’-mah-yiks	Flat Bows
Mo-tah’-tos-iks	Many Medicines
Siks-in’-o-kaks	Black Elks
E’-mi-tah-pahk-sai-yiks	Dogs Naked
Sa’-yiks	Liars
Ai-sik’-stuk-iks	Biters
Tsin-ik-tsis’-tso-yiks	Early Finished Eating
Ap’-i-kai-yiks	Skunks

Bloods (Kai’-nah)

Siksin’-o-kaks	Black Elks
Ah-kwo’-nis-tsists	Many Lodge Poles
Ap-ut’-o-si’kai-nah	North Bloods
Is-ts’-kai-nah	Woods Bloods
In-uhk!-so-yi-stam-iks	Long Tail Lodge Poles
Nit’-ik-skiks	Lone Fighters
Siks-ah’-pun-iks	Blackblood
Ah-kaik’-sum-iks
I-sis’-o-kas-im-iks	Hair Shirts
Ak-kai’-po-kaks	Many Children
Sak-si-nah’-mah-yiks	Short Bows
Ap’-i-kai-yiks	Skunks
Ahk-o’-tash-iks	Many Horses

Piegans  (Pi-kun’-i)

Ah’-pai-tup-iks	Blood People
Ah-kai-yi-ko-ka’-kin-iks	White Breasts
Ki’yis	Dried Meat
Sik-ut’-si-pum-aiks	Black Patched Moccasins
Sik-o-pok’-si-maiks	Blackfat Roasters
Tsin-ik-sis’-tso-yiks	Early Finished Eating
Kut’-ai-im-iks	They Don’t Laugh
I’-pok-si-maiks	Fat Roasters
Sik’-o-kit-sim-iks	Black Doors
Ni-taw’-yiks	Lone Eaters
Ap’-i-kai-yiks	Skunks
Mi-ah-wah’-pit-siks	Seldom Lonesome
Nit’-ak-os-kit-si-pup-iks	Obstinate
Nit’-ik-skiks	Lone Fighters
I-nuks’-iks	Small Robes
Mi-aw’-kin-ai-yiks	Big Topknots
Esk’-sin-ai-tup-iks	Worm People
I-nuk-si’-kah-ko-pwa-iks	Small Brittle Fat
Kah’-mi-taiks	Buffalo Dung
Kut-ai-sot’-si	No Parfleche
Ni-tot’-si-ksis-stan-iks	Kill Close By
Mo-twai’-naiks	All Chiefs
Mo-kum’-iks	Red Round Robes
Mo-tah’-tos-iks	Many Medicines

It will be readily seen from the translations of the above that each gens takes its name from some peculiarity or habit it is supposed to possess. It will also be noticed that each tribe has a few gentes common to one or both of the other tribes. This is caused by persons leaving their own tribe to live with another one, but, instead of uniting with some gens of the adopted tribe, they have preserved the name of their ancestral gens for themselves and their descendants.

The Blackfoot terms of relationship will be found interesting. The principal family names are as follows:

English	Blackfoot	English	Blackfoot
My father	Ni’-nah	My uncle	Nis’-ah
My mother	Ni-kis’-ta	My aunt	Ni-kis’-ta
My elder brother	Nis’-ah	My cousin, male	Same as brother
My younger brother	Nis-kun’	My cousin, female	Same as sister
My older sister	Nin’-sta	My grandfather	Na-ahks’
My younger sister	Ni-sis’-ah	My grandmother	Na-ahks’
My father-in-law	Na-ahks’	My son	No-ko’-i
My mother-in-law	Na-ahks’	My daughter	Ni-tun’
My son-in-law	Nis’-ah	My daughter-in-law	Ni-tot’-o-ke-man
My brother-in-law older than self	Nis-tum-o’	My sister-in-law	Ni-tot’-o-ke-man
My brother-in-law younger than self	Nis-tum-o’-kun	My second cousin	Nimp’-sa
My wife	Nit-o-ke’-man	My husband	No’-ma

As the members of a gens were all considered as relatives, however remote, there was a law prohibiting a man from marrying within his gens. Originally this law was strictly enforced, but like many of the ancient customs it is no longer observed. Lately, within the last forty or fifty years, it has become not uncommon for a man and his family, or even two or three families, on account of some quarrel or some personal dislike of the chief of their own gens, to leave it and join another band. Thus the gentes often received outsiders, who were not related by blood to the gens; and such people or their descendants could marry within the gens. Ancestry became no longer necessary to membership.

As a rule, before a young man could marry, he was required to have made some successful expeditions to war against the enemy, thereby proving himself a brave man, and at the same time acquiring a number of horses and other property, which would enable him to buy the woman of his choice, and afterwards to support her.

Marriages usually took place at the instance of the parents, though often those of the young man were prompted by him. Sometimes the father of the girl, if he desired to have a particular man for a son-in-law, would propose to the father of the latter for the young man as a husband for his daughter.
The marriage in the old days was arranged after this wise: The chief of one of the bands may have a marriageable daughter, and he may know of a young man, the son of a chief of another band, who is a brave warrior, of good character, sober-minded, steadfast, and trustworthy, who he thinks will make a good husband for his daughter and a good son-in-law. After he has made up his mind about this, he is very likely to call in a few of his close relations, the principal men among them, and state to them his conclusions, so as to get their opinions about it. If nothing is said to change his mind, he sends to the father of the boy a messenger to state his own views, and ask how the father feels about the matter.

On receiving this word, the boy’s father probably calls together his close relations, discusses the matter with them, and, if the match is satisfactory to him, sends back word to that effect. When this message is received, the relations of the girl proceed to fit her out with the very best that they can provide. If she is the daughter of well-to-do or wealthy people, she already has many of the things that are needed, but what she may lack is soon supplied. Her mother makes her a new cow skin lodge, complete, with new lodge poles, lining, and back rests. A chiefs daughter would already have plenty of good clothing, but if the girl lacks anything, it is furnished. Her dress is made of antelope skin, white as snow, and perhaps ornamented with two or three hundred elk tushes. Her leggings are of deer skin, heavily beaded and nicely fringed, and often adorned with bells and brass buttons. Her summer blanket or sheet is an elk skin, well tanned, without the hair and with the dew-claws left on. Her moccasins are of deer skin, with parfleche soles and worked with porcupine quills. The marriage takes place as soon as these things can be provided.

During the days which intervene between the proposal and the marriage, the young woman each day selects the choicest parts of the meat brought to the lodge, the tongue, “boss ribs,” some choice berry pemmican or what not, cooks these things in the best style, and, either alone, or in company with a young sister, or a young friend, goes over to the lodge where the young man lives, and places the food before him. He eats some of it, little or much, and if he leaves anything, the girl offers it to his mother, who may eat of it. Then the girl takes the dishes and returns to her father’s lodge. In this way she provides him with three meals a day, morning, noon, and night, until the marriage takes place. Every one in camp who sees the girl carrying the food in a covered dish to the young man’s lodge, knows that a marriage is to take place; and the girl is watched by idle persons as she passes to and fro, so that the task is quite a trying one for people as shy and bashful as Indians are. When the time for the marriage has come, in other words, when the girl’s parents are ready, the girl, her mother assisting her, packs the new lodge and her own things on the horses, and moves out into the middle of the circle about which all the lodges of the tribe are arranged and there the new lodge is unpacked and set up. In front of the lodge are tied, let us say, fifteen horses, the girl’s dowry given by her father. Very likely, too, the father has sent over to the young man his own war clothing and arms, a lance, a fine shield, a bow and arrows in otter-skin case, his war bonnet, war shirt, and war leggings ornamented with scalps, his complete equipment. This is set up on a tripod in front of the lodge. The gift of these things is an evidence of the great respect felt by the girl’s father for his son-in-law. As soon as the young man has seen the preparations being made for setting up the girl’s lodge in the centre of the circle, he sends over to his father-in-law’s lodge just twice the number of horses that the girl brought with her, in this supposed case, thirty.

As soon as this lodge is set up, and the girl’s mother has taken her departure and gone back to her own lodge, the young man, who, until he saw these preparations, had no knowledge of when the marriage was to take place, leaves his father’s lodge, and, going over to the newly erected one, enters and takes his place at the back of it. Probably during the day he will order his wife to take down the lodge, and either move away from the camp, or at least move into the circle of lodges; for he will not want to remain with his young wife in the most conspicuous place in the camp. Often, on the same day, he will send for six or eight of his friends, and, after feasting them, will announce his intention of going to war, and will start off the same night. If he does so, and is successful, returning with horses or scalps, or both, he at once, on arrival at the camp, proceeds to his father-in-law’s lodge and leaves there everything he has brought back, returning to his own lodge on foot, as poor as he left it.

We have supposed the proposal in this case to come from the father of the girl, but if a boy desires a particular girl for his wife, the proposal will come from his father; otherwise matters are managed in the same way.

This ceremony of moving into the middle of the circle was only performed in the case of important people. The custom was observed in what might be called a fashionable wedding among the Blackfoot. Poorer, less important people married more quietly. If the girl had reached marriageable age without having been asked for as a wife, she might tell her mother that she would like to marry a certain young man, that he was a man she could love and respect. The mother communicates this to the father of the girl, who invites the young man to the lodge to a feast, and proposes the match. The young man returns no answer at the time, but, going back to his father’s lodge, tells him of the offer, and expresses his feelings about it. If he is inclined to accept, the relations are summoned, and the matter talked over. A favorable answer being returned, a certain number of horses what the young man or his father, or both together, can spare are sent over to the girl’s father. They send as many as they can, for the more they send, the more they are thought of and looked up to. The girl, unless her parents are very poor, has her outfit, a saddle horse and pack horse with saddle and pack saddle, parfleches, etc. If the people are very poor, she may have only a riding horse. Her relations get together, and do all in their power to give her a good fitting out, and the father, if he can possibly do so, is sure to pay them back what they have given. If he cannot do so, the things are still presented; for, in the case of a marriage, the relations on both sides are anxious to do all that they can to give the young people a good start in life. When all is ready, the girl goes to the lodge where her husband lives, and goes in. If this lodge is too crowded to receive the couple, the young man will make arrangements for space in the lodge of a brother, cousin, or uncle, where there is more room. These are all his close relations, and he is welcome in any of their lodges, and has rights there.

Sometimes, if two young people are fond of each other, and there is no prospect of their being married, they may take riding horses and a pack horse, and elope at night, going to some other camp for a while. This makes the girl’s father angry, for he feels that he has been defrauded of his payments. The young man knows that his father-in-law bears him a grudge, and if he afterwards goes to war and is successful, returning with six or seven horses, he will send them all to the camp where his father-in-law lives, to be tied in front of his lodge. This at once heals the breach, and the couple may return. Even if he has not been successful in war and brought horses, which of course he does not always accomplish, he from time to time sends the old man a present, the best he can. Notwithstanding these efforts at conciliation, the parents feel very bitterly against him. The girl has been stolen. The union is no marriage at all. The old people are ashamed and disgraced for their daughter. Until the father has been pacified by satisfactory payments, there is no marriage. Moreover, unless the young man had made a payment, or at least had endeavored to do so, he would be little thought of among his fellows, and looked down on as a poor creature without any sense of honor.

The Blackfoot take as many wives as they wish; but these ceremonies are only carried out in the case of the first wife, the “sits-beside-him” woman. In the case of subsequent marriages, if the man had proved a good, kind husband to his first wife, other men, who thought a good deal of their daughters, might propose to give them to him, so that they would be well treated. The man sent over the horses to the new father-in-law’s lodge, and the girl returned to his, bringing her things with her. Or if the man saw a girl he liked, he would propose for her to her father.

Among the Blackfoot, there was apparently no form of courtship, such as prevails among our southern Indians. Young men seldom spoke to young girls who were not relations, and the girls were carefully guarded. They never went out of the lodge after dark, and never went out during the day, except with the mother or some other old woman. The girl, therefore, had very little choice in the selection of a husband. If a girl was told she must marry a certain man, she had to obey.  She might cry, but her father’s will was law, and she might be beaten or even killed by him, if she did not do as she was ordered. As a consequence of this severity, suicide was quite common among the Blackfoot girls. A girl ordered to marry a man whom she did not like would often watch her chance, and go out in the brush and hang herself. The girl who could not marry the man she wanted to was likely to do the same thing.

The man had absolute power over his wife. Her life was in his hands, and if he had made a payment for her, he could do with her about as he pleased. On the whole, however, women who behaved themselves were well treated and received a good deal of consideration. Those who were light-headed, or foolish, or obstinate and stubborn were sometimes badly beaten. Those who were unfaithful to their husbands usually had their noses or ears, or both, cut off for the first offence, and were killed either by the husband or some relation, or by the I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi for the second. Many of the doctors of the highest reputation in the tribe were women. It is a common belief among some of those who have investigated the subject that the wife in Indian marriage was actually purchased, and became the absolute property of her husband. Though I have a great respect for some of the opinions which have been expressed on this subject, I am obliged to take an entirely different view of the matter. I have talked this subject over many times with young men and old men of a number of tribes, and I cannot learn from them, or in any other way, that in primitive times the woman was purchased from her father. The husband did not have property rights in his wife. She was not a chattel that he could trade away. He had all personal rights, could beat his wife, or, for cause, kill her, but he could not sell her to another man.

All the younger sisters of a man’s wife were regarded as his potential wives. If he was not disposed to marry them, they could not be disposed of to any other man without his consent.

Not infrequently, a man having a marriageable daughter formally gave her to some young man who had proved himself brave in war, successful in taking horses, and, above all, of a generous disposition. This was most often done by men who had no sons to support them in their old age.
It is said that in the old days, before they had horses, young men did not expect to marry until they had almost reached middle life, from thirty-five to forty years of age. This statement is made by Wolf Calf, who is now very old, almost one hundred years, he believes, and can remember back nearly or quite to the time when the Blackfoot obtained their first horses. In those days, young women did not marry until they were grown up, while of late years fathers not infrequently sell their daughters as wives when they are only children.

The first woman a man marries is called his sits-beside-him wife. She is invested with authority over all the other wives, and does little except to direct the others in their work, and look after the comfort of her husband. Her place in the lodge is on his right-hand side, while the others have their places or seats near the door-way. This wife is even allowed at informal gatherings to take a whiff at the pipe, as it is passed around the circle, and to participate in the conversation.

In the old days, it was a very poor man who did not have three wives. Many had six, eight, and some more than a dozen. I have heard of one who had sixteen. In those times, provided a man had a good-sized band of horses, the more wives he had, the richer he was. He could always find young men to hunt for him, if he furnished the mounts, and, of course, the more wives he had, the more robes and furs they would tan for him.

If, for any cause, a man wished to divorce himself from a woman, he had but to send her back to her parents and demand the price paid for her, and the matter was accomplished. The woman was then free to marry again, provided her parents were willing.

When a man dies, his wives become the potential wives of his oldest brother. Unless, during his life, he has given them outright horses and other property, at his death they are entitled to none of his possessions. If he has sons, the property is divided among them, except a few horses, which are given to his brothers. If he has no sons, all the property goes to his brothers, and if there are no brothers, it goes to the nearest male relatives on the father’s side.

The Blackfoot cannot be said to have been slave-holders. It is true that the Cree call the Blackfoot women “Little Slaves.” But this, as elsewhere suggested, may refer to the region whence they originally came, though it is often explained that it is on account of the manner in which the Blackfoot treat their women, killing them or mutilating their features for adultery and other serious offences. Although a woman, all her life, was subject to some one’s orders, either parent, relative, or husband, a man from his earliest childhood was free and independent. His father would not punish him for any misconduct, his mother dared not. At an early age he was taught to ride and shoot, and horses were given to him. By the time he was twelve, he had probably been on a war expedition or two. As a rule in later times, young men married when they were seventeen or eighteen years of age; and often they resided for several years with their fathers, until the family became so large that there was not room for them all in the lodge.

There were always in the camp a number of boys, orphans, who became the servants of wealthy men for a consideration; that is, they looked after their patron’s horses and hunted, and in return they were provided with suitable food and clothing.

Among the Blackfoot, all men were free and equal, and office was not hereditary. Formerly each gens was governed by a chief, who was entitled to his office by virtue of his bravery and generosity. The head chief was chosen by the chiefs of the gentes from their own number, and was usually the one who could show the best record in war, as proved at the Medicine Lodge,[1] at which time he was elected; and for the ensuing year he was invested with the supreme power. But no matter how brave a man might have been, or how successful in war, he could not hope to be the chief either of a gens or of the tribe, unless he was kind-hearted, and willing to share his prosperity with the poor. For this reason, a chief was never a wealthy man, for what he acquired with one hand he gave away with the other. It was he who decided when the people should move camp, and where they should go. But in this, as in all other important affairs, he generally asked the advice of the minor chiefs.

The I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi (All Comrades) were directly under the authority of the head chief, and when any one was to be punished, or anything else was to be done which came within their province as the tribal police, it was he who issued the orders. The following were the crimes which the Blackfoot considered sufficiently serious to merit punishment, and the penalties which attached to them.

Murder: A life for a life, or a heavy payment by the murderer or his relatives at the option of the murdered man’s relatives. This payment was often so heavy as absolutely to strip the murderer of all property.

Theft: Simply the restoration of the property.

Adultery: For the first offence the husband generally cut off the offending wife’s nose or ears; for the second offence she was killed by the All Comrades. Often the woman, if her husband complained of her, would be killed by her brothers or first cousins, and this was more usual than death at the hands of the All Comrades. However, the husband could have her put to death for the first offence, if he chose.

Treachery (that is, when a member of the tribe went over to the enemy or gave them any aid whatever): Death at sight.

Cowardice: A man who would not fight was obliged to wear woman’s dress, and was not allowed to marry.

If a man left camp to hunt buffalo by himself, thereby driving away the game, the All Comrades were sent after him, and not only brought him back by main force, but often whipped him, tore his lodge to shreds, broke his travois, and often took away his store of dried meat, pemmican, and other food.

The tradition of the origin of the I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi has elsewhere been given. This association of the All Comrades consisted of a dozen or more secret societies, graded according to age, the whole constituting an association which was in part benevolent and helpful, and in part military, but whose main function was to punish offences against society at large. All these societies were really law and order associations. The M[)u]t’-s[)i]ks, or Braves, was the chief society, but the others helped the Braves.

A number of the societies which made up the I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi have been abandoned in recent years, but several of them still exist. Among the Pi-kun’-i, the list so far as I have it is as follows, the societies being named in order from those of boyhood to old age:

Societies of the all Comrades

Ts[)i]-st[=i]ks’, Little Birds, includes boys from 15 to 20 years old.

K[)u]k-k[=u][=i]cks’, Pigeons, men who have been to war several times.

T[)u]is-k[)i]s-t[=i]ks, Mosquitoes, men who are constantly going to war

M[)u]t’-s[)i]ks, Braves, tried warriors.

Kn[)a]ts-o-mi’-ta, All Crazy Dogs, about forty years old.

Ma-stoh’-pa-ta-k[=i]ks Raven Bearers.

E’-mi-taks, Dogs, old men. Dogs and Tails are different societies

Is’-sui, Tails, but they dress alike and dance together and alike.

[)E]ts-[=a]i’-nah, Horns, Bloods, obsolete among the Piegans,

Sin’-o-pah, Kit-foxes, Piegans, but still exists with Bloods.

[)E]-[)i]n’-a-ke, Catchers or Soldiers, obsolete for 25-30 years, perhaps longer.

St[)u]‘m[=i]ks, Bulls, obsolete for 50 years.

There may be other societies of the All Comrades, but these are the only ones that I know of at present. The M[=u]t’-s[)i]ks, Braves, and the Knats-o-mi’-ta, All Crazy Dogs, still exist, but many of the others are being forgotten. Since the necessity for their existence has passed, they are no longer kept up. They were a part of the old wild life, and when the buffalo disappeared, and the Blackfoot came to live about an agency, and to try to work for a subsistence, the societies soon lost their importance. The societies known as Little Birds, Mosquitoes, and Doves are not really bands of the All Comrades, but are societies among the boys and young men in imitation of the I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi, but of comparatively recent origin. Men not more than fifty years old can remember when these societies came into existence. Of all the societies of the I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi, the Sin’-o-pah, or Kit-fox band, has the strongest medicine. This corresponds to the Horns society among the Bloods. They are the same band with different names. They have certain peculiar secret and sacred ceremonies, not to be described here.

The society of the Stum’-[=i]ks, or Bulls, became obsolete more than fifty years ago. Their dress was very fine, bulls’ heads and robes.

The members of the younger society purchased individually, from the next older one, its rights and privileges, paying horses for them. For example, each member of the Mosquitoes would purchase from some member of the Braves his right of membership in the latter society. The man who has sold his rights is then a member of no society, and if he wishes to belong to one, must buy into the one next higher. Each of these societies kept some old men as members, and these old men acted as messengers, orators, and so on.

The change of membership from one society to another was made in the spring, after the grass had started. Two, three, or more lodge coverings were stretched over poles, making one very large lodge, and in this the ceremonies accompanying the changes took place.

In later times, the Braves were the most important and best known of any of the All Comrades societies. The members of this band were soldiers or police. They were the constables of the camp, and it was their duty to preserve order, and to punish offenders. Sometimes young men would skylark in camp at night, making a great noise when people wanted to sleep, and would play rough practical jokes, that were not at all relished by those who suffered from them. One of the forms which their high spirits took was to lead and push a young colt up to the door of a lodge, after people were asleep, and then, lifting the door, to shove the animal inside and close the door again. Of course the colt, in its efforts to get out to its mother, would run round and round the lodge, trampling over the sleepers and roughly awakening them, knocking things down and creating the utmost confusion, while the mare would be whinnying outside the lodge, and the people within, bewildered and confused, did not know what the disturbance was all about.

The Braves would punish the young men who did such things, if they could catch them, tearing up their blankets, taking away their property, and sometimes whipping them severely. They were the peace officers of the camp, like the lari p[=u]k’[=u]s_ among the Pawnees.

Among the property of the Brave society were two stone-pointed arrows, one “shield you don’t sit down with,” and one rattle. The man who carried this rattle was known as Brave Dog, and if it passed from one member of the society to another, the new owner became known as Brave Dog. The man who received the shield could not sit down for the next four days and four nights, but for all that time was obliged to run about the camp, or over the prairie, whistling like a rabbit.

The societies known as Soldiers and Bulls had passed out of existence before the time of men now of middle age. The pipe of the Soldier society is still in existence, in the hands of Double Runner. The bull’s head war bonnet, which was the insignia of the Bulls society, was formerly in the possession of Young Bear Chief, at present chief of the Don’t Laugh band of the Piegan. He gave it to White Calf, who presented it to a recent agent.

In the old days, and, indeed, down to the time of the disappearance of the buffalo, the camp was always arranged in the form of a circle, the lodges standing at intervals around the circumference, and in the wide inner space there was another circle of lodges occupied by the chief of certain bands of the I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi. When all the gentes of the tribe were present, each had its special position in the circle, and always occupied it. The lodge of the chief of the gens stood just within the circle, and about it his people camped. The order indicated in the accompanying diagram represents the Piegan camp as it used to stand thirty-five or forty years ago. A number of the gentes are now extinct, and it is not altogether certain just what the position of those should be; for while all the older men agree on the position to be assigned to certain of the gentes, there are others about which there are differences of opinion or much uncertainty. It is stated that the gentes known as Seldom Lonesome, Dried Meat, and No Parfleche belong to that section of the tribe known as North Piegan, which, at the time of the first treaty, separated from the Pi-kun’-i, and elected to live under British rule.

The lodges of the chiefs of the I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi which were within the circle served as lounging and eating places for such members of the bands as were on duty, and were council lodges or places for idling, as the occasion demanded.

When the camp moved, the Blood gens moved first and was followed by the White Breast gens, and so on around the circle to number 24. On camping, the Bloods camped first, and the others after them in the order indicated, number 24 camping last and closing up the circle. Diagram of old-time piegan camp, say 1850 to 1855. Twenty-four lodges of chiefs of the gentes about the outer circle.

The inner circle shows lodges of chiefs of certain bands of the I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi.

[1]. [Footnote 1: See chapter on Religion.]

Gentes Of The Pi-Kun’-I

1. Blood People. 2. White Breasts. 3. Dried Meat. 4. Black Patched Moccasins. 5. Black Fat Roasters. 6. Early Finished Eating. 7. Don’t Laugh. 8. Fat Roasters. 9. Black Doors. 10. Lone Eaters. 11. Skunks. 12. Seldom Lonesome. 13. Obstinate. 14. Lone Fighters. 15. Small Robes. 16. Big Topknots. 17. Worm People. 18. Small Brittle Fat. 19. Buffalo Dung. 20. No Parfleche. 21. Kill Close Bye 22. All Chiefs. 23. Red Round Robes. 24. Many Medicines.

Bands of the I-Kun-Uh’-Kah-Tsi

a. All Crazy Dogs. b. Dogs. c. Tails. d. Kit-foxes. e. Raven Bearers. f. Braves. g. Mosquitoes. h. Soldiers. i. Doves.

Handbook of American Indians, 1906