Long, long ago, before our fathers or grandfathers were born, before
the white people knew anything about the western half of North
America, the Indians who told these stories lived on the Western
plains. To the west of their home rose high mountains, black with
pine-trees on their lower slopes and capped with snow, but their
tents were pitched on the rolling prairie. For a little while in
spring this prairie was green and dotted with flowers, but for most
of the year it stretched away brown and bare, north, east, and
south, farther than one could see.
On these plains were many kinds of wild animals. Sometimes the
prairie was crowded with herds of black buffalo running in fear; or,
again, the herds, unfrightened, fed scattered out; so that the hills
far and near were dotted with their dark forms. Among the buffalo
were yellow and white antelope--many of them--graceful and swift of
foot. Feeding on the high prairie or going down into the wooded
river valleys to drink were herds of elk, while the willow thickets,
the brushy ravines, and the lower timbered foot-hills sheltered
deer. The naked Bad Lands, the rocky slopes of the mountains, and
the tall buttes that often rise above the level prairie were the
refuge of the mountain sheep, which in those days, like all the
other grass eaters of the region, grazed on the prairie and sought
the more broken, higher country only when alarmed or when they
wished to rest.
These were the animals which the Blackfeet killed for food before
the white men came, and of these the buffalo was the chief. Buffalo,
more than any other animals, could be captured in numbers, and the
Blackfeet, like the other Indians of the plains, had devised a
method for taking them, so that when the buffalo were near the
Blackfeet never suffered from hunger. Yet sometimes it happened that
the buffalo went away, and that the lonely far travelling scouts
sent out by the tribe could not find them. Then the people had to
turn to the smaller animals--the elk, deer, antelope, and wild
sheep.
In those old days, before they had horses, they did not make long
marches when they moved. Their only domestic animal was the dog,
which was used chiefly as a beast of burden, either carrying loads
on its back or hauling a travois, formed by two long sticks crossing
above the shoulders and dragging on the ground behind. Behind the
dog these two sticks were united by a little platform, on which was
lashed some small burden--sometimes a little baby.
In those days, when the people moved from one place to another, all
who were large enough to walk and strong enough to carry a burden on
the shoulders, were laden. Usually men, women, and children alike
bore loads suited to their strength. Yet sometimes the men carried
no loads at all, for if journeying through a country where they
feared that some enemy might attack them, the men must be ready to
fight and to defend their wives and children. A man cannot fight
well if he is carrying a burden; he cannot use his arms readily, nor
run about lightly--forward to attack, backward in retreat. If he is
not free to fight well, his family will be in danger. White men who
have seen Indians journeying in this way, and who have not
understood why some women carried heavy loads and the men carried
nothing, have said that Indian men were idle and lazy, and forced
their women to do all the work. Those who wrote those things were
mistaken in what they said. They did not understand what they saw.
The truth is that these men were prepared for danger of attacks by
enemies, and were ready to do their best to save their families from
harm.
Carrying on their backs all their property, except the little which
the dogs might pack, it is evident that the Indians in those days
could not make long journeys.
In those days they had no buckets of wood or tin in which to carry
water. Instead, they used a vessel like a bag or sack, made from the
soft membrane of one of the stomachs of the buffalo. This, after it
had been cleansed and all the openings from it save one had been
tied up, the women filled at the stream with a spoon made of
buffalo horn or with a larger ladle of the horn of the wild sheep.
Because this water-skin was soft and flexible, it could not stand on
the ground, and they hung it up, sometimes on the limb of a tree,
more often on one of the poles of the lodge, or sometimes on a
tripod--three sticks coming together at the top and standing spread
out at the ground.
Most of the meat cooked for the family was roasted, yet much of it
was boiled, sometimes in a bowl of stone, sometimes in a kettle made
of a fresh hide or of the paunch of the buffalo. Sometimes these
skin or paunch kettles were supported at the sides by stakes stuck
in the ground, and sometimes a hole dug in the ground was lined with
the hide, which was so arranged as to be water-tight. They were not,
as may be imagined, put over a fire, but when filled with cold water
this water was heated in quite another way. Near by a fire was
built, in which were thrown large stones, and on top of the stones
more wood was piled; so that after a time, when the wood had burnt
down, the stones were very hot--sometimes red hot. With two rather
short-handled forked sticks, the women took from the fire one of the
hot stones, and put it in the water in the hide kettle, and as it
cooled, took it out and put in another hot stone. Thus the water was
soon heated, and boiled and cooked whatever was in the kettle. To be
sure, there were some ashes and a little dirt in the soup, but that
was not regarded as important.
This was long before the Indians knew of matches, or even of flint
and steel. In those days to make a fire was not easy and it took a
long time. By his knees or feet a man held in position on the ground
a piece of soft, dry wood in which two or three little hollows had
been dug out, and taking another slender stick of hard wood, and
pressing the point in one of the little hollows in the stick of soft
wood, he twirled the stick rapidly between the palms of his hands,
so fast and so long that presently the dust ground from the softer
stick, falling to one side in a little pile, began to smoke, and at
last a faint spark was seen at the top of the pile, which began to
glow, and, spreading, became constantly larger. He, or his
companion, for often two men twirled the stick, one relieving the
other, caught this spark in a bit of tinder--perhaps some dry punk
or a little fine grass--and by blowing coaxed it into flame, and
there was the fire.
This fire making was hard work, and the people tried to escape this
work by keeping a spark of fire always alive. To do this, men
sometimes carried, by a thong slung over the shoulder, the hollow
tip of a buffalo horn, the opening of which was closed by a wooden
plug. When going on a journey, the man lighted a piece of punk, and,
placing it in this horn, plugged up the open end, so that no air
could get into the horn. There the punk smouldered for a long time,
and neither went out nor was wholly consumed. Once in a while during
the day the man looked at this punk, and, if he saw that it was
almost consumed, he lighted another piece and put it in the horn and
replaced the plug. So at night when he reached camp the fire was
still in his horn, and he could readily kindle a blaze, and from
this blaze other fires were kindled. Often, if the camp was large,
the first young men who reached it gathered wood and perhaps kindled
four fires, and after the women had reached the camp, unpacked their
dogs, and put up their lodges, each woman would go to one of these
fires to get a brand or some coals with which to start her own lodge
fire.
In warm weather men and boys wore little clothing. They went almost
naked; yet in cold weather each man or woman was most of the time
wrapped in a warm robe of tanned buffalo skin. Even the little
children wore robes, the smallest ones those taken from the little
buffalo calves. All their clothing, like their beds and their homes,
was made of the skins of animals. Shirts, women's dresses, leggings,
and moccasins were made from the tanned skins of buffalo, deer,
antelope, and mountain sheep. Often the moccasins were made from the
smoked skin cut from the top of an old lodge, for this skin had been
smoked so much that it never dried hard and stiff, after it had been
wet. The moccasins had a stiff sole of buffalo rawhide; and in the
bottom of this sole were cut one or two holes, in order that the
water might run out if a man had to wade through a stream.
The homes of these Indians were lodges--tents made of tanned buffalo
skin supported on a cone of long, straight, slender poles. At the
top where the poles crossed was an opening for the smoke from the
fire built in the centre of the circular lodge floor, while about
the fire, and close under the lodge covering, were the beds where
the people slept or ate during the day.
These homes were warm and comfortable. The border of the lodge
covering did not come down quite to the ground, but inside the lodge
poles, and tied to them, was a long wide strip of tanned buffalo
skin four or five feet high, and long enough to reach around the
inside of the lodge, almost from one side of the door to the other.
This strip of tanned skin--made up of several pieces--was so wide
that one edge rested on the floor, and reached inward under the beds
and seats. Through the open space between the lodge covering and the
lodge lining, fresh air kept passing into the lodge close to the
ground and up over the lining and down toward the centre of the
lodge, and so furnished draught for the fire. The lodge lining kept
this cold air from blowing directly on the occupants of the lodge
who sat around the fire. Often the lodge lining was finely painted
with pictures of animals, people, and figures of mysterious beings
of which one might not speak.
The seats and beds in this home were covered with soft tanned
buffalo robes, and at the head and foot of each bed was an inclined
back-rest of straight willow twigs, strung together on long lines of
sinew and supported in an inclined position by a tripod. Buffalo
robes often hung over these back-rests. In the spaces between the
back-rests, which though they came together at the top were
separated at the ground, were kept many of the possessions of the
family; the pipe, sacks of tobacco, of paint, "possible
sacks"--parfleches for clothing or food, and many smaller articles.
The outside of the lodge was often painted with mysterious figures
which the lodge owner believed to have power to bring good luck to
him and to his family. Sometimes these figures represented
animals--buffalo, deer, and elk--or rocks, mountains, trees, or the
puff-balls that grow on the prairie. Sometimes a procession of
ravens, marching one after the other, was painted around the
circumference of the lodge. The painting might show the tracks of
animals, or a number of water animals, apparently chasing each other
around the lodge. On either side of the smoke hole at the top were
two flaps, or wings, each one supported by a single pole. These were
to regulate the draught of the fire in case of a change of wind, and
the poles were moved from side to side, changing as the direction of
the wind changed. On such wings were often painted groups of white
disks which represented some group of stars. At the back of the
lodge, high up, just below the place where the lodge poles cross,
was often a large round disk representing the sun, and above that a
cross, which was the sign of the butterfly, the power that they
believe brings sleep. From the ends of the wings, or tied to the
tips of the poles which supported them, hung buffalo tails, and
sometimes running down from one of these poles to the ground near
the door was a string of the sheaths of buffalo hooflets, which
rattled as it swung to and fro in the breeze.
Their arms were the bow and arrow, a short spear or lance, with a
head of sharpened stone or bone, stone hammers with wooden handles,
and knives made of bone or stone, and if of stone, lashed by rawhide
or sinew to a split wooden handle.
The hammers were of two sorts: one quite heavy, almost like a
sledge-hammer or maul, and with a short handle; the other much
lighter, and with a longer, more limber handle. This last was used
by men in war as a mace or war club, while the heavier hammer was
used by women as an axe to break up fallen trees for firewood; as a
hammer to drive tent-pins into the ground, to kill disabled animals,
or to break up heavy bones for the marrow they contained. These
mauls and hammers were usually made by choosing an oval stone and
pecking a groove about its shortest diameter. The handles were made
by green sticks fitted as closely as possible into the groove,
brought together and lashed in position by sinew, the whole being
then covered with wet rawhide tightly fitted and sewed. As the
rawhide dried, it shrunk and strongly bound together the parts of
the weapon.
The Blackfeet bow was about four feet long. Its string was of
twisted sinew and it was backed with sinew. This gave the bow great
power, so that the arrow went with much force. The arrows were
straight shoots of the service berry or cherry, and the manufacture
of arrows was the chief employment of many of the men of middle
life. Each arrow by the same maker was precisely like every other
arrow he made. Each arrowmaker tried hard to make good arrows. It
was a fine thing to be known as a maker of good arrows.
The shoots for the arrow shafts were brought into the lodge, peeled,
smoothed roughly, tied up in bundles, and hung up to dry. After they
were dried, the bundles were taken down and each shaft was smoothed
and reduced to a proper thickness by the use of a grooved piece of
sand-stone, which acted on the arrow like sandpaper. After they were
of the right thickness, they were straightened by bending with the
hands, and sometimes with the teeth, and were then passed through a
circular hole drilled in a rib, or in a mountain sheep's horn, which
acted in part as a gauge of the size and also as a smoother, for if
in passing through the hole the arrow fitted tightly, the shaft
received a good polish. The three grooves which always were found in
the Blackfeet arrows were made by pushing the shaft through a round
hole drilled in a rib, which, however, had one or more projections
left on the inside. These projections pressed into the soft wood and
made the grooves, which were in every arrow. The feathers were three
in number. They were put on with a glue, made by boiling scraps of
dried rawhide, and were held in place by wrappings of sinew. The
heads of the arrows were made of stone or bone or horn. The flint
points were often highly worked and very beautiful, being broken
from larger flints by sharp blows of a stone hammer, and after they
had been shaped the edges were worked sharp by flaking with an
implement of bone or horn. The points made of horn or bone were
ground sharp by rubbing on a stone. A notch was cut in the end of
the arrow shaft and the shank of the arrow point set in that. The
arrow heads were firmly fixed to the shaft by glue and by sinew
wrapping.
Although the Blackfeet lived almost altogether on the flesh of birds
or animals, yet they had some vegetable food. This was chiefly
berries--of which in summer the women collected great quantities and
dried them for winter use--and roots, the gathering of which at the
proper season of the year occupied much of the time of women and
young girls. These roots were unearthed by a long, sharp-pointed
stick, called a root digger. Some of the roots were eaten as soon as
collected, while others were dried and stored for use in winter.
After they reached the plains, the main food of the Blackfeet was
the buffalo, which they killed in large numbers when everything went
right. Many of the streams in the Blackfeet country run through
wide, deep valleys bordered on either side by cliffs, or broken
precipices, falling sharply from the high prairie above. Long ago
the Blackfeet must have learned that it was possible to make the
buffalo jump over these cliffs, and that in the fall on the rocks
below numbers would be killed or crippled. No doubt after this had
been practised for a time, there came to some one the idea of
building at the foot of such a cliff where the buffalo were run
over, a fence which would form a corral or pound, and which would
hold all the buffalo that were jumped over the cliff. This corral
they called piskun.
It is often said that the buffalo were driven over these precipices,
but this is true only in part. Like most wild animals, buffalo are
inquisitive. It was not difficult to excite their curiosity, and
when they saw something they did not recognize, they were anxious to
find out what it was.
When run into the piskun, the buffalo were really drawn by curiosity
almost to the jumping point, and between two long diverging lines of
people, who kept hidden until after the buffalo had passed them, and
then rose and showed themselves and tried to frighten the animals.
Now, to be sure, for the short distance that remained between the
place where they were alarmed and the place where they jumped, the
buffalo were driven. Any attempt on the open prairie to drive
buffalo in one direction or another would be certain to fail. The
animals would go where they wished to. They would not be driven,
though often they might be led.
To the people the capture of food was the most important thing in
life, and they put forth every effort to accomplish it. For this
reason it came about that the effort to capture buffalo was preceded
usually by religious ceremonies, in which many prayers were offered
to the powers of the earth, the sky, and the waters, many sacrifices
made, and sacred objects, like the buffalo stone, were displayed.
When the day for the hunt came, the man who was to bring the buffalo
left the camp early in the morning, climbed the rocky bluffs to the
high prairie, and journeyed toward some near-by herd of buffalo,
that had been located the day before by himself or by other young
men. He approached the buffalo as nearly as he could without
frightening them, and then, attracting the attention of some of the
animals by uttering certain calls, tossed into the air his buffalo
robe or some smaller object. As soon as the buffalo began to look at
him, he retreated slowly in the direction of the piskun, but
continued to call and to attract their attention by showing himself
and then disappearing. Soon, some of the buffalo began to walk
toward him, and others began to look and to follow those that had
first started, so that before long the whole herd of fifty or a
hundred animals might be walking or sometimes trotting after him.
The more rapidly the buffalo came on, the faster the man ran--and
sometimes it was a hard matter for him to keep ahead of the
herd--until he had got far within the wings and near to the cliff.
If there seemed danger that he would be overtaken, he watched his
chance and either at some low place quickly dodged out of the line
in which the buffalo were running, or hid behind one of the piles of
stones of which the wings were formed, or, if he had time, slipped
over the rocky wall at the valley's edge, so as to get out of the
way of the approaching herd.
As soon as the buffalo had come well within the diverging lines of
people who were hidden behind the piles of stones called wings,
those whom the buffalo passed rose up from their places of
concealment, and by yells and shouts and the waving of their robes
frightened the buffalo, so that they quite forgot their curiosity in
the terror that now replaced it. When the leaders reached the brink
of the cliff, they could not stop. They were pushed over by those
behind, and most of the buffalo jumped over the cliff. Many were
crippled or injured by the fall, and all were kept within the fence
of the piskun below. About this fence the people were collected. The
buffalo raced round and round within the pen, the young and weak
being injured or killed in the crowding, while above the fence men
were shooting them with arrows until presently all in the pen were
dead, or so hurt that the women could go into the pen and kill them.
The people entered and took the flesh and hides.
Deer, elk, and antelope were shot with arrows, and antelope were
often captured in pitfalls roofed with slender poles and covered
with grass and earth. Such pitfalls were dug in a region where
antelope were plenty, and a long > shaped pair of wings, made of
poles or bushes or even rock piles, led to the pit. The antelope is
very inquisitive and was easily led within the chute and there
frightened, as were the buffalo, by people who had been concealed
and who rose up and showed themselves after the antelope had passed.
This was done more in order to secure antelope skins for clothing
than their flesh for food.
Fish and reptiles were not eaten by the Blackfeet, nor were dogs,
although dogs, wolves, and coyotes are eaten by many tribes of
plains Indians. Most small animals, and practically all birds, were
eaten in case of need. In summer, when the wildfowl which bred
on so many of the lakes in the Blackfeet country lost their
flight-feathers, during the moult, and again in the late summer,
when the young ducks and geese were almost fullgrown but could not
yet fly, the Indians often went in large parties to the shallow
lakes which here and there dotted the prairie, and, driving the
birds to shore, killed them in large numbers.
Earlier in the season, when the fowl had begun to lay their eggs,
these were collected in great quantities for food. Sometimes they
were roasted in the hot ashes, but a more common way was to dig a
deep, narrow hole in the ground in which the eggs were to be cooked.
Several little platforms of small sticks or twigs were built in this
hole, one above another, and on these platforms they put the eggs.
Another much smaller hole was dug to one side of the large hole,
slanting down into it. The large hole was partly filled with water,
and was then roofed over by small sticks on which was placed grass
covered with earth. Stones were heated in a fire built near at hand,
and then were rolled down the side hole into the larger hole,
heating the water, which at last boiled and steamed, the steam
cooking the eggs.
When the Americans first met them on the prairie, the Blackfeet were
known as great warriors. But up to the time when they got from the
Hudson Bay traders better weapons than they had before known,
whether these were metal knives, steel arrow points, or guns, it is
probable that they did not do much fighting. There seems to have
been no reason why they should have fought, unless they quarrelled
about small matters with other tribes. It became quite different
when the Indians procured better arms and, above all, when they got
horses--a means of swiftly getting about over the country, something
that all people wanted to have and which all were so eager to obtain
that they would go into danger for them. In the old days of stone
arrow heads, when they had to travel on foot and to carry heavy
loads on their backs, the whole thought and effort of the tribe must
have been devoted to the work of procuring a supply of food.
The tribal and family life of the people was simple and friendly.
The man and his wives loved each other and loved their children.
Relationship counted for much in an Indian camp, and cousins of
remote degree were called brother and sister. Children were not
punished; they were trained by persuasion and advice. They were
told by older people how they ought to act in order to make their
lives happy and successful and to be well thought of by their
fellows. Young people had much respect for their elders, listened to
what they said, and strove more or less successfully to follow their
teachings.
The Blackfeet were very religious. They feared many natural powers
and influences whose workings they did not understand, and they were
constantly praying to the Sun--regarded as the ruler of the
universe--as well as to those other powers which they believe live
in the stars, the earth, the mountains, the animals, and the trees.
The Blackfoot was constantly afraid that some evil thing might
happen to him, and he therefore prayed to all the powers for
help--for good fortune in his undertakings, for health, plenty, and
long life for himself and all his family.
Among these tribes there are a number of secret societies known as
the All Comrades or All Friends--groups of men of different ages,
which have been alluded to in the stories. Originally there were
about twelve of these societies, but a number have been abandoned
of recent years.
The tribe was divided into a number of clans, all the members of
which were believed to be related, and in old times no member of a
clan was permitted to marry another member of the clan. Relations
might not marry.
In olden times, when large numbers of people were together, the
lodges of the camp were pitched in a great circle, the opening
toward the southeast. In this circle each clan camped in its own
particular place with relation to the other clans. Within the circle
was often a smaller circle of lodges, each occupied by one or more
of the societies of the All Comrades. Sometimes it happened that
great numbers of the Blackfeet came together, perhaps even all of
the three tribes, Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans. When this was the
case, each tribe camped by itself with its own circle, no matter how
near it might be to one or other of the tribal circles.
We read of some tribes of Indians which believed that after death
the spirits of the departed went to a happy hunting ground where
game was always plenty and life was full of joy. The Blackfeet
knew no such place as this. When they died their spirits
were believed to go to a barren, sandy region south of the
Saskatchewan, which they called the Sand Hills. Here, as shadows,
the ghosts lived a life much like their existence before death,
but all was unreal--unsubstantial. Riding on shadow horses they
hunted shadow buffalo. They lived in shadow camps and when they
moved shadow dogs hauled their travois. There are stories which
tell that living people have seen these hunters, their houses, and
their implements of the camp, but when the people got close they
found that what they thought they had seen was something
different. It reminds us a little of the old ballad of Alice
Brand, where Urgan tells of the things seen in fairy-land:
"And gayly shines the Fairy-land--
But all is glistening show,
Like the idle gleam that December's beam
Can dart on ice and snow.
"And fading, like that varied gleam,
Is our inconstant shape,
Who now like knight and lady seem,
And now like dwarf and ape."
Books have been written about the Blackfeet Indians which tell much
more about how they lived than can be given here.