Blackfeet

Beginnings

Like most Indigenous Peoples of North American, the Blackfeet have a genesis narrative. These accounts [Page 165]reveal that the creator of humankind originated the first human Napi from mud brought forth by a water animal from the depths of a watery abyss. These narratives then lead to other origin accounts that reveal the origins of Blackfeet ceremony and spiritual beliefs.

According to anthropologists, the Blackfeet are classified linguistically and culturally with the Algonquian group of Indigenous Peoples of North America. It is believed that they migrated from the Great Lakes area to western prairies of what are now the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada. The traditional roaming area of the Blackfeet is an area the size of France. The Blackfeet hunted animals and gathered roots and berries, ranging from the North Saskatchewan River in Alberta to the Yellowstone River in the south. The Rocky Mountains provided a barrier to other tribes to the west, while the plains of Saskatchewan and North Dakota and South Dakota formed a movable boundary to the east.

Before the coming of Europeans, the Blackfeet lived in small groups commonly termed bands. The bands consisted of 50 to 100 people, mostly of extended families. They lived in a tepee lodge that included 10 to 15 members of an extended family. The band leaders were usually one or two headmen who had obtained prominence through personal influence, hunting skills, and participation in societies and ceremonial life.

The bands also consisted of several social and ceremonial groups commonly termed societies, which were age graded: People entered a society such as the “mosquitoes” as teenagers and then moved into soldier or police societies such as the “brave dog” as young men and women. Toward middle age, the members rit-ually transferred into the more religious societies of “medicine bundle” or “beaver bundle.” Individuals could become ceremonial leaders such as a “bundle keeper” through an intricate ritualistic process.

The spiritual life of the Blackfeet centered on the medicine bundle ceremonies. The medicine bundles contained things such as animals and birds and other objects such as rocks and sticks that have spiritual meaning. The medicine lodge, sometimes called the “sun dance,” was the ultimate ceremony of the Blackfeet tribes. In fact, the many bands and tribes came together as large groups only in the summer for the Ookaan, or medicine lodge ceremonies.

Prior to the arrival of the horse in the mid-1700s, the Blackfeet used the domesticated dog as a way of transporting material goods. Later, the horse became the means of transportation. It is believed that the horse came to the Blackfeet either through the Mandan-Hidatsa tribe, on the Missouri River, or the Nez Perce tribe, west of the Rocky Mountains. Having horses not only made them more mobile but also improved their ability to harvest buffalo by way of surround and chase. Certainly, material goods in their possession increased, since larger amounts of goods could be transported.

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