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   Siksika (Blackfeet)

   The Siksika, or Blackfeet, are an important tribe numbering about 6000. At one time they ranged from Yellowstone to the North Saskatchewan. Nineteen hundred of them are now gathered on a reservation in Montana, the rest being in the adjacent Canadian province. Associated with them are two smaller tribes, the Arapaho Grosventres and the Sarsi. The Blackfoot tribe sent 22 delegates to the congress.

   In physique the Blackfeet are among the finest men of the plains, tall and well built, with erect pose and steady countenance. The Blackfeet are roving buffalo hunters. They dress in prairie moccasins, breech-cloth, and buckskin dress. The men wore the scalp-lock, usually having the rest of the hair braided and hanging down in front on each side of the head. With some of the Blackfeet, it was pushed up or reached over the forehead. The Blackfeet are very tall with a sinewy build and thin and clear cut features.

Siksika,1996

Siksika seal

   "Raiders on the northwestern plains" was the description used by one noted historian for the early Blackfeet Indians, who developed as one of the most powerful tribes dwelling in the American Northwest. Although there is some controversy over the origin of their name, Blackfeet (or Siksika), it is thought to refer to the hue of their characteristically black moccasins, possibly painted by the Indians themselves, or perhaps darkened by prairie fire.

   By the time the Blackfeet established their extensive territory in the northwest region, they were organized as a loose confederacy of three politically independent tribes, comprising a southern division called the PEIGAN (Pikuni or Poor Robes) now living in Montana, a central division called the Bloods (Kainai), or Many Chiefs) and the North Blackfeet (Siksika or Blackfoot). The two latter tribes now reside on reserves in the province of Alberta Canada. These three tribes shared a common culture, spoke the same language, held a common territory and made war on each other's enemies. Renowned for their prowess in warfare, the Blackfeet had gained control over a vast area of the northwestern plains by the last decades of the 18th century. At the peak of their strength, their domain stretched from the North Saskatchewan River in present-day Alberta, Canada, to the headwaters of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in Montana.

   The Blackfeet language belongs to the important Algonquian linguistic family which is centered in the eastern woodlands region of North American. Several other aspects of Blackfeet Culture, such as the shaping of wooden utensils and bowls and an all but forgotten tradition of pottery making, also relate closely to an eastern Woodlands origin.

Blackfeet Montana village

   As the Blackfeet migrated to the Great Plains region, an area rich in buffalo and other wildlife, they quickly evolved from woodland hunting and food gathering practices to those of a nomadic hunting economy. As nomadic hunters on the open plains, the Blackfeet quickly adapted to living in the portable, skin-covered tipis. Because the dog was, at first, their sole beast of burden, their material wealth, as well as the size of their tipis, was of necessity limited to the weight a strong dog could drag on an A-shaped travois. The buffalo, their chief source of raw materials for practically everything they produced: its hide made their clothing and tipi covers, while its bones and horns were fashioned into tools and utensils.

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