The Blackfeet were hunters, travelling from place to place on foot. They used implements of stone, wood, or bone, wore clothing made of skins, and lived in tents covered by hides. Dogs, their only tame animals, were used as beasts of burden to carry small packs and drag light loads. The stories here told come down to us from very ancient times. Grandfathers have told them to their grandchildren, and these again to their grandchildren, and so from mouth to mouth, through many generations, they have reached our time. Those who wish to know something about how the people lived who told these stories will find their described in the last chapter of this book. Contents: Two Fast Runners The Wolf Man Kŭt-o-yĭs ́, the Blood Boy The Dog and the Root Digger The Camp of the Ghosts The Buffalo Stone How the Thunder Pipe Came Cold Maker's Medicine The All Comrades Societies The Bulls Society The Other Societies The First Medicine Lodge The Buffalo-painted Lodges Mīka ́pi—red Old Man Red Robe's Dream The Blackfeet Creation Old Man Stories The Wonderful Bird The Rabbits' Medicine The Lost Elk Meat The Rolling Rock Bear and Bullberries The Theft From the Sun The Smart Woman Chief Bobcat and Birch Tree The Red-eyed Duck The Ancient Blackfeet
*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the Blackfeet written by contemporaries *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents From the "Trail of Tears" to Wounded Knee and Little Bighorn, the narrative of American history is incomplete without the inclusion of the Native Americans that lived on the continent before European settlers arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the first contact between natives and settlers, tribes like the Sioux, Cherokee, and Navajo have both fascinated and perplexed outsiders with their history, language, and culture. In Charles River Editors' Native American Tribes series, readers can get caught up to speed on the history and culture of North America's most famous native tribes in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. They call themselves "Niitsitapi" ("Original People"), but in the United States, they are known as the Blackfeet. In Canada, they are known by their more particular band names, one of which is Blackfoot, but regardless of the name, they are a tribe of Native American peoples ("First Nations" in Canada) who, until the modern time period, lived in small, decentralized bands and hunted the bison on the northern Great Plains. Stories vary, but the name "Blackfeet" or "Blackfoot," applied to them by others, may have come originally from their practice of dying their moccasin soles black. That said, their use of an Algonquian language group may indicate that they were relatively recent newcomers to the region from somewhere in the Northeast. The territory of the Blackfeet, at its greatest extent, encompassed a vast area from the eastern Rocky Mountains of Alberta and Montana and extending several hundred miles out onto the Great Plains, around the upper reaches of the Saskatchewan River and its tributaries in Alberta and the upper reaches of the Missouri River and its tributaries in Montana. The area of the land most sacred to the Blackfeet is the Sweet Grass Hills, which are located just south of the Canadian border in the central part of Montana. These are a group of buttes forested with balsam firs rising several thousand feet above the surrounding plains and which can be seen for a considerable distance. This was also Napi's favorite resting place in the mythology of the Blackfeet. Young Blackfeet went up into the Hills on their vision quests and, as their predecessors had done for several thousands of years, left inscriptions and petroglyphs on the surface of the tall sandstone cliffs. Many of the stories told by the Blackfeet take place there. Native American Tribes: The History and Culture of the Blackfeet and Blackfoot Confederacy comprehensively covers the history and legacy of one of the Great Plains' most famous Native American groups. Along with pictures and a bibliography, you will learn about the Blackfeet like never before, in no time at all.
"A series of illustrated books to help preserve the culture and heritage of the four divisions that make up the Blackfoot Confederacy in the United States and Canada"--Cover.
At the age of sixty-seven, Percy Bullchild (1915?1986), a Blackfeet Indian from Browning, Montana, with little formal education in English, set out to put the oral traditions and history of his people into a permanent written record. He regarded this undertaking?to ?write the Indian version of our own true ways in our history and legends,? as he puts it?as both a corrective and an instructive tool. Bullchild culled this remarkable collection of historical legends from his memory of the oral history as it was passed down to him by his elders and by seeking out the oral traditions of other tribes. These stories, like all legends, Bullchild reminds us, ?may sound a little foolish, but they are very true. And they have much influence over all of the people of this world, even now as we all live.? Woody Kipp provides a preface for this Bison Books edition.
The Blackfeet were people of the buffalo. They originated on the plains of today’s southern Alberta, western Saskatchewan, and central Montana. In the 1830s famed artist and explorer George Catlin called the Blackfeet “the most powerful tribe of Indians on the continent.” Fur trader, hunting guide, and later, acclaimed chronicler of Native American culture, James Willard Schultz lived with the Blackfeet for many years from the 1870s to the 1930s. The tribe named him “Apikuni” (Spotted Robe). Schultz said the purpose of writing this book was “to integrate the activities of the life of the Blackfeet tribes, in the days of the buffalo, and including certain of their ceremonials of the present time.” The Sun God’s Children describes the Blackfeet as they lived before the coming of the fur traders and their customs, traditions, and religious beliefs, as told to Schultz by the Blackfeet themselves.
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From USA TODAY bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a “masterpiece” (Locus Magazine) of a novel about revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition. Labeled “one of 2020’s buzziest horror novels” (Entertainment Weekly), this is a remarkable horror story that “will give you nightmares—the good kind of course” (BuzzFeed). Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary, The Only Good Indians is “a masterpiece. Intimate, devastating, brutal, terrifying, warm, and heartbreaking in the best way” (Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts). This novel follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in violent, vengeful ways.
