Blackfoot

The pictures are deceiving; the Plains Indians of North America lived for thousands of years without horses.  The nomadic Blackfoot Indians in particular were known for their great skills in hunting the enormous buffalo long before the first pyramids of Egypt were built.   It was after the introduction in 1730 of the animal named "elk-horse" for its great size that the Blackfoot tribes became renowned for their expert horsemanship and continued their dominance of neighboring Native American groups as they pushed westward toward the Rocky Mountains.  They had a reputation as fierce warriors and by the mid-19th century controlled a vast amount of territory stretching from northern Saskatchewan to the southernmost waters of the Missouri.

They were also known as the strongest and most aggressive military power on the northwestern plains, preventing white men, whom they considered poachers, from impinging on their land and their natural resources for a quarter of a century ("Blackfoot"  Britannica Online).  But the end of the nineteenth century saw a population decimated by the near extinction of the buffalo as well as repeated epidemics of smallpox and measles.  And though still dependent on the land, the remaining were forced onto reservations by US policy and blindly placed into a way of life that lacked social cohesiveness and resulted in the weakening of native institutions and cultural practices ("Native American Peoples" Britannica Online).
The Blackfoot Indians of Alberta and Montana were divided into three closely related Algonkian-speaking tribes: the Piegan, the Blood and the Siksika, or Blackfoot proper.  The name Blackfoot is believed to have been derived from the discoloration of moccasins from ashes.  They were typical of the Plains Indians in that they were nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived in tipis (tepees) and subsisted mainly on buffalo; 

the separate bands would wander on foot in order to follow the herds (Martin 1996).  Other animals such as deer and small game also contributed to the diet, as well as gathered vegetables.  Fish were abundant thought they were only eaten in times of extreme necessity, such as when the buffalo populations dwindled.

An average buffalo bull provided a great deal of meat, about 700 kilograms.  Prepared fresh, the meat was roasted on a spit or boiled in a skin bag by adding stones hot from the fire to make a rich soup.  The remaining meat was either cut into thin slices and dried in the sun to produce jerky or it was made into pemmican, a high protein food which consisted of dried meat pounded into a powder and mixed with melted buffalo fat and berries.  Both foods were packed tightly into skin bags and would remain edible for years.  Almost nothing of the buffalo was wasted.  Bones were fashioned into tools and horns served as containers, sinew was used as thread and shaggy hair was braided into halters.  Hooves were either made into rattles or boiled to make glue.  The hides of the animal provided most of the clothing for the indians and were sewn together to produce tipi covers (Ottawa 1996).

The women were experts in the tanning of skins, a long and tiring process.  This process was considered so important that each woman was judged largely on the quality and quantity of the skins she tanned.  Even making the simplest hard rawhide for moccasins was an exhausting process that required both sides of the skin to be scraped clean; soft skin took a week to produce.  The women also made the tipis, and therefore had ownership of them.  In addition to the preparation meats and skin women made weapons, shields, tools, drums, and pipes, although men were the primary hunters (Ottawa 1996).
 
Military societies had the important function of policing and regulating life in camp and organizing the defenses.  These military societies of the Blackfoot, known as the aiinikiks, or All-Comrades, had membership by purchase only and promotion in the various societies was age graded.  A man could sell his membership to a younger man and then purchase that of an older man in the next appropriate society every four years.  Age graded men's society was a principle for organization among ceremonial groups, which may have otherwise lacked social stratification due to the absence of a division of labour or any other economic inequality.  Each society had its own distinctive song and dance. The members of the Blackfoot societies wore headdresses made from the white winter skins of weasels; the full feather headdress was worn only by a few important leaders of the Sioux.  White eagle feathers with sharp, black tips were highly regarded and, when worn in the hair, symbolized acts of bravery.  The picture above is of a Piegan elder who would have been highly valued for his wisdom and experience.

Each Blackfoot tribe was divided into several hunting bands led by one or more chiefs and several councilors.  Band membership was quite fluid and headmanship was very informal.  Success in war and ceremonial experience were the qualifications for head office, and as long as the headman provided benefits to his people they would stay with him.  But if his generosity should slacken the members were free to leave.  The bands wintered separately in river valleys and congregated each summer to observe the Sun Dance.  There was also a head chief for each the three geographical tribes: the Piegan, the Blood, and the Blackfoot.  His primary purpose was to call councils to discuss affairs of importance to the group.