Beneath the Backbone of the World

Blackfoot People and the North American Borderlands, 1720–1877

Ryan Hall

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781469655161
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Native American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

For the better part of two centuries, between 1720 and 1877, the Blackfoot (Niitsitapi) people controlled a vast region of what is now the U.S. and Canadian Great Plains. As one of the most expansive and powerful Indigenous groups on the continent, they dominated the northern imperial borderlands of North America. The Blackfoot maintained their control even as their homeland became the site of intense competition between white fur traders, frequent warfare between Indigenous nations, and profound ecological transformation. In an era of violent and wrenching change, Blackfoot people relied on their mastery of their homelands' unique geography to maintain their way of life. With extensive archival research from both the United States and Canada, Ryan Hall shows for the first time how the Blackfoot used their borderlands position to create one of North America's most vibrant and lasting Indigenous homelands. This book sheds light on a phase of Native and settler relations that is often elided in conventional interpretations of Western history, and demonstrates how the Blackfoot exercised significant power, resiliency, and persistence in the face of colonial change.

PART I | Homelands,

1720–1806

CHAPTER ONE

Náápi’s Place

In our belief system this is where we were put. It provides. The water, the plants, the berries, the birds. It’s all part and parcel.

—NARCISSE BLOOD (Kainai), 2003

We point out to our children various places where Napi slept, or walked, or hunted, and thus our children’s minds become impressed.

—BIG PLUME (Siksika), 1888

At the dawn of the twentieth century, elders in the windswept reservation town of Browning, Montana, welcomed a young Piikani researcher named David Duvall into their homes and explained to him where their people came from. In interview after interview, the elders explained that their history began many ages before 1877, the year of the last Blackfoot treaty when Duvall was born. It began in ancient times, when the Creator Sun had covered the world in a great flood of water, and the only land above the water was a tall mountaintop. On that dry island lived Náápi, or Old Man, surrounded by the different animals of the earth. After some time living on this island, Náápi grew curious about what lay below the water that surrounded him, so he asked his companions to dive in and investigate. One by one, they plunged deep into the water while Náápi watched and waited. The otter went first, but after a few moments he floated back up to the surface, drowned. Then the beaver went, but he drowned as well. The muskrat volunteered next, only to meet the same fate. Finally, the duck volunteered. As with the others, the duck drowned and floated to the surface, but Náápi noticed that its webbed feet were now packed with mud. Náápi took the mud in his hands, molded it, and blew into it. He then dipped it in the water three times and dropped it in. The submerged ball of earth grew and grew until it burst from the flooded depths. In time, rains came to make plants sprout from the fecund soil. This ball of earth became the world as we know it today.

Náápi and Kipitáaakii, or Old Woman, then traveled the surface of the land and crafted the landscape, the animals, the plants, and the people. Together they decided how the people would look and how their bodies would work. Náápi suggested that people’s eyes should align vertically on their face, but Kipitáaakii convinced him they should be set crosswise. Náápi thought people should have ten fingers on each hand, but Kipitáaakii said that was too many, and that they should have four fingers and a thumb. Most importantly, Kipitáaakii convinced Náápi that when people died, they should die forever, to ensure that they felt empathy for one another during life. After making the people, the creators showed them how to hunt, how to fight, how to collect roots and berries, and how to stay warm. In these early days the people had no language, so one day Náápi gathered them all together on top of Chief Mountain and gave them each cups of different colored water, then bade them to speak. When they opened their mouths, each person who drank a different color produced a distinct sound, and thus the different peoples of the world were divided. When the people who drank black water opened their mouths, the language that came out was Blackfoot. Their homes would be at the base of the great mountains where Náápi molded the world, where the languages were given, and where Náápi and Kipitáaakii would remain forever to watch over the people. The Blackfoot dubbed these peaks the “Backbone of the World.”¹

Archaeologists and anthropologists mostly tell a different story, but one that likewise emphasizes continuity with an ancient past. These scholars say that Blackfoot people and their ancestors have lived on the northwest plains of North America for at least one thousand years, and perhaps much longer. They speak an Algonquian language, meaning they share a historical lineage with an array of peoples whose homelands today lie mostly in eastern woodlands, including the Potawatomis, Crees, Foxes, Ojibwes, and Shawnees. Many Algonquian oral traditions place their distinctive cultural origins along the Atlantic coast, though some archaeologists have argued that these kindred nations originated in the vast forests and lake-lands ringing Hudson Bay, and that they fled south when a cooling climate shrunk the northern forests. Others have suggested that the Algonquian languages originated in the Great Lakes region. From there, some Algonquian groups broke off from the others and for reasons now lost to us, made their way to the western plains between 1,000 and 1,700 years ago. These westering Algonquian-speakers included those who became Blackfoot.²

Whatever their origins, the people who now know themselves as Blackfoot have lived on the northwest plains for a very long time. By the time of their first contact with Europeans in the eighteenth century, the Blackfoot-speaking people of the northwest plains had come to know themselves as the Niitsitapi, or Real People. The Niitsitapi consisted of three kindred nations: the Siksika, or Black Foot people, so named for a story of walking across a burnt prairie; the Kainai, or Many Chiefs people, so named for an ancient custom of their members each introducing themselves as chiefs when visiting other nations; and the Piikani, or Scabby Robes people, so named for a time when some women did a poor job preparing bison robes. Only later, long after the first European visitors mistook the northernmost nation’s name for that of the whole, did they begin to refer to themselves collectively as Blackfoot.³

Chief Mountain plays a central role in the Blackfoot origin story. The distinctive peak is now located in Glacier National Park, just west of the Blackfeet (South Piikani) Reservation in Montana. (Photo by author.)

Their arrival on the northwest plains represented the most important and transformative moment in Blackfoot history until around three hundred years ago, when their way of life once again underwent profound upheaval. During their first millennium-plus on the northwest plains, Blackfoot people fit their lives to the lands around them (and sometimes fit the land to their lives). They learned how to keep warm during the harsh winters; how to use plants for medicine, ceremony, and food; how to stalk, fool, and kill bison; how to make and transport fire; how to keep balance with animal life; how to maintain access to water; how to keep peace with their many human neighbors; how to build relationships with the supernatural world; and how to imbue their landscape with meaning. The Blackfoot taught themselves to thrive on the northwest plains through centuries of experience, and they had no reason to believe that future generations would live any differently than they had. But during the early years of the eighteenth century, the foundations of their world changed. Gigantic new animals appeared, intelligent and swift of foot, which could carry humans upon their backs. Fabulous new materials appeared that were shiny, sharp, and hard as rocks, which revolutionized daily tasks. A new device appeared that made deafening noise and killed with bewildering speed. Violent conflict became more common. These changes would test Blackfoot tradition and force them to reshape their ancient way of life.

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BLACKFOOT PEOPLE MADE their homelands in the far northwest corner of the Great Plains, a massive swath of dry grasslands in the continent’s interior that stretches from the Rio Grande River through the western United States and into Canada. Prone to capricious weather patterns, aridity, and drought, the northwestern sections of the Great Plains consist mostly of treeless shortgrass prairie, but key features punctuate the region’s monotony. To the west, the prairies give way abruptly to the thickly wooded foothills of the Rocky Mountains, whose peaks create a jagged line of peaks across the sky that today include Banff and Glacier National Parks. Rivers like the Oldman, Bear (now known as Marias), and Belly carry melted snowpack from the peaks east onto the plains, carving deep valleys and providing shelter for lush groves of cottonwoods to line their banks. North of the Bow River (where the city of Calgary now stands), the prairies begin to transform into transitional partially wooded areas known as parklands, which then give way to dense sub-Arctic forests north of the North Saskatchewan River.

Blackfoot people traversed all parts of this vast and varied environment. Traditionally, the Rocky Mountains formed the western boundary of Blackfoot territory, while the North Saskatchewan River marked its northern edge. The eastern and southern boundaries were less easily fixed by environmental features. In the period after 1300 C.E., Blackfoot homelands generally extended east to the Eagle Hills in what is now Saskatchewan, and at least as far south as the Missouri River in what is now western Montana. At their most expansive, Blackfoot territories measured around three hundred miles from west to east, and five hundred miles from north to south—an area comparable in size to the present-day state of Montana or the country of Germany. Most of the Siksika bands lived in the northernmost portions of this territory, in the mixed parkland environment between the Battle and North Saskatchewan Rivers. The Kainais and Piikanis ranged to their south, in territories composed mostly of undulating shortgrass prairies situated closer to the mountains. A landscape of huge skies and boundless horizons, the northwest plains likely sustained between ten and fifteen thousand Blackfoot people at the beginning of the eighteenth century.⁴

The northwest plains were more than just an environmental setting to the Blackfoot, for they also contained a rich archive of historical knowledge and supernatural power. Landmarks of Náápi’s creation journeys affixed Blackfoot identity and history throughout the northwest plains. The Blackfoot saw such reminders wherever they went. For example, two large buttes north of the Teton River marked a spot where Náápi once stumbled and fell to his knees. Ancient man-shaped arrangements of stones on hillsides across the region marked the places where Náápi had lain down to rest. An oblong clearing containing several boulders near the sources of the eponymous Oldman River marked the place where Náápi had once stopped to play the hoop-and-arrow game, a popular Blackfoot pastime. Elsewhere, a massive split boulder reminded visitors of the time Náápi gave his robe to an exposed rock then took it back, prompting a frantic chase that ended with the angry boulder breaking apart. Northward near the Porcupine Hills stood a cliff used for bison hunting known as Old Women’s Buffalo Jump, the site of the story of when a group of women scorned Náápi, prompting him to turn himself into a lone pine tree that watched over the site long after. According to many storytellers, Náápi and Kipitáaakii continued to dwell in the nearby mountains, making them an inescapable presence that forever loomed on the western horizon.⁵

Adults used Náápi stories to impart lessons to new generations of Blackfoot youth. As bands made their annual journeys across the prairies, they stopped at landmarks to tell stories, to sing, and to perform ceremonies. In 1888, a Siksika chief named Big Plume explained to a visitor, “We point out to our children various places where [Náápi] slept, or walked, or hunted, and thus our children’s minds become impressed.” Telling Náápi stories served several purposes. It taught new generations about the Blackfoot’s ancient presence on the landscape and carried the implicit lesson that that connection was worth defending. It conveyed crucial life lessons and values. Prone to the human foibles of selfishness and impulsivity, Náápi’s actions often provided lessons in how not to behave toward others, as in the case of Náápi taking his robe back from the boulder. Stories also carried ecological lessons. Spiritual sites were often located at important environmental locations, such as stands of trees, river crossings, or mountain passes. Mapping Blackfoot history onto these locations taught children about the reciprocal relationships between the Blackfoot and the environment that surrounded them. In effect, the landscape itself became a repository of Blackfoot history and knowledge, and the very act of traveling educated every generation anew. The presence of these historical places in the heart of Blackfoot territory marked the lands as sacred and essential. The northwest plains were the center of the Blackfoot world, and had been for countless generations.⁶

Blackfoot elders taught that this massive boulder in the Alberta town of Okotoks (so named after the Blackfoot word for big rock) split in two after it chased Náápi across the prairies. Stopping to tell stories at familiar locales formed an important part of Blackfoot travels during the Opened season and imprinted Blackfoot history and identity on the landscape. (Photo by author.)

Blackfoot elders also took care to educate children about the supernatural realities that animated the lands around them. To Blackfoot people, the visible realm represented only a portion of reality, which in fact consisted of three distinct but interrelated dimensions. The Above world was home to celestial beings like the Creator Sun, the Moon, and the Morning Star, as well as visible beings like the raven. The Water world consisted of underwater beings like fish, otters, and beavers, as well as forceful spirits like Wind Maker, who lived in Saint Mary Lake in what is now Glacier National Park. (Eating creatures from the Water world was considered taboo, so fish rarely entered Blackfoot diets.) Finally, the Below world consisted of the human beings and other land creatures, as well as spirits like Cold Maker, who lived in the north. Knowledge of these three worlds was essential to Blackfoot identity, and Blackfoot people could gain special power by developing alliances with the supernatural beings that lived all around them, like the raven, the mouse, or the beaver. Blackfoot people could make supernatural allies by interacting with them in person or in dreams, or by purchasing the alliance from another person. Especially potent supernatural alliances gave some Blackfoot people the power to control the weather or to charm bison herds, but they employed these formidable powers only rarely. Alliances with the bear or the bald eagle, according to Kainai elder George First Rider, could give people the ability to heal the sick. Religion, and the supernatural knowledge it bestowed, profoundly shaped Blackfoot thinking and gave them the confidence to thrive in the plains environment.⁷

Practical knowledge likewise linked the people to the land, and through the generations Blackfoot people learned to find bounty in the prairie landscape. During the warmer months of the year, women collected more than forty-five different types of roots, berries, and other edible plants. The most important was the prairie turnip, which they ate raw, cooked, or pounded into flour to thicken soups. To unearth turnips and roots from the hard soil, women either invaded the underground burrows of small mammals or wore rawhide belts in order to lean their bodyweight onto heavy digging sticks. In the late summer they collected berries from mountain foothills and river valleys. To make these seasonal foods last year-round, women dried roots and berries in the sun, or combined the latter with bison fat to make a high-calorie food called pemmican. Wild plants grew in sufficient abundance that Blackfoot people cultivated no plants themselves besides a breed of tobacco they used for ceremonial purpose...