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It is often said that the
buffalo
were driven over these precipices, but this is true only in part. Like
most wild animals,
buffalo
are inquisitive. It was not difficult to excite their curiosity, and when
they saw something they did not recognize, they were anxious to find out
what it was.
When run into the piskun, the
buffalo
were really drawn by curiosity almost to the jumping point, and between
two long diverging lines of people, who kept hidden until after the
buffalo
had passed them, and then rose and showed themselves and tried to frighten
the animals. Now, to be sure, for the short distance that remained between
the place where they were alarmed and the place where they jumped, the
buffalo
were driven. Any attempt on the open prairie to drive
buffalo
in one direction or another would be certain to fail. The animals would go
where they wished to. They would not be driven, though often they might be
led.
To the people the capture of food was the
most important thing in life, and they put forth every effort to
accomplish it. For this reason it came about that the effort to capture
buffalo
was preceded usually by religious ceremonies, in which many prayers were
offered to the powers of the earth, the sky, and the waters, many
sacrifices made, and sacred objects, like the
buffalo
stone, were displayed.
When the day for the hunt came, the man who
was to bring the
buffalo
left the camp early in the morning, climbed the rocky bluffs to the high
prairie, and journeyed toward some near-by herd of
buffalo,
that had been located the day before by himself or by other young men. He
approached the
buffalo
as nearly as he could without frightening them, and then, attracting the
attention of some of the animals by uttering certain calls, tossed into
the air his
buffalo
robe or some smaller object. As soon as the
buffalo
began to look at him, he retreated slowly in the direction of the piskun,
but continued to call and to attract their attention by showing himself
and then disappearing. Soon, some of the
buffalo
began to walk toward him, and others began to look and to follow those
that had first started, so that before long the whole herd of fifty or a
hundred animals might be walking or sometimes trotting after him. The more
rapidly the
buffalo
came on, the faster the man ran—and sometimes it was a hard matter for him
to keep ahead of the herd—until he had got far within the wings and near
to the cliff. If there seemed danger that he would be overtaken, he
watched his chance and either at some low place quickly dodged out of the
line in which the
buffalo
were running, or hid behind one of the piles of stones of which the wings
were formed, or, if he had time, slipped over the rocky wall at the
valley's edge, so as to get out of the way of the approaching herd.
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Blood
Blackfoot,
Lodge of the Horn Society, Edward S. Curtis
This image available for
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HERE!
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As soon as the
buffalo
had come well within the diverging lines of people who were hidden behind
the piles of stones called wings, those whom the
buffalo
passed rose up from their places of concealment, and by yells and shouts
and the waving of their robes frightened the
buffalo,
so that they quite forgot their curiosity in the terror that now replaced
it. When the leaders reached the brink of the cliff, they could not stop.
They were pushed over by those behind, and most of the
buffalo
jumped over the cliff. Many were crippled or injured by the fall, and all
were kept within the fence of the piskun below. About this fence the
people were collected. The
buffalo
raced round and round within the pen, the young and weak being injured or
killed in the crowding, while above the fence men were shooting them with
arrows until presently all in the pen were dead, or so hurt that the women
could go into the pen and kill them. The people entered and took the flesh
and hides.
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Deer, elk, and antelope were shot with
arrows, and antelope were often captured in pitfalls roofed with slender
poles and covered with grass and earth. Such pitfalls were dug in a region
where antelope were plenty, and a long shaped pair of wings, made of poles
or bushes or even rock piles, led to the pit. The antelope is very
inquisitive and was easily led within the chute and there frightened, as
were the
buffalo,
by people who had been concealed and who rose up and showed themselves
after the antelope had passed. This was done more in order to secure
antelope skins for clothing than their flesh for food.
Fish and reptiles were not eaten by the
Blackfeet,
nor were dogs, although dogs, wolves, and coyotes are eaten by many tribes
of plains
Indians.
Most small animals, and practically all birds, were eaten in case of need.
In summer, when the wildfowl which bred on so many of the lakes in the
Blackfeet
country lost their flight-feathers, during the moult, and again in the
late summer, when the young ducks and geese were almost full grown but
could not yet fly, the
Indians
often went in large parties to the shallow lakes which here and there
dotted the prairie, and, driving the birds to shore, killed them in large
numbers.
Earlier in the season, when the fowl had
begun to lay their eggs, these were collected in great quantities for
food. Sometimes they were roasted in the hot ashes, but a more common way
was to dig a deep, narrow hole in the ground in which the eggs were to be
cooked. Several little platforms of small sticks or twigs were built in
this hole, one above another, and on these platforms they put the eggs.
Another much smaller hole was dug to one side of the large hole, slanting
down into it. The large hole was partly filled with water, and was then
roofed over by small sticks on which was placed grass covered with earth.
Stones were heated in a fire built near at hand, and then were rolled down
the side hole into the larger hole, heating the water, which at last
boiled and steamed, the steam cooking the eggs.
When the Americans first met them on the
prairie, the
Blackfeet were known as great warriors. But up to the time when they
got from the Hudson Bay traders better weapons than they had before known,
whether these were metal knives, steel arrow points, or guns, it is
probable that they did not do much fighting. There seems to have been no
reason why they should have fought, unless they quarrelled about small
matters with other tribes. It became quite different when the
Indians
procured better arms and, above all, when they got horses—a means of
swiftly getting about over the country, something that all people wanted
to have and which all were so eager to obtain that they would go into
danger for them. In the old days of stone arrow heads, when they had to
travel on foot and to carry heavy loads on their backs, the whole thought
and effort of the tribe must have been devoted to the work of procuring a
supply of food.
The tribal and family life of the people
was simple and friendly. The man and his wives loved each other and loved
their children. Relationship counted for much in an Indian camp, and
cousins of remote degree were called brother and sister. Children were not
punished; they were trained by persuasion and advice. They were told by
older people how they ought to act in order to make their lives happy and
successful and to be well thought of by their fellows. Young people had
much respect for their elders, listened to what they said, and strove more
or less successfully to follow their teachings.
The
Blackfeet
were very religious. They feared many natural powers and influences whose
workings they did not understand, and they were constantly praying to the
Sun—regarded as the ruler of the universe—as well as to those other powers
which they believe live in the stars, the earth, the mountains, the
animals, and the trees. The Blackfoot was constantly afraid that some evil
thing might happen to him, and he therefore prayed to all the powers for
help—for good fortune in his undertakings, for health, plenty, and long
life for himself and all his family.
Among these tribes there are a number of
secret societies known as the All Comrades or All Friends—groups of men of
different ages, which have been alluded to in the stories. Originally
there were about twelve of these societies, but a number have been
abandoned of recent years.
The tribe was divided into a number of
clans, all the members of which were believed to be related, and in old
times no member of a clan was permitted to marry another member of the
clan. Relations might not marry.
In olden times, when large numbers of
people were together, the lodges of the camp were pitched in a great
circle, the opening toward the southeast. In this circle each clan camped
in its own particular place with relation to the other clans. Within the
circle was often a smaller circle of lodges, each occupied by one or more
of the societies of the All Comrades. Sometimes it happened that great
numbers of the
Blackfeet came together, perhaps even all of the three tribes,
Blackfeet,
Bloods, and
Piegans. When this was the case, each tribe camped by itself
with its own circle, no matter how near it might be to one or other of the
tribal circles.
We
read of some tribes of
Indians
which believed that after death the spirits of the departed went to a
happy hunting ground where game was always plenty and life was full of
joy. The
Blackfeet knew no such place as this. When they died their spirits
were believed to go to a barren, sandy region south of the Saskatchewan,
which they called the Sand Hills. Here, as shadows, the ghosts lived a
life much like their existence before death, but all was
unreal—unsubstantial. Riding on shadow horses they hunted shadow
buffalo.
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