CurtisCamp

Blackfoot Confederacy · Northern Piegan, Blood, and Blackfeet

The Blackfoot Confederacy is composed of the Northern Piegan, Blood, and Blackfeet peoples. Their historical range extended north to Battle River, east to Medicine Hat, southeast to the lower part of the Milk River, and south to the Marias River.

Curtis documented the Blackfoot in Volume 18 of The North American Indian. He used the historical name "Slaves" — a term applied by Cree-speaking neighbors and adopted by 19th-century traders — that has long since fallen out of use.

Traditional dress included a leather shirt and leggings, buffalo-skin shoes, caps, and necklaces of grizzly claws. Dwellings were tipis. Religious life centered on Sacred Bundles and the ceremonial planting of tobacco, with societies that were partly religious and partly military. Among the Northern Blackfeet, the Horn society rose to the status of the central religious society.

Curtis observed: "The principal occupation of the Blackfoot is war, and they are excessively cruel to their enemies." He also recorded the elaborate smoking ceremony — some would not smoke while an old pair of shoes hung in the tent; some rested the pipe on a piece of meat; others on a buffalo tongue; the first whiff was blown toward the earth, with the pipe stem pointed down or to the rising sun.