The Washington herald., 1914-02-01
Blackfeet Indians Are 100 Of Race
SOCIALISM "a AMONG MEMBERS OF OPPOSING TRIBES
Three Bears Tells of Days Of Warfare
Picturesque Old Man Shows
How Spirit of Anarchy
Grew Among Other Na:-
tions Because of Superior
ity of Lands.

So far as can be learned from history
that section of the Rocky Mountain range
now designated as Glacier National Park
has been the exclusive home Of the Black
= feet Indians since the first record Of its
habitation by man.
The Blackfeet of the Rockies enjoy the
distinction Of being the aristocracy Of the
American red race.
1t is a strange coincidence that on the
reservation which adjoins Glacier Park
there now are only 400 fullbloods left.
They have had translated to them the
significance Of the meaning Of the 400
in English and the little band OF tribal
aristocrats feels very proud OF this nu-
merical distinction.
Three Bears probably is the most in
teresting Indian that is left among the
Blackfeet and he is the Oldest. He gives
an interesting explanation of how the
Blackfeet came TO be marked as the
American Indians, and in his relation he
brings out the fact that socialism is an
innate disgruntled spirit OF the human
race that is not confined to white men, by
any means.
Anarchists Among Others.
He does not say it in just this Ian
guage. but he emphasizes the fact that
the Indians of other tribes always were
Jealous of the Blackfeet, and coveted
their position of contentment amid the
luxuries which this great natural game
preserve of the Rocky Mountains fur
nished, in the way of wild animals from
which the Blackfeet got a bountiful food
supply and the finest skins for their raj
ment and shelter.
Is il any wonder there were socialists
and even anarchists among the Sioux.
Crows. Mes Perces, Kootenais. and other
unfriendly tribes?
Three Bears does not speak a word OF
English. but through an Interpreter he
will tell you that these tribes always
were the enemies of the Blackfeet. who.
by the way, boast proudly of the fact
that they never went to war with the
white people.
Members of the other tribes hated the
Blackfeet because they always dressed
so well in deer skins and lived on the fat
of the land. In the days of the buffalo
that animal furnished almost entirely the
food supply and shelter for the prairie
Indians and the tribes of the Sioux ma
tion often found the buffalo leaving the
burnt grass plains to Craze up under the
shadows of the Rockies where the grass
grows green. Thus. in their hunts. the
Sioux had to encroach upon the Black
feets' domain. And that meant war.
Never Were Routed.
1t was not only against the Sioux from
the east. but tribes from the south,
north. and west that the Blackfeet had to
wage war. They were almost constantly
on the warpath to hold their own country
against invasion in the early days, Three
Bears says.
And, at this iuncture of his story, old
Three Bears will proudly tell his listen
ers that the Blackfeet never were routed
from their Rocky Mountain homes. Often
they fell back into Cut Bank canyon, the
Two Medicine Valley, or some of the 9TH
er Rocky Mountain Businesses, but al
ways as a ruse. There they would lie in
ambush and slaughter their enemy at
psychological moment.
Three Bears is one of the few remaining
Indians of the bow and arrow days. He
has strung at his belt the claws of six
grizzly bears he killed with the bow and
arrow. He must have been a powerful
man sixty years ago, when he was in his
early thirties, if his physique of today is
any criterion. Notwithstanding that he
Is nearing the century mark he stands