HUNTING AND WINTER CUSTOMS OF THE BLACKFOOT INDIANS

Illustrated with Colored Slides

Friday, November 5, 4:30, P. M.

(First presentation of unusual pictures taken many years ago)

## Synopsis

In this tenth lecture of his series on Blackfoot Culture, Mr. McClintock will present for the first time pictures and information gathered thirty years ago of hunting experiences in Blackfoot camps - how they lived and got their food and shelter, through the long winter months when snows lay deep and blizzards came from the north.

Meager records may be found of Blackfoot Indian life in winter, because of the climatic conditions of their cold northern country on the eastern slope of the Northern Rockies, of the Great Plains and high plateau region in Montana and Alberta, of the Blackfoot.

Hunting camps will be shown and their customs described, and their economic use of wild game - buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, and beaver. The pictures include winter camps in the forest and blizzards on the open plains. The home of Chief Mad Wolf, his Indian father by adoption, the family life in winter, and the legend of his snow or winter tipi.

The things I am going to tell you about today, happened many years ago on the eastern slope of the Northern Rockies - the country of the Siksika (Blackfoot Indians) the most western division of the great Algonquin race. Then the old generation of Blackfoot were alive, Indians who could remember the days before white men first appeared in their country. That old generation of Blackfoot were very different from the miserable and unhappy remnant you would find there today. The old people with whom I came into contact were primitive Indians of the Stone Age. They made use of primitive weapons and stone implements in their industries. They feared and mistrusted white men and held themselves aloof.

The Blackfoot were formerly a brave race of nomads and hunters who wandered over an enormous region - larger than the state of California - a magnificent country of snow-covered mountain ranges, vast forests, and boundless grass-covered uplands and plateaus. They were a stalwart horse-back people who lived in skin tipis which they carried with them, wandering in sort of an annual circuit according to the changing seasons, following the great herds of buffalo and other wild game which furnished them with an abundance of meat for food and skins for clothes and shelter. They lived a life of primitive wildness, and in their native costumes of the skins of wild animals were handsome and picturesque, almost beyond description. They wore about their heads the skins of otter, fox, and wolf, the tails hanging down behind. They had clothes of soft-tanned deerskin trimmed with ermine tails; magnificent war bonnets of eagle feathers; and robes of buffalo, elk, deer, and grizzly bear. Aristocratic in spirit and proud in their bearing, they were fine looking; nor were the women less vigorous than the men.

## Slide
In 1896, when I first went into the Blackfoot country as a member of a government Forestry Expedition, more than forty years ago, I found that old generation of primitive Indians - famous chiefs and medicine-men with their women and children in tipi-camps at the foot of the Rockies. This was once the heart of their game country, and abounded with elk, deer, antelope, moose, and grizzly bear. They held themselves aloof from white men and white civilization, and were living in remembrance of former days of their freedom and power, before white men occupied their country.
I found them a light-hearted, happy, and hospitable people, fond of singing and dancing and all kinds of excitement - especially gambling games and horse racing. They worshipped the Great Power in the Sun, combined with a form of animal worship. They communed with the spirits of birds and wild animals, especially the most powerful animals - buffalo, beaver, otter, eagle, elk, wolf, and grizzly bear; they believed them endowed with Sun Power which could be transferred to men who proved themselves worthy. The primitive Blackfoot were religious by nature and mystical.
In the last days of that old generation, when I first came into their country, those old people seemed to be living in a sort of Dream World of myths and dances and ceremonies.

## Slide
In a series of 12 illustrated lectures at Yale University on Blackfoot culture, I recorded information from my note books and the many pictures I went along. Their habitat, the flora and fauna of their country; chiefs and medicine-men, women and children; their customs and ceremonies; songs and dances; industries, legends, and religion.

We have chosen for tonight HUNTING AND WINTER CUSTOMS, which was
the fifth in the Yale series of lectures. It has special interest because of
the meager information and records available of Blackfoot Indian life in
winter; probably because of the severe climatic conditions of their country.
the high plateau country east of the Northern Rockies. I am going to tell
my experiences in Blackfoot hunting camps; how they lived and were able
to thrive in their primitive skin tipis through the cold months of winter,
when snows lay deep and heavy winds and blizzards came from the north. In
their country were nine months of winter and three of summer, and snow
was liable to fall even in midsummer.

In former days before white men came to occupy their country,
the Blackfoot subsisted chiefly on the great buffalo herds. Both their
traditions and ceremonies bear witness to the antequity of their "buffalo
drives". But they abandoned this way of hunting after the introduction
of horses and firearms; and because the herds of buffalo began to
disappear. It is probable the Blackfoot first secured horses about 1784.
The earliest authentic description of a "buffalo drive" by the Blackfoot
was in the journal of Henry the explorer, about the year 1808. Said Henry:
"They seek some precipice along the bank of a river and drive the buffalo
headlong over it. If not killed by the fall, the animals are generally
so disabled as to be easily dispatched by the bow and arrow."

I made an examination of this ancient buffalo-cliff on the
Blackfoot reservation in Northern Montana. It was on Two Medicine River
which the Indians called "Natokiokasi," about twenty miles from the
foot of the Rockies. It is a cliff about sixty feet high which they
called "piskan", meaning buffalo-corrall. I took this view from the
top of the cliff over which the ancient Blackfoot drove herds of buffalo,
before they had either horses or firearms. Masses of juniper grew
near the edge of the cliff; shale and slide rock at the bottom. The
course of the river at the right, winds its way eastward over the plains.
From the base of the cliff a flat extends to the river valley. At the
highest part of the precipice were piles of boulders, like ancient and
overgrown fences of stone; used by the Indians in their buffalo drives.
These rock piles stretched away to the grass-land of open prairies (left).
They were in the form of a V with the apex towards the top of the bluff
(a'kiksachko).

503
This shows the base of the cliff, where the buffalo-corrall, called piskani, was built of logs and poles; a sort of fence woven with branches and strengthened by strips of rawhide, inclining inward to prevent the buffalo from jumping over. In telling about those ancient hunters, my friend Onesta said at our camp-fire: "It was the custom of a chief to pick a strong runner (áuaki) to lead the buffalo herd and make them jump over the cliff. On the day of the run, that man rose early and went forth before sunrise. He covered himself with a buffalo robe and wore horns to fool the buffalo. He kept moving until the herd stood looking. Then led them between the rock piles; and the people lying hidden rose suddenly, waving their robes and shouting they stampeded the buffalo which ran over the edge of the cliff, and were killed. The wounded were caught in the corrall at the bottom."

504
These are rocks at the base of the cliff, where we found relics of old hunts - buffalo horns, bones, and teeth, flint arrow-points and spear heads. On a flat nearby, to the right of the cliff, were the remains of an ancient camp. Eight circles of boulders deeply imbedded in the soil - where eight buffalo hide tips of those ancient hunters once stood. On Birch creek south of Two Medicine, is an old site where the Blackfoot took antelope in a pound, somewhat after their method of taking buffalo.

5

North of the Two Medicine country, in the valley of Cutbank river (Punakksi), lived Chief Mad Wolf (Siyeh), my Indian father by adoption; nearby in this same valley White Calf, the famous head chief, was also Siksikaikoan the Blackfoot scout, who was my guide and friend, and the medicine-men White Grass and Ear Rings. Their homes were close together. Here I first met Mad Wolf in 1896, more than forty years ago. This is a view of Mad Wolf's winter home in the valley, with its log cabins, corrals and low-lying sheds for cattle and horses. You see his tipi in which he lived most of the time and camped about on the prairies. Divide Mountain is in the center, a triangular shaped peak, and high plateaus on both sides of the river, stretching to the foot of the Rockies.

This river valley with its high cutbanks, groves of cottonwood trees and thickets of aspen and willows, gave protection in winter from the bleak winds of that high plateau country east of the Rockies. In the early summer Cutbank valley was a lovely place with luxuriant bunch grass, wild timothy, and meadows of wild flowers; on the surrounding hills choke cherries, service berries, and red raspberries. At the head of the valley distant snow-covered mountains. Divide Mountains with its triangular shaped peak is in the center. Here the watershed divided into three directions - Missouri, Saskatchewan, and Columbia river. The high grass-covered ridge of the Hudson Bay divide running east and west is seen in the background.

In midsummer we made hay in the meadowlands, for both cattle and horses during the long northern winter. With Yellow Bird (Otakipisan), a young Indian of my own age and a relative of the scout, I rode the range and went on hunting and fishing trips. With my own horses and tipi and cameras, I lived an active life of interest and excitement.

508 I remember well the October of 1896, over forty years ago. The weather was fine that month - days of bright sunshine and frosty nights - good for hunting and living in the open. A hunting party of Blackfoot went to the Rockies after big game and took me along. Little Creek, the son-in-law of Chief Mad Wolf, and his wife Strikes On Both Sides; Onesta and his wife Hitana, and my friend Yellow Bird, the young Indian of my own age.

509 This shows our hunting camp in a mountain valley and at the edge of a forest of lodge-pole pine, fir, and spruce. A bank of wind clouds hung over the Rockies - in autumn high winds from the west prevail over the plains east of the mountains. Flocks of ducks and geese and white swans were flying south, day after they passed in enormous flocks.

510 Southeast from our camp, with a view of virgin and unbroken forest of pine. In those days before devestation of the Blackfoot country by the white man, there was abundance of wild game in these forests - white-tail and black-tail deer, elk, moose, grizzly bear, also wolverine and mountain lion. On the high mountain peaks at the head of the valley, were Rocky Mountain sheep and white goats.

511 Sunrise in our hunting camp, after a light snowfall during the night. An outside fire with tripod where we cooked in good weather; and between the tipis an ancient travois - a sort of little made of poles used by the Blackfoot for transportation carrying camp equipment.

5.27 Moonrise. In our remote camps in the wilds, far from civilization and influence of white men, I found the Blackfoot light-hearted and happy. Nomads by nature, they loved to wander, and be free and to live in the open. On these long autumn evenings, we sat about the camp-fire, gossipping, singing Indian songs, and telling stories. They liked especially to jest and have repartee, and when in the mood laughed upromoroniously like children at the smallest things.

5.13 In former days the Blackfoot used to come to these forest at the head of Cutbank, on their annual circuit, in the autumn when the leaves of the aspen would all be white. Here they hunted deer, elk, and moose. They said, "those were the animals they killed with bow and arrow. They did not drive them over cliffs like the herds of buffalo and antelope. Here they came to cut new poles for their tipis, for in these forests the lodge-pole pine grew tall and straight." After the first big snow (itsitsautochpotas they made haste to move camp and go down to the lower country, where they camped about and waigted for the buffalo to come near - along the Marias river, or Bear creek as the Blackfoot called it (Kyálesisachtai). Then they began to eat their hard-seed-berries (choke-cherries), with tripe and other intestines. They made soup with them. They said, "One never turned his head away from that soup."

5.14 Buffalo on the plains. "Eini—" they called them. In former days this rich grass country at the head of Cutbank and along the foot of the Rockies abounded with game - especially buffalo and the deer species. The last of the great buffalo herds disappeared in this region in 1882.

Buffalo Bull (stāmik) at the edge of forest. The Blackfoot were essentially a hunting people and game taken at all times of year, yet certain seasons were recognized. They said buffalo bulls were in best condition in the early summer. Buffalo cows were prime in the autumn "when-the-leaves-began-to-fall." That was the great hunting season, when their fur was good. In the autumn they chased the buffalo. They said they liked especially to eat the big heifers four years old and heifers two years old (kātsistuyik). With those they wintered. The hides of buffalo bulls were used for parfleches (Indian trunks), and for rawhide to tie the poles of travois. They made hair of the hides into rope, and used strips of hides for hard-ropes. Women made strings from the sinews and tanned the skins for tipi-covers.

This is the Yellow Buffalo tipi, one of the most powerful of their Painted tipis, with Wolf Plume the owner standing (left). It had a ritual which was associated with power to call the buffalo in time of starvation. Its sacred bundle and the secrets of its ceremony were handed down through many years. Vows were made to this Buffalo tipi in time of danger and in behalf of the sick.

They called elk "ponokāu" - bull elk "ponokāistamik". Their name for horse was "ponoka-mita" meaning elk-dog, - ponoka (elk) and imita (dog).

A beaver at work cutting down a tree. They called the beaver "Ksis-ks-taki" (Cuts-with-its-teeth). Beaver tails were considered a great delicacy. They revered the beaver as possessing great wisdom. Their ancient Beaver Bundle with its long and elaborate religious ceremony and power to heal the sick was given to them by the beaver; and they told me much lore about the beaver.

518 The grizzly bear was called "Apóchkyáio", meaning white bear. The trappers and white hunters of the Northern Rockies called the grizzly "silver-tip", because of the silvery color of its hide. The Blackfoot name for bear was "Kyaio." They believed the bear to be endowed with great supernatural power. The bear together with the thunder formed the central part of the Medicine-Pipe ceremony

519 They called white-tail deer "áuatúyi", literally "wags-their-tails;" and black-tail deer "áisikotúyi." Simple snares were used in taking deer and small game. For deer, a braided rawhide rope was rubbed with buffalo tallow to counteract the human odor, then with white earth and laid in the trail with an open noose. They also hunted deer, elk, and moose by stalking. But, when they got horses and guns, all primitive methods of hunting were changed. There was a Deer painted-tipi, whose ceremony had power to heal the sick.

520 It happened, that on our trip to the mountains in the fall of 1896, our camp needed meat. So, I went with my friend Yellow Bird on a hunt for Rocky Mountain sheep. According to my Blackfoot friends, mountain mutton in the autumn was the most delicious of all their big game animals.

521 Yellow Bird and I followed the old Cutbank Indian trail, westward through the valley, through a forest of lodge-pole pine where the ground was covered with pine needles. This picture I took on a forest-covered ridge, where the pines grew tall and straight. It was this lodge-pole pine the Blackfoot used for their tipi-poles.

522 A well worn game trail between two large white pines, where the forest floor was covered with moss.

We followed the shore of a lake, with high mountains and precipitous cliffs on both sides; and the peaks of the Continental Divide in the background. [Flinch Peak (left), Mount Morgan, McClintock Peak with a glacier in cirque - and Cutbank Pass to right of Mount Morgan.]

We rode along a stream of clear cold water and came near the shoulder of a high peak. Here Yellow Bird riding silently in front, with rifle across his saddle, turned and signed Indian fashion with his hands, "Rocky Mountain sheep up there."

Above timber-line, I saw a band of brownish-gray animals with white rump-patches, feeding on a grassy slope which extended to slide rock, near the summit of the mountain. Sixteen were in the bunch - ewes and small rams. Suddenly they threw up their heads and ran swiftly along the slide-rock. Then a big grizzly bear - the cause of their alarm - appeared against the sky-line. He too was stalking the sheep. He ran with his head up, his long silvery hair rolling in waves over his broad back.

Eager for a shot at both grizzly and sheep, We tied our horses and climbed, taking a course so the grizzly might not get our seent. We climbed the southern slope in the glare of the midday sun - through tangled evergreen thickets and over windfalls of dead trees. I was drenched with sweat and my breath came fast. (It was a high altitude.) At timber-line we expected every moment to meet the grizzly and had thrills at every movement in the trees. We crossed boulders and shale, such as you see in the foreground, and came to the sky-meadow where we had seen the sheep. And then to stalk them, went towards the summit of the mountain.

Big horn were the most difficult to approach of all big game -
they were very wary and quick sighted - the slightest sound startled them.
And no animal was their superior in climbing. In the worst places they
never slipped or made a misstep.

We hunted up wind, using crags and boulders to keep out of sight.
Then went slowly and carefully in precipitous places.

We scrambled along narrow ledges and rock-shelves, such as you see
in this picture, clinging to the wall rock and projections of cliffs,
careful not to start a loose stone or crumbling shale to frighten the
sheep. You see here the character of the Continental Divide in the
Blackfoot country. Small glaciers under the summits, water-falls over
high cliffs and fuzzy clouds hanging low.

We looked over a cliff and saw a sheep standing on a precipice,
with a view of the entire mountain side beneath. But we came from above.
Now was our only chance for meat - the autumn days were short and the
sun already low. We had to get down the cliffs, while there was light
to see our way. Yellow Bird fired and struck the sheep behind the
shoulder. It jumped from the narrow ledge to a lower shelf, where a
bullet from my rifle finished him. The carcase fell over the precipice
and down the bare-faced cliffs. Struck slide-rock and rolled over and
over, until it landed against a boulder. Then along the trencherous
ledges and shelves we made our way down.

521 A view south along the Continental Divide. This is the summit of the Rockies and western border of the Blackfoot country. An ideal home for big horn and white goats. An old game trail is seen along the ridge to the left, worn deep into the granite by the large numbers of wild game that once inhabited these mountains.

522 Rocky Mountain sheep in winter coat (gray with white rump patches) Called "omachkixkina" by the Blackfoot, meaning big horns.

523 From our lofty place on the high cliffs of the divide, we had a wide panorama-of unnamed peaks, deep valleys with lakes, green forests of pine, and shining fields of snow. At timber-line the trees were shorter and many of them thrown by high winds.

524 On wind-swept ridges we saw storm-twisted and battered "limber-pines," undersized and imperfect, looking like tattered and wind-torn banners, with branches all flung out on one side of the trunk, in the direction of the prevailing wind. Some of them centuries old, with trunks only a foot in diameter and a few feet in height.

525 In dressing the sheep to take the meat back to camp, we cut the skin Indian fashion, down the median line of the breast and worked it loose. Then cut up the meat on the outstretched skin, and tied up the main parts, together with the hide and head. When we had it ready to carry down the mountains to our horses in the valley, the sun had already set and darkness beginning to fall.

It was a clear and cold October night of full moon — not a cloud in the sky. When we came back to camp with the sheep meat, the Indians sat happy. They began making roasts in a hurry. The ribs of one side were staked up near the fire, and were soon shooting their juice on the hot coals. The roasts when cooked were put on willows which were used for plates; and in that way they cut up the meat. In the old days, war-parties on the trail used to boil their meat in a cauld pot made from a hide. Forked sticks supported the skin at the four corners and water was poured in. Hot stones were put in the pot together with the meat, until it began to boil. When it boiled over half the stones were taken out and more put in, to make it boil harder. They said, that after the warriors had finished boiling the boss-robs in this way, it was all they needed to eat.

After feasting on our sheep meat, the Indians gathered about the fire to hear about our hunt. It was a fine moonlight night. Like children of nature, they acted as they felt. Sometimes they talked and sometimes there was silence for a while. Our camp-fire was at the edge of the forest and lighted up the nearby pine trees. An owl hooted. "Listen!" Said Nitana. "He calls his own name. Ka-ka-not-stoki! Ka-ka-not-stoki! Ka-ka-not-stoki! (Ears-far-apart! Ears-far-apart! Ears-far-apart!) a horned owl. (Then silence until the owl hooted again.) Said my Indian sister, Srtikes On Both Sides, "Perhaps it is a ghost. Owls are the spirits of people long dead. Unhappy in the spirit world, they take the form of owls and come back to their old haunts. They dread the sunlight and travel at night, because their deeds in this world were evil."

Again came that solemn hooting - this time from another tree.
"Kyai!" Exclaimed Strikes On Both Sides, "Mātochtsitōa!" (There it is
again). Then said Little Creek to allay their fears, "An old medicine-man
once told me, that an owl never harms anyone in a crowd, if it thinks there
is a relative there." He left the circle of firelight, and from the edge
of the dark forest shouted to the owl, "Naāchsa!" (You are my grandparent

The owl flew away and I asked Little Creek what the Spirit World
was like. "We call it the Big Band Hills (O'machkspatsikū). The old
people say, that the ghost-people chase ghost-buffalo. Ghost-antelope are
there, wild berries are plentiful, and all the things we like to eat.
The ghost-people have a happy time. They still invite each other to feasts -
and all their holy things are there."

Said Nitana: "Ghosts like to stay near forests and streams. People
who sleep alone in a forest are bothered by ghosts. The ghosts of dead
medicine-men are the worst. They are known as the "haunting-spirits"
(istachpēksiks). They use the ghost-shots and kill people who go outside
the tipi at night. This often happens to sick people - they are shot at
by ghosts - when they go back to bed they die in their sleep."

Thus my Indian friends talked until late by the camp-fire. The
moon was now in the west, and the handle of the Great Dipper (Seven Persons,
Ixxitsīkamiks), their clock of the night sky, pointed downwards to the
horizon. A wolf howled, then another, and there was a chorus of howls -
in the autumn a sign of storm was coming. Next morning at sunrise I saw
two sun-dogs, like great crosses of light; and at midday a huge circle
with colors around the sun - natures warnings of a big storm.

540 Storm clouds turning over Stoweus Peak
Heaven's Peak from the divide, with heavy clouds hanging low.
The Indians predicted a long storm with wind and snow.

541 a heavy bank of clouds over the Rockies - a sign of high wind on the east slope of the mountains.

542 tipi ready for the storm, with the two wing-poles crossed in front over the smoke-hole. In the night the storm broke. I heard rain and sleet beating against the lodge, and a gale of wind whistling through the tops of the pines. (On the nearby mountain slopes there was a confused and distant roar.)

543 Scene in our hunting camp next morning - the beginning of that big storm that came the end of autumn. The atmosphere was thick and a mist-like rain falling.

544 A lull in the storm, with dark clouds seething over the mountains. The wind changed into the east and swept into our valley from the open plains. Then we roped down the lodges with lariats around their tops, fastened to stakes driven into the ground towards the east, to prevent their being overturned by the wind.

Out Now the storm changed to the northeast, as shown by the snow drifting against that side of the tipis. By this time the snow was getting deep in the forest, we were beginning to wonder whether we were going to be snowed in for the winter - unable to leave the mountains with our horses and outfit.

Clouds lifting, after the two weeks' storm.

First sight of the high peaks after the storm. In former days, when the Blackfoot wandered as nomads and hunters, it was their custom to spend the winter in the "Lower Country" - along the Marias river. They hurried away from the mountains after the first big snow. They camped about, until they found a good place in the river valley, where buffalo were near and good grass for their horses. And when they had real winter, the women brought in plenty of firewood on their backs, and carried it on travois with horses from a long distance. Then they brought out their dried berries and pemmican which they stored in sacks and rawhide cases. The men chased buffalo with horses, even when it was very cold, using bows and arrows. Their fine buffalo horses were hardy and could stand the cold. In cold weather they would stick their hands into the snow to make them warm, hold them under their arms and put earth on them.

After the wind went down and the skies cleared, our horses left the shelter of the forest. They fed in the meadow, pawing for grass in the deep snow. It was a characteristic of Blackfoot horses in feeding, to uncover the grass by pawing with their forefeet in the deep snow. If the snow were very deep and forage scarce, they stopped bark from cottonwood trees and fed it to their horses to keep them from starving.

After clearing - view west from our camp. Evening, horses feeding.
This was a wonderful scene - the snow-covered forest, a new moon and the
evening star over the mountains to the southwest, and sunset color over
the Continental divide, with the sky azure blue at the zenith. After
the big storm the air was so transparently clear, the crescent moon was
recorded in my negative. Then the barometer rose after low pressure and
it became very cold. That night my pocket thermometer registered its
lowest figure - 10 below zero, but it was colder.

Early morning after the cold night. The sun was just rising overt
the entrance to our valley, its first rays touching these high peaks to
the southwest. Heavy hoar frost covered the willow thickets near our tipis.

The rays of the rising sun shining on the high summits of
Continental divide in the west. And as the sun rose higher, our
valley became flooded with brilliant light.

At the edge of the forest were tracks where a wolf came in the
night to watch our camp. In the meadow fresh tracks where a grizzly bear
crossed on his way for a drink at the river. In the morning after a
heavy snow, one can read the movements of wild animals recorded as in
a book.

Then I went forth for pictures and to follow wild animal tracks
in the deep snow. I had my cameras in a canvas pack on my back, or
strapped to the saddle when on horseback - a 3-1/4 by 4-1/4 kodak
with a goerz lens, and a 4 x 5 camera with tripod for time exposures.
I used both films and dry plates, as they had many defects in those days.
for safety
Sometimes I made several exposures of a valuable subject, to be on the
interest stay
safe side.

Our
cutbank valley and the surrounding forest were filled with snow
scenes of wonderful beauty. Branches of tall firs and pines drooped
with heavy burdens of snow. The undergrowth was covered with delicate
draperies. Boulders and fallen trees had smoothly rounded caps.

A brook with ice crystal caddar - here and there snow-arches and
arcades and other marvelous ice structures.

The old Indian war-trail in Cutbank valley. It ran across the Rockies
to the western slope. Here the forest of lodge-pole pine was heavy
with snow.

17