ss Ss x SY Ny S _ ws x - \ ~ SASS NS SIS \\ AY NAA \ » \\ \ NK \\ AN NY RNY LAY LOAN . WQy \ A RRA \\ MA RA RY \ CK >™°#}M SOON Bip t ; j G ae Tei 1 * 4 : a lin 7 a a = Be << i . ¥ v =) 5 ; : BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 159 PLATE 1 Blackfoot Indian pony. (Photographed by Thomas Magee, ante-1910. Courtesy Museum of the Plains Indian.) SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 159 THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE With Comparative Material From Other Western Tribes By JOHN C. EWERS UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1955 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, Bureav or AmMertcan ErHno.ocy, Washington, D. C., January 18, 1954. Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith a manuscript entitled “The Horse in Blackfoot Indian Culture, with Comparative Material from Other Western Tribes,’ by John C. Ewers, and to recommend that it be published as a bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Very respectfully yours, M. W. Stiriine, Dzrector. Dr. Leonard CARMICHAEL, Secretary, Sinithsonian Institution. I ZATHSON 47 APR4 1°55 LIBRARY Kor sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office Washington 25, D. C.—Price $2.75 CONTENTS PAGE Horew ord: {2haubs aa eee lite eos cette ee = SO ee ee XI she acquisitiontomthe horse-s24-0e esse. <- SUU Ei, O07 10) AA Gene 1 (ehe northward spread of horses... ..-—-=+-. =< 22 2) Sse _Maliom 2 Sources of the horses of the Plains Indians____________________ 2 Dating the northward spread of horses among the Indians______ 3 ihe process of diffusion 22M io 2--< i225. .ceka oe ID Bee 7 Acquisition of horses by the Blackfoot.._......-._.---.-1./_ iL. 15 NiealThinvnOrses 23 ieee 23o0 Seis 2 Bee Ae es oe ee ee OVE OM 20 Blackfoot. tribalcwealth:inhorsesit/22=-<-.22 84 2108 IO 20 Wealth in horses of other Plains and Plateau tribes________________ 22 Horse wealth of individual Blackfoot Indians______________________ 28 Horse wealth of individuals in other tribes___._._..________________ 31 Ware olphorses#2. 22s 08s cee cree cetacean: SIO 33 (heslindiany ponyns Sos tee oe so Se ee eee ee Fe ethos he! 33 Hater theindian pony... UTI NO ele Ve 34 Meansjotcidentification. 2 222524. see eke c= eee ee ese eee 35 Darnlyacarerothorsestss 228625250 Soe. eee ton OE I Ol 37 Mopblings: soe Seto lees 422 SOE: ween cee ede ten cel 38 Bicketiners = 522-5 sates eceee nce ae tee eee sees =e SE Bi 39 PAStUBAGO HS 266 oa cae ces sete ee es IE RE OMA 40 Winiteni¢arel $32) 264% 2.55252 SRS SU Od Te) OIITETS EE 42 Rustlingsss 222s ss ee BR ROMA? ADNGe De a 42 Supplemental winter horse food_-__-___________ , BOOM OE 43 INighiicaress: <2) 22s s52 eee ee UD 1A) OPTIONS 44 Winter losses of horses. .-_--__----__ BE ASE TRO ETRE UN 44 Mayistormannt cas eee mck iiia aa tae tlt) 8 iy sie | yt 45 Sprinercondition® Mews hs. bod OMe. Se RG 46 Conmimonyhorse:remedies 2a essere s4 FES SSDI 2 RGra he is Se 46 Greatment.of saddle:soréssee =. 22-2. -2 52 nen = =. ROS A 47 dreatment of sorefeet=s2-.. 322222222 -.--- > SPOd BIDS 47 Treatment: of colic and distemper-_=-- -.= 222) i4UUi2 SAN Dyes 48 Rrecautionsiagainstvebills. 52234. = ck eee eee nse aeee ON 49 iwceneral tomichs 2 25k eS eek eae ls seen = Seo Ry Ma 49 ‘freatment.of broken: bones’. =: -.-<222222..2 090 BAT. 49 Treatment,of unknown illmesses.....=..==..+-2=+.=-=-2eT VOOM _ 50 ossestofvhorses ade 8 So er Ue De OME 50 osses;fromidisease: — =... 5... aul SWIG Beam ooehs 50 esses, from/animal:predatorse-.— o- -.... ek JI i Be 51 ossesifromistock-poisoning plants... ....=.+..-00V21) Seon 51 Warcvotoldshorses.. 02. =. se 2 OUI Bit ae eI 51 hlarse: breeding ere 2 took oe ek Seen BIOL 53 Importantrolevot horse breeding. _ 1s ane Tere en SiG L | 53 welectionrof: studs... 8 4.22.5) 25.0 ee a 53 Maintenancesoficolordiness/22: € 2.0 a) eRe) BNE NG Lye 54 Magical breeding formulas_________ Jie oe ce OS BRO. 55 Carezof gravidimarestand) coltsunin Je Moye) O80 My SOMO MONA | 56 Sel clin Gee eye psalm A se ye 56 LY, BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 PAGE Gaining of Horses: and Tideisi== =". 39 222 nea cee ee a eee 59 Capture of wild Rorsess=< ==. 252- 42552 5 eae Bee eee ee 59 Breaking horses for riding - - - -- ------ 2 1g ee eae Pa pene SE 60 Pondvoristream: breakin Geese 61 Bogey pround breaking. =s—sseaae 2 2 eee 62 Surcingle ‘breaking 2.2) 2. S254 2s'95 2 2 See ee eee 62 Pad-saddleibreaking-- 322) 22.28 eee ee ee eee 64 Breaking horses for the) travois__...-=.----__. 4388 F Se ie ee 64 Teaching children to ride-_.2- =... _#2as3-*s Sa ees ee 65 Riding and guiding _ == S2thay ait eds ts Soe Se aes 68 Mounting:2¢ 344 spe. y4- eeeod Uy igs eee igrmgl debi afl = 68 Horse COmMMaAnGS: 2 Soe en = pe ee 69 Guiding: <2 o5.2.222:S-2.=-5 tee SS nee ee 70 Use of whip... 25-22-22. 222.5222 eee ee eee 70 Use of short/stitrups 3... see <3 55. 25sent eo eee eee 70 Ability as horsemen=; 2:23:22 we Abs ee Se ee 71 Riding ear: ..2 225-2 -- ==. satel tonite eee eee 73 Makingvof rawhide ropes=-— === === at alaghialnp © be ab ieeer eee 73 Hackamores = 2) 2222222522. s ee ee ee eee 74 Bridles. 2 2222-2 see ees Sepak 282 one ae ee oe eee 75 Comparative data.on bridles. _ = --* 4. es eee Eel eh hes 78 Woariate. 2-52. 2 ae a ee eee eee 79 Theidragging line= 2252222 222 eet 2 eee eee 80 ror ta (0 Ler o eaeg Wee) Co ae A en a, EE 225, et eas ieee ae ee 81 Saddiewmakine 2 2.284.223. $28 2 ee 81 The padisad les 8 Vek. koe ss al Se eS eee 81 Distribution, of the pad saddle--).=- = =---- =) =. ae eee 83 Pad saddle variants among the Blackfoot____--_-_-------- 85 The “wood saddle” 2: 2-252 5. Sah pee ae eee eee 85 Distribution of the, ““wood (saddle’)—--=- = =. ees eee = 89 The “prairie chicken snare saddle!)=2 =: sae 2b Ss See ee 91 Distribution of the “prairie chicken snare saddle” _______- 92 Stirrupse cf oo oe BS ee ee eee ee ele ye 93 Use of white men’s saddles and accessories___----------------- 93 paddle blankets] = 2222-522 Je Lueee les We Se Se eee eee 94 Saddle housings... L25-c20. 5224655 -- 46 eee 95 Martingales. and cruppers: .- 22. =s2Nasie). Be ee ere ee ee 95 Wihips_ io. 2.082 shee en Pe Sea ee ee 97 Horse decorations. -2'2.2. 2b 542552. 2b2. 24S eee ee = 99 Head omaments) 22224 «242 322 = 5 eee ae a eee Pee 99 Body paint=<. 2-2-2. -_ 55... see eae ZED 100 Mane and: tail ornaments. 2. =<. 2-2 oe ee 100 Decorationof womens horses. — 2-2 ee ee 101 The travois and transport gear______-___-__- phi. ce fg inden papery) athe Eo 102 The horse travois._. -- 22.2. 2-23 ee ee Ae ee 102 Horse travois construction... 22=....2-25--2-— = 358 eee 103 TravOis ACCSSOTICS.... =.= = 22 oe oe eee eee 105 Travois adjustment and repair: - «=! 4sse0 Sead ee Seer eee: 105 Care of the travois in camp_-_______-_------ 22.2 ete Mee es Rpnio®, 106 Survival of the horse tray.ois. = — =~ - 52.2 eee ere eee 106 The lodgepole hitehu-_...... 2.2. L. 22.22 cep ee ee 107 Distribution of the travois and methods of pole transport-_----- 108 CONTENTS The travois and transport gear—Continued Principal items of luggage carried by pack animals_________________ Thespariiochet ie sess oo et en Re EO Ms Antiquity ofthe parileche 2 VP AOC Ge O8? IS Vos he IN ANS YRC8 Vos 01]. 0) Care ofA ie i ee On ees ee ea i a Principal items of luggage transported by riding horses_____________ athe double sad dle ban nn sn en DEMS NU Soe AS Rectangular rawhide saddlebags- 2 222 222) SY BL Cylindrical rawhide saddlebags-.----- + - n O S ‘Rie horse: inveampimovements. = 0.422 OUT Ae Oh 20 ON EEN Te ihe, Blackfoot Country 22 io ail Salas SUM 20 BS ODL oA EY The Blackfoot yearly round Rheawinterxcampes -00R. 202s GP eel A en ne BW, PS OM Spring hunting and collecting season_______________________-- Summer hunting and Sun Dance season______ ___ - Fall hunting and collecting season Movement of a Blackfoot band camp Preparation for movement Ra ckin epee ee eee re RE At Raekinget he lod Ge apse i Be bade Le s Packing household furniture____________- IPA CKAIN Get 0 Csaba eee pent ania Lek oe tet af Aca WE TE cy (Clothing ess Ai Bed pa nee ethene tee en eh a eae AE eet Household utensils. ee A ie sm I Society and medicine paraphernalia___... 20-2228! Lee Wieaponst ee). 8 Ee i @ NGO ar poe ere ee UO, £74 Diet PRP EN OLE Weightsand- loads...-<. 2... POT HOMNGES BO. CELE Hy 4 ON Horse needs for the average family__________________________ Moving camp on the part of a wealthy family_________________ Moving camp on the part of a poor family___-________________ Comparative data on the poor in horses_________________- Formations on the march Themnoon' stop for lunehse 293 _AMELIOONE NEON 86a. TAVIS Crossing streams: en routes 2.2222.) JU) 2 eS eee 10 eno Stops en route because of rain__________ < BOITIAD BO AS jf ae Arrival at nighticamp 2 seee ~-< eee es oe SEI A OPE Making eamp without wood or water__~-__.-_-____2 2 2 et Le Distances. traveled: perday 222222. 2 2 DAE ous Fh Boek, ‘he: horse anshungingas_ = =e te ee ee OU ROW Eh 19 Be Buifaloun the Blackfoot: Country =< ~<—<<ce4 = SA IONE 1G Deut Blackfoot uses of-the buffaloe<<.2+<2.<+ eect ee PO Buffalo hunting/sedsons] 22S enim ae. WI SG 10 OE Th he buffalochorsese eet em = neta ce DUNE BR SEA OTT 20 Dae. Methods of buffalo hunting on horseback________________--_-_---- The buffalo chase ‘on! horseback»..<- - « ~_s<2 ese ced 5 PE OV Preparations. <2e-<-seeeecene tees tense ee OAD OU7 aD Seo. « HqQuipmententencceeeeeee eect oe 2 SEW SRINY MUN TIE OD be” ‘Phe approach 2 el ok ik Pte DUE a ee Te: TON Olah ‘Phe runes Soe ae kee eR eee ee ee MOS OG Number of buffalo killed in a single chase__________________-- Boys’-hunting of buffalo-calves: << 9 GF 3 fs Guia, BW PAILS ORS Hunting Accidents: WOM RWG FOOTeDA Me. SI) O28 TOE FO _OSTIS Butchering and packing______ ans Sa ea Ba Rag ee VI BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 The horse in hunting—Continued PAGE Loaning of buffalo horses for, hunting $22 225-<e<=e2t 1s 322 s8_beeee ge 161 needing thevpoor- 2863 ose 8 er 162 Regulation of theisummer buffalo hunts.2-——- 34-2 Ste eeeas _ 22s 163 Barly winter buffalo drives-=. .-...-.-..=+.--=. -354-s eae 164 Winter hunting jon) borseb ae kes Se se eee ee eee 166 Thecwinter-huntinewhorse:.- =. 2-225... -=- = == eee ee 166 Wintershunting on foot»... <.-=..-s425!2b == tio ee eee 166 Hood rationing). = 222-442 325.2. = ese eee beeen 167 Meat consumption of the Blackfoot_._—-_-.- <poe=5245-225 55.62 == 168 Improvident food habits of other Plains tribes__.._____._---.----~- 169 Hunting of other mammals on horseback ---+..- 2. 2+422-=2-54+-2-3 170 ishevhorsevinwale eset ae = os aoe eee eee a ae 171 Brief history of Blackfoot intertribal warfare_____.....------------ lz The horse as a cause of intertribal confliets=—=4-4- =522 322 22s. — 173 Mhevhorse aides. 25-955. 352 S554 eee er ee eee Eppes 176 Tribal preferences of Blackfoot horse raiders_-___-_-_.--_------ 176 Organization of the horse raid =.= -. oe =n ae eee Deri Preparationss -eveet 2 8 oo Lucie kas ts ee 2 eee ae ALrief Warimedicines: 27.0). e os 2A ee ee ae ee 178 @lothing=)..i. 22.2.2 ess 2 ee ee ee ee eee 181 Weapons oSee tt cen Peels ie 183 MH ODAC Ke he eye ete oe ks rr 184 Hog Shs Neie 2) S82. oe ee a oe Pee Se | The, outward journey . 25 2 seit at. peed ay oie Se ee 184 MRNCRRtUR CK Stee 9 os ee ES a es 186 Theyhomeward journey 2-5 5 oe a 187 Distribution{oficeapturedshorses225.... .. -._. eet ee ee 188 Retusn tokesmpss 2 22 seecae kt Se ssos eel wet ehere eS 189 Accustoming captured horses to one’s herd______--_---------- 189 Women on horse-raiding expeditions. __.._.___._-------------- 190 Boys on horse-raiding,expeditions: 2: .<-<24+ 2=2s23e4-5"%— = 190 Frequency of horse raids 222.2 02 = es eee eee Ee 191 White Quiver, the most successful Blackfoot horse raider __-_--_-_-~_- 191 The raidifor (scalpss2ese 2 fs eed 2 eed ae eee alee 194 he'riding big dance... - 3. 2 5a5 Jae ae eee ee 196 Phe: WAT NOrse = 5-535 Sa ee a ee eee 196 Equipment: clothing. =... ...222) k2355 See eee 197 Tactics in mounted wartare...._.. -._ 4 ees See ee ee 198 UWsetof fretweaponse = 2 22) 4 So ee eee 199 Use of'shock weapons_=...-...-) 25-22 ee 200 The shield... .=5225-. 645.5055 oe eee ee eee 202 Biarlyouse of protectiveiarmor.- =. 2 =e see eee 203 Useofithe horsevas'a shieldv¥ =... Se ee 205 Postraidiceremonies.=... ... . 3252 4426 = 55 ee eee 206 Wefensive warlare.... 22-5. ose Soe = 3 eee 207 Defense‘ofthevcamp 22282 2.2 2 eee 207 Thevindividual/lodge watch... .-... ---52425-2-_- Se 208 Mhevhorseicorrale: | Bose se en eh ee ee epee 209 ABshY@: diana by eS ess hp a ee ee ee 210 Ownership of horses recovered from the enemy---------------- 210 Defensive warfare in the field. 2: 422.4520 20 2 = eee 211 Influence of warfare on Blackfoot population______--.------------- 212 CONTENTS VIL The horse in war—Continued PAGE WWarshOnols ee esata ees ee ee eee Ie eee en ee 212 Pictographic representation of war honors_____--_-___--_-_--- 214 ie blgckfOOlRWwaArnMOniOenl =e. feast ene eee eee ee ae aS 214 BlutTeshOrse sii Girt) ete mene mere ee ee re eR ee pe eR eon ee 216 Hera thers tits bo SUNG G1eet, Cl ee ee ee eee a ear ee pent ee al es eee 216 initratribalstrad ewes 2 kes 2S Se Se eye yee ops ee a ee Se pa es 217 ‘aeshorse asta scandard Of value=—----- 2525 ee a ee 217 DG CaN NGOLINOLSCSS tee ee eee ee en ete et ee ee 218 Examples of horse values in intratribal trade______-____-_--_------ 218 Horse) values;in: butlalo:ropes2-=-- == 2-2 Pee eee ae 218 HTOrse avicCS IN WCADONS sore ate ee a eee 219 Horse values in articles of men’s clothing__.-______.__.-__-_-- 219 Horse values in articles of women’s clothing_-________________- 220 OTSe—plpewrelaviVvesValUeCSs-=ee ea ee ee a 220 Horse payments in transfer of ceremonial paraphernalia -- -_-~-- 220 Blackioot wses.of, horse materials... 2-2 2-=.-2 eee ee ee 221 “bheshorserasioods= sss. =2— ==" Eft Sa) et ety ih pa a A sn a 222 WserofhorsehiGe:= =~ Se Sake Sr ee ese Pee she re Peele, Sa 222 Wselotuhorselain ts = <2 cee aaes hoe ae eae ene ane e etrrepaeeee 223 ifforse=chestiut, Crim C2 55 aaa a oe ee 223 VOTSeaLOObUENe CK ACESS sates e nee ene eee eee eee ree 223 We IOIPNOnSOyOOl este cee ee ee ee ety ee 223 Wserotihorseymanures so — 3) en = eee ee ee ee eee 224 piieah OFSCMMEnCCECA ti O12 mes tas tee re el ae rey eee ee re eee 225 ae wnOrsesi Cc HTOTEN SOIR yas = ye ee eee a ee 225 IEEE BRACING ete ante eye ee eee rs a eer ey ts ere ice ie aie eee 227 RUA COPMOTSCS See See ayer te a he es eee ee 228 Intratribal and intertribal horse races. =---_----_----..--==__= 228 ING ETSOCIOUN TACOS Ss a5 sete ee ee Se ne re ee 229 Horse races between Blackfoot tribes._......------.--------=- 233 Other intertribal horse races in which Blackfoot participated__.__ 233 Later history of Blackfoot, horse racing _-=*~_-_-—-----=_-- =. - 234 Horse racing among other Plains and Plateau tribes___..___--_-_ 2385 Horse symbolism in intersociety hoop and pole games________---_-- 236 HSM AU eseM ee So ein re ee ae nS eT Se A SS ene 238 orsesrassstakes Ini paMmbling 222 co. eS oe ene eee ea See 239 mheyhorseas;a Factor in Social relations... 4.22 7-2-2 oe a ee ee 240 SOCIAIESES bUgmee acme meee ae een eens eee ee ae ee ee 240 LUIS) SHG) Oe mite a a ala Dyn Siar api Gc pete rte tint ir Pe 1 ke pee elie eke 240 LEV erey Sea uo Vo bESNCGl Psy ieiptapcnter She tn tt ayia lela i a thee ill uty TE 242 LEVENSON GY OT es apenas leprae ae the tei ge Papen net platy AAC 243 Changesni SOCIAL SLALUB 22 a seme oe Re ee nh ae 244 POUbICAF ORE ANT ZA il OMe ee en ee eee eee ie ee 245 PIS ERD aCe rertens ere cathe a ee a cs DOM ere eta pe eis en eee ee 245 sbripsigChiChaInC ye] mec nae ne @ a eecine ee ee eee 248 IVERTRIA PC eee pe a a eR Se ae een RM cr mp ae Oe eee 249 TE ONiy/ UA Yer as ee ne rs ee ms te tae ee 250 The horse in punishment of civil and criminal offenses______________ Zo The horse in society organization and ceremonies__-_-_____-_-____--- 253 IP CTS OMNI ERT CSS ot acne te ee meth AE Pie NPE ns Naat me Bee Sos 254 EL GTSCSRASPOMUS 9 A meebo pees te Wanye nye ten ney esa. eee ae 255 VIIl BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull 159 PAGE ue HOrsewn religions #.4222 52-5) oo 2 no 3 tee oe 257 Mne horse medicine Cult... - = a ee 257 Origin and history of the Piegan horse medicine cult__-____-___- 258 Transteriof horse medicine power-2——---=- ==] -—=seeheee ae 262 The horse dance: ceremony of the horse medicine men________~ 263 Wses of horse medicine... -2. 5.222. 52655555 ee ee 270 Taboos recognized by horse medicine men-_-_---_----_-------=-_-- 274 identification of horse medicines= === a = ee ee 275 Comparative data on horse-medicine identification___-_---____- 276 Relationship of horse medicine to other Blackfoot medicines____ 277 The South Piegan Black Horse Society___-_--------.---__--- Loo gee Evidences of the horse medicine cult among other tribes__....__ 279 Sacrifice of horses after the death of their owners_-___-_-__--_-__-_-- 284 Comparative data on horses as grave escorts__----------_------ 286 Disposal of horses after the death of owner... ------_- - -e_ _- 287 Secondary associations of the horse in Blackfoot religion.___________ 288 ingbundl eytransiersee =e Hes ae eee = Pare aaa 288 Inktheys une ance: ceremony=--=- 22a ee eee 289 Beliefs concerning the supernatural powers of horses_______________ 290 Beliefs regarding the origin of horses______________- SIPS EEE wan? pee ‘Thunders igitt of horsess)-- 226 2 3 = ee ee eee 291 Waterispiritis: giftiol horses: 22.25 5.45 =) ee 2 ee 294 How Morning Star made the first horse_________--_==___ 5=___ 295 The influence of the horse on Blackfoot culture____-_-_-_________- Pee 299 The» pre-horse Blackfoot Indians. .- —-.=- 2-222 eee ea ee 299 Horse acquisition as a stimulus to cultural innovation______-______~ 300 Tndiuence,onyhunting=3. 2-82 eh ie eee eee ee 302 Influence on camp movements and possessions_—__.--------------- 306 influencetonawartare= == see = ee oe a pe ae 309 Influenceionytrade.— 25 = a ee ptt See eee aps = 312 nfl WwenCevOnereCuea tl Ol aa, eek 2 Se ee Sy a ae ee 313 Influencesonsocialelite.: ee 2-2 2 = Sea 2 ee eee 314 nifluenceon Religion) 2) eee ee a aby pe, sige 316 The horse and the fur trade___---_- eh ea beg wee th ee an a Ske 318 SUL Van SUS Ses ote eect et eo eect f= eee 9 gee Bo ceca 320 MchewelainseinGignieh OFS COUNT] C xy ee ee ee 323 Elements in the horse complex of the Plains Indians_______________ 323 Origins of the, Plains Indian horse complex_.-.--=2=-2-_-..-.--2 = 327 heshorseicomplexin. Plains! Indian history. 2-22) eee = oil ihhematuralvandicultumallise titi ees se ee 331 ipeeriod of Giffusion sand integration. = ssc aeeeene 332 2. Period of crystallization and maximum utilization _-_--____-- 335 3. Period of disintegration----------_--- Saja eg Bee 336 Oldiitheorestand mew,interpretabions. 2-22 26. 22 2. = a eee 336 Appendix. JUse-otwmullesii = 522 fe eee ey Be oe eee ee eee 341 Biblio gap ie 26 22 Seedpeer ce ye eee ie ee a a 343 lhc a ee ae See Ppa N pay ae Leas DRE Oe 2) tyme Sy 5 ee Tt 359 16. 17. BNO WNH 12. 13. ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES (All plates except frontispiece follow page 358) . (Frontispiece.) Blackfoot Indian pony. . a, Man’s pad saddle, Blackfoot. b, Woman’s “wood saddle,” Blood Indians. . a, “Prairie chicken snare saddle,’ Piegan. 6, Wooden frame pack saddle, Sioux. . “The Bloods Come in Council.” . a, Piegan lodges. 0b, Travois used as a litter, Crow Indians. . a, Cheyenne travois with domed, willow superstructure. 06, Travois with paunch water container attached. . Neighborhood of Willow Rounds. . Encampment of Piegan Indians near Fort McKenzie, summer 1833. . a, Two-quart, brass trade kettle with its buckskin traveling case, Crow Indians. 6, Buffalohide double-bag, Blackfoot. . Method of crossing a stream with camp equipment, Flathead Indians. . a, The Arapaho pipe, source of White Quiver’s war medicine. 6, White Quiver. . a, Child’s toy horse of bent willow. 6, Piegan boys playing calf roping at Heart Butte Sun Dance Encampment, summer 1944. . ad, Beaded wheel and arrows used in the hoop and pole game, North Piegan. b, Blackfoot horse race, June 1, 1848. . Piegan Indians chasing buffalo near the Sweetgrass Hills in September 1853. . A, Wallace Night Gun (ca. 1872-1950), leader of the Piegan Horse Medicine Cult. 8B, Portion of Wallace Night Gun’s horse medi- cine bundle in the United States National Museum. Portions of Wallace Night Gun’s horse medicine bundle. a, Makes-Cold-Weather, aged Piegan warrior. 6, A Blood Indian horse raider expiating his vow to undergo self-torture in the Sun Dance lodge, 1892. FIGURES . Map showing trade in horses to the northern Plains before 1805_.---- agAcsimple rawhide hobble, Blackfoot «2 3.- = 2.242. Seo eee see Se Le MEN TOtHOGSLOtApIO Kein Ses. sees Se So kin alc Ne Eee hn ce ae Rawhide horseshoes similar to Blackfoot type, Arapaho____________- . Method of tying a stallion for castrating, Blackfoot___.______------ . Breaking a bronco by riding it in a pond or stream, Blackfoot__-__-_- . Breaking a bronco by riding it with a surcingle, Blackfoot __~ ~~~ --_- . Breaking a horse to the travois by training it to drag a weighted buffalo HUG e RBS ACR OO eee ate ee a ea pe ts I ke anes ele . Teaching a child to ride by tying him in a woman’s saddle on a gentle HOTSe wELaACKTOOh earn kere eras Leech aE See Te a Be ese et - Atsimple rawhide hackamore, Blackfoot....20....2..2-L1..-.2-42-- . Rider using a rawhide war bridle with the end of one rein coiled under isubeltrBlaek{OOt= 4a Gees ee a eo. 3 ea ee Uselofthe:-war bridle’as 4 halter, Blackfoot_.-- =.= =--.-2---=.+- Construction of a woman’s “wood saddle,”’ Blackfoot... .___.___--- PAGE 39 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 SRIS TINS OL ALWOMea SiS 2d Cle sels] A.C lO Oren nee ee . Construction of a ‘“‘prairie chicken snare saddle,” Blackfoot___-----_- . a, Simple rawhide martingale; b, simple rawhide crupper; c, detail of CHUPPESR tall ae yy MESA KL OO teers a . Methods of whip construction, Blackfoot=-2 4... se » (Construction of a Blackfoot shorse travois_- - 2-522) 44.- Jo e PebhesBlackfootH Ode e pol eyiiie ines es see meee ee ee » he sBlackiootmarteches 3.2.38 a ee A ae 2 a; Buffalo calfskin berry bags; Blackfoots---. 222-522). .-= = eee . Double saddlebag thrown over a woman’s saddle for transportation, BISCO KOO te Soa soe a es nL ee Col ee ea ee . Rawhide cases transported on a woman’s horse___________________- . Map showing the Blackfoot and their neighbors in 1850-.-.________ . A common method of folding a lodge cover for transportation by pack horse, (Blackfioots.2.- ys teu. Jee te ee . a, Placement of a willow backrest on the bottom of a travois load; 6, method of transporting water in a paunch container_______-____ . Blackfoot horse raiders in warm-weather dress_______.______._____- . Blackfoot, horse raiderc-in winter, dress. --5-.2 ees ee . Method of wielding the lance by a mounted warrior, Blackfoot ______ . Objects made of horse materials, Blackfoot....___.........____...-= 5 IBEX CIOOTR fatal jolla niabayer Manon iabaver (Cowan) oy¥ Bee ee oe . Construction and use of a child’s hobbyhorse, Blackfoot___________- . Altar for the South Piegan horse dance ceremony___________________ FOREWORD The problem of the influence of the horse on Plains Indian culture has intrigued white men for more than a century. On April 6, 1848, Nathaniel J. Wyeth, an intelligent fur trader, wrote to Henry R. Schoolcraft, “I regret not being able to supply more facts to support a view, very strongly impressed on my mind, that the condition of the Indian of this continent has been much influenced by the introduc- tion of Horses” (Wyeth, 1851, vol. 1, p. 208). Modern anthropologists have recognized the acquisition and use of the European horse by the Plains Indians as a classic example of cultural diffusion. Ralph Linton (1940, p. 478), in a general dis- cussion of processes of acculturation, mentioned the rapid changes that have taken place in Western Civilization in recent years and then added, “However, we have at least one example of almost equally rapid acceptance of a whole new complex of culture elements by a series of ‘primitive’ groups. This case is that of the horse among the Plains Indians. The speed with which this novelty was taken over is the more surprising in view of the revolutionary effects on many aspects of native life.” Generalizations such as this are common in the anthropological literature. Yet, upon close examination, they give no hint of having been based upon a detailed factual analysis of the Plains Indian horse complex. We must conclude that these gen- eralizations were, at best, intuitive interpretations. For the entire Plains area there has been an appalling lack of detailed analysis of the horse complex. The nearest approach to a study of the facts relating to the functions of horses in a tribal cul- ture is Gilbert L. Wilson’s “The Horse and Dog in Hidatsa Culture” (Wilson, 1924). Some portions of that study “approach ideal com- pleteness,” as Clark Wissler, who edited it, has observed (ibid., p. 127). But this study had definite limitations. It dealt almost exclusively with the role of the horse in Hidatsa material culture. It described the use of horses by a semisedentary, horticultural tribe which was relatively poor in horses and relied heavily upon dogs for transporta- tion of camp equipment in buffalo-hunting days. The fact remains that no analytical study of the horse complex of any nomadic Plains Indian tribe has appeared in print. The present study was undertaken in an effort to “supply more facts” (as Wyeth stated the problem) regarding the role of the horse XI Sanam «a « Ae ail BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 in a nomadic, buffalo-hunting, horse-using Plains Indian tribe, on the basis of which conclusions might be drawn regarding the important functions of the horse in the tribal culture. Selection of the Blackfoot as the Indians to be studied was an expedient one. I was stationed en the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana for a period of 31% years, 1941-1944, under conditions which were nearly ideal for field work with elderly Indian informants. During that period I served as the first curator of the new Museum of the Plains Indian near Browning. The Indians of that reservation as well as culturally related Blood and Piegan Indians of Alberta were intensely interested in this new museum. ‘They visited it repeatedly. Many older Indians brought their family heirlooms to be added to the collections. As a museum man and as a year-round member of the local community I first came to know most of the elderly Indians who later served as my in- formants. The museum was open to the public from late spring until early fall, permitting me to devote a considerable portion of my time during the long winter period to research. Field research on this problem was inaugurated in December 1941, nine months after my arrival on the Blackfeet Reservation. It was continued until the spring of 1944, under the auspices of the Division of Education of the Office of Indian Affairs. I am grateful to Willard R. Beatty, for- merly director of Indian education in Washington, to the late Freal McBride, superintendent of the Blackfeet Reservation, to William Hemsing, Reservation School Superintendent, and to his colleagues on the Blackfeet Agency staff for their active encouragement of this project. Research was interrupted by 2 years of military service, after which I transferred to the United States National Museum. The Office of Indian Affairs kindly permitted the transfer of my field notes from the Museum of the Plains Indian to the National Museum in 1946, so that I might be able to complete the project. My field in- vestigations were completed during a summer’s residence on the Blood Reserve, Alberta, and the Blackfeet Reservation, Mont., in 1947, financed by the Smithsonian Institution. Much of the factual information on which this study is based was supplied by elderly, fullblood Piegan and Blood Indian informants, whose knowledge of the functions of horses in the late years of buffalo days was solidly grounded in personal experiences. These old people really loved horses and enjoyed talking about them. They were uni- formly cooperative and interested in getting the record straight. Dif- ferences of opinion naturally arose among informants, but it was possible to iron out a number of these differences through group dis- cussions following individual interrogations. I am indebted to the following elderly Indians for their friendly and sincere cooperation, which made this study possible. Women are indicated by asterisks. FOREWORD XI Name: Tribe life span *Double-Victory-Calf-Robe_ Blood_____-_-~--_- Ca. 1849-1951 hazy, oye a 38) et SY Piepainlips oc, ehst oe Ca. 1855-1948 Weasel Tails 2 sae. 22405. Bloods 3%. fe ge ok. Ca. 1859-1950 JRO amet ce pie Ate Blood-Piegan ______ Ca. 1859- Green-Grass-Bull________- i Sl SY 2925 0 elle grec cl Ca. 1862-1951 Weasel Head___._______-- Piegankse iat ere Ca. 1863-1943 Rides-at-the-Door_-_______ Piegan tts Seer) alt Ca. 1864-1953 Makes-Cold-Weather _ _ _ __ Piegans 2 2S. ee on 5-5 (Ae SOO-—L951 Richard Sanderville_______ Mixblood Piegan _- 1866-1951 NcrapmigaWuNte: os on Blood ee. 45 on Ca. 1866-1948 ThreetGalpae Mavis = Serial) Blood-Piegan___.__ Ca. 1866-1948 *Elk-Hollering-in-the- Blood-Piegan______ Ca. 1867—ante-1951 Water-Bear-Chief Chewing-Black-Bones_____ Piegan. oof 285... Ca. 1867- *Deathly -Woman-Cree- Piegan___________- Ca. 1868-1952 Medicine Heavy Head) 2.2). 2. Blooge Ue BURL ae Ca. 1869-1951 Mike-Day-Rider_________- Piegani 32198) b _ _ _ Ca. 1870- Short, Macetaulip ni! ts 3 Piégany-<~ (0 T" __ oe Ca. 1870-1952 Wallace Night Gun_-_-_-__-_-_ Ricganis 6 a: Ca. 1872-1950 With the exception of Richard Sanderville, all the informants listed above are or were putative fullbloods who spoke little English. The dates of birth of Piegan and some Blood informants were computed on the basis of Blackfeet Agency census records for 1901 and 1908. I am greatly indebted to Reuben and Cecile Black Boy for their faithful services as interpreters on the Blackfeet Reservation, Mont., where all the Piegan informants and the able Blood informant Weasel Tail were interviewed. Reuben’s and Cecile’s participating member- ship in the fullblood community, their outstanding skill in arts and crafts, their thorough knowledge of horses, and their previous ex- perience in collecting and interpreting Blackfoot myths and stories for the Federal Writers’ Project of Montana from older fullbloods made them exceptionally well prepared for their exacting task. On the Blood Reserve, Chief Percy Creighton kindly served as my in- terpreter. It is not possible to mention all the English-speaking Blackfoot Indians, born since buffalo days, who provided information regarding Blackfoot horse usages in more recent times. George Bull Child, Henry Magee, John Old Chief, Jim Stingy, Jim Walters, and Mae Williamson were especially helpful members of this group. I am indebted to Frank and Joseph Sherburne, Browning mer- chants, for helpful observations on Piegan horse usages based on their residence on the Blackfeet Reservation, Mont., for more than half a century ; to Archdeacon Samuel K. Middleton, principal of St. Paul’s Residential School, Blood Reserve, for numerous kindnesses in facili- tating my field research on the Blood Reserve; and to Dr. Claude XIV BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 Schaeffer, curator of the Museum of the Plains Indian since 1947, for checking a number of specific points with Piegan informants as ques- tions arose during the writing of this work. Dr. Schaeffer also made available to me manuscript materials in the Blackfeet Agency Archives, now in the Museum of the Plains Indian. Most of the text figures reproduced in this study are based on pencil drawings carefully prepared by Calvin Boy, a young Piegan artist. To insure their accuracy, special precautions were taken. As elderly informants described objects and/or activities I desired to have illustrated Reuben Black Boy and I made rough sketches. We showed these to Calvin Boy and explained to him the content of the desired illustrations. He then drew pictures at a very large scale so that they could be seen readily by elderly informants, many of whom had poor eyesight. The informants examined the drawings and in the presence of the artist made suggestions for any changes in detail that might be necessary. Then Calvin Boy prepared the final pencil or pen-and-ink drawings. ‘The minority of the line illustrations were prepared by the author from his field notes and sketches. I am indebted to the following institutions for permission to repro- duce photographs of objects and scenes in this bulletin: American Museum of Natural History, New York; Brooklyn Museum; Chicago Museum of Natural History; Glacier Studio, Browning, Mont.; Great Northern Railway; Montana Historical Society, Helena; Museum of the Plains Indian; Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology; Smith- sonian Institution; and Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior. Throughout the period of this investigation (1941-52) I was mind- ful of its broader implications. I endeavored to read widely in the scattered and largely unindexed literature on the Blackfoot and other horse-using tribes of the Great Plains and Plateau. In quest of dated materials and comparative data, [ examined numerous collections of specimens in museums as well as collections of early drawings, paint- ings, and photographs. I sought to obtain comparative data directly from elderly informants among the Flathead (1947), Oglala Dakota (1947), and Kiowa (1949) tribes as my limited opportunities for field work on their respective reservations permitted. Alice Marriott graciously supplied, through correspondence, information on Kiowa horse usages, obtained in the course of her own field work. Eugene Barrett, forester, Rosebud Reservation, S. Dak., kindly furnished some comparative data on Brule Dakota horse usages. Edith V. A. Murphy of Covelo, Calif., formerly field botanist, Office of Indian Affairs, sent me valuable comparative data on horse medicines. In this study I approached the larger problem of the definition, origin, and history of the Plains Indian horse complex through an FOREWORD XV analysis of the Blackfoot complex and the inclusion of comparative data indicative of geographically and tribally more widespread oc- currences of specific traits. The comparative data appear as foot- notes or as distinct subsections of the text in pages 1-298. These data, together with my Blackfoot findings (summarized im pp. 299-322), serve as the factual basis for the conclusions set forth in the section entitled “The Plains Indian Horse Complex” (pp. 323-340). OBI civeteep tio: ae ie binksdaeury aan a penned ens a a is i J abe stgiyh- “anleyheint Yeux hl inthe ud) AV ih D4 aie ' (Ae sina inw a: 1 a ab Lay te Mtge as : ; > es 2 iene vetrigh esis arise ~ ; inet Oe Swi nteukaa be ae ¥ Weep laren "sale & ‘ares py, A ole bs ‘ Arata B64 any ia “Ty ne inp Oe be ‘ r AMM Tick ° ives =; lege ie i, te; Jt aaa . < adi 7 : > . ayes heen o : verti oe - ria) > aE Ske | ; & Thy - a aie ¢ ae hes ; (abe OF) : é ¥ FY Y 4 iy wy I i : ' Garais THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE WITH COMPARATIVE MATERIAL FROM OTHER WESTERN TRIBES By Joun C. Ewers THE ACQUISITION OF THE HORSE Clark Wissler (1927, p. 154) has named the period 1540 to 1880 in the history of the Indian tribes of the Great Plains “the Horse Culture Period.” This period can be defined more accurately and meaning- fully in cultural than in temporal terms. Among all the tribes of the area it began much later than 1540. With some tribes it ended before 1880. Yet for each Plains Indian tribe the Horse Culture Period spanned the years between the acquisition and first use of horses and the extermination of the economically important buffalo in the region in which that tribe lived. Anthropologists and historians have been intrigued by the problem of the diffusion of the European horse among the Plains Indians. It is well known that many tribes began to acquire horses before their first recorded contacts with white men. Paucity of documentation has given rise to much speculation as to the sources of the horses dif- fused to these tribes, the date when the first Plains Indians acquired horses, the rate of diffusion from tribe to tribe, and the conditions under which the spread took place. The three Blackfoot tribes of the northwestern Plains, the Piegan, Blood, and North Blackfoot, were among those tribes that possessed horses when first met by literate white men. To view their acquisi- tion in proper historical and cultural perspective it is necessary to con- sider the larger problem of the diffusion of horses to the northern Plains and Plateau tribes. Critical study of this problem dates from Wissler’s paper, entitled “The Influence of the Horse in the Develop- ment of Plains Culture,” published in the American Anthropologist (Wissler, 1914). That stimulating, pioneer effort encouraged fur- ther study of the problem. Of the more recent contributions two papers by Francis Haines (1938, a and b), based to a considerable extent upon data unavailable to Wissler a quarter of a century earlier, have been most influential in revising the thinking of students of this problem. 287944—55 2 aL 2 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 THE NORTHWARD SPREAD OF HORSES SOURCES OF THE HORSES OF THE PLAINS INDIANS Haines’ major contributions were to point out that the Plains Indians acquired their first horses from a different source and at a considerably later date than Wissler had considered probable. Wissler gave credence to the theory that the first horses obtained by Plains Indians were animals lost or abandoned by the Spanish explor- ing expeditions led by De Soto and Coronado in 1541 (Wissler, 1914, pp. 9-10). The historian Walter P. Webb, in “The Great Plains,” an important regional history published 17 years later, acknowledged his debt to Wissler in his acceptance of this theory (Webb, 1931, p. 57). However, another historian, Morris Bishop, who had made a critical study of early Spanish explorations, termed this theory, “a pretty legend” (Bishop, 1933, p. 81). Haines virtually laid the old theory to rest. After a careful review of the evidence he concluded that “the chances of strays from the horse herds of either De Soto or Coronado having furnished the horses of the Plains Indians is so remote that it should be discarded” (Haines, 1938 a, p. 117). This conclusion has been supported by more recent scholarship. John R. Swanton, who has been a thorough student of the De Soto Expedition over a period of years, concurred in Haines’ interpretation of the De Soto evidence (Swanton, 1939, pp. 170-171). Arthur S. Aiton, in publishing Coronado’s Compostela muster roll, commented significantly, “Five hundred and fifty-eight horses, two of them mares, are accounted for in the muster. The presence and separate listing of only two mares suggests that we may have been credulous in the belief that stray horses from the Coronado expedition stocked the western plains with their first horses.” Furthermore, he found no record of the loss of either mare during Coronado’s expedition to the Plains (Aiton, 1939, pp. 556-570). Herbert E. Bolton, profound student of early Spanish explorations in the Southwest, has pointed out that even though Coronado may have taken some mares to the Plains which had not been listed in the Compostela roll, the biological possibility of strays from this expedition having stocked the Plains with Spanish horses was slight. He also noted the lack of any men- tion of encounters with stray horses or mounted Indians in the accounts of Spanish expeditions to the Great Plains in the later years of the 16th and early years of the 17th century (Bolton, 1949, pp. 68-69, 400). Exploring the alternatives, Haines found that the early 17th-century Spanish stock-raising settlements of the Southwest, particularly those in the neighborhood of Santa Fe, furnished “just the items necessary Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 3 to encourage the adoption of horses by the Indians to the east— friendly contact through trade, ample supply of horses, and examples of the advantages of the new servants” (Haines, 1938 a, p. 117). DATING THE NORTHWARD SPREAD OF HORSES AMONG THE INDIANS Different concepts of the sources of the horses of the Plains Indians led to very different interpretations of the rate of their diffusion among these tribes. Wissler’s assumption that horses were available to the Plains Indians as early as 1541, caused him to consider it pos- sikle that they might have spread northward during the remainder of that century so rapidly that they could have reached the Crow and Blackfoot on the headwaters of the Missouri as early as 1600 (Wissler, 1914, p.10). Haines, however, found “the available evidence indicates that the Plains Indians began acquiring horses some time after 1600, the center of distribution being Santa Fe. This development pro- ceeded rather slowly ; none of the tribes becoming horse Indians before 1630, and probably not until 1650” (Haines, 1988 a, p. 117). The logical and historical soundness of Haines’ position has been acknowl- edged by more recent students of the problem (Wyman, 1945, pp. 538-55; Mishkin, 1940, pp. 5-6; Denhardt, 1947, p. 103. Acceptance of this position is also implied in Bolton, 1949, p. 400). In tracing the northward spread of horses from the Southwest to the Plains and Plateau tribes we must acknowledge the meagerness of the historical data bearing on this movement. Wissler logically assumed that “those to get them first would be the Ute, Comanche, Apache, Kiowa and Caddo” (Wissler, 1914, p. 2). If we exclude the Comanche, this assumption seems to be in accord with more recent findings. Horses were first diffused northward and eastward to those tribes on the periphery of the Spanish settlements of the Southwest. Marvin Opler found in Southern Ute traditions a sug- gestion that those Indians acquired horses from the Spanish “probably around 1640” (Linton, 1940, pp. 156-157, 171). Spanish records, dated 1659, reported Apache raids on the ranch stock of the settlements which continued into the next decade. The Apache carried off as many as 800 head of livestock in a single raid. At the same time the Apache engaged in an intermittent exchange of slaves for horses with the Pueblo Indians (Scholes, 1937, pp. 150, 163, 398-399). The French explorer La Salle heard that the Gattacka (Kiowa-Apache) and Manrhoat (Kiowa) were trading horses to the Wichita or Pawnee in 1682. He believed the animals had been stolen from the Spaniards of New Mexico (Margry, 1876-86, vol. 2, pp. 201-202). In 1690, Tonti found the Cadodaquis on Red River in possession of about 30 horses, which the Indians called cavalis, an apparent derivation from the 4 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 Spanish “caballos.” While among the Naouadiché, another Caddoan tribe, farther south, he found horses “very common,” stating “there is not a cabin which has not four or five” (Cox, 1905, pp. 44-50). Data on the spread of the horse northward over the Plains in the late years of the 17th century are sparse. In 1680, Oto Indians who visited La Salle at Fort Crévecoeur (near present Peoria, Ill.) brought with them a piebald horse taken from some Spaniards they had killed (Pease and Werner, 1934 a, p.4). Deliette reported that prior to 1700 the Pawnee and Wichita obtained branded Spanish horses “of which they make use sometimes to pursue the buffalo in the hunt” (Pease and Werner, 1934 b, p. 388). In the summer of 1700, Father Gabriel Marest included Missouri, Kansa, and Ponca, along with the Pawnee and Wichita, as possessors of Spanish horses (Garraghan, 1927, p. 312). These brief references suggest that by the end of the century most and probably all Plains Indian tribes living south of the Platte River had gained some familiarity with horses. Nevertheless, testi- mony, of the French explorers La Harpe, Du Tisne, and Bourgmont (Marery, 1886, vol. 6) in the first quarter of the 18th century indicates that horses still were scarce among the tribes living eastward of the Apache and northward of the Caddo. In 1705, the Comanche, an offshoot of the Wyoming Shoshoni, first were seen on the New Mexican frontier. In company with lnquisti- cally related Ute, they came to beg for peace, but on their departure stole horses from the settlements (Thomas, 1935, p. 105). In succeed- ing years they launched repeated bold attacks upon New Mexico, riding off with horses and with goods intended by the Spanish for trade with the Apache living northeastward of the Rio Grande Pueblos. Comanche thefts were extended to the Apache villages as well. Specific mention was made in Spanish records of one raid in which 8 Comanche and Ute Indians ran off 20 horses and a colt from an Apache rancheria in 1719. At that very time Governor Valverde was leading a punitive expedition against the troublesome Comanche (ibid., pp. 105-109, 122). Plains tribes northeast of the Black Hills were met by white traders before they acquired horses. When La Vérendrye accompanied an Assiniboin trading party to the Mandan villages on the Missouri in 1738, those Assiniboin had no horses. La Vérendrye made no mention of any horses among the Mandan. However, he was told that the Arikara, northernmost of the Caddoan-speaking peoples, living south of the Mandan on the Missouri, owned horses, as did nomadic tribes living southwestward toward and beyond the Black Hills (La Véren- drye, 1927, pp. 108, 337). Two Frenchmen, left by La Vérendrye at the Mandan villages through the summer of 1739, witnessed the visit of horse-using tribes to the Mandan for trading purposes (ibid., pp. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 5 366-368). These tribes cannot be identified with certainty. However, the two Frenchmen learned that they feared the “Snake” Indians. Therefore, it seems improbable these people were Shoshoni or their Comanche kinsmen. They may have been the Kiowa and Kiowa Apache, who were mentioned by La Salle as actively engaged in the northward diffusion of horses a half century earlier, and who were known to have traded horses to the horticultural peoples on the Missouri in later years. In 1741, La Vérendrye’s son took two horses with him on his return from the Mandan villages (ibid., p. 108, 387). This event seems to have marked the beginning of the trade in horses from nomadic tribes southwest of the Missouri, through the Mandan to the peoples north and east of them. Hendry (1907, pp. 334-335) traveled with an As- siniboin trading party in 1754, which employed horses for packing but not for riding. Twelve years later the elder Henry (1809, pp. 275- 289) saw horses in some numbers among the Assiniboin and mentioned their use in mounted warfare. Umfreville reported (in 1789) “it is but lately that they [horses] have become common among the Nehe- thawa [Cree] Indians” (Umfreville, 1790, p. 189). The French trader Jacques d’Eglise, in 1792, saw horses equipped with Mexican saddles and bridles among the Mandan in the first description of that tribe after the visits of the La Vérendryes a half century earlier (Nasitir, 1927, p. 58). It is most probable that a trickle of trade in Spanish horses through the Mandan to the Assiniboin and Plains Cree existed throughout the last half of the 18th century. The third quarter of the century witnessed a rapid expansion of the horse frontier among tribes living to the eastward of the Missouri. Tn 1768 Carver (1838, p. 188) found no horses among the Dakota of the Upper Mississippi, and placed the frontier of horse-using tribes some distance to the westward of them. Yet by 1773 Peter Pond saw Spanish horses among the Sauk on the Wisconsin River. ‘Two years later he observed that the Yankton Dakota had “a Grate Number of Horses” which they used for hunting buffalo and carrying baggage (Pond, 1908, pp. 335, 353). Since the Yankton probably obtained their horses from the Teton, Hyde’s 1760 estimate of the date of Teton Dakota acquisition of horses appears reasonable (Hyde, 1957, pp. 16, 18,68). According to Teton tradition, they acquired their first horses from the Arikara on the Missouri. It was probably during the third quarter of the 18th century that the Cheyenne began to acquire horses also (Jablow, 1951, p. 10). At the close of the 18th century the Red River marked the north- eastern boundary of Plains Indian horse culture. In 1798, David Thompson noted that the Ojibwa east of that river had no horses (Thompson, 1916, p. 246). Two years thereafter Alexander Henry 6 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY {Bull. 158 the younger purchased two horses from visiting Indians who lived on the Assiniboin River to the west, and commented significantly, “Those were the first and only two horses we had on Red river; the Saulteurs had none, but always used canoes” (Henry and Thompson, 1897, vol. 1,p.47). In January, 1806, Zebulon Pike observed that traders at the Northwest Company post on Lac de Sable, near the Mississippi, had “horses they procured from Red river of the Indians” (Pike, 1810, p. 60). In the summer of that year Henry encountered nine lodges of canoe-using Ojibwa at the forks of Scratching River in present south- eastern Manitoba, hunting buffalo. ‘They owned some horses and were planning to go to the Missouri to purchase more (Henry and Thomp- son, 1897, vol. 1, p. 286). These were the Plains Ojibwa in process of transition from woodland canoemen to Plains Indian horsemen. By 1805 horses had also been diffused far to the northwest in larger numbers. The Lewis and Clark Expedition established first recorded white contact with the Plateau tribes in 1805-06. On their return from the Pacific coast they were able to purchase four horses from Skilloot Indians at the Dalles, paying twice as much for them as they had paid for horses obtained from Shoshoni and Flathead on their outward journey (Coues, 1893, vol. 2, pp. 954-955). As they moved eastward they found horses more plentiful, indicating that the Dalles was near the northwestern limit of horse diffusion at that time. Lewis and Clark were impressed with the large numbers of horses owned by many Plateau tribes. Yet the Lemhi Shoshoni told them of related peoples living to the southwest of them (probably Ute) “where horses are much more abundant than they are here” (Coues, 1893, vol. 2, p. 569). The explorers found Spanish riding gear and branded mules among the Shoshoni. They believed these animals came from the Spanish settlements, which the Indians reported to be but 8 to 10 days’ journey southward (Coues, 1898, vol. 2, p. 559; Ordway, 1916, p. 268). Northern Shoshoni tradition claims that their kinsmen, the Co- manche, furnished them their first horses (Clark, 1885, p. 338; Shim- kin, 1938, p. 415). If we may credit this tradition, it seems possible these Shoshoni may have begun to acquire horses a few years after Comanche raids were launched on the New Mexican settlements in 1705. It is probable, too, that the Ute of western Colorado served as intermediaries through whom Spanish horses passed northward to the Shoshoni during the 18th century (Steward, 1938, p. 201). How- ever, these movements cannot be historically documented. Nevertheless, the sizable herds of horses seen among the Lemhi Shoshoni and their neighbors by Lewis and Clark in 1805, presuppose an extended period of horse diffusion on a considerable scale toward the Northwest prior to that date. Haines (1938 b, p. 486) has postu- lated a route of diffusion west of the Continental Divide from Santa Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE / Fe to the Snake River by way of the headwaters of the Colorado, the Grand, and Green Rivers. This was the most direct route to the Northwest from New Mexico. We may note, also, that it passed through the country of Shoshonean tribes offering a peaceful highway for Comanche and Ute such as was unavailable on the western Plains, infested as that region was with hostile Apache and Kiowa. There was little incentive to divert horses westward from that route, as the Great Basin afforded inadequate pasturage for horses. Through the Northern Shoshoni, horses were distributed to the Plateau tribes. Tribal traditions of the Flathead and Nez Percé credit the Shoshoni with furnishing them their first mounts (Turney- High, 1937, p. 106; Haines, 1939, p. 19). The Coeur d’Alene, Pend @Orielle, Kalispel, Spokan, Colville, and Cayuse tribes of the north- western Plateau obtained their first horses either directly from the Shoshoni or indirectly from tribes previously supplied by Shoshoni (Teit, 1930, p. 351). Although a Crow tradition recorded by Bradley (1928, p. 298) refers to their acquisition of horses from the Nez Percé, it seems more probable that the first horses obtained by the Crow came from the Comanche (Morgan, MS., bk. 9, p. 12). THE PROCESS OF DIFFUSION Previous writers have been more concerned with the historical prob- lem of when the Plains Indians obtained horses than with the cultural problem of how horses were diffused. Certainly the paucity of 18th century documentation sheds little light on the diffusion process. How- ever, when we add to this documentation the information in the litera- ture of the first decade of the 19th century, we find much that is helpful in seeking an explanation of this process. At the beginning of the 19th century two main routes for the diffu- sion of horses to the tribes of the northern Plains were observable. One route led from the Upper Yellowstone eastward to the Hidatsa and Mandan villages on the Missouri. The Crow Indians of the Middle Yellowstone served as intermediaries in a flourishing trade in horses and mules, securing large numbers of these animals from the Flathead, Shoshoni, and probably also the Nez Percé on the Upper Yellowstone in exchange for objects of Kuropean manufacture. At the Mandan and Hidatsa villages they disposed of some of these horses and mules, at double their purchase value, in exchange for the European-made objects desired for their own use and eagerly sought by the far-off Flathead and Shoshoni. Thus tribes of the Upper Yellowstone and Plateau began to receive supplies of knives, axes, brass kettles, metal awls, bracelets of iron and brass, a few but- tons worn as hair ornaments, some long metal lance heads, arrowheads of iron and brass, and a few fusils of Northwest Company trade type, 8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 before their first direct contacts with white traders in their own terri- tories. Thus also, horn bows and possibly other products of the western Indians reached the village tribes on the Missouri, and bridle bits and trade blankets of Spanish origin arrived at the Mandan and Hidatsa villages by a Jong and circuitous route. On their summer trading visits to the Mandan and Hidatsa the Crow also exchanged products of the chase (dried meat, robes, leggings, shirts, and skin lodges) for corn, pumpkins, and tobacco of the villagers. In 1805, the Northwest Company trader Larocque, the first white man to spend a season with the Crow, reported that this trade was well-organized (Larocque, 1910, pp. 22, 64, 66, 71-72). This trade was also noted by Lewis and Clark (Coues, 1893, vol. 1, pp. 198-199; vol. 2, pp. 498, 554, 563), Henry (Henry and Thompson, 1897, vol. 1, pp. 398-399), Mackenzie (1889, p. 346), and Tabeau (1939, pp. 160-161) 1 We cannot be sure how long this trade was in existence before the opening of the 19th century. However, the experienced fur trader Robert Meldrum, who probably knew the Crow Indians better than any other white man of his time, told Lewis Henry Morgan that when he first went among the Crow (1827) old people of that tribe told him they “saw the first horses ever brought into their country,” and that they obtained these horses from the Comanche. Morgan estimated, “This would make it about 100 years ago that they first obtained the horse,” 1. e. ca. 1762 (Morgan, MS., bk. 9, p. 12). Denig (1953, p. 19) and Bradley (1896, p. 179) independently dated the separation of the Crow from the Hidatsa about the year 1776 or a few years earlier. It is probable that the Crow Indians did not become actively engaged in this trade until they had acquired enough horses to make it practical for them to leave the Hidatsa and become nomadic hunters. The other major route by which horses were diffused northward to the tribes of the northern Plains at the beginning of the 19th century I assume to have been an older one, and probably the route followed by the Comanche themselves in supplying the Crow with their first horses. It led from the Spanish settlements of New Mexico and Texas to the vicinity of the Black Hills in South Dakota via the western High Plains, thence eastward and northeastward to the Arikara, Hidatsa, and Mandan villages on the Missouri. The important middle- men in this trade at the beginning of the 19th century were the nomadic Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Comanche, Arapaho, and Cheyenne. Antoine Tabeau, a French trader from St. Louis, who was among the Arikara in 1803-4, was told that prior to that time the Arikara were accustomed to transport tobacco, maize, and goods of European 1 Mackenzie (1889, p. 346), reported that 250 horses and 200 guns with 100 rounds of ammunition for each were exchanged in the Crow-Hidatsa trade of June, 1805. Twelve lodges of Shoshoni, comprising the remnant of a tribe that had been destroyed, accom- panied the Crow trading party that summer (Larocque, 1910, pp. 22, 73). Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 8) manufacture “to the foot of the Black Hills’ where they met the Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Comanche, Arapaho, and Cheyenne in a trading fair. There they secured dressed deerskins, porcupine-quill- decorated shirts of antelopeskin, moccasins, quantities of dried meat, and prairie turnip flour in exchange for their wares. Coincident with that trade was the barter of European firearms for horses, which Vabeau described : The horse is the most important article of their trade with the Ricaras. Most frequently it is given as a present: but, according to their manner, that is to say, it is recalled when the tender in exchange does not please. This is an understood restriction. This present is paid ordinarily with a gun, a hundred charges of powder and balls, a knife and other trifles. [Tabeau, 1939, p. 158.] Tabeau was told that the nomadic traders obtained their horses directly from the Spaniards at “St. Antonio or Santa Fe,” either buy- ing them at low prices or stealing them, at their discretion (ibid., pp. 154-158). Lewis and Clark made brief mention of Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, and possibly some Comanche as wandering tribes who “raise a great num- ber of horses, which they barter to the Ricaras, Mandans &c. for articles of European manufactory” (Coues, 1893, vol. 1, pp. 58-59). In the summer of 1806, Henry accompanied the Hidatsa on a visit to the Cheyenne to trade guns and ammunition (then scarce among the Cheyenne) for fine horses (Henry and Thompson, 1897, vol. 1, pp. 567-393). : Although this north-south trade route may have been employed for the northward diffusion of horses for several decades before the west- east trade route (previously described) was opened, it is most probable that the Arapaho and Cheyenne were not involved in it as inter- mediaries before their abandonment of the sedentary horticultural life in favor of a nomadic existence. Cheyenne conversion to nomad- ism probably began no earlier than 1750, and some villages of that tribe clung to the horticultural life until after 1790 (Strong, 1940, pp. 359, 371; Trudeau, 1921, pp. 165-167). According to Arapaho tradition that tribe also made the transition from sedentary to nomadic life (Elkin zm Linton, 1940, p. 207). Presumably Arapaho conversion to nomadism did not long antedate that of the Cheyenne. Of the nomadic tribes actively engaged in supplying horses to the village tribes on the Missouri by the northward route in 1804, this leaves only the Kiowa-Apache, Kiowa, and Comanche as probable initiators of this trade. Since the Comanche are credited with supplying horses to their kinsmen, the Northern Shoshoni, in the 18th century, it is most probable that the Kiowa-Apache and Kiowa played more im- portant roles in the early trade in horses with the village tribes of the Missouri. 10 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 The Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa villages served as foci for the further diffusion of horses to the tribes dwelling east and north of that river at the beginning of the 19th century. In late summer the nomadic Teton Dakota obtained horses, mules, corn, beans, pumpkins, and tobacco from the Arikara in exchange for products and byproducts of the hunt and European trade goods. Each spring the Teton met their Dakota relatives, the Yankton, Yanktonai, and Eastern Dakota at a great trading fair on the James River in present South Dakota, where they bartered some of the horses received from the Arikara, to- gether with buffaloskin lodges, buffalo robes, and shirts and leggings of antelopeskin, with other Dakota tribes for the materials of the lat- ter’s country (walnut bows and red stone pipes are specifically men- tioned), and European manufactured goods (guns and kettles are named) which those tribes obtained from white traders on the St. Peters (Minnesota) and Des Moines Rivers. Tabeau (1939, pp. 121, 131) reported that this Sioux trading fair sometimes attracted as many as 1,000 to 1,200 tents, housing about 3,000 men bearing arms. Lewis and Clark made repeated mention of this trade (Coues, 1893, vol. 1, pp. 95, 99, 100, 144, 217). They regarded it of special significance because it made the powerful Teton Dakota independent of white traders on the Missouri and hostile to the extension of the trade from St. Louis up the Missouri which would serve only to place deadly fire- arms in the hands of their enemies. From the Mandan and Hidatsa villages horses passed to the Assini- boin, Plains Cree, and Plains Ojibwa of northern North Dakota and southern Canada. The actual trading took place at the villages of the horticultural tribes, during periodic visits from the nomadic ones. Trudeau, in 1796, told of the Assiniboin obtaining horses, corn, and tobacco from the Mandan and Hidatsa for guns and other merchandise (Trudeau, 1921, p. 173). Tabeau (1939, p. 161) and Lewis and Clark (Coues, 1893, vol. 1, p. 195) referred to the exchange of horses and agricultural products of the Mandan and Hidatsa for the “merchan- dise” (arms and ammunition were named) of the Assiniboin and Plains Cree. The Mandan and Hidatsa also served as bases for the horse supply of white traders operating in the country north and east of them. Lewis and Clark’s statement that Mr. Henderson of the Hudson’s Bay Company came to the Hidatsa villages in December 1804, with tobacco, beads, and other merchandise to trade for furs, and ‘“‘a few guns which are to be exchanged for horses” is significant of the preferred position given to both guns and horses in this trade (Coues, 1898, vol. 1, p. 207). On the map (fig. 1) T have summarized graphically the foregoing data on trade routes employed in the diffusion of horses northward to the majority of the Plains Indian tribes dwelling north of the Platte River at the beginning of the 19th century. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 11 A study of this map in conjunction with the preceding text seems to justify some conclusions relative to the pattern of this diffusion. First, I am impressed with the fact that the trade in horses on the northern Plains at that time was almost without exception a trade be- peo OnEIRLES i an ‘ eo, AX aN at KIOWA-APACHE ae KIOWA rss | TRADE “HORSES TO THE NORTHERN PLAINS BEFORE 1805 enema =DOCUMENTED ROUTES wee HYPOTHETICAL ROUTES OIFFUSION CENTERS FiecurRE 1.—Map showing trade in horses to the northern Plains before 1805. SAN, ANTONIO tween nomadic and horticultural peoples, and that this horse trade was coincident with the exchange of products of the hunt for agri- cultural produce on the part of these same tribes. This barter between hunting and gardening peoples enabled each group to supple- ment its own economy with the products of the other’s labors. There 12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 was little incentive for trade between two horticultural tribes or be- tween two hunting peoples, as neither possessed an abundance of desirable products which the other did not have. However, the natural environment of the western Plateau yielded wild foods and other natural resources which were not found on the Plains. Therefore, the nomadic Plateau tribes stood in much the same desirable trading rela- tionship to the Plains Indian nomads as did the gardening peoples of -he Plains. So we find that horses were diffused from the Flathead to the nomadic Crow, to the horticultural Hidatsa and Mandan, to the nomadic Assiniboin, Plains Cree, and Plains Ojibwa, with the same alternate rhythm as occurred in the northward progression of horses from the Spanish settlements to the nomadic Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Comanche, Arapaho, and Cheyenne, to the horticultural Arikara, to the nomadic Teton Dakota, to the horticultural Eastern Dakota. There is good evidence that the pattern of trade in the respective products of their different economies between gardening and nomadic tribes was an old one in the Plains, and that it antedated the introduc- tion of the horse into the area. Definite references to the trade of Plains Indians in pre-horse days reveal the pattern. The Coronado expedition in 1541 observed that the nomadic Querechos and Teyas of the southwestern Plains— . . . follow the cows, hunting them and tanning the skins to take to the settle- ments in the winter to sell, since they go there to pass the winter, each company going to those which are nearest, some to the settlement of Cicuye, others toward Quivera, and others to the settlements situated in the direction of Florida . . They have no other settlement or location than comes from travelling around with the cows ... They exchange some cloaks with the natives of the river for corn. [Winship, 1896, pp. 527-528.] In the fall of 1599, Vicente de Saldivar Mendoca met a roving band of Plains Indians not far from the Canadian River— . . coming from trading with the Picuries and Taos, populous pueblos of this New Mexico. where they sell meat, hides, tallow, suet, and sait in exchange for cotton blankets, pottery, maize, and some small green stones which they use. [Bolton, 1916, p. 226.] The two Frenchmen left at the Mandan villages by La Vérendrye in 1739, reported the existence of a similar trade in words suggesting that it had been active for a period of years: . every year, in the beginning of June, there arrive at the great fort on the bank of the river of the Mandan, several savage tribes which use horses and carry on trade with them; that they bring dressed skins trimmed and orna- mented with plumage and porcupine quills, painted in various colors, also white buffalo skins, and that the Mandan give them in exchange grain and beans, of which they have ample supply. Last spring two hundred lodges of them came; sometimes even more come; they are not all of the same tribe but some of them are only allies. [La Vérendrye, 1927, pp. 366-367.] Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 13 Undoubtedly some of the articles received by the Mandan in this trade were passed along to the Assiniboin. In 1738, La Vérendrye himself had found that the Mandan offered not only grains and tobacco, but also colored buffalo robes, deerskins and buckskins care- fully dressed and ornamented with fur and feathers, painted feathers and furs, worked garters, headbands, and girdles to the Assiniboin in return for guns, powder, balls, axes, knives, kettles, and awls of European manufacture (ibid., pp. 325, 832). Horses do not appear to have been articles of trade at the Mandan villages at that time, but it is clear that the Assiniboin middlemen, operating far in advance of white traders, were offering to the Mandan firearms and ammuni- tion as well as other trade goods obtained from Whites. It is necessary to consider the diffusion of firearms to the Plains Indians as a factor related to and influencing the routes of trade fol- lowed in the northward diffusion of horses. If there was any pos- session as keenly sought by the historic Plains Indians as was the horse, it was the gun. As much as these Indians wanted the rapid mobility afforded by the horse, they sought the deadly firepower pro- vided by the gun. Any tribe possessing either without the other was at a distinct disadvantage in opposition to an enemy owning both. British and French traders approaching the Plains from the north and east supplied guns to Indians. However, Spanish policy strictly prohibited the trading of firearms and ammunition to the natives. This placed those tribes in early contact with the British and French traders in an advantageous trading position. Having obtained fire- arms and ammunition directly from Europeans they were able to act as middlemen in bartering some of these highly desirable weapons with distant tribes that had as yet no direct contacts with white traders. In the middle of the 18th century the village tribes of the Upper Missouri (Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa) were situated in a most admirable position for trading both to the northeast and the south- west. It was at those villages that the northeastward-moving frontier of the horse met the southwestward-moving frontier of the gun. Indians learned to equate guns and horses as standards of value, and a mutually profitable trade ensued by which the armed tribes of the Northeast secured mounts and the mounted tribes of the South and West secured firearms. Undoubtedly the demand for both firearms and horses far exceeded the supply. The need on the part of those indians who received firearms for ammunition, which they could not make themselves, also helped to perpetuate this trade. At the be- ginning of the 19th century (as indicated by the data quoted from Tabeau) firearms still were the most desired articles sought in ex- change for horses by those tribes which had access to considerable 14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 numbers of the latter, although canny horse traders then insisted that ammunition and some other articles be thrown into the scale to seal the bargain. So it was that during the 18th century a trade in Spanish horses for French and British firearms grew up alongside the earlier pat- tern of exchange of products between horticultural and nomadic hunting tribes of the region. The trade in horses, therefore, appears to have been an historic elaboration of a prehistoric trade pattern among the Plains Indians. Another aspect of this trade is worthy of note as a factor determin- ing the direction of flow in the diffusion of horses. All other factors being equal, the nomadic tribes preferred to trade with horticultural peoples with whom they were closely related linguistically, if not bio- logically as well. Thus Crow traded primarily with Hidatsa, Teton with other Dakota groups, and Comanche and Ute with the North- ern Shoshoni. It may well have been the attraction of European fire- arms that caused the Comanche to divert their trade to the unrelated horticultural peoples of the Missouri several decades after they had be- gun supplying horses to the Shoshoni. Recently Denhardt has made a further significant observation : ... that the natives obtained their original horses, and always by far the greatest number, from the Spaniards or neighboring tribes and not from the wild herds. The Indians had mounts by the time the wild herds dotted the plains, and always preferred domesticated animals to the mestenos. Mustangs were hard to catch, and once caught, harder to tame. [Denhardt, 1947, pp. 103- 104.] Certainly the lack of references to the capture of wild horses by the Indians of the northern Plains in the literature prior to 1800, serves to support this observation and to suggest that the wild herds furnished a negligible source of horses for those tribes prior to that time. But what of theft as a factor in the northward spread of horses? Certainly a considerable number of the horses that reached the north- ern tribes prior to 1800 were animals stolen from Spanish, Pueblo, or Apache settlements by intermediary nomads. It is also true that in- tertribal theft of horses among the northern tribes occurred prior to that time. Nevertheless, and some native traditions to the contrary, it is hardly credible that any northern tribes obtained their first horses by stealing the mounts of neighboring tribes who had acquired horses at a somewhat earlier date. I believe peaceful contact was a neces- sary condition of initial horse diffusion, in order that some members of the pedestrian tribe might learn to overcome their initial fear of horses and learn to ride and manage those lively animals. The pre- existing pattern of trade furnished the most important medium of peaceful contacts and of initial diffusion of horses. The fact that such trade supplied inadequate numbers of horses to meet the needs Lwers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 15 of Indians who had gained some knowledge of handling them and a realization of the superiority of their use over foot travel and trans- port of camp equipment, encouraged intertribal theft. Actually there need not have been any prolonged interval between a tribe’s first acquisition of horses and its initiation of horse-raiding operations. Some tribes may have begun raiding for horses within a decade after they acquired their first animals by peaceful means. ACQUISITION OF HORSES BY THE BLACKFOOT With this background let us consider the acquisition of the horse by the Blackfoot tribes. I have omitted these tribes from the previous discussion in order to point out the unique factors involved in Black- foot acquisition in greater detail. Prior to the publication of “David Thompson’s Narrative” in 1916, it was the practice for students to estimate the date of Blackfoot horse acquisition. These estimates ranged from Wissler’s previously men- tioned and impossibly early “1600” to Grinnell’s impossibly late “about the year 1800” (Hodge, 1907, pt. 1, p. 570). Burpee split the dif- ference in his estimate of “probably the earliest years of the eighteenth century” (Hendry, 1907, p. 318). This approximated another esti- mate by Wissler in 1910, of “about two hundred years ago” (Wissler, 19105). )19))). More recent estimates have been based upon interpretations of a most remarkable account of some important events in the history of the Blackfoot during the lifetime of an aged Cree Indian, Saukamaupee (Boy) by name, who had been living with the Piegan for many years before David Thompson, Hudson’s Bay Company trader, spent the winter of 1787-88 in his lodge. Thompson (1916, pp. 3828-334) reckoned the old man’s age at that time at “at least 75 to 80 years.” Using Thompson’s conservative estimate, we may consider that Saukamaupee was born no later than between 1707 and 1712. In dating the first episode of his story the old man pointed to a “lad of about sixteen years” in the camp and said that he had been about that boy’s age when he went with a small group of Cree to aid the Piegan in a battle with the Snakes in which neither of the opposing forces used either guns or horses. On the basis of the above computa- tion this must have been no later than 1723-28. Saukamaupee re- turned to his own people, “grew to be a man, became a skillful and fortunate hunter, and... procured . . . a wife.” Thompson noted that Piegan “young men seldom married before they are full grown, about the age of 22 years or more.” If the Cree, more than half a century earlier, followed that same custom, we may estimate that Saukamaupee was married no later than 1729-34. Saukamaupee ex- plained that during the interval between his assistance to the Piegan 16 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 and his marriage the Snakes had made use of a few horses in battle with the Piegan, “on which they dashed at the Peeagans, and with their stone Pukamoggin knocked them on the head.” After his mar- riage he again went to the aid of the Piegan. Another battle was fought with the Snakes, but this time the enemy used no horses while the Piegan and their Cree and Assiniboin allies were armed with 10 guns. Terrified by the noise and deadly effect of this new secret weapon, the closely formed Snake battle line broke and its members fled in confusion. Saukamaupee said that after that battle: We pitched away in large camps with the women and children on the frontier of the Snake Indian country, hunting bison and red deer which were numerous, and we were anxious to see a horse of which we had heard so much. At last, as the leaves were falling we heard that one was killed by an arrow shot into his belly, but the Snake Indian that rode him, got away; numbers of us went to see him, and we all admired him, he put us in mind of a stag that had lost his horns; and we did not know what name to give him. But as he was a slave to Man, like the dog, which carried our things, he was named the Big Dog. [Thompson, 1916, p. 334.] In spite of the indefiniteness of the dating of the incidents of Sauka- maupee’s recollections, I see no adequate reason to doubt the facts he cited. Fragments of this story have been preserved in the tradi- tions of the Blackfoot tribes to the present time.? However, I do ques- tion the conclusions that have been drawn from this account by historians and ethnologists as to the date of acquisition of horses by the Blackfoot tribes. Although Saukamaupee’s description of his first sight of a dead horse is clear enough, nowhere in his account does he tell of the first acquisition of Zéve horses by the Blackfoot. Yet J. B. Tyrrell, editor of Thompson’s “Narrative,” draws from the dead horse episode the unwarranted conclusion that the Blackfoot obtained their first horses from the Snake Indians in 1730. Lewis (1942, pp. 11, 60) followed * Wissler (1910, p. 17) reported the Blackfoot tradition that before white men domi- nated the region the Shoshoni occupied much of the later Blackfoot country as far north as Two Medicine River. My informants of the 1940's claimed that the area of the present Blackfeet Reservation in Montana was formerly occupied by Shoshoni. Wissler (1912 a, p. 286) recorded the Piegan tradition that they received their first guns from the Cree, who taught them how to use them, and that ‘while some Piegan were out on the warpath they were attacked by a large number of Snake Indians. The Piegan fired on them and as they had never before seen guns they retreated.’ Weasel Tail, who seems to have possessed a strong interest in the historical traditions of his people, told me he under- stood that the Blackfoot obtained their first guns from the Cree; that the Cree joined them in a war party against the Shoshoni and Crow (?) in which the noise of the Black- foot guns frightened the enemy so that they fled southward from their location at that time, which was near present Calgary, Alberta. Weasel Tail volunteered that his grandfather, Talks Around, had told him the Blackfoot called the first horses they saw “big dogs.’’ Later, because horses were about the size of elks, they began to call them ‘elk dogs.’’ The change in name must have taken place before 1790, as Umfreville (1790, p. 202) recorded ‘‘Pin-ne-cho-me-tar,”’ as the name for the horse in the first published Blackfoot vocabulary. ‘This was certainly an attempt to render “ponokomita”’ (elk dog), the name still given the horse by the Blackfoot tribes. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE ALA suit with the statement “the Blackfoot received their first horses from the Shoshone in 1730.” Haines (1938 b, p. 435) interpreted the Sauka- maupee testimony as proof that the Blackfoot acquired their first horses between 1732 and 1737. His error in interpretation may be the more serious because he employed these Blackfoot dates as bases for backdating the prior acquisition of horses by Shoshoni and Flathead. It seems to me that literal acceptance of Thompson’s dating will justify only two proper conclusions from the Saukamaupee story : (1) that ca. 1729-34 the Northern Shoshoni, who were in conflict with the Piegan on the Canadian Plains, possessed some horses; (2) that the Piegan had no horses at that time. If we choose to be more critical of Thompson’s dating, probably the most we can conclude is that the Blackfoot possessed no horses in the first quarter of the 18th century. Wissler (1914, pp. 3-4) attributed to Saint-Pierre (1751) the first historic mention of horses among the Blackfoot. The Saint-Pierre testimony is tantalizingly indefinite. He does mention horses received in trade from Europeans (whom he termed French, but who probably were Spanish) by Indians living on the Plains beyond the French posts on the lower Saskatchewan. He did not identify these Indians by tribe (Saint-Pierre, 1886, p. clxiii.) As Roe (1939, pp. 241-242) has pointed out, it is impossible to identify these horse Indians as Blackfoot on the basis of Saint-Pierre’s confused statement. In the fall of 1754, Anthony Hendry (or Henday) of the Hudson’s Bay Company journeyed westward with Cree and Assiniboin guides to seek to open trade with Indians west of those tribes, known to the Cree as “Archithinue.” On the Saskatchewan Plains in October of that year he visited a camp of 200 lodges of Archithinue, and again in spring met several small bands of these Indians during his return east- ward. Hendry was impressed with the fact that these Indians pos- sessed horses and employed them skillfully in hunting buffalo. Al- though he gave no estimate of the number of horses owned by the Archithinue, he left the definite impression that they were better sup- plied than his Cree and Assiniboin companions who used horses only as pack animals. Hendry did not identify the “Archithinue natives” whom he met by any other name (Hendry, 1907, pp. 307-354). How- ever, Mathew Cocking, sent by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1772 to try again to open trade with the Archithinue was more specific. AI- though he met only one small band of 22 lodges at a buffalo pound west of the Eagle Hills in present Saskatchewan, he definitely identi- fied that band as “Waterfall Indians” (the Gros Ventres), and he stated that the general term “Archithinue” also included the Blood, Piegan, and Blackfoot (the three Blackfoot tribes) as well as the Sarsi. Furthermore, he stated that these tribes were “all Equestrian 287944—55 -3 18 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 Indians” (Cocking, 1908, pp. 110-111). This is the earliest definite statement to the effect that the Blackfoot tribes possessed horses. Who, then, were the Archithinue Indians met by Hendry 18 years earlier? Wissler (1936, p. 5) was reasonably certain that they also were Gros Ventres. I believe we may infer with reason that the Black- foot tribes, allies of the Gros Ventres, also possessed some horses in 1754, although they may not have been as well supplied with them as were the Gros Ventres. On the basis of the information now available, the most definite conclusion that can be drawn in dating Blackfoot horse acquisition, places this event in the interval between Sauka- maupee’s first sight of a dead horse and Hendry’s contact with the Archithinue in 1754, or within the second quarter of the 18th century. So it would appear that horses were acquired by the Blackfoot of the northwestern Plains at about the same time these animals reached the Mandan villages on the Missouri or very shortly thereafter. Con- sequently it was possible for horses to have been diffused from the Blackfoot and Gros Ventres to the Assiniboin and Plains Cree during the latter half of the 18th century. Certainly the nomadic Apache, Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Ute, Comanche, Shoshoni, and Flathead re- ceived horses before they reached the Blackfoot. Probably the Arikara and all of the horticultural Plains Indians south of them possessed horses before the Blackfoot obtained them. It seems most probable that the Crow, Cheyenne, and Teton Dakota obtained their first horses after the Blackfoot began to acquire them. We know so little of the early history of the Arapaho that it is impossible to estimate the period of their acquisition of horses other than to suggest that since their kinsmen the Gros Ventres possessed horses before 1754, it is most probable the Arapaho did also. Since Blackfoot horse acquisition preceded first white contacts with these three tribes, we must rely rather heavily upon an evaluation of traditional data in determining the source of their horses. Wissler (1910, p. 19) heard Blackfoot traditions to the effect that their first horses were received from the Shoshoni and Flathead. One tradition told me stated that a Blackfoot, Shaved Head by name, went west and obtained the first horses known to his people from the Nez Percé, who told him they had taken them out of the water. Another tradition told of Sits-in-the-Night, who lived a generation later, having led a war party southward to about the location of the present Blackfeet Reservation, Mont., where they stole a number of horses from a Shoshoni or Crow camp. When the warriors mounted these horses and the animals began to walk, the riders became frightened and jumped off. They led the horses home. The people surrounded the new animals and gazed at them in wonder. If the horses began to jump about, they became frightened. After a time a woman said, Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 19 “Let’s put a travois on one of these big dogs just like we do on our small dogs.” They made a large travois and attached it to one of the horses. The horse did not jump or kick as it was led around camp. It seemed gentle. Later a woman mounted the horse and rode it with travois attached. According to this tradition the Blackfoot did not employ horses for riding, to hunt buffalo, or to war until after they were adapted to transport use with the travois.* Interesting as this second story may be, I doubt its historicity. As previously stated, I doubt that any Plains Indian tribe learned to ride and care for horses without the advantage of the example and instruction of other Indians who had some knowledge of horses. It is improbable that the Blackfoot obtained their first horses from the Shoshoni, with whom they were at war. It is more probable that they received these animals as gifts from or in trade with the Flat- head, Kutenai, Nez Pereé, or Gros Ventres. Teit has reported Flat- head traditions of early, peaceful trade with the Blackfoot (Teit, 1930, p. 358). However, we can be certain that by the late years of the 18th century, theft, not trade, was the primary medium of horse acquisi- tion exploited by the Blackfoot. Contemporary accounts of the Blackfoot during that period indicate that they were at war with their neighbors to the south and west. David Thompson observed that the Blackfoot tribes raided the Shoshoni, Flathead, and Kutenai for horses in 1787 (Thompson, 1916, p. 367). Umfreville briefly char- acterized the Blackfoot tribes in 1790, as “the most numerous and powerful nation we are acquainted with. War is more familiar to them than to other nations ... In their inroads into the enemies country, they frequently bring off a number of horses, which is their principal inducement in going to war” (Umfreville, 1790, p. 200). Thus, during the 18th century the Blackfoot developed the pattern of acquisition through capture which remained their primary method of obtaining horses from neighboring tribes throughout the first 86 years of the 19th century and until the buffalo were exterminated from their country. 3 The majority of my aged Blackfoot informants when questioned regarding Blackfoot acquisition of the horse either frankly admitted they were not informed on the subject or offered a legendary explanation in reply. These mythological interpretations of a his- toric event which must have taken place little more than 200 years ago are given on pages 291-298. WEALTH IN HORSES Contemporary observers of the Plains Indians in buffalo days noted that these people reckoned their wealth in horses. Some tribes ap- peared to be rich in horses. Others were obviously poor. Within each tribe there were individuals who were relatively wealthy in horses. Others were desperately poor. The individual’s status as an owner of horses conditioned his use of these animals and helped to determine both the nature and degree of his participation in many aspects of the life of the people of his tribe. Before proceeding with detailed consideration of the functions of horses in Blackfoot cul- ture, it is desirable to determine as precisely as possible not only the tribal horse holdings but also the range of individual wealth in horses among the Blackfoot, and to compare Blackfoot wealth in horses with that of other horse-using tribes of the Great Plains and Plateau in order to indicate their relative standing as horse-owning people. BLACKFOOT TRIBAL WEALTH IN HORSES I have found no statistics on the total number of horses owned by the Blackfoot tribes prior to 1830. Three quarters of a century ago, Lt. James Bradley, who obtained much of his information on the Blackfoot from the trader, Alexander Culbertson, and other white men who had known these Indians since the 1830’s, stated that “the Blackfeet had possessed horses as far back as their traditions extended but never in considerable numbers in early times, and even as late as 1833 they were poorly mounted.” He estimated that “about the year 1830” the Piegan owned an average of 10 horses per lodge, while the Blood and North Blackfoot averaged but 5 horses per lodge (Bradley, 1923, pp. 256, 288). In 1856 Blackfoot Agent Hatch estimated that the Piegan and Blood owned at least 10 horses per lodge, but the North Blackfoot had fewer horses owing to frequent raids on their herds by Cree and Assiniboin (U.S. Comm. Ind. Affairs, 1856, p. 627). Four years later, Agent Vaughan made a more detailed estimate of Blackfoot horse ownership. ‘The ratios in the last two columns of table 1 are compiled on the basis of Vaughan’s figures in the first three columns (U. S. Comm. Ind. Affairs, 1860, p. 308). 20 Eiwers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 21 TasuE 1.—Agent Vaughan’s estimate of Blackfoot horse ownership in 1860 | Total Horse- Horse- Tribe Lodges | popula- | Horses lodge person tion ratio ratio IESG CES ook ee eS ee ee eee | 460 3, 700 3, 980 8.6 1.1 Blood Naw Ss Gil) «iF bay ti yy as | 150 1, 200 1, 200 8.0 1.0 INOntneBIACkioo beets see ne seen ee eee eee | 300 2, 400 2, 400 8.0 1.0 The Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1874 (pp. 104, 126) estimated 5,450 Blackfoot in the United States, owning 6,000 horses. This is a ratio of 1.1 horses per person. Certainly these round-number estimates of both human and horse populations are not exact. Nevertheless, they are roughly indicative of Blackfoot wealth in horses at intervals during the last half century of buffalo days. Although made by different individuals they are quite consistent. These estimates suggest that prior to 1875, the Piegan averaged about 8 to 10 horses per lodge, or a fraction over one horse per person. Majority testimony indicates that the North Blackfoot and Blood owned fewer horses than the Piegan in proportion to popu- lation. My elderly informants were in general agreement in stating that in their youth the Piegan possessed more horses than either the North Blackfoot or Blood Indians. After the buffalo were gone and the Blackfoot tribes settled down to a more sedentary life on reservations their horse numbers grew rapidly. In 1885 the Blackfoot in Montana, whose herds had been decreased by a serious epidemic, averaged but 0.55 horses per person. By 1895 the Piegan of Montana averaged 3.8 horses per person, and by the turn of the century the proportion grew to 10.5 (U.S. Comm. Ind. Affairs, 1885, pp. 888-389 ; 1895, pp. 568, 585; 1900, pp. 644, 663). This growth in horse population followed the discontinuance of inter- tribal horse raiding and reflected also the encouragement of horse breeding by the United States Government. It is obvious that no cor- rect judgment of the relative wealth in horses of the Blackfoot during buffalo days can be inferred from their much larger herds of the early Reservation Period. In recent years the number of Indian-owned horses on the Black- feet Reservation in Montana has decreased. ‘The agricultural exten- sion agent, in his report of May 31, 1942, estimated that Indian-owned horses on the reservation then numbered 3,934, of which nearly half (1,822) were not work horses but unbroken range animals. He con- sidered the large number of unbroken horses an economic liability, stating: “Grass consumed by range horses on the Blackfeet Reserva- 22 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 tion should support approximately 6,000 more cattle or 24,000 more sheep than are now grazed. Very few horses have been sold from this jurisdiction during the past three years although some changes in ownership have taken place.” WEALTH IN HORSES OF OTHER PLAINS AND PLATEAU TRIBES I have searched the literature for comparable estimates of the num- ber of horses owned by other Plains and Plateau Indian tribes in buffalo days. These estimates are summarized in table 2.4 In table 3 I have summarized the information on populations and horse numbers appearing in the annual report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1874, the first year for which adequate comparative figures are available. This was a full decade before the buffalo were extermi- nated from the Blackfoot Country and prior to the time the majority of other tribes listed had settled down to a sedentary, Reservation existence. In spite of the fact that the estimates appearing in tables 2 and 3 are rough calculations made by many individuals under varied cir- cumstances, they appear, on the whole, to present remarkably con- sistent figures within each tribal grouping. The listing of as many estimates as could be found for each group enables us to discount some erroneous ones.° Furthermore, the relative wealth in horses indicated in table 2, appears to be confirmed by the data in table 3 for nearly every tribe. These data appear to justify the conclusion that in the last half- century of buffalo days those tribes richest in horses occupied geo- graphically marginal areas. One group of wealthy tribes (the Kiowa, Comanche, Kiowa-Apache, and Osage) lived on the southern Plains, where winters were relatively mild, in close proximity to Mexican, Texan, and later American settlements from which they could re- plenish their horse stock through periodic raiding. The other group of relatively wealthy tribes (Cayuse, Walla Walla, Umatilla, Nez Percé, Yakima, Paloos, Flathead, Pend d’Oreille, Northern Shoshoni and some Ute) lived west of the Rockies where they were relatively immune from the horse raids of the Plains Indians and where winters were milder and forage more plentiful than on the northern Plains. Some of this last group were noted for their attention to and skill m breeding horses. ‘Such statements as “have many horses” frequently occur in early accounts of some of the Plains Indians. However, I judge these statements are not sufficiently definite to be meaningful to this study. 5 Obviously erroneous is Catlin’s claim that the Cheyenne were “richest in horses of any tribe on the Continent,” Maximilian’s statement that the Blackfoot had more horses than Shoshoni, and the 1871 estimate of Osage horse wealth. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 23 The only wealthy Upper Missouri tribe was the Crow, southern neighbors of the Blackfoot, who carried on extensive trade for horses with the wealthier Plateau tribes. On the other hand, the nomadic and horticultural tribes on or near the Missouri eastward of the Black- foot were all relatively poor in horses. The nomadic Assiniboin and Cree were so poor they were compelled to make extensive use of dogs in transporting camp equipment. The horticultural Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara were noted horse traders, but apparently kept few of the horses that passed through their hands for their own use. The meager evidence on the Teton Dakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho sug- gests that those tribes ranked with the Blackfoot as owners of horses. In terms of 19th century wealth in horses those tribes, as well as the Blackfoot, must be considered as middle-class people. They were less well provided with horses than the nomadic southern Plainsmen and the Plateau Indians, but they were better supplied than any of the horticultural tribes (except the Osage) and all of the tribes east and northeast of the Missouri River.® The information in tables 2 and 3 shows no evidence of any tribe of the Plains or Plateau having passed from poverty to wealth in horses during 19th century buffalo days. Conversely no relatively wealthy tribe was reduced to poverty during that period. It is noteworthy that the earliest estimates for the wealthy tribes (even that of 1786 for the Comanche) portrays them as owners of many horses, while the poorer tribes remained so throughout the period covered by the estimates. The assembled data suggest the probability that many if not most tribes approached their maximum numbers of horses at a relatively early date, at least as early as 1825, and possibly, in some instances, before 1800. Throughout the remainder of buffalo days tribal horse-person ratios showed few marked changes. This suggests that the increase in the number of horses owned by tribal members as the results of breeding of their own herds, capture of enemy or wild horses, gift and barter, was offset and approximately balanced by the loss of horses through capture by enemy raiding parties, gift and barter, killing of horses as grave escorts on the death of important men, killings by animal predators, and death of horses from old age, sickness, battle wounds, hunting accidents, disease, and inability to survive severe winters. In the active and dangerous life of the Plains Indians horses were expendible assets. 6The testimony of my elderly Piegan and Blood informants, who had participated in horse-stealing raids in their youth, corroborated the data in the tables regarding the horse wealth of neighboring tribes, with one exception. They claimed the Flathead and Crow had ‘more horses than the Piegan, the Piegan more horses than the Gros Ventres, Blood, or North Blackfoot, the Assiniboin fewer horses, and the Plains Cree still smaller numbers. Table 2 credits the Gros Ventres with a higher ranking than that given them by my informants. 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IPTZSE -ulQ pue ‘edmex) 9 a8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 TABLE 3.—Comparative data on tribal wealth in horses, 1874 | Horse- Tribe Agency Population! Horses person ratio Cayuse, Walla Walla, and Umatilla__.-.----------- Wimatiiges 2s os-= 682 8, 000 THe 7 INezpPercé: 220 4 = ee a ee eee INeziPerce=- 2-5. =2 2, 807 12, 000 4.3 Osage) (Greatiand Little) === ee Osaress2- See 2, 872 12, 000 4,2 Rakinis se aloOSnOLC sesso te ee ee Wakimgessss= ae 3, 500 13, 000 3.7 Wichita, Caddo, Waco, Tawaconi, Kichai, Pena- | Wichita____-.__-_- 1, 897 6, 099 3.2 teka Comanche, and Pawnee. Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, and Delaware-----_---- KMaowars.-=<-s2=22 4,975 14, 090 2.8 U LossPinos= === 2, 763 6, 500 2.3 Crow. es 4, 200 8,000 1.9 White River----_- 1,000 1, 500 1.5 Cheyenne and 4, 024 5, 475 1.4 Arapaho. Flathead, Pend d’Oreille, and Kutenai-__-----_-_-_- Flathead_--------- 1, 829 2, 590 1.4 Wind River Shoshoni___.__------------- Shoshone===-——== == 1, 800 2, 500 1.4 Bannock and Shoshoni_----------- Hortseemhiowsses 600 716 1.2 Colville, Okanagon, ete_------------ Colville__- 3, 120 3, 900 1,2 Piegan, Blood, and Blackfoot_-_------------- t 5, 450 6, 000 ik ti Lower Yanktonai and Lower Brule 3, 000 3, 275 Tal Uc ees ee ee ae eee 575 600 1.0 IN a VahOte ss 28 nee See Se Bees eae ese 11, 068 10, 000 -9 OtorandsMiissourics soo ae ae oes eee eae Seema 453 400 .9 Oglalla and Miniconjou Sioux, North Cheyenne, 12, 103 10, 000 8 and North Arapaho. IB SHTNOC KAAS OSE nee eee ere orisha ess== 1, 500 1, 200 .8 Brille Sioux2 = 2 oe ee ee ee Spotted Tail______ | 7, 000 5, 000 Mt hanktom Sioux 2220s eso fa eo ake ee eee Wanktonerese aos 2, 000 1, 500 all Omahasss ese a ee eae Boke eee Omshae eee 951 700 ne TO Wan SAC andHho xtewan aan. > ce eee ee ee Great Nemaha____ 323 236 ol picarillawApachenelCssesst ee as ee eee ee ANDIg (ieee =e 1, 750 1, 200 aC ewe Kettle, Miniconjou, Sans Arc, and Blackfeet | Cheyenne River -- 4, 982 3, 100 .6 ioux. Upper and Lower Yanktonai, Hunkpapa, and | Grand River_____- 6, 440 3, 000 ait Blackfeet Sioux. ar Sa See et te st rare Sees ote eh ee ee oe Osage sees as 523 280 5 Moache and Jicarilla Apache_.-_.____--_---________ Cimarron a2 750 400 an Assiniboin, and Santee, Sisseton, Yanktonai, | Fort Peck_.-_____- 7, 307 3, 000 .4 Hunkpapa, and Hunepatina Sioux. SAM LCOS OU Xe eee re ee ee ae eae Santeei ==) = see 791 300 4 Assiniboinjand (Gros Ventres--_- == 2-2-2 2--=2-22-_ == Fort Belknap____- 3, 700 1, 100 ac} IPAawnee= sien oe. 222 Se EE en ss ee Soe eee ee de nse iIPawnees22- = =e -* 1, 788 600 .3 IWMescalerorAmachemer re Rees eee a ees es Mescalero Apache 1, 800 500 #33 Sisseton, Wahpeton, and Upper Yanktonai Sioux__| Devil’s Lake______ 1, 677 383 AP} Sisseton and Wahpeton Sioux__________-___________ Sissetoneeees eee 1, 677 383 a4 ‘Arikara, Hidatsa, and Mandan2=22 "2222-2. ee Fort Berthold_____ 2,015 200 ail It required ingenuity and effort on the part of men of these tribes to replace frequent losses once herds had been acquired. In a later section (pp. 188-139) I shall consider the minimum numn- ber of horses needed by the average family of a nomadic Plains Indian tribe in buffalo days. Let us consider here whether there might not have been a maximum number of horses a nomadic tribe could main- tain. The highest average estimate given for any Plains Indian tribe in the tables reveals a ratio of 4 horses per person in the tribal popula- tion. It seems probable that this figure approached the upper limit of the proportion of horses to tribal members that could have been cared for adequately and protected from theft by enemy raiders under the conditions of frequent camp movement and intertribal warfare prevailing among these tribes in buffalo days. HORSE WEALTH OF INDIVIDUAL BLACKFOOT INDIANS In the three Blackfoot tribes horses were individually owned prop- erty. Although most of the great herds of unbroken horses and the Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 29 specially trained war, hunting, and race horses were the property of men, women generally owned the animals they used for riding and transport duty. Women received gifts of horses, inherited them from relatives, or obtained them in barter. These horses belonged to them, and they were free to give them away, trade them, or loan them as they saw fit. Children also owned riding horses or colts which were not disposed of without their consent. As early as 1809, a few individuals owned large herds of horses. Alexander Henry reported that “some of the Blackfeet own 40 or 50 horses. But the Piegans have by far the greatest numbers; I heard of one man who had 300” (Henry and Thompson, 1897, p. 526). How- ever, Maximilian’s reference (1833) to a chief who owned between 4,000 and 5,000 horses appears to have been exaggerated. (See Ewers, 1948.) Indian Agent Hatch told of the visit of a Blood chief, “Chief Bird,” who owned 100 horses, to Fort Benton in the fall of 1856 (Hatch MS.). Bradley described the Blood head chief, “Seen From Afar,” who died in 1870, aged about 60: “He was the greatest chief Major Culbertson ever saw amongst the Blackfeet—having 10 wives and 100 horses” (Bradley, 1900, p. 258). Culbertson’s appraisal of this man may have been influenced by the fact that Seen From Afar (or Far Seeing) was his brother-in-law. Nevertheless, some of my Blood informants remembered this head chief of their tribe as the wealthiest Blood Indian of his period. The trader Charles Larpenteur, wrote of the period 1860: “It is a fine sight to see one of those big men among the Blackfeet, who has two or three lodges, five or six wives, twenty or thirty children, and fifty to a hundred horses; for his trade amounts to upward of $2,000 a year” (Larpenteur, 1898, vol. 2, p. 401). Obviously that trader was describing an important headman or chief. Schultz (1907, p. 152) told of the Piegan in the late 1870’s: “Horses were the tribal wealth, and one who owned a large herd of them held a position only to be compared to that of our multi-millionaires. There were indi- viduals who owned from one hundred to three and four hundred.” My informants agreed that the wealthiest Blackfoot Indian in buffalo days was Many Horses (Heavy Shield, Middle Sitter), prin- cipal chief of the Piegan for a short time before his death in 1866. Although my eldest informants were mere children when Many Horses died, several of them were related to him, and all had heard of him through their parents and other older Indians. Their esti- mates of the number of his horses ranged from “about 500” to “less than 1,000.” I believe the lower figure is the more accurate one. Three Calf claimed Many Horses tried to prevent other Indians from counting his horses. If he saw someone trying to count them he brought out his medicine bag filled with deer hoofs and rattled the 30 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 hoofs, causing his horses to mill around so as to make further enumer- ation impossible. Yet Many Horses is credited with knowing every animal in his herd. He is said to have employed 10 or more boys to care for them. When camp was moved those of his horses that were not loaned to less fortunate individuals to transport their belong- ings were driven in three to five large herds. Bull Shoe (Lone Man) was the wealthiest Piegan after the death of Many Horses. He may have owned nearly 500 horses in late buffalo days. Stingy, a blind Piegan, who died in 1918, aged about 78 years, then owned between 200 and 300 horses. Many-White- Horses (ca. 1834-1905) also owned more than 100 horses at that time. Informants claimed that a man who possessed 40 or 50 horses in buffalo days was considered wealthy by his fellow tribesmen.” It is probable that less than a score of Piegan were entitled to that distinction at any period during buffalo days. Certainly less than 5 percent of Piegan men were wealthy in horses in buffalo days. Probably the proportion of rich men to the total adult male populations was smaller among the Blood and North Black- foot. The majority of the Blackfoot had a difficult time meeting the needs of their nomadic existence with a limited number of horses. A fairly large proportion of Blackfoot families, possibly as many as 25 percent, owned less than a half dozen horses in buffalo days. The traditional belief that wealth should be reckoned in horses was difficult for these Indians to forget even after horses became so plenti- ful in the Northwest that they could be purchased for from $2 to $5 a head (Denny, 1939, pp. 259-260). Frank Sherburne recalled with amusement that some 50 years ago, Owl Child, a Piegan who owned about 500 head of fine cattle and a great many horses, liked to brag about the size of his horse herd. His cattle had many times the monetary value of his horses, but he never mentioned them in his boasting. During the period of my residence on the Blackfeet Reser- vation in Montana (1941-44) there were still several older fullbloods who owned sizable horse herds. Although most of these animals were unbroken and unused, their owners had no desire to sell them. Pos- session of horses made those Indians feel both wealthy and important. 7 Piegan remembered as wealthy horse owners in buffalo days were Water-Bull-Mountain- Chief, Big Nose (also known as Three Suns, who died in 1896, a prominent chief), Crow Feathers, Big Plume (born ea. 1826), Wolf Calf (noted leader of the horse medicine cult, born before 1800), Wolf-Comes-Over-the-Hill, Many Strikes, Wolf Tail (born ca. 1853), Middle Calf, Owl Child (born ca. 1855), Horn, Tearing Lodge (born ca. 1834), and Curlew Woman (born ca. 1823). The last named was a woman. 8It is important to qualify these statements with the phrase “in buffalo days,’’ because horses became much more plentiful among the Blackfoot tribes after they settled down on reservations following the extermination of the buffalo. Not only did Stingy, Bull Shoe, Many-White-Horses, Owl Child, and other former owners of many horses greatly increase the sizes of their herds, but a number of other Indians, who had previously owned smaller herds, became rich in horses. By 1900 there were several Piegan owners of 500 to 1,000 or more horses on the Montana Reservation. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 3l HORSE WEALTH OF INDIVIDUALS IN OTHER TRIBES Among other horse-using tribes of the Plains and Plateau, indi- vidual ownership of horses also seems to have been the rule. Definite statements to that effect have been made regarding the Crow (Denig, 1958, p. 34) and Omaha (Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, p. 363). In table 4 I have summarized comparative data on individual horse ownership among other Plains and Plateau tribes gleaned from the literature. Except for Henry’s claim that many Hidatsa owned 20 to 30 horses, the data in table 4 correlates closely with those in tables 2and8. Inthe poorer tribes individual wealth in horses was reckoned in terms of relatively few horses, while among the wealthy tribes some owners possessed horses in hundreds. Compared with the Teton Dakota, another middle-class tribe, the Blackfoot exhibited greater extremes in horse ownership. These data show that unequal distribution of horses among tribal members was the rule in the Great Plains and Plateau in buffalo days. The conception of wealth in horses differed among the tribes. While a Plains Cree owner of five horses would have been considered wealthy by his fellow tribesmen, a Crow, Nez Percé, or Comanche owner of five times that number of animals would merit no such distinction among his people. Yet even the wealthy tribes, such as the Kiowa, had members who owned very few or no horses. There must have been a greater proportion of wealthy owners among the Plateau and southern Plains tribes than among the Blackfoot. On the other hand, there were Piegan individuals who possessed more horses than the entire Hidatsa or Mandan tribes. TaBLe 4.—Data on individual horse ownership in other Plains and Plateau tribes Tribe Date Statement References Assiniboin___-___._- 1851 In a large Assiniboin camp ‘‘at least one third of | Denig, 1930, p. 456. the men have no horses they can catch.’’ Cheyenne____-___-_- 1806 « _.. some families had twenty or thirty horses.’’ | Henry in Henry and Thompson, 1897, vol. 1, p. 377. Comanche_-_---..-- 1819 ‘« |. , industrious and enterprising individuals | Burnet, 1851, p. 232. will sometimes own from one to three hundred head of horses and mules.” 1852 Most successful Comanche horse thieves owned | Marcy, 1937, p. 158. 50 to 200 horses. Blainsi@reoeeso-2- = 1840-60 | ‘ ee it was only an occasional Cree who had a Mandelbaim, 1940, orse.’” p. 195. Ca. 1880 | It was rare for a Cree to own more than a half dozen | Schultz, 1907, p. 385. orses. Ca. 1880 | ‘“Most of the Cree and Assiniboin who came to | Informant, Richard visit the Piegan ca. 1880 owned no horses.”’ 2c rela (Pie- gan). Crow ace eee ae 1805 “He is reckoned a poor man who has not 10 horses | Larocque, 1910, p. 64. in the spring before the trade at the Missouri takes place and many have 30 or 40, everybody rides, men, women & children.”’ 1856 “Tt is not uncommon for a single family to be the | Denig, 1953, p. 25. owners of an hundred animals. Most middle aged men have from thirty to sixty, and an indi- vidual is said to be poor when he does not possess at least twenty.” o2 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 TasBLE 4.—Data on individual horse ownership in other Plains and Plateau tribes—Continued Tribe Flathead and Pend d’ Oreille. Tab to tice ies Sie ee Ke OW Peeeeoee =< eaeee Wiantaneeeesenen= Teton Dakota_-_.__- Yankton Dakota ___ 1803 1833 Ca. 1875 Ca. 1875 Statement Many warriors and hunters of those tribes who camped with Capt. Bonneville owned ‘30 to 40 horses each.”’ Many Hidatsa owned from 20 to 30 horses_-______- A few rich Kiowa counted their horses in hundreds; well-to-do owners had 20 to 50 horses; many Kiowa had 6 to 10 horses; ‘‘not a few’’ owned no horses at all. Big White Man, the chief with whom Thompson lodged, owned but 3 horses. Sih-Chida, son of a prominent chief, ‘did not even possess a horse,’’ although some Mandan owned several horses at that time. Some Nez Percé ‘‘have as many as 500 or 600” horses. Some Nez Pereé and Cayuse families possessed “1,500 horses.’’ “Those affluent chiefs and warriors who are owners of many horses, are enabled to mount their families on horseback, but the greater portion of the young men and squaws are necessarily pedestrians.”’ Some Grand Pawnee individuals possessed ‘‘20 to 60 horses.”’ (Capt. Bell.) The ‘‘poorest families had two or three horses, many braves and chiefs had eight to twelve, one chief had 30.” About 5 men among Skidi owned 9 to 10 horses; a larger group 4 to 6; 1 to 2 fairly common; half the people no horses at all. (Weltfish data.) Black Bull, principal Brule chief, lost all his herd when Ponca raiders stole 7 horses from him. ‘“‘Many possess from 30 to 40 horses and are then reckoned to be rich.” Oglala—‘‘In my youth any man who owned 30 horses was considered well-to-do.”’ Oglala—‘“‘I can recall no member of my tribe who owned more than 100 horses in buffalo days.’’ Those who hung around the Agency “rarely pos- sessed more than two horses.’’ (Inference that other Yankton had larger herds.) References Irving, 1851, p. 117. Henry in Henry and Thompson, 1897, vol. 1, p. 353. Mishkin, 1940, p. 19. Thompson, 1916, p. 230. Maximilian, 1906, vol. 23, p. 272; vol. 24, p. 16. De Smet, 1905, vol. 3, p. 991. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 480. James, 1823, vol. 1, p. 205. Bell in Morse, 1822, Pp. 237. Murray, 1839, p. 353. Quoted in Mishkin, 1940, p. 14. Tabeau, 1939, p. 110. Maximilian, 1906, vol. 22, p. 327. Eagle Bird, inform- ant. Maggie-No-Fat, in- formant. Maximilian, 1906, vol, 22, p. 306. CARE OF HORSES The horses owned by the Blackfoot Indians in buffalo days were of smaller size and different type from those commonly seen on the several Blackfoot Reservations today. If, as Vernon (1941, p. 512) avers, any horse under 14.2 hands high at the withers is a pony, Black- foot horses were properly ponies. Today the Indian pony is nearing extinction along with the traits of culture typical of the Blackfoot in buffalo days. THE INDIAN PONY No scientific study of the Indian pony based upon observation of the living animal or of skeletal materials has been made by a com- petent zoologist. Angel Cabrera’s chapter on the Indian pony in his work “Caballos de America” (1945), is based primarily on earlier observations of that animal by 19th century traders, travelers, and Army personnel stationed in the Indian Country. These are still our best sources of information on this subject. (See Clark, 1885, p. 396; Remington, 1889, pp. 339-840; Wyman, 1945, p. 287.) The Indian pony was close to being a type. Anthony Hendry, first to describe the horses of the Indians of the northwestern Plains in 1754, called them “fine tractible animals, about 14 hands high; lively and clean made” (Hendry, 1907, p. 338). Mathew Cocking, 18 years later, termed them “lively and clean made, generally about 14 hands high and of different colors” (Cocking, 1908, p. 106). From descrip- tions of contemporary observers, corroborated by the testimony of elderly informants, we gain a composite picture of the type. The adult male Indian pony averaged a little under 14 hands in height, weighed about 700 pounds, possessed a large head in proportion to its body, good eyes, “neck and head joined like the two parts of a hammer,” large, round barrel, relatively heavy shoulders and hips; small, fine, strong limbs and small feet. Indian ponies exhibited a wide range of solid and mixed colors. (See photograph of Indian pony in frontispiece. ) Robert Denhardt (1947, pp. 20-22) has traced the ancestry of the Indian pony to Barb horses introduced into Spain in the invasion of the Moors from North Africa in the 8th century. In Spain these horses were crossed with native stock. The first horses brought to America were animals collected in the southern Spanish provinces of Cordoba and Andalusia which retained the primary characteristics of the Barb horse. Introduced into the New World by Columbus in 287944554 33 34 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 1493, and first carried to the mainland by Cortez’s expedition to Mex- ico in 1519, they spread northward in succeeding centuries to furnish the basic stock of the herds of the Indians of the Southwest, the Great Plains, and the northwestern Plateau. Capt. W. P. Clark, as a cavalry officer stationed at various posts on the western frontier, had an ample opportunity to observe Indian horses. He was of the opinion that through hard usage, close inbreed- ing, and change in climate the Indian pony had become somewhat reduced in size from that of its Barb ancestors of North Africa (Clark, 1885, p. 306). The Indian pony was no beautiful animal, but it was a tough, sturdy, long-winded beast that possessed great powers of endurance. My older informants stressed these qualities of Blackfoot horses in buffalo days. They were sure those small horses were fleeter of foot than the large “white man’s horses” entered in the races in Browning in recent years. Frank Sherburne’s statement that the fastest horse he had owned was an Indian cayuse that had been successful in com- petition with larger horses on the local race tracks supports the Indian contention. The horses of the Blackfoot were of the same type as those owned by other tribes of the Great Plains and the majority of the Plateau tribes. These horses were sometimes termed “cayuses” or “squaw horses” by white residents of the Indian Country. Colonel de Tro- briand, in 1867, was impressed by the superiority of the Indian pony over the horses used by the United States Army on the Plains. “The Indian pony without stopping can cover a distance of from sixty to eighty miles between sunrise and sunset, while most of our horses are tired out at the end of thirty or forty miles.” He found that “the movement of Indian horsemen is lighter, swifter and longer range than that of our cavalry, which means that they always get away from us” (De Trobriand, 1951, p. 64). The Nez Percé Appaloosa, is a larger, heavier, characteristically spotted-rump animal (Denhardt, 1947, pp. 191-193). Elderly Black- foot informants said their people obtained a very few Appaloosa horses before the end of the Nez Percé war of 1877. FATE OF THE INDIAN PONY After the Blackfoot settled on reservations, Indian Service authori- ties recognized that their small Indian ponies would be of limited use as farm animals. <As early as 1884, the Blackfoot agent in Montana reported, “Strong teams should be provided to break up the ground, for the Indian ponies are unable to do it” (U. S. Comm. Ind. Affairs, 1884, p. 152). After the land cession of 1888, the Blackfoot of Montana Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 35 requested the Government to use part of the money they were to receive for this land to purchase horses for Indian use. According to Short Face, “the Blackfoot delegation to Washington was asked whether they wished heavy draught horses, medium-sized horses, or light thoroughbreds. Running Crane, who replied for the Indians, said they wanted heavy horses. That is what they got.” A few large mares and a number of stallions were distributed before 1890, pri- marily to Indian owners of sizable herds, to breed with their Indian ponies. In 1892 the agent reported issuance of 60 more high-bred stallions, stating, “The stallions with their native mares, will soon give them a good grade of horses, instead of the small ponies they have formerly raised” (ibid., 1892, p. 172). Many of the introduced horses were Morgans. There were some Percherons and other large, heavy breeds. Asa result of interbreeding, the disposal of Indian ponies, and continued replacement by larger animals, the little Indian pony has now completely disappeared from the Blackfeet Reservation in Mon- tana. It was the opinion of both Indian Service Agricultural Exten- sion Agents and white stock raisers on the reservation with whom I dis- cussed this problem in the early 1940’s, that no Indian ponies remained on the reservation. Some older Indians were reluctant to acknowledge the fact. A similar replacement of Indian ponies by heavier breeds took place on the Blackfoot Reserves in Alberta. The Klondike Gold Rush of 1896 offered those Indians a good opportunity to sell many of their small horses at from 10 to 20 dollars a head, and to replace them with larger animals (MacInnes, 1930, p. 172). Blood informants stated the Canadian Government also furnished larger stallions to breed with the Indian ponies. Within the present century the usual fate of the Indian pony on the Blood Reserve has been sale to canneries in the United States, there to be made into dog meat. Nevertheless as recently as 1947, a few Indian ponies were said to be living on the Blood Reserve. Whether the Indian pony has survived on any of the reservations in the United States is doubtful. Enoch Smoky, a Kiowa, said there were none left among the Kiowa and their neighbors of southwestern Oklahoma. MEANS OF IDENTIFICATION About 1790, horses with Spanish brands were seen among the In- dians of the northwestern Plains (Mackenzie, 1927, p. 78). In spite of their early familiarity with branded horses the northern Plains tribes did not adopt this method of identifying these animals. Wissier (1910, p. 97) wrote of the Blackfoot, “No system of branding was used, but each person knew the individualities of his horses so that he could recognize them.” This was no mean accomplishment in a Sun Dance 36 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 encampment around which thousands of horses grazed. Yet in- formants said quarrels between owners due to inability to distinguish their respective horses were very rare. The Blackfoot knew their horses by color, conformation, physical and action peculiarities. The wealthy Many Horses was said to have known every animal in his herd so well that he could describe a miss- ing animal in detail to the young man he sent to search for it. Stingy, the wealthy blind man, was credited with the ability to identify many of his horses by the sound of their hoofbeats, and to know all of them by feel. Brings-Down-the-Sun, chief of the North Piegan, claimed his father could tell a horse’s age by its whinny (McClintock, 1910, p. 422). These feats of recognition were exceptional. However, as a people who spent their lives in the company of horses, the Blackfoot were keenly aware of the individual peculiarities of these valuable possessions. Owners of large herds named only those animals that were broken and in daily use in addition to a few good mares and stallions in their range herds maintained for breeding purposes. The name of each animal usually was selected to describe the horse’s appearance, more rarely its peculiarities of action. As several informants recalled, “we named them by the looks of them.” Color names were most common. Common color names for horses recalled by the old people were: White Black Buckskin Sorrel Gray Black Pinto Bay Red Pinto Mouse-colored Blue Dark Bay Brown Iron gray 3lue Roan Roan Some Indians named their dun horses “Dusty.” One old lady called her dark, reddish-brown horse “Burnt Bay.” Localized color markings also suggested such names as “Bald Face,” “Black Legs” and “Two-White-Legs.” Peculiarities of size and shape gave rise to “No Mane,” “Big Pinto,” “Little-Gray-Horse,” “Crow Foot,” “Flop Ears,” and “Split Ears.” Other factors less commonly suggested names, such as “Gray-Horse-Crazy,” “Sits Down,” and “Orphan.” It is not dif- ficult to see that by employing a combination of descriptive terms, as was actually done (for example, “Black-Bald-Face” and “Bay- With-Star-on-Forehead”), it was possible to coin a great variety of names for horses. Men who owned race horses commonly called them either “Racer” or “Gambler.” When many Piegan were employed on the Blackfeet Reservation irrigation project in the early years of this century, they began to give their horses “white man names.” Today the old color names are rarely heard on the Montana reservation. Even older fullbloods, who Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 37. speak little English, apply English names to their horses. However, Percy Creighton said that on the Blood Reserve the old, picturesque, color names were still in vogue (1947), except for horses purchased from Whites that had been previously named.° DAILY CARE OF HORSES Among the Blackfoot daily care of family horse herds was gen- erally entrusted to boys 8 to 12 or more years of age, except during the most inclement winter months when men of the household assumed responsibility for the task. If there were several boys in a family the father usually delegated care of the horses to the most dependable and ambitious lad. Sometimes a younger brother cared for the horses of a young married man. Otherwise the latter looked after his own horses. Owners of large herds, or owners of small herds who were sonless, commonly adopted orphan boys to care for their horses. If a young, single man went on a raiding party to steal horses from the enemy, he chose a poor but reliable and ambitious boy to look after his horses while he was away from camp, rewarding the lad with a colt for his labors. If the young warrior had elderly parents who could not obtain food for themselves, he selected a youth in his late teens to care for his horses, rustle food for his parents in the hunt, and keep them well supplied with firewood. Some poor boys got their starts as horse owners through this service. Duties of the young herder required that he be up before daybreak each morning to go after the horses where they had been pastured the previous night and drive them to a nearby lake or stream for water. Then he drove them to good pasturage near camp and returned to his lodge for breakfast. The owner generally returned to the herd with him after the morning meal, selected the horse or horses he wished to use during the day, perhaps petted his horses a while, and gave instruc- tions to the boy regarding pasturage for the day. At noon the lad drove the horses to water again. ‘Toward evening he watered the horses a third time and drove them to their night pasturage, where ® The published lists of names for horses employed by the Flathead (Turney-High, 1937, p. 110); Kutenai (Turney-High, 1941, p. 71); Cree (Mandelbaum, 1940, p. 197), and Hidatsa (Wilson, 1924, pp. 194-195), show a similar preference for color names among those tribes. Eagle Bird, Oglala, and Smoky, Kiowa, told me those tribes generally named horses after their appearances. Denhart (1947, p. 232) has pointed out that it was a favorite Spanish custom to name a horse according to the impression received on first seeing the animal. Whether the Plains Indian system of descriptive horse naming was adopted from the Spanish cannot be determied from the facts available. Certainly the coincidence is most intriguing. No Plains Indian tribe is known to have practiced branding in buffalo days. The chron- icler of the Long expedition noted that the Pawnee (met in 1819), had no method of affixing distinctive marks to their horses. The many branded horses seen among the Pawnee were either stolen or traded from the Spanish (James, 1823, vol. 1, p. 439). 38 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 he hobbled the lead mare to prevent the herd’s straying. When camp was not on the move the Blackfoot generally watered their horses thrice daily.”° At night the herd might be pastured in a coulee or valley at some distance from camp, where the animals would be concealed from pos- sible enemy raiders. Normally, and unless clear signs of enemy raiders in the vicinity had been discovered, there was no night herding. After the boy guided his herd to night pasture he returned to camp. If it was thought an enemy party might be near, the horses were not driven to pasture until after dark. Wise herders watched their herds closely that night. Families that neglected this precaution, after they had been forewarned, sometimes awoke the next morning to find their horses gone, while those of the cautious owners remained. (A more detailed account of measures for the defense of horses appears on pp. 207-210.) It was not the responsibility of the band or village chief to supervise daily care of the horses of his people. He selected a camp site afford- ing good pasturage nearby, but each family looked after its own herd. During the daytime the horses of different owners frequently were pastured close together, but at night, in order to prevent the enemy from running off all the loose horses of the village, the individual herds were scattered widely.™ HOBBLING When a Blackfoot herd was driven to a sheltered place at night hobbles were attached to the forelegs of the lead mare to prevent the herd from wandering to high ground where they might be seen easily by prowling enemies. When moving camp in small groups, or when a few hunters spent the night away from camp on a winter buffalo hunt, horses were night hobbled. There was no winter hobbling by the hind legs, which was a Cree practice (Mandelbaum, 1940, p. 196). The lead mare was generally an older animal of gentle disposition, and was hobbled with feet wide apart allowing freedom of movement in walk- 7° Teton Dakota (Dorsey, 1891, p. 335), and Kiowa (informants) herders generally watered their horses three times each day. This was also Hidatsa practice throughout most of the year. In winter they watered their horses only twice, about noon and at sun- down (Wilson, 1924, p. 178). Kroeber (1902-7, p. 148) noted that the Gros Ventres band called “Those-who-water-their-horses-once-a-day are said to have followed this practice so that their horses would gain flesh more quickly.” 4 Most other Plains tribes also entrusted the daily care of horses to boys. This was true of the Mandan and Hidatsa, relatively poor in horses. (Maximilian, 1906, vcl. 24, p. 24; Wilson, 1924, pp. 155-172.) It was also true of the horticultural Osage (Tixier, 1940, p. 160), as well as the nomadic Cheyenne (Grinnell, 1928, vol. 1, pp. 64 ff., 117), Kiowa (informants’ testimony), and Teton Dakota (Dorsey, 1891, p. 885) ; and the northwestern marginal Wind River Shoshoni (Shimkin, 1947 b, p. 294), and Flathead (Turney-High, 1937, p. 109). However, Jenness (1938, p. 28) wrote of “young warriors” caring for Sarsi horses, and Mandelbaum (1940, p. 196) reported the care of Plains Cree horses was entirely the work of men. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 39 ing. A more lively animal was close-hobbled so that it had to jump to move around. The hobble generally was simply constructed of a length of soft-tanned buffalo skin or rawhide. Weasel Tail demon- strated a clever hobble that would neither tighten nor slip (fig.2). As Fieurre 2.—A simple rawhide hobble, Blackfoot. a rule hobbles were fastened loose enough to prevent chafing of the horse’s legs but tight enough to prevent their slipping over the feet. In lieu of a second hobble, hunting parties sometimes tied a second liorse to the leg of a hobbled animal.*” PICKETING Wissler (1910, p. 97) wrote of the Blackfoot, “At night the best horses were brought into camp and picketed near the tipis of their owners.” This was a precautionary measure to prevent the theit 2In 1754, Hendry (1907, p. 338) noted that the horses of the “Archithinue’’ of the Saskatchewan Plains were “turned out to grass, their legs being fettered.’’ The Osage, on their summer hunt in 1840, unloaded their horses each night and set them free “after their forelegs had been fastened with enferges or horse locks” (Tixier, 1940, p. 159). Flathead (Turney-High, 1937, p. 109) and Plains Cree (Mandelbaum, 1940, p. 196) use of hide hobbles have been reported. Wilson (1924, pp. 155, 189-190) gives a detailed description and illustration of Hidatsa rawhide hobbles. W. B. Parker (1856, p. 125) noted that the Delaware Indian guides and interpreters, attached to Capt. Marcy’s expedition to western Texas in 1854, hobbled their horses at night “‘by fastening a short loop of rawhide around both forelegs, below the knees, so that the horse could only move by a succession of jumps.” He also stated that some years earlier the Army tried the experiment of ‘“‘hobbling dragoon horses—when on the Plains-—with iron hobbles, but had to abandon it, as the Indians invariably killed the horse when they could not get him off.’ 40 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 of the owners’ best buffalo and war horses, and race horses (if they owned any). Women aided the men in picketing the horses. Men ex- pected their wives to keep alert during the night for the slightest sound that might indicate a clever enemy had slipped into camp and was trying to cut loose these valuable mounts. The preferred picket pin was a forked length of serviceberry about 2 inches in diameter and 22 inches long. One end was driven about a foot into the ground. The line was tied below the fork at the upper end to prevent its slipping off should the horse become restive or frightened. A mild-mannered horse was picketed with a rawhide line tied to one foreleg. A short line with neck fastening was used for picketing a lively animal (fig. 3) 13 Figure 3.—Methods of picketing: a, Picketing a gentle horse; b, picketing a lively horse. PASTURAGE Before the introduction of horses the two most important requisites for campsites were adequate supplies of firewood and drinking water. The Blackfoot had knowledge of the locations of all running streams, clear lakes, and springs in and near their hunting grounds that afforded clean drinking water for themselves and their dogs. After the acquisi- tion of horses another factor became a prime consideration in selec- tion of campsites—adequate grass for horse feed. This did not mean thick grass. The Blackfoot were aware that horses preferred to graze #2In his description of the “Archithinue’ camp in 1754, Hendry (1907, p. 338) wrote, “their horses ... when wanted are fastened to a line of Buffalo skin that stretches along & is fastened to stakes in the ground.’ Lewis and Clark noted that each Lemhi Shoshoni warrior “has one or two (horses) tied to a stake near his hut both night and day, so as to be always prepared for action’ (Coues, 1893, vol. 2, p. 558). Picketing of their best horses near their lodges at night has also been reported for the Crow (Denig, 1930, p. 547), Flathead, Pend d’Orielle, and Nez Percé (Irving, 1851, p. 119; Turney-High, 1937, pp. 108-109), Plains Cree (Mandelbaum, 1240, p. 196), Arapaho (Linderman, 1930, p. 127), and Osage (Tixier, 1940, p. 162). Arapaho, Cree, and Flathead owners sometimes took the extra precaution of sleeping with the tether of their favorite horses tied to one of their wrists. Both Blackfoot and Kutenai denied that practice. The Mandan and Hidatsa kept their best horses inside their earth lodges at night to protect them from theft by enemy raiders (Wilson, 1924, pp. 159-161). Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 41 on thinly covered side hills rather than on the luxuriant stands of the valleys. ‘They were concerned, however, that there be sufficient grass in the neighborhood of campsites to support their herds. They also recognized that horses preferred some grasses to others. Present-day agricultural extension agents regard the Blackfoot Reservation in Montana as one of the finest livestock ranges in the United States. However, the old-time Blackfoot preferred the area eastward of the present reservation for fall and winter pasturage. The vicinity of the Sweetgrass Hills, described by Stanley (1855, p. 447) as the favorite fall pasturage for buffalo a century ago, was a section in which the grass remained green until late fall and in which clear lakes were plentiful. In the late decades of buffalo days a favorite wintering locality of the Piegan was the valley of the Marias River from the present Shelby—Great Falls Railway crossing eastward. Elderly informants named several range plants common along the Marias which their people regarded as excellent fall and winter forage of horses. These are: “jointed water grass” (Hquisetum arvense), the common horsetail; “weasel grass” (Artemisia cana), the silver sagebrush; “blue stick grass” (probably Chrysothannus nauseosus) , the rabbit brush; “real grass” (buffalograss, Buchloe dactyloides) ; and “jingle grass” (unidentified) .** On the Marias River also was found a white clay streaked with yellow that “tasted like nuts.” Horses were fond of it. Some people ateitalso. In fall and winter the earth around alkali sinks was peeled off, broken up, and fed to animals. Indians believed it had the same beneficial effect as salt on livestock. Throughout the greater part of the year Blackfoot horses kept in condition on no other feed than the wild range grasses. Captain Marcy (1859, pp. 111-112) observed that “for prairie service, horses which have been raised exclusively upon grass, and never have been fed on grain, or ‘range horses,’ as they are called in the West, are decidedly the best, and will perform more hard labor than those that have been stabled and groomed.” The Blackfoot, in buffalo days, made no efforts to put up wild hay for winter feed. Their efforts to provide grass for their horses were limited largely to the expedient of selecting camping places where the best grasses could be found. When the grass in the vicinity of a winter camp was consumed, it was necessary to move camp. Only the severest weather conditions which made the movements of horses impossible would prevent this change of location. Some bands, whose members owned large horse 1447 am indebted to Claude Schaeffer, curator, Museum of the Plains Indian, for the col- lection of specimens of some of these plants, and to Ellsworth P. Killip, formerly of the Department of Botany, U. S. National Museum, for the identification of these specimens. 42 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 herds, had to move camp several times in the course of each winter for no other reason than to secure adequate pasturage. This did not necessarily entail movement of any great distance. A few miles, a short day’s journey, might bring them to good pasturage.”® WINTER CARE The Blackfoot regarded certain actions of wild birds and animals as winter signs. If owls screamed at night, if geese flew high, if crows shifted their wings sideways in flight, or if the pelage of otter, mink, and beaver appeared heavier than usual, they knew a hard winter was approaching, and were careful to establish winter camps in the vicin- ity of extensive growths of cottonwood to gain protection from the cold and high winds and supplemental food for their horses. In winter cautious owners no longer delegated care of their horses to adolescent boys. They cared for the animals themselves. In the coldest weather men donned buffalohide caps with ear flaps, buffalo robes or Hudson’s Bay blanket coats, hair-lined mittens, and moc- casins when leaving their lodges to tend the horses. Although they did not watch their horses all day in winter, owners watered the ani- mals thrice daily as they did in summer. A winter camp near a spring that did not freeze was a choice location. If a spring was not handy, men chopped waterholes in the river ice near their lodges. Each man who used the waterhole broke open any new-formed ice so the hole would not freeze solid. RUSTLING When there was snow on the ground the Blackfoot did not hobble their horses. Their front feet were left free to paw away the snow to the dry grass below. At this practice, commonly known as “rust- ling,” Indian ponies were remarkably adept. Unless the snow was too deep to prevent them from raising their legs (1. e. over ca. 2 feet) they generally could rustle enough food in this way to gain a meager subsistence. Denny (1939, p. 53), recalled that the Canadian North- west Mounted Police, during their first winter in Alberta, employed Indian ponies which “were hardy, serviceable animals, and would find their own food under the snow by pawing in the coldest weather.” Later experience of that efficient force proved to them that eastern, 4 My Kiowa informants also recalled that their winter camps had to be moved when the neighboring grass supply became inadequate for their horses. Dunbar (1880, p. 332) re- ported Pawnee winter camp movements due to exhaustion of grass for horses. Undoubtedly, this factor conditioned winter movements of all the nomadic Plains Indians and those horticultural tribes who spent the winter season on prolonged hunting excursions away from their more permanent villages. teThe Cree practice of placing alkali earth around waterholes to keep horses from straying was not mentioned by Blackfoot informants (Mandelbaum, 1940, p. 196). Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 43 stable-bred, grain-fed horses could not endure the rigors of Alberta winters as well as could western-bred, range horses (ibid., pp. 182- 133) 27 SUPPLEMENTAL WINTER HORSE FOOD Blackfoot belief that “a horse will starve to death if it doesn’t get food for four days” sharpened their watch over their horses in pe- riods of intense cold and heavy snows. If the snow was too deep to permit rustling, the people tried to clear away an area from which they could collect grass for the horses. However, the most common supplemental feed was the inner bark of the round-leafed cotton- wood. This tree was common in the valley of the Marias as well as in other river valleys in the Blackfoot Country at some distance east of the Rockies. Some owners made a practice of feeding this bark to their best mounts (bufialo runners and race horses) in winter. Others employed cottonwood bark as an emergency ration to be relied on only when grass was insufficient or unobtainable by rustling horses. Some horses “chewed like beavers” on cottonwood branches without waiting for their owners to cut them. Generally women cut cotton- wood trees and limbs into sections 2 or 3 feet long, or peeled off irregu- lar strips of the bark and gave them to the horses. For use as horse feed quantities of this bark were carried by pack horses accompany- ing small winter hunting parties. Older informants spoke of cot- tonwood bark as “better than oats.” Children, too, liked to chew the bark for its sweet taste. Logs of cottonwood, from which the bark had been stripped during the winter, made a soft, easily chopped fire- wood for camp use the following fall. Short Face claimed the Piegan discovered the value of cottonwood bark as winter horse feed by accident. He cited a tradition to the effect that “one winter a bridled horse was lost. Its owner, believing it had found nothing to eat, feared the horse was dead. He found it several days later with its reins caught around the trunk of a cottonwood. The horse had thrived by eating the bark of that tree. After the owner observed this he decided to feed cottonwood bark to all his horses. Soon all the Piegan who owned horses began to cut cotton- wood and offer the bark to their horses.” We know, however, that the practice of feeding this bark to horses in winter was both old and widespread among the Plains Indians." 17 The earliest reference to Plains Indian horses rustling for their winter food by paw- ing away the snow occurs in Henry’s observations among the Assiniboin in February, 1776 (Henry, 1809, p. 289). 18 Hendry (1907, p. 345) noted that the horses of his Cree and Assiniboin companions were “feeding on willow tops” in the winter of 1755. Lewis and Clark observed that the Mandan fed cottonwood bark to their horses in the winter of 1804-5 (Coues, 1893, vol. 1, pp. 232-233). This practice was common among the Arikara (Bradbury, 1817, p. 165) and Pawnee (Dunbar, 1880, p. 332). Capt. W. P. Clark wrote of the winter feeding of cottonwood bark to horses as a common practice among the tribes of the northern Plains (Clark, 1885, p. 307). In 1852, Capt. Marey observed that the old winter camp sites of the Kiowa and Comanche on the Red River and its tributaries were thickly strewn with eottonwoods the bark of which had been fed to their horses (Marcy, 1937, pp. 60-61, 141-142, 168). 44 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 The St. Louis trader, William H. Ashley, in 1826, praised cotton- wood bark as a winter horse feed. “When the round leaf or sweet bark cottonwood can be had abundantly, horses may be wintered with but little inconvenience. They are fond of this bark, and, judging by the effect produced from feeding it to my horses last winter, I suppose it almost, if not quite as nutritious as timothy hay (Dale, 1918, pp. 138-139). The practice of the horticultural tribes of feeding maize to their horses, first observed among the Mandan by David Thompson (1916, p. 230) in the winter of 1797-98, was unknown to the nomadic Black- foot who had no access to maize. NIGHT CARE The Blackfoot were aware that the horticultural tribes farther down the Missouri provided stables for their horses on cold nights by taking them into compartments inside their earth-lodge dwellings.’? Never- theless, the Blackfoot made no effort to build covered structures to house their horses in cold weather. On very cold nights, however, Blackfoot owners drove their horses in among the trees and thickets of the river bottoms to take advantage of these natural growths as protection from wind and cold. The same precaution was taken when blizzards swept down on the camps in daytime. Often, however, the lead mare of a herd led the other animals to shelter in the timber without assistance from the owner. If the weather remained very cold, owners kept their horses in sheltered river bottoms day and night. More asa protection against enemy raiders than against the elements the Blackfoot built night corrals within the wooded areas of the valley floor. A man who owned a large herd constructed his own corral. Owners of few horses worked together to build a corral for their ani- mals. These generally were jerry-built, temporary fences of hori- zontal poles lashed with rawhide ropes to standing trees and up-ended horse travois. WINTER LOSSES OF HORSES Under date of February 16, 1773, while on the Saskatchewan Plains, Mathew Cocking (1908, p. 114) wrote of the death of several horses “which they say is the case at this time of the year.” In February, 1832, John Work noted the death from cold of several horses belonging to his hunting party in the Blackfoot Country of present Montana (Work, 1923, pp. 131-132). These early references illustrate the ever- 1 David Thompson (1916, p. 230) observed this custom among the Mandan in winter of 1797-98. It was also a practice of the Hidatsa and Arikara. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 45 present threat of disaster to horse herds in the area of severe winters inhabited by the Blackfoot. Informants stated, however, that horse losses in most winters were light. It was only in occasional years that deep snows combined with low (20° to 40° below zero) temperatures to kill off large numbers of horses. In those years horses starved and froze to death in spite of all their owners could do for them. Present- day stockmen of the Blackfeet Reservation claim severe livestock losses may be expected, even under modern conditions, at least once a decade. There is ne reason to believe winter losses were less severe or less frequent in buffalo days. We have no complete record of winters in which large numbers of Blackfoot horses perished. McClintock (1910, p. 444; Ewers, 1943, p. 605) was told that the year 1842 brought a “hard winter when snows lay so deep that many of our horses perished.” Informants remembered the winter of 1875-76, as one during which the Blood tribe and the Grease Melters Band of Piegan suffered heavy losses in horses (Ewers, 1948, pp. 605-606). The winter of 1886-87, known to the Indians as “many cattle died winter,” killed so many Piegan horses that many families were forced to use dogs to travel to Old Agency for rations. More recently, severe winters were recorded in 1906-7, 1919-20, and 1949-50. In the winter of 1919-20 no less than 600 horses were lost on the Blood Reserve (Wilson, 1921, pp. 16, 18). Losses generally were heaviest in the months of January and February and in May storms.” MAY STORMS A weather peculiarity of the Blackfoot Country is the annual “May storm,” usually a single storm, striking suddenly after a prolonged period of balmy spring weather, bringing a rapid and severe drop in temperature and usually heavy snow. Usually this late spring storm occurs In May. However, one year during my residence in Browning this storm arrived on June 2, bringing over a foot of snow overnight, which melted and disappeared in 2 or 3 days. These May storms struck after horses had shed their heavy, winter hair and were poorly protected from cold. The storms sometimes were fatal to °° Teton Dakota winter counts have listed a number of years during the 19th century in which many horses perished (Ewers, 1943, p. 606). Although we have no record of losses by the Assiniboin and Plains Cree, living in the notorious Red River Valley storm belt, their winter losses must have been heavy, and must have played a role of importance in keeping those tribes poor in horses. Undoubtedly milder winters favored the acquisition and maintenance of large herds by the southern Plains tribes. As early as 1820, the Long expedition noted the influence of the weather on relative tribal wealth in horses. The Kiowa and Arapaho were then trading horses to the Cheyenne. The former were able to “rear (horses), With much less difficulty than the Shiennes, whose country is cold and barren” (James, 1823, vol. 1, p. 502). 46 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 horses, especially to newborn colts. Careful owners covered their best mounts with buffalo robes or blankets made from the tops of old, skin lodge covers, when May storms struck. Tops of old lodge covers also were stretched over poles to protect mares which gave birth to colts during these storms.** SPRING CONDITION Even though few horses were lost in the average winter, that season was an ordeal for the best of them. They grew thin and weak on the food they could rustle. By spring they were a cadaverous lot. Yet most of them fattened within a month on the rich, green, spring grasses. The horses of the rich man recovered rapidly. He could afford to alternate his mounts and pack animals so as to give all of them sufficient rest to enable them to regain weight and strength. But the few horses of the poor man could not be pampered. He had to use them regularly. Consequently their chances of recovery were poor. Many of them remained thin and weak through most of the year. In the Blackfoot Country the domesticated horse reached the northern limit of its distribution on the Plains east of the Rockies prior to white contact. The problem of maintaining horses through the winters in this region of high altitude, strong winds, heavy snows, and rapid, treacherous changes in temperature taxed Indian ingenuity. As has been shown, Indian solutions of this problem were little more than simple expedients and could not prevent heavy losses in the most severe winters. It is more of a tribute to the hardiness of the Indian pony than to the forethought of its Indian owner that this animal was able to become acclimated to the northern country in the early years of its northward migration from the more temperate climate of the Spanish settlements of the Southwest. COMMON HORSE REMEDIES Although there was a Blackfoot cult of specialists in the treat- ment of sick and injured horses, most owners were able to treat the more common horse ailments themselves, using a variety of vegetable and animal medicines. *t Maximilian, in 1833, noted a phenomenon similar to the May storm, occurring some- what earlier in spring, in the country of the Mandan. ‘March and April are called by the Indians the Horse’s winter, because, when the weather is warm, the horses are often driven to pasture, and then violent storms of snow sometimes occur suddenly, and destroy many of the animals” (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 28, p. 238). Lowie (1922 a, p. 455) reported the Crow practice of blanketing newborn colts in a spring storm. Eiwers ] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE AZ TREATMENT OF SADDLE SORES Saddle sores were a seasonal problem to the wealthy horse owner. In the spring of the year his saddle and pack horses, that had been rested during the winter months, sometimes got saddle sores from ill- fitting, improperly padded saddles used on them. Rich men could rest their afflicted mounts until they recovered. Poor men could not spare their riding horses and of necessity overloaded their pack ani- mals. Consequently they were plagued with sore-backed horses the year round. If a wealthy man saw a likely looking but sore-backed horse belonging to a poor fellow, he might trade one of his sound horses for it. The Blackfoot had several common remedies for saddle sores. “Snake weed” (Yucca sp.), if available, was boiled and applied to the sore with grass orarag. “Dry root” (Heuchera sp., alumroot) mixed with buffalo fat and boiled in water, also was applied. Another remedy made use of a mixture of boiled tobacco, a bitter grass, animal fat, and commercial salt, which was rubbed on the sore and “in a month’s time the sore would be healed and hair standing on it.” A Blood informant said his family preferred to prick the swelling with a new arrowhead until the blood ran, then apply herb medicine.” TREATMENT OF SORE FEET To repair a worn foot that caused a horse to limp with pain, the Blackfoot owner made a rawhide protective shoe from a piece of thick hide from a freshly killed buffalo bull. He broke up horse manure and placed it in the shoe before he slipped it over the horse’s foot. The shoe extended to the pastern and was held in place by a rawhide drawstring around the top. Periodically the shoe was re- 2 Several observers testified to the commonness of saddle sores among Indian-owned horses of the Plains in the first decade of the 19th century. All of them attributed this to the poorly fitting saddles used by the Indians. Henry (Henry and Thompson, 1897, yol. 1, p. 47): commented upon this situation among the Cree; Tabeau (1939, pp. 88-90) among the Arikara, some of whem “more through interest than pity, cover the sores with a piece of leather or with a buffalo paunch sprinkled with ashes” to prevent magpies from picking at the raw flesh; and Lewis and Clark regarding the Lemhi Shoshoni and Walla Walla horses their expedition obtained from the Indians (Coues, 1893, vol. 2, pp. 574-575 ; vol. 3, p. 979). The chronicler of the Long expedition wrote of the Omaha (1819), “‘the backs of their horses are very often sore and ulcerated from the friction of the rude saddle . . . resting on rude saddle cloths without padding” (James, 1823, vol. 1, p. 292). Laroeque (1910, p. 64) observed the care Crow owners gave their horses, stating ‘‘as soon as a horse has a sore back he is not used until he is healed.’’ Such treatment, of course, was possible only among a people who were relatively rich in horses. Undoubtedly the great majority of Plains Indians owned too few horses to afford to rest their sore-backed animals for extended periods. Gilmore (1919, p. 133) described Pawnee use of plant medicines in treating saddle sores. The Thompson Indians of British Columbia first washed the sore with human urine, then applied plant medicines (Teit, 1930, pp. 513-514). 4S BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 Figure 4.—Rawhide horseshoes similar to Blackfoot type, Arapaho. (After No. 58036, Chicago Museum of Natural History.) moved, the hoof examined, and fresh manure inserted. When the hoof grew out, the shoe was discarded.” TREATMENT OF COLIC AND DISTEMPER The Blackfoot treated colic and distemper by the same means, i. e. by pouring plant medicine down the mouth or nose of the ailing horse. If the horse was a lively one it was held down and the medi- cine administered forcibly; if it was a mild-mannered animal its head °3 Use of rawhide shoes to protect the feet of horses was widespread among horse-using tribes. In the middle of the 18th century Pfefferkorn (1949, p. 147) noted of the Apache in Sonora, “For want of horseshoes, they cover their horse’s hoofs with thick horse or oxhide to protect them.’ In the summer of 1832, Captain Bonneville observed that members of a Crow war party had covered the hoofs of their horses “with shoes of buffalo hide’ to protect them from the “sharp and jagged rocks among which they had to pass” (Irving, 1851, p. 53). The Plains Cree used a manure-lined shoe like that employed by the Blackfoot to cure sore-footed horses. A pair of Arapaho rawhide horseshoes, catalog No. 58,036, Chicago Museum of Natural History, collected by George Dorsey in 1905 from the Wind River Reservation, is reproduced as figure 4. This specimen is identical with descriptions of Blackfoot horseshoes. An elderly Kiowa told me his people formerly used rawhide shoes in the treatment of sore-footed horses. Chiracahua Apache employed raw- hide ‘‘thorse moccasins” for the same purpose (Opler, 1941, p. 396). Kutenai are said to have laughed at Flathead for making little boots to protect their dog’s feet. However, the reference (Turney-High, 1941, p. 70) does not mention Flathead employment of “boots” for horses. White traders and explorers in the northern Plains on some occasions adopted the Indian’s practice of providing rawhide shoes to protect their horses’ feet. Larocque used them on his journey from the Crow encampment on the Yellowstone River back to the Hidatsa villages in the fall of 1805 (Larocque, 1910, p. 49). Capt. Wm. Clark’s party, eastbound down the Yellowstone Valley in July 1806, made ‘“‘a sort of moccasin of green buffalo skin’ to relieve their horses’ worn feet (Coues, 1893, vol. 3, p. 1187). Captain Bonneville, in the fall of 1832, made buffalohide shoes for his foot-worn horses while traveling through rocky country near the Wind River Mountains (Irving, 1851, p. 234). In the summer of 1854, Parker (1856, p. 203) saw the wife of a Southern Comanche chief ‘leading a horse and mule slowly backwards and forwards through a slow fire’’ which was ‘‘the process of hardening the hoofs by exposing them to the smoke and vapour of the wild rosemary-artemisia.”’ I have found no other reference to this practice among Plains Indians. Bwers) THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 49 was raised and the medicine poured into its mouth. A great many concoctions were tried by different individuals in this treatment. Boiled “snake weed” (Yucca sp.), “big turnip” (Leptotaenia multi- jida, carrotleaf) , “smell foot” (Valeriana sp.), and bitterroot (Lewista rediviva) were employed separately or in combination with still other boiled plant medicines to treat these disorders. There appears to have been much experimentation by horse owners in the concoction of foul- smelling liquids. Lazy Boy claimed none of the old-time remedies was as effective as the coal oil the Piegan used to treat colic after they settled down on the reservation.” PRECAUTIONS AGAINST CHILLS A sweaty horse that had been hard-ridden in winter was lead around for a time, then covered with a blanket made from an old lodge cover; or it was permitted to roll in snow to dry the perspiration quickly. A good horse that had been ridden hard in warmer weather was led to a lake or stream and water splashed over it. It was then allowed to run and roll in the grass.” A GENERAL TONIC Short Face said that a root having a strong odor that grows near the mountains, called “strong root” by the Indians (possibly bane- berry), was smashed and fed to horses at any time of year to keep them healthy. TREATMENT OF BROKEN BONES A good horse with a broken leg was not shot. If the horse had been a buffalo runner, it would be no longer useful for that purpose, but it could serve as a pack animal. A wealthy owner of a prized buffalo runner which suffered a broken leg, might keep that horse as a pet. Ifa mare broke a leg it was kept for breeding purposes. Some owners tried to treat broken legs themselves. The leg was lanced so that the blood would flow. A splint was made of rawhide-wrapped sticks. After a long time the bones healed. But there would always be a lump where the break occurred, and the horse would always limp. Other owners called in a horse medicine man or a specialist in the treatment of broken bones. Bear-Goes-East, a Piegan of the Blood band, was remembered as a well-known specialist. He was credited with the power to heal broken bones of animals or humans, by rubbing them with mud. The horse owner paid him well, sometimes another 24The Dakota, Omaha, Ponca, and Pawnee used the narrow-leaved comb flower (Echi- nacea angustifolia) in their treatment of distemper (Gilmore, 1919, p. 131). The Plains Cree employed these same methods for cooling off overheated horses (Mandelbaum, 1940, p. 196). Information from other tribes is lacking. 287944—55——_5 50 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 horse, for his services. Bear-Goes-East was considered a powerful doctor, but not a horse medicine man. Lazy Boy recalled that once, while on a war party, Bear-Goes-East’s partner fell over a cliff and broke his leg. The Crow Indians were chasing them. Bear-Goes-East collected some mud from a nearby lake, applied it to his partner’s leg, and “healed it right there.” * TREATMENT OF UNKNOWN ILLNESSES In buffalo days if a horse suffered from an illness the owner was unable to diagnose, he might load a musket with powder only and fire it at the side of the horse. The horse might get well.” If the owner was wealthy or the horse was a valuable buffalo runner or racer the Blackfoot owner generally preferred to take no chances. He called upon one of the powerful horse medicine men to treat his mount. The horse medicine man was paid well for his services. (See pp. 270-271.) LOSSES OF HORSES LOSSES FROM DISEASE Although we have no complete record of the incidence of disease among the horses of the Blackfoot in 19th century buffalo days, there are references to two epidemics during that period that caused serious losses. On April 15, 1857, Father Adrian Hoecken wrote to Father De Smet from the Pend d’Oreille Mission: I am distressed at learning that an epidemic is making terrible ravages among the Blackfeet. According to the last news, about 150 Indians have perished in one camp alone, near Fort Benton. When the malady had ceased scourging men it fell upon the horses. Many are dead already and many dying. We have lost five. Our hunters are forced to go to the chase on foot; for according to their account all the horses are sick. If the Nez Percés lose their horses in the war with the Government, horses will be very dear here.” [De Smet, 1905, vol. 4, p. 1248.] Well remembered by elderly informants was the epidemic of 1881-82, identified by some as mange. Their horse medicine men were powerless to cure the afflicted animals. John Young, Indian Agent for the Blackfoot stated in his Annual Report of August 11, 1882: The wealth of these Indians lies in their ponies. During the winter they suffered serious loss. A cutaneous disease appeared among the horses for which 26 A Kiowa informant stated that his people used to treat horses with broken legs by applying a rawhide-wrapped splint to the member. Crow Indians are said to have used a mud treatment for horses bitten by rattlesnakes. They bound ‘mud on the wound, and when the poultice dries, fresh ones are applied until all the swelling recedes” (Phinney, n. d., p. 81). 27This treatment was also employed by the Kutenai (Turney-High, 1941, p. 72). Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 51 no remedy could be procured, and because of it about half of the horses these Indians owned died. One chief lost sixty out of a band of eighty. The disease is again making its appearance, and by next spring most of the few horses left will probably succumb to it. [U. 8S. Comm. Ind. Affairs, 1882, p. 100.] Informants’ testimony indicates that Agent Young may have over- stated the case. Nevertheless, losses were severe. It came at a time when the Blackfoot had not recovered their losses of the hard winter of the mid-70’s, and at a time when buffalo were becoming very scarce. It worked a great hardship on the Indians, who needed good horses as never before to locate and kill buffalo for their subsistence. Many owners, set afoot by the epidemic, redoubled their efforts to secure badly needed mounts through raiding forays on enemy tribes. Ata time when horse raiding should have been an anachronism in the or- ganized Territory of Montana, there was a resurgence of raiding activity, motivated by need rather than greed. LOSSES FROM ANIMAL PREDATORS Animal predators killed colts and occasionally some adult horses owned by the Blackfoot in buffalo days. Wolves were the most com- mon colt killers. Bears and mountain lions destroyed both colts and adult animals. These losses were most common when Indian camps were pitched near the mountains. Blackfoot raiding parties return- ing across the Rockies with horses stolen from the Flathead or neigh- boring tribes also lost horses from night attacks by mountain lions. Dogs also killed colts on those rare occasions when meat was scarce in camp, and dogs were forced to rustle for their food. Some owners protected their colts by tying dried hoofs around their necks. The rattling hoofs frightened the dogs and kept them at a distance. In normal times dogs were well fed and did not bother colts. LOSSES FROM STOCK-POISONING PLANTS Although 3 my informants made no mention of horse losses from eating poisonous plants, it is probable that some horses died from this cause in buffalo days, as they have in more recent times. Stock- poisoning plants most destructive to horses on Montana ranges in 1900 were lupine and loco weed. However, the number of deaths was very small in proportion to the number of horses poisoned (Chesnut and Wilcox, 1901, p. 34). CARE OF OLD HORSES An old horse that had given faithful service in war, buffalo hunt- ing, or racing was not destroyed by its grateful owner. It was cared for after its useful days were over, until it fell behind when camp 52 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 moved or dropped dead in camp. A horse that died in camp was dragged away by two horses, one pulling a line tied around the dead animal’s neck, the other a line attached to its tail. If the camp was a temporary one the dead horse was dragged only a short distance from the lodges. If the camp was to remain in one place for a num- ber of weeks the dead horse was dragged a half mile or farther from the lodges and left on the prairie. Dead horses were not buried. The village chief gave the order for the removal of the dead animal and determined how far it should be dragged. HORSE BREEDING IMPORTANT ROLE OF HORSE BREEDING So much emphasis has been given in the literature to the more exciting topic of horse raiding as a source of Plains Indian wealth in horses that the subject of breeding horses has been neglected. In reality animals bred from their own herds comprised a goodly proportion of the horses owned by the Blackfoot in 19th-century buf- falo days. If the increase of the Indians’ herds through breeding was not as great as that achieved by modern stockmen, we must remem- ber that their herds were periodically reduced by destructive winter storms, diseases, animal predators, and other causes, as well as by theft on the part of enemy raiders. Had it not been for the breeding of their own herds, Blackfoot horse population surely would have shown a steady decrease during 19th-century buffalo days. Blackfoot men differed markedly in the attention they gave to horse breeding and in the success they achieved in building up their herds thereby. It is noteworthy that those Piegan who were named by my informants as owners of the largest herds were also remembered as men who were especially successful in breeding horses. Stingy, the blind man, could not participate in horse raids, but he became one of the wealthiest Piegan horse owners through his skill in raising horses. Many Horses and Many-White-Horses were mentioned fre- quently in informants’ discussions of breeding practices. The Black- foot believed that those men who were very successful in raising horses possessed a secret power that insured their success in that enterprise. Blackfoot efforts in breeding generally were directed toward pro- ducing one or more of three qualities in colts. These were (1) a cer- tain color, (2) large size, and (3) swiftness of foot. Although many of their methods hardly can be considered scientific, they bear evidence of Blackfoot concern with problems of horse breeding. SELECTION OF STUDS There was little or no effort to mate certain stallions with selected mares. The studs were permitted to mate with any mare in a man’s herd. However, the most successful breeders were careful in the choice of their stallions. A man who desired to raise colts of a certain color chose a stallion of that color for a stud. If he wished large colts he selected a stallion of greater than average size. If he wanted fast 53 54 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 animals above all else, he employed a stallion of demonstrated swift- ness. Generally men with small herds possessed a single stallion. Owners of large herds kept four or more stallions. Usually all other males were castrated. The Blackfoot recognized that some stallions were poor breeders. If, after a period of trial, a stallion failed to produce colts in the number or quality desired, a man who could afford to doso replaced that stud with another one. Three Calf, whose father owned a fine herd of 40 pinto horses, said his father had but one stallion, a large, black pinto, bred from his own herd. Many Horses owned a number of stallions, pintos of several varieties, which he used for no other purpose than breeding and on which he lavished great care. His stallions were never broken to the saddle. Stingy, who bred for size, used a large horse for a stud. He rode it, and kept it picketed at night in the spring breeding season to prevent other Indians from making use of it. When colts dropped, he herded them with the mares and colts. The Piegan sometimes called Stingy, “White Man,” because he raised such large horses. Other breeders selected their stallions for swiftness regardless of their size or coloring. All careful breeders took pains to obtain the best horses they could get of the type they most desired for studs. However, most men were too poor or too careless to devote much thought to stallion selection. They were happy just to possess a stallion. “That is why there were so many scrub, no good horses around.” If a man owned one or more mares but no stallion he might go to his neighbor’s herd at night and “borrow” his stud to mate with his own mare, without the knowledge of the stallion’s owner. This is said to have been a rather common practice. Careful breeders also took pains to prevent old, broken-down stal- lions of their neighbors from mingling with their mares. Where so many horse herds were pastured in the neighborhood of a camp this was a difficult task. However, boys caring for the herds of cautious owners were instructed to keep their herds separate in breeding season and to drive away undesirable stallions that came near them. If a poor old stallion was found bothering their mares, the boys caught him, threw him down, and tied a large buffalo rib or hip bone to his forelock. The frightened animal left on the run. If a stray stallion persisted in bothering a man’s herd, the herd owner told the stallion’s owner to take better care of his horses thereafter. MAINTENANCE OF COLOR LINES Some men tried to build up herds of a single color. Three Calf said that after his father possessed 40 pintos he made no attempt to add to his herd except by breeding. He gave away any horses given him, and disposed of any colts bred to his herd that were not pintos. Many- Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 55 White-Horses, so named because all the horses in his herd were whites or grays, traded any dark-colored horses he obtained for white ones. Nevertheless, his horses were said to have been of rather poor quality. They were small, tender-hoofed animals. When the Government furn- ished large stallions to Piegan owners, Many-White-Horses refused to accept them. He feared the stallions would injure his small mares. So he continued to raise large numbers of little horses. They had more prestige than practical value. Joseph Sherburne recalled that when he traveled the Blackfeet Reservation (in the first decade of the 20th century) making collec- tions for his father’s store, some Indian owners of large herds still specialized in horses of a particular color or conformation. He learned to recognize the peculiarities of the horses of different owners so that he could tell from a distance the ownership of many range horses by their appearance. There were 10 or 12 owners on the Blackfeet Res- ervation in Montana at that time whose horses were readily distin- guishable by their physical appearance. Mr. Sherburne said the uni- formity of these herds was maintained both by selection of studs and by swapping of horses which failed to exhibit the desired character- istics. MAGICAL BREEDING FORMULAS Some Blackfoot horsemen placed faith in magical formulas for insuring the birth of colts exhibiting desired qualities. If a man wanted a pinto colt he killed a magpie and tied its black and white feathered body around the neck of his mare with a buckskin string in the fall of the year, saying, “Now, I want you to have a pinto colt next spring.” The magpie was worn on the mare’s neck until it fell off. One informant said, “When spring came that mare would surely have a pinto colt, and thereafter all her colts would be pintos.” No other color of horse was as popular with the old-time Black- foot as was that of the pinto. Many men were proud to be seen riding a two-colored horse.”* In order to get “a big colt,” the Piegan Stingy is said to have made a practice of roasting a “big turnip” (Leptotaenta multifida, carrot- leaf), slicing it with a knife, punching holes through the slices, string- ing them on a buckskin cord, and tying the cord around a mare’s neck. The odor of the big turnip kept the mare in fine condition all winter. In spring she would bear a “big colt.” Stingy is said to have employed *3 This is in contrast to the Kiowa tendency to consider pintos “women’s horses’ (com- munication from Alice Marriott). The Nez Percé (Ross, 1855, vol. 1, p. 307) preferred white and speckled (Appaloosa) horses, which they valued at two or three times the worth of other horses. Kroeber (1907, p. 424) reported Arapaho use of colored bean medicines to cause mares to produce colts of desired colors. Spotted beans produced pintos, red beans roans or bays, and white beans white or buckskin colts. My Kiowa informants had no knowledge of the use of magical breeding formulas by members of their tribe. 56 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 this formula in producing Flop Ears, considered the fastest Piegan- owned race horse of its time. To insure the birth of a fast colt a man killed a jackrabbit, cut off its front feet and strung them with sliced “big turnip” on a buckskin cord, which he tied around his mare’s neck. “That mare would have a fast colt” (color and size undetermined). CARE OF GRAVID MARES AND COLTS Although more colts were born in spring than in any other time of year, there were “a lot of fall colts” and some early ones. The Indians thought that it would make mares good breeders if they were used for riding or transport duty until their udders began to swell about a week before foaling. No assistance was given a mare in labor unless the weather was stormy. Then it was given the protection of an old lodge cover, if the owner possessed one. A smart horseman paid close attention to the colt after birth. He rubbed and straightened the colt’s legs and shaped its ears with his hands. If the colt appeared to him to show possibilities of becoming a valuable horse, he continued to work its legs with his hands to be sure the bones would be straight and well formed. Most mares were put to work a few days after the birth of their colts. Poor people, who owned few horses, had no choice in the matter. Wealthier owners, however, could rest their mares for months after foaling. They might not work a mare that had foaled in spring until the following fall. Many mares owned by wealthy owners were kept solely for breeding purposes. They were neither broken to the saddle nor used as pack animals.” GELDING Although the Blackfoot practice of gelding most male horses inevi- tably influenced breeding by reducing the male breeding stock, “keep- ing them from bothering mares” was only one of three major reasons for castrating. The Blackfoot also considered gelding made their horses more tractable and fleeter of foot. In theory all males not reserved for stud purposes were castrated at between 1 and 3 years of age. Actually there were many exceptions. Some owners were negligent about having their horses gelded, which helped to account for 2 The 18th-century literature on other Plains Indian tribes contains two references that suggest the Plains Indians may have been slow to learn the importance of the care of gravid mares, and that neglect of such care resulted in heavy losses of colts and limited increases in their herds through breeding. Bourgmont (in Margry, 1886, vol. 6, p. 445) observed that the Paduca (Apache), in 1724, were unable to raise colts because their mares miscarried while chasing buffalo. The increase of the herds of the little Osage was said (in 1785) to have been ‘‘entirely prevented because they load the mares too heavily and make them run too much” (Miro, 1946, p. 164). It is possible that white men, who noted these conditions, may have been influential in helping the Indians to correct them. Hwers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 57 the number of poor quality stallions around the camps. However, Buffalo Back Fat, head chief of the Blood tribe, a keen student of horses, is known to have advised members of his family, “Don’t cut your stallion too young. Wait until he is four years old. Let him have a chance to chase mares. He will be a good runner, a good feeder, and an easily managed, fancy horse.” Usually a number of horses were castrated the same day. The oper- ation was performed by specialists. Piegan informants mentioned the names of a half dozen men of their tribe who were expert gelders. Among them were the wealthy horse owners, Stingy, Many-White- Horses, and Bull Shoe. The specialists were paid for their services. If a man had several horses castrated, he might give the surgeon a horse. If he had one or two horses gelded he made payment in less valuable articles, such as robes, blankets, saddle blankets, plain skin or cloth shirts, or arrows. A corral was not deemed necessary for castrating. The operation was performed in the open near the lodges of the camp. The horse to be gelded was thrown down. One hind leg was drawn between the two front ones and the three legs tied securely with a rawhide rope. The other hind leg was trussed up and held by a second rope. Details of one common method of trussing are shown in figure 5. Without Fiaugke 5.—Method of tying a stallion for castrating, Blackfoot. prayer or ceremony of any kind the surgeon set to work. With a sharp butcher knife he cut a hole in the scrotum, squeezed out the testicles, wrapped and tied the cords by which they were suspended, then severed the testicles and threw them away. It was customary for the surgeon to ask the horse owner what material he wished used for tying, before the operation was begun. Some men insisted on the use of deer or antelope sinew, which they thought would make their horses fleet. After the operation some men picked up a testicle and tried to roll it along the horse’s back, saying, “This will surely be a fast buffalo horse.” ‘This was the closest approach to ritual connected with the operation. 58 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bull. 159 When the horse was untied, and rose to its feet, the castrater told the owner to whip him and make him run. The horse was watched closely for several days. If a large number of horses were gelded in the course of a few days, the band planned to remain in one place until the castrated animals were completely healed. Gelding failures were uncommon. Short Face recalled that some men once complained that their horses swelled after Stingy had gelded them. After hearing their complaints, Stingy replied, “I shall cas- trate three horses. Two of them will not swell. Those horses will be no good. One horse will swell. It will bea very fast animal.” It hap- pened as he predicted, and his demonstration silenced his detractors. Lazy Boy claimed that Black-Comes-Over-the-Hill was the most prominent and proficient castrater in late buffalo days. None of the horses he castrated died as a result of the operation. The animals he gelded never swelled. He always tied with antelope sinew. The horses he gelded were always fast horses. People said that Black-Comes Over-the-Hill possessed secret power which made him uniformly suc- cessful in his specialty. Lazy Boy could recail no other castrater among the Piegan of whom this was believed. Informants differed in their opinions regarding the origin of the practice of gelding among the Blackfoot. Some believed that Indians, even Blackfoot Indians, originated it. Others were sure that it was learned from white men. I am inclined to agree with Wissler and Haines that the practice of gelding horses by the Plains and Plateau tribes probably was learned directly or indirectly from the Whites.” % M’Gillivray (1929, p. 29) writing of the Indians in the vicinity of Fort George on the North Saskatchewan in 1794, stated, ‘‘The operation of gelding is seldom performed by the Indians as it generally diminishes the strength and vigour of the Horse, he is therefore full of fire and can with ease outrun most of the large animals on which they depend for subsistence.” Possibly he was referring to the Cree Indians, who, my informants claimed, castrated their horses less commonly than did the Blackfoot. Lazy Boy cited cases of Cree stallions captured by the Piegan whose testicles had been whipped or burned but not removed. He said the Piegan gelded some of these animals successfully. However, Mandelbaum (1940, p. 196) described Plains Cree gelding practice in terms indicating that their technique was similar to that of the Blackfoot, but that “some colts died as a result of the operation,” suggesting that they were not skilled surgeons. An excellent account of Hidatsa gelding practice appears in Wilson (1924, pp. 146-149, and fig. 2). That tribe gelded horses for the same reasons as did the Blackfoot. The choice of animal sinew used in tying was determined by the type of speed the owner wished for his horse. Details of trussing the animal and of the surgical operation varied from the Blackfyot procedures remembered by my informants. Usually the Hidatsa operated on 2-year-old stallions and without religious ritual. Opler (1941, pp. 259, 299) did not describe the Chiracahua Apache operation, but implied that they regarded it as a ceremony, whereas in the Northern Plains it seems to have been a secular act. Lewis and Clark’s brief account of the gelding of some of their horses by Nez Percé and by Whites stressed the fact that the animals gelded by the Nez Percé recovered quicker and suffered less than those castrated by members of their party (Coues, 1893, vol. 3, p. 1012). Haines has conjectured that the Nez Percé may have obtained a few gelded animals from the Spanish at an early date, which stimulated their curiosity, or that an Indian, who had served on one of the Spanish ranches in New Mexico, and had drifted northward as a captive or fugitive, taught the Nez Percé how to castrate (Haines, 1939, p. 23). Wissler (1910, p. 91) doubted that the practice of castrating dogs by the Blackfoot was an aborig- inal custom. On the other hand Dobie (1941, p. 4) has maintained that it was Spanish custom in the Colonial Period to leave most of their male horses and cattle uncastrated. Therefore, if the Indians learned the operation from the Spanish, the former must have proceeded to make more common use of it than did the latter. TRAINING OF HORSES AND RIDERS CAPTURE OF WILD HORSES The earliest reference to wild horses in or near the Blackfoot Coun- try is an entry in Anthony Hendry’s Journal for September 22, 1754, “Saw several Wild Horses” (Hendry, 1907, p. 335). At that time he was near the present Alberta-Saskatchewan border. At the beginning of the 19th century, David Thompson noted the existence of several wild herds near the Rockies, especially on the west side, and told of their horses being caught by Kutenai Indians. He also reported the escape of one of his own pack animals, which was found among a herd of wild horses. “This dull Horse took to himself all the gestures of the wild Horses, his Nostrils distended, mane erect, and tail straight ; we dashed into the herd and flogged him out” (Thompson, 1916, pp. 377-878, 401). Reconnoitering parties of the Pacific Railway Survey in 1853, saw wild horses near Milk River (Stevens, 1860, p. 91). Denny wrote of bands of wild horses ranging near the foothills toward Belly and Bow Rivers in Alberta in the eighties, which were materially augmented by strays from the ranches. He lost nearly a hundred head of his own horses to the wild herds. The best horsemen were unable to rope the wild ones. They were finally shot as nuisances (Denny, 1939, pp. 258-259). My informants recalled that there were herds of wild horses in the Blackfoot Country in their youth. Lazy Boy attributed their origin to strays from Indian camps, domesticated horses that ran off and became wild after large numbers of Indians died in the early smallpox epidemics. In the light of the data in the preceding paragraph, this explanation appears reasonable. Informants said that very few wild horses were caught by the Black- foot. Most captured adults died after they reached camp. Weasel- Head claimed they could not endure the smoke from lodge fires. Some colts and yearlings were captured and raised successfully. However the taking of wild horses was confined largely to horse medicine men who had the power to attract those animals with the secret medicines 59 60 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 rubbed on their ropes. (A description of their methods appears on p. 274.) BREAKING HORSES FOR RIDING The great majority of horses owned by the Blackfoot were put to use as riding or transport animals. Most families owned too few horses to permit the reservation of more than one stallion and young, unbroken colts as nonworking range stock. Wealthy men could afford to keep numbers of animals solely for breeding and future trading purposes. However, even those owners possessed many more well trained animals than were needed to provide an adequate supply of riding and transport horses for their immediate families, for it was common practice for rich men to loan trained horses to the less for- tunate for the latter’s use in hunting and moving camp. Unbroken broncos sometimes were given as presents. However, if the recipient was a poor person, a child, or an older man or woman the gift horses generally were trained ones. Light boys in their teens broke yearling colts for their own use. Most horses broken for riding purposes were trained during their second or third year.s2 Mares as well as male horses were broken for riding. In fact some mares were used as buffalo runners and race horses. Although it was customary for a young single or married man to break his own horses, teen-aged boys broke those belonging to the older members of their families. Boys with plenty of nerve began break- ing horses at 12 or 18 years of age. Others did not try it until they %1The Plains Cree also had little success in capturing wild horses, or in Keeping them alive once caught (Mandelbaum, 1940, p. 196). The apparent ineptness of the Cree and Blackfoot in this undertaking is in striking contrast to the skill of some central and southern Plains tribes. Descriptions of their well-organized horse-capturing expeditions are numerous in the literature. Two methods seem to have been much used: (1) lassoing with a running loop and (2) approaching the wild horse with the open lasso loop fixed to a long, forked stick, and dropping the noose over the running animal’s head and neck. The Long expedition found that the Kaskaia (Kiowa Apache) were expert in “throwing the rope” in taking wild horses in 1820 (James, 1823, vol. 2, p. 114). Catlin fully described and pictured Comanche use of the lasso for this purpose in 1834 (Catlin, 1841, vol. 2, p. 58). Smith met members of a Cheyenne party who had successfully lassoed 200 wild horses, in 1840 (Smith, 1913, p. 273). Denig described Brule Dakota lassoing of wild horses on organized expeditions in the second quarter of the 19th century (Denig, 1951, p. 198). However, Barrett’s data from Rosebud Reservation in the 1940’s, indicated that the Brule employed the forked-stick method, and Grinnell (1923, vol. 1, pp. 291-295) also attributed use of that method to the Cheyenne. Perhaps some tribes employed both techniques. Dorsey (1896, p. 281) wrote of the forked-stick method in use among the Omaha. 2 Limited comparative data suggest that it was usual Plains Indian practice to break horses for riding at an early age. The Hidatsa broke them at 1 to 2 years old (Wilson, 1924, p. 150). The Oglala, according to Eagle Bird, broke them before they were 3 years old. Enoch Smoky said the Kiowa broke their horses in their first to third years. In contrast, the Spanish-Mexicans in California in the middle 19th century allowed their horses to run wild until they were 4 or 5 years old before breaking them to the saddle. They seldom broke mares, and considered it a disgrace for a man to ride one (Denhardt, 1937, p. 18). Ewers) THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 61 were in their middle or late teens. A few fellows were afraid to break horses, and never did.** The Blackfoot-owned horses usu- ally were halter or hackamore broken before they were broken to ride. Four methods of horse breaking were employed by the Blackfoot tribes. Each method was described by four or more informants. “e~ tL rane ao G oa fo (tes on Ses US Ficurr 6.—Breaking a bronco by riding it in a pond or stream, Blackfoot. POND OR STREAM BREAKING (FIG. 6) Sometimes a group of boys went to an owner of a large herd and asked him if they could break some of his colts in the water of a nearby pond, lake, or stream. If the owner consented, he pointed out the animals they might break and warned them he would not be responsible if any of the boys were hurt. Sometimes boys took colts from a man’s herd without his permission and broke them in the water. When the owner learned what they had done he gave them a good tongue lashing. Weasel Tail described this method: I have broken horses in a stream. It was an easy way to break them. Two boys rode double on a trained horse, leading the brone by a rope or halter into %3 Among the Hidatsa “colts were broken by boys fourteen to seventeen years of age’ (Wilson, 1924, p. 151). Tixier, in 1840, reported that the Comanche compelled their male prisoners to train those horses that were reputed untamable (Tixier, 1940, p. 270). Of course, many Comanche prisoners were Mexicans, who were expert horsemen. 62 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 the stream. The fellow who was to ride the bronc rode behind the other one. When the brone was in the water up to his shoulders, the front rider took hold of the lead rope near the bronc’s chin, while the other boy quickly jumped on the brone’s back. As soon as the rider was seated the boy on the trained horse let go of the rope. The bronc tried to jump and buck, but as soon as his head became wet he quieted down. He tired quickly. Then the rider rode him out of the water. At other times the technique of riding double into the water was not employed. A single boy, riding a trained horse, led the bronco. When the water came up to the top of the bronco’s legs or higher he rode alongside and changed mounts, allowing the trained animal to shift for himself. Many horses were played out by the time they reached shore and could be ridden on land without fear of bucking. When a group of boys took part in breaking a high spirited horse in the water some of them roped the bronco before it reached shore and held it so that it could not get to land before it was completely tired. Horses that showed a lot of spirit after one water treatment were taken back into the pond or stream for another session. Usually one trip into the water was sufficient. After the horse came out of the water its rider rode it bareback on land for several days before it was considered ready for the saddle. BOGGY GROUND BREAKING This method was a variant of the pond and stream method. It could be employed when no pond, lake, or suitable stream was in the neighborhood of camp. Informants said it was less commonly used than the first method, although five of them either had employed this method themselves or had seen it used. The bronco was led to a muddy or swampy area, and the rider jumped on its bare back. When the horse tried to buck, its feet would sink in the mire. If the rider was thrown he would not be hurt. The horse’s spirit was broken before it could get out of the boggy ground. It could be led back into the area any number of times until its rider was satisfied that it would buck no more. Lazy Boy said he went on a horse raid to the Flathead during which Morning Eagle took a fine looking colt that had never been broken. On their return journey the party came to a muddy place. Morning Eagle rode his newly acquired prize in the mud until it was played out. When he finished with it, it could be ridden on dry soil without difficulty. SURCINGLE BREAKING (FIG. 7) Before a bronco could be broken on dry soil, it had to be held so as to permit the rider to mount. There were several methods of doing this. Sometimes the bronco was roped, and the lasso pulled tight Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 63 around its neck while another man slipped a war bridle in his mouth, and the rider (a third person) jumped on his back. At other times the bronco was “front-footed” (both front feet roped with rawhide lasso) , and the horse was thrown down. The rider took his place as the horse started to rise and the rope was loosened. Still another method was to “front-foot” the bronco, lasso one hind leg and pull it slightly forward so the horse could not kick while the rider mounted, then loosen the ropes. A fourth method called for first “front-footing” i oo ok Ficure 7.—Breaking a bronco by riding it with a surcingle, Blackfoot. the beast, then wrapping a rope around all four legs and blindfolding the horse with a piece of robe until the rider took his seat. Then the ropes were released and the blindfold removed. In employing the surcingle method of breaking, the rider carried a long band of rawhide or soft buffalo skin. As he mounted the bronco he pulled this strap around the horse’s belly, enclosing his own knees and shanks, and quickly tied the band in a common knot in front of him. The surcingle was tied tight enough so that by exerting pres- sure with his knees against the band he could keep from falling, yet loose enough so that he could extricate his legs quickly if the horse should fall. It often took three days of breaking by the surcingle method before the horse was ready for the saddle. Each day the rider stayed on the horse until it was played out. 64 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 PAD-SADDLE BREAKING The horse was held as for the surcingle method, and a pad saddle was girthed quickly on its back, well forward. The rider mounted behind the saddle and held onto it to steady himself as the horse maneuvered in his attempts to throw him. Three Calf claimed he had seen a blind man break a bronco by riding it in this way. My elderly Blackfoot informants were of the opinion that the pond or stream method and the boggy-ground method were the oldest ways of breaking horses known to their people. They based their opinions upon traditions as well as the belief that since these were the least dangerous methods they likely would have been the ones employed by people who had little experience in training horses. Several men said their first experiences in breaking horses were gained through use of those methods. The same men said they had employed the surcingle or pad-saddle method after they became more adept at handling unbroken horses.* BREAKING HORSES FOR THE TRAVOIS Poor people could not be choosy in selecting a horse for travois serv- ice. Wealthier families preferred to employ older, gentler horses for this work. The ideal travois horse was a large, heavily built, strong, *% Considering the bulk of Plains Indian literature and the importance many writers have attributed to the horse in the culture of those Indians, it is remarkable how little comparative material has been published on their methods of breaking horses. Wilson’s elderly Hidatsa informant employed a combination of the water and boggy-ground methods in his youth (Wilson, 1924, p. 151). An Oglala informant told me the water method was an old one in his tribe. An Assiniboin, who visited the U. S. National Museum in 1950, claimed his tribe formerly employed this method. Two elderly Kiowa Indians told me they broke their first horses by this method. One said the Comanche also used it. Smoky described a Kiowa method of breaking horses in soft, muddy ground, after a hard rain, under conditions that would make bucking difficult and minimize damage to the rider if he should be thrown. All comparative data on the surcingle method refer to peoples living west of the Rockies. George Gibbs noted and described Klikitat and Yakima use of this method in breaking horses in 1854 (Gibbs, 1855, p. 405). It is the only method mentioned for the Kutenai (Turney-High, 1941, pp. 71-72). In the mid-19th century Bartlett (1854, vol. 2, p. 237) observed Pima Indians of the southwestern desert riding bareback using a “broad girth which is passed quite loosely around the body of the horse. Into this one foot is inserted.” Of still greater interest is the fact that the Spanish-Mexicans of California at that time used a surcingle in breaking horses. Although the horse was saddled, a leather girth was strapped over the saddle so as to confine the rider’s knees loosely enough that he could release himself by pressing his knees to the sides of the horse (Denhardt, 1937, p. 13). This suggests the possibility of Spanish influence on this method of horse breaking, although the principle was relatively simple, and may have been independently invented by the Indians. I have found no reference to employment of the pad-saddle method by any tribe other than the Blackfoot. My Oglala and Kiowa informants had no knowledge of the use of either the surcingle or pad-saddle methods by their respective tribes. However, they asserted that riders of those tribes broke horses on dry ground merely by riding them bareback, holding onto the mane with their hands, and maintaining a precarious toehold under the elbows of the horses’ forelegs. Both Kiowa and Blackfoot men said their people did not ride saddles in breaking horses until they obtained strong, stock saddles from the Whites in the Reservation Period. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 65 mare over 4 years of age. Some people preferred a former saddle horse 8 or 9 years old to draw the travois. An unbroken horse would not haul a travois. The horse had to be specially trained for this task. One common method of training employed in buffalo days was to make a simple harness, consisting of a rawhide rope around the horse’s neck with a long rawhide line at- tached to it at each side extending backward and tied to a dry buffalo hide on the ground a few feet back of the horse’s hind legs. Some people preferred a single rawhide rope tied to the horse’s tail and the buffalo hide. The rope was always long enough so that the horse could not kick the hide. While one or more men led the horse by a halter, one to three men or boys rode on the hide over a selected plot of ground relatively smooth and free from stones. ‘The horse might jump and kick at first. It might even break away from the leaders and Ficure 8.—Breaking a horse to the travois by training it to drag a weighted buffalo hide, Blackfoot. spill the riders. But in time it became used to being led and to the weight drawn behind it, and quieted down. Then it would submit to the travois. (See fig. 8.) Other Blackfoot Indians preferred to train travois horses by making them pull tipi poles crossed over their heads, as in the horse travois, or two heavy cottonwood poles similarly arranged. This makeshift travois was placed on the horse for short periods on several successive days until the horse became accustomed to the weight. Then the real travois was substituted. A horse trained to the travois readily learned to carry the additional weight of a person riding on its back. How- ever, unless it had previously been used for riding, it would not make a good saddle horse. TEACHING CHILDREN TO RIDE Blackfoot children were accustomed to horses from infancy. As babies they were carried on their mother’s backs on horseback when 287944—55—6 66 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 camp was moved. When they were able to sit up they rode on the travois or behind their mothers on horseback. They became familiar with the motion of a walking horse, so that by the time they were old enough to learn to ride alone their fear of horses was partially over- come. Training involved primarily teaching children to maintain their balance on horseback and to use the reins, and the proper horse commands to control the actions of their mounts. Riding lessons were given children by their fathers or mothers near the lodges in the camp of their band. No effort was made to clear the camp of other riders or children when a child took his first lesson. Figure 9.—Teaching a child to ride by tying him in a woman’s saddle on a gentle horse, Blackfoot. In fact, other children watched and sometimes made fun of the awk- ward efforts of the learners. The gentlest riding horse owned by the family was employed in teaching children to ride. If the horse was gentle, the mother usually served as teacher, regardless of the sex of the child. If the family owned no gentle horse, the father took charge. My eldest informants said they learned to ride in this manner: The child was lifted into a high-horned woman’s saddle and rawhide ropes were passed back and forth between the pommel and cantle on each side, and tied securely to prevent the child’s falling. If afraid, the child could also hold onto the saddie horn. The parent, afoot or astride another horse, led the child’s horse about camp by a hackamore. (See fig. 9.) At first the horse was led at a slow walk. As the child gained in experience and confidence, the horse was led at a swifter Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 67 pace, and the child was taught to use the reins and control his mount. When camp was moved, the child was tied in the saddle and the horse on which he rode was led by an adult. About the year 1869, a fatal accident caused the Piegan to change their method of teaching children to ride. Woman Shoe was leading his little son tied in the saddle when the horse became frightened, pulled the lead rope from Woman Shoe’s grasp, and ran off. The saddle girth loosened, the saddle slipped, and the child was kicked to death. Thereafter most Piegan placed their children in high-horned saddles as before, but relied upon them to keep their balance by holding the pommel, without the aid of ties. In some families a girl was taught to ride a travois horse. <A travois, unencumbered by baggage, was attached to a travois horse and the child placed on the horse’s back in a woman’s saddle. The mother led the horse.* Informants claimed a Blackfoot child usually learned to ride alone in his fifth year. Children of other Plains Indian tribes seem to have learned to ride at an equally early age.* At the age of 6 or 7 most Blackfoot boys and girls were good riders. Some youngsters rode little saddles, of the “prairie chicken snare” or pack-saddle type, which their fond mothers or grandmothers made for them. A small boy sometimes tied a shert rawhide rope to his horse’s mane. He employed a handhold on this rope as an aid in climb- ing onto his horse’s back. 33 In spite of the demonstrated danger of the early Blackfoot method of teaching children to ride, it was employed by many other tribes of the Plains and Plateau. Two Kiowa informants told me they had learned to ride at 4 or 5 years of age by being tied in high- horned saddles on gentle horses, led by their fathers or mothers. Numerous references in the literature to children tied in the saddle when camp was moved suggest the same method of teaching on the part of other tribes. In 1805, Larocque and Mackenzie saw that Crow children, too young to ride alone, were tied in the saddle when camp was moved (Larocque, 1910, p. 64; Mackenzie, 1889, p. 345). Gordon (Chardon, 1932. p. 347; and Denig, 1933, p. 36) also reported this Crow practice. Ferris (1940, p. 301), in his general description of Indians of the northern Rockies (period 1830-1835), noted, “Their children of three or four years of age are lashed firmly on top of their packs, and are often en- dangered by the horses running away with them, though I never saw one severely injured in consequence.” In 1839, Farnham (1906, p. 329) saw a little Cayuse boy ‘“‘but three years old’? who rode alone “lashed to the horse he rode.’’ Members of the Long Expedi- tion (1820) observed that Kiowa-Apache children “too young to be able by their own strength to sit on a horse (were) lashed by their legs to the saddle’ (James, 1823, vol. 2, p. 103). This method was reported for the Comanche in 1865 (U. S. Comm. Ind. Affairs, 1867, p. 38). Although these data would suggest that this practice was Plains- wide, Eagle Bird, an aged Oglala, told me it was not the custom of his tribe, stating that it was too dangercus. 6 Mackenzie (1889, p, 345), in 1805, noted that Crow children above the age of 6 could manage a horse. While Gordon (Chardon, 1932, p. 347) wrote of the same tribe (period 1820), “At four or five years of age they will ride alone and guide the horse.” ‘Tixier (1940, p. 167) marveled at Osage boys who, in 1840, ‘‘were riding alone bareback, and managed their horses with skill” although they ‘‘could not have been more than five or six years old.” A Southern Cheyenne woman claimed her mother told her she learned to ride at the age of 4 (Michelson, 1932, p.1). 68 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bull. 159 RIDING AND GUIDING MOUNTING Contrary to European practice, most Blackfoot Indians mounted from the right side and saddled their horses from that side. Older men insisted this was the “natural” way for a right-handed man to mount a barebacked horse or a horse wearing a light, weak, Indian saddle. In mounting, a man relied heavily on the pressure gained by fixing a strong right-hand grip on the horse’s mane. He placed his left hand on the center of the horse’s back as he jumped on to help him throw his left leg over. Lazy Boy seemed to clinch the argument for the “naturalness” of right-hand mounting when he said that in the old days a left-handed man mounted from the left side because that was easier for him. The importance of a strong saddle, which would support a man’s weight in the stirrup, as a factor in mounting is indi- cated by the fact that after the Blackfoot obtained “white men’s saddles” in the early Reservation Period, they readily changed to left-side mounting. Today all Blackfoot mount from the left side.” Blackfoot women always rode astride, as did women of other Plains and Plateau Indian tribes. A Blackfoot woman mounted by placing her right foot in the stirrup and thrusting her left leg through the center of the opening between the saddle horns. She did not attempt to swing her leg over the high cantle.** Women’s skirts were made full to permit freedom of movement afoot as well as ease in mounting and to provide a covering for the legs when mounted astride. Three Calf said that in his youth pregnant women wore an undecorated belt of rawhide, 6 inches or more in width, as a support for the abdemen in riding. It was laced in front so that it could be 7 Right-side mounting formerly was the general rule among Plains Indians. Parker (1856, p. 239) observed that tribes of the southern Plains mounted from that side. Yet Opler (1941, p. 396) claimed the Chiracahua Apache mounted from the left side. Perhaps this was due to their prolonged contacts with Spanish-Mexican settlements of the South- west. Carlos Rincon Gallardo, Duque de Regla, an authority on Mexican equitation, has informed me through Dr. Pablo Martinez Del Rio, that Mexican riders of the Colonial Period mounted from the left as a general rule. In respect to mounting, the Plains Indians seem to have followed their own conception of the easiest method, rather than Spanish- Mexican example. It is noteworthy that the Choctaw of the Southeast, ante-1775, mounted from the right side, claiming it was the more natural one from which to get on a horse (Adair, 1775, p. 426). 3% Parker’s description of Southern Comanche women’s method of mounting (observed by him in 1854), shows their method was identical to that of Blackfoot women. “Drawing the left foot up, after placing the right in the stirrup, they extended it over the saddle at right angles to the right, instead of describing the are of a circle” (Parker, 1856, p. 203. In riding astride, Plains Indian women adopted a custom that was not Spanish- Mexican practice. Carlos Rincon Gallardo, Duque de Regla, has informed me that Mexican women of the Colonial Period never rode astride. Serrano’s remarks on the riding posture of Mexican women of California during the Spanish Period also indicates their preference for the side saddle. ‘As the saddles on which they ride have the saddle-bow and stirrups taken off, they use as a stirrup for one foot a silk band, one end being made fast at the pommel, the other at the cantle’ (Bancroft, 1888, p. 447). Bwers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 69 let out as pregnancy advanced. This belt was worn for about a month after the birth of a child. Then it was thrown away, and the mother resumed wearing the narrower, decorated woman’s belt. HORSE COMMANDS To start his horse the Blackfoot rider repeated the sound “sh” (made with the mouth open) several times. To slow down or stop the horse he called “ka” a number of times. Both commands were nonsense sounds, having no meaning except as horse commands. “Ka” was also the command given by men to keep their horses nearby and quiet after they dismounted in war or under other conditions when it was impera- tive for the horse to remain still. Women trained their best mares to stand still and submit to the bridle when their owners called “ka.” Elderly men, who had stolen horses from the Cree, Crow, and Flat- head in their youth, said those tribes did not use the same commands. They did not recall the commands used by those tribes, but remem- bered that horses stolen from them by Blackfoot warriors had to be taught to respond to Blackfoot verbal commands. They said the commands “sh” and “ka” were employed by the three Blackfoot tribes and the Gros Ventres. Today all Blackfoot, whether or not they speak much English, employ the commands “whoa” and “giddap” to stop and start their horses. They began to make use of these commands shortly after they settled on reservations after the buffalo were gone. The old commands are remembered only by members of the oldest generation. Accord- ing to one Blackfoot legend, Morning Star, who made the first horse, used the commands “sh” and “ka” to control its action. (See p. 296.) The Piegan employed one other verbal horse command. A man could get his horse to drink by making a rapid clicking noise (tongue against upper teeth and release) in imitation of a drinking horse. If the horse refused to drink, but moved his head from side to side in or over the water, the rider knew the water was not good for drinking and that he must find a better watering place. JT asked a number of middle-aged Flathead, Wind River Shoshoni, and Cree Indians, who visited the Museum of the Plains Indian in the early 1940’s, about the horse com- mands formerly employed by their tribes. They were unfamiliar with commands used before their people adopted “whoa” and “giddap.” However, elderly Oglala and Brule men recalled that members of their tribes formerly made a clicking sound (tongue against the roof of the mouth or front teeth and release) to start a horse, and the sound, “huh,” repeated several times, to slow down or stop the animal. Kiowa informants claimed their people used the click and “huh” to start and stop horses in the old days. Undoubt- edly Kiowa and Western Dakota use of the same nonsense sounds as horse commands was due to diffusion rather than independent invention. Perhaps if we had more complete information on the horse commands of the different Plains and Plateau Indian tribes these data would be of some significance in tracing routes of diffusion of the horse complex in this region. H. C. Bolton (1897, p. 80) found that the hiss sound “ss” was used in Mexico by halfbreed Spaniards to start a horse, while Mexicans in the Southwest used the command ‘‘check-a” to stop a horse. This suggests historic connection between Spanish and Blackfoot horse commands. 70 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 Three Calf recalled that some Crow Indians could get their horses to roll in grass after they had finished drinking by slapping the fronts of their own thighs with their hands. However, that was not a Black- foot practice. GUIDING The Blackfoot employed no verbal commands to turn a horse to the right or left. The best trained buffalo and war horses, and the racers were so sensitive that they would turn to either side by pressure from the rider’s knee or from his shifting weight to one side or the other. These horses could be ridden without a bridle, but they nearly always were bridled.” The majority of Blackfoot riding horses were not so intelligent or so well trained. They had to be handled through use of a two-reined bridle. The rider slackened both reins in getting the horse on the run; pulled both reins in stopping it; and pulled one rein to turn the horse to the side. (Bridle types and their uses are described on pp. 75-77.) USE OF WHIP The Blackfoot Indians made no spurs and relatively few men em- ployed metal spurs obtained through the fur trade in buffalo days. The best trained horses needed neither spurs nor whips to urge them to exert themselves. However, whips were commonly carried by Blackfoot riders of both sexes. A woman riding a travois struck the whip handle against one of the travois shafts as she gave the oral command to start her horse. In riding a poor or old horse many Indians kept the whip constantly in motion, raising and lowering the whip arm in time with the movement of the horse, touching the horse’s rump lightly with the whip lash each time the arm descended. Frank Sherburne recalled that at the turn of the century it was a common sight to see an old Indian riding into the town of Browning, rhyth- mically raising and lowering his whip “every other jump of the horse.” (Whip types are described on pp. 97-99.) USE OF SHORT STIRRUPS Both men and women among the Blackfoot tribes rode with bent knees and short stirrups when riding in the saddle. Short stirrups gave the active rider the necessary leverage to move from side to side and to rise and turn in the saddle as the need required. They enabled him to use the lance and bow and arrow more effectively when mounted, “In 1805, Larocque (1910, p. 64) wrote of the training of Crow horses, “Most of their horses can be guided to any place without a bridle, only by leaning to one side or the other they turn immediately to the side on which you lean, and will not return until you resume a. direct posture.” The same sensitivity has been attributed to the best trained horses of other tribes of the Plains and Plateau by later writers. BHwers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE “1 and made it easier for him to weave his body from side to side when under fire in battle.*! ABILITY AS HORSEMEN It was to be expected that people who learned to ride in early child- hood and who spent much of their time on horseback would become expert riders. Blackfoot boys learned to ride double at a fast pace, to throw their bodies on one side of a running horse using it as a shield, and to shoot arrows from the bow rapidly and accurately from horseback. Girls also became excellent riders, although they had less opportunity to show their skill in dangerous or complicated maneu- vers. The greatest individual feat of horsemanship remembered by Piegan informants was that of breaking a bronco while holding a baby in his arms, attributed to Dog Child, one of their fearless riders. Blood informants recalled the accomplishment of Owner-of-a-Sacred- White-Horse, a horse medicine man, who was said to have jumped his horse over a coulee more than 10 feet wide to avoid being overtaken by the enemy. From the time of Anthony Hendry (1754) contemporary white observers have marveled at the skill of Plains Indian horsemen. Cer- tainly no tribe or group of tribes had a monopoly on expert riders. Nevertheless, Captain Clark stated “the Comanches and Utes are con- sidered by many Indians the best horsemen” (Clark, 1885, p. 319). This contention is supported by the writings of other competent ob- servers. Ferris, who possessed wide, first-hand knowledge of the tribes of the northern Rockies in the 1830's, considered the Ute, “by far the most expert horsemen in the mountains, and course down their steep sides in pursuit of deer and elk at full speed, over places where a white man would dismount and lead his horse” (Ferris, 1940, p. 312). Cap- tain Marcy, in 1852, termed the Comanche “the most expert horsemen in the world” (Marcy, 1937, p. 158). This judgment was made of Comanche horsemanship by other observers (Burnet, 1851, p. 236; Neighbors, 1852, p. 182). We need not take this praise literally to be impressed with the high regard competent American horsemen had for the riding ability of the Comanche.” “1 The Frenchman, Tixier, was impressed by the fact that the Osage “stirrup leathers are very short” in 1840 (Tixier, 1940, p. 168). Both Captain Clark (1885, p. 319) and James Meline (1868, pp. 103, 246) reported the use of the short stirrup as characteristic of Plains Indian riders. Denhardt (1947, pp. 15-17) traced the introduction of the use of short stirrups into Spain by the Moors. The Spanish adopted the Moorish method in preference to the prevailing European practice of riding straight-legged. Spanish con- quistadores brought the Moorish method of riding to America along with the horse. Probably Plains Indian use of the short stirrup was patterned after its usage by the Spanish-Mexicans. Being well suited to fast riding and ease of movement in the saddle, the short stirrup was retained by the Indians. “Zebulon Pike (1810, appendix, part 3, p. 42) employed the same phrase (“the most expert horsemen in the world’’) in his description of the mounted Spanish troops of New Mexico, whose horsemanship he observed in 1806. 12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 It is noteworthy that both Ute and Comanche were richer in horses in buffalo days than were the Blackfoot. Wealthy tribes had a greater selection of riding animals, and hence generally rode better mounts. If the Comanche and Ute were better riders than the Blackfoot at least part of the credit should be given to their superior horses. As shown elsewhere in this study, the Blackfoot tribes were inept at capturing wild horses and at killing animals of the deer family from horseback, while the Comanche were skilled in both these difficult undertakings. This appears to me to be concrete proof of Blackfoot inferiority to the Comanche as horsemen. # Charles Mackenzie, in 1805, observed that the Missouri Indians (Mandan and Hidatsa) “were inferior in the management of their horses’ to the nomadic Crow, who, of course, not only had more and better horses but made much more common use of these animals in their daily life (Mackenzie, 1889, p. 345). RIDING GEAR MAKING OF RAWHIDE ROPE Rawhide rope had many uses in Blackfoot horse culture. ‘The strength, flexibility, and durability of buffalo rawhide made it pre- ferred material for lariats, hackamores, bridles, picket lines, hobbles, saddle rigging straps, stirrup straps, travois ropes, and cords used for wrapping bundles and tying them on pack animals or the travois. Women were the skilled leatherworkers among the Blackfoot. A1- though some men made rawhide rope, our older male informants acknowledged that in their youth women usually fashioned the best ropes. The tough, heavy hide of the buffalo bull was preferred ma- terial. Three Calf recalled that his grandmother and mother, both con- sidered clever workers in rawhide, made rawhide rope in this manner: The woman first cut one long, continuous strip from the green hide of a buffalo bull. Beginning at the outer edge, she cut a strip about 4 fingers wide all around the hide, including the leg and head projec- tions, working in a concentric spiral, ending at the center of the hide. Then she cut a slit near one end of the strip and drove a lodge peg through this slit into the ground. She stretched the rope as tight as possible and drove another peg into the ground through a similar slit at the other end of the line. Later she pulled up one peg, stretched the strip farther, and pegged it to the ground again. After the raw- hide dried, she took it off her simple stretcher and began softening it by rubbing the inner (meat side) surface of the hide with a rock. Then she doubled the strip lengthwise, hair side out, and bit it with her teeth to hold the crease. She passed one end of the strip through the eye sockets of a buffalo skull, and standing with one foot on the skull to steady it, she used both hands to saw the strip back and forth through these eye holes to rub off the hair and further soften the hide. She knocked off any hair that remained with a rock. Taking her knife again she cut the strip down the center lengthwise, dividing it into two ropes each 2 fingers wide. If these ropes were intended for bridles she allowed for a short distance of rope 4 fingers wide at each end, one end for one rope, the other for the second rope, to serve as a honda for each. She trimmed each rope very carefully to be sure that it was an even width throughout its length, except for the ex- panded honda end. Any short pieces trimmed off were saved for whip 73 74 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 lashes. After cutting she oiled the ropes with back fat. One buffalo- hide thus made two ropes of equal length, 17 or more feet long. Other ropemakers employed somewhat different methods. Some cut the entire buffalo hide in a strip 2 fingers wide. They could cut one very long rope or two shorter ones this width from a hide. Some did not use a buffalo skull for dehairing, but removed all the hair with a rock. Some insisted on using coyote or badger fat to oil their ropes. Others dragged the ropes on the ground behind a horse for a time to make them soft and slick. LEAD END Ficure 10.—A simple rawhide hackamore, Blackfoot. HACKAMORES The Blackfoot used a simple hackamore for halter breaking horses, breaking them to ride, and leading horses when moving camp. The hackamore was generally of a single rawhide strand 2 fingers wide. A common Blackfoot hackamore is shown in figure 10. “ Descriptions of ropemaking by the Gros Ventres, Hidatsa, and Kutenai mention minor differences in process (Kroeber, 1907, p. 150; Wilson, 1924, pp. 186-187; Turney-High, 1941, pp. 75-76). We cannot be sure if these were tribal or merely individual differences in method. Kiowa informants stated that women did most of their ropemaking. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 75 BRIDLES Blackfoot bridles were of rawhide or buffalo-hair rope. Anthony Hendry, in the earliest description of Northwestern Plains horse cul- ture (1754), mentioned Indian use of “hair halters” (Hendry, 1907, p. 888). Maximilian (1833) described only buffalo-hair rope in use among the Blackfoot (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 28, p. 107). Yet neither Bradley (1870’s) nor Wissler mentioned buffalo-hair bridles as typi- eal of the Blackfoot (Bradley, 1923, p. 263; Wissler, 1910, p.95). Our informants considered the buffalo-hair bridle an old-style Blackfoot one which was little used in the time of their youth. Three Calf said his mother made ropes from the forehead and foreleg hair of the buffalo. She twisted the hair around a stick, pressed it under her bed for several nights, then retrieved it and braided it in 4 strands. This rope would not get stiff or heavy in water. It made a good bridle, but it was too light for use as a lasso on windy days. Ropes of braided horsehair were said to have been uncommon among the Blackfoot before white cowboys taught them how to make them. Most Blackfoot bridles in use during the youth of my informants were of rawhide, single strand or braided. Single-strand rawhide bridles, usually 2 fingers wide, would not wear as long as the braided ones. Some people made a chainstitch rope of a single strand no wider than a man’s little finger. After it was pounded and rolled between two flat rocks it looked much like a braided rope. When finished it had a diameter of about three-quarters of an inch. Although some- times used for bridles, rope of this type was most commonly employed for wrapping medicine pipes and other sacred bundles. The most popular Blackfoot bridle in those days was of three- strand braided rawhide. This rope was strong and flexible. In daily use it would last many years. Some makers braided them around a honda ring tied to the trunk of a tree. A four-strand rope was braided of green rawhide 2 fingers wide looped around a peg in the ground. All of the rope except for the short section that passed around the peg was cut in two lengthwise before braiding. After braiding it was stretched between two pegs, then the unbraided section that had been looped around the first peg was cut off. The four-strand rope was said to have been a white man’s invention, first employed by the Piegan when the Blackfoot Agency was at Old Agency in the early 1880's. The Piegan then made them for themselves and sold them to cowboys for roping cattle. Some are said to have brought as much as $50 each. The Blackfoot regarded this as the best rope for lariats. It was not commonly used for bridles. The most common form of Blackfoot bridle was that known to the Indians as “war bridle.” This name probably was derived from its common use on horse-stealing raids. The Blackfoot also used it in 76 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 hunting buffalo and for general riding purposes. It was a two-rein bridle formed of a single length of rope with a honda (fixed loop at the end of one rein through which the other rein passes). The end with the honda served as one rein, at the foreward part of which two half hitches were taken, placed in the horse’s mouth, and tightened around his lower jaw. (Some men tied a knot in the rope below the half hitches to keep them from slipping.) The rope continued around the other side of the horse’s neck (serving as a second rein), passed through the honda, and the long end remaining was carefully folded or coiled and placed under the rider’s belt at one side. (See fig. 11.) \ f CSU FieurEe 11.—Rider using a rawhide war bridle with the end of one rein coiled under his belt, Blackfoot. Va —| | | ae fj Since these ropes were from 16 to 30 feet long, their greatest portion remained tucked under the belt. If the rider was thrown from his horse he could catch hold of the end of this rope as it payed out along the ground. There was always the danger, however, that the rope Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE vif might become tangled or knotted under the belt so that when the rider was thrown or forced to dismount hurriedly from a moving horse he might be injured or killed. Although two half hitches were most commonly used for the jaw fastening, three half hitches were employed to control a spirited horse that was difficult to handle. When the rider pulled hard on the reins the rawhide swelled in the horse’s mouth and made it uncomfortable for him. For race horses a single half hitch was preferred. It left the horse’s mouth freer and made him less likely to become winded. The honda was made in several ways. Some men simply pierced the rope near the end and strengthened the loop by wrapping sinew around it. Others used a ring made from a narrow cross section of a buffalo horn. Much preferred was a small metal ring cbtained from white traders. Ifaring was employed, the end of the rope was passed through the ring, doubled back and securely sewn with sinew. The honda served another useful purpose. When the rider dismounted he could pass the short rein over the horse’s neck, pull on the long rein, and hold his mount halter fashion. (See fig. 12.) Wissler also noted Figure 12.—Use of the war bridle as a halter, Blackfoot. this practice (Wissler, 1910, p. 96). In riding, the reins were held at the honda or slightly forward of it. To keep a horse’s head high when on parade, a long loop of the bridle rope was left pendent under the jaw. This loop would swing as the horse moved and would strike the animal on the nose if he did not keep his head up. Members of returning war parties sometimes tied scalps to the bridle under the horse’s jaw for the same purpose. 78 ri BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 COMPARATIVE DATA ON BRIDLES Although mentions of bridles employed by other Plains and Plateau tribes are numerous in the literature, many descriptions are too frag- mentary to enable us to determine exactly what the author had in mind. For example, Penicaut’s description of the Caddo bridle, seen in 1714, i. e. “They have no other bit to their bridle than a hair cord which passes into the horse’s mouth,” may refer to a bridle of the “war bridle” type, but we cannot be sure (Penicaut in Swanton, 1942, p. 147). Hair bridles seem to have been in common use among the tribes of the northern Plains and Plateau in the early years of the 19th century. Lewis and Clark (Coues, 1893, vol. 2, p. 562) observed that the Lemhi Shoshoni used both a six- or seven-strand buffalo-hair rope and a rawhide rope but much preferred the hair one. Ross Cox (1882, pp. 84-85) said Nez Percé “bridles are merely ropes made out of hair of the horse’s tail and are tied round the jaw.” Maximilian (1833) noted that Assiniboin used a rope “of buffalo hair, which is fastened to the lower jaw as a bridle,” and that it was like the Hidatsa bridle (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 22, p. 391). Later writers tell of the preva- lence of braided horsehair ropes among the tribes of the Plateau west of the Flathead and Kutenai (Teit, 1900, p. 258; 1909, p. 535; 1930, p. 111). Perhaps their distance from the buffalo range encouraged their adoption of horsehair bridles. Yet Flathead and Kutenai used the rawhide variety, and the latter claimed both horsehair and buffalo hair bridle were recent introductions by way of the Nez Percé (Turney-High, 1937, p. 73; 1941, p. 108). The Comanche bridle ca. 1850 was “a simple rawhide noose” (Whipple, 1856, p. 28). Kiowa informants said their bridle was a two-reined buffalo rawhide rope looped around the horse’s lower jaw. The Indian “war bridle” differed markedly from the metal-bitted bridles commonly termed “Spanish bridles” by early writers. The Plains Indians became familiar with “Spanish bridles” early through capture and trade in Spanish horses. The two Frenchmen of La Vérendrye’s party, who remained with the Mandan through the sum- mer of 1739, were shown “Bridles of which the bit and curb are of one piece with very long branches, the whole finely polished,” by horse-using tribes who visited the Mandan to trade (La Vérendrye, 1927, p.371). Jacques d’Eglise observed that the Mandan had “bridles in Mexican style” in 1792 (Nasitir, 1927, p. 58). Lewis and Clark made frequent mention of “Spanish bridles” in use among the Lemhi Shoshoni in 1805, and noted that those Indians preferred them to their own simple hair or rawhide bridles when they could get them (Coues, 1893, vol. 2, pp. 559, 563, 569). Sergeant Ordway of that party saw that the Nez Percé used “Spanish bridles” as stakes in gambling in 1806. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 79 David Thompson, in 1787, described the return of a Piegan war party from a raid far to the south, on which they had stolen directly from the Spaniards horses which still bore their Spanish trappings. “The bridles and snaffle bits, heavy and coarse as if made by a black- smith with only his hammer. The weight and coarseness of the bits had made the Indians throw most of them away” (Thompson, 1916, pp. 871). Nevertheless, the Plains and Plateau tribes, Blackfoot in- cluded, used “Spanish bridles” when they could get them through theft or trade in the 19th century. Spanish bits were seen among the Osage in 1840 (Tixier, 1940, p. 168). In 1853, Whipple observed that the Comanche “are not averse to using both saddle and bridle, when- ever in their marauding expeditions they can obtain possession of them” (Whipple, 1856, p. 28). Boller (1868, p. 65) wrote of the Mandan-Hidatsa in 1858, “Those who are so fortunate as to possess one use the heavy Spanish bit with its long iron fringes, jingling with the slightest movement of the horse.” However, the simple rawhide “war bridle,” with modifications to adapt it to special uses, well described by Wilson, survived in common use among the Hidatsa until the end of buffalo days (Wilson, 1924, pp. 182-185). In the paintings of George Catlin, Alfred Miller, and Rudolph Kurz the great majority of Indians pictured on horseback are shown using the “war bridle.” Among the Blackfoot the metal-bitted bridle was a luxury item. The simple “war bridle” remained in common use until after buffalo were gone. LARIATS The long rawhide bridle served the Blackfoot as a lariat as well. Buffalo hair ropes, because of their light weight, had limited useful- ness as lassos in the windy Blackfoot Country. Informants claimed the Blackfoot used lariats long before there were any American cow- boys in Montana. The fixed loop was standard. Men used the lariat primarily for roping horses which they wished to cut out of their herds, for roping unpicketed horses of the enemy when on horse-steal- ing raids, and for roping horses for gelding or breaking to the saddle. I gained the impression that little use of the lariat was made by mounted men. Women did not use the lariat as a general rule. They trained their gentle horses to stand still when they threw one end of the long bridle line over their backs or necks and called “ka-ka-ka”.* 45 Barly descriptions of the use of the lariat by northern tribes appear in the literature. Lewis and Clark (Coues, 1893, vol. 2, pp. 562-563) observed that the Lemhi Shoshoni were experts in lassoing running horses. Alfred Jacob Miller painted two watercolors of Indians lassoing wild horses (Walters Art Gallery Collection, Baltimore, Md., Nos. 80 and 137). The latter depicts a Shoshoni woman lassoing from horseback. (See also De Voto, 1947, pl. 53.) Other early references to the use of the lasso in catching wild horses by Plains Indians appear on p. 60. Pike (1810, Appendix, p. 42) marveled at the skill of Spanish cavalrymen of New Mexico in lassoing horses. There can be little doubt that the Plains Indians learned the use of the lariat from the Spanish, as Wyman (1945, p. 85) has claimed. 80 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 THE DRAGGING LINE George Catlin described the use of a long, dragging line tied around the horse’s neck, by Plains Indians in the 1830's: The laso is a long thong of rawhide, of ten or fifteen yards in length, made of several braids or twists, and used chiefly to catch the wild horse... In run- ning the buffaloes, or in time of war, the laso drags on the ground at the horse’s feet, and sometimes several rods behind, so that if a man is dismounted, which is often the case, by the tripping or stumbling of the horse, he has the power of grasping to the laso, and by stubbornly holding on to it, of stopping and securing his horse, on whose back he is instantly replaced, and continuing on in the chase. [Catlin, 1841, vol. 1, p. 253.] In his description of this item Catlin does not refer to its use by any specific tribes, but seems to infer that it was in general use among the buffalo-hunting tribes of the Plains in his time. He shows this drag- ging line in many of his paintings of Indians hunting buffalo on horseback. The Blackfoot bridle, one end of which was coiled under the rider’s belt, served the same purpose. This poses the question of whether the device described by Catlin might not be older than the Blackfoot one described by informants as that employed in their youth. I am in- clined to believe that there were several devices employed by the Indians for the same purpose, that may have had different distri- butions. This is suggested by Lewis and Clark’s description of the Lemhi Shoshoni halter employed in 1805— One end of it is first tied round the neck in a knot and then brought down to the under jaw, round which it is formed into a simple noose, passing through the mouth ; it is then drawn up on the right side and held by the rider in his left hand, while the rest trails after him to some distance. At other times the knot is formed at a little distance from one of the ends, so as to let that end serve as a bridle while the other trails on the ground. [Coues, 1893, vol. 2, p. 562.] The second Shoshoni variant is the typical Blackfoot war bridle, ex- cept that the long end of one rein is allowed to drag the ground rather than tucked under the belt. Tixier, in 1840, told of Osage buffalo hunters employing a long horsehair tether, tied around the horse’s neck, coiled and “passed around the rider’s belt,” for the same purpose (Tixier, 1940, pp. 167-168). ‘This seems to be still another variant. Wilson’s description of the Hidatsa bridle indicates clearly that it was like that of the Blackfoot, and served the same dual purpose (Wilson, 1924, p. 183). The limited data at our disposal shows that the Blackfoot variant of the dragging line was known to the Shoshoni in 1805. There is no reason to believe that the separate line, tied around the horse’s neck, is an older device. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 81 SADDLES SADDLE MAKING Saddle making was women’s work among the Blackfoot. It was a somewhat specialized craft. Some older women who were especially skilled saddlemakers not only manufactured them for the members of their own families but also made them for trade, while other women never attempted to make saddles. Saddle making was not strictly a seasonal occupation, but Blackfoot women generally preferred to fashion them in warmer weather because of the inconvenience of working wet rawhide in winter. Toa limited extent saddles were tailor-made. If the person for whom the saddle was intended was a large, heavy man or woman, the pommel and cantle were spaced a greater distance apart than was usual in frame saddles. Saddles made for children were proportionately smaller than those for adults.*7 . Saddles were highly valued, private property. A good horse was paid for with a fancy pad saddle or a high-horned woman’s saddle. When a couple married their parents might give them saddles. How- ever, some poor families owned no saddles. Ifa young man was am- bitious, wanted to hunt and go to war, his father or another close relative had a saddle made for him. A lazy young man of poor family might never own a saddle. At night, or in the daytime when not in use, saddles were stored inside the owner’s lodge behind the beds. If a man had several wives it generally was the duty of the one who slept nearest the door to care for his saddle and other riding gear left in the lodge. The several types of pad and frame saddles used by the Blackfoot in buffalo days were as follows: THE PAD SADDLE An active man’s saddle, which was little more than a soft, skin pillow stuffed with hair, was known as “pad saddle.” To make a pad saddle two pieces of soft tanned buffalo, deer, elk or antelope skin were cut to the same size, roughly hourglass-shaped in outline. Buffalo bull skin made the longest wearing pad saddle. Although aman might cut the pattern to suit his desire, he turned the skins over to a woman to as- 46 Women were also the saddlemakers among the Wind River Shoshoni and Kiowa (Shim- kin, 1947 b, p. 294; communication from Alice Marriott). Some Kiowa women were specialists to the extent that they made and traded saddles for lodge covers, dried meat, and other articles. However, Opler (1941, p. 395) found that men made the saddles of the Chiracahua Apache. 47 The collections of the U. S. National Museum contain several small frame saddles from different Plains Indian tribes, documented as children’s saddles. Kiowa informants said older women of that tribe made saddles for boys and girls. 287944—55—_7 82 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bull. 159 semble the saddle. She placed one skin on top of the other so that their edges were in contact, then sewed the skins together in two nearly parallel lines of soft skin or rawhide cord extending lengthwise of the center. She then began to sew the edges of the top and bottom skins together with sinew thread, leaving sufficient openings at each side to stuff the saddle before completely closing the edges. Buffalo or deer hair were preferred for stufling, although some women used grass for that purpose. The pad saddle illustrated in plate 2, a, shows the basic pattern and decoration. This specimen (U. S. N. M. No. 2656) was collected by Capt. Howard Stansbury in 1849, and labeled “Black Feet Indians of the Rocky Mountains.” It measures 163% inches long and 14 inches wide through the center and weighs 1 pound 5 ounces. In 1947, I showed photographs of this specimen to elderly Blackfoot Indians. They pronounced it typical of pad saddles used by Blood and Piegan men in their youth. This specimen is decorated with porcupine-quili rosettes and quilled lozenges in each corner. Pendent from the lower border of the saddle near each corner are two quilled skin pieces sepa- rated by quill-wrapped skin thongs. The edge seam joining the bottom and top skins is covered with quillwork. Informants recog- nized this as the usual pattern of decoration of old Blackfoot pad saddles. However, in their youth the same pattern was worked out more frequently in beadwork. * From the center of each side extend U-shaped tabs used for fas- tening the girth to the saddle. The most common girth was a raw- hide strap 2 to 4 fingers wide, doubled over the tab on the left side of the saddle and sewn with sinew, passed under the barrel of the horse and secured to the tab on the right side of the saddle with a rawhide latigo strap. Less common girthing was obtained by sus- pending soft skin straps from each tab and tying them under the horse’s belly. Informants believed the saddle illustrated was either ridden without stirrups or the stirrups were suspended from the same tabs as the girth. In their youth most pad saddle riders used stirrups. Some Blackfoot pad saddles were equipped with a second pair of small tabs, located forward of the girth tabs, from which the stirrup straps were suspended. Many pad saddles had a rectangular, transverse piece of rawhide 4 inches or more in width across the center of the saddle and sewn to the skin base. This piece hung down at the sides far enough to conceal the girth tabs. In some cases holes 48 A Piegan “sattel mit quill,” collected by Maximilian in 1833, formerly in the Museum fiir Vélkerkunde, Berlin (No. IV B 110) may have been of the pad-saddle type. Edward Harris, who accompanied Audubon to the Upper Missouri in 1843, collected a Blackfoot pad saddle, which is now in the Museum of the Alabama State Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Ala. It is similar in pattern and decoration to the specimen collected by Captain Stansbury. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 83 were made near the ends of these rawhide strips from which the stirrup straps were hung. Fully rigged, with stirrups and girth, the pad saddle weighed less than 3 pounds. It was no heavier than a modern American racing saddle. The experienced Indian trader, W. T. Hamilton, claimed a horse could travel 20 miles farther in a day under a pad than under a frame saddle (Hamilton, 1905, p. 37). The pad saddle provided a light, elastic, soft seat. It was used primarily by active young men in buffalo hunting, fighting on horseback, horse racing, and general riding. Its specialized use in breaking broncos has been described (p. 64). Children, older men, and women rarely rode pad saddles, unless they did not have access to a frame saddle. DISTRIBUTION OF THE PAD SADDLE The pad saddle is an old type among the Blackfoot and their neighbors. In his tantalizingly brief description of “Archithinue” riding gear seen in 1754, Hendry stated, “They have... Buffalo skin pads, & stirrups of the same” (Hendry, 1907, p. 388). Presum- ably he referred to the pad saddle described above. Certainly Alex- ander Henry described the use of the pad saddle by the Blackfoot, Assiniboin, and Cree prior to 1809 (Henry and Thompson, 1897, vol. 2, pp. 526-527). The artists Paul Kane (1847) and Frederich Kurz (1852) pictured Blackfoot ponies bearing pad saddles (Bushnell, 1940, fig. 8; Kurz, 1987, pl. 22). Elderly Blackfoot said the pad saddle went out of use soon after they settled on reservations and obtained ample numbers of white men’s stock saddles which were sturdier and were equipped with pommels needed for working cattle. Reuben Black Boy (born 1883) recalled having seen but one pad saddle in use among the Piegan. That was before the Agency was moved to Brown- ing in the mid-90’s. West of the Blackfoot the pad saddle was ridden by younger men in buffalo days. Lewis and Clark saw young Lemhi Shoshoni men riding pad saddles without stirrups in 1805 (Coues, 1893, vol. 2, p. 562). In 1812, Ross Cox noted Nez Percé use of the pad saddle with stirrups (Cox, 1832, p. 84). Later writers reported the use of this saddle by the Klikatat, Yakima, Shuswap, Thompson, Couer d’Alene, Flathead, and Sanpoil (U. S. Comm. Ind. Affairs, 1854, p. 227; Teit, 1909, p. 534; 1930, pp. 110, 353; Ray, 1932, p. 117). Pierre Pichette told me the Flathead seldom used stirrups with the pad saddle. A variant of the pad saddle from the Klamath of Oregon is in the United States National Museum. This specimen (U. S. N. M. No. 24108) was collected in 1876. The fur trader, Daniel Harmon, described the pad saddle of the Assiniboin, Atsina, Blackfoot, and Mandan and their neighbors in 84 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 the first quarter of the 19th century, “On the back of the horse, they put a dressed buffalo skin, on the top of which they place a pad, from which are suspended stirrups, made of wood and covered with the skin of the testicles of the buffalo” (Harmon, 1903, p. 291). Kurz ob- served and illustrated Crow pad saddles in midcentury (Kurz, 1957, p. 260, pl. 9). Later writers described pad saddle use by Hidatsa and Mandan (Mathews, 1877, p. 19; Boller, 1868, p. 225; Wilson, 1924, p. 190), and Cheyenne (Grinnell, 1923, vol. 1, pp. 206, 208; vol. 2, p. 17). There are four Teton Dakota pad saddles in the collections of the United States National Museum. These collections also contain a pad saddle from the Yanktonai (No. 8415) collected in 1869, and one from the Sisseton (No. 9062) received that same year. Two Winnebago pad saddles have been illustrated (Radin, 1923, p. 29). The pad saddle is well represented in the works of white artists who pictured the life of the Indians of the northern Plains in buffalo days. Probably the first published illustration of this saddle type was Peter Rindisbacher’s “Sioux Warrior Charging,” which appeared in the “American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine” for Octo- ber 1829 (opp. p. 73). Sketchy renderings of pad saddles appear in several of George Catlin’s tribally unidentified hunting scenes and in his painting of a grizzly bear hunt on horseback. Bodmer’s litho- graph of a buffalo hunt on horseback (1833) shows the pad saddle in use. Kurz drew a number of fine sketches of pad-saddled horses seen among the Upper Missouri tribes in 1851-52. Charles Wimar’s original sketch books from the period of his trip up the Missouri and Yellowstone in 1858 (now in the City Art Museum, St. Louis) con- tain drawings of pad saddles. Study of the most detailed of these early illustrations and of museum specimens indicates that tribal differences in construction and decoration of the pad saddle among the Upper Missouri tribes were negligible. I have seen a single pad saddle specimen from a southern Plains tribe. It was collected by Jarvis prior to September 1848, and was labeled “Comanche” in Jarvis’ own hand (Acc. No. 1848, 67, New York Hist. Soc., now in the Brooklyn Museum). This specimen is identical with northern Plains pad saddles. Three Kiowa informants claimed men of their tribe did not use pad saddles in the late years of buffalo hunting. Tixier’s description of the equipment of Osage buffalo hunters seen in 1840 mentions only the frame saddle (Tixier, 1940, p. 168). Nevertheless, fragmentary descriptions indicate that the pad saddle may have been in general use in that region in earlier times. Pénicaut described Caddo riding gear in 1714, “their stirrups are suspended by a cord . . . of hair which is fastened to doe skin doubled into four thicknesses and serving them as a saddle” (Swanton, 1942, p. 147). Apache warriors, in 1744, were said to Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 85 have ridden with a “skin serving them for a saddle” (Whipple, 1856, ponell de These early references, in addition to those referring to the north- ern tribes, suggest that the pad saddle may have been virtually Plains- wide in its distribution in the 18th century. As Wissler (1915, p. 36) has suggested, the pad saddle, of basically simple construction, may have been diffused over the Plains with the horse, while the more complex frame saddle passed northward at a slower rate. Although the origin of the pad saddle cannot be determined with certainty on the basis of data available, it is possible that it was derived from the Spanish-Mexican pack saddle. Pfefferkorn (1949, p. 95), who saw that saddle in use in Sonora in the middle 18th century, described it as two cushions of tanned cowhide, four-cornered and stuffed with hay, attached to one another in the middle. This may have been the prototype of the active young man’s saddle of the Plains Indians. PAD-SADDLE VARIANTS AMONG THE BLACKFOOT Two variants of the pad saddle were described by aged Blackfoot informants. A very simple saddle was made from a single thickness of hide from a buffalo bull’s neck. The hide was placed on the horse, hair side down, and held in place by straps pendent from each side, tied under the horse’s belly. A rawhide cord, sewn together at the ends to make a continuous belt was suspended over the top of the pad so that the loop ends served as stirrups. Men returning from horse raids sometimes made saddles of this type if they had time and oppor- tunity to kill buffalo en route. The saddle could be quickly fashioned from untanned buffalo hide. Its use was preferred to riding bare- back for days over rough country. This type also served the poor or lazy fellow who could afford no better saddle. The second variant of the pad saddle was composed of a pair of horizontal, cottonwood sideboards, like those used for frame saddles, joined by flexible skin pads stuffed with grass in front and back in lieu of pommel and cantle. This made a light saddle that could be folded easily and carried under the owner’s arm when not in use. It was an uncommon saddle type. THE “WOOD SADDLE” The typical woman’s saddle was a frame of cottonwood covered with rawhide, known to the Blackfoot as “wood saddle.” The type is illustrated by a Blood Indian specimen in the Chicago Museum of Natural History, collected by R. N. Wilson prior to 1897 (cat. No. 51,752). Sideboards measure 19 inches long. The cantle rises to a height of 12.8 inches. (Pl. 2,0.) This type was described by Alex- ander Henry in 1809, as “made of wood well joined, and covered with 86 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 raw buffalo hide, which in drying binds every part tight. This frame rises about ten inches before and behind; the tops are bent over hori- zontally and spread out, forming a flat piece about six inches in di- ameter.” He believed this saddle type was older than the pad saddle (Henry and Thompson, 1897, vol. 2, p.527). In 1833, Maximilian ob- served this saddle and noted that both pommel and cantle “frequently has a leather fringe hanging from it” (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 23, p. 107). Gustavus Sohon shows this type of saddle ridden by the two women in the left background of his field sketch, “The Bloods Come in Council,’ drawn in 1855. The men in the foreground appear to be riding pad saddles. (PI. 4.) In making a wood saddle a woman split a green cottonwood log and trimmed two pieces to equal size about one-half inch thick, 16 to Se (ue UT \ } 4 4, Mat! FiegurE 13.—Construction of a woman’s “wood saddle,’ Blackfoot. a, Wooden pommel and cantle ready for assembly ; b, rawhide-covered assembled saddle. 20 inches long, and 38 or 4 inches wide, for the sideboards. Three Calf said his mother bent the sideboards slightly by pressure over the shaft of a travois while the wood was still green. Two forks of green cottonwood were carefully selected for pommel and cantle. Care was taken that they should be approximately the same size and that both prongs of each fork should be of equal thickness. The top of each fork was bent and trimmed with a knife to a flat disk shape and the ends of the prongs were curved. A small hole was burned in the front of the piece to be used for the pommel just above the junction of the prongs and a straight wooden spike tightly fitted into the hole. With a red- hot iron rod two pairs of holes were burned in the sideboards at both sides of each prong, the outer surfaces of the lower portions of the prongs were grooved, and were tied to the sideboards by buckskin thongs passed through the grooves and the sideboard holes. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 87 The buffalo rawhide used for covering the frame was first soaked in a pond or stream for several days until it became green and foul smell- ing. It was then stretched on the ground, hair side up, boiling water was thrown upon it, and the hair was taken off with a rock. The woman then turned the hide over and scraped the flesh from the under- side with a hide scraper. The hair side was not scraped, as that would have made the hide too thin. The hide was then stretched over the sad- dle frame, fitted, cut and finally sewn with rawhide cord. The stitches were placed on the inside of the saddle where they would not be seen when the saddle was in use. (Fig. 13.) Care had to be taken that the saddle did not warp as the tough raw- hide dried and shrunk. Two methods of preventing warping were described. Three Calf said his grandmother placed a newly sewn saddle over a log about the size of a horse’s back and tied it down until the rawhide dried. Lazy Boy’s mother rolled up an old lodge cover tightly and forced it between the side bars of the saddle, then she wrapped a cord around the saddle and cover to bind them securely until the rawhide saddle covering dried.*® After the saddle cover dried, two holes were burned near each end of both sideboards used for tying: (1) the grass-stuffed soft skin pads which ran parallel and underneath the sideboards and (2) the raw- hide rigging straps fastened to the outside of the sideboards. <A fully rigged saddle is shown in figure 14. The rigging straps on the left side of the saddle looped about the cinch ring, which was commonly of rawhide. The ring shown in figure 14 was considered a very strong one. It was made by coiling narrow rawhide cord, wrapping the coils with more rawhide cord, and covering the circle thus formed with a tubing of rawhide. Another type of ring was of two rawhide disks of the same size sewn together. It was not considered as strong as the first type. Informants regarded this as the most important link in the girthing. It had to be as strong as possible. Lazy Boy said that about the year 1860 (i. e. “when the first steamboat came to Fort Ben- ton”) the Piegan began to obtain metal girth rings from traders. A metal girth ring was expensive, being worth, at that time, a coyote or fox skin in trade. Only rich people could afford them. But the Black- foot recognized their superior strength. Before the buffalo disap- peared the metal rings declined in value and most Blackfoot women procured them for their saddles. About the time these metal girth 49 George Catlin’s illustration of a Crow lodge shows a saddle drying beside the lodge. The saddle is staked to the ground to hold it in shape (Catlin, 1841, vol. 1, pl. 20). An- other Catlin illustration (reproduced in Wissler, 1915, fig. 1)\ shows this same drying method. A Kiowa informant said women of his tribe staked their frame saddles out to dry. However, Blackfoot informants, when told of that method, thought it would be a very good way to dry saddles, but said they had never heard of Blackfoot women making use of it. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 88 rings were introduced smaller metal rings useful for hondas also began to be offered in trade. The cinch was a band of rawhide about 4 inches wide. One end was doubled and tied around the girth ring on the left side of the saddle. The band passed under the horse’s belly and was fastened to the rawhide or metal ring suspended from the rigging straps on the right side of the saddle. Several methods of fastening were Z WW mW AW Ror ROSS a, View, left side; FicuReE 14.—Rigging of a woman’s saddle, Blackfoot. b, detail of latigo tie on right side. employed. The simplest method was to punch a hole near the loose end of the girth, pass a rawhide latigo cord through it and tie the Some people preferred to fold the end cord to the right-side ring. of the girth and sew it to give the added strength of two thicknesses of rawhide at the point of strain. Another common method of secur- ing the girth was to sew a rawhide or metal ring in the end of the girth band, and tie this ring to the right-side ring suspended from the rigging straps with a rawhide cord. Some people used a half Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 89 hitch to make this tie, leaving the end tucked back so that it could be pulled out quickly in taking off the saddle. Horses always were saddled from the right side.” A feature of the wood saddle that puzzled some informants was the spike in the front of the pommel. Double-Victory-Calf-Robe said this spike was “Crow style” taken over by the Blackfoot. She had heard that Blackfoot women’s saddles of the early 19th century did not have this feature. Mrs. Cree Medicine claimed the spike served solely as a hook on which to hang the whip. Three Calf thought its main purpose was to indicate which end was the front of the saddle. Wissler has explained the use of the hook for the suspension of a rawhide seat which was attached at the back of the cantle by a wooden pin passed through a loop in the rawhide cover. He said “the hook has apparently become conventional, because it is found on saddles where the support is not used and the eye is wanting, though these are said to be degenerate forms” (Wissler, 1910, p. 94). Judging from the differences of opinion among my older informants regarding the function of the hook and the absence of any mention of the eye or seat, it would appear that the suspended seat was uncommon among the Blackfoot in the last two decades of buffalo days.” Wood saddles were decorated with buckskin fringes pendent from the disks of both pommel and cantle, or with long, triangular beaded or quilled flaps suspended from the outer margins of these disks. Some women decorated their saddles by driving round-headed brass tacks into the pommel and cantle. Blackfoot and Blood informants regarded the wood saddle as a woman’s saddle. It was used on the travois, and sometimes on pack horses, as well as on riding horses. However, men did not ride the wood saddle, unless they had no pad or “prairie chicken snare” saddle. DISTRIBUTION OF THE “WOOD SADDLE” The distinguishing characteristics of the “wood saddle” are found in the pommel and cantle. They are of carved wood, and are of the same design, the cantle being the same form as the pommel in reverse. A characteristic of the Blackfoot “wood saddle,” the large, flattened disk-shaped, horizontal projections of the pommel and cantle, is also found in the “wood saddles” of other northern Plains 8% An examination of the Plains Indian saddles in the collections of the U. S. National Museum to which the rigging is attached shows that this was a widespread Plains Indian custom. 51 With this feature in mind, I have examined the saddles in the collections of the U. S. National Museum known to have been made and collected before the buffalo disappeared. The majority of these Plains Indian saddles have neither suspended seats nor provisions for the pins in the backs of the cantles necessary for their use, although nearly all the wood saddles have hook projections on the pommels. Since Indian women generally placed a buffalo robe over their saddles before mounting, the need for a suspended rawhide seat seems questionable. 90 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 and Plateau tribes. Lewis and Clark’s description of Lemhi Shoshoni women’s saddles seen in 1805, mentioned the high pommels and cantles as “ending sometimes in a flat point extending outward” (Coues, 1893, vol. 2, p. 562). Miller’s illustrations of Shoshoni women’s sad- dles in the 1830’s, show that characteristic. Gustavus Sohon pictured the “wood saddle” type in use among the Flathead in the 1850’s (pl. 4). In the United States National Museum is a fine old ex- ample of this type marked “Columbia River” collected prior to 1867 (No. 2541). These collections also include examples of this type from the Ute (Nos. 11035 and 11036, collected by Powell in 1872), and Paiute in southern Utah (No. 14637, collected by Powell in 1874). The earliest dated specimen of this type I have seen from the Plains, is the Sioux saddle collected by Jarvis, probably in the period 1833-36. This saddle, termed a “pack saddle” in the collector’s hand- writing, is now in the Brooklyn Museum (Acc. No. 50-67-52) (see pl. 3, 6). There are two Crow saddles of this type in the United States National Museum collected prior to 1870 (Nos. 6468 and 8521). Women’s saddles from the southern Plains tribes are of somewhat different design. Their pommels and cantles curve outward near the tops, which are concave in section. A Comanche saddle of that type was collected by Dr. E. Palmer in 1868 (U. S. N. M. No. 6916). Mooney obtained a number of saddles of this type from the Kiowa in 1891. I have also seen Cheyenne and Osage saddles of this type in museum collections. An elderly Kiowa Apache woman told me this was the traditional woman’s saddle of her tribe. This appears to have been a southern Plains variant of the wood saddle. It would appear proper to distinguish the Blackfoot type as a northwestern one in view of its distribution in the northern Plains and Plateau. The origin of the “wood saddle” is difficult to determine. Wissler (1915, p. 83) has pointed out the difficulty of tracing Indian saddles to Mexican or Spanish prototypes because “while we have a fine series of specimens from the Indians we have very little of the kind from the period of Spanish colonization.” Perhaps he should have added that we have no really early Plains Indian saddles either. The oldest dated “wood saddle” (the Sioux saddle, pl. 3, 6) was collected in the 1830’s, nearly two centuries after the Plains Indians began to obtain horses. By that time the Plains tribes had been subjected to French, English, and American influences, through the fur trade, as well as to influences from Mexico. It issignificant also that Mexican saddlery changed after the period of the conquistadores. In fact Mexican his- torians have claimed that by the period of the second Viceroy of New Spain, Don Luis de Velasco (1550-64), the “silla mexicana,” a saddle distinct from that introduced by Cortez, was already in use in Mexico Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 91 (Rangel, 1924, pp. 18 ff.; Villar, 1941, p. 278). Yet I have seen no specimen or illustration of a specimen of a well-documented Mexican frame saddle dating prior to the third decade of the 19th century. I have found no reference to a Mexican saddle exhibiting the distinc- tive characteristic of the Plains and Plateau Indian woman’s saddle (i. e. pommel and cantle of like shape, reversed). Unless and until proof can be found that this general feature of Indian women’s sad- dles was also characteristic of some of the saddles ridden by Mexicans, French, English, or Americans prior to 1800, I shall be of the opinion that the design of the Indian “wood saddle” was not copied directly from Whites, but was a remodeled adaptation of the white man’s wooden frame saddle in the construction of which the Indians exer- cised considerable ingenuity. THE “PRAIRIE CHICKEN SNARE SADDLE” A frame saddle with low-arched horn pommel and cantle was known to the Blackfoot as a “prairie chicken snare saddle.” The sideboards and girthing of this saddle were like those of the “wood saddle.” It differed only in the material and form of the pommel and cantle. Plate 3, a, illustrates a “prairie chicken snare saddle” of Blackfoot origin from the collections of the Museum of the Plains Indian (Cat. No. 1871). The sideboards measure 19 inches long. The pommel is 81% inches high, and cantle 814 inches. In the manufacture of the “prairie chicken snare saddle” two sec- tions of fresh-killed elk or black-tailed deer antler were softened in warm water to make them pliable. Then they were bent and cut to the desired shape. One piece served for the cantle, the other, of like size and shape, for the pommel. In tying the antlers to the side- boards some women burned holes through the antlers near their ends for the buckskin tie strings. Others grooved the antlers horizontally and passed the tie strings through these grooves and holes burned in the sideboards at the ends of the grooves (fig. 15). Mrs. Cree Medi- cine considered the second method the stronger one. The saddle was then covered with green rawhide and protected from warping while the rawhide dried and set by the same methods employed in the making of “wood saddles.” In my older informants’ youth the “prairie chicken snare saddle” was the nearest approach to an all-purpose saddle known to the Black- foot. Older men, children, and some women used it for a riding saddle. Young men preferred it to the pad saddle for riding on long journeys. It was used on the travois and as a pack saddle in moving camp. It was the favorite saddle employed in packing butchered buffalo. When used for packing, some people sewed V-shaped raw- 92 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 Figure 15.—Construction of a “prairie chicken snare saddle,” Blackfoot. hide flaps to the centers of pommel and cantle. Holes were punched in the flaps and, after the load was in place, a rawhide line was passed back and forth over the pack and through these holes and tied to hold the load securely and prevent its shifting. This saddle was never decorated. It could be made with less time and effort than either the pad or wood saddle. Thus it was less valuable. ‘These factors undoubtedly encouraged its wide use. DISTRIBUTION OF THE “PRAIRIE CHICKEN SNARE SADDLE” There is every reason to believe that the “prairie chicken snare saddle” is not an old type among the Plains Indians. Alexander Henry made no mention of it in his description of Blackfoot saddles in 1809. Bradley, writing in the 1870’s, was the first to mention the use of elkhorn in Blackfoot saddle construction. This saddle type does not appear in the works of artists who interpreted the Plains Indians from personal observations in the field prior to 1850. Kurz did not illustrate it in his many representations of saddles seen by him among the Upper Missouri tribes in 1851-52. In his description of the Cheyenne use of this saddle type, Grinnell (1923, vol. 1, p. 207) termed it a comparatively modern invention of the Kiowa, from whom the Cheyenne learned how to make it. If we may credit this explanation of the origin of the “prairie chicken snare saddle,” we must recognize that the type spread rapidly over the Plains and deep into the Plateau as far as the Sanpoil and Thompson (Ray, 1932, p. 118; Wissler, 1915, fig. 20). Its use by Coeur d’Alene, Plains Cree, and Teton Dakota has been reported Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 93 (Teit, 1930, p. 110; Mandelbaum, 1940, p. 196; Densmore, 1948, p. 204). The collections of the United States National Museum contain examples of this saddle type from the Crow, Northern and Southern Cheyenne, and Kiowa. Kiowa informants spoke of its use by that tribe both as a man’s riding saddle and pack saddle. Pierre Pichette said the Flathead commonly used this type as a pack saddle. Certainly the type differed markedly from the pack saddle with crossed wooden pommel and cantle commonly employed by American fur traders on the Plains and in the Rockies in the period 1837-51 (see Miller’s sketch, pl. 85, Ross, 1951; Kurz, 1937, pl. 32). STIRRUPS All types of Blackfoot saddles were equipped with stirrups when used for riding. In 1809, Alexander Henry observed that the Black- foot “stirrup attached to the frame by a leather thong, is a piece of bent wood, over which is stretched raw buffalo hide, making it firm and strong” (Henry and Thompson, 1897, vol. 2, p.527). Informants said stirrups were made of green, flat strips of cottonwood or poplar that could be bent without heating. They were covered with wet buffalo rawhide or scrotum sewn with rawhide cord. Stirrup straps were of rawhide about 1 finger wide, looped over the side bars of frame saddles and through the centre openings in the stirrups. Gen- erally these straps were simply tied at the ends to the desired length. The use of toggle or buckle fastenings was not common. USE OF WHITE MEN’S SADDLES AND ACCESSORIES Aged Blackfoot informants readily admitted that “white men’s saddles” were stronger and better fitting than the ones the Indians made themselves. Apparently their ancestors held the same belief. We know the Piegan were familiar with Spanish saddles at least as early as 1787, when David Thompson saw a number of saddles a Piegan war party had brought back from a raid on a Spanish party far to the south (Thompson, 1916, p. 371). In 1856, Denig (1952, p- 148) reported “the Blackfoot and Crow Nations perceive at once the convenience and utility of European articles, especially portions of clothing, horse gears and other things . . . [they] will pay well for a good saddle.” In 1858, the Blackfoot requested Agent Hatch for a few strong saddles, at least enough for their chiefs, to be included in their annuity goods received under the terms of their 1855 treaty with the United States (U. S. Comm. Ind. Affairs, 1858, p. 488). Lazy Boy said that some wealthy Piegan purchased saddles from Joe Kipp’s trading post on the Marias before 1880. However, the ma- 94 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 jority of the members of the tribe continued to use native-made sad- dles until stock saddles were issued to them by the Government in the early Reservation Period.” SADDLE BLANKETS Blackfoot riders placed blankets of skin under all types of saddles to prevent their saddles from chafing the horses’ backs. In 1809, Alexander Henry reported, “Under each kind of saddle are placed two or three folds of soft dressed buffalo skin, to keep the horse from getting a sore back” (Henry and Thompson, 1897, vol. 2, p. 527). In my informants’ youth the Blackfoot preferred a saddle blanket made from the shoulders of a buffalo where the hair was long, or the breast where the hide was thickest. Most people used an undecorated hide with the hair on, rectangular in shape. The blanket was either doubled, hair side out, with the fold at the front of the saddle, or single thickness with the hair side next to the horse. Usually the blanket extended 2 or 3 inches beyond the saddle at front and back. Blankets placed under pack saddles were longer, in order to prevent the horse’s back from being rubbed by any part of the load. The dou- bled blanket sometimes was ridden without a saddle. Some saddle blankets of single thickness were decorated with red-flannel edging all around, or a double edging comprising an outer border of red flannel about 3 fingers wide and an inner border of white cloth 1 finger wide.* 52 Other Plains and Plateau tribes appear to have followed the practice of using Spanish or American saddles whenever they could procure them. Lewis and Clark found some Spanish saddles among the Lemhi Shoshoni in 1805 (Coues, 1893, vol. 2, pp. 520, 569). Jacques d’Eglise reported “saddles . . . in Mexican style’ used by the Mandan in 1792 (Nasitir, 1927, p. 58). Scattered through the records of the American Fur Co. (papers in the N. Y. Historical Society) are listings of saddles bought by Pratte, Chouteau & Co. of St. Louis. Sufficient quantities are listed to indicate that the saddles were purchased for the Indian trade and not merely for the use of field employees of the company. Maximilian (1833) said that the Mandan “sometimes obtain saddles from the whites, which they line and ornament with red and blue cloth’? (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 23, p. 345). These may have been of the California saddle type, which Marcy termed the favorite of the mountain men (Marcy, 1859, pp. 118-120), and which seems to have been pictured in a number of Kurz’ drawings of fur traders and a few Indians of the Upper Missouri in 1851-52 (Kurz, 1937). One of the most interesting saddles in the collections of the U. S. National Museum is a U. S. Cavalry saddle reported to have been taken from Indians who had participated in the Custer Massacre, 2 weeks after that event. The Indians had stripped it of its commercial leather rigging and equipped it with Indian-made stirrup straps, stirrups, and cinch (Cat. No. 59,741). However, many Plains Indian saddles obtained in the field before the end of buffalo days have parts (rigging straps, stirrup straps, and /or girths) of commercial leather or cloth, in addition to metal girth rings, obtained from Whites. Some of the saddles bearing the earliest dates of collecton have the most commer- cial leather used in their rigging. It seems apparent that Indians tried to adopt as much of the white man’s saddlery as they could afford. If they had not the means to obtain a trade saddle, perhaps they could at least acquire, strong, long wearing, trade materials for rigging their native saddles. In view of these circumstances it is impossible to date Indian saddles on the basis of the degree of acculturation shown by their rigging. Some of the specimens employing only native materials probably are of more recent manufacture than many specimens using trade materials in their construction. 58The Blackfoot did not make the fancy saddle cloth of soft skin or canvas with heavily beaded borders such as were used by the Teton Dakota, Crow, Cheyenne, Ute, and Shoshoni Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 95 SADDLE HOUSINGS “When an Indian is going to mount he throws his buffalo robe over the saddle, and rides on it,” wrote Alexander Henry of the Black- foot in 1809 (Henry and Thompson, 1897, vol. 2, p. 526). This practice was continued until the end of buffalo days. A buffalo robe was folded and placed over the center of the “prairie chicken snare saddle” or the “wood saddle” before the rider mounted. By the time this thick padding was added to the wood saddle the lofty pommel and cantle did not appear so high. The buffalo robe seems to have been the most common housing for frame saddles among the Plains tribes. In recent years Blackfoot women riding the wood saddle or even the stock saddle in Fourth of July parades have thrown a large, trade blanket over the saddle and modestly tucked the pendent ends around their legs to conceal them. In my informants’ youth young men liked to drape a mountain- lion skin over their pad saddles as a housing. This showy skin was arranged so that the animal head fell over one side, the tail the other. Maximilian (1833) observed Blackfoot fondness for mountain-lion skin saddle housings. He noted that the skin was edged with a broad band of scarlet cloth, and that the Blackfoot valued it at a good horse or seldom less than $60. Bodmer’s excellent lithograph of a Blackfoot man on horseback illustrates the use of the mountain-lion skin housing at that time (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 23, p. 107, and Atlas, pl. 19) .* MARTINGALES AND CRUPPERS Martingales and cruppers had both practical and ostentatious value for the Blackfoot. They were used on the travois or pack horse to keep the load from slipping. Men generally used cruppers on riding horses only when traveling in mountainous country to hold the saddle in place. When moving camp or when on parade the favorite wives of wealthy men liked to dress up their horses with showy martingales and cruppers. The prevalence of elaborately decorated martingales and cruppers in the Fourth of July parade at Browning and at the Calgary Stampede in recent years is no indication of their com- (Wissler, 1915, fig. 18, p. 17). However, I have found no description of the use of such cloths in the early accounts of those tribes. Those elaborately decorated cloths probably were late 19th century developments. The buffalo-skin saddle blanket seems to have been the most common type among the Plains tribes. However, the Plateau tribes, who had less access to buffalo, used saddle blankets of deer, bear, or mountain goat skin, or of woven matting (Teit, 1900, p. 258; 1909, p. 5384; 1930, p. 111; Ray, 1932, p. 118; Turney-High, 1941, p. 72). 54 Maximilian said the Crow followed the same custom (ibid., vol. 22, p. 349). Opler (1941, p. 396) was told that the Chiricahua Apache liked to drape a mountain-lion skin over the saddle bag to make it look nice, and that they followed Mexican example in this practice. Whether the Mexican custom goes back to the Colonial Period has not been determined. 06 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 monness in buffalo days. In former times those objects were indices of their owner’s wealth and status. Bodmer illustrated a fancy crupper on a Blackfoot man’s horse in 1833 (Maximilian, 1906, Atlas, pl. 19). However, the earliest pic- torial representation of the elaborately decorated martingale and crup- per combination I have seen appears in Sohon’s 1855 field sketch, “The Bloods Come in Council” (pl. 4). In size and shape the pieces por- trayed by Bodmer and Sohon resemble specimens collected in more recent years. Bradley (1870’s) stated that the Blackfoot woman’s ornamental crupper had a fringe of horsehair to the lower ends of which little bells were attached. In my informants’ youth cut buck- skin fringes were also used. The ornamental crupper had a soft skin or trade flannel base. It was decorated with beadwork or (if of skin) in angular painted designs “something like a parfleche design.” In more recent times (since ca. 1875) floral designs, combined with the double-curve have been employed commonly. Martingales were simi- larly ornamented (Wissler, 1915, fig. 15; Ewers, 1945 b, figs. 61-63). Much more common in buffalo days were martingales and cruppers of narrow bands of rawhide, used on the riding horses of both sexes and on pack animals. The martingale was a rawhide band about 3 fingers wide, tied to the prongs of the pommel of the wood saddle by rawhide cords. The crupper was a single or double strip about the same width throughout most of its length, extended by means of a grass-padded loop, strengthened with soft skin binding, under the horse’s tail. It was tied to the front or rear horn prongs of the frame saddle with buckskin cord (fig. 16). Some women painted the sur- Ficure 16.—a, Simple rawhide martingale; b, simple rawhide crupper; c, detail of crupper tail pad, Blackfoot. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 07 faces of these rawhide martingales and cruppers in geometric designs. Weasel Tail said the first crupper he used as a young man (ca. 1875) was a white man’s harness crupper obtained in trade.** WHIPS Maximilian (1833) observed, “In general every Blackfoot carries a whip as well as weapons in his hand” (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 23, p. 103). Bradley (1870’s) wrote, “They were unacquainted with spurs, but used a whip consisting of a wood, bone or horn handle, some fifteen inches long, and a double lash of rawhide, from twenty to twenty-four inches long. A loop of skin was attached to the handle of the whip, by which it was suspended to the wrist” (Bradley, 1923, p. 263). These measurements agree closely with Wissler’s measurements of Blackfoot handles and lashes on specimens collected a half century ago (Wissler, 1910, p. 96). Informants pointed out that whips were kept in the possession of mounted Indians at all times. They might serve as weapons in a fight. Men also found their whips useful implements for beating their wives if they misbehaved. Generally men and women made their own whips. Thoughtful makers permitted the leather of the wrist hanger to extend farther 5 The elaborately beaded horse collar made by the Crow and some Plateau tribes in the late years of the 19th century (Douglas, 1937; Lowie, 1922 b, p. 314, fig. 12; Teit, 1930, p. 354, fig. 37). probably was a late development. Catlin’s illustration of a Crow man mounted for participation in a sham battle at the Hidatsa villages in 1832, portrays a fancy martingale similar to the Blackfoot type. The same illustration shows an elaborate crupper, which the author described as ‘‘embossed and fringed with rows of beautiful shells and porcupine quills of various colors (Catlin, 1841, vol. 1, pl. 76, p. 192). Alfred Jacob Miller depicted a fancy crupper decorated with quills and beadwork in his illustration of a Sioux woman on horseback in 1837 (Ross, 1951, pl. 72). He portrayed elaborately fringed cruppers on women’s horses in other illustrations of the same year (ibid., pls. 9, 96, 131, 188). In 1851, Kurz (1937) drew decorated cruppers on horses belonging to Potawatomi, Omaha, Iowa, and Crow. Hillers’ 1873 photograph of a Uintah Ute woman on horseback shows an elaborate crupper and martingale similar to ones used by Blackfoot women (Steward, 1939, pl. 30). An Omaha decorated crupper of the period 1855, is illustrated in Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, pl. 48. Mooney collected a painted and beaded skin crupper from the Kiowa (Cat. No. 152,829, U. S. N. M.). However, my Kiowa informants said the most common crupper in their tribe was of rawhide 2 inches wide. Undoubtedly the greater attractiveness of decorated cruppers of elaborate design caused collectors to secure them in preference to the simple rawhide ones for museum collections. Fortunately, however, the series of Plains Indian saddles in the U. S. National Museum includes many cruppers that were attached to saddles obtained prior to 1880. The majority of these cruppers are of rawhide, painted or unpainted, much like the common form of Blackfoot crupper described above. A few are of commercial leather, including a Teton Dakota specimen obtained after the Slim Buttes Battle in 1876, which is obviously a white man’s harness crupper complete with metal buckles (Cat. No. 276,607). It seems unlikely that the use of martingales and cruppers was an Indian invention. The elaborate ones may be adaptations of Spanish-Mexican pieces such as the ones illus- trated in the Codex Baranda (Wissler, 1915, p. 33). The more simple, rawhide ones may have been adapted from those in use among the fur traders in the Plains and Rockies in the second quarter of the 19th century. Méiller’s (1837) illustrations show the simple crupper in place on the horses of many fur traders as well as a few Indian-owned horses (Ross, 1951). Kurz (1937, pl. 32) shows the simple crupper on a trader’s horse sketched August 28, 1951. 287944—55——_8 98 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 than necessary so that if the front of the handle cracked they could turn the whip around and use the hanger end for the lash until they had an opportunity to make a new whip. Women generally made whip handles of serviceberry. A hole was burned through the handle about 2 inches from the lash end, and shallow channels were cut in each side leading from this hole to the lash end of the handle. A nar- row rawhide lash was pushed through the hole and passed through a longitudinal slit in the rawhide at the end of the handle. The two ends were then braided a few times. The remainder of the lashing hung loose. One or two inches from the other end of the handle another hole was burned through which the rawhide wrist hanger was passed. Elkhorn-handled whips were made while the horn was green. The honeycomb center at the front end of the handle was burned out with a hot wire. A small hole was then burned at one side of the han- dle about 2 inches from the front. The rawhide lashing was then doubled and the folded end pushed into the front hole far enough so that a wooden or antler plug could be driven into the side hole to hold the rawhide in place. The wrist hanger was attached as was that of the wooden-handled whip. Some wooden-handled ones also used the plug method of lash attachment (fig. 17). RACECAR ATE canaetheeeel weaned te SaTV ae eS Vara dhaaagaaseqaasas b Ficvugre 17.—Methods of whip construction, Blackfoot. a, Plug attachment of lash in an elkhorn-handled whip; b, channel attachment of lash in a wooden- handled whip. These were the most common Blackfoot whip types. However, other forms were made occasionally. A unique specimen is the whip with a wooden handle carved in the form of a horse’s head, in the collections of the Museum of the Plains Indian. This whip was used by the medicine women during the ritualized preliminary marches to the Sun Dance encampment. However, the whip employed in the Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 99 Horse Dance, the cult ceremony of the horse medicine men, was of conventional type (pl. 16, B, e).** HORSE DECORATION Some young men among the Blackfoot roached the manes or split the ears of their favorite mounts “just to make them look pretty.” However, most horse decorations were of a more temporary char- acter, employed on special occasions. These occasions were: (1) in the “riding big dance” preliminary to a raid for scalps, (2) in battle, (3) on return to camp from a successful horse raid, (4) on visiting other tribes, (5) in sham battles honoring visitors, and (6) in the ritual camp movements immediately preceding the establishment of the Sun Dance encampment in late summer. In the 1870’s, Bradley mentioned the main types of Blackfoot horse decoration. “On occasion of ceremony the horses were orna- mented with dashes of paint on the face and body and with feathers fastened to the mane and tail and sometimes by a mask made of the head of the buffalo, the horns attached, the eyes of the horse appear- ing through the original eye holes of the skin” (Bradley, 1928, p. 263). The limited comparative data available is sufficient to show that none of these methods of ornamentation was peculiar to the Blackfoot. HEAD ORNAMENTS Among the valuable possessions of the second chief of the North Blackfoot, Old Sun, seen by Wilson in 1887, was— a very elaborate headgear for a horse to wear when going into battle. One part of it covered the head like a mask, holes being left for the eyes, and was fitted with a pair of horns; the other part was a sort of banner, to be suspended to the % The common Blackfoot types of elkhorn and wooden-handled whips were widely. dif- fused in the Plains and Plateau. Maximilian (1833) mentioned both wood and elkhorn- handled whips in use among the Assiniboin. However, he claimed the Mandan whip handles were of wood only, and mentioned only elkhorn-handled whips among the Crow (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 22, pp. 349, 391; vol. 23, pp. 10, 345). However, Larocque, while traveling with the Crow in the summer of 1805, noted that they stopped on the Little Horn to procure whip handles. ‘There is plenty of ash here. There were few persons in the Camp that were not employed in making themselves horse whip handles with that wood; it was with that design that they came here, as that wood is seldom found else- where” (Larocque, 1910, p. 88). Omaha used both wood and ‘‘bone’’ whip handles (Dor- sey, 1896, p. 280). Both types were employed by the Plateau tribes (Teit, 1930, pp. 111, 854. Kiowa informants spoke only of wooden-handled whips, cedar preferred, in use among their people. However I have seen elkhorn-handled whips collected from that tribe. A whip said to have been used by the Sac and Fox chief Keokuk, in 1832, is in the U. S. National Museum collections (No. 167, 149). The handle is of horn, the lash of rawhide. Were it not for its elaborately beaded wrist hanger, this specimen could be lost in Blackfoot collections. Trade whips were furnished the Indians at an early date. In February 1835, Pratte, Chouteau & Co. of St. Louis ordered ‘‘4 dozen Riding whips for Indians, Showy, and not high priced’ from the American Fur Co., in New York (American Fur Co. Pap., N. Y. Hist. Soce., Orders Inward, book 1, p. 59). However, the Mexican braided-horsehair quirt does not appear to have been common among the Plains Indians, 100 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 lower jaw; both parts were profusely decorated with red, yellow, and blue feathers. We were told that such a headdress as this was, in Indian estimation, worth a couple of horses. [Wilson, 1887, p. 190.] In the eighties, Frederic Remington, the artist, saw “the equipment of a Blackfoot war pony, composed of a mask and bonnet gorgeous with red flannel, brass tack heads, silver plates and feathers... ” (Remington, 1889, p. 340). Wissler (1913, p. 457, fig. 29) reproduced native drawings of masks employed in the “riding big dance” by the Piegan.” I have seen a single example of Blackfoot horse headgear. It was a beautiful mask made of a single piece of skin entirely covered with porcupine-quill work, which fitted over the forehead and face of a horse. Holes were cut for the eyes. This specimen, which was prob- ably not over 50 years old, was said to have been used by the Piegan in dress parades. It was owned by the late Mrs. John B. Monteith of Glacier Park Station, who showed it to me in 1942. BODY PAINT The Blackfoot favored red paint for decorating the bodies of their horses. Some young men daubed round spots on both hips of their horses solely for ornament. If a man ran over an enemy while riding in battle he was privileged to paint a hand on both shoulders of his war horse. Just before a returning horse-raiding party entered their home camp, its members stopped to paint red, horizontal lines across the foreheads of their stolen horses. Wissler (1918, p. 457, fig. 29) has described and reproduced native drawings of body painting on horses in the “riding big dance.” *8 MANE AND TAIL ORNAMENTS A Blackfoot on the warpath braided the tail of his horse part way, tied the end of the tail in a knot, and fastened a feather in it with a buckskin cord. Weasel Tail claimed the three Blackfoot tribes, the Gros Ventres, and Sarsi all followed this practice so they could tell their horses from those of their enemies. In the summer of 1942, 57 In 1806 Alexander Henry accompanied an Hidatsa trading party to a Cheyenne village. When they neared their destination some of the Cheyenne rode out to meet them on fine horses some of which ‘“‘were masked in a very singular manner, to imitate the head of a buffalo, red deer, or cabbrie with horns, the mouth and nostrils—even the eyes—trimmed with red cloth. This ornamentation gave them a very fierce appearance (Henry and Thompson, 1897, vol. 1, p. 377). Whether the elaborate Blackfoot and Cheyenne horse headgear was in any way influenced by Spanish horse armor is problematical. Certainly the horned feature appears to have been a native invention. 8 Lewis and Clark noted that among the Lemhi Shoshoni visited in 1805, ‘‘a favorite (horse) is frequently painted” (Coues, 18938, vol. 2, p. 563). Teit claimed Flathead ‘“‘horses were often painted” (Teit 1930, p. 353). An Omaha man “frequently painted his horse to represent a valorous act ... or in a manner intended as a representation of a vision” (Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, pp. 352-353.) Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 101 I saw an elderly Piegan tie two feathers in the tail of the horse of a middle-aged man which was to be ridden in the Fourth of July parade at Browning. (This ornament is now in the Denver Art Mu- seum, Cat. No. FB1-95-G.) The old man then said a short prayer that the horse might not fall or throw its rider. This also is said to have been an old Blackfoot custom.” DECORATION OF WOMEN’S HORSES A wealthy Blackfoot took pride in providing his favorite wife with fancy trappings for her riding horse, to be employed when visiting neighboring camps or other friendly tribes, and when moving to the Sun Dance encampment. These trappings, including decorated bridles, martingales, cruppers, saddlebags, and the finest painted raw- hide containers obtainable, were thought to enhance the woman’s appearance on horseback. 59 Lewis and Clark (1805) noted Lemhi Shoshoni practice of decorating the manes and tails of their horses with feathers (Coues, 1893, vol. 2, p. 563.) The Crow claimed they tied up their horses’ tails to make them run faster (Marquis, 1928, p. 114). Omaha young men occasionally ‘decked the manes and tails of their horses with bright ribbons or bands painted in gay colors” (Fletcher and La Flesche, 1911, p. 353). THE TRAVOIS AND TRANSPORT GEAR In addition to their riding gear, described in the previous section, the Blackfoot Indians employed a variety of specialized horse gear for transporting their lodges and other possessions. This equipment was ingeniously adapted to the needs of a nomadic people. THE HORSE TRAVOIS Blackfoot tradition claims that their ancestors employed the A- shaped dog travois before they acquired horses. The horse travois, therefore, appears to have been an adaptation of the earlier dog travois to use with a larger and stronger animal. Some informants claimed the Blackfoot originated the horse travois. This contention cannot be proved or disproved at this late date, but it is a possibility. The earliest apparent reference to the use cf the horse travois refers to its employment by tribes of the northwestern Plains. On December 8, 1754, the fur trader Anthony Hendry noted that the men of his little trading party of Cree and Assiniboin were “employed making Sleds of Birch for the Women and Horses.” Again on March 8, 1755, he stated “Men and Women repairing Snow Shoes and Sleds” (Hendry, 1907, pp. 343, 348). Although the devices drawn by the horses may actually have been sleds, it appears more probable that they were travois. I have found no later description of the Indian use of sleds with horses in this area. On the other hand, informants recalled that the Blackfoot used travois in winter in their youth. Certainly Maximilian’s reference to “loaded dog sledges” seen among the Blackfoot in the summer of 1833, was a short description of the travois (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 23, pp. 104, 141). Apparently the French name “travois” did not come into general use among the Whites of the region until a later date. Earlier writers, at a loss for a short descriptive name, resorted to such misleading words as “sled” or “sledge.” The earliest illustration of a Blackfoot horse travois I have seen appears in Sohon’s 1855 sketch (pl. 4). Charles Wimar’s painting, “Indians Approaching Fort Benton,” executed 4 years later portrays a distant view of a number of loaded horse travois (Rathbone, 1946, pl. 20). Photographs of Blackfoot horse travois appeared in Grin- nell (1895, opp. p. 156) and Wissler (1910, pl. 8). 102 Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 103 HORSE TRAVOIS CONSTRUCTION Wissler (1910, pp. 88-91, fig. 56) has described and figured the Blackfoot dog travois, made with ladder or net type loading platform. Informants claimed the ladder-type platform was preferred for both dog and horse travois by the Blackfoot. They considered the netted platform a Cree type. The dog and horse travois differed primarily in size, apex construction, and the hitch. Among the Blackfeot the horse travois was made and owned by women. If a man had several wives, all worked together in making travois. Generally each family made itsown. However, the wealthy husband of a woman who was not skilled at this work would get her one in trade. He might give a horse for a travois. Poorer people would pay no more than 4 robes. The travois was made entirely of wood and rawhide. Figure 18 illustrates the construction, and the travois in place on the horse’s back. The shafts (a and a’) were two stout poles of lodgepole pine. Generally they were obtained from the eastern slope of the Rockies or from the Bear Paw Mountains. They were generally about 4 to 5 inches in diameter at the base, a little larger than lodgepoles, although the Blackfoot referred to these shafts as “lodgepoles.” Usually the shafts were made a little longer than necessary to allow for shortening through wear at the base. However, Weasel Tail said the travois would ride better if the distance forward of the tie (6) was relatively short. Shafts with long frontal projections (over 3 feet beyond the tie) had little spring. The tie (6) generally was made with a wet tendon from the back of the buffalo’s neck wrapped with soft-tanned skin rope. The hitch was composed of a flat strip of rawhide (c) about 4 fingers wide. Each end of this strip was wrapped under and around one of the shafts, doubled back upon itself and sewn with rawhide cord. Through transverse slits in the center of this rawhide piece was passed a long rawhide line about 2 fingers wide (d). One end of this line was carefully and tightly wrapped around each shaft as far down as the bottom edge of the loading platform, where these lines were tied, leaving sufficient length of line to permit the ends to be used for tying the load on the platform. This rawhide line played an important role in the construction of the travois. Actually it carried the weight of the pull in transport and also kept the shafts from split- ting. Three Calf pointed out that one could tell the maker’s pride in craftsmanship by examining her pole wrapping line. If she had been careful to remove all the buffalo hair from the rawhide with a rock, if she had made the line in one continuous strip, and if she had cut it an even width throughout its length, she was a skilled craftsman. However, if she left bits of buffalo hair clinging to the surface, if she cut the line in uneven width, or if she had tied two or more lines to- [Bull. 159 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 104 ‘W10JJe[d SuIpeoT ‘syniys ArBpuodes ‘y Sul1o0j}B{d Zurpvol, ‘synajs Arvurad ‘6 {sat} s[ppes piod opryMei ‘f ‘f 'deays qyas ‘a ‘aut, Ssurddeim svjod pue youy opIyMul ‘p :ped YoY oprmyMedl ‘O al} pawmaos ‘Q 'sqVyg ‘,p ‘D “SIOABI} OSIOY JOOTYOVIG B JO WoOTJONIJSUOH—sT aANNDIWT Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 105 gether she was a lazy or incompetent worker. The Blackfoot referred to the hitch as “my load.” In addition to the rawhide pad and pole wrapping line, the hitch included a cinch (e) of narrow rawhide rope tied to one shaft, passed under the horse’s belly and tied to the shaft on the other side. This cinch was tight enough to hold the load but not too tight to be uncomfortable to the horse. Two rawhide cords (f and f’) were wrapped around the shafts, forward of the hitch and tied to the prongs of the saddle to complete the securing of the shafts. The Blackfoot spoke of the loading platform as “my broad road.” It was composed of 2 transverse primary struts made of lodgepole pine, spaced about 20 inches apart (g). These struts were notched near each end, fitted over the shafts, and lashed in place with rawhide line. Secondary struts (2) of birch or serviceberry were placed about 5 inches apart at right angles to the primary struts. They were lashed underneath the primary struts, by wet tendons from the neck of a buffalo. These secondary struts in many cases were made of pieces of wood in the bark, from which evenly spaced bands of bark were peeled for decorative purposes. The front end of the loading plat- form generally was less than 2 feet from the horse’s tail when the travois was in place. TRAVOIS ACCESSORIES The basic travois described above weighed about 50 pounds. Some- times a cage of bent willows was added to give protection to children, the aged, or puppies carried on the loading platform on hot, sunny days. These willows were arched and tied to the loading platform at the ends and sides. The willow framework was covered with buffalo robes to keep out the sun. Hither a “wood saddle” or “prairie chicken snare saddle” was used on the travois horse. A martingale and crupper were employed to hold the saddle in place. The former was a plain strip of rawhide 3 fingers wide, tied at each end to the pommel prongs. The crupper was also most commonly of plain rawhide, 3 fingers wide, with padded tailpiece. Its forward portion passed under the rear horn of the saddle and tied to the prongs of the front horn (fig. 18). TRAVOIS ADJUSTMENT AND REPAIR Generally a travois lasted about a year in service over rough ground. If conditions did not permit making a new travois the loading plat- form could be loosened and moved forward, or the worn butt ends could be lengthened by taking two shorter pieces of pine or cotton- wood, notching each in two places and lashing them to the underside of the travois platform at the primary strut crossings. Each short piece thus served as an extension to one of the old shafts. A make- 106 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 shift travois could be constructed of cottonwood poles if no lodgepole pine was handy. However, cottonwood generally was considered too easily split to make good travois shafts. It is noteworthy that the Blackfoot never developed any method of capping or binding the base ends of travois shafts to prevent wear and splintering. CARE OF THE TRAVOIS IN CAMP Horse travois, like dog travois, sometimes were piled together in conical piles, base ends down, to keep dogs from chewing at the leather parts. More commonly, each travois was propped at an angle, base end down, by a single long pole support, as illustrated by the early photograph, plate 5, a. It could then be used as a stage for drying meat, or as a sun shelter covered with buffalo robes or skins, that could be turned with the daily movement of the sun. Beaver and medicine pipe bundle owners generally leaned their travois against the back of the lodge in order to hang their sacred bundles upon them during the day. The travois served women as a step- ladder in the erection and taking down of the lodge. A woman leaned it against the front of the lodge and climbed upon the loading plat- form to place or extract the topmost pins used to hold the lodge cover together. SURVIVAL OF THE HORSE TRAVOIS The Government began to issue wagons to the Montana Black- foot prior to 1893. In that year Agent Steele reported the issuance of 35 wagons, and added that about 300 were then in use by the In- dians of that reservation (U. S. Comm. Ind. Affairs, 1893, p. 172). In the following year Captain Cooke, the new agent, issued 150 wagons, believing that all heads of families were then provided with these vehicles. However, he stated that the wagons issued were not suitable for the service required of them (U. S. Comm. Ind. Affairs, 1894, p. 160). My informants recalled that those early Government issue wagons were narrow gage, with thin spokes lke a buggy and of rather weak construction. They would not stand the hard treatment the Indians gave them. The inadequacy of these wagons, combined with poor roads, often muddy and deeply rutted, encouraged the retention of the travois until the 20th century. Wissler (1910, pp. 88-91) mentioned travois use in the first decade of this century for hauling wood. Joseph Sherburne recalled that the Indians brought travois to Browning to haul food and supplies from the traders’ stores until 1902 or 1904. Ceremonial use by the medicine woman in the Piegan Sun Dance survived until at least 1909 (personal communication from the late Walter McClintock). In recent years horse travois have been made for display in the Fourth of July parade at Browning and have occasionally been employed for hauling wood in rough country where wagons could not be used. Reuben and Cecile Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 107 Black Boy made a horse travois for the permanent collections of the Museum of the Plains Indian in 1942. THE LODGEPOLE HITCH A specialized gear, which I shall term the lodgepole hitch, was em- ployed by the Blackfoot for transporting lodgepoles in moving camp. An equal number of poles was dragged at each side of the horse or FicurE 19.—The Blackfoot lodgepole hitch. mule, the number varying with the size and weight of the poles em- ployed in the owner’s lodge and with the strength of the transport animal. A small hole about one-half inch in diameter was burned through each pole about 18 inches from its upper end with a hot iron rod. The poles to be dragged by each animal were laid on the ground in two piles. A rawhide line was then threaded through each group of poles. They were then lifted to the sides of the animal and the two rawhide lines were tied together over the center of the horse’s back. In some instances the poles were further secured by a rawhide line connecting the two groups of poles and passing under the animal’s belly (fig. 19). However, many women omitted this line, pre- ©The Blackfoot experience with Government issue wagons was paralleled on the Crow Reservation. Although they began to receive wagons as early as 1874, the Crow had little use for the light-weight, narrow-gage vehicles. They traded them to white men for more useful articles until the Indian Service forbade Whites to accept these ID-marked vehicles. Meanwhile the Crow continued to use “lodgepole transports” (Marquis, 1928, pp. 147, 126-127). Enoch Smoky claimed the Kiowa made little use of wagons before ca. 1890. 108 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 ferring to let the poles joggle with the movement of the horse as camp moved. Short Face said it was important that the holes bored in the poles should be of small diameter, as wear during transport en- larged them. If the owner made the holes too large the poles would crack at those points. At best, lodgepoles lasted but 1 year owing to wear of the butt ends trailed on the ground as well as the friction at the holes. Poor people, who owned few horses and small lodges with short, light poles, sometimes tied their poles in two bundles to the loading platform of travois, one bundle at each side, secured by rawhide cords. An improvised travois was also easily constructed by tying two or more crosspieces, similar to the primary struts of the travois loading platform, to the bundles of poles dragged by a horse. ‘These cross- pieces were placed in the approximate position of the loading plat- form of the true travois. Buffalo robes and bedding generally were transported on this makeshift travois, but children, the aged, and mis- cellaneous camp equipment also could be carried upon it. Too heavy a load, however, would spring the poles and render them useless as foundation supports for lodge covers. DISTRIBUTION OF THE TRAVOIS AND METHODS OF POLE TRANSPORT It is well to consider these methods of transportation together in discussing the distribution of the travois, as the two have been con- fused in the literature, even in the writings of professional ethnolo- gists. For example, Bushnell (1922, fig. 3, p. 66) reproduces an old woodcut portraying a Dakota horse dragging lodgepoles after the fashion described above for the Blackfoot. The caption under the illustration reads “Horse Travois.” In reality the true travois, which can be defined as an A-shaped drag, comprising two shafts, a loading platform which is an integral part of the whole structure, and a hitch for attachment of the travois to the horse, had a relatively limited use among many tribes of the Plains and Plateau. The improvised travois made by tying a tem- porary loading platform between dragging bundles of lodgepoles was more common. While the method of dragging lodgepoles in moving camp, erroneously labeled “travois” by Bushnell, was virtually uni- versal among these tribes. Undoubtedly all of the tribes of the Plains were familiar with the true travois. It seems to have been most widely used as a litter for transporting the sick and injured rather than as a means of carrying camp equipment. Blackfoot informants mentioned use of the travois in moving those handicapped persons. In the 1830’s Ferris observed that the Flathead conveyed the wounded “on litters consisting of two lodgepoles fastened on either side of a packhorse with skins stretched Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 109 on cross bars so as to form a bed for each of the sufferers” (Ferris, 1940, p. 834). In 1854, W. B. Parker (1856, p. 193) saw a Southern Comanche chief, crippled with rheumatism and disease of the spine, transported in the same manner. The Wind River Shoshoni and Crow used the travois for transporting wounded (Lowie, 1922 a, p. 220, 1924 b, p. 249). A photograph, believed to have been taken be- fore 1900, illustrates the Crow method of transporting an injured man on a travios (pl. 5,6). This specialized use of the travois penetrated northwestward as far as the Sanpoil of northeastern Oregon (Ray, 1932, p. 117). The use of the true travois for transporting household goods in moving camp seems to have had a more limited distribution. Because of lack of detail in most early descriptions it is difficult to trace this distribution with certainty. The travois was little used by the Plateau tribes. Teit (1930, p. 112) reported that the travois was well known to the Coeur d’Alene but they did not use it, deeming packing better adapted to rough mountainous country than hauling. He said the Flathead seldom used the travois even when hunting on the Plains for prolonged periods (ibid., p. 354). Turney-High (1987, p. 105) and my Flathead informant, Pierre Pichette, claimed that tribe never used the travois. Spinden said it was unknown to the Nez Percé (Spinden, 1908, p. 224). Wind River Shoshoni, according to Lowie (1924 b, p. 249) rarely used the travois. Colonel Brackett’s brief mention of Washakie’s band seen by him on the move, June 15, 1869, “dragging their property with them on lodge poles which are strapped to the saddles of their ponies in a manner peculiar to themselves” may refer to the improvised rather than the true travois (Brackett, 1917, p- 338). Crow use of the travois for moving camp equipment has been vigorously denied by both Lowie (1922 a, p. 220) and Curtis (1909, vol. 4, p. 21). That they did use a makeshift “drag” of lodgepoles “on which they place their furniture” was observed by the trader Zenas Leonard (1904, p. 258) who spent 6 months among the Crow in 1834-35. Le Forge, who lived with the Crow in the 1870’s, used the word “travois” in describing the Crow vehicle familiar to him (Mar- quis, 1928, pp. 127, 147). The Crow case must remain questionable. Judging from modern examples of the Sarsi travois seen by the writer in the parade preceding the Calgary Stampede in 1941, that tribe’s travois was like that of the Blackfoot. The Plains Cree horse travois varied in details of construction. Although the shafts crossed at the front and were tied together with thongs and sinew, and the loading platform had primary struts of transverse “sticks,” leather thongs took the place of secondary wooden struts. A rawhide line around the horse’s belly tied to the shafts served as a hitch (Mandel- 110 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 baum, 1940, p. 197). Henry (1897, vol. 2, p. 518) in 1808, called the Assiniboin horse travois like their dog travois, which he said had a netted hoop loading platform. Haupt’s drawing of a Dakota horse travois (reproduced in Win- chell, 1911, p. 434) shows the shafts crossed and tied, a loading plat- form of five primary struts only, while the hitch is made simply by wrapping and tying the shafts to the base of the saddle pommel with skin cord. There is no shaft wrapping such as was typical of the Blackfoot hitch. A photograph of a Teton travois in the Bureau of American Ethnology (neg. No. 3, 711-K) portrays long shafts and a platform of the netted hoop type, similar to that of the Blackfoot dog travois illustrated in Wissler (1910, fig. 56a). Another Teton photograph in the same collections (neg. No. 3, 169-6-13) shows still another variant. The shafts are short and do not cross. The platform is like the one in Haupt’s drawing. Seth Eastman’s paint- ing, “Sioux Breaking Camp,” in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, shows an Eastern Dakota horse travois which combines short shafts with a netted hoop-type platform. These examples show a consider- able range of variation in the details of Dakota horse travois con- struction. There are brief contemporary descriptions of Teton Da- kota horse travois used in buffalo days (Stansbury, 1852, p. 46; Boller, 1868, p. 30; Prince Paul én Butscher, 1942, p. 209.) Probably the best comparative description of a horse travois is that of the Hidatsa by Wilson (1924, pp. 275-276, figs. 98-101). This is a much simpler contrivance than that of the Blackfoot. The shafts are short, extending only 8 inches forward of the hitch, which is simply a rawhide line wrapped around one shaft, carried over the animal’s back and tied to the other shaft. The platform is an oval hoop. This type of travois is also credited to the Mandan (ibid., p. 283). Kroeber mentioned but did not describe the Arapaho horse travois (Kroeber, 1902-7, pp. 23-24). Journalist Evans of Colonel Dodge’s expedition of 1835, observed that the Arapaho travois was made “by tying their lodge poles together, one on each side of a horse with cross pieces” (Evans, 1927, p. 210). A photograph entitled “Arapaho Ra- tion Issue 1870” (Bureau of American Ethnology neg. No. 49-b) shows a number of true travois with platforms of the netted hoop type. The excellent old photograph of a Cheyenne true travois reproduced on plate 6, a, shows short shafts and netted hoop platform. The hitch is hidden by the rider of the travois horse. This type of travois ap- pears also in the native Cheyenne drawing, plate 6, b. My Kiowa informants explained that the Kiowa made relatively little use of the travois for carrying camp equipment. The shafts were short and did not cross in front. They were made of cottonwood Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE LE or cedar. The platform was composed of primary struts only laid transversely of the shafts and parallel to one another. The hitch was two rawhide cords. Each was passed through a hole burned in a shaft, similar to the holes burned in Blackfoot lodgepoles, and tied to the saddle pommel. Positive information on the occurrence of the true travois among other Plains tribes is lacking. The scattered data mentioned above, however, are sufficient to show clearly that this vehicle was not stand- ardized throughout the area. Variants in shafts, hitch, and loading platform occurred. Even among related Dakota tribes several vari- ants were present. The simplest construction involved the use of a few primary struts for a loading platform and a hitch achieved by tying the shafts to the prongs of the saddle pommel. The Black- foot type gives the impression of being the strongest and most care- fully planned travois. Its hitch and loading platform were relatively complex. Its use apparently was shared by the Sarsi. Curiously enough a photograph of a Gros Ventres horse travois, taken by Dan Dutro on Milk River in 1890 (in Montana Historical Society Library) resembles the Hidatsa type in its short shafts and netted hoop plat- form, although its pole wrappings suggest the use of the Blackfoot type hitch. In the light of the wider distribution of the simpler variants of the travois the Blackfoot type appears to have been a specialized one, presumably of later development. It is possible that the Blackfoot themselves may have used a simpler form of travois prior to the middle of the 19th century. The simplest form of true travois seems to have been only slightly more specialized as a transport vehicle than the improvised travois composed of a temporary platform tied between bundles of lodgepoles on which children and/or camp equipment were carried. Catlin’s painting of a Teton Dakota camp on the move, executed in 1832, shows the improvised type in use (U.S. N. M. No. 386460). It also appears in his painting of a Comanche camp on the move, done 2 years later (U.S. N. M. No. 886447). Lieutenant Albert apparently saw the im- provised travois with a “basket” fixed between the lodgepoles in use by an Apache camp seen near Fort Bent in the summer of 1845 (Abert, 1846, p. 10). In the next year Garrard observed Southern Cheyenne moving camp near Fort Bent. A “tray shaped basket or hoop, lat- ticed with hide thongs” was tied between the two bundles of trailing lodgepoles for carrying children and household articles (Garrard, 1927, p. 52). Although Skinner (1926, p. 280) claimed the Iowa had the travois, his description of their vehicle as a means of moving “tipis bundled on their own poles” suggests that it was of the im- provised variety. Wilson (1924, p. 197) described the use of the improvised travois among the Hidatsa and pointed out the danger of rie BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 springing the lodgepoles if too heavy loads were carried on them. These data indicate that the improvised travois probably had a wider distribution than the true travois, and that a number of tribes used both, just as the Blackfoot did. The dome-shaped, willow frame, sunshade placed on the platform of either the true or improvised travois had a wide distribution. It is shown in the illustrations of Cheyenne and Dakota travois pre- viously mentioned. It was mentioned in Parker’s description of the litter employed in transporting the Comanche chief. Maximilian, in 1833, saw these “semi-globular, transparent wickerpanniers” in use among the Yankton Dakota (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 22, p. 309). Stansbury saw this “Light wicker canopy” on Teton Dakota travois in 1849 (Stansbury, 1852, p. 46). Kiowa informants said women of their tribe made these frames of dogwood. Apparently this accessory was almost as widely used as was the improvised travois. The practice of dragging lodgepoles, divided into equal bundles suspended at the sides of a horse or mule, their butt ends dragging on the ground, appears to have been universal among tipi-using tribes of the Plains. My limited field data suggest that even the hitch was similar to that of the Blackfoot. Both Oglala and Kiowa informants stated that their tribes burned holes near the small ends of the poles, through which they were strung with rawhide lines. The Hidatsa used a red-hot iron about the size of a lead pencil to burn the holes about 2 feet from the ends of the poles (Wilson, 1924, pp. 193, 278-279, figs. 35, 105, 108).* PRINCIPAL ITEMS OF LUGGAGE CARRIED BY PACK ANIMALS THE PARFLECHE The parfleche was much used as a container for carrying possessions on packhorses. This folded envelope of tough, long-wearing, water- proof rawhide was capable of considerable expansion when packed. Its construction and decoration by the Blackfoot have been described in detail (Wissler, 1910, pp. 79-82; Ewers, 1945 b, pp. 16-18). Its general form and method of folding is shown in figure 20. Although some parfleches were carried on the travois when camp was moved they were most commonly transported in matched pairs, one each side of a packhorse. Hence they were generally made in « A number of early illustrations have been published showing horses or mules dragging lodgepoles in this general manner. (See Bushnell, 1922, fig. 3, for Teton; Ross, 1951, pl. 66 for Pawnee, and pl. 128 for Shoshoni; and Whipple, 1856, p. 21, for Kiowa.); An old stereopticon view in the files of the Division of Ethnology, U. S. National Museum, depicts Omaha use of this method. The picture is corroborated by the description in Fletcher and La Flesche (1911, p. 275). Curtis (1909, vol. 4, p. 226) described this method of transport as used by the Cheyenne. Pierre Pichette said the Flathead moved their lodge- poles in this manner while on prolonged winter hunts east of the Rockies. CULTURE 113 BLACKFOOT INDIAN THE HORSE IN Ewers} ‘SUBIPU] MOID WoIJ pajydope ssioqyoed Aq uo} BJIOdsSuvI} JO poyjour ‘9 ‘a fesioyyoed Aq uoN -BLOdSUvIY JO POYJaUI JOOJYOVIG PIO ‘,qQ ‘Q Se re uol}oNI}Jsuod puB W104 ‘pv ‘eqoopavd JooJyOVI_ syT— OZ AVY YI 287%44—-55—__9 114 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 169 pairs, identical in size and decoration. Wissler (1910, p. 81) found that the average size of Blackfoot parfleches in the collections of the American Museum of Natural History at that time was 60 cm. in length by 38cm. in width. Probably the great majority of those speci- mens were made since the days when parfleches were in general use in moving camp. However, there is no indication that the sizes or proportions of Blackfoot parfleches changed materially after these Indians settled on reservations. Parfleches were painted only on the flaps, the only portions visible when they were transported by pack- horse. Thus use served to determine the field of decoration. Blackfoot informants declared that there were two methods of attaching the parfleche to the horse in use among their people. They are illustrated in figure 20. The method claimed to have been the oldest among the Blackfoot is shown at the left (6, 6’). ‘Two holes were burned with a hot iron near the center of each long side of each parfleche, through which short cords of rawhide were passed and tied. A band of rawhide about 1 inch broad was passed around the horse’s belly outside the parfieches and through these loops to bind the cases tight to the sides of the animal. Then the topmost cord loops of the two parfleches were tied together to prevent the cases from slipping. The other method was one that Weasel Tail said was adopted from the Crow, although he could not give the time of its adoption. In this method two sets of holes were burned in one long side of the parfleche, longer rawhide cords were passed through them and over the horn of the saddle (fig. 20, ¢, ce’). ANTIQUITY OF THE PARFLECHE It appears probable that the parfleche, so admirably adapted to horse transport, originated after the Plains Indians acquired horses. Weasel Tail was sure the Blackfoot tribes did not make the parfleche in pre-horse times. His grandmother had told him that before the Blood Indians acquired horses they used a container termed “Gros Ventres bag.” It was made of a soft-tanned buffaloskin in the shape of a shallow globe (when filled), closed at the top by a drawstring, & The photograph in pl. 5, b, definitely shows the use of this second method by the Crow. Maggie No Fat told me this was the Oglala method, and Kiowa informants described its use by that tribe also, although they said a rawhide rope was commonly passed around the barrel of the horse also to confine the cases to the sides of the animal and prevent joggling. Granville Stuart’s general statement on parfleche transportation by the Indians of Montana in 1865, mentions, ‘‘Two loops of small cord are fastened on each side near the ends, which are used to hang over the forks of the packsaddle, a rope is then passed around and lashed tight, which binds the parfleches firmly and enables the horse to carry them easily’ (Stuart, 1865, p. 78). The Flathead, Coeur d’Alene. and Okanagon are reported to have used the method of parfieche suspension by loops over the saddle horns (Teit, 1930, pp. 112, 221, 352). In 1819, the Omaha transported their dried meat in “quadrangular packages, each of a suitable size to attach conveniently to one side of the packsaddle of a horse’ (James, 1823, vol. 1, p. 212). This appears to be the earliest reference to the use of parfleches as luggage by any Plains Indian tribe. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 115 and carried on the platform of the dog travois. He said his mother still owned a Gros Ventres bag when he was a boy. She used it for transporting pemmican on the travois. Wilson obtained a description and a native drawing of a large buffaloskin bag of similar shape, although the top was folded over and tied rather than closed by a drawstring. In the youth of his informants the Hidatsa used this bag for transporting ripe corn on the ear and dried squash. It was also carried on the dog travois platform as a general packing case (Wilson, 1924, fig. 95, pp. 272, 283-284). The Plains Cree, who never adopted the parfleche, used both rawhide bags with flap covers and soft skin drawstring bags, “averaging per- haps two feet wide and one foot deep” (Mandelbaum, 1940, p. 213). These two Cree types are suggestive of the early Blackfoot and the Hidatsa ones previously described. Possibly the drawstring one is a survival among the conservative Plains Cree from pre-horse days. To the west of the Blackfoot, the Flathead claimed “a sack to be folded and laced was in use before the advent of the horse for carrying purposes” and that the parfleche “came into vogue with the introduc- tion of the horse” (Teit, 1930, p. 354). Both Okanagon and Coeur d’Alene had traditions to the effect that their respective tribes did not use the parfleche until after the acquisition of horses (ibid., pp. 50, 221). The Wind River Shoshoni had a similar tradition (Lowie, 1924 b, p. 809). This evidence from several tribes regarding the absence of the parfieche in the northern Plains and Plateau in pre-horse times is bolstered by the lack of any detailed descriptions of this very useful and handy container in 18th-century accounts of the Plains Indians. Frederic H. Douglas has kindly shown me a colored drawing of an original parfleche in the Musée de ’Homme, Paris, dated ante-1789. This specimen is slightly larger than most 19th century parfleches in Museum collections (75 cm. X 38 cm.), but falls well within the ex- tremes represented in those collections. Its construction and painted decoration is like that of later parfleches. It is not tribally identi- fied. This specimen demonstrates that this type of rawhide container was made in the Plains before 1790. However, it is probable that the parfleche, considered by Wissler (1988, p. 222) to be one of the ma- terial traits typical of Plains Indian culture, was not widely used in the Plains before 1800. The earliest illustration of the parfleche I have seen is Bodmer’s accurate rendering in Maximilian’s Atlas, pl. 81 (1906). In later years the use of the parfleche spread far into the northwest even to tribes that did not make them but secured them in trade. Spier (1925, p. 96) and Douglas (1942, pp. 107-108) have listed its breadth of tribal distribution at its greatest extent, 116 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 Weasel Tail also argued the relative lateness of the parfleche among the Blackfoot on technological grounds. He claimed it would have been an arduous task to cut and trim large areas of tough rawhide with the stone knives used by the Indians prior to trade contacts with Europeans. It is probable that the metal knife stimulated the in- vention of the parfleche and/or encouraged its wide use. The maker of the early parfleche in the Musée de l’ Homme undoubtedly was ac- quainted with both metal knives and horses. In Maximilian’s time (1833) the Blackfoot were making and using “many kinds of painted parchment bags, some of them in semicircular form, with leather strings and fringes” (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 23, p. 104, and illus. p. 105). By that time the Blackfoot had been using metal knives for more than a half century. THE DOUBLE-BAG Wissler collected and briefly described a buffaiohide container com- posed of two deep pockets connected by a broad hide band, known to the Blackfoot as a “double-bag.” He found this type was “once in general use” by women as “a general carrying bag” (Wissler, 1910, p- 74). This specimen (No. 50/5381, Amer. Mus. Nat. History) is shown in plate 9,. Each pouch is 14 inches deep and 9 inches wide at the bottom. Elderly Blackfoot informants described this type of bag to me as a container used in transporting foods and domestic articles on a pack horse. Such a bag was often made from the bottom of an old buffalo cowskin lodge cover. It was placed over the top of a pack animal’s load, one pocket suspended on each side of the horse. In the pockets were placed one large or two small buffalo calfskins filled with berries. The calfskins (complete except for the heads) were closed at the necks by skin cords (fig. 21). The bag also was a handy container for transporting miscellaneous articles such as lunches to be eaten en route, and tin plates, and iron frying pans which were in rather com- mon use among the Blackfoot in the late years of their nomadic existence. Like such other once common articles as the digging stick and the native-made wooden bowl this double-bag has become exceedingly rare. I have seen no specimen other than the one collected by Wissler. Since it was in general use among the Blackfoot and Hidatsa I should ® Wilson’s aged Hidatsa informant described the use of this type of bag by that tribe in transporting shelled corn. The Hidatsa also termed this container “‘double-bag.” It was about 15 inches wide at the bottoms of the pockets, tapering to the tops (Wilson, 1924, p. 2738, fig. 96). In his next paragraph Wilson describes in detail the manufacture of the buffalo calfskin bag used by the Hidatsa for transporting corn. Although it is in every respect like the Blackfoot berry bag, Wilson makes no mention of Hidatsa carrying of this bag in the pockets of the double-bag. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 5 WW’ suspect that it had a wider distribution in the northern Plains. I described the double-bag to Kiowa informants. They were entirely unfamiliar with it. In view of the limited data available on the double-bag it is im- possible to determine either its origin or antiquity. It may have been an Indian invention, or it may have been adapted from saddlebags employed by trappers and traders in the Indian Country. FIGURE 21.—a, Buffalo caifskin berry bag; 6, berry bag transported in the pocket of a double-bag on saddle of a packhorse, Blackfoot. PRINCIPAL ITEMS OF LUGGAGE TRANSPORTED BY RIDING HORSES The Blackfoot commonly used three types of luggage in carrying articles on riding horses. Generally these were placed on the horse ridden by a woman of the household when camp was moved. Items carried in these containers are listed on pages 136-1387. THE DOUBLE SADDLEBAG The double saddlebag (illustrated in Wissler, 1910, p. 95, and Ewers, 1945 b, p. 57) was made from a rectangular piece of soit 118 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 dressed skin about 60 inches long by 24 inches wide. This piece was doubled on the long dimension and the edges sewn together. <A lon- gitudinal slit, cut in the center of its length, served as the opening of the bag. Long, cut fringes (15 inches or more in length) were sewn to the ends of the bag. According to the Blackfoot ideal these fringes should be long enough to fall below the horse’s belly when the bag is in place across the horse’s back. In earlier times, probably before 1870, these bags were decorated with panels of painted or quilled de- FieurE 22.—Double saddlebag thrown over a woman’s saddle for transportation, Blackfoot. signs in rectangular areas the width of the pendent sides. Speci- mens of more recent manufacture have these panels in beadwork over a background of red or black flannel. Double saddlebags were transported in either of two ways. Most commonly they seem to have been thrown over the center of the woman’s saddle, hanging an equal distance at each side (fig. 22). The rider threw a buffalo robe over the bag then mounted on top of it. Thus the distance between the pommel and cantle of the woman’s saddle determined the proper width of the saddlebag (about 12 inches). Less commonly the saddlebag was placed over the cantle of the saddle through the slit opening at the center of the bag. A little over half its width then rested on the horse’s back behind the Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 119 saddle. The Blackfoot considered the double saddlebag a woman’s piece of luggage. Men did not carry these bags on their horses.% RECTANGULAR RAWHIDE SADDLEBAGS Single saddlebags of rawhide were commonly transported on women’s horses. The rectangular bag was made from a single piece of rawhide, folded at the bottom and laced together along the sides. It was closed by a flap at the top. The side exposed to view (when the case was hung over a saddle horn, by a skin cord passed through two holes burned in the back a short distance below the top flap) generally was painted in geometric design. Some of these cases had long, cut-skin fringes pendent from the side seams. The construction and decoration of this type of bag is described and illustrated by Wissler (1910, pp. 76-78) and Ewers (1945 b, p.18).% (See fig. 28, b.) CYLINDRICAL RAWHIDE SADDLEBAGS The cylindrical container is made of three pieces of rawhide. The largest piece was rolled into a tube and the overlapping long edges laced together. The other two pieces were rawhide disks which served as covers for the tube, one tied over each end of the tube by buckskin cords. Many cylindrical cases of this type have long, cut-skin fringes pendent from the long side seam. (See illus. in Wissler, 1910, pp. 78-79, and Ewers, 1945 b, p. 18). This tubular case was suspended from the saddle horn in traveling. Two holes were burned in the tube at a point opposite the seam, and a skin cord was passed through them and over the saddle horn. Painted, geometric designs were used in the decoration of this case. As this type of case was used primarily for carrying ceremonial objects it was less common than the rectangu- lar form * (fig. 23, a). If the rawhide parfleche was a post-metal-knife development among the Plains tribes, as has been suggested (p. 116), it is probable that & This type of container is well represented in Museum collections from the northern Plains. Some specimens from the Teton Dakota are exquisitely beaded. Teit (1930, pp. 111, 354) recorded its use by the Couer d’Alene and Flathead. The double saddlebags of the Apache are distinguished by the use of cut-leather decoration. However, Kiowa informants said that tribe did not make this type of bag in their youth, although they obtained some of them in trade from other tribes. The fur trader, Charles Larpenteur, implied that the form of this saddlebag was copied from the Whites, although it was in common use among the Upper Missouri tribes in his time (i. e. ante-1850) (Larpenteur, 1898, p. 67). 6 Wissler (1910, pp. 77-78) has recorded the occurrence of this type of bag among the Sarsi, Gros Ventres, Kutenai, Yakima, Nez Percé, Arapaho, Dakota, and Thompson. Teit has described and illustrated them from the Flathead and Coeur d’Alene (Teit, 1930, pp. 111, 354). & Similar cases were employed by other Plains and Plateau tribes. Wissler (1910, p. 79) reports them from such widely separated tribes as the Nez Percé, Ute, Assiniboin, and Comanche. Kiowa informants told me members of that tribe formerly used the cylindrical rawhide case for storing and transporting feather bonnets exclusively. 120 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 139 i y —— = FiGuRE 28.—Rawhide cases transported on a woman’s horse. @, Cylindrical case with rawhide strap banger; b, fringed, rectangular case with rawhide strap hanger. these rawhide saddlebags were also. It is likely, therefore, that their form, and especially their decoration were adapted to the conditions of horse transportation. Certainly the long cut fringes, which present such a handsome picture blowing in the wind or trailing by the side of the riding horse would have been an impractical nuisance if placed on a dog or carried on the low-slung dog travois. Even in the late years of their nomadic existence it was the wealthly families among the Blackfoot who owned the most elaborately decorated luggage. The saddlebags and rawhide cases carried on the riding horses of favorite wives were thought to dress up the horse and make the women look well on horseback. THE HORSE IN CAMP MOVEMENTS Many factors other than the possession of horses conditioned Black- foot nomadism in historic times. These factors were geographic, climatic, and bionomic as well as cultural. Before considering in detail the functions of horses in camp movements let us survey briefly the influence of these other factors on the Blackfoot yearly round. THE BLACKFOOT COUNTRY At its largest extent, prior to the first Blackfoot treaty with the United States Government in 1855, the territory of the three Black- foot tribes extended from the North Saskatchewan River in Canada southward to the present Yellowstone National Park. The Rocky Mountains formed its western boundary. ‘The mouth of Milk River, some 800 miles eastward, marked its easternmost limit. (See map, fig. 24.) Within this area lie the headwaters of both the Missouri and the Saskatchewan Rivers, comprising numerous swift-flowing streams. From the base of the Rockies the land slopes toward the east, dropping from an elevation of 4,366 feet at present Browning, near the moun- tains, to about 2,150 feet at the mouth of Milk River. Isolated up- lifts east of the Rockies (the Sweetgrass Hills, Cypress Hills, Bear- paw Mountains, Little Rocky Mountains, Little Belt Mountains, and Big Belt Mountains) served as landmarks to the Indians and fur- nished timber, found elsewhere only in the stream valleys and on the slopes of the Rockies. Near the mountains the surface is more broken than Plains-like, yet there, as farther east, rich grasses afford excellent grazing for buffalo and horses. Wild life abounded in this region. Great herds of buffalo blackened the Plains. Antelope, deer, elk, bighorn, bear (both black and grizzly), beaver, otter, mink, muskrat, wolves, foxes, badgers, weasels, and rab- bits offered a variety of animal foods and materials for use in Indian handicrafts. Recently Schaeffer (1950, pp. 87-46) listed some 80 bird species (in some cases families) recognized by the Blackfoot as residents of their territory, including several species of game birds. Although fish were abundant in the streams and lakes, they were rarely eaten by the Blackfoot. Edible plant foods of primary im- portance to the Indians were the spring roots of the prairie turnip, bitterroot and camass, and the fall berries of the chokecherry, buf- 121 122 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 : THE BLACKFOOT Ss! Q L \ gattle p,,. Sito. AND THEIR NEIGHBORS § AR S] : : Me i IN 1850 PRIMARY HUNTING GROUND pe KeARAR EIEN Bathe At Ay, 6 eee a oe ee ROCKY MOUNTAIN DIVIDE. ° o sco SCALE IM ULES Eatin * * + att? * want ~ ® ¥ex de YRONTAN 3% 3% t xen oEe BEARPAW, END ore, Rn Rev AD .. Sete HELLSATE XA z_ RRAAN RAK KKM RARARK KER ‘m3 Sy . 5S tus = Bo J ) 5 & Figure 24.—Map showing the Blackfoot and their neighbors in 1850. faloberry (bullberry), and sarvisberry. Of these plants only bitter- root and camass (found near the mountains) were not characteristic of a much wider area of the northern Plains. While these rich natural resources favored a hunting and collect- ing economy, climatic factors discouraged agricultural pursuits. Throughout most of the Blackfoot country the growing season was too short and too dry to make corn cultivation practical under aborigi- nal conditions. Summers in the area are short with cool nights. Winters are long, cold, and frequently severe, during which rapid changes in temperature of as much as 50 degrees, strong winds, heavy Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 123 snows and blinding blizzards occur. Temperatures of 20 to 40 degrees below zero are not uncommon in severe winters. The known movement of the Blackfoot in early historic times was southwestward from the vicinity of the Eagle Hills in present Sas- katchewan toward the Rockies and the valley of the Missouri. Pres- sure from Cree and Assiniboin moving westward in their rear and the attraction of fine buffalo hunting grounds to the southwest probably were important factors influencing this late 18th and early 19th cen- tury movement. However, it should be noted that the Blackfoot also moved in the direction of their best sources of horses and away from the white men’s trading posts on the Saskatchewan. It is probable that establishment of American trading posts on the Missouri near the mouth of the Marias in 1831 and subsequent years tended to en- courage most of the Piegan and many Blood Indian bands to range south of the international line. Prior to 1831, Blackfoot war parties traveled far south of the Missouri, but it is doubtful whether their hunting camps often crossed that river before then. In the mid-19th century and earlier the friendly Sarsi and Gros Ventres occupied part of the country claimed by the Blackfoot in the far north and east, while hostile tribes disputed their right to hunt in portions of their claim. The Cree and Assiniboin impinged on Black- foot territory in the northeast, the Crow in the southeast. Several trans-Rockies tribes pressed their right to hunt buffalo on lands claimed by the Blackfoot east of the mountains, and especially south of the Missouri. The rights of these western Indians were recognized by the Government in the Blackfoot Treaty of 1855, which set aside the southern portion of the Blackfoot claim, south of the Musselshell River, as a common hunting ground for the western tribes and the Blackfoot, in which none of the tribes might establish permanent vil- lages. That treaty also recognized the right of the Assiniboin to hunt in the easternmost portion of the Blackfoot claim west of the mouth of Milk River. Thus the movements of Blackfoot hunting bands were much more restricted than the boundaries of their claim. It was rare for any Piegan, Blood, or North Blackfoot band to hunt east of the Bearpaw Mountains, south of the Musselshell River, or north of the Red Deer River. I have indicated the common hunting territory of the Blackfoot tribes on the map (fig. 24). This was the region within which the three Blackfoot tribes actually made their living in the mid- 19th century. THE BLACKFOOT YEARLY ROUND The annual movements of the Blackfoot tribes may be considered in terms of four seasons of unequal length: (1) the season of the winter camp, (2) the spring hunting and root-gathering season, (3) the sum- 124 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 mer hunting and Sun-Dance season, and (4) the fall hunting and berry-collecting season. THE WINTER CAMP A century ago (1853) Gov. Isaac I. Stevens wrote of the Blackfoot: “Tt is the custom of the several bands of this tribe to locate in sheltered and otherwise eligible places, in the vicinity of wood, water, and grass, in the early winter, where they remain as inert as possible until the melting of the snow” (Stevens, 1860, vol. 12, p. 102). This course was dictated by the treacherous and frequently severe winter weather of the region in which they lived. For a Blackfoot camp to have remained on the open plains in winter would have been suicidal. Informants stated that the separate bands generally moved into winter camp in late October or early November, well in advance of the period of in- tense cold and heavy snows which usually did not set in until near the end of December. Winter camps were established in broad, tim- bered river valleys offering shelter from winds and snows. Impor- tant requisites for a winter camp site were an adequate supply of firewood and of cottonwood for feeding horses, a good water supply for humans and horses, and sufficient wild grass for horse pasturage. In later buffalo days the nearness of temporary or small trading posts also proved a factor in winter campsite selections. When the band arrived at the site chosen for winter camp they usu- ally pitched their lodges in the open for a few weeks. As the weather grew colder, around the end of November or early December, the chief gave orders to move the lodges in among the thick timber of the valley. With axes and knives men and women cut out the under- brush and sufficient timber to permit their placement of lodges among the trees, leaving enough timber surrounding the group of lodges to serve as a windbreak and snow fence. Some of the brush cleared away was piled around the bases of the lodges to give additional weather protection. The remainder of the brush and felled trees was used for firewood. The lodges were not alined in a camp circle but were huddled rather closely together in no particular order. Usually each band remained in the selected locality all winter, or as long as there remained sufficient wood for fuel and grass within easy access of the horses. Exhaustion of either supply, or absence of game in the neighborhood for an extended period, would necessitate camp movement. However, a short journey of less than a day’s march might bring them to a new site possessing adequate resources for another winter camp. Green Grass Bull said that bands whose mem- bers owned large horse herds had to move camp several times each winter. Informants stressed the fact that fuel and grass needs made it imperative that the bands of each Blackfoot tribe winter separately. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 125 Demands on these resources were too great to allow all the members of a tribe to winter in one large village. The bands wintered in different localities in different years. The winter count of Elk Horn, a Piegan (reproduced in Wissler, 1911, pp. 45-46), lists the winter camps of his band for 12 successive years be- ginning ca. 1849. During that period these camps ranged from the Sweetgrass Hills, near the International Boundary, to “south of the Missouri,” yet more than half of the winters were spent on the Marias. The valley of the Marias was a favorite winter camp ground for Piegan bands from ca. 1848 to 1880. In 1848 the American Fur Co. established winter trading posts, occupied from October to March, for the convenience of the Blackfoot on both the Marias and Milk Rivers. They were occupied annually until 1856 (Bradley, 1900, p. 258). In 1853 Governor Stevens mentioned these posts and added, “the winter homes of the Blackfeet, some six to seven thousand strong are on the Teton, the Marias, and Milk Rivers (Stevens, 1860, vol. 12, p. 239). The trader W. T. Hamilton found the camp of the Piegan head chief, Little Dog, on the Marias in October 1858 (Hamilton, 1900, p. 58). In the late seventies James Kipp and James Willard Schultz operated Fort Conrad near the present Great Northern Rail- way bridge over the Marias. At that time some Blood and even North Blackfoot bands, as well as the Piegan, wintered on that river (Schultz, 1907, pp. 60, 105). Schultz wrote that “the Marias was a favorite stream with the Blackfeet for their winter encampments, for its wide and by no means deep valley was well timbered. In the shel- ter of the cottonwood grove the lodges were protected from the occa- sional north blizzards, there was an ample supply of fuel, and there was fine grass for the horses. There were also great numbers of deer, elk, and mountain sheep in the valley and its breaks” (ibid., p. 37). My elderly Piegan informants recalled the Marias valley as a favorite winter location. They said the several bands were spread out, at dis- tances of several miles apart, from near the junction of Cut Bank and 'Two Medicine Creeks forming the Marias to the big bend of the Marias. The vicinity known to the Indians as Willow Rounds, located some 5 miles down the Marias from the junction of Cut Bank and Two Medicine Creeks, is portrayed in plate 7. The Willow Rounds locality was nearly ideal as a winter campsite. There the valley floor is broad, affording several square miles of grassland for horses. The river banks are still well timbered with cottonwoods, as they were in buffalo days. The steep embankment on the north side of the valley rises more than 100 feet, shutting off cold north winds, while Abbott Coulee to the southwest affords a gentle ascent to the grassy plains beyond. This area was occupied by Piegan winter camps during the 126 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 third quarter of the 19th century. It also was the site of a winter trading post operated by Baker and Bro. of Fort Benton, licensed Indian traders in 1868-69 (Bradley, 1923, pp. 346-347) .” Bradley, on the basis of information furnished by Alexander Cul- bertson, stated that in earlier times (ca. 1833) the Piegan wintered on Sun and Teton Rivers and sometimes as far south as the Three Forks of the Missouri. At that time the Blood Indians wintered on the Marias or on Belly River, and the North Blackfoot on Belly and Bow Rivers (Bradley, MSS., Mont. Hist. Soc., book A, p. 179). There is no indication that the Piegan wintered as far south as the Three Forks after 1850. When geese were seen flying north the Blackfoot knew it was time to leave their winter camps. Beaver bundle owners kept a sort of calendar on notched sticks, one notch representing each day, by means of which they could predict the day on which geese would be sighted in the spring. When the river ice broke up, and before leav- ing winter camp, the beaver ceremony was held. The approach of spring also was determined by the band chief through observation of the development of embryos taken from buffalo cows killed by hunters. When he noted that the unborn calves began to develop hair he knew spring was near and calves would soon drop. Breakup of the winter camp usually occurred in late March or early April, depending upon the severity of the winter. Thus the nomadic Black- foot spent at least 5 months of the year in relatively fixed residences. SPRING HUNTING AND COLLECTING SEASON March was remembered by elderly Indians as a difficult month during which the buffalo began to drift eastward and northeastward away from the Indians’ winter villages. The bands would be forced to subsist on smaller game or go hungry unless they packed and moved after the buffalo. Each band went its separate way in pur- suit of buffalo. Buffalo calves generally were born in the period be- tween the end of winter and the annual May storm. Numerous calves were killed for children’s robes and soft skin bags. The medicine pipe ceremony, held on the occasion of the first thunder in spring, generally was observed in April or May. It was also the season for making willow back rests, construction and repair of riding gear, and fashioning of warm-weather clothing. During this season the 7 In October, 1859, Snowden’s detached party of Raynolds’ Expedition saw a locality on the South Fork of Cheyenne River, S. Dak., in the Teton Dakota country which was much used by Indians for winter camps because of its natural advantages: “A bottom enclosed and protected by hills, filled with large cottonwood, and young groves that would furnish sustenance to almost any number of horses; good grass covers the bottom and neighboring hills’ (Raynolds, 1868, pp. 158-159). Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 127 horses, thinned and weakened by winter, fattened on the spring grasses. Toward the end of spring women and children dug prairie turnips and sometimes bitterroot and camass with fire-hardened, birch digging sticks. These roots provided a welcome change in diet after a winter of eating meat and dried foods. This spring season, during which the separate bands hunted and collected plant foods, may be regarded as a transitional period of relatively short duration between the breakup of the long winter camps and the formation of the tribal summer encampment. Gen- erally it lasted little more than 2 months, during which frequent moves were made. In bionomic terms it may be characterized as the period between the drift of buffalo eastward from the winter camps shortly before the birth of calves in spring and the time when buffalo bulls became prime in June. SUMMER HUNTING AND SUN DANCE SEASON Informants claimed the longest time the Blackfoot tribes remained in one place, except for the period of the winter camps, was during the period the scattered bands assembled for the tribal summer hunt. During the spring season a woman who had vowed to give the Sun Dance that summer told the chief of her band of her vow. He dis- patched a messenger with pipe and tobacco and the message to the chief of another band of his tribe. That chief notified another band chief in the same way, and the process continued until all of the scattered bands received the word. The first invitation usually was sent out when the berries were in blossom in late spring. Generally the bands began to assemble to form the great tribal camp circle around early June. The bands had been scattered over a wide area. Some Piegan bands, for example, may have traveled north or east of the Sweetgrass Hills, some bands to the lower Marias or south of the Missouri, while others may have been westward on Sun River or near the mountains digging camass and/or bitterroot. It required several weeks for all of the bands to come together at the appointed place and take their assigned places in the tribal camp circle. When all the bands had come in, the organized tribal summer hunt began, under the leadership of the tribal head chief and strictly regu- lated by society police. This hunt provided hides for the construc- tion of new lodge covers, meat, and especially tongues needed by the medicine woman for use in the Sun Dance ceremony. Only bull tongues were collected for this purpose and as many as 300 tongues might be required. After the tongues were received they were pre- pared and dried by the medicine woman’s female helpers. Then the head chief sent two experienced warriors to search for a site for the 128 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 Sun Dance encampment. The neighborhood of the Sweetgrass Hills was a favorite site for the Piegan Sun Dance in late buffalo days, but it was often held at other locations within their range. When the site was selected, usually at no great distance from where camp was located at the time of selection, the whole camp made four moves on 4 successive days. On the fourth day the site of the Sun Dance encampment was reached. These daily moves were in the nature of dress parades. The Indians wore their finest clothes, decorated their horses with their best trappings, and the men rode with their weapons and shields exposed to view. The medicine woman who had vowed the ceremony rode a travois horse. She was careful not to hang anything on the saddle in front of her. The natoas bundle was carried behind her. The sacred tongues were packed on her travois and on top of them was placed a fringed, raw- hide bag holding her ceremonial paints, badger skins, and pipe. The three sticks used later to support her ceremonial bonnet (a part of the bundle) were tied alongside one of the travois shafts. The Sun Dance was timed to coincide with the ripening of the sarvisberries, or dogfootberries farther east. This was in the month of August. The first sarvisberries were served to dancers in the Sun Dance lodge. Sun Dance ceremonies consumed 8 to 10 days, at the end of which the camp circle was dissolved and the bands separated for the fall hunt. This summer season usually occupied 2 or 3 months from some time in June to about the beginning of September. It was the only season of the year in which the bands of the tribe camped in one village in the form of a circle of lodges. (See pl. 8.) At other seasons the separate bands did not use the camp circle arrangement of lodges. FALL HUNTING AND COLLECTING SEASON Tn the fall, buffalo cows, whose meat was much preferred to that of bulls, were prime. This was the great buffalo hunting season, when large numbers of animals were killed and quantities of meat were ob- tained, and when berries were collected and mixed with meat and tallow to make pemmican. Each family endeavored to put up as much dried meat, berries, and pemmican as their winter needs or their means of transportation would permit. It was an active season, during which the number of camp moves was determined largely by the available supply of meat. Obviously camp could not be moved while women were busy drying meat and berries, and making pemmican. During a successful fall hunt stops of a week or longer in one locality were not uncommon. On the other hand, if a band failed to come upon buffalo Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 129 in sizable herds, more frequent moves were necessary. Generally, the more successful the hunting, the fewer camp movements were required during the fall season. Although the fall hunting season may be considered as ending with the establishment of the winter camp, the Blackfoot continued to hunt buffalo and prepare meat for eating in the severe winter months during the months of November and Decem- ber or until heavy snows and bitter cold restricted this activity. In the years prior to about 1850 they employed drives over cliffs or into pounds constructed in the vicinity of the winter camp in this early winter hunting. This summary of the Blackfoot yearly round suggests that the Blackfoot were less “nomadic” than a literal interpretation of that word would imply. Blackfoot nomadism varied with the seasons and was conditioned by the food supply, the weather, and the Sun Dance ceremony. Some five months were spent in winter quarters. Nearly a month was required for assembly of the tribal encampment in early summer during which the bands that arrived early remained in one locality for several weeks (if the food supply permitted). Eight or ten days were spent in the Sun Dance encampment in late summer. The Blackfoot were most “nomadic” in spring, mid-summer, and fall. MOVEMENT OF A BLACKFOOT BAND CAMP PREPARATION FOR MOVEMENT Preparations for movement of a Blockfoot band camp were similar but on a smaller scale and Jess complicated than those undertaken for the movement of an entire tribe during the summer hunting season preceding the tribal Sun Dance. In the latter case the band chiefs met the night before the camp was to be moved and reached a decision as to the direction and destination of the next day’s journey. The head chief called the leaders of four men’s societies and delegated to each of them responsibilities for guarding the camp en route. Members of one society were told to scout ahead of the main body, those of a second society were instructed to guard it on the left, those of a third society were told to guard it on the right, and those of the fourth society were asked to remain in camp until all of the others had moved off and to bring up the rear as rear guards. The decision of the head chief, reached after consultation with the band chiefs, was announced to the people of the large camp by the chief’s herald on the night before the 8 Jenness’ description of the Sarsi yearly round during ‘‘the early nineteenth century” divides the year into 5 seasons, although the rhythm of relatively active and passive nomadism appears very like that of the Blackfoot (Jenness, 1938, pp. 11-12). 287944-—-55——-10 130 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 move was to be made so that everyone would be in readiness to make an early start the next morning.” In planning the movement of a Blackfoot band, the band chief con- sulted other prominent men of the band before announcing the move. He called upon certain individuals in the band to act as scouts, side, and rear guards. Among the Blackfoot the medicine pipe owner played an important role in camp movement. In dismantling his lodge on the morning of the move he placed his bundle at some distance from it if the move was to be a long one; he left it standing on its tripod near the lodge if the move was to be a short one. He took pains to point his pipe in the direction the camp was to go. Before he set out, the medicine pipe owner made a smudge and prayed for the safe journey of the camp, that no accident would befall any member and that no enemies would be encountered en route. The medicine pipe man led the main body when camp moved.” PACKING UP Experience made the Blackfoot efficient in packing their belongings quickly on the morning camp was to move. Except for the lodge and bedding most items were packed ready for transportation before the morning of the move. They needed only to be tied in their proper places on horses or travois. This greatly expedited last-minute prepa- rations. J. M. Stanley (1855, p. 448), who accompanied Low Horn’s Piegan village of 90 lodges on its move southward to Fort Benton in the fall of 1853, wrote that “in less than an hour the whole camp was under way”’.” As among other Plains Indian tribes Blackfoot packing of lodges and furnishings was women’s work. In a household of several wives the husband’s favorite wife served as job foreman, supervising the work of the other wives, the aged women, and grown girls of the * Larocque’s description of movements of the entire Crow camp in the summer of 1805, reveals that Crow custom was similar to that described by living Blackfoot informants, at that early date. He observed that the principal chief consulted the other chiefs before deciding upon a move, then issued the order. ‘That chief’s lodge was the first to be taken down on the morning of the move (Larocque, 1910). Tixier (1940, p. 179) noted that heralds announced breaking of camp the night before the Osage hunting camp made a move during the summer of 1940. As early as 1776, the elder Henry (1809, p. 310) observed the Assiniboin chief’s practice of notifying the camp of the next day’s march in advance. My Kiowa informants stated that in that tribe the principal chief’s decision was made known to tribal members through his announcer the night before camp movement, and that this chief led the procession when camp was under way. 7 Perhaps the Mandan and Hidatsa had a very similar custom. Alexander Henry (1897, vol. 1, p. 869), who accompanied these tribes on a visit to the Cheyenne in 1806, observed that Le Borgne’s “grand pipe of ceremony” was carried at the head of the proces- sion. Boller (1868, p. 277) noted that Poor Wolf “carried the pipe’ and led the line of march when the Mandan-Hidatsa moved camp ca. 1860. 7 Denig (1953, p. 36) credited the Crow with being able to pack and start on the march in “Jess than 20 minutes.” Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 131 household engaged in the task. Each family was responsible for its own belongings. Every article had its assigned place and means of transportation. PACKING THE LODGE The lodge was the buikiest, heaviest, and most complex possession transported by the Blackfoot in moving camp. A century ago Denig (1930, p. 578) wrote that among the Upper Missouri tribes the size of the lodge was determined “by the number of persons to be accom- modated or their means of transporting it.” ‘Two decades later Brad- ley (1923, p. 258) stated that Blackfoot lodge size varied according to the size “desired or the wealth of the occupants.” Informants claimed the latter factor was of primary importance, for the larger the lodge the greater were the number of skins required for construction of its cover and the number, length, and basal thickness of the lodge poles necessary for its foundation. Consequently the larger the lodge, the greater the number of horses required to transport it. Before the skin cover was replaced by the canvas one during the period 1870-85, Blackfoot lodges were sized according to the number of buffalo cowskins employed in the construction of the cover. The smallest lodge had 6 skins, the largest about 40 skins. Alexander Culbertson (in 1848) saw a lodge of 40 skins owned by the Blood chief, Seen-from-Afar, a wealthy owner of 100 horses and husband of 10 wives (Bradley, 1900, p. 258). None of my informants claimed to have seen a lodge larger than 30 skins. Weasel Tail said the average Blackfoot lodge numbered 12 to 14 skins, figures also cited by Wissler (1910, p. 100). A lodge of that size was 14 to 16 feet in diameter at the base and provided sleeping accommodations for a family of 8, with their baggage. Informants said that skin lodges had less lodgepoles in proportion to their size than the more recent canvas lodges. Weasel Tail said 19 poles were used for support of a 14-skin lodge (4 main poles, 5 secondary ones on each side, 2 near the door, 1 at the center of the back, and 2 ear-support poles). Modern Blackfoot who set up canvas- covered lodges in their Sun Dance encampments take pride in the length of their lodgepoles. In many lodges the poles extend 4 or more feet above the crossing. They criticize shorter poles, saying they look “like a crop-eared horse.” However, in buffalo days only the wealthy could afford the extravagance of poles much longer than were needed to support their covers.” Wealthy families among the Blackfoot made new lodges every sum- mer, before the Sun Dance encampment. Cowskins collected during 7 Palliser (1863, p. 188) observed that Blackfoot lodges generally were larger and better furnished than those of the Cree, a tribe poor in horses. On the other hand, the horse- wealthy Crow tribe was renowned for having the finest lodges among the Upper Missouri tribes in buffalo days (Catlin, 1841, vol. 1, pp. 43-44; Lowie, 1922 a, pp. 222-223). 132 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY {Bull. 159 Fieurr 25.—A common method of folding a ledge cover for transportation by pack- horse, Blackfoot. the summer months, when buffalo hair was short, were easier to dress than those obtained during cooler weather. Near Fort McKenzie, August 9, 1833, Maximilian saw a Piegan camp of “old dirty brown leather tents” (Maximilian, 1906, vol. 23, p. 123). Apparently the covers had not been renewed at that date. Middle-class families gen- erally renewed their lodge covers every other year, while poor families often were content to rely upon the kindness of wealthy men to give them old lodge covers after they had made new ones. The rich family’s large cover was cut down to meet the needs of the poor one by trimming several feet off the base of it to make a much smaller cone. The lodge cover was folded neatly and carefully to pack it for trans- port. One of several methods of folding employed by the Piegan is illustrated in figure 25. Some women preferred to begin by rolling the sides of the lodge toward the center, then folded over the ear flaps, folding up a portion of the bottom and providing a somewhat larger pack. Others first made a fold along the vertical axis at the center Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 133 and continued to fold the skin on this axis until the package was the width of the saddle, then folded or rolled up the top and bottom ends. Figure 19 shows the lodge cover in place on the pack or woman’s saddle. The tie rope encircling the horse’s belly prevented shifting of the load.” The cover of a 12- to 14-hide The weighed from about 90 to 105 pounds. It required the services of two women to lift it onto the horse or travois. Generally the Blackfoot transported the cover on the back of a packhorse. In winter they preferred to place the cover on the travois, especially if there was snow on the ground.” The lodgepoles, after being taken down, were divided into equal bundles and tied to the sides of packhorses, through holes burned near the upper ends of the poles, by the hitch described on page 107 and illustrated in figure 19. The average-size lodge had 19 poles, each 18 feet to 22 feet long, weighing approximately 20 pounds each. The dragging ends of the poles provided considerable friction in travel- ing over rough country, limiting the number of poles each horse could transport to 5 or 6 each side, or a total of 10 or 12. Consequently it required two horses to transport the poles of the average lodge.” Larger lodges, requiring a greater number of longer and heavier poles, needed more than two horses to move them. Schultz (1919 a, p- 50) claimed one horse could transport only 2 of the 36-foot lodge- poles required for the 28-skin lodge of the Piegan chief Lone Walker. Since that lodge was said to have used 30 poles, 15 horses would have been needed merely to transport them, according to Schultz’ calcu- lations. This figure seems excessive. However, it is obvious that the wealthy owner of one or even two large lodges needed more horses to move his lodgepoles than did the average Blackfoot. Rich men also employed mules for pole transport because they were stronger than Indian ponies. (See Appendix.) In many families certain horses were selected and reserved for the sole service of hauling the lodge- 78 The method of folding the cover employed by Wilson’s Hidatsa informant and illustrated by him (Wilson, 1924, figs. 106, 107) was not described by my Blackfoot informants. There is no reason to believe that all Hidatsa women folded their lodges in that manner. My Blackfoot data indicate that the method of folding followed individual rather than tribal preference. ™4 My Oglala and Kiowa informants also stated that those tribes preferred to transport lodge covers on pack horses. Wilson (1924, p. 193, fig. 35) indicated that was also Hidatsa practice, and Grinnell (1889, p. 279) stated that it was the Pawnee custom. The Omaha, in 1819, were reported to have carried their conic lodge covers of skin ‘neatly folded up, and suspended to the pack-saddle’’ (James, 1823, vol. 1, p. 206). Denig (1953, p. 36) noted Crow practice of transporting the lodge cover on horseback in the mid-19th century. 7% On page 112 I have cited references to show that other Plains Indians transported their lodgepoles in the same manner as did the Blackfoot. Grinnell (1928, vol. 1, p. 226) and Wilson (1924, pp. 193, 272) described Cheyenne and Hidatsa use of two horses to transport the poles of one lodge, although in the latter case some of the poles were attached to the horse carrying the cover. 134 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 poles. During camp movement pole-dragging horses generally were led by ropes held by women riding travois horses ahead of them. The poor in horses were forced to adopt ingenious expedients for transporting the short poles for their small lodges, unless they could borrow a horse or horses to help them move camp. Sometimes they attached poles to the sides of travois beds. Sometimes they employed dogs to drag their poles, each dog dragging two to four poles.” Necessary accessories of each lodge were the wooden pegs driven into the ground around the lower edge of the cover to anchor it, and wooden pins used to fasten the cover together at the front. The Black- foot generally carried these accessories in two rawhide bags (either scraped clean or with the hair left on) tied together over the saddle, one each side of a pole-dragging horse or the cover-carrying animal. Draught screens or lodge linings of skins were folded and packed on top of the lodge cover on the packhorse or placed on travois. The estimated load of the average Blackfoot lodge accessories may be itemized : Pounds Covers(i2 ord 4 skins) 222228 ee ee ee eee -- 90-105 PolesmGl9) at, 20 1bs. each) =ae se OOO inine(Siskins/at cali4olbss) a Se eee 60 Pesstangspinsieei.) Pronto waninoc) cae) sep eae? 30-40 ERG Ca ee ae eg Sa ee Gee he 560-585 It required three horses to transport the lodge and its accessories when camp was moved. If a family possessed a painted lodge, its accompanying sacred bundle generally was carried in a rectangular fringed rawhide case over the rear horn of the wife’s (or favorite wife’s) saddle. Some families transported these bundles on the travois. PACKING HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE Buffalo robes used for bedding and decorated willow backrests were carried on the travois. Sometimes, especially during the ritual moves prior to the establishment of the Sun Dance camp, women placed back- rests on the travois so that one end would hang down at the back of 7 Boller (ca. 1860) observed a camp of Canoe Assiniboin: “Owing to the scarcity of horses among this band ... and the necessity of using dogs as their beasts of burden, most of the lodges consisted of from six to ten skins only” (Boller, 1868, pp. 134-135). However, Pierre Pichette claimed that the relatively wealthy Flathead employed rather small skin lodges on their prolonged winter buffalo hunts on the Plains due to the difficulty of hauling heavy loads over the Rockies. Many Flathead hunting lodges, he claimed, were not over 10 skins. Tribes of wealth nearly equal to that of the Blackfoot seem to have used lodges of about the same size. In 1833 Maximilian (1906, vol. 22, p. 327) found that Teton Dakota tipis were “generally composed of 14 skins.”” However, Denig (19380, p. 578) said that prominent Teton leaders owned lodges of as many as 36 skins in the second quarter of the 19th century. Teton lodge covers of that large size were taken apart in the center of the back. Half of the cover was transported by each of two horses. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 135 Ficure 26.—a, Placement of a willow backrest on the bottom of a travois load to enhance the appearance of the travois from the rear; b, method of transport- ing water in a paunch container. the load making it “look pretty” (fig. 26, a).77 All of the items placed on a travois sometimes were wrapped in an old lodge cover and tied securely with rawhide rope 2 to 3 fingers wide, to protect them from dust, rain, or snow. If a family owned a great many buffalo robes they sometimes transported them on a makeshift platform of two crosspieces tied to the bundles of lodgepoles trailed by a pole-dragging horse. PACKING FOOD Dry meat, tallow, and pemmican in quantity were transported in parfleches, either in pairs suspended from each side of a pack horse (fig. 20) or on the travois platform. Small quantities of meat or pem- mican to be eaten for lunch en route were carried in rectangular raw- hide bags hung from the horn of a woman’s saddle. ® Chokecherries, serviceberries, gooseberries, and bullberries collected in the fall and dried for winter use were transported in buffalo calf- skin bags in the pockets of “double-bags” on pack horses. (See p. 116 7 Grinnell (1923, vol. 1, p. 248), who considered willow backrests luxury items unknown to the Indians before the acquisition of horses, said the Cheyenne carried them rolled in compact bundles on horseback. A Kiowa informant said that tribe generally carried bedding on top of a pack horse’s load. 783The Kiowa also employed the parfleche primarily as a meat-carrying case. The Cheyenne (Grinnell, 1923, vol. 1, p. 244) used them primarily for meat, berries, and roots. James (1823, vol. 1, p. 212) wrote of the Omaha, “The meat, in its dried state is closely condensed together in quadrangular packages, each of a suitable size, to attach con- veniently to one side of the pack saddle of a horse,” suggesting that the parfleche was used by that tribe for transporting meat in 1819. 136 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 159 and fig. 21.) Tobacco (usually a mixture of dried bearberry leaves and commercial tobacco) was also transported in that way. The white underscrapings of buffalo rawhide, used like flour to mix with dried berries in making berry cakes, were carried in rectangular rawhide bags hung over the saddle horn or placed on the travois. CLOTHING Dress clothing and extra articles of ordinary wear not worn on the day’s journey were carried either in the double saddlebag (see p. 117 and fig. 22) or in parfleches on the travois, with the exception of those articles included in medicine bundles. Paints, combs, looking glasses, and other toilet articles were carried in small rectangular raw- hide cases over front or rear horns of women’s saddles. HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS According to Blackfoot tradition, pottery cooking vessels were formerly carried on horseback, in specially constructed rawhide con- tainers tied on the top of a packhorse’s load (Ewers, 1945 a, p. 295). Metal trade kettles were placed in skin sacks, often made from parts of old lodge covers, and tied on the top of the packhorse’s load.®° The Blackfoot transported tin plates, frying pans, and metal spoons and knives in “double-bags” thrown over the backs of pack animals in late buffalo days. Small tools and utensils, such as arrow-making equipment, pipe-making tools, pemmican mauls, and skin-dressing tools were transported in plain, rectangular rawhide cases, usually on horse or dog travois. Even owners of a considerable number of horses sometimes carried these articles on dog travois. Carrying rela- tively ight loads, the dogs could keep up with the horses in the mov- ing camp." SOCIETY AND MEDICINE PARAPHERNALIA All society and sacred paraphernalia among the Blackfoot were individually owned and were transported by the family of the owner. A society leader, in whose lodge the ceremonies of the group were held, had that lodge moved in the same way as other lodges of the camp. Ceremonial rattles were carried in fringed, rectangular, rawhide cases ® Kiowa informants claimed their people always carried extra clothing in parfleches. 80—T have seen no Blackfoot kettle cases; however, there is a Crow specimen in the U. S. National Museum, which is illustrated in plate 9, a. Denig (1953, p. 36) reported that in the mid-19th century the Crow carried kettles, pots, pans, ete. in individual sacks with cords attached by which they were tied to a horse’s pack. Frank Bosin said the Kiowa wrapped their kettles in soft buekskin, then tied them to packhorse loads when moving camp. §1Jn 1846, Garrard (1927, p. 52) saw Southern Cheyenne transporting stone hammers, skin-dressing tools, wooden bowls, and horn spoons in “‘square’”’ rawhide bags slung on each side of pack mules. Ewers] THE HORSE IN BLACKFOOT INDIAN CULTURE 137 over the saddle horn of a wife’s saddle. Drums usually were wrapped in the bedding on the travois to prevent damage to them. War bonnets and small medicine bundles were carried in cylindrical rawhide cases (p. 119 and fig. 23, a), over the rear horn of a woman’s saddle by the wife of the owner.®? Larger bundles, such as the natoas and beaver bundles were carried on the travois, led by the principal wife of the owner. The medicine pipe bundle, according to tradition, was carried in its special, fringed rawhide case over the back of the medicine pipe man. However, in my informant’s youth it was carried on a separate horse led by the pipe owner, or even on the travois, on top of bedding, led by the owner’s wife. WEAPONS Women carried knives in rawhide sheaths at their belts while mov- ing camp. These were their only defensive weapons. Men, unencum- bered by any baggage, carried their fighting weapons and ammuni- tion, ready to meet any unexpected attack.** CHILDREN The elaborately decorated cradle was a luxury item among the Blackfoot in buffalo days. Women who were lucky enough to own them carried their infants in cradles hung from the front horns of their saddles. Most women carried their babies on their backs, wrapped in part of an old lodge cover and inside the mother’s buffalo robe. Toddlers often rode on the travois. A family with several children might fold a large buffalo hide like a box, its sides held upright by parfleches, and place the children in the center. When tired of riding the children got off the travois and ran for a while. The willow sunshade also was employed on