ETHNOLOGY OF THE BLACKFOOT TRIBES. 207 



Indians were wild nomads, who lived in skin tents, hunted the buffalo, 

 and had probably never seen a plow or an axe. 



The Blackfeet have been known to the whites for about a century, 

 and during that period have dwelt in or near their present abode. 

 There is evidence, however, that they once lived farther east than at 

 present. Mackenzie, in 1789, found the three Blackfoot tribes, with 

 their allies, the Fall Indians (or Atsinas), holding the South Branch 

 of the Saskatchewan, from its source to its junction with the North 

 Branch a region of which the eastern portion was at a later day 

 possessed by the Crees. Of the Blackfoot tribes, he says : " They are 

 a distinct people, speak a language of their own, and I have reason 

 to think are traveling northwest, as well as the others just mentioned 

 (the Atsinas) ; nor have I heard of any Indians with whose language 

 that which they speak has any affinity." 



The result of Mr. McLean's inquiries confirms this opinion of the 

 westward movement of these Indians in comparatively recent times. 

 " The former home of these Indians," he writes, " was in the Red 

 River country, where, from the nature of the soil which blackened 

 their moccasins, they were called Blackfeet." This, it should be 

 stated, is the exact meaning of Siksika, from siTcsinam, black, and 

 ha, the root of ohkatsh, foot. The westward movement of the Black- 

 feet has probably been due to the pressure of the Crees upon them. 

 The Crees, according to their own tradition, originally dwelt far east 

 of the Red River, in Labrador and about Hudson Bay. They have 

 gradually advanced westward to the inviting plains along the Red 

 River, pushing the prior occupants before them by the sheer force of 

 numbers. This will explain the deadly hostility which has always 

 existed between the Crees and the Blackfeet. 



Father Lacombe, it should be stated, is disposed to question the 

 fact of the former residence of the Blackfeet in the Red River country, 

 on the ground that their own tradition seems to bring them from the 

 opposite direction. " They affirm," he writes, " that they came from 

 the southwest, across the mountains ; that is, from the direction of 

 Oregon and Washington Territory. There were bloody conflicts be- 

 tween the Blackfeet and the Nez Perces, as Bancroft relates, for the 

 right of hunting on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains." Mr. 

 McLean, who mentions the former residence of the Blackfeet in the 

 Red River region as an undoubted fact, also says, " It is supposed 

 that the great ancestor of the Blackfeet came across the mountains." 

 Here are two distinct and apparently conflicting traditions which call 

 for further inquiry. One of the best tests of the truth of tradition is 

 to be found in language. Applying this test in the present instance, 

 we are led to some interesting conclusions. It has been seen that 

 Mackenzie, to whom we owe our first knowledge of the Blackfoot 

 tribes, declared that their language had no affinity with that of any 

 other Indians whom he knew. He was well acquainted with the Crees 



