[BURPEE] YORK FACTORY TO THE BLACKFEET COUNTRY 317 
he says, “ they far excell the other Natives. They are all well mounted 
on light, sprightly Animals; their Weopons, Bows and Arrows. Several 
have on Jackets of Moose leather six fold, quilted, and without sleeves. 
They likewise use pack-horses, which gives their Women a great advan- 
tage over the other Women who are either carrying or hauling on sledges 
every day in the year. They appear to me more like Europeans than 
Americans [meaning Indians]. 
“Our Archithinue friends are very Hospitable, continually invit- 
ing us to partake of their best fare; generally berries infused in water 
with fat, very agreeable eating. Their manner of showing respect to 
strangers is, in holding the pipe while they smoke. This is done three 
times. Afterwards every person smokes in common, the Women ex- 
cepted, whom I did not observe to take the Pipe. The tobacco they use 
is of their own planting, which hath a disagreeable flavour; I have pre- 
served a specimen. These people are much more cleanly in their cloath- 
ing and food than my companions [Crees]. Their victuals are dressed 
in earthern pots, of their own manufacturing; much in the same form 
as Newcastle pots, but without feet; their fire tackling a black stone 
used as flint, and a kind of ore as a steel, using tuss balls as tinder, 
(i.e.) a kind of moss. 
“ The Slaves whom they have preserved alive are used with kind- 
ness. They are young people of both sexes, and are adopted into the 
families of those who have lost their children either by war or sickness. 
They torture all the aged of both sexes in a most shocking and deliber- 
ate manner.” 
The information as to the Blackfeet and their manner of living, 
at the time white men first went among them, as contained in the jour- 
nals of Hendry and Cocking, may be taken to correct the inaccurate 
statements of later writers, based upon insufficient evidence. For in- 
stance, George Bird Grinnell, in his “ Blackfoot Lodge Tales,” says 
that “in ancient times it [fire] was obtained by means of fire sticks.... 
The starting of the spark with these sticks is said to have been hard 
work. At almost their first meeting with the whites they obtained 
flints and steels, and learned how to use them.” It is clear from Cock- 
ing’s narrative that the Blackfeet had something much more effective 
than fire-sticks in 1772, and that they did not have to thank white 
men for a knowledge of the principle of the flint and steel. 
Again, Grinnell says: “It is doubtful if the Blackfeet ever 
made any pottery or basket ware.” Cocking distinctly says that they 
did make earthern pots; and Hendry was served with boiled buffalo meat 
in wicker baskets. Again, Grinnell says that the Blackfeet obtained 
horses in the earliest years of the nineteenth century. Hendry describes 
