OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 225 



take excellent care of their horses, although they abuse them by immoderate use ; 

 and, it is said, that one raised among them and sold away is glad to be restored to 

 the free and roving life of the plains. 



The Blackfeet are divided into three independent bands or embryo nations the 

 Blackfeet proper, the Piegans, and the Bloods. Their language is spoken in three 

 dialects, but the differences are so slight that they are mutually perfectly intelligible. 

 The dialects of the first and third are so little changed as scarcely to deserve the 

 distinction, whilst the Piegan has diverged considerably from both. The extent of 

 the difference will be seen by comparing the terms of relationship in the Table. The 

 proportion of terms of relationship which are common in the Blackfoot and in other 

 Algonkin dialects is much larger than it is in the vocables for common objects. There 

 is a large foreign element in the Blackfoot vocables, or a new coinage of words from 

 common roots, one or the other, which places this language at quite a distance from 

 the standard form. Many of the traders have acquired the Blackfoot, and a few 

 of the Blackfeet have acquired English, but their dialects are not as yet fully open 

 and accessible. It was my good fortune to meet the persons who were best qualified 

 to furnish both the Piegan and Blood Blackfoot system of relationship. The first 

 was James Bird, a half-blood Cree, who had lived twenty-five years with the Black- 

 feet, and had acted for many years as a government interpreter. I found him at 

 the Red River Settlement, in 1861, and procured the Piegan system from him and 

 his wife, who was a woman of the Piegan Blackfoot nation. The others were 

 Alexander Culbertson, who was formerly and for twenty years the chief factor of 

 the American Fur Company, resident at Fort Benton, in the Blackfoot country, and 

 his wife, a Blood Blackfoot woman, from whom I procured the system of the Bloods. 

 They happened to be at Fort Benton in 1862, at the time of my visit, and both 

 were fluent speakers of both Blackfoot and English. 



The Piegan system will be adopted as the standard form. 



First Indicative Feature. My brother's son and daughter, Ego a male, are my 

 step-son and step-daughter, N'-do'-ta-ko and N'-do'-to-tun. With Ego a female, 

 they are my nephew and niece. 



Second. My sister's son and daughter, Ego a male, are my nephew and niece, 

 N'-do'-td-yose and Nee-mis'-sa. With Ego a female, they are my step-son and step- 

 daughter. 



Third. My father's brother is my step-father, N'-to'-to-md. 



Fourth. My father's brother's son and daughter are my brother and sister, elder 

 or younger, Neese-sdf or N'is-kan'-d, and Nee-mis'-td or Ne-sis'-sd. 



that one of them having occasion to do an unimportant errand two miles away, caught a horse from a 

 small herd near by, put a piece of rope around his under jaw, securing it with a noose, and mount- 

 ing him without a saddle, and with no other bridle than the rope, started the horse at the top of his 

 speed, and did not slacken his pace until he had reached his destination. The same act precisely I 

 noticed in the Sawk and Fox Indians in Kansas. When a party of mounted Indians are riding on 

 the prairie they go two, three, and sometimes four abreast. Deep trails are thus made on their main 

 lines of travel. I have followed them for miles in Kansas and Nebraska. They are usually about 

 eighteen inches wide, and about nine inches deep, and are quite conspicuous in the early part of the 

 season, before they are obscured by the growing grass. 



29 March, 1870. 



