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BLACK LEG S VILLAGE BLANKETS 



153 



United States troops imder command of 

 Gen. P. H. Sheridan attacked Black Ket- 

 tle's village on the Washita, and de- 

 stroyed it, Black Kettle being killed in 

 the tight. He was a brother of Gentle 

 Horse. (g. b. g. ) 



Black Leg's Village. A former settle- 

 ment, probably of the Delawares, on the 

 N. bank of Conemaugh r. , in s. e. Arm- 

 strong CO., Pa. — Eoyce in 18th Rep. B. 

 A. E., pi. clx, 1900." 



Black Lodges. According to Grinnell 

 (Soc. Org. Cheyennes, 144, 1905), a local 

 designation for a part of the Northern 

 Cheyenne. 



Black Muscogees. A term applied to 40 

 to 60 Indians at Parras, Coahuila, Mexico, 

 at the close of 1861. To what particular 

 l^ranch of the Creeks these refugees be- 

 longed is not known. — Rep. Mex. Bndv. 

 Comm.,410, 1873. 



Blacksnake {Thaonawyuthe, 'needle or 

 awl breaker'). A chief, about the close 

 of the 18th century, of the Seneca Indians, 

 who lived on their reservation along the 

 Alleghany r. in Cattaraugus co., N. Y. 

 His residence was a mile above the vil- 

 lage of Cold Spring. The date of his 

 l)irth is not known, but is supposed to 

 have been about 1760, as it is stated that 

 in 1856 he had reached the age of 96 years. 

 He was present on the English side at the 

 battle of Oriskany, N. Y., in 1777, and it 

 is said that he participated in the Wyo- 

 ming massacre of 1778, but he fought on 

 the American side in the battle of Ft 

 George, N. Y., Aug. 17, 1813. He died 

 in 1859. (c. t.) 



Black-tailed Deers. A Hidatsa band or 

 secret order. — Culbertson in Smithson. 

 Rep. 1850, 143, 1851. 



Black Thunder (also called Makatanan- 

 amaki, from makatd 'black,' ncnemeklc- 

 'thunder.' — W. J. ). A I'ox chief. He 

 was the patriarch of the tribe when, at a 

 council held at Portage, Wis., in July, 

 1815, he replied to charges of breach of 

 treaties and of hostile intentions, made by 

 the American commissioners, with a burst 

 of indignant eloquence, claiming the pro- 

 tection of the Government for his tril)e, 

 that, having smoked the peace pipe, had 

 remained faithful throughout the war, 

 and respect also for their title to ancestral 

 lands. He signed the treatv at St Louis 

 on Sept. 14, 1815.— Drake, Bk. Inds., 631, 

 1880. 



Black Tiger. A Dakota band of 22 

 lodges, named from its chief; one of the 

 bands not brought into Ft Peck agency 

 in 1872.— H. R. Ex. Doc. 96, 42d Cong., 

 3d sess., 15, 1873. 



Black Tortoise. A mythical tribe alleged 

 to have lived in the Mississippi valley and 

 to have been conquered and driven away 

 bv the Elk Indians. — Pidgeon, Traditions 

 of Decoodah, 162, 1858. 



Blaesedael (Danish: 'windy valley'). 

 An Eskimo village and Danish post on 

 Disko bay, w. Greenland, containing 120 

 people. — Mrs Peary, Journ., 14, 1893. 



Blanchard' s Fork. By the treaty of Mau- 

 mee Rapids, in 1819, a part of the Ottawa 

 living in Ohio were given a reservation on 

 Blanchard's fork of the Auglaize, in Ohio, 

 and became known officially as the Ottawa 

 of Blanchard's Fork. They sold their 

 land in 1831 and removed to Kansas, and 

 later to Indian Territory, where, with 

 some others of the same tribe, thev num- 

 bered 179 in 1904. 



Ottawas of Blanchard's Creek.— Greenville treaty 

 (IT'.t.'i) in U. S. Ind. Treat., 1033, 1873. Ottawas of 

 Blanchard's Fork. — Present offieial name. 



Blankets. In the popular mind the 

 North American Indian is everywhere 

 associated with the robe or the blanket. 

 The former was the whole hide of a large 

 mammal made soft and pliable lij^ much 

 dressing; or pelts of foxes, wolves, and 

 such creatures were sewed together; or 

 bird, rabbit, or other tender skins were 

 cut into ribbons, which were twisted or 

 woven. The latter were manufactured 

 by basketry processes from wool, hair, fur, 

 feathers, down, bark, cotton, etc., and 

 had many and various functions. They 

 'were worn like a toga as protection from 

 the weather, and, in the best examples, 

 were conspicuous in wedding and other 

 ceremonies; in the night they were both 

 bed and covering; for the home they 

 served for hangings, partitions, doors, 

 awnings, or sunshades; the women dried 

 fruit on them, made vehicles and cradles 

 of them for their babies, and receptacles 

 for a thousand things and burdens; they 

 even then exhausted their patience and 

 skill- upon them, producing their finest 

 art work in weaving and embroidery; 

 finally, the blanket became a standard 

 of value and a primitive mechanism of 

 commerce. 



In s. E. Alaska originated what is popu- 

 larly called the Chilkat blanket — a mar- 

 vel of spinning, weaving, fringing, and 

 mythic designs. The apparatus for this 

 seems inadequate. The woman hangs 

 her warp of mountain goat's wool mixed 

 with shredded cedar bast from a horizon- 

 tal bar. The long ends are made into 

 balls and covered with membrane to keep 

 them clean. Weft is not even wound on 

 a stick for shuttle, nor is there even the 

 rudest harness or batten. The details of 

 the great mythic design are carefully 

 wrought in by the woman in twined 

 weaving at the same time that a dainty 

 lacework is produced on the selvage. 

 The process ends with a long heavy fringe 

 from the unused warp. Farther south- 

 ward on the N. W. coast cedar bast finely 

 shredded served for the weaving of soft 

 blankets, which were neatly trimmed 

 with fur. 



