1922] BARRETT, A NEW ETHNOLOGY GROUP 173 



A NEW ETHNOLOGY GROUP 



THE PLAINS INDIANS— BLACKFOOT 



By S. a. Barrett-** 



On June 5, 1922, the Museum's most recent ethnological group was 

 opened. In an article entitled "Collecting among the Blackfoot In- 

 dians,"-' will be found a general description of the Blackfoot Indian 

 country and the particulars of our collecting for this group. 



The group itself is one of the largest of the series of ethnological 

 groups and has a frontage of twenty-six feet, with a glass opening of 

 twenty-one and a half by six feet. 



The scene depicted, as shown in figure 104, is that at the most ex- 

 citing moment of a buffalo drive, when, after most careful preparation, 

 the buffalo have been driven into the V-shaped wings of the drive, or 

 piskun, as it is called by the Blackfoot, which flares out for upwards 

 .of a mile on the prairie. They have then been urged and frightened 

 by the men stationed behind the small rock shelters of the V, and are 

 finally being driven headlong over the brink of the precipice to their 

 deaths below. 



Upon rare occasions, one or more of the animals would bolt to the 

 side and escape out ,of the wings of the piskun. Such a young bull is 

 shown in the foreground, mortally wounded and being dispatched by 

 the weapons of four of the hunters. 



These hunters are modeled in wax and are armed, dressed and 

 painted with great fidelity to the old tribal customs, and form a most 

 interesting feature of the group as a whole. 



The background of this group carries in the center and to the right, 

 the piskun with its stampeded herd of buffalo, its shouting hunters 

 waving their blankets and otherwise frightening the animals, which 

 come charging blindly out of the cloud of dust naturally produced by 

 such a moving herd. 



In the immediate center of the background, is the precipice itself, 

 with three of the buffalo just springing from its brink, urged by the 

 force of the on-rushing herd behind; while in mid-air are three which 

 are already tumbling to certain death on the rocks a hundred feet below. 



A little to the left, in the background, and at the base of the cliff, 

 is shown the rough fence of poles and brush made to empound any 



=^^Director, Milwaukee Public Museum. 

 "Vol. 1, pp. 22-28, of this series. 



