ON THE NORTH-WESTERN TRIBES OF THE DOMINION OF CANADA. 697 
Piegan (or Kena and Piekané) tribes. Father Lacombe has been many 
years a missionary in the Canadian North-west, and has a very extensive 
knowledge of the tribes of that region. His elaborate work, the ‘Gram- 
mar and Dictionary of the Cree Language,’ ranks among the best contri- 
butions to American philology. Mr. McLean has been engaged in his 
missionary duties for five years, has prepared a grammar of the Blackfoot 
language, and is at present occupied in translating the Scriptures into 
that tongue ; he has been most considerate in furnishing the information 
which was requested on behalf of the Committee, and is now making 
special researches for this object. 
The unfortunate troubles of the past season have for a time inter- 
rupted the correspondence, and have left the investigations necessarily 
incomplete. The principal portion of the report on these Indians will 
therefore have to be deferred for another year. It has seemed advisable, 
however, to submit a summary of the knowledge now obtained by way of 
introduction to the fuller account which the Committee may be able to 
render hereafter. With this view some other sources of information 
have been examined, particularly the valuable official reports and maps 
of the Canadian and United States Indian Departments, which have been 
obligingly furnished by those Departments for this purpose. 
Fifty years ago the Blackfoot Confederacy held among the western 
tribes much the same position of superiority which was held two centu- 
ries ago by the Iroquois Confederacy (then known as the ‘ Five Nations ’) 
among the Indians east of the Mississippi. The tribes of the former con- 
federacy were also, when first known, five in number. The nucleus, or 
main body, was—as it still is—composed of three tribes, speaking the 
proper Blackfoot language. These are the Siksika, or Blackfeet proper, 
the Kena, or Blood Indians, and the Piekané, or Piegans (pronounced 
Peegans), a name sometimes corrupted to ‘Pagan’ Indians. To these 
are to be added two other tribes, who joined the original confederacy, or, 
perhaps more properly speaking, came under its protection. These were 
the Sarcees from the north, and the Atsinas from the south. The Sarcees 
are an offshoot of the great Athabascan stock, which is spread over the 
north of British America, in contact with the Eskimo, and extends in 
scattered bands—the Umpquas, Apaches, and others—through Oregon 
and California into Northern Mexico. The Atsinas, who have been 
variously known from the reports of Indian traders as Fall Indians, Rapid 
Indians, and Gros Ventres, speak a dialect similar to that of the Arapo- 
hoes, who now reside in the ‘ Indian Territory’ of the United States. It 
is a peculiarly harsh and difficult language, and is said to be spoken only 
by those two tribes. None of the Atsinas are now found on Canadian 
territory, and no recent information has been obtained concerning them, 
except from the map which accompanies the United States Indian Report 
for 1884, and on which their name appears on the American Blackfoot 
Reservation. 
The five tribes were reckoned fifty years ago to comprise not less 
than thirty thousand souls. Their numbers, union, and warlike spirit 
made them the terror of all the western Indians on both sides of the 
Rocky Mountains. It was not uncommon for thirty or forty war parties 
to be out at once against the Salish (or Flatheads) of Oregon, the Upsa- 
rokas (or Crows) of the Missouri plains, the Shoshonees of the far south, 
and the Crees of the north and east. The country which the Blackfoot 
tribes claimed properly as their own comprised the valleys and plains 
