532 
other tools were distributed among them, and were put to good 
use. In November, 1882, log-houses had ‘‘ gone up thick and 
fast on the Reserves, and were most creditable to the builders.” 
In many cases the logs were hewn, and in nearly all the houses 
fireplaces were built.. In the same year another official found 
comfortable dwellings, well-eultivated gardens, and good supplies 
of potatoes in root-houses. Most of the families had cooking 
stoves, for which they had sometimes paid as much as 50 dollars. 
He ‘‘saw many signs of civilisation, such as cups and saucers, 
knives and forks, coal-oil lamps, and tables ; and several of the 
women were baking excellent bread and performing other 
cooking operations.” Three years before these Indians were 
wild nomads, who lived in skin tents, hunted the buffalo, and 
had probably never seen a plough or an axe, 
The Blackfeet have been known to the whites for about a 
century, and during that period have dwelt in or near their 
present abode. There is evidence, however, that they once 
lived further east than at present. The explorer Mackenzie, in 
1789, found them holding the south branch of the Saskatchewan, 
from its source to its junction with the north branch. He speaks 
of four tribes—the Picaneaux, Blood, and Blackfeet. and the 
Fall Indians (Atsinas), which latter tribe then numbered about 
700 warriors. Of the three former tribes he says: ‘* They are 
a distinct people, speak a language of their own, and, I have 
reason to think, are travelling north-west, as well as the others 
just mentioned (the Atsinas) ; nor have I heard of any Indians 
with whose language that which they speak has any affinity. 
Mr. McLean’s inquiries confirm this opinion of the westward 
movement of these Indians in comparatively recent times. “The 
former home of these people,” he writes, ‘‘was in the Red 
River country, where, from the nature of the soil which 
blackened their mocassins, they were called Blackfeet.” This, 
it should be stated, is the exact meaning of Szfsika, from 
stksinam, black, and ka, the root of egkatsh, foot. The meaning 
of the other tribal names, Aeva and Piekané, is unknown. 
This westward movement has probably been due to the pressure 
of the Crees, who, according to their own tradition, originally 
dwelt far east of the Red River, in Labrador and about 
Hudson’s Bay. They have gradually advanced westward, 
pushing the prior occupants before them by the sheer force of 
numbers. ‘This will explain the deadly hostility which has 
always existed between the Crees and the Blackfeet. M. 
Lacombe, however, expresses a doubt as to their former sojourn 
in the Red River region : ‘‘ They affirm, on the contrary, that 
they came from the south-west, across the mountains—that is 
from the direction of Oregon and Washington Territory. 
There were” (he adds) ‘‘ bloody contests between the Black- 
feet and the Nez-percés, as Bancroft relates, for the right of 
hunting on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains.” Mr. 
McLean, who mentions the former residence of the Blackfeet in 
the Red River country as an undoubted fact, also says: ‘*It is 
supposed that the great ancestor of the Blackfeet came across 
the mountains.”’ Here are two distinct and apparently con- 
flicting traditions, each having good authority and evidence in 
its favour. One of the best tests of the truth of tradition is to 
be found in language. Mackenzie, well acquainted with the 
Crees and Ojibways, who speak dialects of the great Algonkin 
stock, recognised no connection between their speech and that 
of the Blackfeet. Another traveller (Umfreville), whose book 
was published in 1791, gave a list of forty-four words of the 
Blackfoot language. Albert Gallatin, whose ‘‘ Synopsis of the 
Indian ‘Tribes” appeared in 1836, examined this list of Umfre- 
ville, and pronounced it sufficient to show that the language of 
the Blackfeet was ‘‘ different from any other known tous.” A 
few years later, having received from an Indian trader a more 
extended yocabulary, he corrected his former statement, and 
showed that there was a clear affinity between the Blackfoot 
speech and the language of the Algonkin family. More recently 
the French missionaries made the same discovery. M. Lacombe 
writes to me: ‘‘ The Blackfoot language, although far from, 
belongs to the same tamily as, the Algic, Ojibway, Santeux, 
Maskegon, and Cree. We discovered this analogy by studying 
the grammatical rules of these languages.” ‘Thus some of the 
ablest and most experienced of North American linguists have 
at first supposed the Blackfoot language to be distinct from all 
others, and have only discovered its connection with the Al- 
gonkin family by careful study. M. Lacombe has been good 
enough to send me a pretty extensive vocabulary of Blackfoot 
words, compared with the corresponding words in the Cree and 
Ojibway languages. He has added many paradigms of 
NATURE 
[ Oct. 1, 1885 
grammatical forms in the Blackfoot, compared with similar forms 
in the Cree and Ojibway tongues. The Blackfoot language is 
thus shown to be, in its grammar, purely Algonkin. The re- 
semblance is complete in the minutest forms, But when we 
turn to the vocabulary, by which the first judgment of a 
language is necessarily formed, the origin of the early error 
becomes apparent. Many of the most common words are 
totally different from the corresponding words in the Algonkin 
languages. Others, found on careful examination radically the 
same as the corresponding Algonkin terms, are yet so changed 
and distorted that the resemblance is not at first apparent. Of 
this variation and distortion the numerals afford a good example. 
Other words in ordinary use show the total unlikeness in some 
cases and the distorted resemblance in others. The possessive 
pronoun ‘‘ my” is expressed by the same prefix 77 (or 7’) in all 
three languages. Pursuing this trace we compare the personal 
pronouns, and find a close resemblance, the difference being 
mainly in the terminations. In the possessive prefixes the re- 
semblance is still more notable. Thus in the Blac} foot language 
n'olas means ‘‘my horse, or dog” (the same word, oddly 
enough, applying in this form to both animals) ; and in Cree 
n'?em has the same meaning. ‘These words are thus varied 
with the possessive pronouns and in the two numbers :— 
Blackfoot Cree 
My horse (or dog) n’otas ntv’em 
thy) = BS k’otas kit'em 
his’ * 55 5 otas otema 
our 35 n’otasinan n’t’eminan 
your ,, k’otasinan kitemiwaw 
their ,, Pr otasiwaw otemiwawa 
my horses (or dogs) n otasiks n’emak 
thy ,, 3 k’otasiks kit’emak 
hiss. Si otasiks otema 
Our 5. re notasinaniks n’t’eminanak 
your ,, on kotasiwaweks kitemiwawok 
their ,, otasiwaweks otemiwawa 
It will be seen that the close resemblance in grammar is as 
striking as the wide difference in the vocabulary. These facts 
admit of but one explanation. They are the precise phenomena 
to which we are accustomed in the case of mixed languages. In 
such languages—our English speech is a notable example—we 
expect the grammar to be derived entirely from one source, 
while the words will be drawn from two or more. Further- 
more, wherever we find a mixed language we infer a conquest of 
one people by another. In the present instance we may well 
suppose that when the Blackfoot tribes were forced westward 
from the Red River country to the foot of the Rocky Mountains 
they did not find their new abode uninhabited. It is probable 
enough that the people whom they found in possession had come 
through the passes from the country west of those mountains. 
If these people were overcome by the Blackfeet, and their 
women taken as wives by the conquerors, two results would be 
likely to follow. In the first place, the language would become 
a mixed speech, in grammar purely Algonkin, but in the vocabu- 
lary largely recruited from the speech of the conquered tribe. 
A change in the character of the amalgamated people would 
also take place. The result of this change might be better 
inferred if we knew the characteristics of both the con- 
stituent races. But it may be said that a frequent, if not 
a general, result of such a mixture of races is the production 
of a people of superior intelligence and force of character. 
The circumstances thus suggested may account, not only for the 
peculiarities of the language and character of the Blackfeet 
tribes, but also for the different traditions which are found among 
them in regard to their origin and former ahode. It would be 
very desirable to trace that portion of the Blackfoot vocabulary 
which is not of Algonkin origin to its source in the language of 
some other linguistic stock. The religion of these tribes (ap- 
plying this term to their combined mythology and worship) 
resembles their language. It is in the main Algonkin, but 
includes some beliefs and ceremonies derived from some other 
source. ‘The primitive creation,” writes M. Lacombe, ‘‘is 
attributed to a superior divinity, whom they call the Creator 
(Apistotekin). This divinity, however, is in some manner identi- 
fied with the sun (Va/av). The earth itself is believed to be a 
divinity of some kind, for, in their invocations, if they call the 
sun ‘our father’ (Ainnon), they call the earth ‘our mother’ 
(Kikristonnon). It seems also that the moon is considered to be 
one and the same divinity with the sun. At any rate, in the 
