192 REPORT — 1887. 



Manufactures. 



The Blackfeet have the name of being a lazy people, and, beyond 

 making the ornaments which adorn their persons and the saddles for 

 their ponies, they certainly do not seem to do much in the way of manu- 

 facture. They make no boats or canoes, no baskets, no articles of metal. 

 The most that they attempt to do in this line is to fashion a few rude 

 wooden bowls and platters, and horn spoons, and plaited ropes. 



Marriage. 



The Blackfeet are polygamous, some of the men having as many as 

 ten wives. Girls mature early, and become wives as early as at twelve 

 years of age, and are sometimes mothers at fourteen. The families average 

 five or six children. The women are strong, and undergo but little incon- 

 venience in bringing their children into the world. Mr. Macdougall has 

 known a woman when travelling to go aside from the trail, and in little 

 more than an hour to be on her pony again with an infant in her arms. 

 There is no marriage ceremony ; so many ponies or other presents are 

 given by the intending husband to the parents of the bride, and then he 

 takes her away. 



Games and Amusements. 



The Blackfeet have no regular ball game. They sometimes engage in 

 feats of strength, wrestling, and foot-racing, but their chief amusements 

 are horse-racing and gambling. For the latter of these they employ dice 

 of their own construction — little cubes of wood, with signs instead of 

 numbers marked upon them — these they shake together in a wooden dish. 

 Holding some small article in the hand under a blanket, and rapidly 

 passing it from one hand to another, leaving the second party to guess in 

 which hand it is left, is another method. They have^also a little wheel 

 made of metal, covered over with cloth, three or four inches in diameter, 

 which they roll towards two arrows stuck in the ground, and see towards 

 which it will fall the nearest. There is always heavy betting on a horse 

 race ; each chooses his favourite, and then they begin throwing down in 

 a heap the articles they wish to stake — blankets, guns, lines (representing 

 ponies), tents, &c. Those who win take the whole heap, and divide it 

 among themselves ; even their wives are sometimes gambled away in this 

 manner. 



Burial of the Dead. 



The Blackfeet never bury their dead below the sui-face of the soil ; 

 they think it a horrible practice to expose the body to the worms and 

 vermin that live in the ground. They either deposit the bodies on a hill- 

 top or place them in a tree. Perhaps, being sun- worshippers, their idea is 

 that the sun should still shine upon them after they are dead. When the 

 body is placed in a tree it is wrapped in blankets and put up on a rudely 

 constructed platform. When deposited on a hill-top or cliff a rough 

 kind of box is made, three times the size of a coffin, and into it are put, 

 besides the body, all that belonged to the dead person — blankets, saddle, 

 gun, kettles, and everything ; it is then nailed down, dragged by a pony 

 on a travoie to the appointed spot, and there deposited. Sometimes a few 

 logs are piled round it to keep oflf the dogs and wild animals, but often 



