129 
camp must conform to it. but it reaches to all travellers, even when 
tliey are ignorant of the encampment or do not know that there is a 
hunt in contemplation. Should they frighten the animals, they are 
also punishable; however, those of the camp are more rigorously chas- 
tised in case they transgress the regulation. Their guns, their bows, 
and arrows are broken, their lodges cut in pieces, their dogs killed, all 
their provisions and their hides are taken from them. If they are bold 
enough to resist this penalty, they are beaten with bows, sticks, and 
clubs, and this torment freciuently terminates in the death of the 
uidia])py aggressor. Anyone who should set fire to the prairie by 
accident or imprudence, or in any way frighten off the lierd, would be 
sure to be well beaten.”^ 
-Just how ancient these societies were we do not know. When 
the plains’ tribes first came within tlie purview of history, about the 
middle of the eighteenth century,- their lives had been revolutionized 
by the liorse, which spread quickly northward from one tril)e to 
another after its introduction by the Spaniards into Mexico. It gave 
the Indians an unexpected mobility, vastly increasing the range of 
their migrations; aiul the ease with which they could now run down 
the herds of buffalo on horseback caused many woodland tribes to 
move out onto the prairies. So the great plains botli of the United 
States and of Canada became a battling ground for a medley of tribes 
that jostled on each other’s hunting territories until war became their 
natural sport. The discipline necessary for the old communal buffalo 
hunt on foot took on a military aspect, cld institutions were modified 
to meet new conditions, and new customs, new institutions arose and 
spread from tribe to tribe with amazing rapidity. It seems not at 
all improbable that in ]>re-Columbian times, when the plains were 
sparsely inhabited by scattered bands of foot-wanderers, there were 
no societies, no organizations at all within the (.’anarlian tribes, 
except the bands and families. Certainly several of the Blackfoot 
societies, which were more numerous than the Sarcee, did not arise 
until the nineteenth century.'^ 
1 Di' iSinet; Op. cit., vol. iii, p. 1028. 
2 Hrndry's narrative of ht.s '' ‘irney-j in !7.i4 and 17.05 shows that llie Blackfoot were well provided 
witli hor.ses at that date, that tlie ..^ssinihoine po,sses.>je(l them also, iin<l that some were running wild 
on the Canadian prairies. In In,-; introchicti<jn to the narrative Burpre suggests that “the earliest years 
of tlie eighteenth century wo.;!,! be nearer the mark, ns the date when the Blackfoot first made use 
of the horse.” " York Factoia to the Blackfeet Country,” p. 318. 
3 For rletailed accounts r-i th.-’ .socicti's of the plaitus’ Indians, ,8ce Societies of the Plains Indians; 
edited by Wissler, Clark: Ynih. T’aperi, Am. Nfus Nat. Hist., vol. xi (New York, 1916). 
