318 
were the Gros Ventre, usually friends but sometimes enemies, who 
retreated south before the end of the century and played no further 
part in Canadian history; to the north and northeast were the 
Assiniboine and Plains’ Cree, often friendly in the middle of the 
eighteenth centuryP inveterate foes towards its close; northwest, 
the little tribe of the Sarcee, who affiliated themselves wholeheart- 
edly with the Blackfoot. although their Athapaskan tongue bore not 
58569 
Tipi of a Illood Indian niedicine-man. witli liis mt'dicine-biindle suspended outdoors. 
(Photo hi/ (1. A iiilerfoii .) 
the slightest resemblance to the Algonkian speech of their allies; on 
the west were the Kootenay and Salish tribes of British Columbia, 
who often crossed the passes of the Rockies to harass the Blackfoot 
and share the spoils of the buffalo-hunt; and in the southwest, south, 
and southeast were Shoshonean, vSiouan, and other tribes as hostile 
as the Assiniboine and Cree. So the Blackfoot became the Ishmaels 
of the prairies, their hands being raised against every neighbour 
1 Cf. “York FiiRtory lo tlic Blackfoot Couiitrj',’’ pp. 340, 344, 350; “An Advenhirer from Hud- 
son Bay,” p. no. 
