319 
except tile insiaiiiificant Sarcee. and occasionally the Gros Ventre, who 
sou^iht the shelter of their confederacy. 
There were three tribes in the Blackfoot nation, the Blackfoot 
proper, the Blood, and the Picgan,^ the southernmost or Piegan being 
numerically almost as strong as the other two combined. Each tribe 
was an independent unit under its own chief, so that whenever they 
came together they pitched tlieir tents in separate camp circles and 
regulated their affairs iiy separate councils. A common language, 
common customs, a tradition of common origin, and frequent inter- 
marriage prevented open warfare between them, despite frequent 
feuds; against their enemies they presented a united front. Yet 
even in their own eyes the union was too imperfect to require a 
common name, and the use of tlie term Blackfoot to cover all three 
tribes was really an unwarrantable extension by the early whites. 
In their outward life the Blackfoot tribes hardly differed from 
the Assiniboine. Both were buffalo-hunting peoples living in skin 
tents and roving the prairies in search of the buffalo herds.- Both 
wore the typical costume and ornaments of the plains’ tribes,^ and 
both used dogs and travois to transport their household possessions. 
In both nations the social units were the families and the bands, and 
cutting across the divisions into bands was a society, or societies, 
whose members held annual dances, and performed police and other 
duties whenever the bands came together in summer and pitched 
their tents in the characteristic circle."^ Both nations, again, wor- 
shipped the sun and the thunder, the manifestations of the Great 
Spirit, and held the annual ceremony of the sun-dance. Ihiderlying 
all these outward conformities, however, there were considerable 
differences in the social and religious life. 
The Blackfoot treated their women more harshly than the Assini- 
boine, wliose code demaiulefl almost the same conduct from men and 
1 The word Blackfoot (a Irannlatioii of llie Indians’ own name for themselves, Sikiiiknuwa) refers 
to the moccasins, either because they weri! painted black, or besmirchcfl by prairie lire.s. Piegan comes 
from a word meaning “j'oorly dressed robe,” bui, its real significance, as of the name Blood, is 
unknown, the Indians giving several contradictory legends. 
- In Cocking's .louiiuil we read ‘‘I found in an ohl lent -place bi‘lnnging to the Architliinue (Black- 
foot) Natives, part of an earthen vessel, in wliieh they dress their victuals; it appeared to have 
been in the form of an earthen pan.” (“An Adventurer from Hudson Bay,” p. lOU) ; and again 
“Tlieir Victuals are dressed in earthen pots, of their own manufacturing; iniich in the same form as 
Newcastle pot.s, but witliout feet: their fire tackling a black stone used a.s Jliut, and a kind of ore 
as a steel, using tuss balls as tinder, (i.c.) a kind of moss” (Do., p. 111). From these passages it 
would appear that some at least of the Blackfoot, like the As.siniboinc of a slightly earlier period, 
used cooking vessels of pottery, whicii they abandoned before the end of tlie ct'iitury in favour of hide 
vessels, proliably because it was too dillicult to transport pottery on the liorse-travois. 
There were minor differences in oriiamenlation ; tlie Assiniboine. for example, commonly worked 
a large rosette on the front and on the back of the robe, the Blackfoot seldom. 
■1 The .\ssiniboine had only one military society, the Blackfoot several. See infra. 
