Blackfeet

Blackfeet. 1. A Dakota tribe whose real name is Sihasapa, one of the original members of the "Seven Great Council Fires," now divided, but famous in tradition and known to the early white pioneers. 2. A warlike Algonquin nation, western-most branch of that family, south of the Saskatchewan, and as far west as the Rocky Mountains; formerly also in Wyoming, where the curious pictograph carvings on a rock near Fort Washakie about the headwaters of Sage Creek, were probably executed by them. The Blackfeet domain, over 130,000 square miles in extent, was conterminous south-eastwards with that of their hereditary foes the Prairie Crees, whom they drove from the north fork of the Saskatchewan southwards to the Red Deer affluent of the south fork. Three main branches, Blackfeet proper (Satsika or Sinika), 4,000; Piegans, 2,000; and Blood Indians (Kena), 1,500; total population (1890), 7,500. The Blackfeet were essentially a hunting people, and their territory has been much reduced since the disappearance of the bison. Many have become Christians, but the Piegans - a word said to be a corruption of the English Pagan - are still nature worshippers; their chief deity is Natus, the Sun. See Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology for 1882-3, Washington, 18S6.