The Social Life of the Blackfoot Indians: Anthropology Classics - Paperback

by Clark Wissler (Author)

The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsitapi, meaning "original people" is the collective name of three First Nation band governments in the provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, and one Native American tribe in Montana, United States. The Siksika ("Blackfoot"), the Kainai or Kainah ("Many Chiefs"), and the Northern Piegan or Peigan or Piikani ("Poor Robes") reside in Canada; the Southern Piegan or Pikuni are located in the United States. Historically, the member peoples of the Confederacy were nomadic bison hunters and trout fishermen, who ranged across large areas of the northern Great Plains of Western North America, specifically the semi-arid shortgrass prairie ecological region. They followed the bison herds as they migrated between what are now the United States and Canada, as far north as the Bow River. In the first half of the 18th century, they acquired horses and firearms from white traders and their Cree and Assiniboine go-betweens. The Blackfoot used these to expand their territory at the expense of neighboring tribes. Now riding horses, the Blackfoot and other Plains tribes could also extend the range of their buffalo hunts. The systematic commercial bison hunting by white hunters in the 19th century nearly ended the bison herds and permanently changed Native American life on the Great Plains, since their primary food source was no longer abundant. Periods of starvation and deprivation followed, and the Blackfoot tribe was forced to adopt ranching and farming, settling in permanent reservations. In the 1870s, they signed treaties with both the United States and Canada, ceding most of their lands in exchange for annuities of food and medical aid, as well as help in learning to farm. Nevertheless, the Blackfoot have worked to maintain their traditional language and culture in the face of assimilationist policies of both the U.S. and Canada.

Author Biography

Clark David Wissler (September 18, 1870 - August 25, 1947) was an American anthropologist. Born in Cambridge City near Hagerstown, Indiana, Wissler graduated from Indiana University in 1897. He received his doctorate in psychology from Columbia University in 1901. After Columbia, Wissler left the field of psychology to focus on Anthropology. Clark Wissler worked at the American Museum of Natural History as a Curator in ethnology from 1902 to 1907. In 1907 Wissler was named Curator of Anthropology when the Archaeology and Ethnology departments were recombined under the Department of Anthropology. Clark Wissler was the first anthropologist to perceive the normative aspect of culture, to define it as learned behavior, and to describe it as a complex of ideas, all characteristics of culture that are today generally accepted. Wissler was a specialist in North American ethnography, focusing on the Indians of the Plains. He contributed to the culture area and age-area ideology of the diffusionist viewpoint that is no longer popular in anthropology. Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana holds the papers of Clark Wissler. Furthermore, one hall of Indiana University's Teter Living Center is known as "Clark Wissler Hall".