I have a video tape on which Bob Morgan, fine Helena artist, says that Charlie Russell loved Indians because he loved their “gentle ways,” their small household graces and courtesies. It’s not a side often explored, but today at Piegan Institute we were treated to a demonstration of “Innaihtasiiyi” during “An Examination of Peace (and War.)”
The Cuts Wood School building itself is a pleasure to enter with its high ceilinged light-well and many-doored meeting room standing open to the yard. Rosalyn LaPier and Shirlee Crowshoe had taken many small measures, like providing each of us with a sachet of sweet pine tied up in calico wth a ribbon. The room was scented with it and when I got home, I smelled of it: richer and deeper than sweetgrass. Lunch was buffalo cooked traditionally with potatoes, onions, and cactus. “Where did you find the cactus?” I asked.
“Grocery store,” tossed off Rosalyn, who is always resourceful in the most literal sense. It was green strips, like very mild green pepper. “Didn’t have time to dig prairie turnips,” she said. But there was time for berry-picking -- a good berry year -- and we all had “sarvisberry” pie. (Except for the Canadians who had “saskatoon berry” pie. Same berry. One of the better things about this conference is that draws from both sides of the 49th parallel, even now when it can be a bit tricky to cross.) This topic of “peace” is relevant in the extreme at the moment. Even Canadians have troops in the Middle East.
Theodore Binnema, U of Northern British Columbia, is the author of “Common and Contested Lands.” (Check it out on Amazon, which now offers a glimpse inside the book, a concordance, and an evaluation of how hard to read the book is -- amazing! Um, about 75% of books are easier to read than Ted's book. But are they worth it?)
Ted’s formal topic was “The Significance of Peace and Warfare in the 18th and 19th Centuries among the Blackfoot.” His next book will be a tighter focus on the same material that he developed earlier. He says his overarching interest is how societies interact with each other and the way that individuals and families interact with each other, and then the ways that those two levels influence each other. (At least 25% of readers of this blog should still be with me.)
Ted identifies two schools of thought among people who work with this material: one is romantic and claims that what happens (for instance on the high prairie) is because those people in that place and time are essentially unique. The Plains Indian wars will never be replicated. The possibly unconscious assumption in this group is often that the most colorful and appealing explanation of what happened is the one likely to be true.
The other point of view is more practical and assumes that humans in different times and places often share characteristics that make their study useful for the management of our own lives. How do we create stable, peaceful societies? What are the social structures that encourage good behavior for the whole society? (Think marriage, rule of law, the protection of marginal individuals, networking groups, religious beliefs.) Ted says he belongs to the latter group. (I myself come down squarely on both sides: the first as a writer and the second as a citizen.) He did not address religion and neither did anyone else. Probably a wise omission.
Ted gave some attention to Peter Fidler, who is little known on the US side but very much on the minds of Canadians. He was essentially the first white man into the area. (Part of his journal is on display at “Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.”) Ted’s point was how educated this man was -- he subscribed to “Monthly Review” which probably came to him as a stack of the year’s issues on the one supply ship that arrived annually, and through that source was often aware of new developments in science and so on before the European world as a whole really registered them. He was one of the first to realize that vaccination against smallpox was proven possible. Fidler and other early fur traders NEVER used the word “savage,” and often spoke of Indians as “civilized.” He recognized the complexity and effectiveness of arrangements among the people of each tribal group and among the larger alliances.
Some people assert that “aggression” in a society is the product of genes (right now genes are supposed to explain everything) and will say that Blackfeet, Maori and Prussians are genetic warriors. They will neglect the cultural shaping of diplomacy, strategic marriage or trade alliances. Also, they will not think about the huge expense of warfare in terms of material loss, loss of time normally devoted to hunting/gathering/making, and loss of life, which are always deterrents. (Unless one belongs to a class shielded from the losses -- think this isn’t relevant to the front page of our newspapers?)
On the other hand, defensive warfare to protect turf and resources (then, bison -- now, oil) is sometimes inevitable. At this point, the principles are available to analyze what Darrell Kipp calls the “population hydraulics of the plains.” That is, a strong tribe tries to move in on the resources of a weaker group, or a weak group makes an alliance with a strong group by offering them territory or a new skill, or two groups who have taken many losses agree to stop fighting. Peace cannot happen without BOTH parties wanting it. One cannot force peace.
Much of the early defensive warfare was like the “bluff charging” of a grizzly bear. A display, an advance, then a withdrawal before any damage to the aggressor. This may make a smaller, weaker group back off. The advent of horses and guns destabilized the relationships among the tribes by making attacks so much more deadly, speedy and distant. (Like bombing from the air, or missiles.) Also, because these new factors as well as other trader-supported resources (whiskey, canvas, metal objects) created inequities between groups, they encouraged jealousy, greed, hatred and other aggression-feeding factors.
Ted said that as nearly he could tell, there is NO mention of “counting coup” in the historical literature. Worth an expedition into the libraries by some motivated young scholar! BUT it was clear that older men who had “been there, done that” were not very enthusiastic about war, while the young men who still had to establish their “street creds” were not about to give up war until they’d had a chance to fight. Once the war is on, community support rises in proportion to the risk. Ted mused that Canadians never had “veteran” car license plates and only a percentage of US states provided them, until this last few years of Middle East conflagration. Now EVERY province and state offers Vet plates. Being a warrior is again a source of prestige.
Bands that were on the frontiers were LESS willing to war, since they were on the front lines and more likely to know more about the “out groups,” even to be intermarried with them or trading partners. Groups far separated were less likely to be enemies than those nearby. The flooding of white people onto the plains destabilized the existing arrangements, throwing some into war while forcing an unwanted peace on others. Such massive change always escalates mortality if only through loss of economic stability. Starvation and disease go hand-in-hand with war.
So were the Blackfeet more warlike than any other tribes? Only because they were backed up against the mountains with the last of the resources, under siege from many others desperate to survive. They used their horses and guns effectively.
Hugh Dempsey, Chief Curator Emeritus, Glenbow Museum, is one of the premier historians of the Blackfoot Confederacy and has written many books. He discussed treaties of various kinds in considerable detail as to times, places and parties involved in ways too intricate for me to write them down. (These talks were videotaped and ought to be available from Piegan Institute later.)
Basically, he explained that treaties were of many different kinds and often quite utilitarian. A tribe would ask for safe passage to trade at a fort on another tribe’s territory or for a summer’s amnesty in order to hunt buffalo. The Kutenai, for instance, would come over the mountains to hunt and be granted that privilege. A man from the Kutenai tribe might approach by stealth in the night, sit on a ridge overlooking the camp, and wait to be discovered. If the Blackfoot tribe was willing to deal, someone would ride up and escort him down to the chief’s lodge for tobacco and talk. Occasionally a woman might be sent or volunteer to come.
(In modern times and in rural areas, this is still a good strategy. One drives into the ranch yard, waits in the car for a while, maybe honks briefly. If anyone wants to talk, they will come out to the car. This is particularly wise in a yard guarded by dogs. Danger apart, it’s a courtesy when people are so isolated that they might not be wearing appropriate -- or any -- attire!)
Fur traders who wished to exchange commodities for skins might be the initiators of peace treaties, so as to increase their clientele. They would be motivated to get the goodwill of the prominent and powerful in surrounding groups and might be willing to use marriage for this goal. (For instance, Culbertson benefited hugely from his marriage to Natawista, both from good will and from her skills in diplomacy, and they were often able to bring peace.)
But blunders were possible. A Kutenai man, who came over to hunt buffalo under an agreement with the Bloods, wandered off and stole a horse from the Piegan, which were a related but separate band not involved in the arrangement. When he came back to his own hunting group, he was spotted by Bloods who thought he had stolen the horse from them, a violation. They attacked the camp and killed many. As a marker of this event, Kutenai returned to pile rocks in an effigy of the dead perpetrator. It might be still there, near Waterton Peace Park. The original name of the Marias River was “the River Where We Killed the Kutenai.”
But some individuals became known as “peacemakers;” in fact, one whole family is called “Peacemaker.” In particular, one chief who was at least influenced by Methodists, if not converted, changed the argument for peace from simple advantage to the desire to avoid harm and suffering to people. This argument is present now in world rhetoric, but still shares ground with those who are peaceful only when it is expedient. (We still need Amnesty International.)
James Dempsey, son of Hugh Dempsey and also a Ph.D. level historian at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, gave a talk with overhead illustrations from his impending book, “Warriors of the King: Blackfeet War Art.” His wonderful material was histories painted on robes or on cotton canvas banners. He was able to interpret these and connect them to the historical records of battles, surrenders, and relationships. He remarked that one of the important tropes for war was gambling, a continuing preoccupation for Native Americans (as well as many others), which meant a high awareness of risk but a willingness to plunge onward no matter what the cost because of the possible rewards. This can be empowering.
The cotton banners were commissioned for the Big Hotels of Glacier National Park and numbered nearly 200 but have mostly disappeared. (It’s interesting that commercial use would be made of accounts of war. Just like war movies.) The Indian depicters would be paid to explain the stories, which are very much like ledger art, to the tourists.
Such stories were also painted on tipis, on tipi liners, and symbols were painted on horses, like a big red “bloody” handprint, to show that the horse had been used to run down an enemy in battle. On the other hand, Big Nose was given a Peace Medal and told that this meant he should try to keep peace among his own people and act as a diplomatic envoy with others. He took this very seriously and was often effective. The young men complained that they would like the wars to go on a little longer so they could kill more Cree (Israeli young men? Hezbollah?), but as James said, “Occasionally peace would break out.”
Nicholas Vrooman, U of Montana, lives in both Helena and Missoula because he is in transition between being a folklorist and being a professor. What this means is that he does not see the incoming “Euros” as a monogroup, but is very aware that the Orkney Islanders recruited by the Hudson Bay Company were so often invaded by Vikings that they used much Viking vocabulary and technique, while the later refugees from the Highland Clearances were Celtic resistors of the original Roman empire and quite different in their concepts and strategies.
With photos and maps he made the point well that the prairie was occupied in nodes or concentrations of one sort of person, with a kind of social ecotone reaching out until it touched the penumbra around the next group. At the tips of these extensions, intermixing happened all the time, between Euros and NA’s, between different kinds of Indians, and so on. (Between Helena and Missoula?)
Some of this talk was stereotype-busting. For instance, Sitting Bull was raised with Metis, Red River people, and a photo of his camp shows parked outside his lodges four Red River carts (the noisy all-wood high-and-dished-wheel vehicles that were the next prairie transportation advance after horses -- greatly increasing trade portability). The carts are the equivalent of pick-up trucks parked by log-cabins.
In the States or even on the Blackfeet Reservation there is almost no consciousness of the Riel Rebellion, though he and his followers took refuge in this area and Riel himself taught Blackfeet students at Sun River. Yet it was these mixed people -- like the people of sailing island nations -- who were sources of innovation and synergy. The Red River cart was essentially a cross between a travois and a Celtic cart, with the great advantage that one didn’t need a blacksmith or any particular skill. Just tough ears.
Peace in this context comes from synergy that offers great economic success, new technologies, and stronger peoples. Better things to do than starting wars. But the Red River people became so strong they threatened the government of Canada and were “eliminated.”
Narcisse Blood, Red Crow College, Alberta, and Cynthia Chambers, University of Lethbridge, brought a DVD. (I am still incredulous that a little laptop smaller than a coffee table book can project a movie, but it did.) The theme was making peace with the land itself, so this went to the definition of peace as harmony, reconciliation, healing, and love. Sacred places in Alberta were explored through the images left on stone or through stories or through the memories and emotions of individuals. Mysterious, powerful, and unique, each of these spots was also beautiful on film. One woman, who had been so badly hurt as to be confined to a wheelchair, was actually carried a major distance up to a hilltop place where she had prayed often early in her life. She didn’t rise from the chair and walk, but her heart and mind were flooded with joy.
This movie had a political point: Alberta is in the midst of a “black gold” rush as the world demands ever more oil. The province is the second largest oil bed on the planet (discovered so far) but the way of recovering the oil (in tar sands) is destructive over a multi-mile area and cannot be restored. It amounts to war on the land. As Narcisse points out, war on the land is essentially self-destruction. The price may be far too high.
We need peacemakers, social structures, networking, treaties, and, yes, maybe intermarriage. Anything that will work to keep our lives and lands at peace. This was a vital conference. We went home with frybread, sarvis/service berry pie, and much to think about. My pickup cab smelled of sweetpine incense, the scent of prayer.
Shirlee Crowshoe gave the beginning prayer in Blackfeet. Narcisse Blood gave the prayer before lunch. They are both Canadians but their accents differ. Still, they used the same words and concepts -- the formal structure of Blackfeet prayer was still there. Charlie Russell would’ve loved it.
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