Two Scouts: Kipp & Clark

Someone who actually reads this blog was surprised that I shrugged off an over-romantic and misattributed quote. They had the impression that I was interested in historical accuracy and theoretical correctness and all that stuff. Well, I am, but that’s not all that Indians are to me. Blackft, at least, are to me real people. I’ll see if I can dramatize that for you.

At this major Native American conference in Great Falls this weekend, famous Indians abounded. I recognized George Horse Capture and Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell easily, though they seemed smaller than in their photos. I think that’s because I’m used to massive Blackft men. In fact, that’s why I was down there -- not for the symposium, which I will acquire and read carefully -- but because Robey Clark was lucky at poker and offered to take Darrell Kipp, his wife Roberta, his niece Kelly Dee, and myself out to dinner.

So there we were at Tony Roma’s Ribs. Roberta’s administration job with the Browning Junior High had just ended the day before. Robey had flown in from another conference in Albuquerque and was aching to get home to Portland. Darrell had just done his spiel for the Immersion School Panel. I was barely getting back to normal after the Big Worm Safari in the Sweet Grass Hills. Kelly had just graduated from the sixth grade. We were a very tired bunch.

Consider Robey and Darrell. I don’t think love is too strong a word for my feelings about them, but they’ll get teased if I use that word, so let’s just say I’ve known them forty years and am very fond of them.

Robey was my student in the Sixties. I had the idea of rewriting “The Taming of the Shrew” so it was all in Western lingo, which turned out to be quite easy, and Robey played Petruccio’s sidekick. I’m sure he was wearing a bowler hat, but I don’t know where we got it. He had (and still has) a kind of droll, bemused presence that was exactly right. We took our production to the State Thespian Festival and performed it in the old Brewery Theatre in Helena to great acclaim.

When I was trapped in Portland, working for the city, I could see Robey’s office window from my window. We went out for lunch. He has worked for Northwest Education Labs for decades and is a master of the kind of education theory that depends upon closely reasoned stats and graphics. He claims I betrayed him by never teaching him how to study, which is true, and I tell him that no one ever taught me how to study either. It appears that both we childs were left behind. But we’ve managed somehow. His son is just finishing up a Master’s in computer science.

Darrell’s son (both men have a lone son) was slaving away on the rez with an all-female camera crew. I doubt he was sorry to miss the dinner party, though Robey had won enough to feed them all. He’s a VERY good poker player.

Darrell himself was my teacher in the Seventies. (He was a senior in high school during my first year of teaching in Browning at the Junior High School.) I was newly divorced, stunned and gasping, and back at the school district trying to remember how to teach. The school board had just decided that all teachers would have to learn “Blackft History” and tapped Darrell to teach it in the evenings.

The subject was highly controversial because everyone was convinced that the history was incendiary. A terrible massacre ended Blackft resistance, the Baker Massacre, which one dared hardly even name at that time. Baker had been sent to retaliate for the murder of Malcolm Clarke, but his two scouts took him to the wrong camp where at first light the company killed the peace chief, Heavy Runner, and then many people of the camp, which was mostly full of smallpox victims, women and old people. To speak of it was to bring back all that emotion. But it was time and Darrell did it. Some nights we teacher/students went out of the evening class with wet eyes. Other times Darrell got us laughing so much our sides hurt. He gave us lots of room to tell stories and be ourselves, some Indian and some not.

Then Darrell was on the tribal committee that oversaw the first Tribal School, “The Blackfeet Free School and Sandwich Shop,” run by a wild character named Bill Haw, who is now in a nursing home near Kalispell. They actually took an old school bus and headed south in their own version of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, but Darrell didn’t go along. He would have loved to, I’m sure.

Now he’s just winding up a twenty year experiment with the Nitzipuwahsin Immersion Blackft School. It was scary. There were casualties. Then it began to work. What surprised everyone was that the students at this school, whether or not they learned to speak Blackft, were top achievers when they went back into the public mainstream. Narcisse Blood, who has been working with immersion schools on the Alberta side, says you can look over a gymnasium of kids in bleachers and pick out the ones who have been in immersion schools. They glow with energy, they pay attention, they behave, they care, they’re ON.

So there we sat, well-known to each other, going over memories and plans for retirement and the latest rez scandals about the Tribal Council or the Tribal College. Then someone mentioned a recent car accident: two fine men in their mid-forties suddenly snuffed out. That night they’d been celebrating a bit because of an achievement but they weren’t big drinkers. Handsome, strong, intelligent, funny, they were among the stunt men who ride horseback with their long hair flying in a dozen Westerns. When they aren’t working on a movie, they grow Metis mustaches.

All of us were quiet. “It should never have happened,” we said. “It was wrong to lose men like that.” The accident victims were just a little younger than Kipp and Cobell, Baker’s two scouts, had been at the massacre. Darrell and Robey are just a little older, more the age of Chief Heavy Runner, just a few years away from retirement which they interpret as shifting to work they really want to do. One of their achievements is simply staying alive.

The eighty-mile drive back to Valier went by in a hurry. The summer landscape sank into muted green and mauve as the sun lowered behind the Rockies. The sky was full of chalk-white marks, swirls and lines made by jet pilots from the airbase. Very young they are, both male and female.

It occurred to me that Robey Clark is a descendant of one of the scouts with Baker, the Italian sailor named Cobell who came up the Missouri to Fort Benton on a paddle steamer. Darrell Kipp carries the other scout’s name. He has a bit of Kipp blood, but he’s more directly descended from Heavy Runner, the peace chief who was shot while he waved his protective paper.

It’s been about 150 years since then. Not the 200 years that we’ve had in mind while re-tracing and marking Lewis & Clark. Those two opened the door to tragedy. Kipp & Clark (no relation) have been doing their best to change that tragedy into opportunity. They’ve been spending about a third of every year on the road or in the air, not looking for a route across the continent, but rather a pathway into the future for their people.

We’ve got to hurry. Kelly Dee and her classmates will need that path soon. You can see the urgency on the faces of George Horse Capture and Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell. But at this conference there are many young faces as well. Even Kipp & Clark can’t go on forever, no matter who loves them.

State of the Nations Symposium

George Horse Capture, recently senior curator for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and now retired to Great Falls, is the organizer of a State of the Nations Symposium that began yesterday in Great Falls at the University of Great Falls. It was as much a reaction to as a part of the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial, though Sacajawea’s niece, 6th times removed, was present, wearing moccasins with her pants suit. She is very beautiful.

I attended only one panel of presentations and wondered what would be useful for this blog. Since the presenters were billed as the “top guns” for their fields, I decided that I would list them in alphabetical order. Transcriptions are to be available later. Five or ten years ago, these "experts" would all have been white. Today they are are Native Americans and no less expert:


Dr. Earl Barlow, retired Director of Indian Education, BIA. (Education On and Off Indian Reservations.)

Narcisse Blood, Coordinator of Kainai Studies, Red Crow Community College, Cardston, AL. (Defending Rights: An Indian World View on the Environment)

Ben Nighthorse Campbell, recently the U.S. Senator from Colorado: (Activating Indians into National Politics.)

Dr. Duane Champagne, Professor, NA Studies, UCLA. (The Rise and Fall of American Indian Studies Programs of American Universities)

Dr. Richmond Clow, Professor of Native American Studies, University of Montana. (Defending Rights: An Indian World View on the Environment)

Eloise Cobell, Exec. Director, NA Community Development Corp. and lead plaintiff in the Indian Trust Fund lawsuit. (The Indian Trust Fund: Can It Be Settled?)

Walter Echo Hawk, staff attorney, NA Rights Fund, Boulder, CO. (Federal Legislation and Its Effects on Tribes)

Dr. Margaret Field, Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies, San Diego State University. (Language Immersion: The Goals and Outcomes)

Ray Gardner, V-Chair Chinook Nation, Raymond, WA. (Blood Quantum: The Issues of Tribal Membership and Federal Recognition.)

Joyce Good striker, Director, Blood Institute, Cardston, AL. (Language Immersion: The Goals and Outcomes)

Kevin Gover, former Assistant Secretary of the BIA and Professor of Law, Arizona State University. (The BIA Today and Tomorrow)

Stephen Graymorning, Prof. of NA Studies, University of Montana. (Blood Quantum: The Issues of Tribal Membership and Federal Recognition.)

Tex Hall, President of the National Congress of American Indians and Tribal Chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara National Tribal Business Council. (Leadership in Indian Country)

Suzan Shown Harjo, director Morning Star Institute, Washington, D.C. (Activism: Time to Change)

John B. Herrington, First NA astronaut for NASA. (Involving Indian Youth in Science.)

Emil Her Many Horses, curator, Cultural Resource Center, National Museum of the Plains Indian. (Traditional Art for Future Generations.)


Jim Pepper Henry, National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C. (Nagpra & Repatriation: Returning Cultural Heritage to Tribes)

Rick Hill, moderator, artist and consultant, Ohsweken, Ontario. (American Indian Nations Today. What Do You Think?)

Tim Johnson, Editor, “Indian Country Today”. (Getting Press Coverage for American Indian Stories)

Marietta King, author of “Native American: Food is Medicine.” (Nutrition in Indian Country)

Darrell Robes Kipp, Director, Piegan Institute, Browning, Mt. (Language Immersion: The Goals and Outcomes)

Polly Latray, Montana Director, USDOL Veterans Employment and Training. (Military Veterans: Changed Lives)

Rosalyn Lapier, research historian. (Nutrition in Indian Country)

Chief Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onandaga Council of Chiefs and Professor of American Indian Studies at SUNY: Buffalo, NY. (Indigenous Rights in the International Arena)

Pauline Matt, traditional herbalist. (Nutrition in Indian Country)

Dr. Monica Mayer, family medicine practitioner, Fort Berthold Reservation, N.D. (Medicine On and Off the Reservation)

Robert McSwain, deputy director, Indian Health Service, Washington, D.C. (The Role of the IHS)

James Nason, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Anthro, U of Washington. (From Battlefields to Boardrooms: A Rich Complexity of Enduring Pride and New Achievement. Closing Keynote.)

Jim Northrup, author of “The Rez Road Follies” and “Walking the Rez Road,” Sawyer, MI (From the Heart: Indian Writers Tell Their Stories.)

Janine Pease, VP for NA Studies, Rocky Mountain College, Billings. (Civil Rights: A Montana Example)

Dr. David Penny. VP of Exhibitions and Strategies, Curator at Detroit Insitution of Art. (Traditional Art for Future Generations.)

Jenny Perez, editor, Fort Belknap Tribal News. (Getting Press Coverage for American Indian Stories)

Dr. Helen Maynor Scheirbeck, Assistant Director of Public Programs at the NMAI. (Status of Eastern Tribes)

Lenor Scheffler, attorney, Chairwoman of the Native American Law Practice Group for best and Flanagan LLP. (Multi-jurisdictional Issues on the Reservation) (American Indian Nations Today. What Do You Think?)

James Parker Shields, V-Chairman, Little Shell Chippewa Tribe, GF. (Blood Quantum: The Issues of Tribal Membership and Federal Recognition.)

Dr. C. Matthew Snipp, Professor of Sociology, Stanford University. (An Overview of Indian Populations.)

Cris Stainbrook, President Indian Land Tenure Foundation, Little Canada, MI. (American Indian Homelands: the past, present and hopeful future)

Dr. David Hurst Thomas, curator of anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York. (Nagpra & Repatriation: Returning Cultural Heritage to Tribes)

Mark Trahant, editorial page editor, Seattle Post-Intelligencer. (Getting Press Coverage for American Indian Stories)

Rebecca Tsosie, Lincoln Prof. of NA Law and Ethids, Exec. Director of Indian Legal Affairs, Arizona State University, College of Law.

Dr. Carey Vicenti, Professor of Sociology, Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO. (Fate of the Modern Indian)

Lisa Watt, American Indian Museum consultant, Portland, OR. (Today’s American Indian Tribes and their Museums)

Jonathan Windy Boy, HD-32 rep, Montana House of Representatives. (Get Involved: Working within State Politics.)

Carmelita Wright, Navajo short stories, student at Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO. (From the Heart: Indian Writers Tell Their Stories.)

Gordon Yellowman, Sr. Tsistsistas, Chief Southern Cheyenne, OK. (Maintaining the Traditions in the Face of a Modern World)

"A Walk Toward Oregon" by Alvin Josephy Jr.

Since John Jackson claims Alvin Josephy, Jr., as a mentor, perhaps this would be a good time to explain who he is. Centers for Native American material often develop where a university is in a place that Indian history is recent (like Western state universities) and where the student body might include a lot of Indians, or sometimes a university where Indian history was part of the founding of the institution like Dartmouth or Harvard. But also a specific personality might be charismatic and well-connected enough to attract people who think about Indians as well as actual Indians. They don’t have to be anthropologists. Such a person is Alvin Josephy, Jr., an Easterner from a publishing family. The index of this memoir is thirteen pages long and much appreciated since Josephy’s life is a complex of many layers over a long time.

Josephy’s memoir is called “A Walk Toward Oregon,” (published by Alfred A. Knopf -- one of his good connections since it was his family’s business -- and copyright 2000. ISBN 0-375-40910-6). Oregon is where he finally formed his best connection of all: to the Nez Perce tribe. His other books include: “The Patriot Chiefs,” “The Indian Heritage of America” (American Heritage Library), “Now That the Buffalo’s Gone,” “500 Nations: an Illustrated History Of North American Indians,” “America in 1492: The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus,” “American Heritage Book of Indians,” “The Artist Was a Young Man, the Life Story of Rindisbacher.” (Rindisbacher was an early 19th century depictor of the frontier and Indian life. This booklet was written to accompany an exhibit of his work.)

These are big, sprawly, authoritative, illustrated books that I have not read and don’t intend to buy. Libraries love them. “A Walk towards Oregon” is the sort of personal explanatory book that I seek out. Josephy’s story reminds me of Peter Matthiessen or even John Kerry, though he was Harvard rather than Yale and didn’t get a chance to finish because of the Depression. Like Richard S. Wheeler, his first try at a career was in Hollywood as a screen writer where he was buddies with Olivia de Haviland and Joan Fontaine, actress sisters. But the Depression hounded him (he was born in 1915) and he was reduced to a minor job on the stock exchange in New York. Then recovering, a newspaper reporter, and finally radio. He had a great time, made good contacts, and began to grow up. Then came war and a correspondent’s job. Now he was awakened, like many others.

But even post-war as he flew in small planes to search for spectacular views and good places to situate dams so as to photograph and write about them for magazines, he still didn’t understand what development could do to the American West. Finally Paul Nash, secretary of the Idaho Chamber of Commerce, flew him all over Idaho. Josephy found the Nez Perce and was hooked.

Now his desk-jockey research-informed tomes about Indians in general were balanced with the realities of a people displaced and brought down by what the country considered progress. This is the step that’s often missing from blueblood-written books about Indians. But, like Matthiessen, he connected the awakening conservation movement with Indian issues, he used his contacts politically to try to make a difference, and Wounded Knee was clearly a turning point. Josephy was present at the earlier siege of the BIA building and helped to prevent bloodshed by negotiating hard among leaders he knew on both sides.

The heart of the Josephy family’s world was a ranch they bought in Nez Perce country, close to the town of Joseph in the Wallowas in Oregon, where they tried to embody their principles and to do practical good for the tribal people, like taking some Indian kids for the summer. Even in this remote place, development caught up with them and the bulldozers came through. It will be up to the second generation at the ranch to recover and find safeguards for the future. Like so many places in the New West, it turned out that the glitzy leisure world of the rich was as much a hazard as the industrialists. Joseph is now a headquarters for art bronze foundries with fancy eating places and espresso cafes for the tourists, ski buffs, golfers, and New Age personalities.

Josephy, in his own way, is a member of the upper class of the national meritocracy. “Aristocrats” of this sort, especially in the romantic years after WWII, have sought out Indians, relating to them on vacations and junkets, acquiring their artifacts and enjoying their often scenic locations. Indians, consummate diplomats, have taken their own junkets to Washington since the earliest days. Earl Old Person, here in Browning, probably knows as many American big shots as the Pope did. He must have a formidable Rolodex and he knows it.

Those relationships are totally “other” than the local officials and ordinary white people who deal with Indians on the reservation, friendly or not. Anchored in the daily knowledge of individuals, the romance is pretty much missing, and sympathy over history is not necessarily present. What counts on this level is practical achievements: businesses, schools, tribal functions. Most of the people who make these organizations work are never known by people more than a few hundred miles away. No one puts them into an American Heritage volume. Yet they ARE the American heritage -- they embody it, both white and Indian. I think Alvin Josephy, Jr., was aware of this more than many other writers. It is what makes his memoir worth reading.

Four Mountain Man Books

John C. Jackson’s first book was “Shadow on the Tetons,” a bio of David Jackson, a fur trader “for whom Jackson Hole is named.” His second book is “Children of the Fur Trade: Forgotten Metis of the Pacific Northwest.” (Mountain Press Publishing Co., copyright 1996. ISBN 0-87842-339-7. Paperback.) 276 pages of text, plus 48 pages of notes, bibliography, index. Lots of photos. I couldn’t find the name of the artist who drew the lively little sketches here and there. This book is not so much about Montana. In fact, it appealed to me because much of it was about Portland, where I grew up. From my grade school one could see through the Douglas fir of Alberta Park, on across the Columbia to what was once Fort Vancouver. There is enough convoluted plot in Jackson’s book to supply a novelist for a lifetime. I never have figured out the relationship between James McKay, the Scots fur trader, and the McKays on the Blackft reservation. I don’t know whether they have either. Might not be one.

Perhaps Metis are neglected as a group because they did so well at assimilation. After all, they are simply the diasphora of the European countries, woven together with the webbing of indigenous peoples. Only on the great prairie of Assiniboia did they claim identity as a New People, the Red River Nation and try to start their own country. The many families described by Jackson took only a few generations to become simply American “citizens.”


James A. Crutchfield’s book “Mountain Men of the American West” is a directory to the inadvertent patriarchs of hundreds of Metis families. (Tamarack Books, Inc., PO Box 190313, Boise, ID 83719-0313. Copyright 1997. ISBN 1-886609-0701) This book is a reference book but packed with snapshot stories about Bridger, Coulter, Beckwourth, et al. Crutchfield’s bibliography is actually a third of the book, an annotated list of sources, invaluable when working through historical questions.

Crutchfield is a veteran writer, a prize-winning member of the Western Writers of America. He’s not a fancy scholar, but a “buff” which implies a more popular readership so the writing is plain and clear, but make no mistake. This is a man who knows the territory. There is art work, some of it sketches by the author.


The third book I want to mention -- and highly recommend -- is “Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society, 1670-1870” by Sylvia Van Kirk. (University of Oklahoma Press, copyright 1980. ISBN 0-8061-1847-4. Paperback.) 242 pages of text, 56 pages of notes, references, and index. Many quite wonderful photos of Metis women in black silk dresses with hoop skirts! The daughters clearly “try harder” and appear poised, coiffed, brooched with cameos -- standing gracefully in the photographic setting of cherub and carpet. On the cover is a portrait of a beautiful dark young woman with her adorable pale child in her arms.

Western history often neglects the lives of the women, adding to the insults of their treatment. This book makes the point that some Hudson’s Bay-type men plainly took Indian women as wives “in the fashion of the country” so as to have the convenience of a cook/housekeeper/translator in the house, and cheerfully “turned them off” when they finally achieved a European wife. (Later General Custer did exactly that, although he already had the white wife when he took an Indian companion.) But some of the couples bonded in a true marriage, regardless of the ceremonies involved, and were faithful and supportive to each other throughout their lives. Nothing is so revealing of character as marriage in a time of cultural tumult.

This book is beloved by many women and quite unlike any mountain man literature written by men. Maybe Wheeler’s series about “Mister” Skye comes close, since he gives weight to Skye’s two wives, their emotions and opinions. I look forward to the day when a movie script about Metis women is shot on location with enough authenticity to make us realize what it meant to be a woman from a culture that deeply honored the self-sacrifice of mothers (I mean Indians), who has hooked up with a man from a culture that considers them somewhat subhuman -- a woman whose life will depend on his ability to separate from that opinion. Often the children make the difference, creating “Tender Ties.”


The fourth book I wanted to include in this piece is “Scottish Highlanders, Indian Peoples: Thirty Generations of a Montana Family” by James Hunter. (Montana Historical Society Press, copyright 1996. ISBN 0-917298-52-7. Paperback.) The thirty generations in question go back from Tom Branson, a contemporary forester on the Flathead Reservation, all the way to Fergus, twelve centuries ago the chief of a tribe in County Derry in northern Ireland. All the steps in between are recorded. This is a longitudinal study of a phenomenon often only looked at horizontally. The first tie in the generations between Scot and Indian was the marriage of Angus McDonald to a Nez Perce woman, Catharine, in 1842. (Her father was part Mohawk, showing a beaver-trapping migration across the continent rather than across the ocean.) The impact of this time-line is enormous, especially if one has the surname McDonald or MacDonald.

There are 198 pages of text and 25 pages of notes, bibiliography and index. This undertaking was so enormous that Hunter required help from people in Scotland as well as Americans and he seems to have gotten enthusiastic support from everyone. There is an insert of excellent photographs, including a portrait of Charlie McDonald, the grandchild of Angus and Catharine, still living at the time of the writing of this book.

People say “half-breed” or “mountain man” or “fur trapper” without much thought, using the words for categories without regard for the individual human beings and their challenges. Brief but turbulent, the cultural “surf” gave rise to many pejorative terms like “squaw man.” If a person sat down to read these four books, the stereotypes would be replaced by personalities worthy of both contempt and admiration, but individuals in real dilemmas. They made our world possible and their children are us or dwell with us in the “surf” of our own times. Some of them were heroes and some of those heroes were female.

"The Piikani Blackfeet" by John C. Jackson

If one were to see “The Piikani Blackfeet: A Culture Under Siege” by John C. Jackson on a bibliography next to “The Blackfeet” by Theresa Jensen Lacey, one might assume they were similar books, but they are NOT AT ALL! John Jackson, like Lacey, has a Native American genetic connection, but his is Algonkin, he is from Oregon and he spent twenty years as an advertising designer in Portland. Then he jumped ship in 1982, moved to Olympia, and became associated with the Kitchen Garden Project, which develops vegetable gardens for low-income people. He is an independent scholar with at least two points of attachment to the larger community of historians: he’s related to Tom Connell here on the Blackft reservation and he is friends with Alvin Josephy, a scholar and advocate of Indians esp. the Nez Percé.

The formal text of this book is 213 pages and the notes and so-on are 62 pages. Nine pages of bibliography and eight of index. If one is looking for a reference to a person or incident, these are numbers that make you grin and gloat. There are no photographs except for a photograph of a bison hide with a picture story on it. All other illustrations are from pictographs or drawings by Indians, one at every chapter heading. One of those “candlelabra-shaped” maps from 1802 is on page 61. There is a whole chapter on “Manly-Hearted Women.”

But the biggest difference is that the writing is poetic, evocative, and aimed at awakening a new understanding, a new synthesis of old historical stories. An advanced high school student could appreciate this, but it is not an easy book. To make the point, here’s the first paragraph of the preface: “The old ones are only shadows now, silhouettes moving silently in the soft dawn toward another camp and dancing around the glow of a buffalo-chip fire. Sometimes, in the sunset, a feathered horseman casts a long shadow across the hillside; too often, the image recedes and vanishes. Like a child trying to capture a shadow by tracing it in the sand, this book attempts to outline figures that have stepped away from definition.”

Another paragraph, the second: “For the brief span of a century and a half, the horse people shimmered in the dazzling light of the northern plains. Then, like the buffalo, they are gone. Their lives merit careful attention that goes beyond stereotyping, sketchy images caught by a fur trader’s pen, or cold scientific re-examination. Yet this is not another book about injustices, laden with unresolved guilt and smothering sympathy.”

The book is really a personal and interesting synthesis that comes out sort of halfway between the wildly unreal plastic shaman novels and a tough sociological study. There’s no talk about the present, much less an effort like McFee’s to come up with an explanation or description of where to go from here. Nor does he want to speculate on Dog Days. Jackson wants to contemplate and reflect on the climax culture enabled by horses and guns -- then snuffed by the source of those same elements.

The danger in doing so is the possibility of leaving us behind. For instance, he maintains that Piikani, or Piegan were sometimes spelled “Peekanow, Pahkee, Pekan, Piedgan, Pikenow, Pekannekoon, Pikaraminiouach” among other ways. (He doesn’t include the Canadian Peigan.) He asserts that “the name comes from “pa’ksikahko,” a muddy place, which in Cree becomes pikan or pikakamiw, muddy or turbid water.” So his idea is that the Piegan are properly “the Muddy River Indians.” I don’t think it will catch on. Wait a minute -- is Tom Connell a Cree? Maybe Metis?

Jackson’s bibliography is heavy on Pacific Northwest fur traders, about whom he has also written a book, but includes both Canadian and US sources, French as well as English. He touches the main Blackft bases: Ewers, Schaeffer, Wissler, Dempsey and even Alice Beck Kehoe, who was also a curator at the Museum of the Plains Indian in the 1950’s but didn’t publish much until lately.

Another circumstance that recommends this book is that it is published in Montana by Mountain Press Publishing Company. Possibly they are the ones who brought Bill Farr, University of Montana history professor, into consultation, which resulted in a colorful cover. It is “Blackfeet: Raiders of the Plains,” a painting by Julius Seylor, a German expressionist who visited the reservation in 1913-14. The drawings at chapter headings and occasionally other places are from “Writing on Stone,” a Canadian Provincial Park that is just north of the Sweet Grass Hills.

My training in judging scholarship is that one should value those who define their goals and methods, then go ahead to fulfill them. If you were to read this book to get information about the Blackft in more recent times or to get the conventional consensus, you might be disconcerted. (There are a few places where he doesn’t agree with other scholars.) But if you wanted a sympathetic taste of the stories, the images, the controversies and dilemmas -- this is your book. A sort of latter-day James Willard Schultz. “Why gone those times?”

(“The Piikani Blackfeet: A Culture Under Siege,” by John C. Jackson. Published by Mountain Press Publishing Company in Missoula, Montana. Copyright 2000. ISBN 0-87842-386-9 Paperback)

Crafts or Artifacts?

At one time the vocational education program of Haskell Indian Junior College in Lawrence, Kansas, printed a series on Indian Handcraft books for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This was discontinued long ago, but Richard C. Schneider, a professor of art at the University of Wisconsin found there was still enough interest in 1986 to reprint the series. (In case he still exists, his address was “R. Schneider, Publishers, 312 Linwood Ave., Stevens Point, Wisconsin, 54481.) The Blackft crafts book was written by John Ewers, one of the several expert Blackft anthropologists, and the man who built the Museum of the Plains Indian.

“Indian Crafts” and “Material Culture” appear to be the “low” and “high” ways of approaching things made by Native Americans. Maybe the difference is that Indian “Crafts” are still made today -- but maybe not by Indians and probably for sale rather than use. “Material Culture” is the antique kind of object, one that shows real use in a world gone by. Cub Scouts with a bead band loom are making crafts. A quilled pipe bag from 1750 is something else entirely, and probably worth a lot of money.

Ewers’ book is somewhere in the middle of the muddle. On the one hand he was an anthropologist at a time when much of the work was sorting -- creating taxonomies of objects with close attention to their construction and use. “Just exactly what IS a typical Blackft moccasin beadwork design?” they might ask, with full confidence that there was always a “typical” to be found. Jessie Schultz, surviving wife of James Willard Schultz, was famous for insisting that Blackft designs were geometric and Cree designs were floral. After she’d been saying this for a while, it certainly became true of all the moccasins made for sale to her.

Jessie and John Ewers were collaborators in the creation of the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning, Montana, which was funded in part by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs Craft Board. The building has a workroom on one end, supplied with tables that have drawers for storing half-finished work. The vision was that tourists would come to visit the museum where many wonderful objects were displayed and then they would buy reproductions or new creations from the dedicated workers, through the little shop also in the building. This would be much needed income for them.

Ewers’ little 66 page book (“Blackfeet Crafts,” no copyright given, paperback, ISBN 0-936984-0) would be useful for someone buying artifacts and concerned about their authenticity, or it could also help a person who wanted to make new reproductions or original creations. Adolf Hungry Wolf began his literary career with dozens of this sort of book, full of photos and diagrams.

At the elite “material culture” end of the spectrum, one would do well to buy a “book on demand” reproduction from UMI (300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48106-13460). “Material Culture of the Blackfoot Indian” was edited by Clark Wissler, an earlier anthropologist of the Blackft. The book was originally published by the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. V, Part 1. Wissler’s introduction is dated October 1, 1909. He acknowledges Robert H. Lowie and Walter McClintock, his contemporaries, for helping.

It’s interesting that of Bob Scriver’s three self-published books, the one that has doubled in value is not about sculpture, but rather the high-quality, super-close-up photo inventory of the Scriver Artifact Collection. (The book is called, “The Blackfeet, Artists of the Northern Plains,” in homage to Ewers’ history, “The Blackfeet, Raiders of the Northern Plains. It is out-of-print.) Several crafts workers on the Internet advertise that they take their designs from this book.

When the first Euros came up the Mississippi and then the Missouri, they arrived in Montana with trunks and crates capable of taking many objects back to Europe with them. Just as the Blackfeet were enamored of needles, awls, strike-a-lights, falconry bells, brass buttons, iron kettles -- metal objects -- the Europeans fell in love with the buckskin/bone/fur objects of the prairie people. Some, like millionaire Heye who had to have one of everything in existence, even if there WAS only one, became obsessive. (His collection is the foundation of the new Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.)

When Europeans saw the wonderful things unpacked by aristocrats returned from the great American plains, they were also smitten. The effect on the ones unlikely to travel was to try to duplicate what they saw. Today there are German craft clubs who make “arti-fakes” so authentically that no one can tell them from the real objects -- except that they’re not old.

While this imitation Indian phenomenon has continued to the present day in Germany, something entirely different has happened in the United States. Instead of treasuring and defending the unique tribal characteristics of dance gear, the Pan-Indian Pow-Wow movement has supported the development of cross-cultural styles that become ever more flashy and ingenious. They rather remind me of Ball Room Dancing Competition costumes: many feathers, much glitter, and -- on grass dance costumes -- much bright yarn. Anything that might distinguish a person from the others and catch the eye of the judges. After all, the prizes are money and a person has to pay for the gas to get there.

Even so, individuals have discovered that they will stand out in competition if they wear costumes designed like those Catlin painted, with their faces painted in striking ways. These folks can run into trouble in two ways: some of the most authentic and striking accoutrements were once considered sacred and some purists might claim that using them at a pow-wow is disrespectful.

The other problem is that the more authentic the costume is, the more likely it is to include some material that comes from protected or extinct animals like eagles or swift foxes. This imposes a legal taboo that could get problematic. Who can kill enough elk today to adorn an entire dress with their ivory incisors?

A quite different stream of consciousness than pow-wows focuses on originality and treats material objects and their making as art. These people don’t necessarily think of themselves as doing “crafts” but as creating something like a fine painting or sculpture, an expression of their vision, maybe something never seen before. This is undoubtedly what the first Blackft craftpeople believed, too, but their vision was conditioned by their own world, much of which is gone now. What was once the inventory of a museum crafts shop has now become the display of an art gallery.

"The Blackfeet" by Theresa Jensen Lacey

“The Blackfeet” by Theresa Jensen Lacey is a good example of a steady stream of small books about Indians that are rarely even acknowledged by scholars, but constantly offered to the public. This one, again typically, is one book from a series, each devoted to a different tribe. This specific series, “Indians of North America” is generally edited by Frank W. Porter III, whose degrees are from the University of Maryland. The author of “The Blackfeet,” Ms. Lacey, is a descendant of Chief Quanah Parker (Comanche and Cherokee). She has a website with her photo and confides that when she began this book, her first baby was six weeks old. She researched for a year and talks as though she made at least one trip out to Blackfeet Country, probably to Lethbridge.

Lethbridge is a city of 200,000 in Alberta, Canada. (No city in Montana exceeds 100,000, except Billings -- some years -- if the surrounding county is included.) The University of Lethbridge is built like a wall across the mouth of a deep coulee, with a big space under it so it won’t become a dam. The hillsides roundabout are dotted with silhouettes of howling wolves, looking very realistic. Their Indian Studies program is well-developed and pretty much focused on the Blackfeet -- although they, being Canadian, generally use “Blackfoot.” Lacey is trapped by her title into using Blackfeet most of the time, but she usually uses the Canadian spelling of Piegan, which is Peigan. In fact, in a number of places she seems pretty influenced by Canadian views.

But maybe that’s what’s interesting about this book. It’s meant for juveniles, probably high school age, and strives to be colorful, exciting and (Lacey’s word) “amazing.” The photos are quite different from what we usually see. She managed to write the whole book without ever mentioning Napi! This book was published in 1995, so surely it wasn’t a matter of prudery, but it certainly COULD have been. It seems like a shame to deprive teenagers of a sex-obsessed trickster! The long creation story she quotes includes a lot of Christian notions plus intrusions from other tribes and modern science.

After a person has been exploring Blackft materials for a few years, one learns to look first at the index and the bibliography. The bibliography here reveals the problem: no Ewers and no Schafer, though they are the acknowledged experts on the American side. Hugh Dempsey, the outstanding Calgary historian, is there with three books. Grinnell’s “Blackfoot Lodge Tales” is referenced, rather than later more bold versions. or earlier more anthropological ones. One of Adolf Hungry Wolf’s books is present (“The Blood People”) but she spells Adolf’s name with a ph. Beverly Hungry Wolf’s book, “The Ways of my Grandmothers,” is on the list. She includes McClintock’s later and more minor book, “Old Indian Trails,” but not “The Old North Trail.” Happily, she found Malcolm McFee’s small but influential “Modern Blackfeet, Montanans on a Reservation.”

One book I don’t know at all: Ann Walton’s “After the Buffalo Were Gone: The Louis Warren Hill, Sr., Collection of Indian Art.” I assume that’s where Lacey found many of these excellent illustrations.

Two books I know very well indeed. One is Richard Lancaster’s “Piegan,” mostly about Old Jim Whitecalf whom Lancaster claimed had adopted him. I dislike Lancaster personally and cannot give you an undistorted opinion. My distorted opinion is that he was a nutcase and a patronizing ego-maniac.

The other is “The Blackfeet: Artists of the Northern Plains” which was written and personally published by Bob Scriver, to whom I was married and of whom I have an opinion highly biased in his favor. It is an inventory of the so-called “million dollar artifact collection” that was sold to the Provincial Museum in Edmonton, Alberta, in the midst of much controversy. Sacred objects in the book were returned to the Alberta Blackfoot tribes by Premier Klein. Other objects were intercepted at the border when being carried back and forth between Edmonton and Helena, Montana, where the Montana Historical Society is the guardian of the entire Scriver archive and body of work. The United States Federal Fish and Game authorities repatriated these materials to selected Piegan personalities, who kept the valuable items for themselves and sold the rest through an auction house that specializes in Indian artifacts. The collection in this book no longer exists as a unified entity.

Maybe this little run-through makes it clear why Lacey’s “The Blackfeet” is not considered a major reference. Nevertheless, it is appealing and as an introduction to the tribe for high school kids across the continent, it ought to do the job.

There is a whole photo section in the middle about modern Indian crafts, made new on the pattern of old examples. The closest to a photo of modern Blackft is a 1939 shot of King George and Queen Mary in Alberta -- Queen Mary’s fox-trimmed coat goes well with the ermine-fringed buckskin suits of the chiefs. The actual account of historical events is not inaccurate but not the usual narrative.

At the very least this book offers a kind of example or template for a compact book suitable for a unit on Indian studies. Maybe it could even be a model for a high school class sophisticated enough to compose and “publish” their own book on the computer, basing it on their own research. If McLaughlin’s high schoolers could produce a textbook using a mimeograph machine in the 1970’s, surely a good desktop publishing program and careful use of the internet could turn up more materials than Lacey had to work with. (I have a mental image of her in a library with her baby on her back.) The University of Lethbridge website would not be a bad place to start.

(“The Blackfeet” by Theresa Jensen Lacey. Frank W. Porter III, General Editor of the series “Indians of North America.” Chelsea House Publishers, a division of Main Line Book Co. Copyright 1995. ISBN 0-7910-2491-1 Paperback, 103 pages.)

Sam the Worm Man in the Sweet Grass Hills

When a teenaged boy likes something, he says “sweeeeet,” and that’s close to what the “sweet” in “Sweet Grass Hills” means! No, that’s too frivolous. The Sweet Grass Hills strike everyone as special to the point of sacredness. On Friday Sam James, a professor and worm expert from the University of Kansas, and I went up there with a shovel to look for worms. It was a gorgeous day with a long horizon, a little hazy, a blessing of a breeze. The grass was up to our knees. Sam, who is from Kansas, dug divots and turned rocks (always replacing them) until we did indeed find worms.

The trouble is that exotic worms -- imported somehow from Europe in potted plants or ship ballast -- have invaded Montana just like every other place on the North American continent. The worms follow the example of the people. We were looking for worms that might have been saved from the glaciers of ten thousand years ago because the Sweet Grass Hills were tall enough that they were not entirely engulfed by ice. Plants and animals were able to survive on the peaks. But every worm we found was European and so was every person we talked to. Sam went back today to look some more.

The name of the Sweet Grass Hills is a misnomer: the original Blackfeet word means Sweet Pine, which is balsam fir. The sweetness of both is from coumadin which many of us know as a blood thinner. Holterman gives this: katoyisix (accent on the first “i”) as an animate (living) plural for sweet pines. McClintock used katoya to translate balsam fir, sweet pine or abies lasiocarpa. But he calls sweetgrass sipazimot(i) and says it is Vanilla Grass or sevastana odorata. Katoyis (accent on the “i”) is also the name of Bloodclot Boy or Monster Slayer. Did the old-timers know the uses of coumadin?

Gold (that monster metal) was discovered on the center butte in 1884 when they were still surrounded by the Blackft reservation, and almost instantly there were a hundred reasons why the Blackft would have to give up those hills. The government didn’t care that it was the last holdout of the buffalo, who liked to calve in the sheltering folds of the coulees. Title changed hands in February, 1887, but it was not until late in the twentieth century that the compensatory “Big Claim” payout arrived in the hands of the tribe.

There was a little ghost town around the gold mine, but the local ranchers got tired of animals getting trapped in the buildings and prowlers coming to pry in the remains, so they bulldozed the place flat. The next threat to them (How often do the ranchers follow the same paths as the Indians before them!) was the invention of cyanide heap leach mining: If one makes a lake, lines it with “impermeable” membrane, heaps up gold ore in the middle and pours cyanide over it, one can recover tiny traces of gold. Of course, there is NO membrane that doesn’t leak, and the Sweet Grass Hills (still full of value after the buffalo and gold are gone) is the watershed for wells for many miles around -- cyanide would poison them all. Even worse, by the time the whole butte is chewed up and “leached,” there would no longer be anything to which one can lift one’s eyes.

A search engine such as Google is exceptionally rewarding if you look for “Sweet Grass Hills.” For one thing, there is excellent photography so that you can see for yourself the “signature” horizon line of these volcanic peaks. For another, one can make contact with the organization that works to block any more moves towards cyanide leach pads. Not least, students at Chester High School have posted essays about what the Hills mean to them. And John Holt, Montana writer, has written about the blue fire he claims he sees there.

Spanish Basque sheepherders also lost their hearts to the Hills when they pastured bands of sheep there. They built tall stone cairns from the morainie stones that abound. But there are far more ancient and mysterious structures.

The U.S. Government, in the course of the Big Claim, tried to refute the claim of the Blackft that the place was sacred by saying that there was no church there, no altar or Stonehenge to prove that anyone ever worshipped there. This is a false notion, since to the Native American peoples all land and life was sacred. Still, a place so distinguished was a “power center,” a place a little more holy than others. And the “proof” turned out to be low stone walls just about the right outline for a man to lie down in and just about high enough to make a bit of shelter from the wind. I don’t know where they are. I’ve seen photos. They are for vision-fasting.

Part of the reason, in my opinion, that Native peoples were hit so hard by alcohol and continue to be so clobbered by drugs is that they were a people who had learned how to tune their own spirits to control consciousness in exquisite calibrations through the use of solitude, meditation, and fasting. Alcohol and drugs are cyanide to such spirits. Vision quests, often coming-of-age ordeals, were dangerous enough that those who did it asked a friend to check on them to make sure that they didn’t slip over the edge into death. There is a story about a man who was supposed to guard his son, but out of pride let the boy fast too long. The boy changed into a small bird and disappeared.

In his former life, before being a worm biologist, Sam taught Transcendental Meditation for a decade. When he got back last night, I asked him what he thought about this idea. “TM was developed by the kind of Indian in India,” he said. “I have no idea about people here.” He wanted to talk about what a guide book said: the Sweet Grass Hills were formed by volcanic intrusions that came up from the core of the earth and “blistered” between layers of earth. Though they were hot enough to transform some of the rock around them, they could not be seen at the surface until erosion wore the earth away. Great metaphor for contemplation.

My hostess gift was a beautiful blue ceramic jam jar that Joy, Sam’s wife, made herself. The handle for the lid is a looped-up angleworm. Sweeeeeeet!

Major Steele, Indian Agent

Two agents of the Blackft Tribe have had daughters who married locally. One was Eula Churchill, who married J.L. Sherburne, and the other was the daughter of George Steele (b. 1837). The Sherburne’s were both white, but George Steele’s daughters were from his second marriage to a woman Jack Holterman calls “Annie” who is rather mysteriously a member of the Blackft tribe. A mountain up behind Heart Butte is named “Major Steele’s Backbone.” Probably not a compliment.

Steele was another of those interface people. His mother was English and his father was Scots, but he was born in Quebec -- part of the same migration stream as Bob Scriver’s parents. George was educated in the public schools , went to New York State, then Boston, and then went West. He came up the Missouri from St. Louis to Fort Benton in 1857. For seven years in Helena with the American Fur Company, he worked for Mathew Carroll at Fort Benton.

One romantic story is that Steele, whose Indian name was Sleeping Thunder, had a remarkable black stallion named Puhpoom. Eagle Ribs stole Puhpoom and Joe Kipp made a great show of stealing the horse back.

Steele, on the other side, was a Republican linked to fellow Republican T.C. Power, and became a commissioner of the early Choteau County. In March of 1869, he married Eva Treadway in Ticonderoga, New York, and brought her to Helena where she died before Christmas. (The novelist in me wonders about her dowry, estate, connections and all that.)

Steele, Carroll, C.A. Broadwater and their buddies were freighters and probably whiskey bootleggers on the Whoop-Up Trail. For a while Steele cooled off in Salt Lake City. In 1875 he pops up as a rancher along the Sun River and the Missouri, which puts him close to Great Falls, the confluence. In May, 1877, he marries Mary Lukin in Helena. This is probably “Annie.”

MARY LUKIN (62, Full Blood)
Mary’s father was LAME BULL, signer of the Treaty called by his name.
By this marriage, Mary and George had two children:
Dora Steele, married to GEORGE WELLS, a white man. They had one child, a girl, who went to England with her father.
Adelaide Steele married William Thomas, a white man. She died leaving three children:
Marie Thomas (15)
George Thomas (13)
Rachel Thomas (11)
The girls were sent to relatives in Dubuque, Iowa, and the son remained with his father in Highwood, Montana.

In 1877 and 1879 Steele serves in the territorial legislatures and the constitutional convention of 1884. In 1890 he’s appointed agent to the Blackfeet, though most of the time he doesn’t leave his ranch. In 1891 he and Joe Kipp took a panel of chiefs to Washington, D.C.

Then it all went to hell. The Great Northern Railroad came through, demanding timber for ties and cord wood for steam engines as well as hay for the wagons. They took 200 feet of right-of-way instead of the legal 150. They brought in whiskey but somehow the Indian shipments of flour and beef evaporated. And the government would just as soon Steele not make a big fuss about it.

He built a new school on Willow Creek, just west of Browning, which even his friend, Lt. Beacom, officially declared unfit and it stayed unfit for many years afterwards. (Now it’s a private residence owned by an architect.) Major Steele’s back gave him so much trouble that he resorted to morphine and was soon hooked. He related to the world through a little door he had cut in his office door -- like the entrance to a speakeasy.

It got worse. James. J. Hill heard about oil and maybe gold in the nearby mountains and wanted to move the Blackft to the Dakotas. James Willard Schultz, along with Steele, teased prospector Dutch Louis Meyer by getting him to work a Ouija board which told Louis where to find gold. It was there, but not much. Then the government got the idea of buying the east side of the Rockies from the Blackft, not for a park but for the minerals.

Montana went back and forth between Republicans and Democrats. Grinnell was a Republican, which might explain why he backed the sale of what became Glacier Park. But Jim Hill and Marcus Daly were Democrats and when they got into power they threw out Steele and put in an Army captain who wished to eradicate Blackft culture, right down to beadwork. Soon Repubs Power, Carter, and buddies put Steele back in office, morphine and all. In 1895 he was undoubtedly in on the negotiations for the park. There is ambiguity about whether it was a sale or a lease.

Steele separated from “Annie.” He began to be at odds with the Dawsons and Clarkes. His cattle seemed strangely confused with tribal cattle. In 1897, his career was over. Probably he continued to ranch but my authorities record no final end for him.

(Again I’m indebted to Holterman’s “Who Was Who in Glacier Land.”)

Sandoval/Sanderville

So, we begin with this fellow named Isidoro Sandoval, from New Mexico, a Shoshone speaker and an engage of the American Fur Company about the time James Kipp built a fort at the mouth of the Marias in 1831 or so. Isidoro married a Piegan woman, “Catch for Nothing,” and was a guide for Prince Maximillian of Wied-Neuwied. You remember that we saw the latter lolling about the German forest with Pomp, Sacajawea’s son, in a famous painting.

Soon after Maximilian went home, Isidoro led a packtrain up the Teton River and then north along the Rockies, maybe heading for the St. Mary Valley. They were looking for mountain goat hides. It was a good place to look, and they took two Kootenais because it was a Kootenai hunting ground at that time. Unfortunately, a Kainah Blackft party ran out both Kootenai hunters and Sandoval’s little pack string, but at least he got a good look at the country at a time few whites knew it.

In 1837, the midst of a smallpox pandemic, Sandoval took charge of Fort McKenzie for Alexander Culbertson. About 1840 he was murdered by an engage named Harvey. Isidoro and Catch for Nothing had had two children, a boy and a girl. The boy, named Isidoro for his father, stayed with Malcolm Clarke at a fort on the Marias that came under siege by Arikaras. When the gates were hastily barred, Isidoro, Malcolm’s baby daughter Helen, and a blind girl were left outside. Before Malcolm and a Frenchman could get out there to rescue them, the blind girl was killed and little Isidoro was wounded.

In 1862 Malcolm married the younger Isidoro’s sister, Good Singing, in a Catholic ceremony celebrated by Father DeSmet. Isidoro, Jr., married a Piegan named Margaret, daughter of Red Bird-Tail. One could say these families (Clarke, Sandoval, Kipp, et al) were half-breeds produced by Euros taking advantage of native American people, or you could say that these were people who made their living at the interface between two nations -- in the process becoming blended, the boldest of both worlds. Factually, they interpreted, traded, and transported materials for T.C. Power, I.G. Baker and the US Cavalry -- as well as the occasional aristocrat or artist.

Isidoro Jr. had two sons with Margaret: Oliver (b. January, 1862) and Richard (b. April, 1867). Oliver (aged ten) was living with the Clarkes on what is now the Baucus ranch when Malcolm was murdered. When things got so rough (the Baker Massacre), Isidoro Jr. and Oliver went to Canada to work for Mounties and the Canadian officials organizing the reserves and treaties up there. Isidoro is said to have interpreted for meetings with Louis Riel, but in 1881 Isidoro Jr. was killed in a drunken brawl at Dupuyer, a little town not far from Valier. (The last killing that I know of in Dupuyer was a Piegan in 1990 who had laid siege to the Ranger Bar by pounding on the door and yelling. The new owner of the bar, an old man with no reservation experience and dramatic notions of the 19th century, got a rifle and shot the unarmed drunk.)

Oliver’s career continues. Called Inoyinam or Looks Furry, he carried the mail between Choteau and Old Agency along Badger Creek. In 1883, the Starvation Winter, he guided James Willard Schultz and other Good Samaritans on a hunting trip north through the reservation -- they returned distributing carcasses among the families. Maybe not all the meat was wild.

From 1894 to 1897, Oliver interpreted for agents Allen, Baldwin, Catlin, Steele and Cook and was a tribal policeman for Steele. Oliver and Mary, daughter of Fast Buffalo Horse, lived in Heart Butte and had a boy named Johnnie. Oliver clerked at the Sherburne Merc in Browning for six years and was active in tribal politics. In 1908 death claimed him during a visit to his niece and nephew in Hayes, Montana, and he was brought home for burial at St. Anne’s in Heart Butte where this time of year baby’s breath seeded from generations of bouquets spreads out a lacy cloth across the graveyard.

Richard Sanderville, often called Dick Sanderville, and sometimes “Chief Bull,” took quite a different path. Educated at St. Ignatius and then Carlisle, he became very active in Methodist circles where money was raised by selling china dishes with his logo on them. An activist who was key to the building of the Museum of the Plains Indian, he swung aboard Secretary of State Ickes’ train in order to pressure his cooperation. His aunt, Good Singing, once married to Malcolm Clarke, had a daughter named Judith Patterson, who left her children with Tom Dawson at Midvale (Now East Glacier). Perhaps this was the connection that pulled Dick Sanderville into the circle of writers, naturalists, and personalities who swirled around the Big Hotel in summer.

(The keeper of the 1907-08 census says that Pablo Starr -- founder of Starr School -- and Isabelle Cooper were half-brothers to Isadore Sandoval Sr. and that he should be called Pablo Sanderville. No way to check all this out. The matter is ignored, or at least no one changed the name of the town.)

Otherwise, Dick Sanderville claims:
A full brother: Oliver Sanderville
A full sister, Cecile, wife of Yellow Wolf, whose niece is Fine Shield Woman, the beloved wife of James Willard Schultz and mother of Hart Schultz.
A full sister, Louise, who married John Croff.
A half-sister, Ellen, who married James Welch, the GRANDfather of James Welch Jr. who is actually the third with that name.
A half-brother, Tom Sanderville.

Dick Sanderville married first Eloise Tear Lodge, full Piegan, who at the time of the census was remarried to John Eagle Ribs. Dick and Eloise had one daughter, Agnes, 19 at the time of the census, and was married to Henry Horn.
Dick married a second time in 1894 to Nancy Sheppard in a Methodist ceremony. Nancy was 36, 3/8th Piegan. Her father was Newton Sheppard, a white man, and her mother was Julia, 3/4 Piegan. Julia’s father was Joseph Finley, 50% white.

The children of this marriage were:
Bridget Sanderville, 8 years old at the time of the census, and Martha Sanderville, born February 23, 1911. (This information must have been added later since the census was in 1907-08.)

Getting back to Ellen Welch, she was first married to George McMullen but they had no children.
On November 13, 1905 at Browning she married James Welch, 33, one-quarter Cherokee. The ceremony was Methodist.
At the time of the census, Cora Lucretia Welch was an infant born on February 10, 1908. There’s no reference to the novelist’s father, who must have been born in 1914, since he was a classmate of Bob Scriver. He is presently in Browning in the nursing home.

This grandfather Welch had been previously married to a woman named Mary who lived in North Carolina on the East Cherokee Reservation and who remained there.
Their children were:
Lloyd Welch (10 yrs at the time of the census)
Theodore Welch (8 yrs)
Clarence Welch (6 years)

One wonders if any of these children became writers. Many of the Sanderville, Kipp, Clarke descendants have been gifted artists and writers.

I'm indebted to most of this material to Jack Holterman's "Who Was Who in Glacier Land" which is available from the Glacier Historical Society in West Glacier, Montana.

Rez Rivers (Part 2)

Rez Rivers (part 2)

The more important perennial streams entering Cut Bank Creek from the south are the South Fork of Cut Bank Creek, and Spring Creek. The former heads on the eastern slopes of the continental divide and flows east through a wide morainie basin between Cut Bank and Two Medicine ridges.

Willow Creek rises on the eastern slope of Two Medicine Ridge and flows northeast through a gravelly glacial lake basin, below high morainie ridges. It enters Cut Bank Creek a few miles northwest of the old townsite of Bombay. [There’s still a sign on the railroad track.] West of Blackfoot is a large swamp extending west and north of Browning.

Spring Creek heads in a gap south of the Seville bench and flows east through a wide heavy alkaline basin, entering Cut Bank Creek south of Cut Bank. It is a small perennial stream draining a wide basin below the bench on the north and a broken escarpment lying north of a high rolling drift-covered area on the south.

Two Medicine Creek is also one of the larger streams on the reservation. It heads on the continental divide in the southwestern reservation and flows northeast through several finger lakes, such as Upper and Lower Two Medicine. After emerging from the lakes its course is to the southeast and east through a deep canyon bordered by shaly breaks for 6 or 7 miles east of East Glacier. In the south-central Blackfeet Reservation its course is again to the northeast and east through a deep narrow valley locally bordered with sandstone breaks below the stony hummocky drift-covered uplands. Below the mouth of Little Badger Creek its valley is from one-fourth to one-third mile wide, and east of Family [Holy Family Mission] for 4 to 5 miles is about 2 miles wide. A low terrace or island extends east of Family for about 4 miles and is bordered on the north by a poorly drained bottom one-half mile wide. The valley again closes up to the east along the county line and is bordered by high sandstone breaks and bad lands on the north. Locally, below the breaks, the valley widens out and its rolliing terraced bottom is quite stony.

Summit Creek is a small perennial stream flowing through a deep canyon and entering Two Medicine Creek south of East Glacier. The South Fork of Two Medicine Creek is a large stream draining a large tract on the eastern slopes of the continental divide. It also flows through a deep canyon below a stony bench and joins Two Medicine Creek 6 miles east of East Glacier. Little Badger Creek rises in a morainie area on the eastern slopes of the continental divide and enters Two Medicine Creek in the south-central reservation through a deep valley. Flat Creek heads in a gap northeast of Family. It is an intermittent stream draining a sharply rolling drift-covered area above the breaks of the gap.

Badger Creek carries about the same volume of water as Two Medicine Creek. It heads on the continental divide in Pondera County and flows northeast through a rolling to sharply rolling drift-covered area, entering Two Medicine Creek west of the county line. The stream is enclosed in a deep canyon on the slopes of the mountaiins, but in the south-central part of the reservation its valley widens out to one-fourth to three-fourths of a mile and is bordered locally by sandstone and shaly breaks. Gravelly terraces rise above the stream and its first bottom is largely river wash. Blacktail Creek is a perennial stream entering Badger Creek through a deep valley in the north-central portion of the reservation. It drains a rolling drift-covered area.

Birch Creek forms the south and southeastern boundaries of the Blackfeet Reservation. It flows through a narrow valley bordered by high sandstone breaks. It is a large perennial stream that unites with Cut Bank Creek to form the Marias River.


At this time, no comprehensive study of ground water on the Blackfeet Reservation has been made. Generally speaking, however, the valleys of the major streams such as the Two Medicine, Milk and Cut Bank contains variable amounts of unconsolidated clay, sand and gravel. The beds of sand and gravel are generally water-bearing and will yield water in sufficient quantity for average farm and domestic needs and in places for municipal or industrial requirements. In the stream or river valleys, water often maybe obtained at a depth of 50 feet or less. Elsewhere, depths of 500 to 1000 are not uncommon. In some locations the water is of not too good quality, being alkaline in nature. [Just west of Browning on the “Methodist ranch,” the water is too loaded with iron to wash clothes in -- at least if you want the whites to be white instead of orange.]
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As it turned out, Browning was founded in one of the few watersheds where there is not enough good water for a town. Particularly crucial has been water of good enough quality to support dialysis, which requires very high standards. When Browning was founded no one understood diabetes and dialysis was strictly “sci-fi.” The present solution has been a huge water piping project that begins in Two Medicine inside Glacier Park.

There is much irony, not the mineral kind, in this water project. One factor is that the Rocky Mountains have been getting so much less snowpack that the glaciers that feed all the reservation creeks are shrinking and will disappear, sooner or later. Another is that even after being built, the water pipe will be a point of vulnerability and on-going maintenance expense. A third is that irrigation on the reservation, though it has been for crops, has not gone well and turned out to be a financial burden to the tribe for a century -- even without maintenance, which has been spotty. And the fourth irony, of course, is the Milk River Irrigation project, now in expensive disrepair though several communities depend upon it.

Rez Rivers (Part one)

(This material is from the Harrison Fagg Browning-Blackfeet Comprehensive Plan.)

The Blackfeet Reservation lies in two continental drainage patterns -- the Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Water falling on the eastern slopes of the the continental divide in the northern portion of the reservation flows north into Hudson Bay, and the southern portion, south into the Gulf of Mexico. St. Mary’s Divide and Divide Mountain separate the two drainage basins. [Those of us who call this mountain “Triple Divide” know that the third drainage basin is to the west, towards the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean.] West of St. Mary’s Divide the drainage is chiefly into the St. Mary’s River, but east and south of the divide it is into such streams as the forks of the Milk River, Cut Bank, Two Medicine and Badger which unite to form several large streams before entering the Missouri River. The reservation drainage was not greatly influenced by the mountain and continental ice sheets. The streams were locally diverted, but most of them returned to their pre-glacial valleys after the ice receded.

St. Mary’s River, a tributary of Saskatchewan River in Canada, heads on the continental divide in the west-central part of Glacier County. It extends in a northeasterly direction and south of Babb emerges from several long finger lakes, such as Upper and Lower St. Mary’s, onto an outwash gravel flat about one mile in width north of Kennedy Creek. It flows through a drift-covered basin between the mountains and a high bench south of the Canadian line. The larger streams entering St. Mary’s River are Swift Current and Kennedy creeks. These streams are fed by mountain glaciers on the continental divide and flow east through deep valleys. Between Many Glaciers and the park boundary the valley of Swift Current Creek and its branches flow through a number of finger lakes, of which the Sherburne Lakes are storage reservoirs for the Milk River Irrigation Project. [Now in bad shape, this system supplies water for much of the High-Line.] East of the park line the stream enters an enclosed canyon above the gravelly flat.

Forks of Milk River: the North Fork of Milk River heads in the morainic sag north of St. Mary’s Divide and flows northeast into Canada. It is a small perennial stream flowing through a deep, narrow valley entrenched in a wide stony basic between the high benches. South of the Canadian line the supply canal of the Milk River Irrigation Project enters it and during the summer months its volume is greatly increased.

The South Fork of Milk River heads on Milk River Ridge east of Divide Mountain. It is a larger stream than the North Fork and also flows northeast, crossing the international line. The bottom of this stream above the mouth of the Middle Fork is a flat, wet meadow, but below it varies from poorly alkaline clays to sandy gravelly terraces. Toad, Fox, and Livermore creeks are small perennial streams, heading on St. Mary’s Divide and entering the stream from the west. The bottom of these streams are narrow and poorly drained. The intermittent streams entering the river from the south head within 2 to 5 miles of the river. A few of them have perennial springs along their courses.

The Middle Fork of Milk River neads on St. Mary’s Divide and flows east, and enters the South Fork. It is a small perennial stream, flowing through a flat swampy bottom one-fourth to one-half mile wide below the plateau. A narrow gravel-capped bench forms the divide between North and South Forks.

Several other branches of Milk River and its forks head in the northern Blackfeet Reservation and flow northeast into Canada. Willow Creek heads in Spider Lake, located in a gap east of St. Mary’s River, below the high bench. It flows through an open poorly drained valley, in which are located several small lakes. Red River rises in the northwestern reservation. It is an intermittent stream draining a drift-covered upland above a heavy basin along the branches of the stream.

Cut Bank Creek is one of the larger streams that heads on the continental divide in the west-central reservation and takes an easterly course until it turns sharply to the south, leaving the reservation near Cut Bank. It has eroded a valley 1,000 to 1,500 feet deep through the stony plateau, which rises above the stream as the Milk River and Cut Bank ridges.

The larger perennial steams entering Cut Bank Creek from the north in the central Blackfeet Reservation are Greasewood, Trail Cabelle, and Powell. These streams drain a rather sharply rolling area, characterized by gravel-capped hills and ridges east of the high benches and by sandstone riddges and buttes in the central part. Trail and Powell creeks are enclosed in narrow valleys, while Greasewood and Cabelle creeks have more open valleys. The bottoms of Greasewood and Cabelle creeks widen out locally to one-fourth to one-half mile. All streams have heavy alkaline bottoms. Little Rocky Coulee is a perennial stream except in very dry seasons. It heads on the eastern slopes of Red Buttes and flows southwest, entering Cut Bank Creek about 6 miles northwest of Cut Bank. Its bottom is heavy and alkaline along most of its course. Rocky Creek heads in the morainic ridges east of the South Fork of Milk River and flows south, entering Cut Bank Creek a few miles east of the mouth of Little Rocky Coulee. It is a small perennial stream enclosed in a deep sandstone canyon below the moraines. It drains a drift-covered area in the northeastern Blackfeet Reservation. One branch of this stream heads in the gap connecting the South Fork of Milk River with Rocky Creek. Snake Creek is an intermittent stream heading below the sandstone excarpment south of Hay Lake. It flows southwest and enters Cut Bank Creek north of Cut Bank. It drains a gently sloping outwash section below the sandstone escarpment and the stony moraines to the east.

(To be continued)

Contours of the Land

For the last few days I’ve been posting a section of the Harrison Fagg Browning-Blackfeet Comprehensive Planning report that was called “Background,” and mostly consisted of history. It was competently (if diplomatically) written but merely scratched the surface.

It’s useful to accumulate bibliographies of such writing, both so a person can explore more and so facts can be checked. This is the bibliography used by the anonymous writer of “Background.” It was not written in proper scholar’s form.

“The Story of the Blackfeet” by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
“Investigation of the B.I.A.” by the U.S. 82nd Congress.
“Blackfeet Withdrawal” from a U.S. Congressional Hearing.
“Annual Reports of Blackfeet Agents” by the U.S. Dept. of the Interior.
“The Story of the Blackfeet” by John Ewers, Smithsonian Institute.
“Blackfeet Crafts” by John Ewers, Smithsonian Institute.
“From Wilderness to Statehood” by James McClellan Hamilton.
“Ledger of St. Peter’s Mission” by Father Francis Xavier Kuppens, S.J.
“The Frontier and Midland, XII. No. 3” by Albert J. Partoll.
“Blackfoot Lodge Tales” by George Grinnell.
“The Old North Trail” by Walter McClintock.
“Material Culture of the Blackfeet Indians” by Clark Wissler
“The Social Life of the Blackfeet” by Clark Wissler.


This Harrison Fagg report goes on to discuss geology. The following is their line of organization and facts, with my notions interwoven.

1. The Blackfeet reservation “encompasses 1,525,621 acres.” That’s how many acres are within the formal boundaries set by treaty, but in fact much of the land doesn’t belong to any enrolled Blackfeet individual or to the tribe as a whole or to any business subsidiary of the tribe. Only recently a large chunk, until now owned by white lawyers in Cut Bank, was sold to a Hutterite colony. Much of the land belongs to the Farmers’ Home Administration because it was lost in default to a loan.

2. The reservation measures 52 miles at its longest (N>S) point and 58 miles at its widest (W>E). I’m fonding of remarking that his is roughly the size of the Serengeti wildlife refuge in Africa.

3. “From the timbered western boundary mountains, foothills and talus slopes [talus is the pile of rock that has fallen and slid off the side of the mountains], the rolling plains slope gently east and northeastward. The area includes some of the extreme eastern peaks of the Rockies, reaching to altitudes of over 9,000 feet. The slopes along the boundary are very abrupt, so that the average elevation a few miles inside the Reservation is approximately 4,500 feet. From this point, the topography consists, in general, of a rolling plain with a gentle slope toward the east and northeast, giving a minimum elevation of about 3,700 feet along Cut Bank Creek, on the Eastern boundary to a minimum of about 3,400 feet along the Milk River in the northeast. [Roughly the same altitude in Valier, just off the reservation to the SE.] Most of the reservation covers a transitional foothill area between the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains.” [Thus it is an ecotone -- the transition between two ecologies which mingle, making the area rich in varieties of life. Some classify it as “prairie parkland,” meaning that prairie trees and grasses are interrupted by trees more typical of the timbered higher foothills.]

4. “Buttes are not uncommon. Some of them include Horsethief, Landslide, Headlight, Chalk and Rimrock Buttes.” [Horsethief is not on my topo map, but “Horsethief Rd.” is shown branching off to the west of Meriwether Road about halfway between Highway 2 and the Canadian border. That would put it between Red Buttes and Rimrock Butte. Landslide Butte (el. 4685) is also up that way, but northeast of Buffalo Lake. Chalk Butte is a bit to the south. The Chalk Butte road ranches off just to the north of Buffalo Lake and goes east and a bit south to connect to a complex of section roads north of Cut Bank. Headlight Butte is off the reservation, just north of these section roads. Just west of Cut Bank are the Squaw Buttes -- which doubtless need a new name -- and south of them, almost to the Birch Creek Border is Flag Butte.}

5. Though they are not mentioned, ridges are as important, maybe more important, than buttes because they mark the limits of watersheds. The Continental Divide is, of course, the biggest ridge, followed by the Hudson Bay Divide on the north side of which water drains to (natch) Hudson’s Bay. Milk River Ridge and Cut Bank Ridge come off the Hudson Bay Divide, as those who keep their eyes open will see when they drive from Browning to St. Mary. In the southeast corner of the reservation is Buffalo Ridge, made even more impressive because Two Medicine River runs close to it. This Ridge is full of oil wells and probably is named for another earlier oil strike in Minnesota.

6. Long broad flat areas good for raising grain are called “flats” and two of the most important are Birch Creek Flats, on the way off the reservation to Valier, and Seville Flats near Cut Bank on the way to Browning. These areas may be hot in summer and bitter in winter, but they respond to cultivation -- at least in wet years.

If one decided to explore, it would be necessary to cope with gravel roads which abruptly convert to gumbo when wet. “Gumbo” or caleche or bentonite -- which originates in volcanic ash and is commercially valuable in proper quantity and quality -- is one of the slickest surfaces possible and sticky besides. The great stone blocks of the pyramids were moved by slathering wet gumbo ahead of them which so reduced friction that a line of men could move a huge stone. If it rains and one is on gumbo, best to just wait.

If exploring back roads, before taking off check for:
1. A book to read while you wait. (Might be a guide to plants, animals, clouds or geology.)
2. Drinking water, esp. in summer. You may be there a while.
3. Flashlight in case it gets REALLY late.
4. Spare tire.
5. Make sure the gas tank is full.
6. Bug repellant.
7. Sunscreen.
8. Broad-brimmed hat.
9. Small backpack or fanny pack for collecting on side trips.
OPTIONAL;
10. Camera.
11. GPS
12. Curley Bear Wagner, who will take you all over the rez to see historical spots and maybe feed you an authentic lunch. Check the phone book or inquire at the Blackfeet Heritage Center in Browning or maybe at the Blackfeet Community Center. DeRosier’s Sun Tours are also excellent and go into Glacier Park.

Browning Blackfeet Comprehensive Plan

“On December 1, 1919, Browning became incorporated and now had all the firepower it and its citizens needed to do battle with Cut Bank for the County seat. Browning had the advantage of being near the center of the county and was the site of the Blackfeet agency, whose reservation covered all but a small portion of the county. Cut Bank, on the other hand, was the oldest incorporated town in the county and was the tax paying center.

“Some skull-duggery was evident in both sides of the campaign with spies from either side infiltrating the ranks of the opposition. J. H. Sherburne led the Browning campaign and Frank Van Denmark headed the Cut Bank forces.

“The election was held at the Charles Chattin ranch with the Browning Band there to help brighten up the occasion. Cut Bank supporters were more than just a little apprehensive about the outcome of the election. The few Blackfeet who had their land patents at the time cast their vote for Browning even though the majority of the Indians couldn’t vote. If they could have, the county seat would almost certainly be in Browning today.

"Despite the election crowd of over two hundred people at any given time, the Chattin ranch house was large enough to handle it. Located some five miles west of Cut Bank on the reservation, the huge log house had a 35’ X 60’ living room in which dancing went on through the night and into the next morning while the votes were counted. The party as over when the judges announced that Browning, despite their battle, had lost the race by 530 votes.

“Although the area farmers suffered more drought periods during the 1920’s and 1930’s, most of them adopted good farming procedures despite the advice of the Great Northern Railroad’s farm “expert” in the person of Professor Shaw. A lot of farmers had laughed at a fellow homesteader back in the late teens and early twenties as he planted his crops with alternating strips of summer fallow; he was called a ‘skunk-farmer.’ But many of those who survived became ‘skunk-farmers’, too. Those who didn’t left their fenceposts and blowing top soil as a mute testimony to Professor Shaw and his advice.

“The Indian Reorganization Act was passed by Congress in 1934 and provided for re-vesting the landless Indians with land for subsistence and for instituting conservation practices on timber, grass, soil and water resources. In additon, the Indians gained a provision for advanced schooling, adequate credit programs, and the right to organize a Tribal Government, which has been instituted in the Tribal Business Council compose of nine elected members.

“With the re-establishment of tribal powers in 1935, the Blackfeet have made slow but steady progress towards becoming the proud and industrious people they were prior to the arrival of the whites. Recent years have seen the educational level of the tribe steadily increase to rank as the highest among Montana Indians. New jobs and retraining programs have substantially decreased the number of unemployed and those on public assistance.

“A great many jobs for both white and Indian people has been provided by the production of crude oil and natural gas since discovery of Swift Current in 1904 and the first producing well in 1929. The oil industry has paid out royalties to many local residents and has provided a primary source of tax income, as well as being important to supply and service organizations and merchants.

“The Cut Bank oil field, on the eastern reservation edge, remains one of the Montana’s largest producers, second only to the recently discovered Bell Creek Field. This still producing field has pumped over 120,000,000,000,000 barrels of oil, while the gas wells are still capable of producing over 30,000,000,000,000 cubic feet every day.

“New explorations are currently underway in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains on the western slope of the reservation where lands are leased from the Canadian border to Lewis and Clark County. Recent discoveries just north of the Canadian line in Alberta continue and indications are that a new field is likely in the recesses of Marias Pass near East Glacier. [We know this today as Badger/Two Medicine.] Additional untapped mineral reserves lie on the reservation in the form of high quality bituminous coal, titaniferous magnetite, and extensive clay and gravel deposits of commercial quality.”
_____________
This whole section above is very carefully worded and massaged so as not to offend anyone who’s paying for the study.

First of all, this information about oil is 35 years old now. In the intervening time period, most of the oil has been removed that can be pumped out by conventional means. There are new technologies but they are often controversial and run risks of producing salty and mineral-laden water where it’s not wanted or sometimes can contaminate water tables for long distances. Even in 1970, this was clearly on the horizon.

The section is accompanied by a photo from the Historical Society of a number of old-time Indians on the Old Agency by Badger Creek in 1888. There is no photo of a modern blue collar OR white collar competent-seeming Blackfeet, though they certainly existed in 1970. Without saying a word, the writers manage to give the reader the impression that Blackfeet wear blankets and long hair -- even breechclouts -- so what can be wrong with a fancy planning outfit advising them? They can’t figure things out themselves.

The strategy of the writer often seems to be to stir up animosity against the Great Northern Railroad or Anaconda Copper in order to unite the reservation Blackfeet and Glacier County whites in resentment.

The tension among federal/county/tribal entities continues. The county (actually parts of the reservation extend into Pondera county as well) are very good at pushing off their expenses onto the tribe or federal agencies: law and order, schools, welfare, family law, roads -- it seems as though every small issue has to be fought and argued through since the beginning.

This writing is just a bit early for the wave of ecological consciousness that swept over the West and often united with the Native American Empowerment movement to break up sweet little deals like the Badger/Two Medicine drilling project. These movements have changed everything and pointed out that not all technology is an improvement -- some of it leaves permanent damage. Even more ironic, it may not provide much profit for those who need it most.

The Browning Blackfeet Comprehensive Plan (3)

“As the financial and agricultural fields were experiencing difficulties, so was the government. Montana originally had only the nine counties of Beaverhead, Big Horn, Choteau, Deer Lodge, Edgerton, Gallatin, Jefferson, Madison and Missoula. The 1893 Legislative Assembly split Choteau County and made a portion of it into Teton County. Even with the creation of Teton County, with the county seat at Choteau, things were still not convenient. When people from Browning wished to transact business at the county seat, or when they were called to jury duty or had their day in court, they had to travel to Choteau. Whether they journeyed by stage coach, buggy, train, or even automobile, the trip was an unpleasant one. Summer travel was hot and dry and winter travel was in snow and bitter winds. No matter what method of travel was chosen or what the financial status of the individual was, the trip was expensive.

“One of the main expenses of Teton County during the homesteader days was to purchase seed grain for those who could not afford it due to drought, cut worms and other misfortunes. In 1918 Teton County spent $75,000.00 for this purpose. In 1919, when this expenditure was needed even more, the budget was cut to $45,000.00

“In this atmosphere it wasn’t long before the move in the Browning/Cut Bank area was to ‘bust.’ For that matter, this move wasn’t just located in Teton County -- disgruntled citizens could be found throughout Montana. All they needed was some leadership to show them the way; this appeared in the form of Dan McKay of Glasgow.

“McKay was dissatisfied that the political power of the state centered in Butte and Anaconda. He figured the best way to break the political hold of “Copper Kings” Marcus Daley and William A. Clarke was to split the counties and thus elect more senators and representatives who would hopefully be opposed to Anaconda Copper and Standard Oil. By becoming involved in the political maneuvers in each of the counties and by playing one hand against the other, he was eventually responsible for the creation of twenty new Montana counties. This was a far cry from his original goal of splitting the state into 300 pieces, but it was a great accomplishment.

“In order for a new county to become a reality it was necessary for fifty-one percent of the residents of the proposed county to petition the county commissioners to call a special election. The new county had to gain a minimum of sixty-five per cent affirmative votes cast in the proposed area. A positive vote would send the issue to the legislature for approval.

“The hour of decision for the proposed Glacier County came in 1919. By this time many of the homesteaders had gone broke and abandoned their farms and were scattered from ‘hell to breakfast.’ A slush fund to pay travel for thse who had taken off for better parts was established and many citizens came from as far as the East Coast to cast their vote.

“In February, 1919, the Montana State Senate passed the Glacier County bill by a vote of 25 to 15, a margin of ten votes. The Glacier County bill was placed on the Governor’s desk for approval along with the bills for the counties of Garfield, McCone, Pondera, Powder River, Roosevelt and Treasure. It was rumored that Governor Stevens was opposed to the new counties and had refused to sign his approval. By midnight of the fifth day the Governor had neither approved nor vetoed the bills and they became law.

“With the creation of Glacier County it was time to do battle over the site of the county seat and both Cut Bank and Browning wanted the distinction.

“By this time Browning had come a long way and was growing in population and business every day. In 1912 the Orpheum Theater was built. It burned down and was replaced by another theater with the same name. This was abandoned a few years later for a modern modern facility, the Park Theater. A second theater was opened in 1919 where vaudeville shows were held twice a week until it burned down.

“Silent films were the order of the day and they occasionally had a fiddler, piano player or small orchestra to accompany the dialogue on the screen. Two bits was the entrance fee for adults and a dime for children to see big name stars like Bill Hart, Theda Bara, Cowboy Bill, and later Abbott and Costello. Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, and Z.Z. Pitts. Cowboy and Indian pictures always drew a crowd in Browning if for not other reason than that the real cowboys and Indians who watched them found a great source of entertainment in finding out ‘how it really was’ Hollywood style.

“Moving pictures weren’t the only education the children of Browning received. A school for the Blackfeet had been established at the Willow Creek or Cut Bank Boarding School in 1892. From here the Indian children could go on to ‘colleges’ at Carlisle in Pennsylvania, Haskelll in Kansas, Riverside in California, Chimauwa in Oregon or at Fort Shaw. Most of these ‘colleges’ were, in fact, trade schools and in many ways were harmful to the Indian children. The attending students were removed from their parents and placed in a strict, unnatural white surrounding where nothing of their own culture was taught. However, many of those who attended thought they were good schools.

"The first school for white children was conducted in an upstairs room of banker J.H. Sherburne’s home with subjects being taught by his nephew. The classes were composed of the Sherburne children, children of some of the government employees and some Indian children. The upstairs classroom was utilized until the formal school facilities were completed."

(to be continued)

Browning Blackfeet Comprehensive Plan (2)

(continued 2)

“When spring arrived the homesteaders began to break the sod and almost universally made a fatal mistake in the semiarid land. The Spalding Deep Tiller used by many could plow 18” deep in the ground. Most homesteaders plowed as deep as they could and thus destroyed the sub-moisure pack where the seed bed lay. The plowing was back-breaking labor even with the often used horse-drawn plow. Shear after shear waas broken in the rocky terrain during the turning of the sod. Repairs required the services of a blacksmith as there were no welding operations in those days.

“Even with the setbacks, more homesteaders arrived each year. Many were induced to make the trip by special incentives offered by the Great Northern Railroad. One plan offered the prospective homesteaders a one-way ticket to any point on the railroad at a special reduced rate. However, the special rate wasn’t available for those who decided they wanted to return. A second incentive plan allowed a man to load his machinery, household goods, family and stock into one car and be shipped to a point on the Great Northern route as a special immigrant car rate.

“These promotions were well received and Northern Montana and the Browning area mushroomed in population. New homesteads were planned to be as diversified and self-sufficient as possible. Despite this planning, most dirt farmers found it necessary to work part-time on the railroad or on threshing crews even during the first few years when there was adequate moisture and the crops were good. The makers of the Homestead Acts had imagined that the 100 or 320 acres would provide as good a living in the West and Mid-West as they had in the East. What they failed to account for was the much reduced annual rainfall that resulted in northern plains crops of such low yield that they generally were not sufficient to support a family.

“Most of the newcomers were not rich men; they only had a thirst for success. Crops were going well in the early part of the homesteader era and farming looked like a good investment. Banks began to spring up in almost every town along the ‘high-line.’ Browning was no exception as J. H. Sherburne started the First National Bank of Browning in 1917. With the reservation thrown open to settlement, money was loose and the homesteaders borrowed heavily to purchase more land and machinery. With their land as the collateral, very few homesteaders were turned away from the banks. Even in the early stages of this era, farmers could borrow up to $10.00 per acre at 10 to 12 percent interest. A lot of money went out to the farmers but very little money came back to the banks.

“Relinquishment advertisements began as early as 1914, but it wasn’t until 1917, when the precipitation dropped to only 10”, that the trouble really started. The following year the moisture dropped to 8” and the next year the moisture was down to 7”. In many cases those crops that grew, despite the minimal rainfall, were hailed out. Then, to top off the other misfortunes the black [Spanish] flu swept the country in 1918 and thousands of Montanans were struck down. The Browning area was hit hard and many died due to the lack of antibiotics. Neighboring districts of Hay Lake, Headlight Butte, Cut Bank, Long Lake and others fared no better than Browning.”

[See Wallace Stegner’s “Wolf Willow” or “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” for accounts of this period. Stegner grew up along the High-Line. His father was hard-pressed enough to turn to boot-legging, but both Stegner’s parents survived the flu. A contrasting story might be the history of the Thronsons, a white family who starved out of homesteading and moved to Babb where they operated a store and tourist cabins -- still there.]

“During the good years many homesteaders had mortgaged heavily in order to purchase more land and equipment. With the arrival of the drought, the only alternative for many was to declare bankruptcy and pull out. After cut-worms ruined the crops in 1920-21 even more were convinced that there had to be a better place. They turned their horses and equipment over to the banks and departed to try their luck elsewhere.

“Few banks could survive under those conditions and those of the Montana ‘high-line’ were no exception. The crash began in 1920 with the First National Bank of Cut Bank the first to close its doors. During the summer of 1921 the Farmers State Bank of Cut Bank was forced to close because the First Security National withdrew support from all its country banks. A second factor in the closing of this establishment was that the Farmer’s State made several unsuccessful attempts to re-open. The Glacier County State Bank opened in the Farmers State building in 1922. About three months after opening their doors, the bankers received the Great Northern payroll, close their doors and left for California. This financial experience made it difficult to borrow more than $30.00 in the entire area.

“Cut Bank wasn’t the only community experiencing this financial disaster as the banks in Shelby and Sweetgrass also closed their doors. For some time the First National Bank of Browning was the only financial institution in operation. Several bankers from throughout the state looked over the situation and considered opening new facilities but none were immediately established.

“It was during this period that many Indians had been pressing the government for the right to patent their land. In 1918 their wish was granted and those who obtained trust patents could now trade their land to another Indian on the reservation or he could sell it to anyone if he obtained a fee patent.

In 1919 the government realized that the acreage allotted the Indians was not enough to sustain them so an additional 80 acres of farm land was given to each Indian. Much of the new allotments were in choice locations and, as a result, some Indians had patents forced on them so they would have to sell their land. In any case, most of them didn’t understand what the patent process was and they sold their property for unbelievably low prices. It wasn’t unusual for a man to trade his acreage for one horse.

(to be continued)