PIVOT POINTS FOR THOUGHT ABOUT THE BLACKFEET

These are meant to be reminders, not facts.  Thoughts may added over time.  Please feel welcome to contribute thoughts.  I'd like this post to be a bit more dynamic than usual, possibly a good basis for classes or books or at least papers.

 BOUNDARIES FOR THE RESERVATION

1. There can be no boundary but the ecology for the original Blackfeet -- that is the boundary was enforced by economics: what there was to eat.
2.   Original boundaries were changed and changed again, so they weren’t real boundaries, only convenient temporary boundaries for off-rez people.
3.   Boundaries actually became “border states” -- that is the land on either side of the Medicine Line (49th parallel) exploited the line.  
4. Gerrymandered boundaries were Dawes Act among “owners”, the “mineral strip” where the oil was, conveniently shifted to the Cut Bank side.  The “Ceded Strip” which eventually became the Badger-Two Med wilderness that cooperating forces want to save from exploitation.
5.   Historical:  the habitual locations of bands, Campbell’s granges, river valleys that become settled enough to feel like communities.
6. At least two unacknowledged sociological splits, one between the north and south rez and one between the resort towns and the strictly Indian towns.  Maybe one between stockmen in the foothills and grain farms on the flats.  
7.   In the Sixties the incorporated town of Browning was considered an island of jurisdiction with the rez, like an embassy but for the State of Montana.

MEMBERSHIP

1. The history of enrollment lists: who made them for what reason and how were they preserved.
2. “Blood quantum” and what it really means:  genome or pedigree (descent)
3.   Cultural divisions (originally white v. indigenous)
4.   What is the meaning of an Asian basic genome?  Are there local, tribal, epigenomes? (meaning environmental forces turning genes on and off)
5.   Some tribes have gone to residence as a requirement for tribal membership.
6.   Impact of the differences between enrolled and unenrolled and “enrollable” but not registered?  Money, access to services, entities that “help Indians.”
7. Self-defining of tribes by tribal members

DEMOGRAPHICS

A.  The four confederated tribes on the South Piegan US side (Including Scabby Robes)

B.  Gros Ventre

C.  Metis/Cree Chippewa

D.  Fur traders their tribal wives  (Including Iroquois and Hawaiians)

E.  Military

F.  Mercantile  (including whiskey and commodities)

G.  Mexican

H.  White government vs. white entrepreneurs
I.  Romantics: white American, European, blacks

EDUCATION

1. Gender-assignment both in indigenous and white classes and subjects.
2. Government schools on the rez, possibly residential
3. Government schools off the rez.
4. Carlisle’s impact on the Blackfeet
5. American Indian Art Institute’s impact on the Blackfeet
6. The one-room school houses of the early days
7.   The Heart Butte school
8.   The Free School 
9.   The Catholic school
10.   Blackfeet Community College
11.   Winold Reiss’ summer art school at St. Marys

COMMERCE

1. Fur-trade vs. bison meat and robes
2. Handling of commodities
3. Whiskey trade
4.   Licensed Indian Traders
5.   Entertainment: show house, bowling alley, Glacier Studio, video, radio
6.   Banking: the “Indian” bank
7.   Mercantile, lumberyard, grocery businesses
8.   Infrastructure coops: electricity, telephone
9.   Passage: highways, RR, transmission lines
10.   Natural resources:  mineral (oil and coal), forest, water
11.   Specifically cultural:  rodeo, pow-wow, casino, churches

GOVERNING 

1. Tribal Council
2.   Blackfeet Environmental Office:  Solid/Hazardous Waste,Underground Storage Tank Program, Air quality, Water quality, Wetlands, Brown fields, Non-point source.  General Assistance Program
3.   Law enforcement:  Federal, International border matters including Homeland Security, Immigration, CIA, and others.
4.   Tribal court system: judges, lawyers, interaction with tribe
5.   History of the Browning standalone law enforcement years: City Magistrate and officers.  Relation to Justices of the Peace, jail, and how began and ended.

ANIMALS

A.  BISON

B.  Horses, horse racing, first horses, rodeo, working horses, the genetic impact of cavalry and railroad horses, mules

C.  Sheep: first domesticated "crop."  Why no goats?

D.  Chickens and other poultry  vs. "prairie chickens"

E.  Hawks and owls

F.  Burrowers

G.  Game animals: deer, moose, elk, mountain goat, mountain sheep

H.  Predators:  bears, mountain lion, bobcat/lynx, wolverine

I.  Fur bearers:  mink, beaver, fisher, sable?, muskrat

J.  As meaning markers for religious ceremonies 

K.  Waterfowl, esp. migrators

ARTIFACTS

A.  Definitions needed.
B.  Sacred objects
C.  Antique objects
D.  Objects with trade inclusions from more recent times, like bucksin parade suits
E.  Who is a qualified expert?  A scientist, a collector, a maker, an enrolled person?
F.  What is the status of replicas?
G.  What is a museum and what is a shop?  Auctions?

CEREMONIES

1. Stick game
2. Horn Society
3. “Indian Days”
4. Pipe bundles
5. Sun Lodge

LANGUAGE

1. Understanding that language through its grammar and vocabulary assumes a specific worldview and understanding Siksika assumptions.
2. Spoken language compared to written language.
1. Stories only told under certain circumstances.
2. Variations and versions
3. Gender-assigned variations
4. Local drift.
5. Shifts in world view caused from going from oral to written.
3. Relearning a language that is not in writing.
4. English as a second language
5. Political implications: names on maps, heritage, reinforcement of enrollment.
6. Using Latin as a curtain
7.   Sign talk
8.   Joking
9.   Hands as puppets
10. Specific linguists:  Frantz, Uhlenbeck

BOOKS

1. Early records  (Caitlin, Hudson’s Bay factors)
2. Lewis and Clark
3. As told to
4. Archeological: early writing on stone
5. Anthropological
6. “NA renaissance” fiction
7. Film:  kitsch, serious, and anthropological
8. History:  primary
9. Memoir and experience
10. Myths and legends
11.  Informants  (Duval, ...