In earlier days several writers like Grinnell, Schultz, Linderman, wrote about the US side Blackfeet in a semi-popular way, not quite rigorously anthropological as Ewers, the two Kehoes, Macfie, and others. On the Canada side there have been white people married to Blackfoot people, like Hungry Wolf, Dempsey, but also an effort to enlist the indigenous leaders in books by and for each other. Some whites writing about Indians are not worth reading, like Lancaster and a gay poet I won’t name who taught in Heart Butte or Renshaw, who only wrote abut cowboys anyway. Paul Rosier went to original manuscripts to compose a history of rez self-governance of great value. William Farr composed a photo album that shows you the early days.
Otherwise, the bulk of writing has been done by James Welch, who was of mixed ancestry but enrolled with the Blackfeet because his father was. Percy Bullchild is notable. Many of the enrolled people channeled their info through white people, noted as “informants”. Kari Lynn Dell, who is Blackfeet, is the most modern of Blackfeet writers but is writing as "romance" and rodeo rather than a privileged demographic. Her readers are international.
Some of these books are mercifully unknown, but none seem to be aware that the Blackfeet are not the only indigenous people on the rez -- the long relationship with Metis/Cree is largely unknown -- or that like any other demographic there is change over time. In 1903 when my father-in-law, T.E. Scriver, and the original Sherburne came to Browning the People had suffered a series of barely survived deprivations and impoverishments. The reservation kept shrinking and missionaries claimed authority while the white ranchers claimed the grass and the railroad claimed the land. Photos of the time show the town square and the government square just across Willow Creek from each other. The government square, laid out to be a cavalry parade ground, was finished in 1895 with 22 wooden frame buildings. The agent at the time was George Steell, the man whose Blackfeet wife had been allotted the land where Swift Dam was built. This dam, later a killer, was the origin of the irrigation system that still sustains the small white village of Valier.
Writers rarely consider what was happening in the rest of the country or in Europe. For instance, the locust infestation that invaded the midwest meant that commodities meant for the Blackfeet were intercepted for the “citizens” there. Hunger was always the biggest challenge to survival. It still is.
Each war brought its own influx of new people. Not much has been written about the aftermath of WWI except that many tribal people saw it as a chance to be warriors. Pics of the time show signs of assimilation. After WWII there was a wave of veterans looking to start businesses and when I came in 1961, they were the core of the white town. Bob and his brother were veterans. The Korean War was the one DRK used to talk about because he served there. Then was the Vietnam War and the great wave of rebellion, rethinking, redeeming that resulted in clearing whites off the rez because the government employees were now asked to be enrolled.
I came just before that, about the time JFK and LBJ addressed the housing problem by building housing projects, which changed the limits and boundaries of the town. Browning had always been an “island” inside the reservation that was claimed by the state. This was buttressed by the town’s own police system that was started by white businessmen after WWII when so many veterans came back traumatized, addicted, bereft of family, and inclined to violence. Bob Scriver was police magistrate and justice of the peace. The FBI took over, and then was forced to in turn to relinquish some of their system to the tribe. Often the same guys were cops in each system. Most of the problems developed in the court system, which had an uncertain relationship with the white courts off the rez and at first did not accommodate the separation of powers the whole nation is now losing.
Then agreements were made with the county sheriffs and after that the FBI withdrew to Denver. When AIM grew powerful and it was rumored that Blackfeet were the killers at Wounded Knee, I was terrified that I’d know who they were as my former students. But we never found out.
This is a big rez, 50 miles on a side, and divided partly by drainages of the rivers, partly by north/south, partly by tourist visits, and in layers according to generations, education, prosperity, and in more recent years the level of education, which can go all the way to post-grad and includes lawyers, videographers, wildlife specialists, most of the rez teachers, and the faculty and staff of the Blackfeet Tribal College. One pocket of people will be nearly 19th century and another mini-settlement reaches into the future. It's too complex for journalists and outsiders in general.
At any point along this time-line, one could write a different story. I tried to write generational stories in steps and called it “12 Blackfeet Stories.” It was not published and can usually be found online or in local libraries. I wrote another about teaching in Heart Butte, called it “Heartbreak Butte” and ended up simply posting it as a blog. They're meant to be examples for local writing.
Outsiders are often convinced that there is secret knowledge among the People, something magic and powerful. Some of the People know that as well, but they aren’t about to tell some white journalist they met in a bar. Another continuum exists between white Romantics and Order-makers who don’t believe anything they don’t already know. Always abiding on the rez are ranching and art, worlds of their own.
When I became aware of Sid Gustafson and to review his books on my blog, his father “Rib” came up to Valier and invited me to lunch to be interviewed to see what I was like at this point. He had sort of known me in the Sixties when he was our veterinarian. We had a good time; I probably knew Rib better than I know Sid now. We’ve never shared a lunch or even a coffee. We met face to face once at the Montana Festival of the Book, a merchandizing event "selling authors". I may have met his sibs since they live around here, but I couldn’t recognize them. Sid and I watch each other’s work, we know the same people and places. Sid is more romantic about it all than I am, but he was a boy when I was already grown and early impressions stick. I’ve never based a story character on him. We should do a little 2-person seminar sometime, how to write about what you love, this so-called rez. We have no reservations about it.
This is one of the best online intros to the Blackfeet rez, written by a “real Indian.” Enrolled, at least. Journalism is a good entry point for indigenous.
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