Misplaced Pages

#342657

44-673: The Blackfeet Nation ( Blackfoot : Aamsskáápipikani , Pikuni ), officially named the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana , is a federally recognized tribe of Siksikaitsitapi people with an Indian reservation in Montana . Tribal members primarily belong to the Piegan Blackfeet (Ampskapi Piikani) band of the larger Blackfoot Confederacy that spans Canada and

88-602: A flexible word order . The Blackfoot language has experienced a substantial decrease in speakers since the 1960s and is classified as "definitely endangered" by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. In Canada, this loss has been attributed largely to residential schools , where Indigenous students were often punished severely for speaking their first languages. Widespread language loss can also be attributed to

132-529: A formidable example of the classic Plains Indian culture . They were a powerful force, controlling an area that extended from current day Edmonton , Alberta Province, nearly to Yellowstone National Park , and from Glacier Park to the Black Hills of South Dakota . The Badger-Two Medicine area is a significant sacred site for the tribe. In the late 19th century, Blackfeet territory was encroached on by European Americans and Canadians, and various branches of

176-469: A narrow strip along the western edge is covered by forests of fir and spruce . Free-ranging cattle are present in several areas, sometimes including on roadways. Several waterways drain the area with the largest being the St. Mary River , Two Medicine River , Milk River , Birch Creek and Cut Bank Creek . There are 175 miles (282 km) of streams and eight major lakes on the reservation. The reservation

220-418: A population of 10,405 living on the reservation lands. The population density is 3.47 people per square mile (1.34 people/km). The Blackfeet Nation has 16,500 enrolled members. The main community is Browning, Montana , which is the seat of tribal government. Other towns serve the tourist economy along the edge of the park: St. Mary and East Glacier Park Village , which has an Amtrak passenger station and

264-598: A significant tourist industry. Other economic activities include ranching and a small lumber industry , which supported the Blackfeet Indian Writing Company pencil factory in Browning. Farms located at least partially on the reservation reported a total income of $ 9 million in 2002. A total of 354 farms covered 1,291,180 acres (522,520 ha), the majority of the reservation's land. Most of these farms or ranches were family-owned, including

308-628: A smaller amount of oats . Members of the tribe work seasonally in wildfire firefighting, a source of considerable individual income. In 2000, some 1,000 Blackfeet worked as firefighters, including the elite Chief Mountain Hotshots team, and brought in $ 6.1 million; other yearly incomes varied according to the severity of the wildfire season. On April 30, 2010, the Blackfeet Tribal Business Council (BTBC) approved three major initiatives totaling $ 5.5 million. The revenue

352-482: A vowel system with three monophthongs , /i o a/ . The short monophthongs exhibit allophonic changes as well. The vowels /a/ and /o/ are raised to [ʌ] and [ʊ] respectively when followed by a long consonant. The vowel /i/ becomes [ɪ] in closed syllables. There are three additional diphthongs in Blackfoot. The first diphthong ai is pronounced [ɛ] before a long consonant, [ei] (or [ai] , in

396-591: A waiver permitting purchase by non-Native parties. There are no paved north–south roads in Glacier National Park . Access to sites on the east side of the park is provided by U.S. Route 89 , which runs through the reservation to the Canada–US border, crossing near Chief Mountain . It provides access to the Canadian sister national park, Waterton Lakes . Both east–west routes for the park travel through

440-603: Is "covered by the Treaty of 1896, which gives Blackfeet tribal members the right to hunt and fish in any portion of the area in accordance with state law and cut wood for domestic use. Blackfeet treaty claims as well as spiritual and cultural uses of the Badger-Two Medicine are pre-existing rights. In 2002, the Department of Interior declared roughly two-thirds — almost 90,000 acres (36,000 ha) — of

484-479: Is Canada’s largest irrigation district delivering water through 2,060 kilometres (1,280 mi) of canals and pipelines to approximately 1,505 square kilometres (372,000 acres) of land south of the Oldman and South Saskatchewan Rivers between Lethbridge and Medicine Hat . The irrigation project was started in 1898, and on September 4, 1900, the first water was brought to Lethbridge by the project. In December 1945

SECTION 10

#1732771788343

528-794: Is a cross-border tributary of the Oldman River , itself a tributary of the South Saskatchewan River . The Saint Mary together with the Belly River and Waterton River drains a small portion of Montana , in the United States, to the Hudson Bay watershed in Canada. The river rises as a stream on Gunsight Mountain in Glacier National Park and flows into Gunsight Lake, then flows into Saint Mary Lake , exits

572-645: Is a limited sample of phonological rules. Glides are deleted after another consonant, except a glottal stop, or word initially but kept in other conditions. poos-wa cat- AN . SG poos-wa cat-AN.SG póósa / ᑲᓭ póósa / ᑲᓭ 'cat' óóhkotok-yi stone- INAN . SG óóhkotok-yi stone-INAN.SG óóhkotoki / ᖲᑊᖾᒪᖽ óóhkotoki / ᖲᑊᖾᒪᖽ 'stone' w-ókoʼsi 3 . SG . POSS -child w-ókoʼsi 3.SG.POSS-child ókoʼsi / ᖲᖾᓱ ókoʼsi / ᖲᖾᓱ 'his/her child' St. Mary River (Alberta%E2%80%93Montana) The Saint Mary River ( Blackfoot : Apahktóksipisskan ),

616-578: Is an alternate name for the Blackfoot tribe. The exact translation is 'black foot' in French. Other Siksikáíʼpowahsin ( syllabics : ᓱᘁᓱᘁᖳᐟᑲᖷᑊᓱᐡ) and Niitsipowahsin (ᖹᐨᓱᑲᖷᑊᓱᐡ) are two other language variations for Blackfoot. Blackfoot is a member of the Algonquian language family belonging to the Plains areal grouping along with Arapaho , Gros Ventre , and Cheyenne . Blackfoot

660-762: Is east of the Lewis and Clark National Forest in Montana, which contains the Badger-Two Medicine area, sacred to the Blackfeet people. The Badger-Two Medicine area is at the Rocky Mountain Front of the national forest. The Blackfeet call the Rocky Mountains the "Backbone of the World". Their names for peaks include Morning Star, Poia, Little Plume, Running Crane, Spotted Eagle, Kiyo, Scarface, Elkcalf Bullshoe, and Curly Bear. The 2010 census reported

704-637: Is spoken in Northwestern Montana and throughout Alberta, Canada, making it geographically one of the westernmost Algonquian languages. The Blackfoot people had been one of many Native American nations that inhabited the Great Plains west of the Mississippi River . The people were bison hunters , with settlements in what is now the northern United States and southern Canada. Forced to move because of wars with neighboring tribes,

748-418: Is taxable and may be privately owned by the tribe, tribe members or non-tribe members. The tribe leases some of its communal land for homes, farms, grazing, and commercial uses. They offer leases to tribe members prior to non-members. The tribe has the right of first refusal ; all private land offered for sale within the reservation must be offered to the tribe first. If they decline to purchase it, they grant

792-489: Is used relative to the contiguous syllables. Blackfoot utterances experience a gradual drop in pitch therefore if an utterance contains a set of accented vowels the first will be higher in pitch than the second but the second will be higher in pitch than the syllables directly surrounding it. Pitch is illustrated in the Latin-based orthography with an acute accent. Blackfoot is rich with morpho-phonological changes. Below

836-487: The Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex was designated in 1964, but a "human landscape" shaped by and integral to their culture. Elevations in the reservation range from a low of 3,400 feet (1,000 m) to a high of 9,066 feet (2,763 m) at Chief Mountain . Adjacent mountains include Ninaki Mountain and Papoose. The eastern part of the reservation is mostly open hills of grassland , while

880-557: The Sixties Scoop , through which thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their families, often without parental consent, and relocated by the government into non-Indigenous families. As a result of these losses, the Blackfoot community has launched numerous language revitalization efforts, include the Piikani Traditional Knowledge Services and many more. Pied Noir Pied-Noir

924-457: The 198 farms owned by Native Americans. Eighty percent of the land was used for raising beef cattle , which produced eighty percent of farm income. Other livestock included hogs , and chickens , with only small numbers of dairy cattle , bison , horses , and sheep . Of the 245,530 acres (99,360 ha) used for growing crops, only 32,158 acres (13,014 ha), or 13%, were irrigated . Crops raised included wheat , barley , and hay with

SECTION 20

#1732771788343

968-506: The 1990s, and in 2007 the Bush administration made permanent a moratorium on issuing new permits. Many leaseholders had already relinquished their leases, and in November 2016 the Department of Interior announced the cancellation of the 15 drilling rights leases held by Devon Energy Corporation in the Badger-Two Medicine area. The Blackfeet had documented that the area was not a "wilderness," as

1012-489: The Badger-Two Medicine area along the Rocky Mountain Front as eligible for listing as a Traditional Cultural District in the National Register of Historic Places . This was a recognition of its importance to the Blackfeet. They used an ethnographer to document their oral history of use and practices, and in 2014 used this information to negotiate with stakeholders over leases for drilling rights that had been made in

1056-456: The Blackfoot people settled all around the plains area, eventually concentrating in what is now Montana and Alberta. Blackfoot hunters would track and hunt game, while the remaining people would gather food, and other necessities for the winter. The northern plains, where the Blackfoot settled, had incredibly harsh winters, and the flat land provided little escape from the winds. The Blackfoot Nation thrived, along with many other native groups, until

1100-578: The European settlers arrived in the late eighteenth century. The settlers brought with them horses and technology, but also disease and weapons. Diseases like smallpox, foreign to the natives, decimated the Blackfoot population in the mid-nineteenth century. Groups of Blackfoot people rebelled against the Europeans, such as Mountain Chief 's tribe. But in 1870, a tribe of peaceful Blackfoot were mistaken for

1144-510: The United States. The Blackfeet Indian Reservation is located east of Glacier National Park and borders the Canadian province of Alberta . Cut Bank Creek and Birch Creek form part of its eastern and southern borders. The reservation contains 3,000 square miles (7,800 km), twice the size of the national park and larger than the state of Delaware . It is located in parts of Glacier and Pondera counties. The Blackfeet settled in

1188-669: The area. The nation celebrates North American Indian Days, an annual festival held on pow wow grounds, near the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning. Adjacent to the reservation's eastern edge is the city of Cut Bank . Because of its isolated location, residents of the reservation have suffered high unemployment. As of May 2016, the Montana Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) Program Preliminary Non-Seasonally Adjusted Data reports

1232-415: The council. Old Person was also the honorary chief of the tribe. It provides most services, including courts, child welfare, employment assistance, wildlife management, health care, education, land management, and senior services, as well as garbage collection and water systems. They worked with the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to replace native police with federal officers in 2003 because of problems in

1276-640: The dialect of the Blackfoot Reserve) before /i/ or /ʔ/ , and elsewhere is pronounced [æ] in the Blood Reserve dialect or [ei] in the Blackfoot Reserve dialect. The second diphthong ao is pronounced [au] before /ʔ/ and [ɔ] elsewhere. The third diphthong oi may be pronounced [y] before a long consonant and as [oi] elsewhere. Length is contrastive in Blackfoot for both vowels and consonants. Vowel length refers to

1320-520: The dialect spoken by many older speakers, and New Blackfoot (also called Modern Blackfoot), the dialect spoken by younger speakers. Among the Algonquian languages , Blackfoot is relatively divergent in phonology and lexicon. The language has a fairly small phoneme inventory, consisting of 11 basic consonants and three basic vowels that have contrastive length counterparts. Blackfoot is a pitch accent language. Blackfoot language has been declining in

1364-471: The duration of a vowel and not a change in quality. The vowel /oo/ is therefore the same sound as /o/ only differing in the length of time over which it is produced. Consonants can also be lengthened with the exception of /ʔ/ , /x/ , /j/ and /w/ . Blackfoot is a pitch accent language and it is a contrastive feature in the language. Every word will have at least one high pitched vowel or diphthong but may have more than one. Note that high pitch here

Blackfeet Nation - Misplaced Pages Continue

1408-460: The historic Glacier Park Lodge . Small communities include Babb , Kiowa , Blackfoot, Seville, Heart Butte , Starr School , and Glacier Homes. The tribe has an oral history of 10,000 years in this region that recounts the sacred nature of their central place, the Badger-Two Medicine area, known as their site of creation and origin. The Rocky Mountain Front near Birch Creek The Badger-Two Medicine

1452-545: The local force. The reservation includes several types of land use. Of the total 1,462,640 acres (591,910 ha), 650,558 acres (263,271 ha) are held in trust for enrolled tribal members, 311,324 acres (125,988 ha) are held directly by the tribe, and 8,292 acres (3,356 ha) are Government Reserve , mostly irrigation projects and the Cut Bank Boarding School Reserve. The remaining 529,826 acres (214,413 ha) are Fee lands, which

1496-659: The number of native speakers and is classified as either a threatened or endangered language, depending on the source used. Like the other Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is considered to be a polysynthetic language due to its large morpheme inventory and word internal complexity. A majority of Blackfoot morphemes have a one–to–one correspondence between form and meaning, a defining feature of agglutinative languages . However, Blackfoot does display some fusional characteristics as there are morphemes that are polysemous. Both noun and verb stems cannot be used bare but must be inflected. Due to its morphological complexity, Blackfoot has

1540-804: The park and flows on into Lower St. Mary Lake in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation . From the reservation, the St. Mary River flows into Alberta and into the St. Mary Reservoir . It flows into the Oldman River which eventually reaches the Saskatchewan River. It passes near the town of Cardston, Alberta , and the city of Lethbridge , Alberta. The St. Mary River also provides water for irrigation in Southern Alberta. The St. Mary River Irrigation District (SMRID)

1584-417: The people were forced to cede lands and ultimately move to smaller Indian reservations in the United States and reserves in Canada. Adjacent to their reservation, established by Treaty of 1896, are two federally controlled areas: the Lewis and Clark National Forest , set up in 1896, which contains the Badger-Two Medicine area, an area of 200 square miles (520 km); and Glacier National Park , both part of

1628-573: The rate is 11.0% on the reservation (for comparison, at the same time, unemployment was 3.6% for Montana and 4.5% for the U.S.). In 2001, the BIA reported 69 percent unemployment among registered members of the tribe. Among those who were employed that year, 26% earned less than the poverty guideline. The major income source of the reservation is petroleum and natural gas leases on the oil fields on tribal lands. In 1982, there were 643 producing oil wells and 47 producing gas wells. The reservation also has

1672-628: The rebellious tribe and hundreds were slaughtered. Over the next thirty years, settlers had eradicated the bison from the Great Plains. This took away the main element of Blackfoot life and the people's ability to be self-sustaining. With their main food source gone, the Blackfoot were forced to rely on government support. In 1886, the Old Sun Residential School opened on the Blackfoot Reserve in Alberta. In 1908, it

1716-632: The region around Montana beginning in the 17th century . Previously, they resided in an area of the woodlands north and west of the Great Lakes . Pressure exerted by British traders at James Bay in present-day Canada on the Algonquin-speaking tribes in the area drove the Blackfeet out onto the Northern Plains. They eventually acquired firearms and horses, and the acquisition of these two pieces of technology allowed them to become

1760-439: The reservation, as does the passenger train service on Amtrak's Empire Builder . Several hiking trails continue out of the park and across the reservation; they require Blackfeet-issued permits for use. 48°39′31″N 112°52′18″W  /  48.65861°N 112.87167°W  / 48.65861; -112.87167 Blackfoot language There is a distinct difference between Old Blackfoot (also called High Blackfoot),

1804-422: The subsequent repression of their Indigenous language and culture, has been credited, in part, with the loss in the number of Blackfoot speakers. Blackfoot has nineteen consonants, of which all but /ʔ/ , /x/ , /j/ and /w/ form pairs distinguished by length. One of the two affricates /k͡s/ is unusual for being heterorganic . Blackfoot has several allophones, [ç] is a allophone of /x/ . Blackfoot has

Blackfeet Nation - Misplaced Pages Continue

1848-650: The tribal nation's former territory. The Badger-Two Medicine area is sacred to the Blackfeet people. This sacred part of the Rocky Mountain Front was excluded from Blackfeet lands in a Treaty of 1896, but they reserved access, hunting and fishing rights. Since the early 1980s, when the Bureau of Land Management approved drilling rights leases without consultation with the tribe, the Blackfeet have worked to protect this sacred area, where they practiced their traditional religious rituals. The United States federal government suspended all leasing activities for drilling in this area in

1892-401: Was described by an official survey as "unsanitary" and "unsuitable in every way for such an institution". Regardless, it remained operational until its closure in 1971. Dozens of Blackfoot children died while attending. The school was rife with physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, which left a lasting impact on the Blackfoot children who attended. The trauma endured by students, as well as

1936-473: Was to be derived from payments for oil exploration from Newfield Production Co. The BTBC approved a $ 200 special per capita payments for all 16,500 members, initial funding for a new grocery store in Browning, and more than $ 1 million for land acquisition within the reservation to return property to tribal control. The Blackfeet Nation runs the sovereign government on the reservation through its elected Tribal Business Council. For many years Earl Old Person led

#342657