ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
(All plates except frontispiece follow page 353)
1. (Frontispiece.) Blackfoot Indian pony.
2. a, Mans pad saddle, Blackfoot. b, Womans wood saddle, Blood Indians.
3. a, Prairie chicken snare saddle, Piegan. b, Wooden frame pack saddle, Sioux.
4. The Bloods Come in Council.
5. a, Piegan lodges. b , Travois used as a litter, Crow Indians.
6. a, Cheyenne travois with domed, willow superstructure, b, Travois with paunch water container attached.
7. Neighborhood of Willow Rounds.
8. Encampment of Piegan Indians near Fort McKenzie, summer 1833.
9. a , Two-quart, brass trade kettle with its buckskin traveling case, Crow Indians. b , Buffalohide double-bag, Blackfoot.
10. Method of crossing a stream with camp equipment, Flathead Indians.
11. a, The Arapaho pipe, source of White Quivers war medicine. b, White Quiver.
12. a, Childs toy horse of bent willow. b , Piegan boys playing calf roping at Heart Butte Sun Dance Encampment, summer 1944.
13. a, Beaded wheel and arrows used in the hoop and pole game, North Piegan. b, Blackfoot horse race, June 1, 1848.
14. Piegan Indians chasing buffalo near the Sweetgrass Hills in September 1853.
15. A, Wallace Night Gun (ca. 1872-1950), leader of the Piegan Horse Medicine Cult. B, Portion of Wallace Night Guns horse medicine bundle in the United States National Museum.
16. Portions of Wallace Night Guns horse medicine bundle.
17. a, Makes-Cold-Weather, aged Piegan warrior. b, A Blood Indian horse raider expiating hid vow to undergo self-torture in the Sun Dance lodge, 1892.
FIGURES
1. Map showing trade in horses to the northern Plains before 1805
2. A simple rawhide hobble, Blackfoot
3. Methods of picketing
4. Rawhide horseshoes similar to Blackfoot type, Arapaho
5. Method of tying a stallion for castrating, Blackfoot
6. Breaking a bronco by riding it in a pond or stream, Blackfoot
7. Breaking a bronco by riding it with a surcingle, Blackfoot
8. Breaking a horse to the travois by training it to drag a weighted buffalo hide, Blackfoot
9. Teaching a child to ride by tying him in a womans saddle on a gentle horse, Blackfoot
10. A simple rawhide hackamore, Blackfoot
11. Rider using a rawhide war bridle with the end of one rein coiled under his belt, Blackfoot
12. Use of the war bridle as a halter, Blackfoot
13. Construction of a womans wood saddle, Blackfoot
14. Rigging of a womans saddle, Blackfoot
15. Construction of a prairie chicken snare saddle, Blackfoot
16. a, Simple rawhide martingale; b, simple rawhide crupper; c, detail of crupper tail pad, Blackfoot
17. Methods of whip construction, Blackfoot
18. Construction of a Blackfoot horse travois
19. The Blackfoot lodgepole hitch
20. The Blackfoot parfleche
21. a, Buffalo calfskin berry bags, Blackfoot
22. Double saddlebag thrown over a womans saddle for transportation, Blackfoot
23. Rawhide cases transported on a womans horse
24. Map showing the Blackfoot and their neighbors in 1850
25. A common method of folding a lodge cover for transportation by pack horse, Blackfoot
26. a, Placement of a willow backrest on the bottom of a travois load; b, method of transporting water in a paunch container
27. Blackfoot horse raiders in warm-weather dress
28. Blackfoot horse raider in winter dress
20. Method of wielding the lance by a mounted warrior, Blackfoot
30. Objects made of horse materials, Blackfoot
31. Blackfoot girl playing moving camp
32. Construction and use of a childs hobbyhorse, Blackfoot
33. Altar for the South Piegan horse dance ceremony
FOREWORD
The problem of the influence of the horse on Plains Indian culture has intrigued white men for more than a century. On April 6, 1848, Nathaniel J. Wyeth, an intelligent fur trader, wrote to Henry R. Schoolcraft, I regret not being able to supply more facts to support a view, very strongly impressed on my mind, that the condition of the Indian of this continent has been much influenced by the introduction of Horses (Wyeth, 1851, vol. 1, p. 208).
Modern anthropologists have recognized the acquisition and use of the European horse by the Plains Indians as a classic example of cultural diffusion. Ralph Linton (1940, p. 478), in a general discussion of processes of acculturation, mentioned the rapid changes that have taken place in Western Civilization in recent years and then added, However, we have at least one example of almost equally rapid acceptance of a whole new complex of culture elements by a series of primitive groups. This case is that of the horse among the Plains Indians. The speed with which this novelty was taken over is the more surprising in view of the revolutionary effects on many aspects of native life. Generalizations such as this are common in the anthropological literature. Yet, upon close examination, they give no hint of having been based upon a detailed factual analysis of the Plains Indian horse complex. We must conclude that these generalizations were, at best, intuitive interpretations.
For the entire Plains area there has been an appalling lack of detailed analysis of the horse complex. The nearest approach to a study of the facts relating to the functions of horses in a tribal culture is Gilbert L. Wilsons The Horse and Dog in Hidatsa Culture (Wilson, 1924). Some portions of that study approach ideal completeness, as Clark Wissler, who edited it, has observed (ibid., p. 127). But this study had definite limitations. It dealt almost exclusively with the role of the horse in Hidatsa material culture. It described the use of horses by a semi-sedentary, horticultural tribe which was relatively poor in horses and relied heavily upon dogs for transportation of camp equipment in buffalo-hunting days. The fact remains that no analytical study of the horse complex of any nomadic Plains Indian tribe has appeared in print.
