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The Blackfoot Nation or Niitsitapi, meaning original people, actually consists of four distinct Blackfoot nations, who share a historical and cultural background but have separate leadership. Alberta is home to three of these nations; the Siksika Nation (whose name literally means Blackfoot), the Akainawa Nation (also called Kainai or Bloods) and the Piikani or Peigan Nation. The, fourth, the Blackfeet Nation is in Montana. These nomadic plains hunters shared a common language and culture, had treaties of mutual defense, and freely intermarried.
As part of the Great Plains, Southern Alberta is mainly grasslands which is good for herds of animals like buffalo, but much too dry for farming without irrigation so the Blackfoot peoples relied on their powerful buffalo-hunting skills to prosper. For half of the year these nomad people would follow the buffalo herds and hunt them for most of their food.
These skilled hunters used their knowledge of topography and buffalo behavior to hunt at one of the most remarkable sites in southern Alberta, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump where the ritual of hunting buffalo is approximately 9,000 years old.
The famous world heritage site, just west of Fort MacLeod, is now home to an interpretive centre that blends into the ancient sandstone cliff and tells the stories of these great hunters.
As visitors to the site, we began our day with a walk along the lower trail through the area at the bottom of the cliff where the band would camp together and butcher the recently killed buffalo. The gully at the base of the cliff was carved by a stream flowing from a spring that was the source of water used for cooking and drinking by the hunters. The oldest evidence of prehistoric occupation at Head-Smashed-In was found in the stream in 1940 when a rancher found two ancient spearheads called scottsbluff, a tool that is known to date to about 9,000 years ago.
As we walked we couldn't help but feel the presence of the great spirits of both the brave hunters and their powerful fallen prey. It is easy to imagine yourself among the busyness of families as they came together to share the great task of cutting grinding and pounding all the useful parts of the fallen buffalo into the food and clothing they would need to survive the long, cold winters. From these lower trails we looked up toward the top of the vast face of the cliff where the buffalo would, one after the other, fall from the great height to their death at the bottom.
Inside the centre we made our way through the five distinct levels of displays that told great stories of the ecology, mythology, lifestyle and technology of the Blackfoot peoples. The in-depth history lesson blended the viewpoints of the aboriginal people and archaeological science.
The theatre showed the story of the great hunt as it was recreated on screen using computer generated graphics. At the top of the building and through the door to the outside we found ourselves looking down from the top of the vast cliff. We could imagine the sights and sounds of chaos here at the exact spot where the lead buffalo of the heard realized there was nowhere left to go, and with the stampeding heard pushing forward behind plummeted to the depth below.
The Blackfoot people have two principal deities; the Sun, and a supernatural being known as Napi, 'Old Man'. Napi taught the Blackfoot people that a group of hunters must be ready at the bottom of the cliff to kill all the buffalo that did not die as a result of their fall. If any of these buffalo survived the fall according Napi's stories they would return to their heard and share the story of the great hunt with the rest of the heard who would then be wiser, more informed and less likely to be as easily lead in the future.
By the early 1900's the buffalo became extinct and the Blackfoot people struggled to find their way of living without them and eventually turned to farming or cattle ranching. These resilient peoples were able to adapt and they became strong again. There are approximately 14,000 Blackfoot peoples living in the area today.
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