02/19/2025
Among the first written records of the Blackfeet Indians were the journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who contacted the tribe in about 1806. Unfortunately, those descriptions largely misrepresented Blackfeet women. “As Western men, they only saw what they wanted to see—women with less virtue,” said Susan Webber, a Montana state representative who also teaches Indian women’s studies and philosophy at Blackfeet Community College. Traditionally, Blackfeet women owned their homes and were subservient to no one. “Our role was always ‘sits beside him,’ not ‘sits behind him’ or ‘walks three paces behind him.’ In our ways, women are men’s greatest support and greatest weapon,” says Webber. What early explorers and anthropologist often failed to recognize was the balance of power that existed between genders in Native American communities like the Blackfeet.
Buffalo hunts demonstrate this interdependence between genders. For the Blackfeet, the women depended on the men to hunt the bison while the men depended on the women to process and transform the buffalo hides. After butchering the animal, the women then had to prepare the buffalo hides for its many uses, such as constructing the tipi. Tanning hides is an arduous process – each buffalo hide took two full days of work to prepare, though some parts took longer such as drying the hide in the sun. A woman of average skill was said to be able to tan as many as 25 hides in a season. One tipi could require up to 12 to 14 buffalo hides. Erecting the tipi itself was no small feat, either. A tipi cover weighed close to 100 lbs. The wooden poles (as seen in the travois of Russell’s paintings discussed previously) were typically 18 to 20 feet long each. The average tipi was 14 to 16 feet in diameter and stood about 17 feet tall on average.
In the days when leather was a basic article of daily life for the Blackfeet, a woman was judged by her tanning skills. The first stage of tanning turns a fresh hide into rawhide, which was a useful material for many purposes, the most common of which was as storage containers. These rawhide containers were known as parfleches. A parfleche is made of a solid piece of rawhide, folded like an envelope. Some parfleches were used to hold dried food, which when properly folded and tied with strings, were typically safe from mice and bugs. Other uses for rawhide containers included making square or cylindrical bags to hold sacred objects or headdresses and special clothing, or transforming rawhide into saddle bags for transporting. And of course, rawhide was used to make moccasin soles, drumheads, and rattles.
The Blackfeet woman’s role was intricate, working hard not only in preparing shelter, food, and tools, but also in raising and caring for the children. In Seeking New Hunting Grounds, the central figure rides with her children, her toddler wrapped in a blanket in front while her infant is carried on her back in a cradle board. Historically, Blackfeet mothers made the cradle board frames out of willow branches, and later out of large boards cut to their desired shape. They then covered the board with fitted pieces of buckskin laced with an oblong bag in which to place the baby. Often cradle boards were lined with fur or moss. Some mothers attached long strands of beads or shells hanging to amuse the baby with their movement and sounds.
