The Blackfeet Familial Structure and Lessons for the Modern Day

By Tiger Song ’27

My first encounter with the familial structure of the Blackfeet tribe came during a visit to their reservation in Montana. Andre, a tall slangy Polish man who had been living on the reservation for three decades, described the surprising strength of an elderly Blackfoot woman while being grabbed by the arm. He explained that the historical Blackfoot woman was extremely different from the stereotypical conception of traditional western families in a variety of fields. Until the advent of the 20th century, the Blackfeet were notable warriors in the field of the Plains Indians, living in the crossroads of the Glacial Mountains and the North American Plains, reaching from Edmonton, Canada to Southern Montana. To such degree was the Blackfoot dominance over the plains that The Lewis and Clark expedition famously avoided the tribe in fear of challenging their dominion. The Blackfeet lived in organizations known as the Niitsitapi, or clans of around hundreds. Individual Niitsitapi were not closely related but bound by three linguistically relevant groups: Pikuni, Siksika, and Kainai. Due to its unique state of affairs, the Blackfeet held a familial structure unprecedented for western culture. However, it is of utmost importance to protect the legacy of such uniqueness, for it offers valuable lessons for present-day humanity.

A significant trait of Blackfeet familial structure is the ambiguity surrounding lines for family and tribe. Superficially, the Blackfeet familial structure appears to be patriarchal. The male was the first to begin kinship through courting his potential partner and the member in the family to take care of quotidian events such as hunting. Women, on the other hand, were expected to care for children and process hunted bison. Due to the legalization of polygamy in clans, the word for wife in the native Blackfeet language is also used for her sisters in part due to the tradition of sororate marriage. Different from other polygamical societies, however, was the phenomenon that marital kinship also placed importance on the role of women in the tribe itself. For example, lineage in the clan is counted by means of bilaterality, or the equal consideration of both maternal and paternal lines of descent in a child. Furthermore, there existed societies for both men and women among the Niitsitapi. Individuals move to a more prestigious society as they pass certain age marks by paying a sum of bounty. In senior male societies, importance is placed upon those with a female partner as only women are allowed to carry holy items associated with her spouse’s group. A similarly structured society exists for women, the Motokis, which prohibits male participation. As Alan M. Klein, professor of anthropology at Northeastern University describes, “kinship is the fulcrum of social life and modality of all situations.” Indeed, roles in Blackfeet society were not defined yet completely lucid, in disagreement with the traditional western conception. Familial relationships were also extended to the entire Niitsitapi as males of the identical societal groups were referred to as “brothers.” Some societies as the Hotamémâsêhao'o (literally: Crazy Dogs) held roles as protectors and warriors of the clan which still exist in the status quo. Ultimately, the designation of society is to preserve tribal unity within a Niitsitapi by the usage of familial terms outside of consanguinity.

Contradictorily, those born into an individual Niitsitapi were not obligated to stay in the same group. Though campsites mostly consisted of tribal members related through kinship or marriage, individuals hold the ability to depart in causes as disputes. In a similar sense, clans were not necessarily related through diplomacy, albeit members of different clans were allowed to intermarry, holding marital responsibilities to other Niitsitapi of the nation. Ultimately, contradictory policies and patterns were to maximize the ability for the continuation of Blackfeet lifestyle in the Northwest plains. The fluidity of clanship signified the possibility of conjoined clans at economically tougher times as the winter, while consensus policy maximized the best choices for the clan as hunting or migration in the Northern Plains.

Through the past century, the system of familial structure in the Blackfoot Niitsitapi has been eliminated by more conventional, American familial structures. Joe Wagner, son of Native American rights activist Curly Bear Wagner and preservationist of sacred sites in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana laments, “The white men came here, they killed the Buffalo, they forced us to stay in the reservation, and banned us from using our weapons to hunt.” Indeed, the fate of “civilization” was forced upon the Blackfeet by the start of the 20th century. After their 1895 agreement with the United States government, the Blackfeet were forced to settle into a fraction of their original land, stripped of their native lifestyle, familial structure, and holy lands*. This essay is not to advocate the necessity of a return to the traditional Blackfeet lifestyle, but it is of utmost importance to remember the uniqueness of familial structure of the Niisitapi that fostered hundreds of generations of warriors. The demise of the family structure signifies the demise of culture, history, and the uniqueness of the traditional Blackfoot Confederacy.

Through the life and destruction of the Blackfeet familial tradition many lessons could be learned that are applicable to the status quo. Western society tends to place importance on loyalty to family and community that one is bound to by birth, often due to religious or cultural faculties. However, the Blackfeet model explores other possibilities while living in situations significantly tougher than the agricultural society of the West. Despite the intimacy within a clan and a family to the ambiguity of distinction between the two, members are still allowed to leave and join another clan in Blackfoot tradition. It is in the interest of society today to learn the acceptance of the state of both intimacy and relinquishment without immediate deterrence. With what can be described as a contradictory model, the Blackfeet had managed to create a grandiose state of dominion and warriorship through the past ten millennia.

Notes and Bibliography

​​Townsend. “The Blackfeet.” Discovr Lewis & Clark, February 14, 2023. https://lewis-clark.org/native-nations/algonquian-peoples/blackfeet/.

Collene Armstrong, Linda Lucas. “Social Organization.” Niitsitapiisini - Our Way of Life - Teacher Toolkit. Accessed October 21, 2023. https://www.glenbow.org/blackfoot/teacher_toolkit/english/culture/socialOrganization.html.

The Blackfoot Papers.” Google Books. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://books.google.com/books?id=sGtsbTEtcRIC&pg=PA233#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Hunter-gatherers data sheet (Put reference #:page - university of missouri. Accessed October 29, 2023. https://dice.missouri.edu/assets/docs/algic/Wampanoag.pdf.

The Plains Truth: The impact of colonialism on Indian women - JSTOR. Accessed October 31, 2023. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/29790081.pdf.

1. Huntington Cairns, K. N. Llewellyn, and E. Adamson Hoebel, “The Cheyenne Way. Conflict and Case Law in Primitive Jurisprudence,” Harvard Law Review 55, no. 4 (1942): 707, https://doi.org/10.2307/1334853, 100.

“Blackfeet belong to the mountains” hope, loss, and ... - JSTOR. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26393080.

Family structure, institutions, and growth: The origins and ... - JSTOR. Accessed October 31, 2023. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/30034664.pdf?ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&initiator=.