Blackfoot lodge tales : the story of a prairie people / by George Bird Grinnell.

  • George Bird Grinnell
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Blackfoot lodge tales : the story of a prairie people / by George Bird Grinnell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that if this was issued all at once, there was no hope for them, they would surely die, but that he expected supplies by a certain day. “And,” said he, “if they do not come by that time, you shall come in here and help- yourselves. That I promise you.” They went away satisfied. Meanwhile, the supplies were drawing near. The officer in command of Fort Shaw had supplied fast teams to hurry on a few loads to the agency, but the roads were so bad that the wagon trains moved with appalling slowness. At length, however, they had advanced so far that it was possible to send out light teams, to meet the heavily laden ones, and bring in a few sacks of flour and bacon ; and every little helped. Gradually the suffering was relieved, but the memory of that awful season of famine will never pass from the minds of those who witnessed it. There is a record of between four and five hundred Indians who died of hunger at this time, and this includes only those who were buried in the immediate neighborhood of the agency and for whom coffins were made. It is prob- able that nearly as many more died in the camps on other creeks, but this is mere conjecture. It is no exaggeration to say, however, that from one-quarter to one-third of the Piegan tribe starved to death during that winter and the following spring. The change from living in portable and more or less open lodges to permanent dwellings has been followed by a great deal of illness, and at present the people appear to be sickly, though not so much so as some other tribes I have known, living under similar conditions further south. Like other Indians, the Blackfeet have been several times a prey to bad agents,— men careless of their welfare, who thought only about drawing their own pay, or, worse, who used their positions simply for their own enrichment, and stole from the government and Indians alike everything upon which they could lay hands. It was with great satis-
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