Editing Piegan Blackfeet (section)

==Relations and history==
===Before 1870s===
[[File:Chief Old Person at USDA 150th Anniversary celebration.jpg|alt= Chief Old Person|thumb|Chief Earl Old Person, chief of the Blackfeet Tribe in Montana]]
[[File:Jackie larson bread blackfeet.jpg|thumb|230px|[[Jackie Larson Bread]] (enrolled Blackfeet Tribe of Montana) with her award-winning beadwork]]In 2014, researchers reported on their sequencing of the DNA of a 12,500+-year-old infant skeleton in west-central Montana,<ref>{{cite journal|title=The genome of a Late Pleistocene human from a Clovis burial site in western Montana  |vauthors=Rasmussen M, Anzick SL, etal |journal=Nature |volume=506 |pages=225–229 |year=2014 |doi=10.1038/nature13025 |pmid=24522598 |issue=7487|pmc=4878442 |bibcode=2014Natur.506..225R }}</ref> found in close association with several [[Clovis culture]] artifacts. It showed strong affinities with all existing Native American populations.<ref>{{cite news|title=Ancient American's genome mapped |work=BBC News |date=February 14, 2014 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26172174}}</ref>

There is preliminary evidence of human habitation in [[First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park|north central Montana]] that may date as far back as 5000 years.<ref name="Gems">[http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20110327/NEWS01/103270339/Buffalo-Jump-expansion-unearths-gems "Buffalo Jump Expansion Unearths Gems"], ''Great Falls Tribune.'' March 27, 2011, Accessed May 12, 2011.</ref> There was evidence that the people had made substantial use of [[buffalo jump]]s from as early as AD 300.<ref name="Manage2">[http://fwpiis.mt.gov/content/getItem.aspx?id=32575 ''Ulm Pishkun State Park Management Plan: Final.'' Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks. December 2005, p. 2.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807181704/http://fwpiis.mt.gov/content/getItem.aspx?id=32575 |date=August 7, 2011 }}</ref>

The Piegan people may be more recent arrivals in the area, as there is strong evidence that, beginning about 1730, their Algonquian-speaking ancestors migrated southwest from what today is [[Saskatchewan]].<ref name="OPI">{{cite web|url=http://www.opi.mt.gov/pdf/IndianEd/Resources/MTIndiansHistorylocation.pdf|title=Montana Indians" Their History and Location|publisher=Montana Office of Public Instruction|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140429214117/http://www.opi.mt.gov/pdf/indianed/resources/MTIndiansHistoryLocation.pdf|archive-date=2014-04-29}}</ref> Before that, they may have lived further east, as many Algonquian-speaking peoples have historically lived along the Atlantic Coast, and others around the [[Great Lakes]].

Linguistic studies of the Blackfoot language in comparison to others in the [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian]]-language family indicate that the Blackfoot had long lived in an area west of the [[Great Lakes]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2009}} Like others in this language family, the Blackfoot language is [[agglutinative]].

The people practiced some agriculture and were partly nomadic. They moved westward after they adopted use of horses and guns, which gave them a larger range for bison hunting. They became part of the [[Plains Indians]] cultures in the early 19th century. According to tribal oral histories, humans lived near the [[Rocky Mountain Front]] for thousands of years before European contact.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=American Anthropologist |date=April 1892 |pages= 153–164 | doi = 10.1525/aa.1892.5.2.02a00050 |volume=A5 |doi-access=free |title=Early Blackfoot History |last1=Crinnell |first1=George Bird |issue=2 }}</ref><ref>Grinnell, George Bird [[George Bird Grinnell]] Blackfoot Lodge Tales [https://archive.org/details/blackfootlodgeta11547gut "''Blackfoot Lodge Tales"], (BiblioBazaar, 2006) {{ISBN|978-1-4264-4744-0}}</ref> The Blackfoot creation story is set near [[Glacier National Park (U.S.)|Glacier National Park]] in an area now known as the [[Badger-Two Medicine]].

The introduction of the horse is placed at about 1730, when raids by the [[Shoshoni]] prompted the Piegan to obtain horses from the [[Ktunaxa|Kutenai]], [[Salish peoples|Salish]] and [[Nez Perce people|Nez Perce]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bigorrin.org/archmn-blackfoot.htm|title = Article Archives: Blackfoot}}</ref>  Early accounts of contact with European-descended people date to the late eighteenth century.  The fur trader James Gaddy and the [[Hudson's Bay Company]] explorer [[David Thompson (explorer)|David Thompson]], the first Whites recorded as seeing [[Bow River]], camped with a group of Piegan during the 1787–1788 winter.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Armstrong|first1=Christopher|last2=Evenden |first2=Matthew|last3=Nelles |first3=H. V.|title=The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow|year=2009|publisher=McGill UP|location=Montreal|page=3}}</ref>

In 1858 the Piegan in the United States were estimated to number 3,700. Three years later, Hayden estimated the population at 2,520. The population was at times dramatically lower when the Blackfeet people suffered declines due to [[infectious disease]] epidemics. They had no natural immunity to Eurasian diseases, and the 1837 [[smallpox]] epidemic on the Plains killed 6,000 Blackfeet, as well as thousands more in other tribes. The Blackfeet also suffered from [[starvation]] because of disruption of food supplies and war. When the last buffalo hunt failed in 1882, that year became known as the starvation year. In 1900, there were an estimated 20,000 Blackfoot. In 1906 there were 2,072 under the Blackfeet Agency in Montana, and 493 under the Piegan band in Alberta, Canada. In the early 21st century, there are more than 35,000.  In the US 2010 census, 105,304 people identified as Piegan Blackfeet, 27,279 of them full-blooded, the remainder self-identified as being of more than one race or, in some cases, with ancestry from more than one tribe, but they primarily identified as Blackfeet.<ref name="2010 census" />

The Blackfeet had controlled large portions of Alberta and Montana. Today the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana is the size of [[Delaware]], and the three Blackfoot [[Indian reserve|reserves]] in Alberta have a much smaller area.<ref name="Nettl, 1989"/>

The Blackfeet hold belief "in a sacred force that permeates all things, represented symbolically by the sun whose light sustains all things".<ref name=cumbria/>

The Blackfeet have "manly-hearted women".<ref>Lewis, 1941</ref> These were recorded as acting in many of the social roles of men.  This includes a willingness to sing alone, usually considered "immodest", and using a men's singing style.<ref>Nettl, 1989, p.84, 125</ref>