Editing Blackfoot Confederacy (section)

=== Discovery and uses of horses ===
[[File:Bodmer -- Blackfoot Indian, 1840-1843.jpg|thumb|Mounted Blackfoot warrior on horse painted from life by [[Karl Bodmer]].]]
Up until around 1730, the Blackfoot traveled by foot and used dogs to carry and pull some of their goods. They had not seen horses in their previous lands, but were introduced to them on the Plains, as other tribes, such as the [[Shoshone]], had already adopted their use.<ref name="ReferenceA">Grinnell, ''Early Blackfoot History,'' pp. 153–164</ref> They saw the advantages of horses and wanted some. The Blackfoot called the horses ''ponokamita'' (elk dogs).<ref>{{cite journal|last=Baldwin|first=Stuart J.|date=Jan 1994|title=Blackfoot Neologisms|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/i254177|access-date=2020-07-30|journal=International Journal of American Linguistics|pages=69–72|jstor=1265481|volume=60|issue=1|doi=10.1086/466218|s2cid=224808614}}</ref> The horses could carry much more weight than dogs and moved at a greater speed. They could be ridden for hunting and travel.<ref name="Murdoch, North American Indian, 28">Murdoch, ''North American Indian,'' p. 28</ref>

[[File:Three chiefs Piegan p.39-2.jpg|thumb|Three mounted Piegan chiefs on the prairie. Photographed by [[Edward S. Curtis]].]]
Horses revolutionised life on the Great Plains and soon came to be regarded as a measure of wealth. Warriors regularly raided other tribes for their best horses. Horses were generally used as universal standards of barter. [[Medicine Man|Medicine men]] were paid for cures and healing with horses. Those who designed shields or war bonnets were also paid in horses.<ref>Taylor, 4</ref> The men gave horses to those who were owed gifts as well as to the needy. An individual's wealth rose with the number of horses accumulated, but a man did not keep an abundance of them. The individual's prestige and status was judged by the number of horses that he could give away. For the Indians who lived on the Plains, the principal value of property was to share it with others.<ref>Royal B. Hassrick, ''The Colorful Story of North American Indians,'' Vol. Octopus Books, Limited (Hong Kong: Mandarin Publishers Limited, 1974), 77.</ref>

[[File:Blackfoot warriors, Macleod, Alberta (HS85-10-18724).jpg|thumb|Blackfoot warriors at Fort MacLeod, 1907]]
After driving the hostile Shoshone and [[Arapaho people|Arapaho]] from the Northwestern Plains, the Niitsitapi began in 1800 a long phase of keen competition in the fur trade with their former Cree allies, which often escalated militarily. In addition both groups had adapted to using horses about 1730, so by mid-century an adequate supply of horses became a question of survival. Horse theft was at this stage not only a proof of courage, but often a desperate contribution to survival, for many ethnic groups competed for hunting in the grasslands.

The Cree and Assiniboine continued horse raiding against the Gros Ventre (in Cree: ''Pawistiko Iyiniwak'' – "Rapids People" – "People of the Rapids"), allies of the Niitsitapi. The Gros Ventres were also known as ''Niya Wati Inew'', ''Naywattamee'' ("They Live in Holes People"), because their tribal lands were along the [[Saskatchewan River Forks]] (the confluence of North and South Saskatchewan River). They had to withstand attacks of enemies with guns. In retaliation for [[Hudson's Bay Company]] (HBC) supplying their enemies with weapons, the Gros Ventre attacked and burned in 1793 [[South Branch House]] of the HBC on the South Saskatchewan River near the present village of [[St. Louis, Saskatchewan]]. Then, the tribe moved southward to the [[Milk River (Alberta–Montana)|Milk River]] in Montana and allied themselves with the Blackfoot. The area between the North Saskatchewan River and [[Battle River]] (the name derives from the war fought between these two tribal groups) was the limit of the now warring tribal alliances.<ref>Bruce Vandervort: ''Indian Wars of Canada, Mexico, and the United States 1812–1900.''Taylor & Francis, 2005, {{ISBN|978-0-415-22472-7}}</ref>