Blackfeet and Buffalo

In the days of the fur traders and trappers, immediately following the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the country bordering the Rocky Mountains from here north into Canada and south to the Three Forks of the Missouri and the Yellowstone River was buffalo range and the hunting grounds of the Blackfeet Nation. The Blackfeet were fierce and willing fighters who jealously guarded their territory from invasion. Like all Plains Indians, they depended upon the buffalo for their existence, as the herds provided meat, moccasins, robes, leggings, and teepees, board and room on the hoof. Some Indian legends held that the first buffalo came out of a hole in the ground, and when the buffalo were wiped out, some Indians claimed that whites found the spot, hazed the herds back into it, and plugged the hole.

Montana · United States