The Blackfoot Natives home was in the far northwestern corner of the Great Plains. Their clothes were made from the skins of wild animals. Try to imagine the skill and the hard work that was involved in making it. Their robes and moccasin soles were made from buffalo hide; and hunting buffaloes was one of the hardest things which the Indian men had to do.
Before white men gave the Natives guns, buffaloes were killed with bows and arrows or clubs after they had been driven into a pound. The pound was an enclosure, usually built at the foot of a cliff or high bank. Above it was the level land where the buffaloes grazed; and leading toward it, the Indians placed two rows of stone-piles in a great V. When the drive began, young men, working at some distance from the pound, gradually drove the herd toward it. As the animals passed the first of the stone piles, other men, who had hidden behind them, jumped up and with yells and waving of robes frightened the buffaloes into running further down the lane. There they were frightened by more and more men; and as they fled, the lane narrowed steadily; so that, when the leaders finally reached the edge of the cliff, there was no room to turn back, and they could only jump into the enclosure below. Like sheep, the buffaloes always followed their leaders; and when the whole herd was once in the pound, it was easy for the Indians to kill them.
Antelopes were also caught in a pound. Deer were captured in snares made of braided rawhide. They were left in the deer trails; and the hunter trusted their catching the deer to chance. Weasels, or ermine, and many other small animals and birds were also caught in snares.
The removal of an animal's skin was the work of the indigenous men; but once removed, it was given over to the women; and its dressing and the cutting, sewing and decorating of garments to be made from it, were all their work. First of all, the skin had to be staked to the ground, all the flesh scraped away from it, the uneven portions pared down, and, if a smooth skin was desired, the hair scraped off. Bleached and dried, the product of this first process was rawhide. You will find quirts, rattles, drums, parfleches, moccasin soles, and many other things made from it. Natives used fleshers and scrapers to prepare the skins.
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| Man's quilled buckskin vest, Oglala Sioux, South Dakota CA, 1880. |
When skins were to be used in making clothing, soft bags or tipi covers, the rawhide had to be thoroughly oiled, shrunk with warm water, stretched, given a smooth grain by rubbing it with a rough-edged stone and, finally, dried and softened by pulling it back and forth through a loop of twisted sinews fastened to a lodge pole. In addition, deer skins were often smoked to give them a deeper color.
Buffalo robes were always worn by the men with the head of the animal to the left, the tail to the right. The painted, embroidered or beaded decorations usually extended from the head to the tail; and thus, when worn, went around the Native's waist.
Shirts were made from deer, antelope or buffalo calf skins. Two skins were used to make the body of the shirt; and the sleeves were cut from one or two more. The ragged skin from the animal's hind legs hung down from the lower edges of the shirt; and all edges of the skins, except where they were joined at the shoulders, were cut in fringes. The leggings, too, had fringe cut on their lower edge and often on their side seam.
In sewing, the native women used thread made from buffalo sinew. Broad bands of it were dried and stored each year. Shreds were pulled from the bands with the teeth, were softened in water, smoothed and twisted. In place of needles, large bone bodkins were used.
Shirts and leggings were decorated in several different ways. The Blackfoot people were especially fond of adding fringes of ermine skins to the sleeves and shoulders of their shirts. Each strand of the fringe required one entire skin; so, if there were a hundred strands, a hundred ermine had to be caught and their skins dressed.
Another favored decoration was a series of bands of porcupine quill embroidery. Usually, these bands were placed across each shoulder, down each sleeve and along the outside of each legging. The quills were dyed, flattened, folded so as to be of the proper length for the design and carefully sewed in place. After white men came, beads replaced porcupine quills almost entirely. The beads were strung on threads; and the strings thus made were sewed to strips of soft skin. Sometimes the quills or strings of beads were wrapped about the fringes to make them more handsome.
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