Additional information
by George Bird Grinnell (Author)
Description
Drawn from stories, traditions, and personal accounts shared by Blackfoot elders, Blackfoot Lodge Tales preserves a rich record of the beliefs, customs, history, and daily life of the people of the northern Great Plains. George Bird Grinnell presents traditional narratives alongside observations of Blackfoot society, creating a work that is part folklore collection, part history, and part nineteenth-century ethnography.
The volume includes tales of the culture hero Old Man, stories of animals and supernatural beings, accounts of warfare and adventure, and traditions explaining the origins of ceremonies and social practices. Grinnell also describes the organization of the Blackfoot camp, family life, hunting, warfare, religious observances, medicine, leadership, and the profound importance of the buffalo. Together, these materials offer a vivid picture of a people whose traditional territory extended across what is now Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.
First published in 1892, Blackfoot Lodge Tales remains an important historical source, though it should be read with an awareness of the assumptions and language of nineteenth-century anthropology. Grinnell was an outsider recording traditions during a period of immense disruption and forced cultural change, yet many of the stories he preserved continue to provide valuable insight into Blackfoot history and storytelling. Modern readers should also recognize that the Blackfoot Confederacy remains a living cultural and political community whose members continue to preserve and interpret their own traditions.
