Hello fellow travelers. I am sorry for not posting in the last week and a half. I have been resting up and visiting with family and friends in Indianapolis. I have also visited Springfield, IL - the State Capitol and the home of Abe Lincoln's Museum and Library and the only home he ever owned - but more on that later. I am off tomorrow to Frankfort, KY to visit the State Capitol and then stop at Lincoln's birthplace and boyhood home in Kentucky and then to his boyhood home in Indiana. Lots of Lincoln.
To catch up on my journey....
We left off in Browning, MT. The original plan was to stay on the Blackfeet Reservation just outside Glacier National Park for 2 nights in a Tipi at the home and gallery of Darrell Norman. His father was part Blackfeet, part Cree and part French.
Darrell lives on the Blackfeet Reservation and makes art using buffalo hide, deer hide and paint in various combinations depending on what he is making. Part of my time was to be spent making a traditional bag called a Par Fleche out of buffalo hide and deer hide. I had the option of making a drum, a rattle or the bag. I decided on the Par Fleche bag. Which is one of the pictures above. I still have to finish it by cutting the deer hide into fringe. The painted design is a traditional Blackfeet design.
The Blackfeet is one group of three in the Blackfoot culture. There is one group in the middle of Canada and another that straddles Canada and the US (but more in Canada). More on their history below.
The designs on the bags, clothing, baby carriers, etc were in effect a calling card. Each tribe used different designs so they could tell immediately which tribe someone was from by the designs they created on their personal gear. Darrell was a delightful host and quite the task master. Since I only had the afternoon and evening of one day and the next morning before I left, the time limits were a bit daunting which is why I still need to cut the fringe.
Dried Buffalo hide is a very hard material. I used large pinking shears to cut-out the rough shape and eventually used an electric jig saw to complete the cut-out. Once I had the hide in the shape I needed I used a scraper to remove the top layer of skin so that the paint would sink in to the hide and adhere better. Painting on the top layer of skin would allow the paint to rub off since it would not penetrate the top layer.
Once scraped, I was able to choose the pattern and colors to use on the bag. The paint was an inked based earth paint. The colors in the picture are true to the bag itself. They are brighter than the traditional earth colors that were used for centuries but many artists use this ink based paint today. Living in and near Glacier National Park, traditionally they used earth and ground-up rock to get their colors for painting and not plants.
The bag is sewn together using deer hide cut into a thin strip about the size of sneaker shoe lace. I used a power drill to make the holes to sew the bag together. Using traditional methods to make the holes would have added another day or two to the process. Darrell uses the power tools in his creations as well. The dried buffalo hide is a very difficult material to work - but it should last forever.
Darrell told some traditional stories from tribal lore. The Blackfeet use the character Nappi to describe the workings of the world. Each tribe uses a different character like Nappi in teaching their children the ways of the world. It really made the making of the Par Fleche bag much more interesting and alive.
While my time was shortened to the windy weather and I slept on the floor where breakfast is served in the morning instead of the tipi, I was lucky in that I was able to attend a community event at the local high school. It seems there is a group of women who work on environmental justice projects who were in the area for the weekend to attend a meeting of the Blackfeet Tribal Council and to meet with the Nature Conservancy which has an office nearby due to having some conservation projects in the area.
The evening meeting was for an Indian from Minnesota who is active in environmental issues to speak to the tribe. Browning, MT is less than an hour from Canada. There is a huge oil shale project beginning in Canada and the project needs to move large pieces of equipment across the border between the US and Canada. The route is across the Blackfeet Reservation. The speaker was there to tell everyone about the project and to enlist their support in having the Blackfeet Council stop the movement of the huge pieces of equipment across the reservation. They can not use the Interstate because the equipment is too big so they would have to pay special fees and have more support vehicles. If they use the roads across the reservation they can do it cheaper than using the Interstate. But this will destroy the roads and create other problems for the tribe due to the size as well as the quantity of trips that will be needed.
There is an article in the June 15 USA Today on page 3A. It was originally printed in the Great Falls Tribune (not sure of the date). Over 200 trips carrying equipment from Korea. Some will be as large as 24 feet wide, 30 feet tall and 160 feet long and weigh as much as 150 tons. The Canadian oil company is going to pay $40 million dollars to upgrade roads and move utilities in Montana alone for this project. The equipment will cross the ocean from Korea to Portland and then move by barge to Lewiston, Idaho. Then on trucks to Northern Alberta Canada to the oil shale location.
At the same community event a local Blackfeet women was recognized for her 12 years of work to get the US government to pay all tribes money that the Department of the Interior lost, folded and mutilated. It seems that the Department of the Interior includes the Department of Indian Affairs and they in turn are responsible for collecting and managing the money from mining, oil pumping, mineral rights etc on the various reservations across the US. We all know that the US Government has a hard time accounting for its money. The big problem here was that it was the various tribe's money and the government could not account for it. By all reckoning the bank account should have upwards of $50 billion - it only had a couple of a hundred million. This lady from the Blackfeet tribe sued the government to get what was owed to the tribes. Finally the Obama administration worked to make a settlement instead of pushing it off like the administrations from the last 12 years. The settlement was for around $10 billion, 20 cents on the dollar - but at least it was something. This is to be shared among the tribes and paid out by the government over 3 or 4 years. It was amazing to be a part of the standing ovation given to this tribal member. I got to shake the hand of a true "American" hero!
As a part of that event, the Indigo Girls played a concert. They are an American folk rock duo. Neat to hear someone that has a national following in a high school gym on an American Indian Reservation in northern Montana less than an hour away from Glacier National Park. They spoke of starting off playing in high school cafeterias so they felt right at home. A wonderful evening - almost made up for not being able to sleep in an Indian Tipi.
After the community meeting and concert, Darrell gave me a talk about the history of the Blackfeet tribe itself. The original treaty with the USA (early 1800's) gave the tribe 23 million acres in Montana, which included what is now Glacier National Park. There were over 100,000 tribal members in the three bands. They were traveling bands of Indians like the other Plains' tribes. They would move from place to place following the buffalo and moving to water as necessary. Through the years their lands were reduced. They sold the land that includes Glacier National Park to the USA for the money. This is still sacred land to the Blackfeet, but when the railroads killed all the buffalo, they tribes were left little to eat and live - they needed the money.
During the rest of the 1800's and early 1900's the tribe went down to under 1,500 members. During WWII many members moved to the Seattle area for jobs. Darrell's father moved to Seattle as well. Darrell moved back to Montana in the 60's. His brother still resides in the Seattle area. Today there are about 40,000 tribal members. Most of the members living on the reservation are poor with little opportunity for work. Casino gambling is legal in Montana and not limited to Indian Tribes like in California so they do not have gambling to fall back on like California tribes.
They help each other out as many extended families do and there are a few exceptional artists on the reservation. Darrell has a few represented in his gallery and there is a museum and a couple of other galleries on the reservation. I really enjoyed staying with Darrell and talking to him about the history of the Blackfeet. I look forward to staying in one of his tipis one day.
To catch up on my journey....
We left off in Browning, MT. The original plan was to stay on the Blackfeet Reservation just outside Glacier National Park for 2 nights in a Tipi at the home and gallery of Darrell Norman. His father was part Blackfeet, part Cree and part French.
Darrell lives on the Blackfeet Reservation and makes art using buffalo hide, deer hide and paint in various combinations depending on what he is making. Part of my time was to be spent making a traditional bag called a Par Fleche out of buffalo hide and deer hide. I had the option of making a drum, a rattle or the bag. I decided on the Par Fleche bag. Which is one of the pictures above. I still have to finish it by cutting the deer hide into fringe. The painted design is a traditional Blackfeet design.
The Blackfeet is one group of three in the Blackfoot culture. There is one group in the middle of Canada and another that straddles Canada and the US (but more in Canada). More on their history below.
The designs on the bags, clothing, baby carriers, etc were in effect a calling card. Each tribe used different designs so they could tell immediately which tribe someone was from by the designs they created on their personal gear. Darrell was a delightful host and quite the task master. Since I only had the afternoon and evening of one day and the next morning before I left, the time limits were a bit daunting which is why I still need to cut the fringe.
Dried Buffalo hide is a very hard material. I used large pinking shears to cut-out the rough shape and eventually used an electric jig saw to complete the cut-out. Once I had the hide in the shape I needed I used a scraper to remove the top layer of skin so that the paint would sink in to the hide and adhere better. Painting on the top layer of skin would allow the paint to rub off since it would not penetrate the top layer.
Once scraped, I was able to choose the pattern and colors to use on the bag. The paint was an inked based earth paint. The colors in the picture are true to the bag itself. They are brighter than the traditional earth colors that were used for centuries but many artists use this ink based paint today. Living in and near Glacier National Park, traditionally they used earth and ground-up rock to get their colors for painting and not plants.
The bag is sewn together using deer hide cut into a thin strip about the size of sneaker shoe lace. I used a power drill to make the holes to sew the bag together. Using traditional methods to make the holes would have added another day or two to the process. Darrell uses the power tools in his creations as well. The dried buffalo hide is a very difficult material to work - but it should last forever.
Darrell told some traditional stories from tribal lore. The Blackfeet use the character Nappi to describe the workings of the world. Each tribe uses a different character like Nappi in teaching their children the ways of the world. It really made the making of the Par Fleche bag much more interesting and alive.
While my time was shortened to the windy weather and I slept on the floor where breakfast is served in the morning instead of the tipi, I was lucky in that I was able to attend a community event at the local high school. It seems there is a group of women who work on environmental justice projects who were in the area for the weekend to attend a meeting of the Blackfeet Tribal Council and to meet with the Nature Conservancy which has an office nearby due to having some conservation projects in the area.
The evening meeting was for an Indian from Minnesota who is active in environmental issues to speak to the tribe. Browning, MT is less than an hour from Canada. There is a huge oil shale project beginning in Canada and the project needs to move large pieces of equipment across the border between the US and Canada. The route is across the Blackfeet Reservation. The speaker was there to tell everyone about the project and to enlist their support in having the Blackfeet Council stop the movement of the huge pieces of equipment across the reservation. They can not use the Interstate because the equipment is too big so they would have to pay special fees and have more support vehicles. If they use the roads across the reservation they can do it cheaper than using the Interstate. But this will destroy the roads and create other problems for the tribe due to the size as well as the quantity of trips that will be needed.
There is an article in the June 15 USA Today on page 3A. It was originally printed in the Great Falls Tribune (not sure of the date). Over 200 trips carrying equipment from Korea. Some will be as large as 24 feet wide, 30 feet tall and 160 feet long and weigh as much as 150 tons. The Canadian oil company is going to pay $40 million dollars to upgrade roads and move utilities in Montana alone for this project. The equipment will cross the ocean from Korea to Portland and then move by barge to Lewiston, Idaho. Then on trucks to Northern Alberta Canada to the oil shale location.
At the same community event a local Blackfeet women was recognized for her 12 years of work to get the US government to pay all tribes money that the Department of the Interior lost, folded and mutilated. It seems that the Department of the Interior includes the Department of Indian Affairs and they in turn are responsible for collecting and managing the money from mining, oil pumping, mineral rights etc on the various reservations across the US. We all know that the US Government has a hard time accounting for its money. The big problem here was that it was the various tribe's money and the government could not account for it. By all reckoning the bank account should have upwards of $50 billion - it only had a couple of a hundred million. This lady from the Blackfeet tribe sued the government to get what was owed to the tribes. Finally the Obama administration worked to make a settlement instead of pushing it off like the administrations from the last 12 years. The settlement was for around $10 billion, 20 cents on the dollar - but at least it was something. This is to be shared among the tribes and paid out by the government over 3 or 4 years. It was amazing to be a part of the standing ovation given to this tribal member. I got to shake the hand of a true "American" hero!
As a part of that event, the Indigo Girls played a concert. They are an American folk rock duo. Neat to hear someone that has a national following in a high school gym on an American Indian Reservation in northern Montana less than an hour away from Glacier National Park. They spoke of starting off playing in high school cafeterias so they felt right at home. A wonderful evening - almost made up for not being able to sleep in an Indian Tipi.
After the community meeting and concert, Darrell gave me a talk about the history of the Blackfeet tribe itself. The original treaty with the USA (early 1800's) gave the tribe 23 million acres in Montana, which included what is now Glacier National Park. There were over 100,000 tribal members in the three bands. They were traveling bands of Indians like the other Plains' tribes. They would move from place to place following the buffalo and moving to water as necessary. Through the years their lands were reduced. They sold the land that includes Glacier National Park to the USA for the money. This is still sacred land to the Blackfeet, but when the railroads killed all the buffalo, they tribes were left little to eat and live - they needed the money.
During the rest of the 1800's and early 1900's the tribe went down to under 1,500 members. During WWII many members moved to the Seattle area for jobs. Darrell's father moved to Seattle as well. Darrell moved back to Montana in the 60's. His brother still resides in the Seattle area. Today there are about 40,000 tribal members. Most of the members living on the reservation are poor with little opportunity for work. Casino gambling is legal in Montana and not limited to Indian Tribes like in California so they do not have gambling to fall back on like California tribes.
They help each other out as many extended families do and there are a few exceptional artists on the reservation. Darrell has a few represented in his gallery and there is a museum and a couple of other galleries on the reservation. I really enjoyed staying with Darrell and talking to him about the history of the Blackfeet. I look forward to staying in one of his tipis one day.
On to Glacier National Park.
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