https://fourviewshist181.jenniferandrella.com/exhibits/show/four-views-of-a-bow–bowcase–
I chose what is effectively a toolset for my Four Views item, as I figured exploring the uses of each part of the set as each of the views would be unique and an interesting look at both the crafting and hunting aspects of the Pikuni Blackfeet culture. Choosing the specific set I did was the result of having a bit of background knowledge about the Blackfeet from a trip to Glacier National Park a few summers ago. I figured this combination of traits (being a toolset and being from a group I have background knowledge of) would make for an interesting digital exhibit; however, I did not anticipate a few of the challenges that came from researching the Blackfeet and their history, as well as the lack of information provided on the National Museum of the American Indian website.
An initial hurdle in the research was the distinction between the Piegan Blackfeet (the specific tribe that the item was attributed to) and the Blackfoot Confederacy (the larger group that the Piegan are legally a part of in the United States). Multiple websites and sources I read did not bother distinguishing between the two, and further complicating the matter was the legal split in the tribe itself: their original territories near Glacier National Park are on both American and Canadian territories, and as such the tribe was forcibly split between these two countries: in the US, they are identified as part of the Blackfoot Confederacy,[i] alongside two other Blackfoot-associated tribes that were originally located nearby, while in Canada they are recognized as the Pi’ikanni Nation (or, somewhat confusingly, the Piegan Nation, which is technically legally distinct from the original Piegan Blackfeet[ii]), which almost entirely contains members of the original Piegan tribe who relocated to Canada after a massacre by the US Army in 1870.[iii] To complicate matters further, the actual spelling and pronunciation of the “Piegan” label is a matter of some debate: “Piegan” and “Peigan” are used interchangeably, and often replaced with “Pi’ikanni” in Canada (but almost never in United States documents, which use an alternative spelling of “Pikuni”) when referring to either the whole original tribe or the splinter that moved in the 1870s. The confusing timeline of these semantics was not worth mentioning in the actual exhibit on the bow, but were the most interesting part of the research to me.
Thankfully, the various splinters and offshoots of the Piegan Blackfeet are all culturally similar enough that research on the use and construction of hunting tools among them was pretty uniform. Another unfortunate hurdle came in the form of poor record keeping and cataloguing: before the items were purchase by the MAI in the late 1960s, they were in the collection of a man named Birger Roos[iv], who apparently failed to provide any information or relevant details about them, other than their tribe of origin, to the museum. As is the unfortunate case with many items in their collection, many of the facts about the bow and its accoutrements had to be later gleaned, and even then, the information is still scarce. For instance, while the make and status as a collector item likely indicate they were somewhat old, we do not have an exact timeline of what era of the Blackfeet’s history it was made during. While this did end up being less problematic than expected, it’s still an indicator of a wider issue at the time of failing to properly research and catalogue pieces of history before it becomes too late.
The lack of exact information about the items, while unfortunate, made the research far more thorough and interesting. I had to verify from multiple sources that Blackfoot bows were made of yew wood before saying it in the exhibit, as the MAI website only mentioned that it was made of “wood.” I also learned slightly too much about beadwork in Native American societies (specifically ones in the Northwestern United States) to include in the project, as much of it didn’t pertain to the simple lane stitch used on the quiver and bowcase. I also learned about a few other somewhat unrelated things of interest: bison jumps and ancient migration patterns of humans in North America. The bison jumps did end up making it into the exhibit, as they were an integral part of hunting for the Pikuni Blackfeet and, while the items I covered weren’t directly involved, they did facilitate bison hunting to a degree. The migration patterns were entirely unrelated but just as interesting: I learned of the Two Medicine origin story for the Blackfeet while at Glacier National Park several years ago, and seeing it actually reinforced by the studies of ancient human remains between the Rocky Mountains and the western border of Montana was both historically interesting and gratifying. The final bit of research I did that didn’t make it into the project was on the written language of the various Blackfeet tribes, as I wanted to see if the various symbols and runes on the bow and its case meant anything. While I discovered that they didn’t, learning about the Blackfoot alphabet was actually really interesting, as I’ve never studied any sort of written language that didn’t originate in Afro-Eurasia or Australia and the uniqueness was super neat to study.
I got a few main takeaway lessons from this project. The first was a renewed belief in the importance of properly researching and cataloguing historical pieces in collections and museums. While the research I did would have been a lot shorter and honestly less fun had the picture been more complete, certain facts about the objects I did my project on have effectively been lost forever because Birger Roos or whoever had them before him failed to actually write down anything about them from the tribe that created them in the first place. The other main takeaway I got was that doing research a bit outside of the scope of what you originally set out to learn about can paint a clearer picture of the circumstances surrounding the original query, and make doing more specific research a lot easier and more meaningful.
[i] Governor’s Office of Indian Affairs. (n.d.). Blackfeet Nation. tribalnations.mt.gov. https://tribalnations.mt.gov/Directory/BlackfeetNation
[ii] https://piikanination.com/
[iii] History.com Editors. (2009, November 16). Soldiers massacre sleeping camp of Native Americans | January 23, 1870. History.com. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/soldiers-massacre-the-wrong-camp-of-indians
[iv] Bow, bowcase, quiver, and arrows. National Museum of the American Indian. (n.d.). https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/object/NMAI_257709