Modern Blackfeet: Montanans on a Reservation

Modern Blackfeet: Montanans on a Reservation

Modern Blackfeet: Montanans on a Reservation

Modern Blackfeet: Montanans on a Reservation

Paperback

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Overview

Modern Blackfeet sheds light on the politics, economics, society, and especially the acculturation of the Blackfeet Indians of Montana. The Blackfeet Reservation has an established government and an active and diverse population that has long supported itself through ranching, industry, and oil and natural gas exploration. Malcolm McFee shows why, as a result, policies and programs based on simplistic assumptions of assimilation are doomed to failure.

The results of McFee's long-term research among the Blackfeet in the 1950s and 1960s make it clear that acculturation is not simply a linear process of assimilation or a one-way cultural adaptation to the impact of Euro-American culture. He reviews the changing policies of the U.S. government, which were directed initially at the destruction of all native customs and values, then at the promotion of Blackfeet self-government, and eventually at the threatened termination of their status. Finally and most important, McFee notes that racial identity on the reservation today is explained more by values and behavior than by biology and thus divides the community into a white-oriented majority and a smaller, Indian-oriented group dedicated to preserving the tribe's traditional lifeways.

Malcolm McFee (1917-1992) was a professor of anthropology at the University of Oregon from 1965 until his retirement in 1982. Andrew R. Graybill is the director of the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies and associate professor of history at Southern Methodist University. He is the author of Policing the Great Plains: Rangers, Mounties, and the North American Frontier, 1875-1910 (Nebraska, 2007).

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780803246430
Publisher: Nebraska Paperback
Publication date: 01/01/2014
Pages: 148
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author


Malcolm McFee (1917–1992) was a professor of anthropology at the University of Oregon from 1965 until his retirement in 1982. Andrew R. Graybill is the director of the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies and associate professor of history at Southern Methodist University. He is the author of Policing the Great Plains: Rangers, Mounties, and the North American Frontier, 1875–1910 (Nebraska, 2007).

Table of Contents

Introduction v

Preface xi

1 Introduction to the Blackfeet 1

Blackfeet Means Many Kinds of People 1

Fieldwork 18

In Prospect 19

2 The Blackfeet Reservation and Its People 20

Introduction 20

The Regional Habitat 21

Regional Population and Economy 23

Reservation Population and Economy 25

Summary 32

3 Horse and Buffalo Days: 1850-1880 34

Introduction 34

History before 1850 35

Economy 37

Social Organization 41

Religion 44

Values and Status 45

Summary 47

4 Dependency and Readaptation: 1884-1970 48

Introduction 48

United States Indian Policies 48

The Period of Dependency, 1884-1935 50

The Period of Self-Government, 1935-1970 56

Summary 64

5 Intratribal Diversity 66

Introduction 66

Socialization to White-Orientation 67

Socialization to Indian-Orientation 70

Analysis 73

6 Social Interaction 75

Introduction 75

Social Occasions Where Everybody Came 75

Indian-Oriented Social Occasions 78

White-Oriented Social Occasions 86

Other Social Expressions of Orientation 88

Summary 90

7 Values 92

Introduction 92

Values of the White-Oriented Group 93

Values of the Indian-Oriented Group 96

Summary 102

8 Status 103

Introduction 103

Status among the White-Oriented 104

Status among the Indian-Oriented 111

9 The Future 119

Summation 119

White-Oriented Society 119

Indian-Oriented Society 120

What Lies Ahead for the Blackfeet? 121

Epilogue 128

References 130

Recommended Reading 133

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