The Shinning Mountains ~ Traditional Homeland to the First Nations Blackfoot Confederacy

 This is a late afternoon summer image of Glacier National Park  and St. Mary Lake. I lensed this as the sun was low on the horizon in  the west behind me as I flew southbound high above the Rocky Mountain  Range. 

Directly below me are Heavy Runner Mountain and Citadel Mountain  which are both casting long shadows in the lower the foreground of the  image.  In the middle of the image is Saint Mary Lake and at the bottom of  the lake you can barely make out Saint Mary River where it joins  Virginia Creek to flow into the lake. 

Following the lake vertically up  the image you can clearly see the Narrows where Silver Dollar Beach is  opposite of the Golden Stairs.  On the left side of the image are the rugged jagged cliffs of  Going-To-The-Sun Mountain in the foreground and Goat Mountain behind it.  

On the right side of the image in the immediate foreground are the raw  cliffs of Little Chief Mountain and up the image a bit behind the  shadows lay Mahtotopa Mountain and Red Eagle Mountain. 

These ancient weathered mountains are the traditional homelands of the First Nations Blackfeet Tribe. There are various different interconnected tribes that all make up the nation.  Their huge Nations Reservation (Blackfeet Indian  Reservation) lies on the other side of Saint Mary Lake in this image as  far as you can see. 

Archaeological evidence of First Nations occupation dates back more  than 10,000 years inside the boundaries of Glacier National Park.  Numerous First Nations Tribes lived in the area around and within what  is now the park. They hunted, fished, held sacred ceremonies, and  gathered plants for food and sacred medicine.  Explorations to the area by trappers as early as the 1700’s opened  the area, and the future Glacier National Park, to trading among  European settlers and local long time tribal communities.  
(Research Source) 

Blackfoot or Blackfeet – “All Blackfeet are Blackfoot, but not all Blackfoot are Blackfeet. Historically, the Blackfoot Confederacy consisted of four bands. From north to south are the Siksika, or Blackfoot, next the Kanai, or Blood, then the Apa’tosee or Northern Pikuni and southernmost are Montana’s Blackfeet Nation, the Amskapi Pikuni.” 

Origin of the Blackfeet name – “Before the horse arrived in the 1730s French fur traders observed indigenous people who had walked through a prairie fire and called them pen wa, the French word for black foot, after observing the blackened bottoms of their moccasins. An alternate identification originates from our ancient association with the buffalo whose hooves are black. We are the people of the buffalo, Blackfoot people.” 

 Blackfeet are recipients and holders of the Beaver Medicine Bundle – “This is the largest, oldest, most complex bundle of its type in North America, containing over 600 songs and dances representing each animal person being in our territory. This was also a drumless bundle. In ceremony, rattles were tapped on the rawhide side of animal skins. The beaver (k)sis-t’uki, was one of the three original animals in Creation, and is considered the most sacred because of his role in the orchestration and allocation of water.”
(Research Source)

The Blackfoot Confederacy, Niitsitapi or Siksikaitsitapi[1] (ᖹᐟᒧᐧᒣᑯ, meaning "the people" or "Blackfoot-speaking real people") is a historic collective name for the four bands that make up the Blackfoot or Blackfeet people: three First Nation band governments in the provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, and one Native American tribe in Montana, United States. 

The Siksika ("Blackfoot"), the Kainai or Kainah ("Blood"), and the Northern Piegan or Peigan or Piikani ("Apa’tosee" or "Poor Robes") reside in Canada; the Southern Piegan/Piegan Blackfeet ("Amskapi Piikani" or Pikuni) are located in the United States, where they are also known as the Blackfeet Nation.

In modern use, the term is sometimes used only for the three First Nations in Canada. Historically, the member peoples of the Confederacy were nomadic bison hunters and trout fishermen, who ranged across large areas of the northern Great Plains of Western North America, specifically the semi-arid shortgrass prairie ecological region. 

They followed the bison herds as they migrated between what are now the United States and Canada, as far north as the Bow River. In the first half of the 18th century, they acquired horses and firearms from white traders and their Cree and Assiniboine go-betweens. The Blackfoot used these to expand their territory at the expense of neighboring tribes. Now riding horses, the Blackfoot and other Plains tribes could also extend the range of their buffalo hunts.
(Research Source)

This image is from my ongoing project in which I am trying to raise awareness of the 47% of the USA and 90% of Canada that remain unpopulated wilderness.  

Where Eagles Fly - The American Wilderness Expedition is my personal mission to introduce people to these amazing locations that surround us. If you like what you see here then upvote and then resteemit so that others may experience these wondrous places as well.  

And as always.....Yehaw!!