Cultural Revitalization in Action on Blackfeet Lands

Across 1.5 million acres, the Blackfeet Nation’s reservation sits along the Canadian border in Montana. In its picturesque and verdant resplendence, the natural mosaic of this terrain includes miles of waterways that chisel through expanses of plains stretched beneath the shadow of glacier-laden mountains and valleys.

While the many tourists who flock to these lands, which include Glacier National Park, may not know it, they are in the traditional homelands of the Blackfoot Peoples, or the Niitsitapi as they call themselves. The U.S.-based tribe is part of the larger Blackfoot Confederacy – which also includes the Kainai (Blood), Piikani (Piegan), Siksika (Blackfoot), and Amskapii Piikuni (Blackfeet) Nations.

One of Nia Tero’s partners on the reservation – Blackfeet ECO Knowledge (BEK) – has helped spark a cultural revitalization and reconnection with the Niitsitapi homeland that settler colonialism attempted to eradicate. Our partners at BEK emphasize that recentering traditional knowledge for the Blackfeet is key to passing to future generations the knowledge and spirituality that has guided them for millennia.

BEK approaches its work from a lens of decolonization and healing, recognizing the impacts of historical traumas on the connections the Blackfeet hold with place, each other and all that has been passed down from their ancestors.

“This is the true, true way of changing cycles,” said Blackfeet ECO Knowledge grant specialist Wendy Bremner. “There’s funding projects. Then there are systems of change. And these things that we are doing are actually going to create change agents in our community.”

Decolonization takes a lot of work. It’s akin to taking apart a slowed down clock and rebuilding it in the hope that it keeps time better. Our partners at BEK are just one example across Indian Country of doing the challenging deep work to reclaim their cultural heritage.

The Rebirth of a Nearly-Lost Ceremony

At the Big Circle Camp, or Akao’katsin, our Blackfeet partners recently held their annual summer gathering. From afar, a large circle of dozens of tipis is clearly visible. Inside the circle are lodges that serve as sacred spaces for ceremony, which include song, prayer, dance and other ancestral rituals meant to reconnect people to place, such as face painting. Central to this event, too, are cultural societies responsible for the intergenerational transfer of knowledge.

But this encampment hasn’t always been there. It had fallen out of practice for almost 150 years on the U.S.-side of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Its very existence today is an act of revitalization, resistance and resilience.

“We went through a period of time where very few people, like a handful of people, were still holding onto our culture here on this side of the border,” Bremner said. “And we see the devastation it caused in our communities.”

There is a long list of perils stemming from the systemic oppression of settler colonialism -from the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis to high suicide rates among Native People to the substance use epidemic in Indian Country.

She added, “We know just from the work that we do that giving people back their cultural identity starts reversing those cycles that were created because of the loss of our culture.”

At the camp, following the face painting, children assist with preparing the grounds for dance. Elders share their knowledge across generations, offering glimpses of how their children and grandchildren will someday do the same with their descendants.

Bringing Home the Sacred 

Sacred bundles are a central part of the Big Circle Camp summer gathering. The bundles are cared for by the Blackfeet with whom the bundles hold a strong connection.

And there is one particular bundle at the camp that has a storied journey back to the Blackfeet People.

Less than one year ago, Tyson and Lona Running Wolf, two of BEK’s leaders, drove the Medicine Thunder Pipe Bundle from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York back to their reservation. It was a journey of over 2,000 miles (3,200+ kilometers). The sacred objects had previously been stored in trays filed in the museum after being removed from display years prior. The items, like many in museums across the world, were taken from Indigenous People and exhibited to the public without their consent.

“In 2017, we visited it,” Tyson Running Wolf said. “And my wife, she kept dreaming about that particular pipe and having it come to her, telling her, ‘I want to go home.’”

Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in the U.S., there are provisions for federally funded institutions to engage with U.S. tribes that seek the return of their sacred objects and human remains. Click here to read more from ProPublica about NAGPRA.

“It was a very heavy day for all of us who were involved in viewing some of those artifacts laying in the cupboards in those trays,” said Rose Fox (Kainai Nation of the Blackfoot Confederacy), who viewed the sacred objects at the time. “That’s not where they belong. They belong at home, where they’ll be used by the people.”

With the bundle now home with the Blackfeet, it will be used in ceremony as bundles have since time immemorial. And it will continue to be passed down over generations who gather at the Big Circle Camp.

When the Blackfoot Confederacy resumed contact with the AMNH about returning the objects years later, the timing aligned like serendipity with their visit to New York for a Wayfinders Circle event. Lona, Tyson, and elders of the Blackfoot Confederacy were in NYC for the screening of their film as part of the Wayfinders Circle, a network of Indigenous Peoples from around the world. Nia Tero is a convener of the Wayfinders Circle along with the Pawanka Fund and World Union of Indigenous Spiritual Practitioners.  Because of the Blackfoot Confederacy’s extensive experience and knowledge in guardianship of territories, as well as their strong work in self-governance and the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, it has been a key member of the Wayfinders Circle.

Embracing Ancestral Connections to Buffalo

For the Blackfeet People, the buffalo – or iinii – are interconnected with their identities, creation stories and spirituality. They are not merely a form of subsistence but also relatives with whom they live in balance.

Recently, BEK has undertaken an initiative aimed at creating a virtual reality experience of what they call the “buffalo jump” – a complex ancestral process of hunting buffalo. In a project with the University of Montana, BEK and Nia Tero are actively fundraising to bring this project to life to showcase the ingenuity and learnings of the Blackfeet People who perfected this science.

“For many hundreds of centuries my people hunted the iinii, learning to survive to endure,” Tyson Running Wolf said in a video explaining the buffalo jump. “But the land and the animals were more than just assistants. They were our teachers. They were our guides.”

He added, “This was no simple hunt. This was a bond. A sacred relationship. … This was traditional ecological knowledge in its purest form.”

As settler-colonialism expanded across North America in the late 1800s, the buffalo were intentionally brought to the brink of extinction. In the wake of this ecological devastation, the Blackfoot connection to them and the land was weakened.

In the last couple of years, the Blackfeet have worked to return free-roaming buffalo to their lands. This historic event was marked by media coverage noting it was “the first time in American history that a Sovereign Indigenous Nation has returned wild free-roaming buffalo to their native habitat.”

Revitalization for Future Generations

BEK’s work is aimed at preserving the sacred and the traditional for future generations.

“I know at some point in my life, we’re no longer going to have our elders around,” said Emmette Dusty Bull, an Indigenous guardian with BEK, also known as Shield Keepers within the Blackfoot Confederacy. “And I am trying to learn as much as I can and just be a sponge.”

The Shield Keepers blend traditional knowledge with western science to protect their homelands and waters.

As a young father of two, Dusty Bull sees learning as part of his responsibility to pass down traditional knowledge as his ancestors have for millennia.

“That way when I have my kids ask me a certain question I’m gonna be able to answer it,” he said. “It’s gonna be really crucial for them to understand who they are.”

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Learn more about Blackfeet ECO Knowledge at blackfeetecoknowledge.org.

Check out more about the Wayfinders Circle on its website and Instagram.