The Old North Trail: Life, Legends, and Religion of the Blackfeet Indians

by Walter McClintock, Dr. Sidner J. Larson Ph.D (Introduction)

In 1886 Walter McClintock went to northwestern Montana as a member of a U.S. Forest Service expedition. He spent the next four years living on the Blackfoot Reservation, the adopted son of Chief Mad Dog, the high priest of the Sun Dance.  The Old North Trail records McClintock's experiences among the Blackfeet. Describing daily life, hunts, and ceremonials, it is enriched by vignettes of warriors and medicine men, legends and mythical stories, reminiscences of the missionary Father De Smet, and valuable information on such subjects as societies, proper names, songs, and beliefs. Since its first publication in 1910 it has remained the source par excellence on these proud people of the northern plains.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Indigenous

539 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1977

Reviews

[Richard Reese · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1891, Walter McClintock graduated from Yale, with plans to join his father’s prosperous carpet making business in smog-choked Pittsburgh. Luckily, he was spared from a dull job by getting very sick with typhoid fever. To recover, he took a trip to North Dakota, where he fell deeply in love with the west. He worked as a photographer for a forest survey project, and became friends with the team’s Blackfoot scout, Siksikakoan. Later, Siksikakoan introduced him to the elderly chief Mad Wolf.

Once Mad Wolf came to trust McClintock, he adopted the young lad as his son. Mad Wolf hoped that if his people had a white leader, they would receive better treatment from the incoming settlers, many of whom were not skilled at behaving with common decency. McClintock spent lots of time with a number of elders, listened to many stories, and several years later wrote The Old North Trail. He also took more than a thousand photographs, many of which illustrate the book. Today, a century later, Amazon lists his book as a best seller. It’s fascinating and easy to read.

The Blackfeet lived on the plains east of the Rocky Mountains, from Montana up into Alberta. When the painter George Catlin met them in 1832, he said they were the happiest Indians or all. The Old North Trail was an ancient footpath that passed through their territory. In places, old ruts are still visible. Today, some suspect that it may have been 2,000 to 3,000 miles long, linking Canada and Mexico. Because many tribes used the trail, travel was dangerous. It was a common place for ambushes and tribal wars.

In the old days, the Blackfeet used dogs as beasts of burden. Sometime before 1750, they acquired horses, triggering radical change. Horses greatly increased their ability to hunt, feed more people, wage war, haul trade goods, and zoom across the plains at superhuman velocity. Corn farmers became highly vulnerable to horse-mounted raids by neighboring tribes, forcing many to abandon their fields and become nomadic. After 1780, the Blackfeet were hammered by wave after wave of deadly diseases. Their population dropped by maybe 90 percent.

By 1883, white folks had succeeded in nearly exterminating the buffalo, and this made the traditional Blackfoot life impossible. The tribe was forced onto reservations, given ration tickets, treated like dogs, and were not allowed freedom of travel. Missionaries introduced them to sin, hell, damnation, guilt, and submission. Teachers taught youths the ABC’s of civilization, using the English language.

By the time McClintock arrived, many young Blackfeet were disoriented victims of cultural genocide, largely indifferent to their tribe’s customs, traditions, and religion. During important ceremonies, many would be drinking, gambling, or horseracing. Only the elders still remembered the traditional ways, and their days were numbered. McClintock wanted to record the story of these people, before their culture ceased to exist. The Blackfeet people fascinated McClintock, and he described them in a respectful manner.

His book is a magical 500-page voyage into another time and place. Readers can soar away from the spooky nightmare world of automobiles and cell phone zombies, and imagine living in wildness and freedom. The Blackfeet elders shared fond memories of a way of life that was far more in balance with the circle of life. In the good old days, “the mountain slopes abounded in beaver, wapiti, moose, mountain sheep, and grizzly bears, while immense herds of antelope and buffalo roamed over the plains.”

One night, McClintock awoke to discover a huge grizzly bear stepping over him to finish off his dinner leftovers. Grizzlies were still common. Wolves and coyotes often howled passionate serenades under the stars. Humans were not the dominant species; they were delicious two-legged meatballs. Modern folks, obsessed with glowing screens, would not have lasted long in a reality where man-eating carnivores were never far away. To survive, folks actually had to pay careful attention to reality, and behave in an intelligent manner. Imagine that!

The people wore clothing of animal hides, and lived in tipis, in an ecosystem of scorching summers and long blast-freezer winters. Powerful storms could race across the plains at astonishing speed. On a pleasantly warm November day, McClintock noticed distant turbulent clouds that were rushing across the plains in his direction. Danger! The temperature sharply dropped, howling winds pounded him, and a whiteout blizzard commenced. He lost all sense of direction, and freezing to death was a strong possibility. He managed to return to camp. The storm lasted ten days.

McClintock wrote, “The Blackfeet subsisted mainly upon buffalo meat, when it could be secured. They also used sarvis berries, wild cherries, buffalo berries and vegetables such as camas, wild turnips, wild onions, wild potatoes, bitter root, and wild rhubarb. They secured wild ducks and geese by striking them over the head with long sticks. Beaver tails were considered a great delicacy.”

A vegetarian would soon starve on the plains. The Blackfeet survived by killing and eating their animal relatives. When natives died, their corpses were returned to the circle of life. The dead were placed upon scaffolds built in trees, called death lodges (like THIS or THIS). The Blackfeet did not arrogantly interrupt the circle dance of life with buried caskets or cremation.

McClintock was amazed by how well the Blackfeet lived without thrashing their ecosystem. Whites did amazing things with science and industry, but the Blackfeet were superior in terms of their personal integrity. In no Blackfoot community could you find the “depravity, misery, and consuming vice, which involve multitudes in the industrial centers of all the large cities of Christendom.” By thriving in a lifestyle with few wants, they did not deteriorate into infantile consumers.

The last chapter in the book has pissed off many reviewers. The preceding thirty-eight chapters did not provide, in any way, a flattering impression of settler society. In 1910, respect for savages was politically incorrect, and publishers were not fond of risky projects. The Blackfeet were hopelessly screwed. Whites were here to stay. Happy endings sold more books.

So, the story concludes with a jarring shift. McClintock praised the integrity of the Blackfoot people, and was proud of their heroic advance toward Christian civilization. “The industrious are rapidly becoming self-supporting. Some of them live in well-made and comfortable houses, and own ranches, with large herds of cattle and horses. They wear white men’s clothes, purchased from the trading stores, own high priced wagons and buggies and make use of modern farming implements.” Hooray!

Anyway, the book provides readers with a wonderful peephole into a way of life that was not insane. Children were raised in a land that was wild, free, and thriving — grizzly bears, not teddy bears. The good power (Great Spirit) was everywhere, in everything — mountains, plains, winds, waters, trees, birds, and animals. Everyone was on the same cultural channel, free from the friction of diversity and wealth inequality. They grew up in coherent communities where it was rare to see a stranger. [Cool excerpt]

McClintock’s book described how a healthy culture disintegrated into incoherence over the course of just one generation. Beliefs got us into this mess, not genes. I’m very optimistic that the coming decades of resource depletion, climate change, and the collapse of our economic system will provide a miraculous cure for consumer fever. Survival will require paying careful attention to reality, and behaving in an intelligent manner. Radical change in one generation is not totally impossible when the time is ripe. Think positive!

[Rob Bauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extended review of this classic book regarding the Blackfeet tribe.

Over a century ago in 1896, a Blackfoot Indian named Siksikakoan invited Walter McClintock to visit his home on the Blackfeet reservation. McClintock accepted. For the next fourteen years he would spend significant time among the Blackfeet, recording and photographing their customs, ceremonies, and way of life. The book that resulted, The Old North Trail, became an invaluable ethnographic history of the Blackfeet.

The Old North Trail is especially valuable because it describes the Blackfeet at an important time in tribal history. Because of the near extermination of bison on the Great Plains by 1883, various Plains tribes had to accept reservation life in the last decades of the 1800s, their mobile lifestyle based on bison hunting over. This change endangered tribal customs and traditions. McClintock recognized this threat to traditional values when he wrote, “I saw that the younger generation was indifferent to their tribal customs, tradition and religion.” (v) As a result, “It seemed inevitable that, with the passing of the old chiefs and medicine men, their ancient religion and folk-lore would fall into oblivion.” (v) The Old North Trail is McClintock’s effort to help preserve knowledge of traditional Blackfeet culture.

It took McClintock time to overcome the prejudices of the Blackfeet against whites, but he did so through an honest endeavor to help them and learn their culture. As a result, he was able to write an ethnographic history based on first-hand observation over fourteen years. In fact, McClintock gained the confidence of the Blackfeet to such an extent that after two years, the leader Mad Wolf decided to adopt McClintock into the tribe as his son, giving him the name A-pe-ech-eken, or White Weasel Moccasin. McClintock then began taking part in various ceremonies of the tribe, and he provides fantastic descriptions of the ceremonies. For example, when he gains his Blackfoot name he dons sacred paint and takes part in the Buffalo Dance. He also witnesses the opening of the Beaver Bundle, Mad Wolf’s sacred medicine bundle from which he derives his supernatural powers. In addition to his detailed descriptions, McClintock photographed many Blackfoot ceremonies, including both the participants and some of the other sacred medicine bundles. He even made graphophone records of sacred songs.

In further describing Blackfeet religion, McClintock found the Blackfeet conception of the afterlife was not an especially hopeful one. The dead do not proceed to the spirit world immediately, but haunt their former home as ghosts before moving on, and some spirits never become contented. However, the Blackfeet honored their dead highly. Mourning often included caring for the bones of the deceased, self-denial, and self-torture to show indifference to pain. This mourning process sometimes lasted for months.

Superstitions also played a part in Blackfeet religious beliefs. McClintock gives many examples of how tribal leaders might interpret certain religious events favorably or unfavorably. The Blackfeet feared owls because the spirits of the dead often appeared in owl form. In addition, one should not copy the designs of another’s tipi; doing so might result in sickness or death for the offender. Proper observance of rituals centered on the medicine bundles or other sacred items such as the Medicine Pipe or Bear Spear; these brought the favor of the Great Spirit or Good Power. The Blackfeet offered prayers to the Sun, or to animals like the grizzly bear, buffalo, wolf, raven, eagle, or beaver, that had a large amount of the Good Power within them.

The most important religious ceremony of the Blackfeet is the Sun Dance. McClintock witnessed the Sun Dance ceremony several times in his fourteen years. He claims that “The Sun Dance was not, as has been commonly believed, ‘merely an occasion for the self-torture of youths, who are candidates for admission to the full standing of warriors.’” (170) Instead, it was their most important religious event, always initiated by a pure woman’s vow and meant to help the sick recover. Even though thousands of Blackfeet and members of other tribes gathered for the Sun Dance there was little disturbance and no violence, thanks to the policing role of the Mad Dog society.

McClintock details several other aspects of tribal life. Marriage customs, the division of labor between men and women, how individuals received names, how various tribal societies like the Kit Foxes and Brave Dogs earned their titles, and the meaning of tipi designs all receive attention. He also recorded tribal stories, many of which included animals with the ability to speak or other human characteristics. Often, these stories explained how certain items like the Medicine Pipe or various medicine bundles became endowed with their supernatural powers.

Occasionally McClintock ventures to compare what he sees in Blackfeet society with his own American society. His comparisons often find much to admire about the Blackfeet, although the high level of superstition is one trait that does not impress McClintock. But several other statements show his admiration. When camping with a band of North Piegans, he says, “We could look in vain in such camps as that of the North Piegans, nestled among the cottonwoods, to find the depravity, misery, and consuming vice, which involve the multitudes in the industrial centres of all the large cities of Christendom.” (394) When he describes the lives of important chiefs such as Mad Wolf or Brings-down-the-Sun, McClintock sees a sharp contrast with his own society: “Their unselfish and patriotic lives, devoted to the welfare of their tribe, rise before me in strange and painful contrast with the selfish and sordid lives of many of the rich and powerful of my race.” (509)

Despite its publication date over one hundred years ago, The Old North Trail remains well worth reading. The insights McClintock developed over fourteen years, the stories he wrote down, the ceremonies, people, and landscapes he photographed, all combine to immerse the reader in Blackfeet society. The fact that he had permission to photograph the medicine bundles and other sacred items, and participate in some ceremonies, gives authenticity to McClintock’s narrative. The narrative itself is clear and descriptive. Perhaps he could have subjected some aspects of Blackfeet society to closer scrutiny, such as the relationship between the Blackfeet and the Indian Agent for their reservation. McClintock glosses over this important issue almost entirely. But that is a small criticism when compared with the many positives that The Old North Trail has to offer the reader.

Anyone interested in the history of Blackfeet at the turn of the last century will benefit enormously from reading The Old North Trail. In fact, many of the tribal ceremonies and medicine bundles McClintock discusses might be unknown to tribal outsiders if not for this book. One must, of course, approach the text with a fair bit of empathy and a willingness to remember that the United States of today is not the United States of 1910 when McClintock published. With that in mind, however, this is a terrific book and true classic despite its age.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look into the lives and customs of the Blackfeet Indians (East side of what is now Glacier National Park). The author makes an interesting and easy to read narrative about the Indians that could have been easily made boring and difficult to read.

It took me a while to get through book so I'll only quote some quotes I liked/thought were interesting towards the end of the book.

There is a well known trail we call the Old North Trail. It runs north and south along the Rocky Mountains. No one knows how long it has been used by the Indians. My father told me it originated in the migration of a great tribe of Indians from the distant north to the south, and all the tribes have, ever since, continued to follow in their tracks. The Old North Trail is now becoming overgrown with moss and grass but it was worn so deeply, by many generations of travelers, that the travois tracks and horse trail are still plainly visible. - Brings-down-the-Sun

I had no idea that the Indians were such a violent society. It was also interesting how their communal tribes would work to preserve the buffalo. It was also interesting how they used piskuns to get buffalo and other game before horses were available. It was sad to read about the loss of their old ways as they were pushed on the reservations and how the people became lazy because of it but even so some started to adapt and prosper under the new conditions.

[Steven Howes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in 1910, this is the author's account of his times living among the Blackfeet Indians in North Central Montana for a period of time near the turn of the last century. He came into contact with the Blackfeet while on expedition with Gifford Pinchot in 1886 to establish the first Forest Reserves in the United States. Because of differences in writing style and word usage, books written during period are often difficult to read, at least for me. However, I found this book was well-written and easy to read. I was also amazed that the book contained many photographs taken by the author to accompany his text. This alone must have been a major undertaking considering the living conditions and photographic equipment available.

Several things about this book truly impress me about this book. One is the level of detail in the descriptions of Blackfeet daily life, culture, ceremony, myth, and legend. The author must have kept copius notes and journals while living a nomadic lifestyle. Another is the fact that his accounts were written at a time when the Blackfeet were beginning their downhill slide into poverty and despair. The buffalo were gone and Wounded Knee was 10-15 years removed. Even as this book was being published, many practioners of the "old ways" were gone and tribal members had begun to forget what had made them Blackfeet.

In my estimation, this is a very valuable book from an historical perspective.

[Evelyn Mccormick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. McClintock takes the reader back in time and you can almost smell and touch all he describes. His conversations with chiefs and descriptions of the dancers and their origins are captivating

The old legends of the natives are so unique and valuable. Let's hope our current tribal leaders will resurrect them and teach them to tribal youth.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting history of the Blackfeetl their traditional and relision.

[Maple Tea (moved to StoryGraph)]

Was reading this one for work and made it about halfway through. A very detailed historical view of Blackfoot people as described by a white man.

[Katy Lovejoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

mildly boring but had its interesting moments

[Liane S. Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will read this again. The information is vast.

[Gary Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our tour guide at Glacier National Park called this the best book on the Blackfeet Indian culture. At over 500 pages it seemed daunting, but once I started it I was surprised at how readable it is. The author, Walter McClintock, weaves his discussion of the Blackfeet culture with a narrative of his life and adventures among them beginning in 1896. At that time, the Blackfeet were led by a generation of leaders dedicated to peace while remembering the warfare with other tribes that were such a large part of their culture. One of these chiefs, Mad Wolf, adopted McClintock as a son and taught him the rich cultural practices and beliefs of the Blackfeet people.
I took my time with this wonderful book to better remember the details of the legends retold and specific cultural descriptions. The book's short chapters made this a great choice for reading in the evening to close the day.
The author traveled to Blackfeet country as part of the early work of the National Forest Service. He was uniquely qualified to tell this story. His scientific background makes him an excellent objective observer of the native culture practices, language and religious beliefs. In addition, his talent in drawing and photography provide the book's abundant illustrations. The book was published 15 years after leaving his life with the Blackfeet, and is at once a adventure story filled with vivid description of wilderness, a collection of the author's drawings and photographs and an objective description of a culture at the height of its glory.

[Maria Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. An academic accomplishment more so than an individual’s memoir, although it is indeed also an individual's memoir. The author (lucky us) was determined to learn and preserve by written and photographic means the customs, culture, & belief system of the Blackfoot Indians. He knew time was running out for them and had the great foresight to realize that if first-hand documentation about the tribe was not recorded, it could be lost to non-recorded history. Published in 1910, this book is very detailed, as it was so important to the author to document as much and as accurately as possible - both the fascinating and the minutia. As a history book of the Blackfeet, it is a true gift. As a memoir of the old west, in parts it was a little overly detailed. Fascinating!

[Roxane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating - the Blackfeet are incredible people with very interesting and unusual stories - but DO NOT READ the last chapter - it's just sad...

[Sharon Zink · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book described life and customs and ceremonies of the Blackfeet Indians of Montana and Canada.

[Corissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think there was a lot of interesting things in this book, but there was so much it was hard to absorb it all.

[Gary Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

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