To marry within the band is not good form, but not criminal. Thus, when a proposal for marriage has been made, the relatives of the girl get together and have a talk, their first and chief concern being the question of blood relationship. Naturally, the band affiliations of the contracting parties cannot be taken as a criterion since both may have very near relatives in several bands and cousins of the first degree are ineligible. Should the contracting parties belong to the same band but be otherwise eligible, the marriage would be confirmed, though with some reluctance, because there is always a suspicion that some close blood relationship may have been overlooked. Thus, while this attitude is not quite consistent, it implies that the fundamental bar to marriage is relation by blood, or true descent, and that common membership in a band is socially undesirable rather than prohibitive. If we may now add our own interpretation, we should say that the close companionship of the members of the band leads to the feeling that all children are in a sense the children of all the adults and that all the children are brothers and sisters and to a natural repugnance to intermarriage. Further, since most of the men in a band are in theory, of common paternal descent, even the informal adoption of a stranger would tend to confer upon him the same inheritance which as time dulled the memory would become more and more of a reality. In any event, the attitude of the Blackfoot themselves seems to imply that the band system came into existence after the present marriage customs and adapted itself to them rather than they to it.

A woman is called nĭmps by all members of her husband’s band, not his actual relatives. She may speak of all male members of the band older than herself as grandfather while the younger males may in turn speak of her as mother. Sometimes men of the same age as her husband, speak of her as “distant-wife.” While this may be consistent with a theory of gentile band organization in opposition to other data secured by us, our opinion is that it is at least equally probable that these terms were originally applied as marks of respect and circumstantial association, and consequently of little value as indicating the genesis of the band relations.

We must not permit the question of exogamy to conceal the important political and social functions of the band system. As one informant says, “the members always hang together at all times.” In another place, we have noted how the responsibility for the acts of individuals is charged to the band as a whole and how all are bound to contribute to the payment of penalties and even risk life and limb in defense of a member guilty of murder. In such, we shall doubtless find the true function of the Blackfoot band. The confusion as to exogamy seems to arise from the fact that blood ties tend to hold the children to the band of the father.

The tendency is for each band to live apart. When a band becomes very weak in numbers or able-bodied men, it takes up its residence beside another band or scatters out among relatives in various bands, but this is from necessity rather than choice. At present, the Blackfoot reserves are dotted here and there by small clusters of cabins, the permanent or at least the winter homes of the respective bands. By tradition, this was always the custom, though tipis were used instead of cabins. When two or more bands choose to occupy immediate parts of the same valley, their camps are segregated and, if possible, separated by a brook, a point of highland, or other natural barrier. The scattering of bands during the winter was an economic necessity, a practice accentuated among the Thick-wood Cree and other similar tribes. Something was lost in defensive powers but this was doubtless fully offset by greater immunity from starvation. In summer, the bands tended to collect and move about, both for trade and for the hunt. From what information we could secure, this seemed to be a natural congregation under the leadership of some popular man, usually a head man in his band. While the tendency was for the bands as a whole to join such leaders, it often happened that part of a band cast its lot with one group and part with another; however, such unions were usually temporary, the whole band being ultimately re-united when the tribe finally came together, either to trade at a post or to perform a ceremony.

Grinnell gives a list of the bands which he implies are to be taken as existing about 1860 and this agrees quite well with the information we secured. From the foregoing, it is natural to expect changes at any time. Since the names seem particularistic in their significance, we give only Mr. Duvall’s translations. For the Blood and North Blackfoot, our list is less complete.[[26]]

Piegan Bands.

1. Solid-Topknots12. Short-necks
2. They-don’t-laugh13. Many-medicines
3. Worm-people14. Small-robes
4. Blood-people15. Red-round-robes
5. Black-patched-moccasins16. Buffalo-dung
6. Black-doors17. Small-brittle-fat
7. Fat-roasters18. Undried-meat-in-parfleche
8. Skunks19. Lone-fighters
9. Sharp-whiskers20. No-parfleche
10. Lone-eaters21. Seldom-lonesome
11. White-breasts22. Early-finished-eating

Blood Bands.

1. Fish-eaters5. Many-children
2. Black-elks6. Many-lodge-poles
3. Lone-fighters7. Short-bows
4. Hair-shirts

North Blackfoot Bands.