[dustractor]

I'm glad to hear that the Blackfoot tribe is still going strong. I'm a nobody white guy but I've always felt a special connection with them. Here's why:

When I was a teenager and my parents weren't home, there was a knock at the door and it was an ancient-looking old man. He said he was a medicine man of the Blackfoot tribe. He didn't go into details but he said that since the tribe's numbers had dwindled they had voted to move to a different reservation. The problem was that the reservation they were going to was on land that used to belong to a tribe that was one of their ancient enemies and that he could not allow his tribe's medicine bag to end up there. He had heard that my parents were friends with the (? shawnee ? pawnee) and we had let them build a sweat lodge on our land that before he and his tribe left to go live with the tribe that was taking them in, he wanted to leave the medicine pouch somewhere it could stay on traditional Blackfoot lands. So anyway, he gave it to me and I got to hold it. The leather was old and cracked, the feathers were brittle, and the decorations were old shells and antique beads. I kept it for a while and used it in a couple of sweat lodge ceremonies with my friends before I finally told my dad about it and let him keep it.