Blackfeet

a tribe of Indians. This tribe hunted the buffalo in the vast region extending from the valley of the Yellowstone to Hudson Bay. The Blackfoot was the most northwesterly representative of the great Algonquin family. Their warriors were related, therefore, in a remote way to Pocahontas, King Philip, Tecumseh, and Black Hawk. About 3,000 of these Indians linger on a reservation in Montana. As many more make their home in Canada. The name is said, rather fancifully it would seem, to have originated in the accidental circumstance that the first members of the tribe seen by white men had blackened their leggings by traveling across a burnt prairie.

The tribe that wandered the furthest from the primitive home of the stock (the Algonquin) were the Blackfeet, or Sisika, which word has this signification. It is derived from their earlier habitat in the valley of the Red River of the North where the soil was dark and blackened their moccasins.... They have an interesting mythology and an unusual knowledge of the constellations.--D. G. Brinton, The American Race.