The Blackfeet Nation, originally from north of the Great Lakes, moved west in the 1600's and established their territory in what is now southern Alberta. There are three distinct tribes that make up the Blackfeet Nation. Two of them, the Northern Piegan and the Blood, remained in Canada. The third, the Southern Piegan, settled in present day Montana. When they first arrived on the plains, the Blood did not have the means to hunt buffalo except by driving them over pishkuns, or steep cliffs. Later they acquired horses and guns and became efficient at hunting buffalo from horseback. Contact with the whites brought decimation from disease. The U.S. Government eventually confined the Blackfeet to a the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northwest Montana.
