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ADMINISTRATIVE PROGRAMS AND CHANGES IN BLOOD SOCIETY DURING THE RESERVE PERIOD Author(s): Esther S. Goldfrank Source: Applied Anthropology, Vol. 2, No. 2 (JANUARY—MARCH 1943), pp. 18-23 Published by: Society for Applied Anthropology Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44135057 Accessed: 02-02-2021 13:50 UTC

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18 APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY

ADMINISTRATIVE PROGRAMS AND CHANGES IN BLOOD SOCIETY

DURING THE RESERVE PERIOD

by

Esther S. Goldfrank

Post-war reconstruction poses innumer- able problems - and past experience gives no com- plete answer to any of them. Yet an examination oí evena limited field of administration may high-light some of the many difficulties that must be faced when a comprehensive economic and educational program is being considered for a small group, a tribe, or a nation.

The Blood Indians,1 aBlackfoot tribe, who in historic time frequented the western plains of the United States and Canada, were particularly favored by circumstance. Their country was well-stocked with the buffalo upon which they depended for food, shelter, and clothing; their early possession of the horse and comparative freedom from white pressure gave ample opportunity for profit from an expand- ing fur trade. 2 Technical skill and individual brav- ery were duly recognized, but the accumulation of wealth was necessarily limited by the exigencies of their nomadic life. Wealth remained fluid, but it was not equally distributed; the many tales of intra-tribal violence in the pre-reserve period are evidence that, in spite of cooperative mechanisms, competitive trends were increasingly asserted. Horse wealth, whether actual or translated into privilege by pur- chase became the major determinant of status. 3

Contrary to the experience of certain oth- er Plains tribes, who once established on a reserve settled down to more or less stable economy,4 the recent history of the Blood is marked by rapid

change. This situation aids in evaluating traditional attitudes in terms of social programming; it re- veals what kind of rewards bring favorable responses and why. 1877-1894.

In 1877, the Blood were placed upon their reserve in Alberta, Canada. In 1878 a winter count reads, "this year the buffalo went out of sight." The warriors settled peacably on government land. They were encouraged to farm or herd,^ if the two cows that were allotted to a family of five can be so- called, but neither program met with success. By 1884, 1500 Blood were farming only 275 acres, and most of the labor wąs still supplied by the whites;** and that same year, the agency sold off the few re- maining cattle, glad enough to remove another "source of expense and anxiety." '

The tribe was on relief. They gratefully accepted the meager government rations that in- sured- equality ona minimum subsistence level. But the disparity in wealth due to the unequal ownership of horses remained the dominant factor in their

economic life. The outlawing of raiding had cut the supply line and access to any new wealth was diffi- cult. The horse wealth was frozen in the hands of

those who had horses in 1877, and it was they who benefited from any natural increase. With their horses they could still purchase ceremonial privilege and social advantage upon which personal prestige depended. Their children were beautifully clothed;

Case material included in this paper was collected in the summer of 1939 on the Blood Reserve in conjunc- tion with the Anthropological Field Laboratory of Columbia University which was directed by Dr. Ruth Bene- dict. I wish to thank Mr. Harry Biele and Miss Marjorie Lismer, who generously permitted me to consult their field notes, and Mr. Pugh, agent on the reserve for ten years, who assisted us in many ways. Except where otherwise noted, the references below areto the Annual Reports on Indian affairs contained in the Ses- sional Papers of the Dominion of Canada.

2' Oscar Lewis: The Effects of White Contact upon Blackfoot Culture , Monographs of the American Ethnological Society, N. Y. 1942.

3* Clark Wissler: Ceremonial Bundles of the Blackfoot Indians, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, N. Y. 1912, 'Vol. VII, Pt. 2, p. 276//.

Esther S. Goldfrank, Historic Change and Social Character: A Study of the Teton Dakota, American Anthro- pologist, Menasha, Wis., 1943, Vol. 45, #1, pp. 67-84.

18 78, Vol. 8, #10, p. XV// and p. XLVI; see also appendix CXXXIV .

6* 1884, Vol. 3, #*, p. IV. 7 • Op . cit. , p. 83.

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JANUARY-MARCH 1943 19

their 'ïavorites" or "children of plenty" as Uhlen- beck translates minipoka, were honored with charms, forelocks, and pipes. They became the partners of older men in military societies such as the Horn; they formed small cliques within their age-grades which set them off as a snobbish elite, and at the same time, served to protect them from the envious assaults of their less fortunate com-

rades. Their rich fathers tried to cement their po- sition by marrying them to children equally favored.

The poor had great difficulty in getting a wife at all. Polygamy, though illegal, still existed. A report of 1882 states, "most of the young men who have no horses cannot get married, and therefore steal from someone rich in women."®

A few ways remained for making a living. Shamanism was still a popular means of support, but practice did not always follow immediately upon a successful vision quest. A man could also work for whites or become a scout or farmer in the govern- ment service; and if he hoped for quick rewards, he could improve his position by marrying a rich woman often some ten or fifteen years his senior. A very ambitious man might combine all of them. But op- portunities for remunerative work were still scarce; farming and what little herding there was may have raised the subsistence level, but they brought no substantial increase in income. In general, a young man's position was increasingly insecure. To find a place in the new society he had to revert to pat- terns of the past even when they were forbidden. The 1887 - 1888 report reads, "war parties (were) com- posed mostly of young men from 16-25 years of age." 9 Actually these were raids upon neighboring herds, and usually the government cut short a brave career with a jail sentence.

Although both rich and poor were on ra- tions, the horse wealth of a rich man made it possi- ble for his son to find a place in the society. The horse owner could still put up a bride price; he could still honor his son with gifts and ceremonial purchases. The social stratifications incipient in the buffalo days became more marked during these years.

It has frequently been said that these In- dians of the Plains did not accept the government program because they were so wedded to their no- madic life that they could not be persuaded to settle down and farm or look after their cows. A review of

the official reports makes their lack of cooperation patent; but it also lends reason to their attitude. Cultivation of recommended but climatically unsuit- able plants was one long headache: the growing season was short; early frosts were frequent; sum- mer hail and grasshopper blights destroyed the crops while they stood in the fields. The milk from two cows could hardly be expected to induce a fam- ily that had depended upon the hunt to give up the few pleasures of their former nomadism that still remained to them, - visits to friends, rodeos, and the social compensations of the sun-dance. 1894 - 1910.

The new economy continued to be a desul- tory affair. The tribes annual income in 1895 was ap- proximately $7500.10 But another program was al- ready being inaugurated. In 1894, another effort was made to encourage herding. Three of the most influen- tial men and owners of large horse herds, were per- suaded to exchange their ponies for 'Trulls, cows, heif- ers, and calves." Twenty-three head apiece were is- sued to two of them; the other received eighteen. ^ Time and the inevitability of a settled life upon the re- serve may have made the Blood more ready to accept the responsibility of herding now than in the past, but the main reasons for the success of this program must be looked for elsewhere. Onlyafew of their hundreds of animals were of real use for farming, transporta- tion, and riding. On the other hand, the Blood had seen the success of a similar program of cattle herding among the neighboring Piegan. The rich herders knew that an exchange of twenty for twenty would bring quick benefits and would not radically reduce their manip- ulative horse wealth. There was a great clamor for cattle; but the man without horses remained the man without cows.

The new program stimulated a general in- terest in herding; nine hundred head of cattle still due under the old treaty of 1877 were claimed;^ a

8# 1883, Vol. 4, #5, p. 176. 1888, Vol. 13, #15, p. 80.

10 • 1896, Vol. 10, #14, p. 296. Op cit., p. 272//.

12# 1905, Vol. 11, #27, p. 202.

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20 APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY

loan system was introduced, but the good start that the owners of large horse herds had could not be overcome by lending a man one or two cows for a couple of years. ^ Haying became a necessary and lucrative occupation, and the haying camps pleas- antly recalled the hunting days of the past. So suc- cessful was this herding program that by 1902 only 51-1/2 acres were still being cultivated, 14 and in 1906, the Blood had more than 7500 cattle ^ and a cash income of about $40,000 annually. *6

Interest in Shamanism waned. There were

now more satisfactory ways of earning a living. Many of the younger men were drawn into the indus- try as helpers, and to some degree their position in the society was reestablished in terms of the old buffalo days. Again their services were in demand and they were assured board and lodging, some cloth- ing, and if an employer was generous, a horse as an annual bonus. These helpers were often the younger or poorer relatives of rich herders and for this reason expected preferential treatment. In spite of the unattractiveness of the wage and the small hope of riches, some of the more ambitious also sought these jobs; the hope always remained that loyal serv- ice would be rewarded by a convenient marriage.

But although the poor son-in-law might raise his status by marrying the daughter of a rich man, there were many times when he complained of continued exploitation after such a marriage. "Re- spect" did not always follow. Certain brave souls might break from the situation, but during this peri- od the ways and means of getting ahead, if you were born poor, were still few. Frustrations were many. One husband in his unsuccessful effort to combat his

rich brother-in-law's influence went so far as to

fake a love affair, don women's clothes, and simulate suicide.

Old ways of spending were exaggerated. Favorites were showered with expensive gifts and raiment. A saddle costing $80 to $100, silver spurs, special boots, finely beaded blankets, all might be lavished on a small and favored son. He was initi-

ated to many ceremonial objects for which large pay- ments were made not only in horses, but in fine goods. As the herds grew, the payments became more ostentatious; the Long Time Pipe, alone, sold several times for 100 horses.

Nor was it enough for a prosperous Blood to have one favorite. Many had two or more. Pointed Plume said he wanted "to treat his two boys alike." Others frankly stated they wanted to show how rich they were. To all it gave great satisfaction to add to prestige by conspicuous spending.

The less successful families aped their wealthier neighbors. They too had give-aways, but these were on a lesser scale; they too had their favorites, but these children had to be content with small honorings. They might receive an otter skin, even a weasel tail suit, or they might wear their umbilical cord in a little beaded bag as the "real" favorites did, but the meager efforts of their parents to "keep up with the Jones'" never received recogni- tion. Only when the spending was great and continu- al, only when many pipes and bundles had been bought, was a child considered a "real" favorite by the Blood.

Gifts flowed freely, but the circle within which they flowed remained, as before narrow and selected. The rich gave to the rich, to their close relatives, or to those to whom they were under ob- ligation for some favor. Shaming remained a con- venient mechanism for discouraging the demands of the less fortunate and for limiting the much- vaunted generous giving.

In this period of 1894 - 1910, the bulk of the wealth still rested in the hands of the horse

owners who in the first seventeen years of the re- serve succeeded in freezing the only valuable form of property that remained to the Blood after the treaty of 1877. However, with the increased oppor- tunities for making a living, social differences be- came less conspicuous. But the dominance of the large horse and cattle owners was never threatened. As the economy expanded, the rich spent more lavishly, and those who shared in the new wealth im- itated as successfully as they could the behavior of the wealthy tribesmen. The new herding economy functioned within the framework of pre- reserve val- ues.

1910-1920.

After the turn of the century, it was def- initely established that the soil and climate of the Blood reserve were well adapted to the cultivation of fall wheat. Shortly before 1910, the land was thrown

13# 1902, Vol. 11, #27, p. 132. 14, Op cit. , p. 220. 15 * 1907-8, Vol. 14, #27, p. 162. 16' Op cit p. 161.

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JANUARY-MARCH 1943 21

open for farming. The cattle herders objected vi- olently to the reduction of their grazing fields, ^ but the agency, interested primarily in obtaining the largest income possible, was not deterred. The younger men, ,łthe working element" as the report calls them, backed the new plan and rushed in their applications. *8 This "working element" saw its first big chance to make good since the buffalo days. It was a composite of half-breeds, who had shared in a small way, if at all, in the property distributions of their Blood relatives, a number of full-bloods, whose families could offer them little, and a few ambitious and farsighted cattle owners, mostly from those very chiefly families who at first had fought the new program most bitterly. The bulk of the herders, however, were content with their lucrative herds and their share in the income from hay. Their poorer but not too distant relatives preferred helping them to embarking upon a new and untried ca- reer.

Rewards, however, were even more im- mediate than in the second herding program. The first year, three farmers averaged over $1000 on farms of about 40 acres.*** But prices of all prod- ucts advanced in the rising market; by 1920, the to- tal income was over $250,000,20 and almost one-half came from farm products. The decade of 1910 - 1920 was the era of greatest participation and income spread that the Blood enjoyed during the reserve period.

Those who had herds continued to honor

their sons and daughters with lavish payments in both horses and goods for ceremonial bundles and privileges. The new rich had favorites "the American way." They were content to honor their children with extravagant outfits, a fine saddle horse, a fine saddle. The few horses they had were used in farming or transportation; they bought none to validate their new position by ceremonial purchase. A money economy completely divorced from the former horse economy now flourished on the reserve.

1920 -

At the end of the decade two catastrophes affected the Blood. The post-war depression caused a sudden drop in commodity prices. Both farmers

and herders suffered equally. But the harsh winters of 1919 and 1920 created a much more fundamental

change in the fabric of tribal life. The cold prac- tically annihilated the cattle herds. At one stroke, the accumulated capital of the herders was wiped out. For the farmers the blow was temporary; they still had their land, and after the difficult years, a good income although a smaller one could be derived from wheat. But a herd could not be replaced in a day, nor in a year. Some few herders had partici- pated in the new agricultural program,. but the ma- jority had only their horse wealth to fall back on. They gave up in despair. The wheat farmers bought up the cattle that survived.^*

The loss of cattle in the cold winters of 1919 and 1920 meant the loss of all cash income to

the herders; but enough horses remained to carry on the traditional exchange and purchase. Again on re- lief, the erstwhile herders could still achieve pres- tige in the old way, but with this difference: the horse was no longer a symbol of real wealth. The agency was quick to recognize this. Horse ex- changes and payments are not entered in the official books, but transactions in wheat and cattle are duly recorded. For the first time in the history of the Blood, the man with horses was not necessarily the rich man. Yet he continued to buy eagerly, even compulsively, into societies although he could not always complete the purchase. Today in spite of constant validation, his position is less secure. He still gets "respect", but "respect" wears thin when it is not bolstered by wealth. Real wealth, then as now, was in the hands of those men who had gone into farming around 1910.

The history of wheat farming has been none too rosy either. After a continued rise during the twenties, the value of farm products on the Blood reserve tumbled from $100,000 in 1930 to $24,000 in 1932.23 The drought that followed continued to discourage the farmers, although prices recovered somewhat. In 1939, many farmers as well as herd- ers, were on relief. Not unlike the situation in our own West, land was being concentrated in the hands of a few. One farmer cultivated 600 acres, net in- come $9000; another sharing with his son farmed

17 • 0p. cit . , p. 162. 18 • 1919, Vol. 15, #27, p. 169. 19, 1910, Vol. 17, #27, p. 174. 20 • 1920 , Vol. 8, #27, p. 76. 21 * 1922, Vol. 8, #27, p. 50. 22' 1931, p. 72. 23 • 1933.

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22 APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY

400 acres, net income $3000. From the first fig- ure there was still deductible support for a sick brother's family and compensation for a helper, but the latter may be accepted as final.

The situation is beginning to tell. The best land has been allotted. A young and ambitious Blood must either turn again to wages, as indeed even the sons of rich farmers have done, or if he is not satisfied with the marginal land still available, he must wheedle an idle farm from a more fortunate, if less ambitious tribesman. He may get it as a loan, or on a rental basis, but he is never certain how long he will be permitted to crop it. The more successful the young farmer is, the more eager the renter will be to reclaim his land and try his hand at it again.

To understand the behavior of an individu-

al and his treatment by others, it is necessary to ascertain not only his present status, but how that status was achieved. Among the Blood, more and more, wealth has become the determining factor, but increasingly it is wealth divorced from the old horse economy. The man with many initiations to his credit is still honored by a privileged seat at the left of his host, but it is with the successful man, be he herder or farmer, full-blood or half-breed, that the young men wish to identify.

All the old distinctions between rich and

poor are still drawn. The rich daughter-in-law is served; the poor one does the work. The poor son- in-law is disparaged. Even the impoverished herd- er or unsuccessful farmer, in memory of a better day, will storm when his daughter marries a poor orphan. A poor sister-in-law said of her rich one, "She always makes me work for her at her house, but she never does anything when she visits me. " A poor young wife who may make a simple and justi- fied request will be sarcastically told, "Go home, you minipoka. 1|M The real "favorite" may exploit his childhood privilege in the face of little criticism, even after he has reached adulthood.

The beautiful and discontented wife of a

poor man may brazenly flaunt her affair with her rich lover, but the unhappy wife of a rich man will find some more dignified way of showing her dissat- isfaction. When her husband philanders, she may refuse to cook his food; she may roll up in her own blanket and deny him his conjugal rights; she may leave him, or she may entertain his mistress, ply

her with fine gifts, and receive the approbation of society "because she shows no jealousy."

Ideally a man who can control his jealous impulses is also admired. A chief or member of the Horn Society is roundly applauded if he conforms to this difficult social expectation; but the poor hus- band who sits by and silently witnesses the drunken love-making of his wife and her rich lover receives no respect for his restraint.

Even the attitude of a mother toward her

"favorite son" may be influenced by her own wealth and position. A spoiled and wealthy woman may for- bid her favorite the house; she may take his horses and disinherit him if she disapproves of his mar- • riage; but a less financially secure woman, even if she is known as "manly- hearted", may uphold the authority of her favorite at all cost, as the one sure means of maintaining family prestige.

The changing status of the various groups within the society is revealed by an analysis of marriage trends. Thirty years ago marriages still followed the earlier pattern. The wealthy cattle men continued to select mates from their own circle.

The poor married each other; half-breed married half-breed, or an orphaned member of the tribe. Sometimes, it is true, an ambitious but poor young man would succeed in marrying a wealthy but con- siderably older woman; sometimes a father of a poor but beautiful daughter would succeed in mar- rying her off to a wealthy husband; sometimes a rich herder would prefer a poor son-in-law whose labor he could exploit. But the lines remained clearly drawn. Not even the !lnewly rich" were able to crash the "old society."

Today another trend is visible. Numerous marriages have taken place between the children of the ,łnewly rich" and the children of those cattle- breeding families who went into farming around 1910. These are the families that have cash in-

comes, good houses, good clothes, good automobiles. It is now the impoverished horse owner who is the undesirable. His children are marrying the poor and the orphaned.

The rapid changes in Blood economy during the reserve period make the tribe a fruitful field for investigating administrative policy. With- in an unchanging competitive framework, program and accident at different periods of time affected various groups in the society differently.^^ The re-

^ ' Ralph Linton, Acculturation and Processes of Culture Change in Acculturation in Seven American Indian Tribes, ed. by Ralph Linton, N. Y. 1940, p. 468.

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JANUARY-MARCH 1943 23

sponse oí these groups to government policy was dictated primarily by two factors, tradition and re- ward, The first did not necessarily obstruct ac- ceptance; in many instances it strongly recommended it. Reward, if great enough, needed no apologist, but it was weighed in relation to advantages already of- fered by the society. These advantages were real, not sentimental. The antagonism of the cattle herd- ers to the agricultural experiment in 1910 was due to their desire to preserve their considerable success in stock-breeding, not to any bond with their more remote hunting past. And again, the quick divorce of a money economy from a horse economy by those who began to farm in 1910 must be laid, not to any innate intellectual superiority, but to the fact that they had had the smallest stake in the benefits of- fered by their society.

In essence, the Canadian Government was interested in establishing an adequate subsistence level and improving the general tribal income. In practice, such an over-all policy, at times, perpetu- ated an inequitable situation. Amore intimate knowl- edge of the early economy of the Blood might have caused some hesitancy in exchanging twenty cows for twenty horses.

The special conditions of the reserve did not protect the Blood, any more than they have other similar groups, from the disasters of a falling market. In 1939, when field material was collected, amelioration still depended primarily on rations. Extraordinary abuse of land, however, has required more specific measures; one man who had succeed-

ed in accumulating 700 horses, almost one-fifth of the entire horse strength of the tribe, was persuaded to remove his herds from the farm lands in the

south, and "purchase" grazing fields in the north. Throughout the reserve period, Blood so-

ciety maintained its former individualistic charac- ter. For this reason, the implementation of a gov- ernment program did not depend entirely on the as- sistance of a tribal intermediary, such as the com- munity leader of the Navajo, 25 the pueblo priests, or their secular surrogates. Among the Blood, when chiefly authority failed to win cooperation, the ad- ministration could still hope for success by appeal- ing directly to interested members of the tribe.

Psychological generalizations based on one period of time and on the study of one group within a society inevitably obscure the real reasons for change and development. However, if such gen- eralizations grow out of a careful historical analy- sis which exposes the inner dynamics of a changing social configuration, they can be of inestimable help in formulating future administrative policies. Such communities as the Blood Reserve, comparatively simple in structure yet responsive to change, offer an unusual opportunity for combining all these ap- proaches. Sufficient historical material is available and enough anthropological field work has been done in the past and in the present to give validity to per- sonality studies referred in time. Careful inter- pretation should add greatly to our understanding of those factors that determine successful programing or retard it.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL ENGINEERING: ITS USE TO ADMINISTRATORS1

by Eliot D. Chappie

INTRODUCTION

Those of us who work as anthropologists on problems of present-day society are often asked two questions: first, What is anthropology? and, second, What good is it? The confusion in the mind of the layman implied by his need to ask these ques- tions is, of course, due to the fact that he associates anthropology with such apparently useless occupa- tions as measuring skulls or studying the unwashed cannibals, and the anthropologist has done little to disabuse him of these notions. We get a certain de- light out of shocking people by the esoteric nature of

our activities, and the wide diversity of subjects with which we deal makes it difficult to see how we can

hope to dispel the confusion and yet continue our tra- ditional activities. Nevertheless, we all believe that anthropology does constitute a single subject.

When our interrogators press us to differ- entiate anthropology from social and psychological studies, we usually reply that anthropologists view man as a whole, a phrase which is rarely more than a way of rationalizing our assorted subjects under a single head. Nevertheless, I believe that this phrase can be given a precise definition and that satisfactory answers can be given to both the questions posed

25. Solon T. Kimball and John H. Provinse, Navajo Social Organization in Land Use Planning, Applied Anthro- pology, Boston, pp. 18-25.

Address delivered before The American Anthropological Association, December 28, 1940.

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