Blackfoot War Art: Pictographs of the Reservation Period, 1880-2000.(Brief article)(Book review)

Blackfoot War Art: Pictographs of the Reservation Period, 1880-2000 by L. James Dempsey. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 488 pp., 32 colour & 128 black & white illustrations, hard cover, $45.00.

This book has all the beauty of a coffee table book but is full interesting and informative information about Blackfoot warriors, and how their exploits graphically became works of art. In many cases, a man's war-record appears both in pictographic and written form. There are several accounts that relate to the Blood and Peigan victory at Lethbridge in 1870, of fights with Kootenay Indians who came across the mountains to hunt buffalo, and an explanation of the pictograph battle scene at Writing on Stone. Several dozen warriors tell of their horse raids, foxhole battles, victories and defeats. One man raided the Sioux and was captured by the great Sitting ...