Plains Native Americans - Blackfoot Illustration

Blackfoot Native Americans
Native Americans
in Olden Times for Kids

The Blackfoot are one of the oldest Plains People. They lived on the Plains for about 4000 years before the arrival of the white man.

Legend says that the Blackfoot People walked across a burned prairie. The ash turned their moccasins black. That is how they got their name.

The Blackfoot like to paint their tepees in a unique way. They painted a band around the top of their teepee, and another band around the bottom. Both bands had huge dots painted in a pattern of dot space dot space, all the way around. The top dots were symbols of planets and stars. The bottom dots were symbols of the plants and animals of the earth. It was their job to balance their life between these two worlds.

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