ABSTRACT
I offer the following introductory pages for three reasons. First, I want to emphasize that this book deals with a living, indigenous religion-the traditional religion of the Blackfoot Peoples. This religion offers tremendous meaning to those who practice it, despite obstacles resulting from the colonization of North America by people who practiced a different religion and who saw the world very differently. I ask the reader to remember this throughout the book. My second reason for writing this introduction is to stress, from the very beginning, that contact between indigenous and colonizing cultures, such as the Blackfeet and Euro-Americans, has consequences that can and do last centuries. These consequences can be grave for indigenous peoples. Third, I want to call attention to the fact that scholars of indigenous religions-even contemporary scholars writing well after the age of colonialism-engage in a type of contact too, and they need to pay attention to the consequences of their own work. These three points may seem obvious. The fact is, however, that scholars have not always considered the differences between the religious world views of indigenous peoples and their own as seriously as they should have. Their failure to do so has led precisely to the sort of consequences of cultural contact dealt with in this book. With these things said, I turn toward the specific content of the book, both ethnographic and theoretical. I also offer some explanations for my treatment and presentation of that content. All of this, I hope, will help prepare the reader for what he or she will find in the first chapter onward.
