ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the nature and extent of markings left on the landscape by the Blackfoot people at a place known today as the Sweetgrass Hills. It describes the material imprint of such secular and sacred behaviors at a place called the Sweetgrass Hills, one of the more prominent and distinctive landmarks within the homeland of the Blackfoot. To most archaeologists, the patterned movement of the Blackfoot people represents a subsistence and settlement strategy specifically adapted to the ecology of the northwestern Plains. To the Blackfoot people however, movement across the homeland is actually designed, to address historical, social and cosmological imperatives. As they follow in the footsteps of their ancestors, the people engage in a range of secular and ritual activities to maintain the relationships of reciprocity and trust with their human and non-human relatives and to ensure the renewal of the land, the resources and the people.
