EXETER, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that Exeter City Council has voted to repatriate a buckskin shirt, a pair of leggings, a knife with a feather bundle, two beaded bags, and a horse whip that belonged to Crowfoot, a late nineteenth-century chief of the Blackfoot, to the Siksika First Nation. The items, which have been held in England’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM), will be put on display at the Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park in Alberta, Canada. The park is located on traditional Blackfoot lands, at the site where Crowfoot signed Treaty 7 with the Canadian government in September 1877. The agreement, although broken by the Canadian administration, set aside land for the Blackfoot and other First Nations, promised annual payments and provisions, and preserved hunting and trapping rights on the land. In exchange, Canadian officials acquired property to construct the Canadian Pacific Railway. Crowfoot’s personal items are thought to have been acquired at about the time the treaty was signed by Sir Cecil Denny, who worked as an Indian agent in Alberta. The regalia was then loaned to the RAMM by Denny’s sister in 1878. Chief Crowfoot eventually died of tuberculosis in 1890 at Blackfoot Crossing. To read about a 1,600-year-old roasting pit likely used by ancestors of the Blackfoot, go to "A Removable Feast."
