.

After they reached the plains, the main food of the Blackfeet was
the buffalo, which they killed in large numbers when everything went
right. Many of the streams in the Blackfeet country run through
wide, deep valleys bordered on either side by cliffs, or broken
precipices, falling sharply from the high prairie above. Long ago
the Blackfeet must have learned that it was possible to make the
buffalo jump over these cliffs, and that in the fall on the rocks
below numbers would be killed or crippled. No doubt after this had
been practised for a time, there came to some one the idea of
building at the foot of such a cliff where the buffalo were run
over, a fence which would form a corral or pound, and which would
hold all the buffalo that were jumped over the cliff. This corral
they called piskun.

It is often said that the buffalo were driven over these precipices,
but this is true only in part. Like most wild animals, buffalo are
inquisitive. It was not difficult to excite their curiosity, and
when they saw something they did not recognize, they were anxious to
find out what it was.

When run into the piskun, the buffalo were really drawn by curiosity
almost to the jumping point, and between two long diverging lines of
people, who kept hidden until after the buffalo had passed them, and
then rose and showed themselves and tried to frighten the animals.
Now, to be sure, for the short distance that remained between the
place where they were alarmed and the place where they jumped, the
buffalo were driven. Any attempt on the open prairie to drive
buffalo in one direction or another would be certain to fail. The
animals would go where they wished to. They would not be driven,
though often they might be led.

To the people the capture of food was the most important thing in
life, and they put forth every effort to accomplish it. For this
reason it came about that the effort to capture buffalo was preceded
usually by religious ceremonies, in which many prayers were offered
to the powers of the earth, the sky, and the waters, many sacrifices
made, and sacred objects, like the buffalo stone, were displayed.

When the day for the hunt came, the man who was to bring the buffalo
left the camp early in the morning, climbed the rocky bluffs to the
high prairie, and journeyed toward some near-by herd of buffalo,
that had been located the day before by himself or by other young
men. He approached the buffalo as nearly as he co