In an era where globalization threatens indigenous traditions, the Blackfeet people of Montana face a profound challenge: safeguarding their language as the cornerstone of their cultural identity. A groundbreaking 1999 study by Dorothy M. Still Smoking, affiliated with the Blackfeet Tribe Head Start Program and Piegan Institute, Inc., delves into this issue through the voices of tribal elders. Titled “The Role of Language in the Preservation of a Culture,” the research highlights how the erosion of the Blackfoot language risks unraveling an entire way of life, while offering hopeful paths forward through community-driven education.
The Erosion of Tradition in Modern Education
For generations, Blackfeet families passed down knowledge through storytelling, ceremonies, and daily interactions, all woven seamlessly into the fabric of their language. However, as Still Smoking’s study reveals, Western education systems have disrupted this process. Public schools on the Blackfeet Reservation, the largest by population among Montana’s seven reservations, prioritize English and mainstream curricula, sidelining tribal history, philosophy, and customs. This has weakened family roles in cultural transmission, leaving many young Blackfeet disconnected from their heritage.
The consequences are stark. Elders interviewed in the study express deep concern over language loss, noting that it accompanies the fading of unique cultural elements like religious concepts, kinship systems, and ceremonial rites. “The loss of the complete unique culture always accompanies the loss of the language,” Still Smoking writes, echoing the elders’ fears. Historically, federal policies aimed at assimilation, through boarding schools and churches, enforced English at the expense of native tongues, often with harsh punishments for speaking Blackfoot. This legacy lingers, with many elders recalling how their own education devalued their way of life, fracturing family bonds and community structures.
Voices from the Elders: Wisdom Through Blackfoot
To uncover authentic insights, Still Smoking conducted in-depth interviews with 20 Blackfeet elders, all in the Blackfoot language to preserve its rich context. A team approach ensured accuracy: questions were translated on-site, and responses were recorded and later rendered into English. The elders, drawing from lifetimes of experience, addressed key questions about Blackfeet concepts of wisdom, learning methods, and the role of institutions in cultural preservation.
Their reflections paint a vivid picture of traditional life. Knowledge, they emphasized, is sacred and inseparable from the language, encompassing family relationships, names with profound meanings, ceremonies handed down from “Creator Sun,” and daily practices like praying and storytelling. Elders lamented the shift to English in homes, where even they sometimes spoke it to their children, questioning its utility in a “modern” world. Yet, they unanimously stressed language as the “vehicle for transmitting the culture,” essential for expressing Blackfeet values that English simply cannot capture.
One elder advocated for field-based research by tribal members to reclaim knowledge, while others highlighted the pride in grandchildren learning Blackfoot. The study groups findings into categories like Blackfeet life, ceremonies, and education, revealing a consensus: without language revival, the tribe’s spiritual and communal strength diminishes.
Pathways to Revival: Immersion and Community Action
Still Smoking’s research doesn’t just diagnose the problem, it points to solutions rooted in tribal agency. Elders endorse immersion schools as a powerful tool, where Blackfoot is the medium of instruction from an early age. On the Blackfeet Reservation, institutions like the Moccasin Flat Immersion School and Cuts Wood Immersion School, operated by the Piegan Institute, exemplify this approach. These programs aim to produce 1,000 child speakers in a decade, modeling success seen in indigenous groups like Native Hawaiians.
The study draws on Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), arguing that true education empowers people to “name the world” in their own terms. For Blackfeet, this means integrating language into both formal and informal learning. Elders call for community programs to fill gaps left by public schools, including elder apprenticeships, Blackfeet-authored books, and curricula that honor tribal worldviews. They also urge formal institutions, like Blackfeet Community College, to incorporate elder input more systematically.
Critically, the research underscores urgency: elders are the living repositories of knowledge, and time is short. As Joshua Fishman notes in a referenced work (1996), language ties into kinship and community belonging, elements vital for cultural survival.
A Call to Action for Indigenous Preservation
Still Smoking’s study, modeled after Floyd Rowland’s 1994 work on Northern Cheyenne education, offers a blueprint for other tribes. By centering elder perspectives, it demonstrates participatory research as a means to reclaim philosophical foundations. For the Blackfeet, reviving Blackfoot isn’t just about words, it’s about restoring identity, resilience, and self-determination.
In a world where languages vanish at an alarming rate, this research reminds us that culture thrives through its native tongue. As tribes like the Blackfeet innovate with immersion and community initiatives, there’s hope that future generations will speak, sing, and pray in the language of their ancestors.
This article is based on Dorothy M. Still Smoking’s 1999 paper, “The Role of Language in the Preservation of a Culture,” presented at the Adult Education Research Conference and available at https://newprairiepress.org/aerc/1999/papers/47.
