The Piegan Blackfeet (Pikuni in Blackfoot) are a tribe of Blackfoot Native Americans based in Montana. Many members of the tribe currently live as part of the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana, with population centred in Browning. The Blackfeet are closely related to three First Nations in the Canadian province of Alberta. These First Nations are the Kainai Nation (formerly the Blood), the Northern Peigan and the Siksika Nation. These First Nations and the Blackfeet are sometimes collectively referred to as the Blackfoot or the Blackfoot Confederacy. Ethnographic literature most commonly uses Blackfoot people, and most Blackfoot people use the singular Blackfoot, though the US and tribal governments officially use Blackfeet as in Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Blackfeet Nation as seen on official tribe website. The term Siksika, derived from Siksikaikwan - "a Blackfoot person" - may also be used in self-identification, as may, in English, "I am Blackfoot" or "I am a member of the Blackfeet tribe."*************The relations of the Blackfoot language to others in the Algonquian language family indicate that the Blackfoot lived in an area west of the Great Lakes. Though they practiced some agriculture, they were partly nomadic. They moved westward partially because of the introduction of horses and guns and became a part of the Plains Indians culture in the early 1800s. The introduction of the horse is placed in about 1730. In 1900, there were an estimated 20,000 Blackfoot, while today there are approximately 25,000. The population was at times dramatically lower when the Blackfeet people suffered instances of disease, starvation, and war, such as the starvation year of 1882 when the last buffalo hunt failed or the smallpox epidemic of 1837 which killed 6,000. They had held large portions of Alberta and Montana, though today the Blackfeet Reservation is the size of Delaware, and the three Blackfoot reserves in Alberta have a much smaller area.************Piegan (Pikuni, referring to people having badly dressed robes). One of the 3 tribes of the Siksika or Blackfoot confederacy. Its divisions, as given by Grinnell, are : Ahahpitape, Ahkaiyikokakiniks, Kiyis, Sikutsipmaiks, Sikopoksimaiks, Tsiniksistsoyiks, Kutaiimiks, Ipoksimaiks, Silkokitsimiks, Nitawyiks, Apikaiviks, Miahwahpitsiks, Nitakoskitsipupiks, Nitikskiks, Inuksiks, Miawkinaiyiks, Esksinaitupiks, Inuksikahkopwaiks, Kahmitaiks, Kutaisotsiman, Nitotsiksisstaniks, Motwainaiks, Mokumiks, and Motahtosiks. Hayden gives also Susksoyiks. In 1858 the Piegan in the United States were estimated to number 3,700. Hayden 3 years later estimated the population at 2,520. In 1906 there were 2,072 under the Blackfeet agency in Montana, and 493 under the Piegan agency in Alberta, Canada. The Blackfoot language is also agglutinative. The Blackfoot do not have well documented male Two-Spirits, but they do have "manly-hearted women" (Lewis, 1941) who act in much of the social roles of men, including willingness to sing alone, usually considered "immodest", and using a men's singing style.*************Blackfoot is the name of any of the Algonquian languages spoken by the Blackfoot tribe of Native Americans, who currently live in the northwestern plains of North America. Like the other Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is typologically polysynthetic. Whorf hypothesized that it was oligosynthetic, but mainstream linguistics has rejected this. Of all the Algonquian languages, Blackfoot is often said to have diverged most drastically from Proto-Algonquian. It is significantly different both phonologically and, especially, grammatically from the other languages in the family.************The Blackfeet Indian Reservation or Blackfeet Nation is an Indian reservation of the Blackfeet tribe in Montana in the United States. It is located east of Glacier National Park and borders Canada to the north. Cut Bank Creek and Birch Creek make up part of its eastern and southern borders. The reservation contains 6,142.011 km² (2,371.444 sq mi), half again the size of the national park and larger than the size of the state of Delaware. It is located in parts of Glacier and Pondera Counties.*******************A large area of Northern Montana was set aside for Indian use by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. Part of this land was reclaimed by the U.S. in 1874. The Sweetgrass Hills Treaty of 1887 broke the Indian reserve into reservations for several separate tribes and established most of the modern reservation borders. In 1893, the Great Northern Railway was completed through the reservation starting the tourist economy and in 1896, the tribe sold off the western part of the reservation which later became part of Glacier National Park, although initially mining was attempted there. The Blackfoot tribes were a traditional buffalo culture until the failure of the buffalo hunt in 1883 as a result of non-native overhunting. This led to the Starvation Winter when 600 natives died. The federal government tried to establish farms and cattle ranches to reduce hunger and settle the nomadic tribe; however, the area proved marginal for either use and the tribe never became agriculturally self-supporting.**********The 2000 census reported a population of 10,100 living on the reservation lands. The population density is 4.26 people per square mile (1.64 people/km²). The main community is Browning which is the seat of tribal government. Other towns serve the tourist economy along the edge of the park: St. Mary and East Glacier Park which has an Amtrak station and the historic Glacier Park Lodge. Small communities include Babb, Kiowa, Blackfoot, Seville, Heart Butte, Star School, and Glacier Homes. North American Indian Days is an annual festival held on pow-wow grounds near the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning. Not on the reservation, but adjacent to its eastern edge, is the city of Cut Bank.***************Communities * Browning * East Glacier Park Village * Heart Butte * North Browning * Saint Mary * South Browning * Starr School