Photographs
Chief Big Nose and Sub Chief Little Plume of the Piegan Blackfoot Indians of Montana by Arthur Canning at Helena, Montana, Native American Indians Cabinet Card Photograph
(1881) Cabinet Card Photograph Images by Arthur Canning, "Landscape Photographer" of Helena, Montana, Native Americans identified as Chief Big Nose wearing his (unidentified) Silver Indian Peace Medal and Sub Chief Little Plume of the Piegan Blackfoot Indians of Montana, Very Fine.
This Cabinet Card Photo was issued by Arthur Canning, "Landscape Photographer" of Helena, Montana, whose maker imprint appears on the back of the card in large brown text. Two Native American Indian Chiefs large Cabinet Card Portrait Photograph that measures 8" x 5". The original image was taken in 1881. It shows Chief Big Nose at left, wearing his (unidentified) Silver Indian Peace Medal and holding a large knife handle in his hand, the knife covered in a feathered sheath. Little Plume is depicted in lighter garb, he is wrapped in a blanket, and he holds a rifle in a decorated beaded and fringed scabbard, its butt sticking out of the open upper end. The image is a little faded but remains clear. Pencil notations at the top of the back identify the two Chiefs. Reference: A copy of this photograph can also be viewed on the Montana Memory Project at: https://mtmemory.org/digital/collection/p267301coll3/id/4886/#/
The Piegan (Blackfoot) are an Algonquian-speaking people from the North American Great Plains. They were the largest of three Blackfoot-speaking groups that made up the Blackfoot Confederacy; the Siksika and Kainai were the others. The Piegan dominated much of the northern Great Plains during the nineteenth century.
After their homelands were divided by the nations of Canada and the United States of America making boundaries between them, the Piegan people were forced to sign treaties with one of those two countries, settle in reservations on one side or the other of the border, and be enrolled in one of two government-like bodies sanctioned by North American nation-states. These two successor groups are the Blackfeet Nation, a federally recognized tribe in Montana, U.S., and the Piikani Nation, a recognized "band" in Alberta, Canada.
Today many Piegan live with the Blackfeet Nation in northwestern Montana, with tribal headquarters in Browning. There were 32,234 Blackfeet recorded in the 1990 United States Census. In 2010 the US Census reported 105,304 persons who identified as Blackfeet ("alone" or "in combination" with one or more races and/or tribes.)