Piegan Blackfeet
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (2010 census: total of 105,304 (alone and in combination)) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 United StatesMontana |
|
| Languages | |
| English, Blackfoot | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity, Traditional beliefs | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| other Blackfoot peoples (Kainai and Siksika Nations), and Algonquian peoples |
The Piegan (Blackfoot: Piikáni) are an Algonquian 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 the Kainai were the others. The Piegan dominated much of the northern 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, USA and the Piikani Nation, a recognized "Indian band" in Alberta, Canada.
Today many Piegan live on the Blackfeet Reservation in northwestern Montana, with tribal headquarters in Browning. There were 32,234 Blackfeet counted by the 1990 US census. In 2010 the US Census reported 105,304 persons identified as Blackfeet ("alone" or "in combination" with one or more races and/or tribes.)
The Piegan (also known as the Pikuni, Pikani, and Piikáni) are one of the three original tribes of the Blackfoot Confederacy (a "tribe" here refers to an ethnic or cultural group with a shared name and identity). The Piegan are closely related to the Kainai Nation (also known as the "Blood Tribe"), and the Siksika Nation (also called the "Blackfoot Nation"); together they are sometimes collectively referred to as "the Blackfoot" or "the Blackfoot Confederacy". Ethnographic literature most commonly uses "Blackfoot people", and Canadian Blackfoot people use the singular Blackfoot. The tribal governments and the US government use the term "Blackfeet", as in Blackfeet Indian Reservation and Blackfeet Nation, as used on their official tribe website. The term Siksika, derived from Siksikáíkoan (a Blackfoot person), may also be used as self-identification. In English, an individual may say, "I am Blackfoot" or "I am a member of the Blackfeet tribe."
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