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Pikuni


The Piikani Nation (formerly the Peigan Nation) is a First Nation (or an Indian band as defined by the Indian Act), representing Canadian Indigenous peoples known as the Northern Piikani (Siksika: Aapátohsipikáni) or simply the Peigan (Piikáni or Pekuni).

Historically speaking the Blackfoot language and having membership of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Niitsítapi), before the 1870s the Peigan people occupied territory on both sides of what is now the Canada–United States border. The Blackfoot Confederacy signed several treaties with the US and received the Great Northern Reservation, an initially vast reservation in present-day Montana. However, 220 Peigans were massacred by the US Army in 1870 and American authorities pressured the Blackfoot to give up more and more lands to white settlers (17,000,000 acres (6,900,000 ha) were ceded in 1887), leading some Peigans to relocate to Canada and sign Treaty 7 with the Canadian government in 1877.

The Peigan are now divided between the Blackfeet Nation (Aamsskáápipikani or "Southern Piikani") based on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, and the Piikani Nation (Aapátohsipikáni or "Northern Piikani") in Alberta.

The other members of the Confederacy are the Blackfoot-speaking Káínaa or Blood and the Siksiká or Blackfoot, as well as the Tsuu T'ina or Sarcee who only became allied later and spoke an unrelated language. At the time the treaties were signed, the Northern Peigan were situated on the Oldman River, west of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, to the west of the Kainai tribe.


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