Montana 1911: A Professor and His Wife Among the Blackfeet

John Abbott is a professor of history at Laurentian University’s Algoma University College. He is the co-author of The Border at Sault Ste Marie and The History of Fort St. Joseph.

Christianus Cornelius Uhlenbeck (1866–1951) was a native of Holland
and a professor of linguistics at Leiden University. His work on
European languages convinced him that a deeper understanding of their
secrets could only be acquired by the comparative study of other
language families. This conviction ultimately brought him to the study
of the Inuit language as spoken in Greenland, then to the languages of
North American Indians. It was his work in the latter field that brought
him to the Blackfoot Reservation in Montana, in the summers of 1910 and
1911.

At the centre of this quite massive book is the detailed diary kept by
his wife, Wilhelmina Maria Uhlenbeck-Melchior. While the professor
interviewed his subjects and wrote up their stories, Wilhelmina managed
the housekeeping and recorded her observations of life on the
reservation. She observes Bear Chief, flat on the floor, convulsed by
laughter as her husband reads from his Blackfoot texts in Blackfoot.
When it is Bear Chief’s turn to tell stories of his own hunts, she is
enthralled. “Bear Chief’s facial expression is second-sighted. His
mouth is nervously moving. His eyes are staring, he moves his hands a
lot. He tells about old times ...” (Sunday, June 11). On July 1, they
begin a journey over a rutted road in a decrepit buggy driven by
“Walter.” Discomfited though she was, Wilhelmina was entranced. “I
still picture Walter in front of me. The old beat-up hat on his head,
the scarlet scarf loosely tied around his neck. I look so often at his
face, driving through the small lakes & sometimes flying through puddles
of mud so everything splashes up in your face.” Then the sojourn is
over. “The express train comes at 10:19. The bright light approaches
rapidly, the train stops, the negro is ready with his steps, we get in
and suddenly we are in the Pullman Car. There is no wind around me, no
rain either, but our Indians aren’t there anymore. Prairie life
belongs to the past.” (Sunday, September 17). Superb photographs and
some drawings illustrate her text.

Readers who wish to sound the disciplinary depths of this excellent
academic tome may open the book to a short historical disquisition on
the Blackfoot in Montana, and biographical sketches of the Uhlenbeck
couple and Wilhelmina. Following the diary there is an appreciation of
C.C. Uhlenbeck’s work as a linguist among the Blackfoot, the legendary
histories, a collage of Blackfoot texts recorded by Uhlenbeck, as well
as articles on names, social organization, and dances of the Peigans in
the appendixes. All these works, translated from the Dutch, entailed
immense labour in the interests of scholarship and what must be a
relatively small reading public. Libraries with collections in Great
Plains studies should add Montana 1911.