Cheval Bonnet: A Crow Calling Card in the Blackfeet Homeland

Cheval Bonnet, a small petroglyph site located along Cut Bank Creek in northern Montana, contains coup-counting and horse-raiding narratives from the early 1800s. By careful comparison to known Crow-style rock art and robe art imagery, most of the petroglyphs at the site can be identified as Crow drawings, begging the question of why they are located here, so far from Crow country and in the heart of Historic Blackfeet tribal territory. Detailed ethnohistoric research shows that one aspect of Historic Plains Indian warfare was the leaving of such drawings as “calling cards” by war parties who entered enemy territory and wished to taunt their adversaries by illustrating deeds that they had executed against them. Understanding this site as such a calling card enables us to identify other similar ones elsewhere on the northern Plains.