Blackfeet Season Author:Vella Munn It is a season of change for the Blackfeet tribe. The air is crisp with the scents of fall and the coming winter. The tribe's shaman, Bunch of Lodges, is locked in political battle with its chief, Sleeps Too Long. The shaman's sons, Raven's Cry and Night Thunder, are rivals for their father's affections and the right to succeed him as the tri... more »be's spiritual leader. Complicating the issue--whether spirituality or a warrior's wisdom is the best way to guide the tribe--are the visions of White Calf, a young Blackfoot woman of great spiritual power. Her dreams show that the buffalo have wandered far from their usual grazing lands and that the Blackfeet must quickly mount a hunt or they will not have enough fresh meat to last the winter. Worse than this, White Calf sees a future when the land of the Blackfeet is no longer theirs, when the white man has destroyed the buffalo and driven the Indians away from their ancestral lands. The tribe expects her to counsel them to follow either the shaman or the chief, but White Calf cannot clearly see whose path leads to a brighter future for her people. When White Calf chooses to marry the shaman's son Raven's Cry rather than the chief, who also sought her hand, the smoldering political rivalry becomes an outright war. The tribe is literally split in two as the chief's faction heads for warmer southern lands while Bunch of Lodges leads his people on an ill-fated buffalo hunt. Painfully aware that only unity will allow the tribe to survive the coming harsh winter their dreams have foretold, the shaman's sons and White Calf must battle through an unending blizzard to rejoin their people. Their only guide is a spirit wolf who seems both menace and protector.« less