Mountain Chief

Mountain Chief (Ninna-stako in the Blackfoot language; c. 1848 – February 2, 1942) was a South Piegan warrior of the Blackfoot Tribe. Mountain Chief was also called Big Brave (Omach-katsi) and adopted the name Frank Mountain Chief. Mountain Chief was involved in the 1870 Marias Massacre, signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868, and worked with anthropologist Frances Densmore to interpret folksong recordings

Mountain Chief (Blackfoot/South Piegan) was born around 1848 at Oldman River in Alberta, Canada (then British North America). Mountain Chief was the son of Mountain Chief and Charging Across Quartering. Mountain Chief's father, also known as Butte Bull and Bear Cutting, was a South Piegan chief and the son of Kicking Woman and Chief Killer. Mountain Chief was the hereditary chief of the Fast Buffalo Horse band.

Mountain Chief was a Piegan (South Piegan) and part of the Blackfeet Nation (Amskapi Pikuni), one of four tribal groups composing the Blackfoot Confederacy. Mountain Chief lived on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana. Mountain Chief's father became chief around the time that Lewis and Clark visited in 1806.

In Mountain Chief's childhood, his father gave him a buckskin yearling, a bay horse whose color resembles that of tanned deerskin. Mountain Chief learned to hunt birds and prairie dogs using arrows without points, and his mother's father, Big Smoke, made his first bow that he used for hunting. When Mountain Chief was old enough to ride well, he began to hunt buffalo and was given steel-tipped arrows.Mountain Chief participated in his first war party when he was 15 years old, at which time he was given his first war name, Big Brave (Umak’atci), by Head Carrier. In his adolescence, Mountain Chief went by the name Big Brave, as his father was also named Mountain Chief.

Mountain Chief was the half-brother of Owl Child, who was involved in the Marias Massacre. Mountain Chief also had three other half-brothers, Sitting In The Middle, Red Bull, and Last Kill, and one half-sister, Lone Cut. Mountain Chief was married to five different women, including Bird Sailing This Way, Fine Stealing Woman, Hates To Stay Alone, and Gun Woman For Nothing. And he had seven known children with these five wives, including Stealing In The Daytime, Rose Mountain Chief, Antoine Mountain Chief, Walter Mountain Chief, Tackler (Teckla), Emma Mountain Chief, Red Horn and Good Bear Woman.

Mountain Chief's name “Ninna-stako” in Blackfoot, translates to “Chief Mountain,” which is the name of the mountain in the northeastern part of what is now Glacier National Park. The name “Chief Mountain” is often written as “Mountain Chief” in English. Mountain Chief's father, the original bearer of that name – many would follow – died in 1872.