Birds of the Blackfoot

The Blackfoot did not have many things to do with birds because of their world almost completely revolving around the importance of the buffalo to them. The importance of birds really only goes as far as being used for their clothing and the appearance of a bird in an old Blackfoot legend.

The Blackfoot make use of Eagles and other birds' feathers in their clothing such as the roach that they wear. Their roaches are made from many porcupine needles; which are often dyed red. Many Blackfoot would acquire the feather of an Eagle or another bird and then use them on their roaches as pictured below.

 Blackfoot roach with bird feather. Source: Web

There was also a legend told by the Blackfoot that involves their god Na'pi discovering a bird emitting a strange noise. When he watched to bird make the noise, its eyes would pop out of its head and land on a tree. It would then make the noise again to retrieve its eyes. This trick astounded Old Man so he approached the bird and inquired how to do such a trick. The bird agreed to show him but only if he promised not to do it more than three times in a day. After his agreeing the bird then showed Old Man how to do the trick. Overwhelmed with joy, Old Man then did the trick three times right away. Seeing as nothing went wrong, Old Man merely scoffed at the birds warning thinking him mad and did it a fourth time anyway. However, when Old Man tried to retrieve his eyes the trick failed him. He fumbled around shouting for the birds help but the bird ignored him and flew away. For a long time Old Man continued fumbling for his eyes, all the while a wolf teased him with a piece of buffalo meat, which was rotted, and held it by his face. Old Man noticed the awful smell and felt around for it, eventually catching the wolf and stealing one of his eyes. Being able to see with the wolf's eye, Old Man found his eyes and put them back in his head. He could finally see again but was now unable to do the trick that the bird showed him.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfoot_Confederacy#Importance_and_uses_of_buffalo
http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/The-Wonderful-Bird-Blackfoot.html