SARCEE

also spelled Sarsi, North American Plains Indian people of Athabascan linguistic stock who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries near the upper Saskatchewan and Athabaska rivers. They probably moved southward to this region near the end of the 17th century when they became the northern neighbours of the Blackfoot Indians, from whom they received some protection from enemies. Their name comes from the Siksika (Blackfoot) and means not good. The Sarcee adopted the essentials of the Blackfoot culture and had versions of their military societies and the sun dance ceremony. Tobacco was their only crop and was planted ceremonially. They suffered from continual attacks by the Cree and other tribes; their population was reduced further by epidemics of smallpox and scarlet fever in the 19th century. In 1877 the Sarcee, along with the Blackfoot and Alberta Assiniboin, ceded their hunting grounds to the dominion government by treaty, and they were placed on a reservation in 1880.