Moonlight Run Design, pencil and ink pen on sketchbook paper, 8x10cm.
This is the final design for the 2022 Moonlight Run Marathon. I was commissioned to create a design based on Blackfoot traditional knowledge from a local Blackfoot artist to represent the territory.I had created this design based on the idea that the buffalo, our source of life is a symbol of survival as persistence hunters. It is said that to be able to live on the prairies, you must be able to run at least 26.2 miles of distance to that of a modern marathon in 3 to 5 hours to survive as a prairie hunter. The Blackfoot (Prairie people - Saokitapix) were ultra-marathon runners. This subsistence strategy was adopted from the knowledge of the wolves which allowed for the hunters to run its prey to exhaustion to be able to get close enough to the prey and kill it in closer ranges. Thus, was much more effective than ambush hunting without putting the hunters in serious danger. That is why I put the pictograph of the buffalo in the center of the design, along with the bottom symbols of the mountains, iniskim (Buffalo Calling Stone), and buffalo hoofs. This tells the origin story of the iniskim, and the buffalo hunt that plays a part in the ceremonial process of the Piskaan (Buffalo Jump) to which running was a crucial part of this communal subsistence strategy. The Matapi at the top is the symbol for human being, and can also be interpreted as the Niitsitapi symbol which represents the Blackfoot people.
