This painting depicts the women of the Blackfoot tribe moving camp. After the tipi was taken down, the buffalo hide cover was folded and usually placed on a pack animal. It can be seen lying across the frame saddle on the horse immediately behind the central mounted figure. The tipi poles were generally tied in bundles of five, and one bundle was placed on each side of a horse. The old woman to the right appears to be carrying some of the poles. Furnishings from the interior of the tipi, such as painted buffalo robes and willow backrests, were rolled and packed on a horse travois. The woman riding the paint horse seems to be carrying some of these articles. Both women sit astride large painted rawhide bags, known as parfleches (pronounced par-flesh or par-fleshes), decorated with long fringes in typical Blackfoot fashion. Generally, these bags would have held tools or utensils used in the household. The child riding between the women is a male, since the women of the tribe did not wear blanket coats. Russell was one of the few artists of the American West to actively paint the daily life of Native American women. John C. Ewers, the noted ethnologist who studied the Blackfoot tribe, noted that a normal day’s march was about ten to fifteen miles, and the average family of eight (two males, three females, and three children) required at least ten horses to move their camp efficiently. Prior to the arrival of horses on the northern plains in the mid-eighteenth century, dogs were used as the primary mode of transport. The wolflike dogs depicted in this painting were often used as guards once the camp had settled for the night. Unlike other plains tribes, the Blackfeet refused to eat dog meat.