Plains Indian

Plains Indian
a member of any of the American Indian tribes, as those of the Algonquian, Athabascan, Caddoan, Kiowa, Siouan, or Uto-Aztecan linguistic families, that formerly inhabited the Great Plains. All were more or less nomadic, following the buffalo, and were often in touch with one another so that the development among them of common culture traits is noticeable. Also called Buffalo Indian.

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Any member of various Native American tribes that formerly inhabited the Great Plains of the U.S. and southern Canada.

Plains Indians are popularly regarded as the typical American Indians. They were essentially big-game hunters, the buffalo being a primary source of food and equally important as a source of materials for clothing, shelter, and tools. Until supplanted by the white settlers from the 16th century onward, the Plains Indians occupied the area between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, which includes portions of both the United States and Canada. It is a vast grassland stretching from northern Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada to the Rio Grande border of Texas. The Arapaho, Assiniboin, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Comanche, Plains Cree, Crow, Hidatsa, Kiowa, Mandan, Osage, Pawnee, and Sioux are Plains Indians.

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people
Introduction
  member of any of the Native American peoples inhabiting the Great Plains of the United States and Canada. This culture area comprises a vast grassland between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains and from present-day provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada through the present-day state of Texas in the United States. The area is drained principally by the Missouri and Mississippi rivers; the valleys of this watershed are the most reliable sites from which to obtain fresh water, wood, and most plant foods. The climate is continental, with annual temperatures ranging from below 0 °F (−18 °C) to as high as 110 °F (43 °C).

 Perhaps because they were among the last indigenous peoples to be conquered in North America—some bands continued armed resistance to colonial demands into the 1880s—the tribes of the Great Plains are often regarded in popular culture as the archetypical American Indians (American Indian). This view was heavily promoted by traveling exhibits such as George Catlin's (Catlin, George) Indian Gallery, “Wild West shows” such as the one directed by William F. (“Buffalo Bill”) Cody (Cody, William F.), and a multitude of toys, collectibles, pulp novels, films, television shows, and other items marketed to consumers.

Traditional culture

Linguistic organization
      Six distinct American Indian language (American Indian languages) families or stocks were represented in the Plains. Those speaking the same language are generally referred to as a tribe or nation, but this naming convention frequently masks the existence of a number of completely autonomous political divisions, or bands, within a given tribe. For instance, the Blackfoot tribe included three independent bands, the Piegan, Blood, and Northern Blackfoot.

      Each language family included groups that lived in other culture areas, and the speakers of the several languages within a stock were not always geographically contiguous. Thus the speakers of Algonquian languages included the Blackfoot, Arapaho, Atsina, Plains Cree, and Saulteaux (Plains Ojibwa), all in the northern Plains, while Cheyenne, also an Algonquian language, was spoken in the central Plains.

      The speakers of Siouan languages included the Mandan, Hidatsa, Crow, Assiniboin, Omaha, Ponca, Osage, Kansa, Iowa, Oto, and Missouri. Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota were spoken by the bands of the Santee, Teton, and Yankton Sioux tribes, respectively (see Sidebar: The Difference Between a Tribe and a Band; Sidebar: Native American Self-Names).

      The Pawnee, Arikara, and Wichita were Caddoan-speakers, whereas the Wind River Shoshone and the Comanche were of the Uto-Aztecan language (Uto-Aztecan languages) family. The Athabaskan (Na-Dené) stock was represented by the Sarcee in the northern Plains, while the Kiowa-Tanoan stock was represented by the Kiowa.

      Two other communication systems bear mention. The Métis of the Canadian Plains spoke Michif, a trade dialect that combined Plains Cree, an Algonquian language, and French. Michif was spoken over a wide area; in other areas many tribes used Plains sign language as a means of communication. This was a system of fixed hand and finger positions symbolizing ideas, the meanings of which were known to the majority of the tribes of the area.

The role of the horse in Plains life
 The introduction of the horse had a profound effect on the material life of the Plains peoples. Horses greatly increased human mobility and productivity in the region—so much so that many scholars divide Plains history into two periods, one before and one after the arrival of the horse. Horses became available gradually over the course of at least a century; before AD 1650 horses were fairly rare, and by 1750 they had become relatively common.

Plains life before the horse
 From at least 10,000 years ago to approximately AD 1100, the Plains were very sparsely populated by humans. Typical of hunting and gathering cultures (hunting and gathering culture) worldwide, Plains residents lived in small family-based groups, usually of no more than a few dozen individuals, and foraged widely over the landscape. The peoples of deep prehistory in this region are referred to as Paleo-Indians, Archaic cultures (Archaic culture), and Plains Woodland cultures (see Native American: Prehistory (Native American)).

 By approximately AD 850, some residents of the central Plains had shifted from foraging to farming for a significant portion of their subsistence and were living in settlements comprising a number of large earth-berm homes. As early as 1100, and no later than about 1250, most Plains residents had made this shift and were living in substantial villages and hamlets along the Missouri River and its tributaries; from north to south these groups eventually included the Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara, Ponca, Omaha, Pawnee, Kansa, Osage, and Wichita. Some villages reached populations of up to a few thousand people. These groups, known as Plains Village cultures, grew corn (maize), beans, squash, and sunflowers in the easily tilled land along the river bottoms. Women were responsible for agricultural production and cultivated their crops using antler rakes, wooden digging sticks, and hoes made from the shoulder blades of elk or buffalo. Women also collected medicinal plants and wild produce such as prairie turnips and chokecherries (chokecherry). Men grew tobacco and hunted bison, elk, deer, and other game; whole communities would also participate in driving herds of big game over cliffs. Fish, fowl, and small game were also eaten.

      Until the horse the only domesticated animals were dogs (dog); these were sometimes eaten but were mostly used as draft animals. Dogs drew the travois, a vehicle consisting of two poles in the shape of a V, with the open end of the V dragging on the ground; burdens were placed on a platform that bridged the two poles. Because of the limitations inherent in using only dogs and people to carry loads, Plains peoples did not generally engage in extensive travel before the horse. However, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado (Coronado, Francisco Vázquez de)'s expedition in 1541 reported encounters with fully nomadic buffalo-hunting tribes on the southern Plains who had only dogs for transport.

      Before horses became available, intertribal warfare was relatively rare and few battles were deadly. However, a period of exceptional conflict occurred in the 14th century, probably due to the same kinds of drought-induced crop failure that caused the dispersal of the Ancestral Pueblo (Ancestral Pueblo culture) and Hohokam (Hohokam culture) cultures of the Southwest at approximately the same time.

Plains life after the horse
      As the European colonization of North America's Atlantic coast began, epidemic diseases and colonizers swept across the landscape. Indigenous communities in the path of destruction fled, displacing their neighbours and creating a kind of domino effect in which nearly every Northeast Indian tribe shifted location; eventually groups as far inland as present-day Minnesota and Ontario were displaced westward to the Plains. Those that eventually resettled on the Plains included the Santee, Yankton, and Teton Sioux and the Saulteaux, Cheyenne, Iowa, Oto, and Missouri.

      By the mid-18th century horses had also arrived, coming from the Southwest via trade with the Spanish and the expansion of herds of escaped animals. Guns were also entering the Plains, via the fur trade. Plains peoples, whether established residents or newcomers, quickly combined horses and guns to their advantage. Unlike pedestrian hunters, mounted groups could keep pace with the region's large buffalo herds and thereby support themselves on the grasslands. Most hunters initially chose to use bows and arrows in the mounted hunt, as these provided greater accuracy than early guns. However, as firearms became more accurate, they were readily adopted.

      As tribes became more reliant on equestrian hunting, they adjusted their annual round to match that of their primary food source, the buffalo. As a rule, the largest bands or tribes came together en masse only in late spring and summer. During this period the buffalo congregated for calving, allowing hunters to supply enough food to support extensive gatherings of people. During the remainder of the year, the buffalo dispersed into smaller herds, and the nomadic tribes and bands followed suit.

      The seasonal round of the village groups may be illustrated by the Arikara, who planted their crops in the spring, spent the summer as nomadic hunters, and returned to their villages in the autumn for the harvest. After a brief period of hunting in the late autumn, they moved to winter hamlets of a few homes each in the wooded bottomlands, which provided shelter from winter storms. They returned to their villages in the spring to begin the cycle anew.

      Dogs continued to be used as draft animals, particularly for mundane and short-distance tasks such as hauling water and firewood from a valley to a nearby village or camp; horses were generally considered too valuable for these activities.

      The remainder of this article's information on traditional cultures refers to the period after the introduction of the horse.

Settlement patterns and housing
 All Plains peoples used tepees (tepee), although villagers resided for most of the year in earth lodges. The tepee is a conical tent, its foundation being either three or four poles; other poles placed around these formed a roughly circular base. Before the horse, tepees averaged about 10 feet in diameter, encompassing approximately 80 square feet (7.5 square metres); later they averaged about 15 feet in diameter (4.5 metres), for an interior of some 175 square feet (16.25 square metres). A teepee would usually house a two- or three-generation family. The cover was made from dressed buffalo skins carefully fitted and sewn together and often painted with representations of the visions or war exploits of the eldest male resident. Entrance was through an opening in the tent wall, with a flap of the tent covering serving as a door; early travelers reported that one scratched or rubbed on the tent wall in lieu of knocking. A hearth in the centre provided heat and light; a smoke hole at the top could be closed in bad weather and in warm weather the sides could be rolled up for additional ventilation. When a large group assembled, a camp circle was usually formed, leaving the space in the centre for ceremonial structures. Among some peoples, such as the Cheyenne and Atsina, each subgroup had a defined place in the circle. Among many tribes, too, the orientation of the lodges and the opening of the circle were toward the rising sun.

      The earth lodge, the dwelling used by most village tribes, was much larger than a tepee. Earth lodges averaged 40 to 60 feet (12 to 18 metres) in diameter, encompassing approximately 1,250 to 2,825 square feet (116 to 263 square metres), and generally housed three-generation families. Like tepees, they had a roughly circular floor plan; unlike tepees, they were dome-shaped, roofed and walled with earth, and entered by means of a covered passage. A rattle made of deer hooves often served as a door knocker in these residences. The placement of an earth lodge within a village varied from one tribe to the next and often was determined by the eldest male resident; however, the homes themselves typically belonged to the women of the household. Earth lodge villages were generally protected by a defensive ditch and palisade.

 The construction of Osage and Wichita houses was similar to that of the wickiup of the Northeast. The dwellings of the Osage were oval in ground plan, composed of upright poles arched over on top, interlaced with horizontal withes, and covered with mats or skins. Wichita houses were more conical in shape and thatched with grass. They were otherwise similar in size and occupancy to earth lodges.

Material culture and trade
 On the northern Plains men wore a shirt, leggings reaching to the hips, moccasins, and in cold weather, a buffalo robe painted to depict the war deeds of the owner. Among the villagers and some southern nomads, men traditionally left the upper part of the body bare and frequently tattooed the chest, shoulders, and arms. Women's clothing typically consisted of a long dress, leggings to the knee, and moccasins. Clothes were decorated with porcupine-quill embroidery, fringe, and in later times, beadwork. Often, the eyeteeth of elk were pierced and used to decorate dresses; as each elk had at most two suitable teeth, a highly decorated dress conspicuously displayed the skill and dedication of the hunters in a woman or girl's family. Billed caps and fur hats were used for protection from the bright sun and the cold. Elaborate headgear and other regalia were reserved for ceremonial occasions.

 Bullboats, a round watercraft created by stretching a bison skin over a framework of willow withes, were often used to transport large quantities of meat or trade goods downstream. Pipe bowls were usually of stone but could also be ceramic, and pipe stems were generally made of wood. Receptacles of various kinds were made from rawhide, leather, and fascia such as the pericardium, which was used as a tough, collapsible bucket. Basketry and pottery were characteristic products of the villagers, although nomadic groups such as the Cheyenne, Comanche, and Arapaho made basketry gambling trays. A few nomadic tribes, such as the Atsina, Blackfoot, and Cree, claimed to have made earthenware in the past but to have given up the practice because the resulting vessels were too fragile for travois transport. Tools were made of fibre, bone, horn, antler, stone; many traditional tools, including hide scrapers, cooking vessels, knives, and arrowheads, were made from metal once it became available through the fur trade.

      Differences in wealth arose from the increased productivity enabled by the horse. There was a flowering of what one authority has termed luxury developments—“showy clothing, embroidered footgear, medicine-bundle purchases, elaborate rituals [culminating in the Sun Dance], [and especially] gratuitous and time-consuming warfare.” Horses became so valuable that horse stealing became a major reason for raiding; in the villages the best horses were even brought inside the earth lodge at night. The man who had many horses could use this wealth for a variety of purposes, such as giving them to those in need, offering them as bridewealth, or trading them for other materials.

      Because most material goods other than horses were readily available to all members of a given community, there was very little intratribal trade in them; there was, however, much exchange of ritual knowledge and other intangibles. Knowledge of war medicine and of curing rites was a valuable asset, and in almost all of the tribes the acquisition of this information was costly. For example, in the 1830s an individual who wished to gain the spiritual benefit believed to accrue from viewing the contents of a Mandan sacred bundle (a group of sacred and ceremonial objects) was expected to pay the bundle's guardian cash, horses, or goods equivalent to about a year's wages for the typical manual labourer. Apprenticeships in craft production were also purchased. Hidatsa customs, for instance, required men who wished to learn to chip flint arrowheads to purchase instruction from the guardians of the bundles associated with arrow-making songs; similarly, women who wished to learn to make pottery or earth lodges had to purchase apprenticeships from recognized craft and ritual specialists.

      Trade between members of different tribes was common and often involved an exchange of products between nomads and villagers, as in the trade of buffalo robes for corn. Intertribal trading relationships were often smoothed by the practice of ritual adoption, as when two men or two women would adopt one another as “brothers” or “sisters”; as most social expectations were framed by kinship, adoption defined a clear role for each member of the partnership. The Cheyenne were middlemen in the trade of horses between the tribes of the southern Plains and those of the north-central Plains, while the Assiniboin, Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara, and later some eastern Sioux groups brokered the guns and other materials such as blankets, beads, cloth, and kettles that flowed from the British and French for pelts and buffalo robes from groups to the west. Conflicts often stemmed from competition among tribes that wished the sole control of a specific trade route.

Political organization
      The political structures of most Plains tribes functioned at the level of the band. Bands were fluid groups that could range in size from a few dozen to a few hundred people who lived, worked, and traveled together. Nomadic tribes generally comprised several large independent bands that coalesced and dispersed over the course of the year. Village groups functioned similarly; a group of related villages might coalesce for a band-level hunt, while smaller groups were the more usual parties for work and socializing.

      Band organization relied upon a combination of individual leaders and military societies. Leaders had to prove themselves; although some social status derived from one's family, those who were to be entrusted with the community good had to demonstrate individual productivity, wisdom, bravery, and success. Talent and skill played strong roles in leadership as many traditional activities were quite complex—managing a large summer hunt, a communal ritual, a seasonal dispersal, a period of raiding or defense, the building of new earth lodges, or the timing of the planting or the harvesting of a crop—and were often crucial to the group's continued survival. Military societies, in turn, kept the general order and enforced the decisions of leaders.

      Each band centred its activities in a loosely defined area within a broader tribal territory. The bands within a tribe did not fight one another, but the degree to which they acted in concert varied. Among the nomadic Comanche, for instance, bands changed membership with ease and the people chose not to have a formal tribal council. Similarly, residency in each of the three Hidatsa villages was quite fluid, but each village nonetheless identified itself as a band and remained politically independent from the others. In contrast, the Skidi band of the Pawnee lived in 19 separate villages that were united in maintaining their political independence from the other three bands within the Pawnee nation. The Cheyenne were the most politically hierarchical Plains group; their 10 bands sent representatives to a council of 44 peace chiefs, whose decrees were binding on the entire tribe.

      Some Plains cultures reckoned descent bilaterally, or equally in both the male and female lines. Others reckoned descent exclusively in either the male or female line; in those cultures a child automatically became a member of either the father's or mother's lineage (a group that could trace its ancestry to a known individual) and clan (a group of lineages). This did not mean that there was no recognition of the other parent and his or her relatives; to the contrary, both parents and their kin usually had specific roles to fill. Frequently a child was treated indulgently by lineal or clan relatives, who taught him ordinary life skills such as hunting (for boys) or agriculture (for girls), while nonlineal relatives were more authoritarian and acted as spiritual mentors.

      For instance, although they had a matrilineal clan system, tracing descent through the mother's line and back to a common female ancestor, a Hidatsa child had important relationships with the father and his clan: these kin were always treated with respect, often presented with gifts, had the privilege of naming children, and had important mentoring roles in warfare and ritual performances such as the Sun Dance. The Mandan and Crow also had matrilineal clan systems. The patrilineal clan system was characteristic of the Iowa, Kansa, Omaha, Osage, and Ponca, and probably the Blackfoot and Atsina.

      In some tribes certain clans regarded themselves as more closely related to each other than to other clans. Among the Kansa the 16 clans were grouped into 7 larger units (phratries) that regulated marriage and certain other activities. Occasionally phratries were further grouped into two complementary units, or moieties. The Ponca moieties, for instance, were each composed of two phratries, each consisting of two clans. A key feature of the clan system was its ability to transcend band differences within the tribes; one was generally expected to provide hospitality to clan relatives regardless of their band loyalties, thus integrating the tribe as a whole.

      Every group had regulations governing marriage. Some, such as the Atsina and Blackfoot, did not tolerate marriage between consanguineous (consanguinity) (genetic) relatives, no matter how distant the tie, and others proscribed marriage within varying degrees of relationship. However, unions between affines—those who were already connected through marriage—were often preferred; the levirate and sorarate were common customs in which, respectively, a man married the widow of his deceased brother or a woman married the widower of her deceased sister. Most marriages were monogamous, although polygyny was also common; polygynous marriages usually involved sisters sharing a husband, as this built on established bonds and ensured that friendly parties would share in raising the household's children and caring for its elders.

      Ideally marriages were arranged between the families of the bride and groom, the latter usually paying bridewealth; sometimes, as among the Mandan, this was a purely symbolic exchange as each side provided exactly equivalent gifts. Virginity was highly prized among most of the tribes, particularly the Cheyenne. Among the Blackfoot, women known to be chaste were selected for roles in important ceremonies. A double standard prevailed, however, and men in all of the tribes were expected to pursue sexual conquests. Elopement was not unknown, but attitudes varied; the Teton tolerated the couple on their return, while the Cheyenne considered the girl disgraced forever.

      Most Plains tribes had definite rules governing conduct between marriage partners and their opposite-sex parents-in-law. Their interactions were typically characterized by avoidance behaviour (avoidance relationship); this so-called “mother-in-law taboo” in which a man and his wife's mother showed their mutual respect by not speaking to, or in some cases not even looking at, each other was usually paralleled by a “father-in-law taboo,” in which a woman and her husband's father would avoid one another for the same reasons. The Atsina and a few other tribes required brothers-in-law to be very circumspect in their speech, avoiding any reference to sex no matter how indirect.

      Most Plains tribes also had joking relationships (joking relationship) between particular categories of kin. Perhaps the most universally recognized joking relatives were grandparents and grandchildren; although parents, and especially mothers, were often visibly fond of their children, the latter were expected to treat their parents with respect. In contrast, grandchildren and grandparents often engaged in mild ribbing; when praise for good behaviour proved insufficient, this was the preferred way to remind a child of appropriate comportment. Most kinship systems delineated a wide network of additional joking relatives; teasing, roughhousing, and practical joking was expected within these cohorts and one was to respond to them in a good-natured manner or risk losing prestige. As everyone from the highest chief to the poorest orphan had joking relatives, this custom provided a mechanism for registering social approval or disapproval and for deflating puffed egos.

      Some joking relationships were quite ribald; many of the tribes adhering strictly to the avoidance taboo permitted great freedom between a man and his sisters-in-law. Among the Crow they were expected to romp with each other and to talk to each other in vile or sexually explicit language. The Atsina encouraged mutual practical joking and teasing, and the Blackfoot allowed the same freedom as between man and wife. It is notable that, according to marriage rules on the Plains, the parties to these joking relationships were potential mates.

socialization and education
      Training began early for Plains children, as part of their play. As children were usually raised in extended families, grandparents were often heavily engaged in their socialization; older children were also charged with watching after their younger counterparts.

      Plains tribes typically had a distinct division of labour in which women were responsible for producing children, raising and gathering plant foods, constructing and maintaining the home, cooking, and providing clothing and other domestic accoutrements, while men hunted for the household and provided defense for the community. In preparation for her adult role, a young girl would be given a doll to play with and care for. As she grew older her family might make her child-sized hide-scraping tools, which her female relatives would teach her to use. She would learn to sew by making clothes for her doll and to keep house in a child-sized tepee. Likewise, a young boy would be given a bow and arrows with knobbed tips; as he grew stronger he would receive larger, heavier bows and be shown how to stalk small game and to hit moving targets. Groups of boys engaged in shooting matches and play battles, the winners receiving acclaim from their elders; the losers were praised if they had fought bravely. Girls played a game in which a ball was kept in the air without using the hands. Children also engaged in horse races, foot races, swimming, and games of chance.

      The young were encouraged to behave in desired ways by praise and reward, with many of the tribes giving special praise for the first successful completion of a task or skill. Thus an Oto father publicly gave away property to honour his son when the boy first walked, when he brought in his first small game, when he killed his first deer, and when he returned from his first war party. When a Crow boy killed his first big game animal, he was given public recognition; a song celebrating the achievement was sung at a ceremony similar to that which would mark his return from a first war party. Progress toward maturity was generally rewarded by removing restrictions and granting special privileges. Blackfoot boys who won shooting matches were allowed to wear feathers in their hair. As soon as he went on his first war party, a Cheyenne boy was relieved from the duty of herding horses and also from the necessity of listening to long lectures on proper behaviour. Girls were similarly recognized for their accomplishments in food production, cooking, quilling, beading, hide processing, and the like. A few tribes, including the Plains Cree, ritually marked the occurrence of the girl's first menses.

      In a number of tribes the mother's brother and the father's sister played important roles as mentors and disciplinarians. Among the matrilineal Hidatsa, the maternal uncle was responsible for the direction and supervision of his nephews; he guided them and punished them, but also praised them. Arapaho parents relied on the father's sister to instruct a girl in proper behaviour and to reprimand her if necessary. Physical punishment was seldom employed. Praise and reward for achievement seem to have been generally emphasized more than ridicule and admonishment for failure, although a child's joking relatives were a constant presence and their potential for teasing provided a strong incentive for socially acceptable interaction.

Social rank (social status) and warfare
      Traditional Plains peoples shared a cultural ethos that interwove expectations of individual competency with those of obligation to the community. For instance, the status of an individual or family was enhanced when they were generous to the poor, shared goods with relatives, engaged in lavish hospitality, and cooperated with others.

      There were no hereditary social classes, but there was ranking of individuals. The son of a wealthy family would have an early advantage over a poor child in that he could rely on his family for the material support necessary to pay for craft and ritual apprenticeships, initiation fees for military societies, bridewealth, and feasts. As time passed, however, such a man would have to prove himself independently. A poor man, in contrast, might spend his youth in straightened circumstances but could win wealth and standing through prowess at war or ritual. In some tribes orphans were the preferred marriage partners, as they had proved themselves to be responsible individuals and capable providers at a young age.

      Most tribes ranked war exploits, but they did not all evaluate particular deeds alike. Intertribal fighting seldom involved major tribal forces; it was carried out mainly by raiding parties of a few warriors to avenge a death, to steal horses, and especially to gain glory. Counting coup—touching an enemy's body in battle—was generally considered of greater moment than killing him. Stealing a valuable horse that had been picketed at its owner's lodge was also considered a feat of renown; in many tribes, groups of young boys developed stealth by the socially approved practice of attempting to steal food from their neighbours' lodges. In the event of a group's success, the lodge residents often held a feast in the boys' honour; such a celebration of the thieves' skill exempted the household from further plunder.

 Most tribes had a number of religious and secular associations. Among the latter were military groups such as the Hidatsa Dog Society; these generally functioned as police and sometimes as rivals for battle honours. Among the Crow, for example, there were two outstanding societies, the Lumpwoods and the Foxes, that were of equal rank and competed fiercely in feats of war. The Arapaho, Atsina, Blackfoot, Mandan, and Hidatsa ranked their military societies in a series of age sets (age set), groups of individuals of a similar age who functioned as a cohort. Distinctive regalia and membership privileges in each society were purchased collectively by each age set from the next older group, the exchange continuing until the oldest group sold all their materials and retired from the system. The number of societies varied. The Hidatsa at one time had as many as 10 military societies.

      Women had their own ritual and secular associations. Where men's groups were generally oriented toward raiding, women's societies generally focused on the fertility of humans, animals, and crops, and on the turning of the seasons. Among the Mandan and Hidatsa, women's societies were also age-graded; it has been reported that such women's societies also existed among the Blackfoot, Arapaho, and Atsina.

Belief systems
      The Plains tribes did not distinguish sharply between the sacred and the secular, although they certainly acknowledged that some things, such as the contents of sacred bundles, had more supernatural power than others. They attached much importance to visions and their cultures generally included aspects of animism, a belief system in which natural phenomena such as animals, plants, the sun, moon, stars, thunder, and lighting are physical manifestations of spirit-beings.

      Success in life was believed to depend in large measure on the intervention of these spirit-beings. The usual procedure for obtaining spirit help was to undertake a vision quest, in which a person would go to some lonely spot to fast and beg for aid; men might also mortify the flesh, though women usually did not. If the suppliant was successful, the spirit-being would provide detailed instructions for winning immunity in battle, curing illness, or obtaining other skills or powers; those who were very respectful might gain the protection of a guardian spirit. The quest for supernatural power through a vision or dream was important among all of the tribes and among both girls and boys; vision quests were often begun when a child was as young as six or seven years of age. Not everyone was successful in the vision quest, and among the Crow and some other tribes those with power were permitted to transfer it to others less fortunate.

      All of the tribes had people who communed with the spirit world in order to perform acts of healing and shamanism. In most of the groups ordinary illnesses such as dysentery or headaches would be treated with common herbal remedies, while a shaman would be called in to diagnose and treat more serious illnesses. It was widely believed that illness was caused by intrusion of a foreign object in the body and that the shaman could cure the patient by extracting the item. If the extraction failed, there had presumably been some unwitting infraction of the rules as laid down by the shaman's supernatural sponsor. Shamans were not required to take every case, as their reputation depended upon their ability to cure; among the Teton they could refuse after examining a patient. Other services they might render included locating enemies and game animals and even finding lost objects. Arapaho, Atsina, and Cheyenne shamans were reported to walk on fire as a proof of their powers.

      In some tribes it is difficult to distinguish the role of the shaman, who had direct contact with the supernatural, from that of the priest (priesthood), who obtained his knowledge from other practitioners. In some cases the two roles were more or less combined; among the Cheyenne the main road to supernatural power was through acquisition of ritual knowledge from one who was already a priest, although power was also sought through visions. Thus the same individual may have acted in some situations as a shaman and in others as a priest.

      Among the tribes having a clear belief in a spirit superior to all other spirits were the Cheyenne, the Atsina, and the Pawnee. The Cheyenne, for instance, held that “the Wise One above” knew better than all other creatures; further, he had long ago left the Earth and retired to the sky. In smoking ceremonies the first offering of the pipe was always made to him. Some of the other tribes, such as the Crow, believed instead in multiplicity of deities, each of whom possessed more or less equal power.

      Ceremonial and ritual were well developed on the Plains. They ranged from very simple rites to complicated proceedings involving weeks of preparation and performances that lasted for several days. A number of common ritual elements were used alone or combined in various ways. Sacred bundles, also called medicine bundles, figured prominently in rituals throughout the area. In some cases the bundle was a personal one, the contents of which had been suggested by a guardian spirit, while in others it was a tribal property with a long, or even mythological, history. Bundles were handled reverently and opened according to definite rules. The opening of the Cheyenne sacred arrow bundle, for instance, was the focus of an elaborate tribal rite extending over four days.

      The sacred number for most tribes was four, often said to represent the cardinal directions. A less common number was seven, representing the cardinal direction plus “up” or the sky, “down” or the world below, and “centre” or the location of the ritual. Often dances, songs, or other parts of a ritual were performed in or by groups of four or seven. Many rituals used an altar or other specially prepared space in a ceremonial structure for arranging sacred objects or smoking them with incense. The dimensions of the altar and the symbols that were used varied with the tribe and the ceremony. Ritual purification in a sweat lodge was required in connection with many ceremonies.

 One important ritual found among about 20 tribes is known inaccurately in English as the Sun Dance. The indigenous terms for this ritual varied: the Cheyenne phrase may be translated as “New Life Lodge”; the Atsina term means “Sacrifice Lodge.” While the central features were the same among all the tribes, there were many differences in detail. The sacrament was always held in summer, when the whole tribe could gather; those pledging to undertake the most arduous form of the ritual usually did so in thanks for having been relieved of some grave difficulty.

      The ceremony was an annual event among the Teton but occurred at quite irregular intervals among the Crow. The pledger was instructed by a priest or ritual specialist; weeks or even months were needed for spiritual preparation and to gather the food, gifts, and other materials the pledger and his family were expected to provide. A ceremonial structure was built in the centre of the camp circle (or among the Mandan, in a very large earth lodge dedicated to this and other rituals); before it was erected, offerings were placed in the fork of the central log. Within the structure was an altar upon which buffalo skulls were laid. The pledger and other participants fasted and danced for several days, praying for power. A widespread, though not universal, feature of the ceremony was self-mortification by some of the participants. A ritual expert pinched a centimetre or two of skin on the pledger's breast or back, pierced through it with a sharp instrument, and inserted a wooden skewer through the piercing. One end of a rope or thong was tied to the skewer, the other end being attached to the centre pole or a buffalo skull. The dancer leaned back until the line was taut and strained until the line tore through his piercings. Among the Teton the practice also involved piercing the dancers' legs.

Cultural continuity and change

Intercultural contact
      Although little direct contact occurred between Plains peoples and Europeans before the 18th century, the fur trade had brought manufactured articles such as guns, metal utensils, axes, knives, blankets, and cloth to the region much earlier. In some cases the new materials were seen by indigenous peoples as superior to the traditional ones. The durability of brass kettles caused them to be preferred over traditional clay pottery, for instance, as the latter were easily broken and time-consuming to produce; similar situations obtained as glass beads were substituted for porcupine quills and metal tools for stone tools, and some traditional arts and crafts declined. Paradoxically, however, some aspects of social life were intensified as a result of the fur trade. For example, the new purchasing power ascribed to an old product, buffalo robes, indirectly increased polygyny: women were responsible for dressing hides, so the wives of successful hunters sought to bring new partners into the marriage (often their sisters) to share this arduous work. Religion was affected in a similarly indirect manner, insofar as wealth brought by the fur trade encouraged the more frequent transfer of medicine bundles and drove up the cost of gaining ritual knowledge.

 Direct contact with Europeans and Euro-Americans began in earnest in the late 18th century. In addition to fur traders and explorers, a number of artists and scientists traveled to the region and created unusually complete records of the indigenous cultures and their responses to colonialism. The 1830s were particularly well documented through the journals and paintings created by the pioneering ethnologist Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied (Wied-Neuwied, Maximilian, Prinz zu) and his companion, the Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, as well as the American artist George Catlin (Catlin, George).

      By the 1840s the opening of the Oregon Trail and other routes across the Plains spurred the burgeoning Homestead Movement in the United States. Discussions of tribal unification began as increasing numbers of Euro-American settlers crossed sovereign territory on the way to California and the Pacific Northwest. Some tribes objected to trespass so strongly that they attacked the travelers.

      A major conference between tribal leaders and the U.S. government was convened at Fort Laramie in 1851. The United States desired to delineate which lands were to belong to tribes and which to the United States, to establish an intertribal peace, to allow the development of transportation systems and supporting fortresses in the region, and to guarantee the safety of settlers en route to the West Coast; the tribes desired to establish legal title to their land and guarantees that such title would be held inviolate. Negotiations were successfully completed and brought a period of relative tranquility to the Plains.

The Plains Wars
      Renewed development, particularly an influx of settlers who staked claims under the Homestead Act of 1862, reignited tensions in the region. In the Sioux Uprising of the same year Santee bands that had remained in Minnesota sought to drive away settlers whom they felt were encroaching on indigenous lands, although most of the areas in question had been ceded to the United States under previous treaties. By the end of the conflict some 400 settlers, 70 U.S. soldiers, and 30 Santee had been killed and more than 300 Santee men were sentenced to death by hanging; President Abraham Lincoln later commuted most of these sentences.

      Relations between the region's nomadic peoples and the United States declined precipitously from that point onward. The retaliatory efforts by each side of the conflict were plentiful and horrific. Examples include the Sand Creek Massacre (1864), in which Colorado militia attacked a Cheyenne village and killed between 150 and 500 people, mostly women and children; the Fetterman Massacre (1866), in which Teton warriors killed an entire unit of 80 U.S. soldiers; and the Washita River Massacre (1868), in which George Armstong Custer (Custer, George Armstrong) and the 7th Cavalry killed a reported 103 Cheyenne. The large number of battles during this period has caused some historians to name the conflict as a whole the “Indian Wars” or “Plains Wars.”

 Notably, the village tribes generally sided with the United States during this period; many of their young men acted as scouts for the U.S. military. In following this strategy, the village groups were acting in their own best interests and suffered far fewer casualties during this period than the nomads. The nomads had arrived on the Plains only a few generations before and were often seen as interlopers by the villagers; although specific bands of nomads and villagers had long-standing trade relations, the groups generally viewed one another as enemies. Alliance with the United States enabled Arikara, Hidatsa, Mandan, Pawnee, and other men to gain battle honours against traditional foes without breaking the Fort Laramie treaty's prohibitions against intertribal warfare. Further, many village leaders perceived that the United States would become the regional hegemon and that cooperation with that government was the best strategy for retaining possession of tribal land.

      The nomadic tribes created an atmosphere in which many settlers eventually abandoned their claims. A second treaty convention at Fort Laramie, held in 1868, was intended to re-establish the peace and did so for a time. However, the United States abrogated the treaty in 1874, opening the Black Hills to development when gold was discovered there. Conflicts were renewed and ultimately several bands of Sioux and Cheyenne united, annihilating Custer and his 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Little Bighorn, Battle of the) (1876; see also Sioux).

 Acknowledging that military actions against guerillas who were defending their home territories was a difficult and expensive proposition at best, U.S. policy makers turned to the destruction of the indigenous food supply. Buffalo hunting had already been undertaken on a massive scale by private parties and needed little encouragement to become terribly efficient. As the buffalo disappeared, the Plains Indians began to starve, and by the early 1880s most bands had acceded to confinement on reservations (reservation).

Syncretism, assimilation, and self-determination
      New religious movements were adopted during the early reservation period—first the Ghost Dance and later peyotism (Native American Church). Both were syncretic, combining elements of traditional religions with those of Christianity. The Ghost Dance began as a redemptive movement in the Great Basin (Great Basin Indian) culture area but became quite millenarian as it spread to the Plains, where believers danced in the hopes that the settlers would disappear, that the buffalo would return, and that their people would be impervious to attack. Concerns that Ghost Dancing would reignite the Plains Wars led to the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, in which more than 200 Miniconjou Sioux were killed by the reconstituted U.S. 7th Cavalry. This was the final major armed engagement of the Plains Wars.

      Peyotism centred on a type of cactus—the peyote—the fruit of which caused hallucinations or visions when eaten or imbibed. As both the government and Christian missionaries considered this practice dangerous, they made efforts to suppress it. However, adherents of the peyote religion were incorporated in 1918 as the Native American Church, which continued to be a strong organization in the early 21st century. Sun dancing, which had been subject to similar efforts at suppression, also continued to be practiced in the early 21st century.

      Canadian tribes were also affected by development and particularly by the political changes that flowed from the British creation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867. The new Canadian government quickly stated its intent to annex the northern Plains, most of which had until then been part of Rupert's Land, a territory of the Hudson's Bay Company; annexation proceeded without consultation with the area's resident tribes.

      Powerful groups such as the Plains Cree, Blackfoot, Saulteaux, and Métis knew that annexation presaged the potential destruction of their way of life; many of these groups had provided refuge to tribes fleeing the conflicts in the United States and were well informed regarding the processes and consequences of colonial expansion. The Métis soon instigated the Red River Rebellion (1869–70); as a result, the Canadian government and the rebels agreed that the latter would have a strong presence in provincial government. Canada's Numbered Treaties were subsequently executed; similar to the first Fort Laramie treaty, these agreements delineated tribal and governmental title to lands and the terms of development in the area, among other things. In 1885 a second rebellion was instigated in response to the repression of local rule, but it was quashed and its leaders hanged or imprisoned.

      By the end of the 19th century both the United States and Canada had begun to pursue assimilationist (assimilation) programs designed to replace traditional cultures with Euro-American ways of life. Those sent to implement these programs were often corrupt or incompetent, and even the most professional among them encountered many obstacles: the nomadic groups were loath to become sedentary, cattle were universally derided as a poor substitute for buffalo, and reservation land was often unsuitable for agriculture. Cultivation was traditionally women's work and the basis of their economic empowerment, and women and men alike resisted the change in the division of labour brought by the plow. Confusion resulted when officials insisted on listing families by surnames, which few indigenous peoples used. Additional misunderstandings arose within the matrilineal tribes when Euro-Americans insisted that property should pass from father to son rather than from mother to daughter.

      Government-sponsored boarding schools were also given the mission of assimilating indigenous children. Attendance was mandatory and children were forced to leave their homes for months or years at a time. Some staff members used extremely harsh measures to force children to give up their traditional cultures and languages. The extent of abuse that occurred in these institutions, including sexual abuse, is perhaps best represented by the Canadian government's 2006 offer of some $2 billion in reparations to former residential school pupils.

Sovereignty, economic development, and cultural revitalization
      Assimilationist policies such as those mandating confinement to reservations were governmental challenges to tribal sovereignty; regaining self-determination in these and other areas became the defining goal of the Plains tribes in the 20th and 21st centuries. Many tribes in the United States were economically devastated by the Pick-Sloan plan, a post-World War II federal development program that placed major dams on the Missouri River and numerous smaller dams on its tributaries. This project flooded hundreds of square miles of the tribes' most economically productive land and forced the relocation of some 1,000 extended-family households. The dams also created lakes so large that they were difficult to bridge, thus isolating reservation communities whose residents had once been able to visit with relative ease.

 As with other rural communities, many Plains tribes had instituted formal plans for economic growth by the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Many of these plans were designed to resolve common rural development issues, such as underemployment and lack of services, while also instituting programs for cultural revitalization. For instance, when tribal schools were opened to replace the boarding schools, many employed tribal elders to instruct children in indigenous languages. Several tribes implemented buffalo ranching operations with programs that were hoped to aid in the restoration of the Plains ecosystem. A number of groups own casinos and hotels (see Native American gaming (gaming, Indian)); other tribal enterprises include manufacturing, trucking, and construction. See also Native American: History (Native American); Native American: Developments in the late 20th and early 21st centuries (Native American).

Elizabeth Prine Pauls

Additional Reading
Regional syntheses of the traditional cultures of the Plains include Robert H. Lowie, Indians of the Plains (1954, reprinted 1982), a classic work; W. Raymond Wood and Margot Liberty (eds.), Anthropology on the Great Plains (1980), a collection of topical essays; Peter Iverson (ed.), The Plains Indians of the Twentieth Century (1985); William C. Sturtevant (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 13, Plains, ed. by Raymond J. DeMallie, 2 vol. (2001); and Loretta Fowler, The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Great Plains (2003). Patricia Albers and Beatrice Medicine, The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women (1983), is one of the first scholarly collections written about and by Native American women.The artistic and material traditions of the Plains are discussed in a number of richly illustrated volumes, such as George C. Frison, Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains, 2nd ed. (1991); Evan M. Maurer, Visions of the People: A Pictorial History of Plains Indian Life (1992); Candace S. Greene and Russell Thornton (eds.), The Year the Stars Fell: Lakota Winter Counts at the Smithsonian (2007); and Michael Bad Hand Terry, Daily Life in a Plains Indian Village, 1868 (1999), a volume that includes photos of rare items such as 19th-century sunglasses. The description, development, and symbolism of the earth lodge are the focus of the essays in Donna C. Roper and Elizabeth P. Pauls (eds.), Plains Earthlodges: Ethnographic and Archaeological Perspectives (2005); prehistoric and early historic material culture are the focus of Stanley A. Ahler and Marvin Kay (eds.), Plains Village Archaeology: Bison Hunting Farmers in the Central and Northern Plains (2007).Ethnographic and historic analyses of equestrian peoples other than the Sioux nations include John C. Ewers, The Blackfeet (1958, reissued 1988); Hana Samek, The Blackfoot Confederacy, 1880–1920: A Comparative Study of Canadian and U.S. Indian Policy (1987); Paul C. Rosier, Rebirth of the Blackfeet Nation, 1912–1954 (2001); Robert H. Lowie, The Crow Indians (1935, reprinted 1983); George Bird Grinnell, The Cheyenne Indians, 2 vol. (1923, reprinted 1972); Orlan J. Svingen, The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, 1877–1900 (1993); Loretta Fowler, Arapahoe Politics, 1851–1978 (1982), and Shared Symbols, Contested Meanings: Gros Ventre Culture and History, 1778–1984 (1987); Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches (1952, reissued 1988); Morris W. Foster, Being Comanche: A Social History of an American Indian Community (1991); Gerald Betty, Comanche Society: Before the Reservation (2002); and Jacki Thompson Rand, Kiowa Humanity and the Invasion of the State (2008).The many Sioux groups are considered in Gordon MacGregor, Warriors Without Weapons (1946, reprinted 1975), a study of the society and personality of the Teton Dakota under reservation conditions; Gary Clayton Anderson, Kinsmen of Another Kind: Dakota-White Relations in the Upper Mississippi Valley, 1650–1862 (1984); Richard Erdoes, Crying for a Dream: The World Through Native American Eyes (1990), focusing on Sioux religious ceremonies; William K. Powers, Oglala Religion (1977); Paul B. Steinmetz, Pipe, Bible, and Peyote Among the Oglala Lakota: A Study in Religious Identity (1980, reissued 1990); Marla N. Powers, Oglala Women: Myth, Ritual, and Reality (1986); Thomas Constantine Maroukis, Peyote and the Yankton Sioux: The Life and Times of Sam Necklace (2004); and Jeffrey Ostler, The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee (2004).Accounts of village tribes include Alfred W. Bowers, Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization (1950, reprinted 1991), and its companion volume, Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization (1965, reissued 1992); Roy W. Meyer, The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri: The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras (1977); Alice C. Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe, 2 vol. (1911, reissued 1992); Gilbert C. Din and A.P. Nasatir, The Imperial Osages: Spanish-Indian Diplomacy in the Mississippi Valley (1983), covering relations in Louisiana and Spanish Illinois from the 1760s to 1808; Terry P. Wilson, The Underground Reservation: Osage Oil (1985), a detailed tribal history, despite its title; W. David Baird, The Quapaw Indians: A History of the Downstream People (1980); and Robin Ridington and Dennis Hastings, Blessing for a Long Time: The Sacred Pole of the Omaha Tribe (1997).

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Universalium. 2010.

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