The Plains Indians are the Indigenous peoples The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North, Central, and South America, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples. They are often also referred to as Native Americans, Aboriginals, First Nations , Amerigine[dubious – discuss], and by Christopher Columbus' geographical and who live on the plains and rolling hills of the Great Plains of North America The Great Plains are the broad expanse of prairie, steppe and grassland which lie west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming, and the Canadian. Their colorful equestrian culture and resistance to White domination have made the Plains Indians the archetype in literature and art for American Indians everywhere.

Range of the Plains Indians at time of European contact.

Plains Indians are usually divided into two broad classifications which overlap to some degree. The first group were fully nomadic, following the vast herds of buffalo The American bison is a North American species of bison, also commonly known as the American buffalo. Some consider the term "buffalo" somewhat of a misnomer for this animal, as it is only distantly related to either of the two "true buffalo," the Asian water buffalo and the African buffalo. However, "bison" is a. Some tribes occasionally engaged in agriculture; growing tobacco and corn primarily. These included the Blackfoot The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana, Arapaho The Arapaho are a tribe of Native Americans historically living on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Sioux. Arapaho is an Algonquian language closely related to Gros Ventre, who are seen as an early offshoot of the Arapaho. Blackfoot and Cheyenne are the other, Assiniboine The Assiniboine (pl. Assiniboines, Assiniboins, Assiniboine, Assiniboin) or Hohe, also known by the Ojibwe name Asiniibwaan ("Stone Sioux"), and by the endonyms Nakota-Nakoda-Nakona, are a Siouan Native American/First Nations people originally from the Northern Great Plains of the United States and Canada. In modern times, they have been, Cheyenne Cheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o (more commonly as Sutaio) and the Tsétsêhéstâhese (more commonly as Tsitsistas), Comanche The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Originally, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian culture. There may have been as many as 45,000, Crow The Crow, also called the Absaroka or Apsáalooke, are a Siouan-language tribe of Native Americans who historically lived in the Yellowstone River valley. They now live on a reservation south of Billings, Montana. Tribal headquarters are located at Crow Agency, Montana, Gros Ventre, Kiowa The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians who migrated from the Northern Plains to their present location in Southwestern Oklahoma. They are a federally recognized tribe, the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, with over 11,500 members, Lakota The Lakota are a Native American tribe. They are part of a confederation of seven related Sioux tribes (the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ or seven council fires) and speak Lakȟóta, one of the three major dialects of the Sioux language, Lipan Lipan Apache' are Southern Athabascan people who are aboriginal to present-day Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas prior to the 17th century. Present-day Lipans mostly live throughout the U.S. Southwest, in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, as well as with the Mescalero on, Plains Apache (or Kiowa Apache), Plains Cree, Plains Ojibwe The Saulteaux are a First Nation in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, Sarsi, Shoshone The Shoshone (/ʃoʊˈʃoʊni/ or /ʃəˈʃoʊni/ (help·info)) are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern, Stoney, and Tonkawa The Tonkawa are a Native American people indigenous to present-day Oklahoma and Texas. They once spoke the Tonkawa language, an isolate not related to languages of other tribes. It is now extinct. The tribe is federally recognized and most members live in Oklahoma.

The second group of Plains Indians (sometimes referred to as Prairie Indians) were the semi-sedentary tribes who, in addition to hunting buffalo, lived in villages and raised crops. These included the Arikara Arikara are a group of Native Americans who speak the Arikara language, a member of the Caddoan language family. Arikara is close to the Pawnee language, but they are not mutually intelligible, Hidatsa The Hidatsa are a Siouan people, a part of the Three Affiliated Tribes. The Hidatsa's autonym is Hiraacá. According to the tribal tradition, the word hiraacá derives from the word "willow"; however, the etymology is not transparent and the similarity to mirahací ‘willows’ inconclusive. The present name Hidatsa was formerly borne, Iowa The Iowa , also known as the Báxoje, are a Native American Siouan people. Their name has been said to come from ayuhwa ("asleep"), but they call themselves Báxoje pronounced [ˌbaˈxodʒɛ, ˌpaˈxodʒɛ] (alternate spellings: pahotcha, Bah-kho-je) ("dusted faces" or "grey snow"). The translation "dusted faces&, Kaw (or Kansa) The Kaw are an American Indian people of the central Midwestern United States. The tribe known as Kaw have also been known as the "People of the South wind", "People of water", Kansa, Kaza, Kosa, and Kasa. Their tribal language is Kansa, classified as a Siouan language, Kitsai, Mandan The Mandan are a Native American tribe that historically lived along the banks of the Missouri River and two of its tributaries—the Heart and Knife Rivers—in present-day North and South Dakota. Speakers of Mandan, a Siouan language, the people developed a settled culture in contrast to that of more nomadic tribes in the Great Plains region, Missouria The Missouria or Missouri are a Native American tribe that originated in the Great Lakes region of United States before European contact. The tribe belongs to the Chiwere division of the Siouan linguistic family, with the Iowa and Otoe. Historically, the tribe lived near the mouth of the Grand River, the mouth of the Missouri River, and in Saline, Nez Perce The Nez Perce are a tribe of Native Americans who live in the Pacific Northwest region (Columbia River Plateau) of the United States. An anthropological theory says the tribe descended from the Old Cordilleran Culture, which moved south from the Rocky Mountains and west in Nez Perce lands. The tribe currently governs and inhabits a reservation in, Omaha The Omaha tribe is a Native American tribe that currently resides on the Omaha Reservation in northeastern Nebraska and western Iowa, United States. The Omaha Indian Reservation lies primarily in the southern part of Thurston County and northeastern Cuming County, Nebraska, but small parts extend into the northeast corner of Burt County and across, Osage The Osage Nation is a tribe in the United States, which is mainly based in Osage County, Oklahoma, but can be found throughout America. At the height of their power in the early 17th century, the Osages were a dominant regional power, occupying much of present day Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, Otoe The Otoe or Oto are a Native American people. The Otoe language, Chiwere, is part of the Siouan family and closely related to that of the related Iowa and Missouri tribes, Pawnee The Pawnee are a Caddoan-language Native American tribe that historically lived along outlying tributaries of the Missouri River: the Platte, Loup and Republican Rivers in present-day Nebraska and in Northern Kansas. They were one of the dominant tribes on the Great Plains and followed a way of life which major patterns had been continuous since, Ponca The Ponca are a Native American tribe of the Dhegian branch of the Siouan-language group. There are two federally recognized Ponca tribes: the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. Their traditions and historical accounts suggest they originated as a tribe east of the Mississippi River in the Ohio River valley area, Quapaw The Quapaw people are a tribe of Native Americans who historically resided on the west side of the Mississippi River in what is now the state of Arkansas, Santee, Wichita The Wichita are a tribe of Native Americans, indigenous inhabitants of North America, who traditionally spoke Wichita, a Caddoan language. The tribe is indigenous to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Today, they are federally recognized as the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes, and Yankton.

Contents

Culture

Shoshone around their tipi A tipi (also tepee) is a conical tent traditionally made of animal skins or birch bark and popularised by Native Americans of the Great Plains. Tipis are stereotypically associated with Native Americans in general but Native Americans from places other than the Great Plains mostly used different types of dwellings. The term "wigwam" (a, about 1890

The nomadic tribes survived on hunting Hunting is the practice of pursuing living animals for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law. The species which are hunted are referred to as game and are usually mammals and, and the bison The American bison is a North American species of bison, also commonly known as the American buffalo. Some consider the term "buffalo" somewhat of a misnomer for this animal, as it is only distantly related to either of the two "true buffalo," the Asian water buffalo and the African buffalo. However, "bison" is a was their main source of food. Some tribes are described as part of the 'Buffalo Culture' (sometimes called, somewhat misleadingly, the 'Great Plains Culture'). American buffalo, or simply buffalo, is the commonly used (but inaccurate) name for the American Bison The American bison is a North American species of bison, also commonly known as the American buffalo. Some consider the term "buffalo" somewhat of a misnomer for this animal, as it is only distantly related to either of the two "true buffalo," the Asian water buffalo and the African buffalo. However, "bison" is a. These animals were the chief source for items which Plains Indians made from their flesh, hide and bones, such as food, cups, decorations, crafting tools, knives, and clothing. (See Bison hunting).

The tribes followed the seasonal grazing and migration of bison. The Plains Indians lived in teepees A tipi (also tepee) is a conical tent traditionally made of animal skins or birch bark and popularised by Native Americans of the Great Plains. Tipis are stereotypically associated with Native Americans in general but Native Americans from places other than the Great Plains used different types of dwellings. The term "wigwam" (a domed because they were easily disassembled and allowed the nomadic life of following game. When Spanish Spain (pronounced /ˈspeɪn/ spayn; Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.[note 6] Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for horses The horse is a hooved (ungulate) mammal, a subspecies of the family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BCE, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BCE. Although were obtained, the Plains tribes rapidly integrated them into their daily lives. By the early 18th century some tribes had fully adopted a horse culture. The Comanche were among the first to commit to a fully mounted nomadic lifestyle. This occurred by the 1730s, when they had acquired enough horses to put all their people on horseback.[1]

The Spanish Territories of the Portuguese empire during the Iberian Union . Territories lost before or due to the Treaties of Utrecht-Baden (1713–1714). Territories lost before or during the Spanish American wars of independence (1811–1828). Territories lost following the Spanish-American War (1898–1899). Territories granted independence during the explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was the first European to describe the Plains Indians. While looking for the wealth of Quivira Quivira is a place first mentioned by Francisco Vazquez de Coronado in 1541, who visited it during his searches for the mythical "Seven Cities of Gold" in 1541 Coronado came across the Querechos in the Texas Houston is the largest city in Texas and the fourth-largest in the United States, while San Antonio is the second largest in the state and seventh largest in the United States. Dallas–Fort Worth and Greater Houston are the fourth and sixth largest United States metropolitan areas, respectively. Other major cities include El Paso and Austin—the panhandle. The Querechos were the people later called Apaches Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the American Southwest. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan (Apachean) language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan speakers of Alaska and western Canada. The. According to the Spaniards, the Querechos lived “in tents made of the tanned skins of the cows (bison). They travel around near the cows killing them for food....They travel like the Arabs, with their tents and troops of dogs loaded with poles...these people eat raw flesh and drink blood. They do not eat human flesh. They are a kind people and not cruel. They are faithful friends. They are able to make themselves very well understood by means of signs. They dry the flesh in the sun, cutting it thin like a leaf, and when dry they grind it like meal to keep it and make a sort of sea soup of it to eat....They season it with fat, which they always try to secure when they kill a cow. They empty a large gut and fill it with blood, and carry this around the neck to drink when they are thirsty.”. [2], This brief account describes many typical features of Plains Indians: skin teepees, travois A travois is a frame used by indigenous peoples, notably the Plains Indians of North America, to drag loads over land. The basic construction consists of a platform or netting mounted on two long poles, lashed in the shape of an elongated isosceles triangle; the frame was dragged with the sharply pointed end forward. Sometimes the blunt end of the pulled by dogs, sign language, jerky (food) Jerky is meat that has been cut into strips, trimmed of fat, marinated in a spicy, salty, or sweet liquid, and dried or smoked with low heat or is occasionally just salted and sun-dried. The result is a salty, savory, or semi-sweet snack that can be stored for a long time without refrigeration, and pemmican Pemmican is a concentrated mixture of fat and protein used as a nutritious emergency foodstuff. The word comes from the Cree word pimîhkân, "pemmican", which itself is derived from the word pimî, "fat, grease". It was invented by the native peoples of North America[citation needed]. It was widely adopted as a high-energy.

The Plains Indians found by Coronado and later Spanish explorers were still on foot. It was the introduction of the horse that led to the flowering of their culture.

The Horse

The horse enabled the Plains Indians to gain their subsistence with relative ease from the seemingly limitless buffalo herds. The horse enabled the Plains Indians to travel faster and further in search of bison herds and to transport more goods, thus enjoying a richer material environment than their pedestrian ancestors.

Coronado brought five hundred and fifty-eight horses with him on his 1539-1542 expedition. At the time, the Indians of these regions had never seen a horse, although they had probably heard of them from contacts with Indians in Mexico In Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before the first contact with Europeans. In 1521, Spain conquered and colonized the territory, which was administered as the viceroyalty of New Spain which would eventually become Mexico. Only two of Coronado's horses were mares, so Coronado was highly unlikely to have been the source of the horses that Plains Indians later adopted as the cornerstone of their culture.[3] Juan de Onate, however, brought 7,000 head of livestock with him when he came north in 1598 to establish a colony in New Mexico The state's total area is 121,412 square miles . The eastern border of New Mexico lies along 103° W longitude with the state of Oklahoma, and three miles (5 km) west of 103.5° W longitude with Texas. On the southern border, Texas makes up the eastern two-thirds, while the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora make up the western third, with. His horse herd included mares as well as stallions.

Pueblo Indians learned about horses by working on the ranches of the Spanish colonists. The Spanish attempted to keep knowledge of riding away from Indians, but the Indians learned and some fled their servitude to Spanish masters -- and took the horses with them. Slowly, the Indians adopted the horse into their culture and built up the numbers in their herds. By 1659, the Navajo from northwestern New Mexico were raiding the Spanish colonies to steal horses. And by 1664, the Apaches of the Great Plains were trading captives from other tribes to the Spanish for horses. The real beginning of the horse culture of the plains began with the expulsion of the Spanish from New Mexico in 1680 when the victorious Pueblo Indians captured thousands of horses and other livestock. They traded many of the horses to the Plains Indians. [4] In 1683 a Spanish expedition into Texas found horses among the Indians. In 1690, a few were found by the Spanish among the Indians living at the mouth of the Colorado River The Colorado River is the 18th longest river in the United States and the longest river with both its source and mouth within Texas; however its drainage basin and some of its usually dry tributaries do extend into New Mexico. The 862-mile long river flows generally southeast from Dawson County through Marble Falls, Austin, Bastrop, Smithville, La of Texas and the Caddo The Caddo Nation is a confederacy of several Southeastern Native American tribes, who traditionally inhabited much of what is now East Texas, northern Louisiana and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Today the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma is a cohesive tribe with its capital at Binger, Oklahoma. The different Caddo languages have converged of eastern Texas had a sizeable number. [5]

The French explorer Claude Charles Du Tisne found 300 horses among the Wichita The Wichita are a tribe of Native Americans, indigenous inhabitants of North America, who traditionally spoke Wichita, a Caddoan language. The tribe is indigenous to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Today, they are federally recognized as the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes on the Verdigris River The Verdigris River is a tributary of the Arkansas River in southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma in the United States. It is about 280 miles long. Via the Arkansas, it is part of the Mississippi River watershed in 1719, but they were still not plentiful. Another Frenchman, Bourgmont, could only buy seven at a high price from the Kaw in 1724, further indicating that horses were still scarce among tribes in Kansas Historically, the area was home to large numbers of nomadic Native Americans who hunted bison. It was first settled by European Americans in the 1830s, but the pace of settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the slavery issue. When officially opened to settlement by the U.S. government in 1854, abolitionist Free-. While the distribution of horses proceeded slowly northward on the Great Plains, it moved more rapidly through the Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin, possibly stimulated by the Navajo. The Shoshone in Wyoming had horses by about 1700 and the Blackfoot of Saskatchewan, the most northerly of the large Plains tribes, acquired horses in the 1730s.[6] By 1770, that Plains Indians culture was mature, consisting of mounted buffalo-hunting nomads from Saskatchewan and Alberta southward nearly to the Rio Grande. It had hardly reached maturity when the pressure from Europeans on all sides and European diseases caused its decline.

It was the Comanche, coming to the attention of the Spanish in New Mexico in 1706, who first realized the potential of the horse. As pure nomads, hunters, and pastoralists, well supplied with horses, they swept the mixed-economy Apaches from the plains and by the 1730s were dominant in the Great Plains south of the Arkansas River.[7] The success of the Comanche encouraged other Indian tribes to adopt a similar lifestyle. The southern Plains Indians acquired vast numbers of horses. By the nineteenth century, Comanche and Kiowa men owned an average of 35 horses and mules each – and only six or seven were necessary. The horses extracted a toll on the environment as well as requiring labor to care for the herd. Formerly equalitarian societies became more divided by wealth with a negative impact on the role of women. Rich men took several wives and captives (slaves) to manage their possessions, especially horses. .[8]

The milder winters of the southern Plains favored the acquisition of horses by the Indians. [9] On the northern Plains the Indians were less favored, with families owning fewer horses, remaining more dependent upon dogs for transporting goods, and hunting bison on foot. The scarcity of horses in the north encouraged raiding and warfare in competition for the relatively small number of horses that survived the severe winters.[10]

The Dakota or Sioux enjoyed the happy medium between North and South and became the dominant Plains Indians tribe in the nineteenth century. They had relatively small horse herds, thus having less impact on their ecosystem. At the same time they occupied the heart of prime buffalo range and also an excellent region for furs which could be sold to French and American traders for goods such as guns. Thus, the Dakota became the most powerful of the Plains tribes and the greatest threat to American expansion.[11]

For all the Plains Indians the horse became an item of prestige as well of utility and the Indians were extravagantly fond of their horses and the life style they permitted.

Hunting in the Plains

"Assiniboine hunting buffalo", painting by Paul Kane

Although the Plains Indians hunted other animals, such as elk or antelope, bison was the primary game food source. Before horses were introduced, hunting was a more complicated process. The Native Americans would surround the bison, and then try to herd them off cliffs or into places where they could be more easily killed. A commonly used technique was the Piskin method. The tribesmen would build a corral and have people herd the buffalo into it to confine them in a space where they could be killed. The Plains Indians constructed a v-shaped funnel, about a mile long, made of fallen trees, rocks, etc. Sometimes buffalo could be lured into a trap by one of the tribe covering himself with a buffalo skin and imitating the call of the animals.

Before their adoption of guns, the Plains Indians hunted with spears, bows and arrows, and various forms of clubs. The use of horses by the Plains Indians made hunting (and warfare) much easier. With horses, the Plains Indians had the means and speed to stampede or overtake the bison. The Plains Indians reduced the length of their bows to three feet to accommodate their use on horseback. They continued to use bows and arrows after the introduction of firearms, because guns took too long to reload and were too heavy. In the summer, many tribes gathered for hunting in one place. The main hunting seasons were fall, summer, and spring. In winter harsh snow and mighty blizzards made it almost impossible to kill the bison.

Bison were hunted almost to extinction in the 19th century and were reduced to a few hundred by the mid-1880s. The main reason they were hunted was for their skins, with the rest of the animal left behind to decay on the ground.[12] After the animals rotted, their bones were collected and shipped back east in large quantities.[12]

This map based on William Temple Hornaday's late-nineteenth-century research.

There were government initiatives at the federal and local level to starve the population of the Plains Indians by killing off their main food source, the bison. The Government promoted bison hunting for various reasons: to allow ranchers to range their cattle without competition from other bovines and to weaken the Plains Indian population and pressure them to remain on reservations.[13] The herds formed the basis of the economies of local Plains tribes of Native Americans for whom the bison were a primary food source. Without bison, the Native Americans would be forced to leave or starve.

The railroad industry also wanted bison herds culled or eliminated. Herds of bison on tracks could damage locomotives when the trains failed to stop in time. Herds often took shelter in the artificial cuts formed by the grade of the track winding though hills and mountains in harsh winter conditions. As a result, bison herds could delay a train for days.

As the great herds began to wane, proposals to protect the bison were discussed. Buffalo Bill Cody, among others, spoke in favor of protecting the bison because he saw that the pressure on the species was too great. But these were discouraged since it was recognized that the Plains Indians, often at war with the United States, depended on bison for their way of life. In 1874, President Ulysses S. Grant "pocket vetoed" a Federal bill to protect the dwindling bison herds, and in 1875 General Philip Sheridan pleaded to a joint session of Congress to slaughter the herds, to deprive the Plains Indians of their source of food.[14] By 1884, the bison was close to extinction.

A pile of bison skulls in the 1870s.

The main reason for the bison's near-demise, much like the actual demise of the passenger pigeon, was commercial hunting. Over years of surviving off the hunt, the metabolism of Plains Indians developed to allow them to survive for longer on less food. This was in response to sometimes long intervals between hunts. In times of plentiful food, Plains Indians took on a lot of extra weight to prepare for times without food. This adaptation saved tribes from starvation, but when Plains Indian reservations/reserves were introduced, the adaptation of carrying weight became a threat to their health.

Clothing

The Plains wore bison skins in the winter. The women in the tribe mended the clothes. They used buffalo sinew for thread.

There were two ways to prepare a buffalo hide. The women could tan it or leave it as rawhide. To tan it, the woman would scrape the hair off the buffalo and then soak the hide in a mixture of brains and liver.

Great Plains Religion

The Plains Indians followed no single religion. Animist religion was an important part of a Great Plains Indians' life, as they believed that all things possessed spirits. Their worship was centered on one main god, in the Sioux language Wakan Tanka (the Great Spirit). The Great Spirit had power over everything that had ever existed, and the Plains Indians believed that by worshiping him they would become stronger. Earth was also quite important, as she was the mother of all spirits. Spirits were worshiped daily. People sometimes prayed alone, while other times there were group gatherings. The most important group ceremony was the Sun Dance, in which participants danced for four days around a sacred object, and some would inflict harm upon themselves on purpose, all while staring at the sun. They believed this self-sacrifice would encourage powerful spirits to support and defend them.

The Ghost Dance by the Ogalala Lakota at Pine Ridge. Illustration by Frederic Remington

There were also people that were Wakan, or blessed, who were also called shaman. To become Wakan, your prayers must be answered by the Great Spirit, or you must see a sign from him. Wakan were thought to possess great power. One of their jobs was to heal people, which is why they are also sometimes called "medicine men". The shamans were considered so important that they were the ones who decided when the time was right to hunt.

Plains Indians believed that some objects possessed spiritual or talismanic power. One such item was the medicine bundle, which was a sack carrying items believed by the owner to be important. Items in the sack might include rocks, feathers, and more. Another object of great spiritual power was the shield. The shield was the most prized possession of any warrior, and he decorated it with many paintings and feathers. The spirits of animals drawn on the shield were thought to protect the owner.

Research

The tribes of the Great Plains have been found to be the tallest people in the world during the late 1800s, based on 21st century analysis of data collected by Franz Boas for the World Columbian Exposition.[15] This information is significant to anthropometric historians, who usually equate the height of populations with their overall health and standard of living.

See also

References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (September 2009)
  1. ^ Hamalainen, Pekka (2008). The Comanche Empire. Yale University Press. pp. 37–38. ISBN 978-0-300-12654-9.
  2. ^ Winship, George Parker (ed and trans), The Journey of Coronado, 1540-1542, from the City of Mexico to the Grand Canon of the Colorado and the Buffalo Plains of Texas. New York: A.S. Barnes & Company, 1904, 65, 112
  3. ^ Haines, Francis. “The Northward Spread of Horses among the Plains Indians. American Anthropologist, Vol 40, No. 3 (1988), 429
  4. ^ Haines, 429-431
  5. ^ Bolton, Herbert Eugene. Spanish Exploration in the Southwest, 1542-1706. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2007 (reprint), 296, 315; Haines, 432
  6. ^ Haines, 429-437
  7. ^ Hamalainen, Pekka, “The Rise and Fall of Plains Indian Horse Culture.” Journal of American History, Vol 90, No. 3, 3-4. http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/90.3/hamalainen.html
  8. ^ Hamalainen, 7-8
  9. ^ Osborn, Alan J. “Ecological Aspects of Equestrian Adapation in Aboriginal North America.” American Anthropologist, Nol. 85, No. 3 (Sept 1983), 566
  10. ^ Hamalainen, 10-15
  11. ^ Hamalainen, 20-21
  12. ^ a b Records, Laban (March 1995). Cherokee Outlet Cowboy: Recollections of Laban S. Records. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0806126944.
  13. ^ Moulton, M (1995). Wildlife issues in a changing world, 2nd edition. CRC Press.
  14. ^ Bergman, Brian (2004-02-16). "Bison Back from Brink of Extinction". Maclean's. http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0012570. Retrieved 2008-03-14. "For the sake of lasting peace, let them kill, skin and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated."
  15. ^ "Standing Tall: Plains Indians Enjoyed Height, Health Advantage", Jeff Grabmeier, Ohio State

Further reading

External links

Indigenous peoples of the world by continent

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Ethno-cultural groups and languages

Beaver / Daneẕaa · Blackfoot / Niitsítapi (language) · Chipewyan / Denésoliné (language) · Cree / Nēhilawē (language [plains variant]) · Sarcee / Tsuu T'ina (language) · Saulteaux / Nakawē (language) · Stoney / Nakoda (language)
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Newspaper Rock: The origin of "Cibola"
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Newspaper Rock: The origin of "Cibola"

Rob

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:01:00 GM

Comment: So "Cibola" may have come from an Indian word for buffalo, and it became a Spanish word for buffalo. Hmm. The connection between "Cibola" and "buffalo" is curious. To the . Plains Indians. , the buffalo was their treasure. ...

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