PLAINS INDIAN

Distribution of North American Plains Indians. also called Buffalo Indian, member of any of the aboriginal North American peoples inhabiting the Great Plains area of the United States and Canada. The Indians of the North American Great Plains 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 man from the 16th century onward, they 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 climate is in general a continental one, with a wide seasonal range. Temperatures in winter may go below 0 F (-18 C) and in summer as high as 110 F (43 C). The plant cover varies with the amount of moisture, the tall grass of the prairies in the east giving way at about the 100th meridian to the shorter grass of the High Plains in the west. The area is drained principally by the MissouriMississippi river system. The peoples of the Plains are designated by the languages they speak. It is permissible to call them tribes or nations, bearing in mind, however, that in some cases, for example the Dakota (popularly known as Sioux), the designation covers several completely autonomous political divisions. The northern and southern divisions of the Cheyenne retained their unity as a tribe, while the Pawnee on the other hand comprised at least four independent groups. Many of the tribes of the Plains, such as the Cheyenne, migrated into them from the prairies and woodlands of the east. In addition, some of the tribes to the west of the areathe Ute and Jicarilla Apache, for instancewere influenced to a degree by the Plains culture and can be regarded as marginal to the area. Six distinct language families or stocks were represented in the Plains area, although none of them was confined to it. The speakers of the several languages within a stock might or might not be geographically contiguous. Some of the languages, moreover, were more closely related to each other than to others within the same stock. Thus languages belonging to the Algonquian stock included the Blackfoot (PieganBloodNorthern Blackfoot), ArapahoAtsina (Gros Ventre), Plains Cree, and Plains Ojibwa, all in the Northern Plains, while Cheyenne, also an Algonquian language, was in the central part of the area. The Siouan language stock embraced Mandan, Hidatsa, Crow, DakotaAssiniboin, OmahaPoncaOsageKansa, and IowaOtoMissouri. The PawneeArikara and Wichita were Caddoan languages, whereas Wind River Shoshoni and Comanche were of the UtoAztecan stock. The Athabascan (Na-Den) stock was represented by the Sarcee (Sarsi) in the northern part of the area and by the KiowaApache in the southern. Finally the KiowaTanoan stock was represented in the area by one language, Kiowa. Sign language provided a common, if limited, means of communication among tribes speaking different languages. 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. also called North American Plains Indian, or Buffalo Indian, any member of various tribes of American Indians that formerly inhabited the Great Plains of what is now the central United States and south-central Canada, between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. The Plains Indians included groups speaking Algonquin, Siouan, Caddoan, Uto-Aztecan, Athabascan, and Kiowa-Tanoan languages. Most of the Plains Indians were nomadic big-game hunters, and their primary game was the American bison, or buffalo, which supplied them with food, shelter, clothing, and bone tools. Other game included antelope, deer, and elk. Hunting, usually a tribal activity, involved driving the game down a cliff or into a corral or encircling it by fire. The introduction of horses in the 17th century increased the Indians' hunting efficiency. The nomadic tribes were made up of smaller local units called bands, which came together only for the summer communal hunt or for major religious ceremonies. The Teton Sioux, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Crow were typical nomadic tribes. A few tribes, though mainly nomadic, practiced horticulture, produced pottery, and resided in fixed villages for part of the year. These semisedentary tribes spent part of the time planting and harvesting crops, which consisted of corn (maize), beans, squash, and sunflowers. The Pawnee, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara were typical semisedentary tribes. There were no hereditary social classes among the Plains Indians, although wealth and standing could be won through prowess at war, generosity to the poor, sharing goods with relatives, and lavish hospitality. Because individualism and fighting were highly valued by almost every tribe, military organizations and clubs were often established in order to channel intratribal aggressiveness. Local bands and villages were composed of families and kinship groups, which could be patrilineal (as among the Iowa, Kansa, Omaha, Osage, and Ponca), matrilineal (as among the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Crow), or both. Marriages were generally monogamous and were ordinarily arranged between the families of the bride and groom. Children were trained for adult pursuits as part of their play, and relatives often played important roles in their upbringing. Boys were given bows and arrows at a very early age, while girls were taught domestic skills by their mothers. Before the appearance of European explorers, the Plains Indians made tools of bone, horn, antler, and stone. Animal skins were used for clothing, receptacles of various kinds, and tepees, which were portable, cone-shaped tents. Basketry and pottery were known among the semisedentary tribes. Until horses were introduced by the Spaniards, dogs were probably the only domesticated animals. The introduction of the horse had a profound impact on Plains life, revolutionizing the hunt and warfare and providing a valuable commodity for both trade and theft, the latter stimulating warfare. Although some tribes, such as the Atsina, believed in a supreme deity, other tribes, such as the Crow, did not. However, rituals ranging from simple rites to ceremonies lasting weeks were common to almost all of the Plains Indians. All of the Plains tribes had medicine men, or shamans, who were responsible for such activities as curing illness and locating enemies, game, or lost objects. Much importance was attached to spiritual visions, and success in life was attributed to the intervention of friendly spirits. The culture of the Plains Indians changed radically as white settlers moved into the region. The nomadic Indians' hunting economy collapsed when the buffalo was virtually exterminated in the late 19th century, and native crafts declined as manufactured articles, such as metal utensils and cloth, were introduced. Introduced diseases and warfare with whites reduced Indian populations, and even greater disturbances resulted when the Indians were placed on reservations. Nomadic Indians found cattle a poor replacement for buffalo, and semisedentary groups, who considered cultivation to be women's work, resisted the change in the division of labour brought on by the introduction of the plow. Deprived of their traditional culture, many Indians became demoralized and came to depend on government aid for their subsistence. Although the Indians resisted such changes, they were ultimately overwhelmed, and those Indians who did manage to adapt to the white man's culture often found themselves in a difficult position among their own people. Additional reading Robert H. Lowie, Indians of the Plains (1954, reprinted 1982), is a short but authoritative general work. More recent studies of the region include George C. Frison, Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains, 2nd ed. (1991); W. Raymond Wood and Margot Liberty (eds.), Anthropology on the Great Plains (1980), a collection of topical essays; Evan M. Maurer, Visions of the People: A Pictorial History of Plains Indian Life (1992); Patricia Albers and Beatrice Medicine, The Hidden Half: Studies of Plains Indian Women (1983); and Peter Iverson (ed.), The Plains Indians of the Twentieth Century (1985).Accounts of particular tribes include John C. Ewers, The Blackfeet (1958, reissued 1988); Hana Samek, The Blackfoot Confederacy, 18801920: A Comparative Study of Canadian and U.S. Indian Policy (1987); Robert H. Lowie, The Crow Indians (1935, reprinted 1983); Alfred W. Bowers, Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization (1950, reprinted 1991), and Hidatsa Social and Ceremonial Organization (1965, reissued 1992); Roy W. Meyer, The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri: The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras (1977); 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, 16501862 (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); George Bird Grinnell, The Cheyenne Indians, 2 vol. (1923, reprinted 1972); Orlan J. Svingen, The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, 18771900 (1993); Alice C. Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe, 2 vol. (1911, reissued 1992); Loretta Fowler, Arapahoe Politics, 18511978 (1982), and Shared Symbols, Contested Meanings: Gros Ventre Culture and History, 17781984 (1987); 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); Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches (1952, reissued 1988); and Morris W. Foster, Being Comanche: A Social History of an American Indian Community (1991). Regina Flannery-Herzfeld The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica