Introduction, North American Indians of the Plains

Introduction

The North American Indians may be classified in three ways: first, as to language; second, as to customs and habits (culture); third, as to anatomical characters (physical type). It is, however, usual to consider them as composed of small more or less distinct political or social groups, or tribes, and it is under such group names that the objects in museum collections are arranged. The cultures of many tribes are quite similar and since such resemblances are nearly always found among neighbors and not among widely scattered tribes, it is convenient and proper to group them in geographical or culture areas. Most anthropologists classify the cultures of North American tribes approximately as shown on the accompanying map.

In the region of the great plains and prairies were many tribes of Plains Indians, who have held the first place in the literature and art of our time. Being rather war-like and strong in numbers, many of them are intimately associated with the history of our western states and every school boy knows how the Dakota (Sioux) rode down Ouster s command. The names of Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, and Chief Joseph are also quite familiar.

The culture of these Plains tribes is most strikingly associated with the buffalo, or bison, which not so very long ago roamed over their entire area. Turning to the map one may see how closely the distributions of this culture type and that for the buffalo coincide. This animal supplied them with one of their chief foods, in accessible and almost never failing abundance. For a part of the year at least, all Plains tribes used the conical skin tent, or tipi. In early times the dog was used to transport baggage and supplies, but later, horses became very abundant and it is not far wrong to speak of all Plains tribes as horsemen. When on the hunt or moving in a large body most of these tribes were controlled by a band of "soldiers," or police, who drove in stragglers and repressed those too eager to advance and who also policed the camp and maintained order and system in the tribal hunt. All Indians are quite religious. Most of the Plains tribes had a grand annual gathering known in literature as the sun dance. In general, these few main cultural characteristics may be taken to designate the type the use of the buffalo, the tipi, the horse, the soldier-band, and the sun dance. Many of the tribes living near the Mississippi and along the Missouri, practiced agriculture in a small way and during a part of the year lived in earth-covered or bark houses. Furthermore, there are many other tribal differences, so that it becomes admissible to subdivide the Plains Indians. The following seems the most consistent grouping.

Cultural characteristics change gradually as we go from one tribe to another; hence, on the edges of the Plains area we may expect many doubtful cases. Among such may be enumerated the Flathead and Pend D'Oreille of the northwest, the Illinois and Winnebago of the east, and some Apache of the south. On the southeast, in Texas and Arkansas, were the Caddoan tribes (Kichai, Waco, Tawakoni, etc., relatives of the Wichita) having a culture believed to be intermediate between the Plains and that of the Southeastern area. Yet, in spite of these and other doubtful cases, it is usual to exclude all not enumerated in the above lists as belonging more distinctly with other culture areas. As this grouping is rather for convenience than otherwise, and the culture of each tribe is determined by its own data, the exact placing of these border tribes is of no great moment. However, the most typical Plains tribes are the Assiniboin, Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, Crow, Teton-Dakota, Arapaho. Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa, indicated in the preceding list by an asterisk (*). Reference to the map shows how peculiarly this typical group stretches from north to south, almost in a straight line, with the intermediate Plateau group on one side and the Village group on the other. Again, the forestry map shows that the range of this typical nomadic group coincides with the area in which trees are least in evidence. It embraces the true tipi-dwelling, horse, and non-agricultural tribes. It is primarily the cultural traits of this nomadic group that are discussed in this book, though the important exceptions among the two marginal groups are noted.

North American Indians of the Plains

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North American Indians Of The Plains, Clark Wissler, 1920