American Indian Tribes of the Great Plains
The Great Plains describes the vast region in the middle of the modern-day United States. Much of this area between the Rocky Mountains and Mississippi River is an arid grassland with little rain that made farming difficult.
The indigenous tribes of the Great Plains are usually divided into two groups which overlap.
The first were entirely nomadic during the 18th and 19th centuries. These tribes followed the seasonal grazing and migration of buffalo herds (also known as bison). They lived in tipis made of wooden poles and animal hides that were easily disassembled when they needed to move.
These tribes included the Blackfoot, Arapaho, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, and Plains Apache.
The second group lived in permanent villages, raised crops, and traded with other tribes, though they also hunted buffalo. These include the Hidatsa, Mandan, Omaha, Osage, Pawnee, and Dakota tribes.
Culture
Many of the Plains tribes used a common sign language, known today as Plains Indian Sign Language. It was also used for story-telling, public speeches, and ceremonies.
Most tribes had their own spiritual views and practices. The yearly Sun Dance was an important ritual for many tribes. This was an elaborate spiritual ceremony that involved multiple days of fasting and prayer for the good of loved ones and the benefit of the entire community.
The Ghost Dance was later ceremony that spread through the Plains. It was held to awaken the spirits of the dead to to fight for the living, end American westward expansion, and unity indigenous peoples.
Women in the Plains typically owned the family's home, tended crops, gathered and prepared food, made clothing, and took down and erected the family's tipis.
The introduction of horses to the Plains by the Spanish revolutionized Plains culture. Horses enabled them to follow and more easily hunt buffalo herds.
Usually, a band would form of hunters in a village. Bands could consist of a dozen to a few hundred people who lived, hunted, and traveled together.
Villages usually had fluid populations as hunters came and went with the seasons and there was very little political structure.
Importance of the Buffalo
For most all tribes, buffalo was their primary food source. The meat was dried into a jerky that could last a year.
They also famously used almost every part of the buffalo.
Buffalo skin and fur were used for blankets and clothes. Hides were tanned for tipis. Bones were used as tools. The hair was used to make ropes and the tendons could be used for sewing thread and strings for their bows.
European explorers and settlers brought diseases against which the Indians had no natural immunity. Smallpox is believed to have killed more than half of the Plains Indians and was especially brutal during the 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic.
Many who survived engaged in armed resistance against American settlers who encroached further and further into their territory.