Indian Plains, Interior Plains Indians or Native Individuals of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are Native American and First Nation band governments that traditionally live in more Interior Plains (ie Great Plains and Canadian Prairies) in North America. Their historic nomadic culture and the development of riding culture and resistance to domination by the Canadian government and military forces and the United States have made the Lowland Indian cultural groups into an archetype in literature and art for American Indians everywhere.
The Indian plain is usually divided into two broad classifications that overlap to some extent. The first group became a fully nomadic horse culture during the 18th and 19th centuries, following large herds of buffalo, although some tribes were sometimes involved in agriculture. These include Blackfoot, Arapaho, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Gros Ventre, Kiowa, Lakota, Lipan, Apache Plains (or Kiowa Apache), Cree Plains, Ojibwe Plains, Sarsi, Nakoda (Stoney), and Tonkawa. The second group of lowland Indian tribes is semi-sedentary, and, in addition to buffalo hunting, they live in the village, pick up crops, and actively trade with other tribes. These include Arikara, Hidatsa, Iowa, Kaw (or Kansa), Kitsai, Mandan, Missouria, Omaha, Osage, Otoe, Pawnee, Ponca, Quapaw, Wichita and Dakota Santee, Yanktonai and Yankton Dakota.
Video Plains Indians
Indigenous People in Great Plains and Prairies Canada
The nomadic tribe has historically survived hunting and gathering, and American Bison is one of the main sources for goods people use for everyday life, including food, cups, decorations, craft tools, knives, and clothing.
The tribes follow the seasonal grazing and buffalo migration. The Plains Indians live in teepees because they are easily dismantled and allow nomadic life to follow the game. When horses were acquired, the Highlands tribes quickly integrated them into their daily lives. People in the southwest began to gain horses in the 16th century by trading or stealing them from Spanish colonies in New Mexico. As the horse culture moves north, Comanche is among the first to commit to a fully-fledged nomadic lifestyle. This happened in the 1730s, when they gained enough horses to put all their people on horseback.
Spanish explorer Francisco VÃÆ'¡squez de Coronado was the first European to describe lowland Indian culture. While searching for the so-called prosperous land called Quivira in 1541, Coronado found Querechos in Texas stretching out. Querechos are the ones who then called Apache. According to the Spaniards, Querechos lived "in tents made of tanned cowhide (bison).they drained the flesh in the sun, cut it as thin as a leaf, and when it dried they grinded it like food to store it and make a kind of soup the sea to eat.... They flavor it with fat, which they always try to secure when they kill a cow.They empty the colon and fill it with blood, and bring it to the neck to drink when they are thirsty. "Coronado describes many of the common characteristics of Indian culture Plains: skin tepees, dog-drawn travois, Indian Sign Language Plains, and staple foods such as beef jerky and pemmican. Lowland Indians found by Coronado have not earned a horse; it was the introduction of horses that revolutionized the Plains culture.
In the 19th century, the typical year of Lakota and other northern nomads was a communal buffalo hunt in early spring when their horses recovered from the harshness of winter. In June and July, scattered tribal groups gathered into large camps, including ceremonies like Sun Dance. These meetings give leaders to meet to make political decisions, plan movements, mediate disputes, and organize and launch offensive expeditions or war parties. In the fall, people will split into smaller bands to facilitate hunting in order to get meat for a long winter. Between fall hunting and early winter is a time when Lakota warriors can carry out raids and wars. With the arrival of winter snow, the Lakota family settled in winter camps, where ritual and seasonal activities and dances tried to ensure enough winter food for their horses. On the southern plains, with their cooler winters, autumn and winter are often robbing seasons. Beginning in the 1830s, Comanche and their allies often raided horses and other goods deep into Mexico, occasionally exploring 1,000 miles (1,600 km) south of their home near the Red River in Texas and Oklahoma.
Clothing
Hides, with or without feathers, provide material for many clothes. Most clothing consists of buffalo and deer skins, as well as many species of birds and other small games. Plains moccasins tend to be constructed with a soft braintanned hide on vamps and hard rawid for soles. Male Moccasins tend to have flaps around the ankles, while women have high tops, which can be pulled in winter and down in the summer. Soldiers and glorified leaders get the right to wear war hats, headdresses with feathers, often golden or bald eagles.
Religion
Different tribes develop their own religion, cosmology, and worldview, many of which are animistic, based on the observation that all things live and have spirits. Earth is quite important, because he is the mother of all spirits. Daily prayer can be done by a person or become part of a group ceremony. The most important group ceremony is the Sun Dance, the intertribal ceremony on the Plain which involves personal sacrifice for the good of the loved one and the whole community.
Certain people are Wakan , or "blessed" in Lakota as drug men or women with a spiritual role in society. Buffalo is very sacred for many Lowland people; their horns and skins are sometimes used as sacred regalia during ceremonies. In Plains cosmology, certain objects have spiritual power or amulets. The package of medicine is very sacred and is only entrusted to a special bundle keeper. Other items with great spiritual power include war shields, armor, and ceremonial pipes, many of which have been cared for by the tribe for centuries.
Maps Plains Indians
Gender roles
Historically, plain Indian women have distinctly distinct gender roles that differ from, but complement, the role of men. They usually have a family home and most of it. In traditional culture, women tanned animal skins, took care of plants, collected wild food, prepared food, made clothes, and lowered and set up family placemats. Currently, this habit is still observed when lodging is set up for ceremonial use, such as in pow wows. Historically, Plains women have not engaged in public political life as do women in coastal tribes. However, they still participate in the advisory roles and through the women's community.
In contemporary Plains culture, traditionalists work to preserve knowledge about the traditions of everyday life and the values ​​attached to them.
Plain women in general have historically had the right to divorce and safeguard the custody of their children. Because women have a home, a bad husband can find himself as homeless. The historical example of a divorced Plating woman is Making Out Road, a Cheyenne lady, who in 1841 married a non-native right-wing Kit Carson. The marriage was turbulent and officially ended when Making Out Road threw Carson and his stuff out of his tepee (by traditional way of announcing the divorce). He then went on to get married, and divorced, some additional men, Europe-Americans and Indians.
The horse
The horse allows the Indian Plains to get their subsistence relatively easily from seemingly infinite herds of buffalo. Riders can travel faster and farther in the search for a herd of bison and to transport more goods, making it possible to enjoy a richer material environment than their pedestrian ancestors. For the Lowland people, horses are both prestige and utility. They love their horses and the lifestyle they allow.
The first Spanish conqueror who brought the horse to the new world was HernÃÆ'¡n Cortà © in 1519. However, Cortà © only took about sixteen horses with his expeditions. Coronado carried 558 horses with him on the 1539-1542 expedition. At that time, the Indians in these areas had never seen a horse, although they may have heard about them from contact with Indians in Mexico. Only two Coronado horses are horses, so he is very unlikely to be the source of the horse which was later adopted by the Indian Plains as their cultural foundation. In 1592, however, Juan de Onate brought 7,000 heads of livestock with him when he came north to establish a colony in New Mexico. Her horse riding includes horses and stallions.
Indian Pueblo learns about horses by working for Spanish invaders. The Spaniards tried to keep knowledge of the driving of the Native people, but nevertheless, they learned and some escaped from their slavery to their Spanish masters - and brought the horses with them. Some horses were acquired through trade despite a ban on it. The other horses escaped from captivity for wild existence and were captured by the Natives. In all cases horses are adopted into the culture and their cattle multiply. In 1659, Navajo from northwest New Mexico robbed Spanish colonies to steal a horse. In 1664, Apache traded prisoners from another tribe to Spain for horses. The beginnings of the horse culture on the plains began with the expulsion of the Spanish from New Mexico in 1680 when the Pueblo men who won captured thousands of horses and other cattle. They switched many horses north to the Indian Plains. In 1683, a Spanish expedition to Texas found horses among the Natives. In 1690, several horses were found by Spaniards among the Indians living in the mouths of the Colorado River in Texas and Caddo east Texas had considerable numbers.
French explorer Claude Charles Du Tisne discovered 300 horses between Wichita on the Verdigris River in 1719, but they are still not many. Another Frenchman, Bourgmont, could only buy seven at a high price from Kaw in 1724, suggesting that horses were still rare among tribes in Kansas. While horses' distributions move slowly north in the Great Plains, it moves faster through the Rocky Mountains and Great Basin. Shoshone in Wyoming has a horse around the year 1700 and Blackfoot people, the northernmost of the tribal plateau, earned a horse in the 1730s. In 1770, the Indian Plains culture was mature, consisting of buffalo nomads rising from Saskatchewan and Alberta to the south almost to the Rio Grande. Soon afterwards pressure from Europe on all sides and European diseases led to its decline.
That Comanche, came to the attention of the Spaniards in New Mexico in 1706, who first realized the potential of horses. As pure travelers, hunters, and shepherds, supplied with horses, they sweep most of the mixed economy. Apache of the plains and in the 1730s predominantly in the Great Plains south of the Arkansas River. The success of Comanche encouraged other Indians to adopt the same lifestyle. The South Indians get many horses. In the 19th century, the Comanche and Kiowa families had an average of 35 horses and mules respectively - and only six or seven were needed for transportation and war. The horses extracted the toll on the environment as well as requiring labor to care for the herd. The previously egalitarian society becomes more divided by wealth with negative impact on the role of women. The richest people will have some wives and prisoners who will help manage their property, especially horses.
The softer winter in the southern plains prefers the pastoral economy by the Indians. In the plains of the Northeast Plains of Canada, Indians are less favored, with families with fewer horses, more dependent on dogs to transport goods, and hunting bison on foot. The scarcity of horses in the north encourages raids and wars in competition for the relatively small number of horses that survived the severe winter.
The Lakota or Teton Sioux enjoyed a happy medium between North and South and became the dominant Plains tribe in the mid-19th century. They have relatively small hooves, so they have less impact on their ecosystems. At the same time, they occupy the center of the prima donna range which is also an excellent area for feathers, which can be sold to French and American merchants for items such as weapons. Lakota became the most powerful of the Lowland tribes and the greatest threat to American expansion.
Hunting
Although people from the Plains are hunting for other animals, such as deer or antelope, buffalo is the main food source. Before horses were introduced, hunting was a more complicated process. Hunters will surround the bison, and then try to herd them off a cliff or to limited places where they can be more easily killed. Indian Plains built a v-shaped funnel, about a mile long, made of fallen trees, stones, etc. Sometimes bison can be lured into a trap by someone who covers himself with a bull's skin and mimics the call of the animal.
Before they adopt weapons, the Plains Indians are hunted with spears, bows, and various forms of clubs. The use of horses by lowland Indians makes hunting (and war) much easier. With horses, the Lowland Indians have the means and the speed to step on or take over the bison. Lowland Indians reduced their arc length to three feet to accommodate their use on horses. They continue to use bows and arrows after the introduction of firearms, because the weapons are too long to be reloaded and too heavy. In summer, many tribes gather to hunt in one place. The main hunting season falls, summer, and spring. In winter the hard snow and great snow storms make it harder to find and hunt the bison.
There are federal and local government initiatives at the federal and local level to starve the Lowland Indian population by killing their main food source, bison. Bison was hunted by the hunt for the market almost extinct in the 19th century and was reduced to several hundred in the early 1900s. They are slaughtered for their skin, with the remaining animals left behind to rot on the ground. After the animals decay, their bones are collected and sent back eastward in large quantities.
The railroad industry also wants the herd of bison to be destroyed or eliminated. The herd of bison on the track can damage the locomotive when the train fails to stop on time. Flocks often take shelter in artificial pieces formed by the level of tracks winding through hills and mountains in the harsh winters. As a result, the herd of bisons could delay the train for days.
When large herds begin to decline, proposals to protect bison are discussed. Buffalo Bill Cody, for example, spoke for the sake of protecting the bull because he saw that the pressure on the species was too great. But this is not recommended because it is recognized that Lowland Indians, often at war with the United States, depend on bison for their way of life. In 1874, President Ulysses S. Grant "pocketed a veto" of a Federal bill to protect the dwindling bison, and in 1875 General Philip Sheridan appealed to a joint congressional assembly to slaughter the flocks, to uproot lowland Indians from their food sources..
Agricultural and horticultural food
Indians living in semi-settled areas, who live in the village depend on agriculture for most of their livelihoods, especially those living in the eastern Great Plains that have higher rainfall than the western side. Corn is the dominant plant, followed by pumpkin and nuts. Tobacco, sunflower, plums and other wild plants are also cultivated or collected in the wild. Among the wild plants collected, the most important is probably a berry to spice up pemmican and Prairie Turnip.
The first indisputable proof of corn planting in the Great Plains is about 900 AD. The earliest peasants, villagers of Southern Plains may have been Caddoan speakers, the ancestors of Wichita, Pawnee, and Arikara today. Lowland farmers develop seasonal varieties of dry and drought-resistant food crops. They do not use irrigation but are adept at harvesting water and putting their rice fields to receive maximum benefits from limited rainfall. Hidatsa and Mandan from North Dakota planted corn at the northern boundary of its reach.
Farming tribes also hunted buffalo, deer, deer, and other games. Usually, in the southern plains, they plant crops in the spring, leave their permanent villages to hunt buffalo in the summer, return to harvest crops in the fall, and go again to hunt buffalo in winter. Indian farmers also sell corn to nomadic tribes for dried buffalo meat.
With the arrival of the horse, several tribes, such as Lakota and Cheyenne, left the farm to become full-time bullion invaders.
Warfare
Early Spanish explorers in the 16th century did not find the Indian Lowlands particularly fond of war. Wichita in Kansas and Oklahoma live in dispersed settlements without defense work. Originally Spain had friendly contact with Apache (Querechos) at Texas Panhandle.
Three factors led to the growing importance of warfare in Indian Plains culture. First, it was the Spanish occupation of New Mexico that encouraged raids and counter-attacks by the Spaniards and Indians for goods and slaves. Secondly, it is the contact of the Indians with French feather merchants that increase the rivalry among Indians to control trade and trade routes. Third, is the acquisition of horses and greater mobility given to the Indian Plains. What developed among the Indian tribes from the 17th century through the late 19th century was warfare as a means of livelihood and sport. Youth earn prestige and seizure by fighting as warriors, and this individualistic war style ensures that success in individual combat and capturing war trophies is greatly appreciated
Plain Indians invade each other, Spanish colonies, and, increasingly, the annoying border of Anglo for horses, and other properties. They buy weapons and other European goods especially with trade. Their main trading products are buffalo skin and otters. The most famous of all the Indian Plains as warriors is the Comanche The Economist notes in 2010: "They can unleash a flock of arrows while hanging on the side of a galloping horse, using animals as protection against counterattacks. amazed and frightened their white opponents (and Indians). "The American historian SC Gwynne called the 19th century Comanche" the largest light cavalry on earth "whose Texas attacks scare the American settlers.
Although they can be persistent in defending, Indian Plains warriors take the most attacks for material gain and individual prestige. The highest military award is to "count the coup" - touching a living enemy. The battle between the Indians often consisted of opposing fighters who showed their courage rather than trying to achieve concrete military objectives. The emphasis is on ambush and hit and run action rather than closing with enemies. Success is often calculated by the number of horses or properties acquired in the attack. The victim is usually mild. "Indians think it's foolish to make an attack where it is certain some of them will be killed." Given their smaller numbers, losing even a few people in combat could be disastrous for a band, and especially at the battle of Adobe Walls in Texas in 1874 and Rosebud in Montana in 1876, the Indians decided on battles despite the fact that they won because of casualties not considered worth the victory. The most famous win ever won by Indian Plains over the United States, the Battle of Little Bighorn, in 1876, was won by Lakota (Sioux) and Cheyenne fighting in a defensive position. Any decision to counter or not based on a cost-benefit ratio; even losing a single soldier was not considered worth taking some scalp, but if a herd of horses could be obtained, losing one or two soldiers was considered acceptable. In general, given the small size of the band and the large population of the United States, Indian Plains strives to avoid casualties in combat, and will avoid fighting if it means loss.
Due to their mobility, endurance, horseback riding, and knowledge of the vast plains that became their territory, the Plain Indians often prevailed in their battle against US troops in the American era from 1803 to about 1890. However, although the Indians won many battles, they can not run a long campaign. Indian troops can only be assembled for a short time because the soldiers also have to hunt for food for their families. The exceptions to it are the attacks on Mexico by Comanche and their allies where robbers often live for months from the wealth of Mexican hacienda and settlements. The basic weapon of Indian soldiers is a short, dashing bow, designed for use on horses and deadly, but only at short distances. Weapons are usually in short supply and rare ammunition for Native warriors. The US government through Indian Agents will sell Lowland Indians to hunt, but unlicensed traders will exchange weapons to hide the buffalo. Lack of ammunition along with a lack of training to handle firearms mean that preferred weapons are bows and arrows.
Research
People from the Great Plains have been found to be the tallest people in the world during the late nineteenth century, based on an analysis of 21st century (first) data collected by Franz Boas for the Colombian World Exhibition. This information is important for anthropometric historians, who usually equate population heights with their overall health and living standards.
See also
- Comanche-Mexican War
- Standard Sign Language Plains
- Plains hide paintings
- Hair loss, Plains man jewelery
- Native American tribes in Nebraska
- Buffalo jumps
- Powwow
- Southern Plains villagers
Note
Further reading
External links
- Great Plains Indians Musical Instruments at Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Metropolitan Museum of Art
- "American Indian Contribution to Science and Technology", Chris R. Landon, Portland Public Schools, 1993
- "Buffalo and the Plains Indians", South Dakota State Community Education Kit
Source of the article : Wikipedia
0 Comments