Native American Culture of the Plains
A regional overview of the Plains from Khan Academy. This version leaves out the parts about horses arriving with Europeans, European colonists, and the conflicts that followed.
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Place and Time: Across the Flatlands
The Plains region lies east of the Rocky Mountains. It stretches up to 400 miles across the flat land in the center of the United States today. Very few people lived on the Plains until about 1100 CE. Then Native American groups began to settle there. They included the Pawnees, Mandans, Omahas, Wichitas, and Cheyennes, along with other groups.
The climate allowed some farming close to the big rivers. In the end, though, it worked best for hunting large and small animals.
Food: Corn Arrives, but People Return to Hunting and Gathering
Plains Native Americans planted the three sisters: beans, squash, and corn. These crops arrived from the Southwest around 900 CE. Farming was most common along rivers. It also worked best there. Plains people gathered plants to use as medicine. For example, people thought chokecherries could cure a sick stomach. Women farmed and gathered food. Men hunted. Hunting became more important when a drought struck in the 1300s.
Native people hunted large animals as early as 12,000 BCE. They combined farming and hunting on foot. They used large spears with Clovis points on the end. Clovis points are sharp points carved out of stone. People have found them all across North America. Archaeologists estimate that a spear with a Clovis point could kill animals as big as African elephants. This supports the idea that Native Americans used these two-centimeter spear points to hunt huge animals like mammoths, buffalo, and bison.
How People Lived: Settled at First, Then on the Move
In earlier societies that depended more on farming, Native Americans on the Plains set up bases in earth lodges. They stayed in one place. Some groups depended heavily on farming. One example is the Wichitas. They built grass homes near their crops. The Hidatsa and Mandan peoples lived in the eastern part of the Plains. They grew maize there. They set up trade networks along the Mississippi River. They made bull boats by stretching bison skin over a wooden frame. They used the boats to carry trade goods along the rivers. They traded detailed baskets and leather for metal and furs from the Northeast.
Later, Native Americans on the Plains focused more on hunting. So they became more nomadic. They built teepees. These were cone-shaped tents made of buffalo skin and wood. A band could put up or take down a teepee easily. This helped when the band followed a buffalo herd to hunt. Sometimes people lived both ways. They planted crops and set up villages in the spring. They hunted in the summer. They harvested their crops in the fall. Then they hunted again in the winter.
Beliefs and Social Order: Competition and Trade Put Pressure on Society
These groups hunted and farmed. Most were divided into bands. A band could have from a dozen to a few hundred people. They lived, hunted, and traveled together. Bands often joined together in a village. There they farmed or hunted a large herd of bison. The number of people in a village often changed. Villages usually had little or no political structure.
It is almost impossible to make one statement about the religions of the whole Plains region. Every group had its own practices. Rituals often centered on the sun and nature. The Earth was seen as the mother of all spirits. The Cheyennes, for example, performed the Sun Dance. The dance required people to give up something personal for the good of the whole community. The Lakotas believed that some people were blessed to be spiritual leaders or medicine men. Native people on the Plains saw the buffalo and their migration patterns as sacred.