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The term “Plains Indians” refers to the
many
Native
American
tribes that lived on the plains and rolling hills
of middle North America in the region between the
Mississippi River
and the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to Mexico.
The
Arapaho,
Assiniboine,
Blackfoot,
Cheyenne,
Comanche,
Crow, Gros Ventre,
Kiowa, Plains
Apache, Plains
Cree, Plains
Ojibwe, Sarsi,
Shoshone,
Sioux, and Tonkawa. and
were all nomadic
tribes who followed the
buffalo herds and lived in tipis. Though nomadic, some
tribes occasionally engaged in
agriculture; primarily growing tobacco and corn.
A second group of semi-nomadic
tribes,
sometimes referred to as Prairie Indians, included the
Arikara,
Hidatsa, Iowa,
Kanza, Kitsai,
Mandan, Missouri,
Nez Percé,
Omaha,
Osage,
Otoe,
Pawnee,
Ponca,
Quapaw, Santee, Wichita, and Yankton
tribes. These groups spent part of every year in fixed villages where
they raised crops, and spent the rest of the year hunting
buffalo and
living in tipis.
 The nomadic
tribes survived on hunting all
types of game, such as elk and antelope, but, the
buffalo was their
main source of food. Every part of the
buffalo
was used. In addition to providing food, the the Indians used the skins for tipis and
clothing, hides for robes, shields, and ropes; they used dried
buffalo
dung for fuel, made tools, such as horn spoons, scrapers from bone;
sinew or muscle was used to make bowstrings, moccasins, and bags; and
the hoofs were used to make glue. Following the seasonal migration of
the
buffalo, the tipis that the Plains Indians lived in were ideal for
their nomadic lifestyle, as they were easily put up and disassembled.
Before horses were introduced, hunting was
far more difficult. Sometimes the hunters would surround the
buffalo
and try try to herd them off cliffs or into places where they could be
more easily killed. Another method was to drive them into a corral or
into a v-shaped funnel made of fallen trees and rocks, where they
could be killed. Sometimes the animals could be lured by a hunter
covering himself with a
buffalo skin and imitating the call of the
animals. At this time, the Plains Indians hunted with spears, bows and
arrows, and various forms of clubs.
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