Mind map
Plains Indians #1
Mind map: Plains Indians
Map content
Plains Indians #1
Buffalo
- Women and children butchered it.
- Stampeded a herd into valleys, etc.
- Hunted on foot before horses
- Used all of the buffalo
- Horns = head-dresses, cutlery
- Tanned hide = clothes, tipi covers
- Fur = blankets, saddles
- Raw parts (kidney, liver, brain) eaten; flesh boiled
- Preserved strips left to dry in the sun called jerky for winter
Religion and Spirits
- Circles were important
- Sun, moon, tipis, birds nests
- Villages were circles of tipis
- One great spirit
- Called "Wakan Tanka" by Sioux
- Rules over all living things
- Sacred land - especially high ground
- Black Hills of Dakota - sacred to Sioux
- Buried dead tribe members here
- Medicine men came for guidance
- Black Hills of Dakota - sacred to Sioux
- Worked with the power of nature, respected it
- Nature cannot be bought/sold, mother
- Dances were important
- Whole tribes together
- Ceremonies led by medicine men
- Sun Dance, Buffalo Dance
- Visions
- Tortured themselves
- Told visions to medicine men in "sweat lodges"
- Fasting and praying for days
- Contact to the spirit world
- Children renamed after ceremony where they had their first vision
- Circles were important
Horses
- Allowed Indians to challenge white settlers and their technology
- Bred by Spanish settlers in 1600s
- Pueblo Indians drove Spanish out and captured their horses in 1640
- Used to hunt buffalo, move about the Plains, in war and for fun
- Crow tribe had 2 horses per person
- In 1820, wealth measured in horses
Medicine Men
- Could contact any spirit
- Interpreted visions
- Advised chiefs of spirits messages
- Geronimo (Apache medicine man
- Helped Indians choose and prepare herbs for medicine
- Said Indians had as much faith in prayer as medicine
- Treated broken limbs and wounds from war; bruises from hunting; fever from weather
- Worked with spirits not against them, respect
- Encouraged men to carry medicine bags