Great Plains

Great Plains Geography & Environment

* Extensive grasslands
* Little rain: water & trees in river valleys
* 2 regions
Western: High Plains
- Short grass
- Bison & pronghorn
Eastern: prairie plains/prairie
- Tall grass
- Less bison and some agriculture

Great Plains Political Organization

* Chiefs and councils
- War and Peace Chiefs
- Both Plains and Prairie Groups

Great Plains Warfare

* Politically important
* 3 main goals
- Prestige
- Loot (horses)
- Avenge earlier defeats

Great Plains First Contact

1st contact:
Southern Plains: 1540 (Spanish)
Northern Plains: 1690 (Hudson’s Bay Co.)
Lewis and Clark: 1804
Fort Laramie Treaties: 1851 & 1868
Impact of the Horse
Introduced mid-17th century
On northern plains ≈ 1690
Revolutionized travel, hunting, and warfare
Impact of Europeans
Disease
Military conflict
Sand Creek Massacre: 1864
Wounded Knee Massacre: 1890

Great Plains Political Organization

Organized into tribes with chiefs and councils
* War chiefs: young men
* Peace Chiefs: older and wiser men , made long0term decisions
High Plains:
- Had separate smaller bands in spring/summer for communal bison hunts
Prairie Groups:
- Lived on major rivers in large, permanent towns, fortified
- Did not break up into bands in the winter, retained tribe all year
- When men were gone, strong women could emerge as leaders of town/camp until men returned

Great Plains Warfare

* Extensive warfare
- gain prestige
- gain territory
Coup: gaining war honors, demonstration of bravery and valor in battle and performing specific deeds ranked in value
- looting was huge bravery

Great Plains Social Organization

High Plains:
- Mobile lifestyle
* congregating in summer, disperse in small groups in fall/winter
Prairie Groups:
* lived in permanent towns, large earth-covered houses, more complex social organization based on clans
Kinship
- Basic social unit = extended family
Individualism
- Honor, Glory, & Prestige
- Raiding, diplomacy, trade, and religion
- Sharing & Charity
- Sodality: Non-Kin Societies
Division of Labor
- Men: hunting and warfare
- Women: domestic tasks

Great Plains Economics

Bison/buffalo: #1
Mammals: pronghorn antelope, deer, elk, and rabbits
Birds: waterfowl, turkey, quail, eagles
Fish and shellfish
Roots, berries, prickly pear cacti
Spears and Arrows were preferred weapons

Great Plains Material Culture and Technology

Conical tipis for shelter with tanned bison skin
- Used them as bison hunters
- Prairies had earth lodges
Traveled by foot or with horses
- boat and travois
Clothing:
- Deerskin
- Quills → Beads
- Paint
- Eagle feathers
Tools & Items
- Stone, bone, and wood
- Hide containers

Great Plains Religion

Earth and bison are most sacred
- Astronomy was important
- Farming societies
Sacred Medicine Bundles
- Calumet: ceremonial pipe
- Men: vision quest to obtain supernatural powers
- Dead placed in trees or on scaffolds, body left to decay, bones placed in rocks

Calumet Ceremonial

Great Plains ritual intended to bring people together in peace: calumet was sacred symbol of peace- smoke tobacco and establish kinship, recognize alliances

Sun Dance/Medicine Lodge

World-renewal ceremony
- Initiated by individual male
- 4 types of ritualized sacrifice
- flesh: bison skulls, piercing of the chest, piercings, etc.

Cheyenne Politics and External Relations

- 10 bands: related families
* Council of 44 Peace Chiefs
- participated in warfare, led military societies, older
- Supernatural authority
* Homicide, theft & adultery
- Punishment of the guilty
Warfare
* Raids
* Abstaining from sex: young men believed intercourse depleted their power needed for war
* Allies
* Definition of success

Cheyenne Social Organization & Life Cycle

Basic unit: family
Bilateral kinship
Division of labor:
- Men: warfare and hunting
- Women: domestic chores, raised children, tanned hides, made clothing, tip covers, gathered wild plants
Two-spirits: hemaneh (half man/half women)
- highly respected; doctors or second wives
8 military societies: enforced council decisions, police force, community service, warfare
Women societies: quilling
Cheyenne values: sharing, reverence for elders respect for medicine, following a chosen path, modesty, proper behavior, natural order
Self control*

Cheyenne Life Cycle

Grandparents were indulgent with grandchildren
- Children received nicknames but no formal name until 5-6 with status
Boys: no puberty ceremony, gained status through war; vision quest
Girls: First menses- ready for marriage
0 Marriage with gifts from the male's family
- Polygyny was permitted, adultery rare
Death: funeral took place asap, entire family mourned

Pawnee (Chaticks-Si-Chaticks)

- Lived in rolling parklands, woodlands, lakes, gently flowing rivers
Extreme seasonal temperature variation
2 zones
Grassland
Wooded river valley
Land managed by ceremony and action
Burning of grasslands
Beef with Sioux
Diverse group: some from Great Plains, Southwest, Mississippi River

Pawnee Cosmology

Each town had creation story
- Skiri:
Heaven created cardinal directions, earth created by two storms, seeds, stars made man and woman

Pawnee Politics and External Relations

4 political divisions
- Skiri: wolf
- Chawi: Grand Band
- Kitkahahki: republican
- Pitahawirata: Tapage
2 Types of Chiefs
- Hereditary
- Elected
Confederacy
- Towns for each band
* Counting Coup
- obtain horses and honor, killing people was secondary

Pawnee Social Organization

Town: primary social unit
- Men married woman from own town
Two classes:
- Upper: hereditary chiefs, priests, doctors, town criers, and administrative assistants
- Lower: commoners, no hereditary positions
- Social outcasts: lazy people, survivors of being scalped
Household: divided in halves: everyone shared in the work

Pawnee Life Cycle

Children: greatly valued, obtained a guardian animal spirit identified by vision or doctor associated with animal
- Taught self control, self-sufficiency, independence
Marriage: within their class and town
- Polygyny common: upper class
Death:
buried within a day or two of death in community cemetery

Pawnee Economics

Divided between agriculture and bison hunting
- Corn #1
- Tobacco: grown in special fields
Trade
Housing
- Earth covered lodge
- Tipi
Clothing
- Handkerchief on head like a turban
Decoration
- Tattoos
- Red paint
Primary weapons: bow and arrow, club, lance and shield
Guns later were important
- stone and wood

Pawnee Religion and Medicine

Sky and earth are dual realms: celestial realm priests, earthly realm doctors
- Deities: Tirawahat: primary deity created universe
Each town possessed sacred bundle given to people by guardian constellation
- Cycle of ceremonies: maintain balance and harmony in universe
- Thunder Ritual of Evening Star, Corn Planting
Afterlife: bad Pawnee didn't make the journey to sky and not live again
Doctors or shamans: men or women
- Medicine Lodge would hold major ceremony, 30 days
- trained by experienced doctor or supernatural intervention
- Doctors would control plants, animals, enemies and cure illnesses, treat injuries

Pawnee Expression

- Rich tradition of music and art: singing and dancing
- Theater and pageantry
- Material culture was artistically decorated; stars
Games: male raced horses, hoop and pole game, hand game, plum seed game
* storytelling was entertainment