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, warfareWomen 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