The Great Plains Essay

Have you ever been in a place of green with forests and animals everywhere? Well, where some of the Native Americans lived, there were such things. Native American tribes such as the Crow lived in the Great Plains. The Crow tribe of the Great Plains were nomadic and followed the buffalo migrations which provided their food. This tribe spent a good part of the year living in camps that could easily be dismantled and moved to follow the buffalo migrations. Other tribes of the plains were more sedentary. These tribes lived in permanent villages year round. The Great Plains are located between the South and Midwest regions to the east and the Rocky Mountains to the west. The Great Plains Indians were dictated by climate, land, natural raw materials available and the animals, fish, birds, plants, nuts, berries and trees. The weather and the changing seasons also affected their way of life at different times of the year. When the North American continent was discovered 1492, it was settled by over 1 Million Indians belonging to over 500 tribes. A tribe consisted of 12 up to 1000 people. Nearly all tribes spoke different languages and more than 30 language families were counted. The Plain Indians would wear clothing to meet the purpose of providing warmth, protection and religious ceremony, just like many of us. All clothing’s were hand-made from skins of animals, especially buffalo, antelope and deer hides. Warriors wore breastplates made from shells or bones and shields made from buffalo hides (skin) to protect from spears and arrows (tribes do attack one another occasionally to gain land or valuable resources). Of course, they liked being pretty too, girls in particular! They would add beads and fringes to their buffalo hide.

The different types of Houses, Shelters and Homes depended on the materials available and whether the home was permanent or temporary. The homes of the Crow tribe of the Great Plains Indians included tepees which were

Bibliography: http://www.indians.org/articles/plains-indians.html http://nativeamericans.mrdonn.org/plains.html http://www.native-languages.org/plains-culture.htm http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ienhtml/tribes.html http://whitewolve.com/native_americans/indexblok.plains.htm