Plains

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Plains by Brad Hinch
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• Objective
• Students will become knowledgeable about the
  daily life, traditions and locations of the
  Plains Indians of North America.

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The tepee was the home of the Plains Indians. The
frame of the tepee was made of long wooden poles
pointed together and fastened at the top. The
bottoms were spread out to form a circle. This
was covered with a tent of animal skins which
fastened to the ground. These Indians would often
paint decorations on the outside of the teepee.
The Plains Indians would have a fireplace inside
the tepee. This form of home could quickly be
taken down when the Plains Indians moved to
follow the buffalo.
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Rawhide ContainersKainaiearly 20th centuryAF
3752 a-b The First Peoples of the Plains took
great care with their artistic decoration. The
positive (coloured) and negative (not-coloured)
spaces were integrated in complex motifs. The
symmetrical patterns reinforce cultural
principles of coexisting in a balance with all of
the world.
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SuitSiksikaearly 1900s elk hide, porcupine
quills, natural dyes, weasel peltsAF 3761
a-b One of the Blackfoot speaking people's
ancient stories tells how a man named Scarface
went to live with the Sun, the Moon, and their
child, Morningstar. When he returned to his
people, the Sun gave him a white buckskin suit
decorated with scalps which commemorated the time
he saved Morningstar from the evil Cranes.
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Man's Shirt and Leggings
Blackfoot ca. 1840 tanned deerskin, porcupine
quills, hair, glass beads, woollen cloth, paint
shirt 89 cm. long, leggings 109 cm. long Speyer
CollectionCMC V-B-413 (shirt)CMC V-B-415 a,b
(leggings) The Blackfoot owner of this striking
garment must have been not only an outstanding
warrior but also an ambitious man of great wealth
-- wealth that he lavished on the pursuit of
sacred blessings and social prestige. In
Blackfoot society certain costumes associated
with the spiritual patrons of warriors their camp
in glory. conferred these benefits. This costume
is unique in combining the distinctive insignia
of three patrons -- the sun, the weasel and the
bear. The scalp-hair fringes, the painted
stripes on sleeves and leggings, and the large
discs on the front and back of the shirt were the
marks of the Scalplock Suit. It had its origins
in the legend of Scarface, to whom the Sun gave
the first suit of its kind as a reward for
killing his enemies. Fringes of weasel fur and
the tadpole symbols painted on the leggings were
characteristic of the Weaseltail Suit, which
bestowed spiritual powers of the underworld. The
rows of short stripes and dots on a yellow
background decorating the upper part of the shirt
are reminiscent of the sacred warshirt given to
the Blackfoot by bear spirits. Such ritual
costumes came at a high price for example, in
the early nineteenth century thirty horses were
paid to acquire a Scalplock Suit. Such magically
protective garments were ritually transferred
from warrior to warrior every few years.
Ownership conferred the right to paint the face
in a particular way and to sing certain songs
during the Big Smoke, a prestigious ceremony in
praise of the spirits. Warriors carried these
suits, bundled, into battle, and donned them only
as they returned home so that they might enter
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                        Kiowa man and his wife.
The Kiowa lived in and around the Texas
panhandle. This includes western Oklahoma and
northeast New Mexico. They were nomadic buffalo
hunters. That makes them hunter gatherers. They
were famous for their long distance raids. Some
of these raids went all the way down into Mexico
and way up almost to Canada. They were friends
and close allies with the Comanche who lived in
the same region.
Like the Comanche, they lived in tee-pees.
Tee-pees are easy to move and being nomads the
Kiowa moved all the time. They moved to follow
buffalo herds. Buffalo meat was their most
important food. www.TexasIndians.com They also
gathered plants, roots and berries to eat when
they could find them. The women did this
gathering. The men hunted.
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Here is a nice example of Kiowa dress. This lady
is wearing an elk tooth blouse. The elk teeth are
the white things in rows. They are sewn onto the
blouse. The blouse is probably made of elk
skin. Elk teeth and skin was believed to be
powerful love magic.
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Beaded Kiowa moccasins
Kiowa baby in a papoose. Look at the colorful
blue and red beadwork above the baby's head and
on the brown leather parts. This is like a
backpack. Indian mothers would carry the baby in
the papoose around with them on their backs.
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Pictograph Robe (Raw Eater's)Siksikaearly
1900sbison hide and natural pigmentsAF 870 Raw
Eater was a highly respected leader among the
Siksika during the late nineteenth century. He
used a traditional style of painting to record
some of the important episodes of his life. Raw
Eater is always painted in red as he steals
horses, fights enemies, and takes scalps and guns
as coups.
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Horse FigureLakotaearly 20th centuryglass
beads, elk hideAF 5184 This horse figure
reflects the fine artistry and craftsmanship of
the maker. The stylized outline is similar to
older drawings done on hide. Almost every part of
the horse has been beaded.
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SaddleCreeearly 20th centurycommercial
leather, glass beads, wool fringe, metal ringsAP
2642 Saddles such as this are often called pad
saddles. They were stuffed with buffalo hair,
horse hair, or even grass. A rope or leather
cinch would have secured the saddle on the horse.
The carefully beaded decorations reflect the high
value the owner placed on his horse.
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(No Transcript)
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Biographical Warrior's ShirtUpper Missouri River
(Mandan?)Deer hide, dyed horse hair,
unidentified hair, unidentifiedplant material,
dyed and undyed porcupine quills, dyed bird
quills, sinew, glass beads, pigments Prominent
men decorated and wore painted shirts as an
expression of their social rank (including
membership in men's societies) and to commemorate
their achievements in battle. The drawings on
this shirt indicate the war exploits of the
owner. Only leaders wore shirts during the early
nineteenth century, and few examples of
biographical garments from that period survive
today in museum collections. The cultural
identity of the owner of this deer hide,
open-sided shirt is difficult to determine.
However, many features of this very early shirt,
such as the thin, quill-plaited seam strips on
the shoulders and the painting style, suggest a
Central Plains or Upper Missouri River origin.
Locks of colored hair, possibly both horse and
human, are attached to the shoulder seams. The
upper half of the shirt has been painted
blue-green, the lower half yellow. This general
style of shirt, often called war shirts or
"deer-leg" shirts because the legs of dressed
ungulate (such as deer and antelope) hides form
the sleeves and appendages, persisted in the
central and northern Plains throughout the
nineteenth century. Both Lewis and Clark and Lt.
Hutter acquired warrior's shirts that they later
donated to the Peale Museum. Several chiefs
presented shirts to Lewis and Clark, sometimes in
exhange for Euroamerican garments. The Hutter
family donated a "Mandan warrior's dress" to the
Peale Museum in 1828.
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Otter PouchEastern PlainsOtter hide, intact
otter skull, deer hide, dyed porcupine quills,
sinew, fiber, glass beads, tin-plated sheet iron
tinklers, wool yarnAlthough otter pouches such
as this are often associated with the Midewiwin
or Medicine Society of the Great Lakes region,
they were also widely used on the Plains as
tobacco and pipe containers. Thirty years after
the Lewis and Clark expedition, artist George
Catlin painted and collected a pouch similar to
this one belonging to the revered Mandan chief,
Four Bears. This bag may have been sent to Lewis
and Clark as an "ambassadorial" gift according
to Peale Museum records, one such was received
from the "Sock nation." Jefferson also sent four
other tobacco pouches to the Peale Museum
another was sent by the Hutter family in 1828.
Subsequent museum labels attributed this quilled
otter bag to either the Sauk or the Sioux. At
least six quillwork techniques were used in the
construction of this bag, including four mutliple
thread sewing techniques. The multiple quill
plaiting on the paws and tail of the otter is the
work of a master artisan. Quill wrapped loops and
pendants are attached to the otter's ears.
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So, where are the Kiowa today? They were moved to
a reservation in Oklahoma. The Kiowa used live on
the same reservation as the Caddo and Wichita
Indians around Anadarko Oklahoma. Times were
pretty hard on the reservation.
These are Kiowas waiting for their monthly food
ration from the reservation commissary around
1900. It gives a little insight into what life
must have been like on the reservation.
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References Page 3 - Teepee - http//www.nativeamer
icans.com/Wigwams.htm
Pages 4, 5, 9 - 12 - Personal items
http//www.glenbow.org/collections/museum/native/
plains.cfm
Page 6 - 8, 16 - Kiowa - http//www.texasindians.c
om/kiowa.htm
Poges 13 - 15 - Painted buffalo hide, warriors
shirt, otter tobacco pouch - http//www.peabody.h
arvard.edu/Lewis_and_Clark/pouch.html