PEOPLES OF THE PLAINS The Plains region is the original home of many American Indian nations This map shows the areas where some of them lived before Europeans arrived in the region Sarcee Sarcee Blackfeet Blackfeet CreeCree Ojibwe Ojibwe Assiniboine Assiniboine CrowCrow Hidatsa Hidatsa Mandan Mandan Arikara Arikara Cheyenne Cheyenne Lakota Lakota Dakota Dakota Yankton Yankton Pawnee Pawnee CULTURAL AREAS Plateau Plains Southeast Southwest Great Basin Northeast Subarctic Other Cultural area border International border State province border Omaha Omaha Iowa Iowa Arapaho Arapaho OtoOto Ponca Ponca OsageOsage Kiowa Kiowa Apache Apache WichitaWichita Comanche Comanche Tonkawa Tonkawa Ancient Plains Indian stories say that Plains peoples have lived in this region much longer ever since the Great Spirit created Earth Each Plains culture tells its own version of how this happened The Pawnee pah-NEE of present-day Nebraska and Kansas say the Morning Star and the Evening Star had a daughter She was the first human The Arapaho 66
from present-day Colorado and Wyoming say a coyote and a few bison lived on Earth But there was only one human He was an old man He was lonely With some clay bison skin and smoke from his pipe he made the first people The native peoples spread out across the plains between the foothills of the Rocky Mountains all the way east to the Mississippi River This grassy sweep of land stretches north into Canada and south to the Rio Grande on the present-day US-Mexico border Many Nations The Plains peoples formed many different nations Each nation had its own form of government culture and language Plains Indians speak languages from seven different language families A language family includes many different but related languages Nations in the same language family also share many cultural traits Each Plains nation also had its own way of life The western nations were nomadic They followed herds of animals that they hunted for meat For instance the Comanche moved across the arid plains of Texas and Oklahoma Farther north areas in present-day Montana and Wyoming were home to the Crow KROH The Cheyenne shy-ANN traveled through present-day North Dakota South Dakota Montana and Colorado Eastern nations were more settled They lived near rivers in green areas where they grew crops The Osage OH sage people farmed in present-day Arkansas and Missouri The Oto OH-toh settled in today’s Oklahoma Missouri and Iowa The Kaw KAH lived in present-day Kansas the Kiowa KY-uh-wuh were in present-day Oklahoma and the Ponca PONG-kuh lived in present-day Nebraska 7
LANGUAGE FAMILIES OF PLAINS PEOPLES LANGUAGE FAMILY MAJOR PEOPLES Algonquian Arapaho Blackfeet Cheyenne Plains Ojibwe oh-JIB-way Plains Cree KREE Athabaskan Lipan Apache uh-PAH-chee Sarcee SAR-see Caddoan Arikara uh-RY-kuh-ruh Caddo KAH-doh Pawnee Wichita WIH-chuh-tuh Kiowan Kiowa Siouan Assiniboine uh-SIH-nih-BOYN Crow Dakota Hidatsa Iowa EYE-uh-wuh Lakota Mandan Missouria muh-ZUR-ee-uh Kaw Omaha Osage Oto Ponca Yankton Uto-Aztecan Comanche Tonkawa Tonkawa TONG-kuh-wuh Many nations such as the Lakota in present-day Iowa and the Dakotas both farmed and hunted They were seminomadic Mostly in winter they moved around to hunt animals At other times they stayed in one place to grow crops 88
Changes and Challenges By the time Spanish explorers first saw the plains in the sixteenth century about one million American Indians lived on that land About twenty-eight nations called the Plains region home Each nation was made up of independent bands The bands lived separately in their own villages or camps They had separate hunting grounds But the whole nation came together for important occasions Europeans began moving to the plains in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Plains peoples lives suddenly changed Yet the Plains peoples would survive Many American Indians still live across the plains 9
