Chief Dan George's "Civilized Tribes" ...

[dogtag]

They endeavored and persevered:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...years-ago.html

[sid]

Great pix. Thanks for sharing.

[Vern Humphrey]

Notice the Politically Correct text -- until the Whites arrived, the Indians lived peacefully.

[dogtag]

Notice the Politically Correct text -- until the Whites arrived, the Indians lived peacefully.

And the Whites were peaceful until they met the Indians.

[clintonhater]

Notice the Politically Correct text -- until the Whites arrived, the Indians lived peacefully.

FIRST question always asked by Indians when encountering Europeans, & seeing their superior weapons: "Will you help us fight our enemies?", whoever the neighboring tribes happened to be. Acceding to this request from the Canadian Abenaki's cost the French their American empire...because when Champlain attacked the Iroquois, at the behest of their Abenaki allies, they provoked a much stronger confederation which then allied themselves with the British, & became mortal enemies of the French.

[sid]

The Indian tribes were slaughtering each other and practicing slavery and torture long before the white man arrived.

[clintonhater]

The Indian tribes were slaughtering each other and practicing slavery and torture long before the white man arrived.

And after, until they were completely subdued.

[rayg]

Beautiful photos, However, photo #3 dashes my image of the Indians riding their horses bare back while leaning over and under the galloping horse shooting arrows. Both horses have saddles on them, Ray

[Vern Humphrey]

Of course they used saddles -- they got horses from the Spanish and learned about riding from them.

[dogtag]

and stirrups

[clintonhater]

Of course they used saddles -- they got horses from the Spanish and learned about riding from them.

But it took time. By the 1880s, most Indians painted by Remington rode with saddles & stirrups, but those painted by George Catlin in the 1830s used only saddle blankets or skins over the horse's back, clearly without stirrups.

Before the plains Indians acquired horses from the white man, they lived the most desperate kind of hand-to-mouth existences, because they had no way to kill buffalo except by trying to ambush them on foot; but I'm sure the Chief explained all this.

[bdm]

Beautiful photos thanks for posting

[Vern Humphrey]

But it took time. By the 1880s, most Indians painted by Remington rode with saddles & stirrups, but those painted by George Catlin in the 1830s used only saddle blankets or skins over the horse's back, clearly without stirrups.

Before the plains Indians acquired horses from the white man, they lived the most desperate kind of hand-to-mouth existences, because they had no way to kill buffalo except by trying to ambush them on foot; but I'm sure the Chief explained all this.

Indeed they did live a miserable existence. A foot nomad can't own anything he can't carry -- about 50 pounds being a full load for a man. So they could stampede buffalo off cliffs, kill hundreds and have tons of meat -- but only use a tiny fraction of it. The lodges (or Tipis) we think of the plains Indians using were impossible before they got horses -- the lodge poles and buffalo hide covers would weight well over a ton.

The Age of Horse Culture marked an economic explosion. Suddenly they could have all the meat they wanted -- let the horses carry it. They could have big, spacious lodges -- let the horses carry or drag them. And of course, there was an explosion of conquest -- with the first tribes to get horses (or to master the horses) conquering and driving out other tribes. The Comanche are a great example -- from their homes on the eastern slopes of the Rockies in Wyoming they over-ran the southern plains, driving out the Navajo, Apache and Lipans and making themselves the lords of the southern plains.

[dogtag]

What do you do if there's no cliff around ? Chasing a big shaggy
with a sharp stick hoping for a nice steak dinner with the wife
might be fraught with danger. From the Bison if you catch it,
and from the Wife if you don't.

[Vern Humphrey]

What do you do if there's no cliff around ? Chasing a big shaggy
with a sharp stick hoping for a nice steak dinner with the wife
might be fraught with danger. From the Bison if you catch it,
and from the Wife if you don't.

In general, subsistence hunter-gatherers shape their lives and travels around the food source. If there is a place where you can stampede buffalo off a cliff, that's where you want to be when the buffalo get there. After the stampede you move on to the next foot source.