Talk:Plains Indians

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[edit] Clean up needed

Can we get this article cleaned up? It doesn't sound like an encyclopedia entry. 130.253.249.48 19:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. TerriersFan 23:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

This article has now been tagged for clean-up Fortunia 22:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The extensive new material that was added may, or may not be accurate, but without sourcing it is impossible to know. Rather than try the impossible task of cleaning it up, I have carried out a deep revert to an earlier version that is, to some extent, sourced. It can go back if sourcing is provided. TerriersFan 00:53, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Fortunia 02:28, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Great Plains culture

I have merged in Great Plains culture. However, only one paragraph has been imported as is since the rest of the material was contentious and wholly unsourced - this article has enough unsourced material as it is! TerriersFan 23:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC) o —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.237.156.11 (talk) 03:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article needs some attention.

I think the article could stand to be improved in quite a few ways.

Article is thoroughly disorganized and very basic.

Perhaps we could replace some of the many references to the "Plains Indians" in the context of this article with the more politically correct term "Native American". I know it could possibly add some extra bulk to the article, however, I am a "Plains Indian", and I would prefer the latter "term".

Another recommendation I would try in order to improve this article, would be to provide some more informative detail on some of the subjects here. Upon reading the article, I felt that the article was maybe written in a rush, there seems to be little to no detail in many areas, just a general idea is given regarding the topic. The topic in question here warrants a whole lot more attention to detail than is given, due particularly to the vast amount of information available on the history of these people.

I have listed a few things below that I feel could be mentioned in the body of his article to add more detail, that came to mind as I read through this article. Also, I haven't taken the liberty to put these little tidbits of info in the article myself because I don't have any sources to mention to verify the validity of them. These are just some things that I remember from reading about the "Plains Indians" myself.

  • Native American women 'traditionally' erected and disassembled the "tipis" when the tribes would decide to move their location.
  • In relation to culture, women were the "workhorses" in the Native American family, in comparison to the male being the "workhorse" in many families today. The women were the "workhorses" due to the fact that they did the majority of the work in regards to tasks that were necessary as a part of daily life. Culturally speaking, the Native American man was basically required to hunt to provide food and defend the tribe. Native American women on the other hand, would be tasked with preparing food that their husbands brought home as animal carcasses, meaning that the women would skin, chop, cook, and preserve the meat. Other tasks the women commonly did consist of making clothes for the family, preserving hides for use as tipi material, rugs and blankets. In summary, the Native American woman did basically everything except hunting, and fighting/defending the tribe.
  • In the article, a large portion of its subject matter relates to buffalo, I don't however see the reasons for the buffalo's demise described. The massive slaughter of buffalo for sport (shooting herds from trains) and other more sinister reasons (buffalo=Plains Indians lifeline) by the whites was a major factor in the eventual demise of the Plains Indians.

For now, that’s about all I can come up with. I hope someone can find a way to incorporate and or improve the ideas I’ve set out. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.94.216.169 (talk) 06:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

I think that this article should be labeled Plains Indians Because that is not what they really are. I think that it should be renamed to be Plains Native Americans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.113.194 (talk) 20:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC) hi i am soooo cool i have 4 balls lol!!!!!!!

[edit] Healers and Womans roles

If you travel to reservations in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana to name a few you will find that we still call ourselves Indians. A lot of us oldtimers take it as a slap in the face to be corrected for not being politically correct and useing the term Native Americans. Actually we are a people with maney names that are very hard to spell and pronounce. We actually are trying to revive the term American Indians. A TV show on PBS prairie public TV has a weekly show they proudly call "Indian Pride" that hosts Indians weekly to talk about culture and politics.

The role of Women in maney plains tribes was not just related to labor. They made decisions on how the family income was handled. Women where in the position of understanding the what was needed to keep there household running. The skills needed to make good trades and manage all aspects of the home was passed down from Mother to daughter. Woman also learned how to trap small game and fish. Building and setting out fish traps in rivers where they hauled water from. They gathered medicinal plants, made tools, arrow heads and several things unique from there area to trade for items at gatherings. Learning about other tribes culture, habitat and even language made them very valuable members within there group. Woman where regarded sacred by maney groups of American Indians as they brought life (gave birth). Since survival in such harsh climates could hinge on one person at times it was imparitive for Mothers to start teaching survival skills to there children at a early stage.

A Elder introduced me to a very old man in a nurseing home who was one of the last living Buffalo hunters liveing in the my tribe located in North Dakota. I asked him what made a good Buffalo hunter. His answer was "Your Family." The entire family would go on hunts. They had to work well as a unit to process the fallen Bison on sight so it could be hauled back to camp in a timely manner. Meat could spoil rather quickly in the elements so quality and quantity of what was taken depended souly on the family unit.

Among the Ojibway in what is now North Dakota knowlage of medicinal plants was also passed down through the generations through Woman. It was believed that the creater chose woman for this role. He was the first teacher of the use of medicinal plants that he made for the people to put to good use. Preperation and wildcrafting skills, diagnoseing ailments where skills that could take years to hone. Mental Health of tribal members was just as important as medicine when treating patients. Healers used a holistic approuch. Sound mind and sound body. Often times healers themselves had gone through great challenges at a early age like a sickness. For this reason they where left behind and spent a great deal of time with elders and learned how to connect with people in those things spiritual. When someone at a early age showed a gift for spiritual disernment then elders, medicine Woman or Men started training them so they could forfill there calling. Some of the secretiveness about medicinal herbs was due to the fact that they could be abused or lead to death if not used properly. Healers had a gift for getting to the root of a problem. Healers did not see themselves as the actual healer but a condit. Useing what was felt as there unique gift to help a indivisual connect with the creator so a healing could take place. They also served as a spiritual leader among there group helping to maintain peace within the tribe through there couceling and teachings. Plains Indians daily lives and there spiritual connection was seamless. Survival was not seen as being possible without leading a pious life within the tribe. If moral decay spread then it would lead to the demise of the whole tribe. People where expected to work on serious problems or they could be ejected from the tribe.

Besides teachings from Elders Iv also read entrys from journals of military men, Lewis and Clark. Since there observations of my people have verified a lot of our history that has not been told. Religous beliefs for a lack of a better word taught the plains Indians all people are equel. Children to Elderly where equel. When people where not treated respectfully as human beings this could hinder survival. Since there was only so much resources to sustain life a balance was always being sought or maintained. Not doing so lead to a lot of deaths. Indians where a communal group thus there lifestyle. Maney of there beliefs seam very abstract to non Indians. In actuality there practices and beliefs are quite similar to Christians. Since one person cannot speak for the entire tribe, its hard to just make a generalization of so maney different groups that where indigonous to the plains area of the US. Sandra Kleinsasser

With a bit of editing,you should put this on the article. I've been looking for the role of woman in the Plains Indians, and this contains quite a bit of information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.59.178.86 (talk) 12:51, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History

I would like to see some information on the history of peoples of this region. The first couple paragraphs mention that the cultures described were at their height starting in 1750's. I have heard from others that at least several of the major nations came from the Eastern Woodlands, being pushed into the west by invading Europeans, and that prior to that time, the ways of life of the Great Plains were very much different. 69.95.237.11 (talk) 22:04, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Move

I request a move to Plains Native Americans.68.148.164.166 (talk) 12:40, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Oppose - we title with the commonly used name, see WP:NC, and I see no evidence that 'Plains Native Americans' is generally used. TerriersFan (talk) 17:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose move There's nothing ambiguous about "Plains Indians". Are there any other groups called "Plains Indians" anywhere else in the world? We should follow conventional usage. Google scholar finds 894 articles for "Plains Indians" since 2005 (I did a recent search in case usage is changing), but only 24 for "Plains Native Americans". Similarly it's 725/28 since 2005 in Google Books, and 704/13 in Google News. Mangostar (talk) 21:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose move. Plains Indians, despite its clearly fallacious derivation, is far and away the most commonly used name for this group of peoples. OlenWhitaker • talk to me or don't • ♣ ♥ ♠ ♦ 21:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)