Great Plains culture

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Historically, the Great Plains were the range of the bison and of the short-lived Great Plains culture of the Native American tribes of the Blackfeet, Crow, Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, and others. Prior to the availability of horses, a few small tribes living on the perimeters of the Great Plains undertook the difficult task of hunting buffalo on foot. But without horses this was only a supplemental endeavor. After acquiring horses imported from Europe, there was a mass migration of people's from several different regions of North America to the previously scantly populated Great Plains. The primary attraction of the Great Plains to these widely disparate cultures was the Buffalo, which is was now feasible to hunt with the help of horses. These tribes' culture very way of life revolved around the American Bison (or buffalo), which explains the common denomination Buffalo culture. The buffalo roamed the western plains of the American mainland for tens of thousands of years numbering in their millions until the coming of white hunters to the Great Plains, and thus were omnipresent in the natives' lives. The Indians used every part of the buffalo, hides, bones, internal organs and some tribes attributed god-like status to the coming of the buffalo.

Because these disparate cultures were not in regular contact before the migration to the plains, they had only just begun the process of creating a common culture and language. Over the approximately 200 years of the existence of the Plains Culture a sign-language was developed so communication could take place between tribes without a common spoken language.

In the 1870s the U.S. Government acting through the army began a deliberate campaign of buffalo extermination in an attempt to cripple the tribes and force them into trading posts where they could be rounded up and moved to reservations. The slaughter has gone down in history as being one of wanton destruction to suit political mores of the day. It was President Roosevelt in the early 20th century who acted decisively to save the remnants of the buffalo, thought to number around 200. The buffalo were moved to Yellowstone National Park and to a certain extent have recovered from the abuse of man, but it is unlikely that they will ever be as numerous as before.

The tribes of the Great Plains have been found [1] to be the tallest people in the world during the late 1800s, based on 21st century analysis of data collected by Franz Boas for the World Columbian Exposition. This information is significant to anthropometric historians, who usually equate the height of populations with their overall health and standard of living.