Plains Indian Society and Beliefs

In Lesson 1 you met the Plains Indian nations by name and geography. This lesson takes you inside their society: how they organised politically, how they fed themselves, how they fought, and above all what they believed. The central argument of this lesson — and a central argument the examiner wants to see you handle — is that Plains Indian society was coherent and sophisticated, not the "primitive" or "savage" society that US settlers characterised. That coherence is also what made the society so vulnerable to the targeted destruction you will study in Lesson 7: take away the buffalo, break up the bands, and everything collapses together.

Band, Tribe, Nation: The Layers of Organisation

Plains Indian political organisation was layered. It is worth learning these layers precisely, because examiners reward candidates who use the correct terminology.

Level	Size	Role
Family (tiyospaye for Lakota)	~20–30 people	Day-to-day economic unit; shared tipi cluster
Band	100–500 people	Travelled together; followed a chief; main political unit
Tribe	Several bands sharing language and culture	Met for summer ceremonies; coordinated wider politics
Nation	Related tribes	E.g. the seven bands of the Lakota Sioux

Authority was diffused, not concentrated. There was no single "king" of the Sioux or "emperor" of the Cheyenne. Decisions were made by consensus at councils of respected men. A chief led by persuasion and example, not by command. He held office only as long as he held his people's confidence; a chief who lost touch with the band's wishes simply lost followers. When US treaty-makers later signed agreements with a single chief and claimed the whole nation was bound, they were misunderstanding (or deliberately misrepresenting) how Plains authority actually worked.

Chiefs and Councils

Chiefs were chosen for wisdom, courage, generosity, and speaking skill. Red Cloud of the Oglala Lakota became a chief not by inheritance but through a succession of successful war leadership. Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa Lakota was both a war chief and a spiritual leader — a rarer combination, and one reason for his extraordinary authority.

Councils of older men, sometimes known as the "elders", advised chiefs and took the great decisions — whether to make war, whether to move camp, whether to accept a treaty. A chief who ignored his council lost legitimacy.

Warrior Societies

Alongside the council structure ran the warrior societies — voluntary associations of young men with their own names, songs, insignia and duties. Examples among the Lakota include the Strong Hearts and the Kit Foxes. Warrior societies policed the camp during the great buffalo hunts (preventing a single hunter from spooking the herd early), enforced council decisions, and supplied the war parties. Membership in a prestigious society was a major source of honour for a young man.

Nomadic Life

Plains Indian life was nomadic — the band followed the buffalo. A typical cycle looked like this:

• Summer: Large gatherings of bands for ceremonies (the Sun Dance among the Lakota) and communal hunts.
• Autumn: Intensive buffalo hunting to store meat as pemmican (dried meat mixed with fat and berries) for winter.
• Winter: Bands dispersed to sheltered valleys to reduce pressure on any one location; smaller hunting.
• Spring: Bands re-gathered as grass returned and the buffalo herds moved.

The tipi — a conical tent of buffalo hides stretched over a frame of pine poles — was ideally suited to this life. It could be struck and packed in under an hour; dragged on a travois behind a horse; pitched in fifteen minutes; ventilated in summer, heated in winter. US settlers trying to build permanent homes on the Plains would spend years achieving what Plains families did in a single season.

flowchart LR
    A[Spring gatherings] --> B[Summer ceremonies and communal hunts]
    B --> C[Autumn buffalo hunts]
    C --> D[Winter small-band dispersal]
    D --> A

The Buffalo Economy

The buffalo was the centre of Plains Indian economic life. A single animal, fully used, could sustain a family for weeks. There was no waste.

Product	Use
Meat	Fresh, or dried into pemmican for winter
Hide	Tipis, robes, clothing, moccasins, shields
Bones	Tools, needles, arrow points
Sinew	Thread, bowstrings
Horn	Cups, spoons
Stomach	Cooking pot
Dung	Fuel for fires
Hair	Rope, stuffing

This economy was sustainable at scale — buffalo populations had held roughly steady while supporting Plains life for centuries. It was the arrival of commercial white hunters, not Indigenous hunting, that would drive the herds to the edge of extinction, as you will see in Lesson 7.

Religion and the Great Spirit

Religion was not a separate compartment of Plains life. It ran through every act. The unifying idea was the Great Spirit (Wakan Tanka among the Lakota) — an all-pervading spiritual power present in the land, sky, animals and people.

Three features of Plains religion are particularly important for this course: