One of the most conspicuous marks of Plains culture is the relation of the Indian to the buffalo. Though the buffalo, or bison, was at one time widely distributed in the Mississippi Valley, it seems to have been chiefly at home in the treeless areas of the west. After 1800, at least, the large herds were found in the great open stretches of country, east of the Rocky Mountains, or the long narrow white area in our forestry map. While this was the region in which the herds were thickest and typical, there was also a fringe on all sides, but especially to the east, of small random groups of buffalo. We thus see a faunistic distribution making it possible for Indians in the heart of the area to live entirely on the buffalo, while their neighbors could to varying degrees derive partial support from the same source. This is about what observation shows to have been the case.
From the time of exploration to 1860, or later, all the tribes of Indians living within the great treeless area east of the mountains made the hunting of the buffalo their chief occupation. They cultivated nothing and used only a few wild fruits and roots to supplement their almost exclusive meat diet. Reference to the forestry map will show how the wooded area fringes out into the Plains. Now, the Indians living in this fringed area also hunted buffalo, but not exclusively, for they raised maize, beans and squashes. Again, on the west in the open country between the mountain ranges, the tribes occasionally hunted buffalo; but, though they did not practise agriculture, they gathered great quantities of wild grass seeds which when ground and baked formed a considerable part of their diet.
Thus we see that by taking the use of the buffalo as an index of culture we may roughly group the Indians of the Plains under three heads: the typical or primary tribes, the eastern or semi-agricultural tribes and the western or plateau tribes. If we seek further to characterize the culture of the typical group we find the following conspicuous traits: the use of the tipi all the year round; in historic times, the use of the horse; in earlier times the use of the dog for transportation by travois; an organized camp circle and police system for the regulation of the buffalo hunt; a religious ceremony known as the sun dance, and a highly individualized decorative art. Waiving several minor traits, we may take these as determining characters in the typical Plains Indian culture.
On the tribal map we have used an asterisk (*) to distinguish those clearly manifesting these traits. As previously stated, we must not expect every tribe in this group to manifest every typical trait, for here as elsewhere the gradation of culture is in evidence. Further, the tribes differ as to the degree to which they assimilate cultural elements. For example, the Comanche had no sun dance and a rather weakly organized camp, but otherwise had the typical traits. The Teton-Dakota, on
