Native Americans of the Plains and the Buffalo

Abstract

In the first chapter, my aim is to describe the special relationship between the Plains Indians and the buffalo, to show how their lives were bound together, and to give an idea of how much the Indians of the Plains were depending on the buffalo both physically and spiritually. I would like to focus on how Native Americans lived around the buffalo, how they conducted their hunts, utilized nearly every part of the buffalo, performed the Sun Dance Ritual, and honored their sacred animal. In the second chapter, I aim at concentrating on basically how the white contact, especially the introduction of the horse, and the Euro- American trade altered the indigenous way of life in North America, and contributed to the disappearance of the buffalo and traditional Native American existence.