Student Resources

Learning Objectives

Chapter 1

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Describe the geographic extent of the Great Plains landscape.
2. Describe the environment of the Great Plains.
3. Explain what geologic features of the Great Plains contribute to habitat diversity.
4. Examine the characteristic traits of the Plains culture area.
5. Distinguish between the Prairie and High Plains culture areas.
6. Analyze the culture area concept and examine its strengths and weaknesses.

Chapter 2

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Detail the human occupation of the Great Plains for the last 11,000 years.
2. Explain how the archaeological record of the Great Plains was developed.
3. Recreate the debates surrounding the origins of the earliest Americans and the extinction of large herbivores and their animal predators.
4. Review major climate changes during the prehistoric period of the Great Plains and its impact on the overall environment.
5. Define the technological attributes that create the Late Prehistoric Period.
6. Analyze the major changes that allowed for the rise of the Historic Period.
7. Identify the seven broad language families that compose the Historic Period of the Plains.

Chapter 3

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Examine the extinction of large bison species and their replacement with the two subspecies Bison bison bison and Bison bison athabascae.
2. Explain the hunting and other subsistence practices of the Plains Indians in historic times.
3. Detail the relationship Plains Indians had with the bison including story, song, and ritual.
4. Review the impact of market hunting of buffalo on the Native societies of the late 19th century.
5. Explain the diffusion of the horse, its adoption by Plains Indians, and the uses they made of this multipurpose animal.
6. Analyze the important plants of the Plains Indians. Detail their major crops, gardening techniques, and the use of wild plants.

Chapter 4

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Examine the term tribe in its usage with North American Indian groups.
2. Explain why the term band might be more appropriate than the term tribe in understanding Plains human organization.
3. Examine the family and kinship structure of Plains Indians. Explain why most groups are unilineal rather than bilateral in terms of tracing descent.
4. Analyze the role of associations in Plains Indian life.
5. Determine why the term headman is better than the term chief in describing the leader of a Plains group.
6. Delineate the procedures used in punishment for criminal acts, including the use of public opinion for social control.
7. Compare and contrast conflict resolution styles of various Plains Indian groups.

Chapter 5

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Examine the complexity of Plains social life considering kinship and descent, family, age, marriage, mutual work and play, gender, and sex.
2. Discuss the unique ways in which Plains Indians named and categorized relatives.
3. Interpret the reasons for the kinship systems the various Plains Indian groups used.
4. Analyze the role of kinship in Plains Indian daily life.
5. Assess the importance of age and life phases in relationship to the rites of passage used to celebrate various phases in a Plains Indian's lifetime.
6. Correlate rites of passage with change in status.
7. Review the differences between Western interpretation of gender and that of the Plains Indian.

Chapter 6

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Describe the construction and usage of various Plains Indian dwellings such as the tipi, wigwam, grass lodge, and earth lodge.
2. Examine the material culture of tools used by the various Plains Indian groups. Describe the tools of the following categories: garden, basketry and pottery, cradles, boats and rafts, and war and hunting gear.
3. Explain the intricate design of the “war bonnet.”
4. Describe the clothing of the Plains Indians, including the adoption of manufactured hats.
5. Analyze the need for body decoration including hair styles, tattooing, painting, piercing and the wearing of jewelry.
6. Discuss the fine art of the Plains Indians including quillwork, beadwork, carving in wood and stone and painting and drawing.

Chapter 7

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Describe importance of music to Plains Indian identity.
2. Examine the styles and regional sub-styles of Plains music.
3. Analyze the features of music, such as vocal pitch, drum rhythm, melodic contour, song form, and associated dances to overall style and sub-style.
4. Describe the impact of singing and dancing on social bonds.
5. Identify the material elements of music and song, including the various musical instruments used by Plains Indians.
6. Discuss the diffusion of dance throughout the many Plains tribes.
7. Show how the evolution of the War Dance is an example of diffusion.
8. Discuss the evidence for the concept of Pan-Indian culture due to intertribal sharing of songs and dance.

Chapter 8

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Discuss the importance of oral tradition to Plains Indians.
2. Show how oral traditions preserve history in the absence of written records.
3. Analyze the difficulties found in translating oral traditions.
4. Define some of the common story types found on the Plains. Analyze their meaning to Plains Indian societies.
5. Examine the concept of the trickster and discuss the form it takes on the Plains.
6. Debate the concerns that are explored in stories about the trickster.

Chapter 9

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Discuss Plains Indian religion in anthropological terms, especially the work of Edward Tylor.
2. Describe the various terms used for the concept of power. Contrast the various forms of power including the usage of the term medicine.
3. Examine the roles that spiritual beings play in guiding Plains Indians to sources of power.
4. Describe the entire panoply of spiritual beings including “thunder,” “water monsters,” “giants and dwarves,” “ghosts,” “animal spirits,” “transcendent spirits,” “cosmovision,” and the “Great Spirit.”
5. Examine the various sacred symbols used by Plains Indians.
6. Discuss how individuals sought power through the vision quest.
7. Analyze the use of power by medicine men and women to help others.

Chapter 10

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Discuss the purpose of group rituals.
2. Explain the purposes and meanings of the Sun Dance, Okipa, Medicine Bundle renewals, Massaum, Sacred Arrow and Pipe Ceremonies, peyote ceremony, and Ghost Dance.
3. Explore the diffusion of the Sun Dance.
4. Show how the Ghost Dance functions as a religious movement.
5. Describe the practice of Yuwipi and how it functions as a healing ritual.
6. Explore the origins and practices of Peyotism.
7. Investigate the peyote ritual.
8. Analyze the development and motivation of the formation of the Native American Church.
9. Confirm that some Plains Indians were converted to Christianity and many practice multiple religions.

Chapter 11

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Describe the pervasive nature of warfare in Plains Indian culture.
2. Analyze the importance of warfare in Plans Indian culture.
3. Differentiate Plains Indian warfare from modern state-level warfare.
4. Show that trade and diplomacy were equally important as warfare as forms of external interaction.
5. Describe the calumet ceremony which employed the peace pipe to greet visitors and seal agreements.
6. Explore the importance of intertribal marriage as an important tool for promoting cooperation between tribes.
7. Investigate intensive intertribal marriage, hybrid group formation, and the establishment of new tribes.

Chapter 12

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Describe the various Indian Wars on the Plains in the United States and Canada.
2. Identify the major battles of the Indian Wars.
3. Analyze the function and purposes of Indian boarding schools.
4. Characterize the motivations for the Indian New Deal under the Roosevelt administration.
5. Explain how the Johnson administration “War on Poverty” affected the various Native American tribes.
6. Recall the reasons for the American Indian Movement's (AIM) armed occupation of the village of Wounded Knee in 1973.
7. Explain the shift from forceful protest to legislation by Red Power advocates.

Chapter 13

At the completion of the chapter the student will be able to:

1. Explain the concept of “Indian Country” including the geographical locations of these areas.
2. Describe a generalized physical landscape of Indian Country.
3. Examine the concept of “face work” as proposed by the sociologist, Erving Goffman.
4. Analyze the economic and social impact legalized gambling has had on Indian lands and their people.
5. Explain how it is determined who is an Indian.
6. Explore how Indian identity will be defined in the future.