North American Indians of the plains / by Clark Wissler.

  • Clark Wissler
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: North American Indians of the plains / by Clark Wissler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    40/160 page 32
    great lakes the broad expanse of water offered every advantage to their use. Since almost every Plains tribe used some form of the bull-boat for ferrying, and many of them came in contact with canoe-using Indians, the failure of those living along the Missouri to develop the canoe can scarcely be attributed to ignorance. When on the march, baggage was carried on the human back and also by dogs, the only aboriginal domestic animals. Most tribes used a peculiar A- shaped contrivance, known as a dog travois, upon which packs were placed. All the northern tribes, save the Crow, are credited with the dog travois. Many of the village tribes also used it, as did also some of the southern group. With the introduction of the horse, a larger but similar travois was used. This, however, did not entirely displace the dog travois as Catlin’s sketches show Indians on the march with both horses and dogs harnessed to travois. The travois of the northern tribes were of two types: rectangular cross¬ frames and oval netted frames, Fig. 5. The Blackfoot, Sarsi and Gros Ventre inclined toward the former; the Assiniboine, Dakota, Hidatsa, and Mandan toward the latter, though both types were often used simultane¬ ously. On the other hand, the southern tribes seem to have inclined toward an improvised travois formed by binding tipi poles to the sides of the saddle and slinging the pack across behind. As previously noted, the Crow seem not to have used the travois and the same may be said of the tribes in the Plateau area.
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image