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.

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    hand game (hiding the button). Among the Blackfoot and their neighbors, the hand game was a favorite gambling device and handled by team work: i. e., one large group played against another. By a comparative study of games, it would be possible to divide the tribes of the area into a number of sub- geographical groups. On the other hand, it is clear that taken as a whole, these tribes have sufficient individuality to justify their position in a distinct culture area. We have now passed in review the main character¬ istics of material culture among the Plains tribes. There are many other important details having func¬ tional and comparative significance for whose consid¬ eration the reader must be referred to the special literature. We have seen how the typical, or central group, of tribes (Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine, Crow, Teton-Dakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, and Comanche) seems to have few traits in common with adjoining culture areas, while the border tribes manifest a mixture of the traits emphasized among the typical group and those most characteristic of other culture areas. For example, the typical material culture of the Plains is peculiar in the absence of pot¬ tery, the textile arts, agriculture, and the use of wild grains and seeds, all of which appear to varying degrees in one or the other of the marginal groups. In general, it appears that in the Plains, traits of material culture fall within geographical rather than