The best developed industries were hunting and warfare, though all of the
tribes subsisted in part on fruits, nuts, berries, tubers, grains, and
other vegetal products, largely wild, though sometimes planted and even
cultivated in rude fashion. The southwestern tribes, and to some extent
all of the prairie denizens and probably the eastern remnant, grew maize,
beans, pumpkins, melons, squashes, sunflowers, and tobacco, though their
agriculture seems always to have been subordinated to the chase.
Aboriginally, they appear to have had no domestic animals except dogs,
which, according to Carver—one of the first white men seen by the prairie
tribes,—were kept for their flesh, which was eaten ceremonially,(23) and
for use in the chase.(24) According to Lewis and Clark (1804-1806), they
were used for burden and draft;(25) according to the naturalists
accompanying Long’s expedition (1819-20), for flesh (eaten ceremonially
and on ordinary occasions), draft, burden, and the chase,(26) and
according to Prince Maximilian, for food and draft,(27) all these
functions indicating long familiarity with the canines. Catlin, too, found
"dog’s meat ... the most honorable food that can be presented to a
stranger;" it was eaten ceremonially and on important occasions.(28)
Moreover, the terms used for the dog and his harness are ancient and even
archaic, and some of the most important ceremonials were connected with
this animal,(29) implying long-continued association. Casual references
indicate that some of the tribes lived in mutual tolerance with several
birds(30) and mammals not yet domesticated (indeed the buffalo may be said
to have been in this condition), so that the people were at the threshold
of zooculture.
The chief implements and weapons were of stone, wood, bone, horn, and
antler. According to Carver, the "Nadowessie" were skillful bowmen, using
also the "casse-tête"(31) or warclub, and a flint scalping-knife. Catlin
was impressed with the shortness of the bows used by the prairie tribes,
though among the southwestern tribes they were longer. Many of the Siouan
Indians used the lance, javelin, or spear. The domestic utensils were
scant and simple, as became wanderers and fighters, wood being the common
material, though crude pottery and basketry were manufactured, together
with bags and bottles of skins or animal intestines. Ceremonial objects
were common, the most conspicuous being the calumet, carved out of the
sacred pipestone or catlinite quarried for many generations in the midst
of the Siouan territory. Frequently the pipes were fashioned in the form
of tomahawks, when they carried a double symbolic significance, standing
alike for peace and war, and thus expressing well the dominant idea of the
Siouan mind. Tobacco and kinnikinic (a mixture of tobacco with shredded
bark, leaves, etc(32)) were smoked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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