Publication: University of Kansas Alumni Magazine
Author: Carlyle Smith
Date of Publication: 1953
PDF File: Diggin-Up-the-plains.pdf
Description
Invasion of the Great Plains in the 1700’s by the Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Sioux, their use of the horse and the tepee, and their reliance on the buffalo for food account for the popular misconception of the Plains Indian as a nomad. Actually, the native inhabitants—Pawnee, Arikara, Mandan, Hidatsa, and others—had lived for centuries in permanent villages of earth lodges and obtained most of their food from gardening. But smallpox and cholera contracted from White traders combined with attacks by nomads on horses almost annihilated these sedentary peoples before White settlers arrived.