NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 443 



have been true. On the other hand, since the most widely distributed 

 stocks (Algonkin, Athapascan and Shoshone) have minor representa- 

 tion in the area, it seems unlikely that the Plains should have been the 

 cradle land for all. The difficulty is to find proof for any one stock. 

 Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to assume that some of the tribes came 

 there by migration, bringing with them cultures of another sort, as did 

 the Cheyenne and Plains-Cree in historical times. We should then have 

 a period during which various cultural groups were introducing and 

 adapting themselves to new conditions. The most reasonable theory, 

 for the origin of Plains culture, therefore, is that it was the joint prod- 

 uct of many tribes, some working out one trait, others again different 

 traits, which by tribal contact and interaction were gradually diffused 

 over the area. In other words, the culture as a complex was worked 

 out by the Plains Indians themselves, but probably not by any one group 

 and probably not without very material aid from tribes in other cul- 

 ture areas. 



In some of the older literature we find the belief that there is a more 

 or less steady upward trend in the affairs of man and that there comes a 

 time in the careers of all peoples when they change from a nomadic to a 

 sedentary agricultural life. While as a general principle it is clear that 

 there must have been a time when agricultural groups changed their less 

 sedentary life, it would not be correct to infer that the Plains Indians 

 were always nomadic. Mr. Mooney has made a good case for the Chey- 

 enne as formerly living in the fringed area to the east where they raised 

 maize, but later moving out into the Plains and becoming one of the 

 strikingly typical hunting tribes. In this case the change was radical. 

 It is sometimes regarded as fair to assume that the Arapaho went 

 through the same transitions, but there are no positive data. On the 

 other hand, the Dakota may have followed the reverse process, though 

 we can not be positive, for some of the early Jesuit writers say that in 

 their day none of the Dakota were given to agriculture, while later ob- 

 servers found the eastern division, or Santee-Dakota, raising maize, 

 beans and squashes. The tendency has been to assume that all the 

 Dakota were once agricultural and that the Teton division abandoned 

 the practise when moving west of the Missouri Eiver. The chief ob- 

 jection to this view is that in some of the earlier literature we find evi- 

 dence that the Teton themselves had no traditions of ever having prac- 

 tised the art. This taken with the positive statements of the Jesuits 

 makes a good case. Further, we find that the tipi was used by all the 

 Dakota as their chief dwelling and was by them so regarded, in spite of 

 the fact that when tending their fields the Santee division resided in 

 bark-covered cabins. This tendency to make the tipi the primary dwell- 

 ing was quite widely distributed in the area and suggests that agricul- 

 ture may have been but recently introduced to some of the buffalo-hunt- 



