MCOEE] THE BUFFALO AND THE HORSE 173 



evei'- varying movements in pursuit of game or in waylaying and evad- 

 ing enemies would have been limited and handicapped. 



There are many indications and some suggestive evidences that the 

 chief arts and certain institutions and beliefs, as well as the geograiihic 

 distribution, of the iirincipal Siouaii tribes were determined by a single 

 conspicuous feature in their environment — the buffalo. As Eiggs, 

 Hale, and Dorsey have demonstrated, the original home of the Siouan 

 stock lay on the eastern slope of the Appalachian mountains, stretch- 

 ing down over the Piedmont and Coastplain provinces to the shores of 

 the Atlantic between the Potomac and the Savanimh. As shown by 

 Allen, the buffalo, " prior to the year 1800," spread eastward across the 

 Appalachians 1 and into the priscan territory of the Siouan tribes. As 

 suggested by Shaler, the presence of this ponderous and peaceful 

 animal materially affected the vocations of the Indians, tending to dis- 

 com-age agriculture and encoiarage the chase; and it can hardly be 

 doubted that the bison was the bridge that carried the ancestors of the 

 western tribes from the crest of the Allegheuies to tlie Coteau des 

 Prairies and enabled tliem to disperse so widely over the jilains beyond. 

 Certainly the toothsome tiesh and useful skins must have attracted 

 the valiant huntsmen among the Appalachians; certainly the feral 

 herds must have become constantly larger and more numerous west- 

 ward, thus tempting the pursuers down the waterways toward the 

 great river; certainly the vast herds beyond the Mississippi gave 

 stronger incentives and richer rewards than the hunters of big game 

 found elsewhere; and certainly when the prairie tribes were discovered, 

 the men and animals lived in constant interaction, and many of the 

 hunters acted and thought only as they were moved by their easy prey. 

 As the Spanish horse spread northward over the Llano Estacado and 

 overflowed across the mountains from the plains of the Cayuse, the 

 Dakota and other tribes found a new means of conquest over the 

 herds, and entered on a career so facile that they increased and multi- 

 plied despite strife and imported disease. 



The horse was acquired by the prairie tribes toward the end of the 

 last century. Carver (176G-1768) describes the methods of hunting 

 among the "Naudowessie" without referring to the horse,' though he 

 gives their name for the animal in his vocabulary,' and describes their 

 mode of warfare with "Indians that inhabit still farther to the west- 

 ward a country which extends to the South Sea," having " great plenty 

 of horses."* Lewis and Clark (180J-180G) mention that the "Sioux of 

 the Teton tribe . . . frequently make excursions to steal horses" 

 from the Mandan,^ and make other references indicating that the horse 



' "The American lUsons, Living: and Extinct,'' by J. A. AUen; Memoirs of the Geol. Survey of Ken- 

 tucky, vol. I, pt. ii, 1876, map; also pp. 55, V2-101, et al. 



-Op. cit.,p. 283 et sell. 



nbU\,, p. 435. 



«Ibi(l., p. 294. 



6 "History of the Expedition under the Command of Lewis and Clark," etc, by Elliott Coues, 1893 

 Tol. I, p. 175. It is noted that in winter the Mandan kept their horses in their lodges at night, and, 

 fed them on cottonwood branches. Ibid., pp. 220, 233, et al. 



/ 



