Imagine a time before cities, railroads, highways, and automobiles.
Imagine a time when the vast grasslands of America’s Great Plains rolled on for thousands of miles with nothing to disturb them but the hooves of buffalo, deer, antelope, and elk. Onto the Great Plains, thousands of years ago, walked small bands of hunters. Over time, their numbers grew. Different groups developed into different nations with different languages. Yet they still walked the Plains, hunting with bows and arrows and spears and living in tipis. They honored the spirits who guided and protected them and raised their children to do the same. These are the Plains Indians.
In time, the Plains Indians settled into one of two ways of life—nomadic or sedentary. Nomadic tribes moved their camps to follow herds of buffalo. Sedentary tribes, especially those on the northeastern fringes of the Plains, learned farming from their eastern neighbors. But even they made short trips to hunt buffalo. These massive, shaggy grass-eaters were the general stores of the Plains Indians, providing them with everything they needed to live.