Constructing settlement patterns and subsistence means of the Crow Indians using ethnihistoric sources

A detailed Summary of Constructing settlement patterns and subsistence means of the Crow Indians using ethnihistoric sources

Looking at the ethnohistoric sources of the Crow Indians can help construct the settlement and subsistence patterns of the prehistoric counterparts of the Crow.

According to one source, Joseph Medicine Crow's book From the Heart of the Crow Country, the reader is informed that when the Absarokee separated from the main tribe, believed to be the Hidatsa, they abandoned the ways of agriculture and went back to the nomadic ways of hunting and gathering. Because of the hunting they were always on the move and this lead to constant warfare with other tribes of the Plains and the mountains for prime locations (Medicine Crow 1992: 4).

As far as the social organization, the primary unit is the family, with the clan being the secondary unit. The clan is made up of distantly related families with membership based on matrilineal descent. This mens that a person belongs to his or her mother's clan, not the father's clan. Then as the tribe population increased, it divided into sub-tribes or bands for the convenience and travel. These bands were governed by band chiefs which were supported and advised by a body of other chieftains. These band chiefs managed the affairs of important ceremonies and maintenance of law and order. The tribe of

Looking at Robert Lowie's The Crow Indians, we look at his findings. He sees the bands as being politically distinct, with chiefs forming the body of social leaders. This chief would decide when and where his followers were to pitch and to move their lodges, and he would appoint one of the military clubs to act as police. The foremost duty of this police group is to regulate the communal buffalo hunt (Lowie 1983: 5)

Not only did the women have to gather roots and berries, they also took care of the meat from the hunts. Since fresh meat was not always to be had, some of it was dried, prepared into pemican, and stored away in rawhide cases for future use. The women also took the hides and tanned them and prepared them for tipis, or sometimes offered her services to a neighbor who needed a new tipi cover that might pay her a horse (Lowie 1983: 75). The women may also be found spreading handfuls of chockcherries on a flat stone slab outdoors, pounding them and drawing out this mass into elongated confections to be dried in the sub (Lowie 1983: 84). The men not only were responsible for hunting, but also for the making of arrowheads, either of stone or bone. They also made up the specialists who would make the shafts and bows (Lowie 1983: 84-85).

The economy of the Crow, Lowie sees as primarily hunting ruminants. Fish are never mentioned, while berries and roots formed a regular part of the diet, but only as seasoning or dessert, and the corn that was traded for from the Hidatsa was for variety and not as a meat substitute. Men hunted individually or in small groups when going after deer at their watering places. However the communal hunt was far more important. Being mounted on horseback, the Crow could easily surround large herds and shoot the game. However, the buffalo drive of herds over the cliff were important, mainly because this type of tribal hunt

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1260
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History