Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/447

Rh have been true. On the other hand, since the most widely distributed stocks (Algonkin, Athapascan and Shoshone) have minor representation 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 product 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 culture 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 Cheyenne 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 observers 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 River. The chief objection to this view is that in some of the earlier literature we find evidence that the Teton themselves had no traditions of ever having practised 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 dwelling was quite widely distributed in the area and suggests that agriculture may have been but recently introduced to some of the