The Lakota people occupied the expansive Great Plains of the north in an area covering over 750,000 square miles. The inhabited region by the Lakota had vast panoramic grasslands with various forests, rivers and mountainous terrains stretching from New Mexico through Western Texas, Staked Plain to Alberta, Canada. The Indians would roam through the hot springs of Arkansas to trade and hunt with other tribes while taking the healing waters. The Sioux indulged in seasonal warfare, affirming their aggressiveness. They were exceptional Plains’ trekking hunters, mostly equipped with stone-tipped spears. The Lakota Sioux were among the seven Indian sub-tribes located in the Woodland who originally had similar cultural traits. Distinct cultural aspects …show more content…
Prior to the colonization of the Americas, the buffalo was crucially important to the Sioux life until its near extinction. Nearly every activity, for instance, hunting, praying, cooking, making art, sewing, teaching, singing and celebrating embraced and respected the buffalo. Certainly, the buffalo remained the epicenter of the Lakota Sioux life and maintained its status as the survival source of the Indians originating from the past to the present era. The role that the buffalo upheld in regards to the culture, livelihood, and identity of the Lakota was incalculable (Ostler, …show more content…
Equally, the activity, according to historians was at times more dangerous than going to battle, because buffalo hunting unlike the war that fighters could have an idea regarding the enemy was unpredictable. A single buffalo’s weight could reach two thousand pounds and run like a horse while capable of making sharp turns whenever scared. The buffalos could use their big heads to hook whatever in their path with the horns and run-over a hunter after flipping him off the feet. Indeed, the unfriendly nature of a pursued buffalo unveils how hunting became dangerous. Accordingly, the arrival of horses somehow made hunting easier, but the task was still practically dangerous because of the speed and the enormous number of herds (Ostler,