• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content

North South East West

American Indians and the Natural World

Logo Carnegie Museum of Natural History
  • Home
  • Introduction
  • Tlingit
    • Introduction
    • Partners with Nature
    • We Talk to the Trees
    • Transformations
    • Heirlooms
    • Newcomers
  • Hopi
    • Introduction
    • Corn
    • Weddings
    • Children
    • Beyond Corn
    • Water
    • Enduring People
  • Iroquois
    • Introduction
    • Sovereign People
    • The Three Sisters
    • In the Forest
    • Surviving Creatively
    • Walking the Steel
  • Lakota
    • Introduction
    • The Great Plains
    • Winter Count
    • Sky Watching
    • The Circle of Relatives
    • Changing Circumstances

Lakota Nation of the Plains

Introduction

We Indians think of the earth and the whole universe as a never-ending circle, and in this circle, man is just another animal. The buffalo and the coyote are our brothers; the birds, our cousins.  We end our prayers with the words “all my relations” – and that includes everything that grows, crawls, runs, creeps, hops, and flies.

                                                            Jenny Leading Cloud, Lakota, 1992

The Lakota (Western Sioux) people live on five reservations in South and North Dakota in a region of geographic diversity and climatic fluctuation. On the open plains, mixed grasses cover rolling hills interrupted by sand hills, badlands, buttes, and canyons formed by the Missouri River and its tributaries.

These people have not lived in this region long. With the acquisition of European-introduced horses and guns in quantity, the Lakota and their equestrian neighbors entered the Plains, abandoning their woodland homes and gardens in pursuit of the vast herds of American bison and other game animals, including elk and deer. According to the winter count kept by American Horse, the first group of Oglala Lakota arrived at the Black Hills in 1775. They roamed throughout the region for some 100 years before being settled on reservations. Reversing the usual human progression from hunter-gatherer to a sedentary lifestyle, the formerly sedentary Lakota adopted a nomadic lifestyle, pursuing the buffalo—their most valuable resource—across the Plains.

It was not the first time they had traveled to the Plains, but it was the first time they stayed. There, the seasonally nomadic Lakota shared the environment with long-term residents who lived in permanent village settlements along the rivers and practiced agriculture. Nature offered not one, but various ways for humans to live on the Plains.

Two dolls wearing traditional garb

Female and Male Dolls
Sandra Brewer (1964- ), Lakota, Cheyenne River Reservation, South Dakota, 1992
Tanned deer (Odocoileus sp.), unidentified filling, glass, House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) feather, brass, synthetic hair, porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) quill, abalone (Haliotis rufescens) shell, dentalium (Dentalium sp.) shell, unidentified wood, commercial cotton, commercial wool stroud, catlinite, unidentified mammal claw, steel, rayon, nylon sinew, commercial dye; W 17.0 x H 32.3 cm; 35479-1 & 2

These dolls wear the traditional apparel of Lakota women and men. The artist included symbols of both gender roles—a baby carrier on the back of the woman, and a pipe and pipe bag in the man's hands.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
Get eNews

Our eNews features information on exhibitions, upcoming events, and subscriber-only special offers!

One of the Four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh | ©2018 Carnegie Institute | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Accessibility