The Shoshone are linguistically and culturally related to other tribes of the Great Basin cultural region such as the Comanche, Ute, Paiute, Bannock, and others (Murphy and Murphy 1986). The Shoshone fall into approximately three groups: Western Shoshone, Northern Shoshone and Bannock, and the Eastern Shoshone. It should be noted that because Shoshone culture [...]
The Sioux are a diverse group of tribes most easily identified by their related languages. This group, which extends across three geographically and culturally distinct divisions, comprises the Siouan language family (DeMallie 2001). These divisions were recognized by the U.S. government in the early nineteenth century and included the Santee Sioux who consider themselves [...]
The Salish in the greater Northern Plains region includes the groups called the Flathead and the Pend d’Oreille. Flathead and Pend d’Oreille are two groups with generally overlapping territories who both speak dialects of the Salish language group. Salish speaking people are generally settled west of the Rocky Mountains, from eastern and central Washington [...]
The Mandan are a Siouan speaking tribe that occupied the upper Missouri region (see Figure 3). The Mandan lived primarily along portions of the Upper Missouri River and eventually settled along the White Earth River, North Dakota (Will and Spinden 1906; Wood and Irwin 2001). Prior to European contact, the Mandan consisted of four [...]
The Kootenai are divided into two groups, the Lower Kootenai located closer to British Columbia on the lower waters of the Kutenai River, and the Upper Kootenai who settled on the Upper Kutenai River in Eastern Washington, Idaho, and Montana (Figure 11). Scholars have not found any satisfactory affiliation for the Kootenai language, which [...]
Kiowa The Kiowa speak a language that is related to the Tanoan-Kiowan linguistic group that is often associated with the Tanoan language spoken by several Puebloan groups of the Southwest. This suggests that the Kiowa may have early origins in the southwest. However, many scholars believe the Tanoan-speaking people broke into separate groups while [...]
The Hidatsa are part of the Siouan language family, closely related to the Mandan and Crow. The Hidatsa are thought to have occupied the Upper Missouri River valley and are documented as having occupied three villages at the mouth of the Knife River toward the end of the eighteenth century (Stewart 2001). The [...]
The Gros Ventre people speak an Algonquin language, closely related to the Arapaho language. It is widely believed that the Gros Ventre tribe was at one time part of the Arapaho tribe that had split off. It is unknown when or why these two tribes separated (Kroeber 1908). The Gros Ventre tribe was not [...]
The Crow speak a Siouan language that is closely related to the Hidatsa. It is generally believed that the Crow originated near the Bear Paw Mountains at Three Forks on the Missouri River and separated from the Hidatsa and moved west onto the Plains region during the 1500s to 1600s, as suggested through linguistic [...]
Similar to other eastern and Great Lakes Tribes that began to migrate westward following the arrival of Europeans, the Cree speak dialects of the Algonquian language group, similar to the languages spoken by the Ojibwa, Fox, and Menominee. Variations and dialects within the Cree language show greater diversity between the eastern and western groups [...]
