The Importance of Horses to Plains Indians

Horses were essential to Plains Indians: they needed them to hunt buffalo and to travel across the plains to search for food. Horses were also highly significant for warfare and for status within Plains Indian society. Men measured their wealth in horses. Raids on other tribes or white settlers were often to steal horses. In the 1870s, the 2,900 Hunkpapa Sioux sub-tribe had 3,500 horses while, in the south of the Plains, the Comanche had nearly 8,000 horses in a tribe of 3,000 people.