"Native American Warfare" Topic

Hi

Can anyone recommend a good book about warfare amongst the native Americans before contact with Europeans changed it ?

Especially on the plains and in the mid-west.

TIA

Pete

Dont think theres much out there pre contact, no written culture on the plains for one thing. Fehrenbachs "commanche" is about your best bet, Grinnels "fighting cheyenne" maybe.
Post contact but inter tribal and worth a read is "from the heart of the crow country" – cant remember the author.

I would recommend Counting Coup and Cutting Horses: Intertribal Warfare on the Northern Plains, 1738-1889 by Anthony R. McGinnis

Yes Fehrenbach is good, and a great read all together.

Fehrenbach's "Commanches" is a good read. I don't recall extensive detail about pre-contact warfare, but worth picking up.

I like the well illustrated "The Mystic Warriors of the Plains" (by Thomas Mails) for the breadth of illustrated artifacts. The narrative is a bit uneven with a few errors, but there are lots of gems to be discovered. One page that I recall has 6 illustrations of various methods shields were carried while on horseback! Perhaps pairing this book with the McGinnis book would be a good starting point.

I have MYSTIC WARRIORS and find it very useful.

But of course pre-contact = pre-horses. I'd guess on the plains it was rarer due to distance and also fairly standard stone-age skirmishes.

There is some excellent information about the Chokia civilization in the Midwest but that was way way before Europeans set foot on the continent. Not sure about Plains Indians at that time but I would check out the Ospreys from the Indian series they might all be post European contact however. Almost everything we know about pre Colombian Indians (North America) are from archeological research.

VR
James Mattes

There's not much out there. The following are all good reads and have some pre-contact worldviews and discuss raiding, slavery, kinship ties, etc.

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I suggest reading "The World Before Yesterday" by Jared Diamond (2012). It does not explicitly address the American Plains Indian, but it uses the example of New Guinean and Africans who were observed in battle by early colonists and researchers. We can inductively reason that pre-horse Native Americans might have fought much the same way.

50. Cabin-Man was chief; the Talligewi possessed the east.
51. Strong-Friend was chief; he desired the eastern land.
52. Some passed on east; the Talega ruler killed some of them.
53. All say, in unison, "War, war."
54. The Talamatan, friends from the north, come, and all go together.
55. The Sharp-One was chief, he was the pipe-bearer beyond the river.
56. They rejoiced greatly that they should fight and slay the Talega towns.
57. The Stirrer was chief; the Talega towns were too strong.
58. The Fire-Builder was chief; they all gave to him many towns.
59. The Breaker-in-Pieces was chief, all the Talega go south.
60. He-has-Pleasure was chief; all the people rejoice.
61. They stay south of the lakes; the Talamatan friends north of the lakes.

- From the Walam Olum, a Delaware tribal history talking board. Describes a war between the Delawares, their Iroquian allies, and the Tallega Mississippians of Cahokia.

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Counting Coup and Cutting Horses by McGinnis is a great account of how often warriors had time to ply their combat skills against one another. Great documentation.

Not a lot of tribes on the plains pre-contact. Without the horse life on the open plains was a lot harder.

Many of the horse cultures had access to the horse for a generation or two prior to contact with Europeans. I'm not sure if the OP is interested in Pre-Columbian warfare, poorly attested on the Plains, or the better attested 18th and early 19th Centuries.

If the interest is Pre-Columbian, other than archeology, much is conjecture and oral traditions narrating events that are difficult to date. The Plains are challenging to reconstruct because of the great changes they experienced in the 100 years prior to European contact.

I have toyed with the idea of a skirmish game featuring a mounted Comanche warparty raiding an Apache village circa 1750.

Crow Creek Massacre:

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I'm not sure if the OP is interested in Pre-Columbian warfare, poorly attested on the Plains, or the better attested 18th and early 19th Centuries.

Agreed. Pre-horse Indian warfare and pre-European are not necessarily the same thing, since many Plains Indians acquired horses long before they encountered the white man.