- Historic Sites Myths That Hide The American Indian Forget the
stereotypes. The red man was of many tribes, with variations
much broader than tradition supposes. October 1956 | Volume 7,
Issue 6 The Dakotas first saw horses in 1722, which makes a
convenient peg date for the beginning of the great Plains
culture. A little over a hundred years later, when Catlin
visited the Mandans, it was going full blast. The memory of a
time before horses had grown dim. By 1860 the Plains tribes were
hard-pressed to stand the white men off; by 1880 the whole
pattern was broken and the bison were gone. At its height,
Plains Indian culture was brittle. Materially, it depended
absolutely on a single source of food and skins; in other
aspects, it required the absolute independence of the various
tribes. When these two factors were eliminated, the content was
destroyed. Some Indians may still live in tepees, wear at times
their traditional clothing, maintain here and there their arts
and some of their rituals, but these are litt