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Show i9oo] GREAT PLAINS INDIANS of hunting and war. Weapons and implements were of stone, wood, bone, horn, and antler. The tomahawk, club, flint knife, and bow and arrow were the usual weapons, but short spears were also fairly common. Household utensils were few and crude. Rude pottery and basketry were made, but wood and skins furnished the raw material for domestic service. In addition to the food supply obtained by hunt- ^ ing, all the tribes of the plains made use of nuts, berries, roots, and other plants which were to be found in a wild state, but which were also cultivated after a fashion, whenever the residence was stable enough to permit it. Agriculture did not, however, flourish to any great extent except among the Mandan. The houses of the Sioux varied with the habitat and the season. In the woodlands they built tent-shaped lodges of saplings covered with brush, bark, or skins. On the plains and prairies earth lodges were constructed for winter, and tipis covered with buffalo skins for the summer season. The tipi, which is one of the typical forms of Indian dwellings, is essentially a portable affair, and thus differs from the wigwam of the east, which was fixed. It is constructed of long poles tied together near the smaller ends, with the bases spread out in a circle ten or fifteen feet in diameter. It is then covered with a skin or canvas wrapping, laced or pinned together along the middle of the junction. The |