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How were buffalo hides used? What would be painted on the hides? How were hides important for documenting history?

Answer 1

Plains people used buffalo hides for many everyday and ceremonial purposes: they made clothing and robes for warmth, tipi covers, blankets, shields, drums, and containers, and they sometimes traded or sold tanned hides. Artists and record-keepers painted scenes on hides—hunting and buffalo kills, battles and raids, ceremonial events, personal achievements, maps or migration routes, and symbolic images tied to vision quests or spiritual meanings. Because these painted hides served as durable pictorial records, they preserved and transmitted important events and memories before widespread written records; historians, elders, and families used them like calendars or ledgers (for example, winter counts) to document a tribe’s history, chronicle individual deeds, and teach later generations about the past.