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Eunes Harun
Mr. Aranci
U.S. History
26 January 2015
Dances With Wolves
In the 19th century, the Native Americans lived in the Great Plainsa vast piece of land
in what is now known as the central United States. It lies to the west of the Missouri River and
east of the Rocky Mountains. It spans from the Canadian borders down into Texas, and consists
of mostly flat greenland, agricultural cultivation and prairies. The movie Dances With Wolves
focuses on Lieutenant John Dunbar directly following the American Civil War, mostly taking
place in the 1870s. The movie is mostly settled in on the Great Plains, and gives an accurate
representation of the beautiful land that the Americans have. Dances With Wolves is a great
movie because of the commentary on stereotypes, accurate representation of the the way of life
of plains Indians, and the depiction of food gathering.
Stereotypes of Plains Indians were portrayed in Dances With Wolves significantly. In the
movie, it both promoted stereotypes and broke them down. It first promoted them due to the
manner in which the Pawnee Indians were portrayed in the movie. Dances with Wolves shows
the Pawnee Indians only in a violent state, and it is an incorrect impression. In a book written by
historian Devon Mihesuah, it says that a common stereotype is that Indians were warlike and
treacherous. This was a misconception, and the movie unfortunately promoted it. Not all Pawnee
Indians were violent and aggressive. While it is true that that there are times that they are
aggressive, Pawnee Indians are not as bad as they are portrayed in the movie. At the same time,
it also broke down the stereotype because at first, Sioux Indians were portrayed as intimidating,

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and scary. However, as the movie progressed, John Dunbar created a stable relationship with the
Sioux Indians. It was a healthy relationship in which they helped each other learn different
things, they began to learn eachothers language, and worked together for a common cause. The
Sioux were a peaceful and caring people who only resulted to violence as a last resort. The Sioux
Indians ended up sharing a lot with John Dunbar, and were peaceful, accepting and nice in
general (Dances).
Dances with Wolves delineates the way of life of Plains Indians quite accurately and in
detail. In the movie, the housing, weapons, tools and transportation of Plains Indians were
depicted. The housing went with along with their normal lifestyle of nomadism. Since their
entire life is centered around the ability to survive, they must move constantly. The cause for this
is often driven by food sources, which will be covered more in-depth in the succeeding
paragraph. The weapons that the Plains Indians used included spears, bow and arrow, and other
basic weaponry (Redish). This is the consistent in the movie. During the various action fighting
scenes, the Plains Indians used their bow and arrows and spears to help defend themselves. There
were also various modes of transportation for the Plains Indians. Mainly, there was just
transporting on food, but also transportation with horses. For the men, there were horses
available that they could ride to their destination. Also, when moving to their next place of
settling, they needed to move everyone and everything they had. They had to bring their houses-teepees--to their next location also. Due to this, they cleared an intelligent design that allowed
them to fold up their teepees for convenient dragging with the horse harnesses (Dances). In all,
the Plains Indians were dramatically different from our culture. Wedding and family life was also
well depicted in Dances with Wolves. The gender roles specifically expressed -- the men went
out and dealt with the affairs out of the Indians tribe, hunted, and communicated with others.

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They were obviously the dominant group. However, women were not oppressed, and were
crucial to the entire survival of the group (Wishart). They took care of the activities and welfare
at the camp including working with the buffalo skins, cooking and creating clothes. The movie
has an accurate representation of the general ways of life of the Plains Indians which further
reinforces the point that Dances with Wolves is a great movies (Dances).
Food gathering was crucial to survival for the Plains Indians, and their entire life was
centered around these buffalo. The primary source of food, was from the buffalo. Not only this,
what makes the Plains Indians special is that when they killed a buffalo, they used every part of it
and nothing was wasted. They used the buffalo hide to build tepees, create clothes, and shoes.
The buffalos hair was used to create ropes, the hoofs created rattles and the horns were used to
make cooking ware (Donn). Aside from all this utility use of the buffalo, it was their primary
source of food, so it was extremely important to them. In the movie Dances with Wolves, there
was a scene where the Plains Indians found a herd of dead buffalo lying in an empty field. It was
implied that the white hunters came to kill all the buffalo. The difference with them, as opposed
to the Plains Indians, is that they let the buffalo bodies just lay rotting in the field. They simply
wanted them for their hide, and nothing else. The white hunters wasted the very useful parts of
the buffalo that the Plains Indians so desperately needed. This impacted the availability of
buffalos around, and actually made them nearly extinct. It just reinforces the point that the Plains
Indians were far more caring for the buffalo, and actually did not waste any of the buffalo
sacrifices that they made, and Dances with Wolves correctly depicted this exact point.
Nowadays, buffalo/bison are raised on farms, and are cared for. In addition, they are protected in
national parks due to the rarity of them, and due to the risk of extinction. Buffalo was a crucial

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sector to the survival of the Plains Indians and large portion of Dances with Wolves, which
contributed to the success of this movie.
In conclusion, watching Dancing with Wolves in conjunction with the topic of Plains
Indians was a great addition to the learning experience. The topic covered in the movie gave a
great, realistic overview of the stereotypes in the 1870s Great Plains, the way of life of the
Plains Indians, along with the survival off of buffalo hunting. While the issues commentated on
in Dances with Wolves are not very hot issues of today, they certainly draw similar parallels. For
example, we have many issues with false stereotypes in our society today, just like the Pawnee
were represented incorrectly in the movie. If I were to change something about the movie, I
would provide a more accurate representation of the Pawnee Indians. They could still be
portrayed as aggressive, however the other side of them should also be showcased. However in
the end, Dances with Wolves is an extremely valuable movie to show in History/Social Studies
classes covering this topic to give a good understanding of the time period, and the Plains
Indians.