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1700s : the coming of the horse
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The Plains Indians living on the high-plains east of the Rockies, had assimilated the use of the horse earlier than
the Plateau Indians.
When the Plateau Indians began to use the horse, they were influenced
by other parts of the Plains Indian culture as well.
Some Plateau Indians began to wear beaded dresses and warbonnets.
And some started to use tepees. The Plateau Indians had not used them before.
The northwestern Salishan groups, those who lived more in the forested valleys of Canada,
retained more of their original Plateau culture.
Also at this time, due to pressure from the Blackfoot Indians, who received many
guns from the Canadain fur traders, the Salish Flathead and Kutenai had to
withdraw from their home quarters on the plains of western Montana about 1800.
They resettled in the intermontane valleys of the Rockies and from there made
occasional buffalo hunts on the Plains in the company of other Plateau tribes,
such as the Coeur d'Alene and Nez Percé, and Spokanes.
These hunts were both dangerous and important. They supplied the large buffalo skins.
Indians spoke of going over the mountains to hunt buffalo on the Montana plains
as going "to buffalo".
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