Dealing with a different culture

Accept any of: quick to put up and take down (by the women) and easily carried on a horse travois - suited to a nomadic life; its cone shape stood up to the strong Plains winds; smoke flaps at the top could be adjusted to let smoke out of the fire inside; the sides could be rolled up in summer to let air through; an inner lining kept it warm in winter; made from materials they had - buffalo hides and wooden poles; the door faced east, away from the prevailing west winds and towards the rising sun. One mark per feature, max 2.

Must be different from the first.

Indicative content (not a checklist; credit other valid points): Purpose and values of A: a Christian missionary whose aim was to convert the Plains Indians; he believed Christianity was the only true religion, so other beliefs were 'superstitions'; like many 19th-century Americans he believed land should be owned and farmed, and that Native peoples should be 'civilised'. Time of A: written in 1885, when the Plains Indians had been defeated and confined to reservations, and government policy (supported by many missionaries) was to make them farmers and Christians and to ban ceremonies such as the Sun Dance; his memoirs justify that policy. B's author and purpose: an anthropologist, trained to study a culture on its own terms and explain how beliefs fit a way of life, rather than to judge them. Time of B: written in 2004, when attitudes to Native American cultures had changed greatly, Native American religious freedom was respected, and scholars could use the accounts of Lakota people themselves. Access to evidence: A had first-hand contact but saw through his missionary aims; B has a century of research and Native testimony.

Indicative content (not a checklist; credit other valid points): Support for B: most inter-tribal warfare consisted of small raids to capture horses (the main form of wealth) or to avenge relatives; counting coup - touching a living enemy - was the highest honour, and deeds were recognised with eagle feathers and told at gatherings; warriors joined raids voluntarily and a leader who lost men lost his followers, so warriors avoided heavy casualties; full-scale battles to wipe out an enemy were rare; Plains warfare was very different from the US Army's aim of defeating the enemy and controlling territory. Support for A: warfare was frequent and central to a young man's status; horse raids were constant and scalps were taken as trophies; women and children were sometimes killed or carried off as captives in raids; peoples fought over hunting grounds (the Lakota pushed the Kiowa and Crow from lands they wanted); in the 1860s and 1870s there were attacks on settlers and travellers. Challenge to A: claims of 'no rules' and honour from killing ignore counting coup and the limits on warfare; 'no traveller or settler was safe' is exaggerated for the 1840s-50s, when attacks on emigrants were rare; the author, a Kansas frontier editor writing in 1890 after the Plains wars, was hostile and justifies the army's conquest. Challenge to B: it may underplay the brutality and frequency of raiding. Possible judgement: B is more convincing because it explains the purposes and limits of Plains warfare, which A misunderstands, although A is right that warfare was common and could be cruel.

Indicative content (not a checklist; credit other valid points): Land: the Plains Indians believed land was sacred ('Mother Earth') and shared by all living things, so it could not be owned, bought or sold; hunting grounds were used in common; white Americans believed land should be owned, fenced and farmed, and that unfarmed land was wasted; many saw the Plains Indians as 'savages' for not using the land; when Plains peoples agreed to treaties they may have thought they were allowing others to use or pass through land, not giving it up for ever; the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 drew boundaries for each people's territory, an idea foreign to nomadic hunters; later land disputes (e.g. over the Black Hills) grew from this. Decisions and agreements: chiefs led by persuasion and could not give orders; councils decided by agreement; families and bands that disagreed could leave; warrior societies and young men could act independently; white Americans assumed chiefs were rulers who could sign treaties binding a whole nation - in 1851 the government chose Conquering Bear as 'head chief' of the Lakota, a position that did not exist in Lakota society; when young men raided after a treaty, whites saw treaty-breaking; treaties were written in English and translated, often poorly. Links: misunderstandings over decision-making meant land agreements were not accepted by all; both shaped conflicts such as the Grattan incident of 1854, in which Conquering Bear could not simply hand over the man the army wanted. Possible judgements: land was more important because it was the fundamental issue behind expansion and every treaty; or decision-making was more important because it made it impossible for agreements about land to work.