1. Horses were called Medicine Dog, Big Dog, or God Dog.

2. Sioux Indians were probably the most skilled and feared Indians on horses.

3. When a warrior died the heads and tails of his favorite horses were sometimes placed near him to help him travel in the afterlife.

4. To toughen warriors and help them develop riding skills the Sioux sometimes played " throwing- them- off- their- horses," where they tried to wrestle each other off their mounts.

5. When adults gambled they bet their horses and sometimes even their wives.

6. Smoking pipes was a serious activity, no decision of any kind was made without a pipe- smoking ceremony.

7. Indians called a train an "Iron Horse."

8. The Black Hills, which is now South Dakota, was sacred ground for the Sioux Indians.

9. In 1854, Mormon settler reported a stolen cow by the Miniconjou Sioux, who said the cow was lame and had been abandoned. But the army attacked the Sioux camp and the Plains Wars began.

10. A Ghost Dance was done during the Plains Wars to bring dead warriors back to life and make the herds of buffalo herds return. They wore Ghost Shirts, which they thought would protect them from soldiers bullets. When Big Foots band of Sioux, wearing Ghost Shirts, were killed at Wounded Knee December 29, 1890, the Ghost religion ended.

11. Each tribe had a different style of hair and headdress. The feathered warbonnet worn in some tribes stood for great achievements. Some chiefs like Sitting Bull wore just a single feather.

12. The Sioux were one of the largest tribes in the Western
Hemisphere with a population of over 30,000.

13. The Sioux Wars which lasted for 35 years were the bloodiest of all Indian wars fought in North America.

14. 83 years after the massacre at Wounded Knee  another one took place during the winter of 1973.

15. Because of the conflict with the Chippewa, those Sioux living in the east were willing to cede their lands to the U.S. Government in 1830 and those in the west followed the example.

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