The movie makes it seem that they don't know what a gun is or how to use one. Guns had been traded with the plains Indians since the 1500s with the French. Seem very unlikely that they did not have guns.
shareI don't think they 'didn't know what a gun was', it's that they didn't know how to use them effectively.
When Dances with Wolves said 'I have guns at the fort' it wasn't like they went 'ooh, fire stick' or 'what's a gun?' - they knew exactly what he was offering, but didn't have any.
I dont think it's a big stretch. Some would have had access to guns, but if you have a gun you have to get access to ammunition. Bows and arrows are readily able to be manufactured.
ya I am not sure what you are talking about...
the first celebration where the Souix killed white people in retaliation for some natives being killed they fired off guns in celebration... (the scene where coster says he could not celebrate or even sleep close to them)
how did you miss this???? the problem wasn't that they didn't understand "boom sticks", it was that they thought Costner wouldn't get back with the guns in time to fight off the attack.....
did we even watch the same movie???
Hmm Don't recall a scene where the celebrated killing white people --- After the killed the Pawnee-- after Buf hunt--- BUT Ill have to watch again for where they attacked whites for any reason
shareThe Chippewa or Ojibway, armed with guns, invaded Sioux lands in the woodlands and drove the Sioux south and west. Eventually the southwestern most Sioux group, the Tetons, moved onto the plains during the 1700s, adopted horses, multiplied, and became the mighty Sioux of history and the even mightier Sioux of the Wild West of imagination.
So the Sioux knew about guns.
In the Arikara war of 1823 Arikara attacked members of The Rocky Mountain Fur Company, killing about 15, causing the USA to retaliate. Lt. Colonel Henry Levenworth gathered a army of 230 infantry, 750 Sioux allies, and about 50 fur company employees. The Sioux certainly observed the use of guns and even artillery in the failed assault on the Arikara villages.
In the Grattan Massacre on August 19, 1854 the soldiers certainly fired their guns before being killed and even fired two shots from their cannons.
Dances with Wolves (1990) begins in 1863 and might end that year or in 1864.
In 1863 General Sibley led a brigade of infantry from Minnesota west into Dakota. They found a large camp of Yankton Sioux and Teton Sioux with many Santee Sioux fleeing from Minnesota. They fought three battles with warriors from the camp until the camp managed to cross the Missouri River. Then Sibley returned to Minnesota. So the Sioux faced guns and artillery during those battles. Sitting Bull was involved in some of the fights.
The camp crossed back to the east side of the Missouri. Then the long delayed cavalry brigade of General Sully arrived and at Whitestone Hill inflicted the biggest defeat the Sioux ever suffered. And again the Sioux saw guns and artillery.
In 1864 Generally Sully led two brigades of cavalry with some artillery west of the Missouri River and fought the Sioux in two big battles, Killdeer Mountain and The Badlands.
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By the 1860s the Sioux had many muskets. Powder for muskets was poured down musket barrels and then the lead balls were rammed down the barrels to load them. The Sioux could buy powder for their guns and lead and molds for lead balls from traders.
And more advanced rifles and carbines were becoming more common. The Sioux began acquiring them. Those better guns used metallic cartridges, the shells preloaded with gunpowder and bullets. But those cartridges were expensive. So the Sioux invented a way to make their own cartridges. They saved the shells from their fired cartridges as often as they could, and bought ordinary loose gunpower, somewhat inferior, to fill the shells, and made their own balls out of lead for bullets.
That is rather well known. Death Valley Days (1952-1970) even had an episode where a character discovers that.