Exam Question: Mormons

Q. Why did the mormons decide to go west in 1840?

In the 1840's the mormons decided to make the long journey across the great american plains in order to one, reach peace and two, to get away from struggle hustle and bustle of the east and to find prosperity and rich lands for there grops to grow.

The mormons were drove out allot of areas where they had setup camp, the main reasons for this were most probably the mormon community being hated with how people were scared off how quickly they were growing and how they allowed such things as polygamy. But also contributing to getting driven out of such areas were their reputation due to such things as the incident in Kirtland, Ohio; here the Mormons had setup a bank which allot of the gentiles (non-mormons) had put there money into, eventually one thing led to another and this bank went bankrupt, this lead to the Mormons being chased out of ohio and their reputation decreased again.

In June 1844 Joseph Smith was killed by a angry mob. This lead to Brigham Young being pushed higher up the ranks of the Mormon community as they decided the push west, Brigham decided that right now Joseph was dead it was a good sensible time to get out of the east. Brigham was part of a advanced group of Mormons who went ahead of the main group of Mormons in the trip west, here the group of advanced Mormons stumbled accros the great salt lake, here is where the Mormons settled and made a city, "Salt lake city."

Ive been Jake Armitage... And youve been GREAT! Thanks, im here all week!

Exam Questions

Q.2 The indians adapted well to the condition on the great plains.
 
a. Briefly describe the main features of the great plains.
 
 
The great plains were in America. This is where the native American indians lived. The plains were really big and barren. They were open and dry with a lack of green and resources. The resources available were only in minority, a small amount of wood, water and food types. Thw main food type was buffalo, there were millions of buffalo. Also the plains were really flat so there was no protection from the high powered winds that gathered up. As well as this the plains were quite extreme, in the summer it could be really hot where in the winter it could be snowy and cold.
 
b. Explain why the Plains indians lived in tepees.
 
 
The indians lived in tepees which were a cylindricle shape. The indians made their tepees this cylindricle shape because of the high winds and this shape deflected the wind. Also the materials that the tepee is made out of are a small amount of wood, and buffalo. This is because resources were very limited out in the plains and the native american indians had to adapt to the lack of resources and came up with a tepee. This was very clever because as i have said it is a great shape for the strong winds but is easily erected, and packed away; also parts of the tepee are used as travois,(the wooden poles) this is clever because they are using something more than just for one thing again.

Buffalo Hunt

I think this clip is a very usefull because it has alot of usefull information and facts about the indians and the way they hunted. You can get alot out of this as a source because it is shown as a film so you understand it clearly; but this is a film and a seoncdary source, so because it is a film you cannot go by word for word on what the clip says the main reason of this films was to entertain not to teach. The first thing that you notice about the indians from the clip is that they paint the horse to symbolise certain things that they have done in there life, this works in the same way they wear feathers in there hair. There is a shot of the buffalo roaming free in the plains this gives you an idea of the massive amount of buffalo and the noise they must of made when they started to stampede; and if there was that many buffalo how big of the plains must of been. Also when you see "John Dunbarr" in the film you see how much more the whites were advanced in the way he was dressed and what weapons he had to hunt the buffalo succesfully; you notice how John Dunbar has a gun while the indiands have a variety of weapons ranging from a spear to a bow and arrow. Also it shows the strategies and techniques of how the indians hunted the buffalo as you can see from some of the clip that some go in first to identify the weaker buffalo and show the one way while the other indians come from the other direction to corner them. Also they would channel them to one direction and just ride allong side and pick them out of the big pack, you couldn't miss! A important thing on this clip is how dangerous hunting for buffalo can be. If caught sleeping and vulnerable you can be subject to a buffalo ram wich could be fatal. After the hunt and the buffalo have gone all the people of the indian tribe come to gather the buffalo and take them back to camp. You notice a ritual that the indiand must of thought as second nature but John Dunbar was bewildered by which was eating the heart of your kill. All in all i think you can learn alot from this clip even though it is not aimed at being a educational clip. You cannot get carried away with believing everything in this because its main purpose is to entertain.

Jake Armitage

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