Counting Coup and Cutting Horses: Intertribal Warfare on the Northern Plains, 1738-1889

By Anthony R. McGinnis

Book Overview

Counting Coup and Cutting Horses is the comprehensive history of more than 150 years of intertribal warfare between northern Plains tribes and a study of the complex rivalries that prevailed among the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0917895290
• ISBN13: 9780917895296
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Johnson Books
• Length: 258 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Warrior Societies Existed Before Hollywood!

Anthony McGinnis' excellent book, COUNTING COUP AND CUTTING HORSES: INTERTRIBAL WARFARE ON THE NORTHERN PLAINS 1738-1889, is worth having if you're the least bit interested in Plains Indians, the History of the American West or the role of technology in history. McGinnis writes well and documents his narrative with endnotes and a very helpful bibliography. One thing this book accomplished for me was that it raised a curtain on the history of Montana and Great Plains. Although I suspected that things were happening out here before the fur traders, Lewis and Clark and other early pioneers appeared on the scene, it wasn't clear how interesting these events really were. McGinnis also clarifies the impact of horses, iron (kettles, projectile points), horses, guns, blankets upon the various tribes which still live here, as well as some that don't. The book establishes that a well well-defined pattern of conflict existed long before whites drifted into it. This is not the usual view of the advancing frontier I'd come to expect and I'm grateful to McGinnis for this eye-opening study. I enjoyed reading it and recommend it highly. It makes a great companion to an older book, CHANGING MILITARY PATTERNS OF THE GREAT PLAINS INDIANS, by Frank Raymond Secoy. McGinnis' book is becoming more difficult to locate, but it's definitely worth the effort. If you can find one, buy it!