Did the plains indians eat fish?

Answer 1

Fish were not often part of the diet of the Plains tribes, simply because there were very few watercourses and Plains tribes preferred to eat the meat of large game animals above all other kinds of food. Some, like the Lakota, would not eat fish because fish ate worms - and worms were considered unclean creatures.

On the southern Plains, the Comanche would only eat fish as a very last resort if nothing else was available; a band of the Comanche were called Pekwi Tuhka (Fish Eaters) as a kind of joking insult.

It is claimed that the Cheyenne ate fish because it had been an important part of their diet before moving out onto the Plains, but they seem to have been the exception rather than the rule.

None of the accounts written about the Crow tribe mentions anyone eating fish, despite the scene in the largely inaccurate movie "Jeremiah Johnson" where a Crow chief is shown on horseback with a large catch of fish.

The tribes bordering the Plains seem to have eaten far more fish. These include the Missouri, Tonkawa and Osage.