Why were the Plains Indians savages?

Answer 1

Because they needed a justification why they took the land of the natives and just killed them as if they would be disturbing animals. This was done mostly by Christians and so they avoided to have guild feelings, doing something against what their teachers like Jesus had told them. The Plain Indians took care of the land and never saw themselves as 'owners', so they had the naive attitude to share with others, until they had to experience the reality of the 'pale faces', but then it was too late...

Answer 2

Really, that's a difficult question to answer. To the whites back in their time period they looked very savage to them, and so this stereotype got passed down through generations with people believing the plain Indians were savages when really, they weren't. They only thought they were savage as their way of life and beliefs were much different to ours and they thought what they did was savage e.g. scalping - preventing the spirit from going to the happy hunting ground, where as to whites, they just thought they were torturing the victims before they die. Not to mention also that whites paid the Indians to scalp other tribes, so in this way we were the savages.

It is a very complicated subject, and you have to understand this.