Explain why the Native Americans lived a nomadic lifestyle (5 marks).

Native Americans relied on buffalo to sustain them; they ate buffalo meat, used their hide to make tipees and dried dung as fuel. Since the buffalo migrated around the plains throughout the year the Native American's had to follow them in order to hunt them for survival. The weather on the Great Plains also contributed towards the Native American's nomadic lifestyle; the exteme heat of the summer and the extreme cold of the winter meant that Native Americans moved from the central plains towards the relative shelter of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains each year. Finally, the Native American religion made them consider 'mother earth' as sacred and incapable of being owned by individuals therefore they held no attachment to a single plot of land as the white settlers did.