An interesting footnote to the loss of traditional building trades
skills:
"Very early too, even from the time of the first fur traders, an
unfortunate symbiosis began to develop between tribes and traders. The
whites had goods that the Indians wanted – goods on which they soon
became dependent. Lord Raglan, the sharp-spoken English anthropologist
and myth theorist, has commented acutely on the fragility of hunting
cultures in a book called How Came Civilization? He points
out that peoples who had been adept for generations at making bone
fishhooks lose this skill very quickly once they are supplied with
metal fishhooks. The Plains Indians soon came to like needles and
other small tools that could be had in quantity from traders who
frequented the forts and gathering places along the Holy Road. [Orgeon
Trail]"
Crazy Horse, Larry McMurtry