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