As the Blackfoot prepare for war, led by a legendary prophet preaching the destruction of the white settlers, Preacher, the mountain man, sets out to expose the would-be messiah as a fraud and save a desperate people from certain massacre.

At her death an elderly Plains Indian woman experiences the afterlife believed in by her people, while the surviving family members prepare her body according to their custom.

The daily life and customs of prehistoric southwest Indian tribes are retraced from the designs on the remains of their pottery.