Errores

Throughout the movie, Lt. Dunbar wears the yellow shoulder boards of a cavalry officer on his army jacket. In the scenes leading up to just before the Sioux war party leaves camp to attack the Pawnee, Lt. Dunbar has traded this jacket with Wind In His Hair for a breast plate. In the next sequence, the Sioux war party is leaving camp to attack the Pawnee and Wind In His Hair is seen wearing this jacket while on horseback, but the shoulder boards on it are now blue, the color worn by infantry officers.

A noticeable dorsal stripe on Cisco the horse's back disappears and reappears throughout.

When Dunbar first arrives in the Sioux Camp "Wind In His Hair" is already wearing the army jacket that Dunbar gives him much later.

When Dunbar is riding off to the Indian camp he carries a flag on a pole. The bottom of the flag is about at the same level as the top of his hat. When Two Socks sees the flag go by over the crest of a hill, the flag is being held much higher so that Dunbar's hat isn't even seen.

When Lt Dunbar first encounters Stands with a Fist grieving over her dead husband, the length of her hair varies from scene to scene.

During the hunt scene, the Lakota are repeatedly shown immediately bringing down the stampeding buffalo with single arrow shots. Bowhunting does not work that way. In reality, the hunters would have to track the wounded animals, sometimes for miles, until they bled out.

Although the Lakota and the Pawnees where indeed mortal enemies, it was the Lakota the harassed the numerically inferior Pawnees. By the 1860s Pawnee population was reduced to 4,000, because of disease and warfare.

Kicking Bird nods his head in agreement with Stands with Fist. However, nodding your head in agreement is not an American Indian form of communication, instead they would use their hands with the index finger curved down and in a downward motion they would move their hand in an arc to signify YES.

On the wagon ride across the prairie, Timmons tosses an empty tin can. Tin cans weren't in use commonly in the early U.S. in the 1860's. Whatever was preserved back then would most likely have been preserved in a glass jar. Tin cans came into wide use in the U.S. around 1901.

Throughout most of the movie, which spans a long period of time, the Lakota camp remains in the same location, close to Fort Sedgwick. In reality, except for the Winter season, Plains Indians were constantly moving, following the game and in order to provide new grazing areas for their large pony herds.

Near the beginning, it took several arrows to kill the teamster who dropped Lt. Dunbar off, yet, later in the movie, one-ton bison were being dispatched with a single arrow.

When Kicking Bird takes Lt. John Dunbar to the 'Sacred Place', it is there that Dunbar finally confessed that the 'White' people are coming. Kicking Bird's response was in English, "How many?" which was an unfamiliar language for his character. Kicking Bird obviously learned a bit of English as a result of his friendship with Dunbar.

After the Sioux rescue John Dunbar at the creek, one of the Sioux walks past the dead Spivey, splashing water in his face and Spivey blinks.

When Dunbar hears a noise outside and runs to the door hitting his head on the door-frame, he falls down unconscious. When coming to, the blood has run down his face instead of across his forehead.

When Dunbar is shooting the 1860 Henry rifle, the cartridge indicator is seen in its rear-most position - indicating empty - and remains there throughout the entire action sequence.

When Dunbar and Timmons are leaving for Ft. Sedgewick you can see a second set of reins leading back underneath the wagon seat. There is also a curtain under the seat to conceal the real driver. In later scenes the curtain is gone.

After Dunbar discovers Stands With A Fist far from her tribe, who is bleeding profusely from having accidentally cut her thigh too deeply in a widow's ritual, he loads her onto his horse and takes her back to her encampment. Upon arrival, while confronted by her people who view him as an interloper, he unloads her from his horse. Wind In His Hairs strides forward to retrieve her, grabbing her by the hand and dragging her unconscious body away from Dunbar. The problem here is that in a quick shot of the dragging sequence, you can see Stands With A Fist grasping onto Wind In His Hair's hand while he pulls her along - something she would not be able to do considering her current state of unconsciousness due to blood loss.

The tribe members do not use proverbs or formulaic expressions, which characteristically function to preserve knowledge and tradition in an oral (pre-writing) culture.

After the first time Wind In His Hair confronts Dunbar and rides off Cisco passes him running back to the fort. Wind In His Hair becomes angry and throws his spear at Cisco. When he releases the spear it comes out spinning sideways in a completely amateurish way and falls way short. A trained veteran Lakota warrior would never make such a poor, obviously untrained throw.

As Lt. Dunbar is first seen approaching Fort Hays for the first time, as voiceover begins, the canteen hanging from his saddle on the right side spills water as the horse gallops. Given that he's on the frontier and the distance between settlement is great, a leaking canteen could leave him very thirsty for long periods of time.

Electric power lines are visible during the buffalo hunt.

The flag flying at Ft. Sedgwick is the flag with 50 stars rather than the flag used during the Civil War.

In 1863, General Tide is shown wearing the three stars of a lieutenant general. There were no lieutenant generals in the United States Army at that time.

In the final scenes the US military come upon the recently vacated camp. Many of the soldiers are wearing overcoats with rank stripes and yellow lining. This is set during the civil war (1861 - 1865) Overcoats had no colored lining and no rank stripes. The coats worn in the film did not appear until 1883.

Fort Sedgwick at the time this movie was taking place (the US Civil War from April 12, 1861- May 9, 1865) was not called Fort Sedgwick; it was called "the Post at Julesburg Station". The post wasn't renamed to Fort Sedgwick until September 27, 1865, several months after the war had ended, for the late-Major General John Sedgwick.

A flock of Sandhill Cranes fly overhead, but the sound effect is that of Canadian Honkers.

During the beginning of the great buffalo shooting you can clearly hear someone shout, "Here we go" while the camera is focused on Dunbar. (This audio track can be heard on the European (4 hour) version)

One of the wolves can be seen wearing a choke collar.

When the Sioux and John Dunbar are going on the buffalo hunt and they come upon the slaughtered/skinned buffalo, a crew member can be seen lying down on the ground in the background behind the Sioux passing on horseback.

When Kicking Bird takes Dunbar to the "Sacred Place" (which in the "The Making of 'Dances With Wolves'" is said to be the Black Hills) Mount Moran (The Grand Tetons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming) stands prominently on the right side of the panorama.

Kicking Bird is hearing John Dunbar's name for the first time, he responds "Dumb Bear". This is not possible since he can not speak English and would not know to make that association with those words phonetically.