RIP technology

Native Americans used smoke signals in order to get messages back and forth as quickly as possible. Not unlike carrier pigeons, or even text messages of today, these signals were used to very quickly get short bits of information across. As I’m sure you’re already thinking, this would be incredibly useful in times of attack when there were members of the tribe out hunting, or even just to save some time walking. Especially due to the lack of easy modes of communication, the smoke signal would have proved imperative for Native Americans in their day to day operations and it's very easy to see how humans have been looking for easy, quick methods of communication over vast distances for pretty much our entire existence. From the previously mentioned smoke signals, to carrier pigeons, to humans being used as messengers themselves, to pagers, and finally to cellphones. The list goes on and on ad infintum. Smoke signals were clearly useful for the Native Americans that used them, and they clearly filled a need, but before we can judge exactly how useful they were we must take a look at what went into their composition.