Plant studied anthropology at Windham College in Putney (Vermont, United States of America), graduating with the Bachelor of Arts degree (1976), and biology at the Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven (Connecticut, United States of America), with the Bachelor of Surgery degree (1978).
He continued the study of biology at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität im Breisgau (Germany), acquiring the Diplom degree (1985). Afterwards, Plant began an investigation on the contraries and clowns of the Plains Indians. With his doctoral thesis on this topic he earned the Doctor philosophy
(1994) under the supervision of Professor
Ulrich Köhler and Doctor Lothar Käser at the Institut für Völkerkunde of the Universität Freiburg (Germany). Since 1998, Plant has been a science associate of the Department of Evolutionary Biology (Faculty of Life Sciences, Center of Zoology) at the University of Vienna (Austria) with research interests in bees and their evolution.
The Sioux equally applied the name and concept to their clowns as well as their contraries. John Plant examined both of these ethnological phenomena among the Plains Indians, in particular the following tribes:
Sioux
Cheyenne
Comanche
Pawnee
Arikaree
Hidatsa
Absarokee
Ponca.
The contraries of the Plains Indians were individuals devoted to an extraordinary life-style in which they consistently and continually did the opposite of what others normally do.
They thus turned all conventions to their opposites (, p 10). While the clowns represented ceremonial figures and their performances were restricted to rituals, dances and ceremonies, the contraries practiced day and night a contrary lifestyle: thus on a certain level the contrary acted as an antagonist to his own people.
