NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURESEARLY SOCIETIES

NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AREASSHARED BELEIFS

I CAN Identify 2 types of Early Societies in North America and Explain where and

how they lived

Define totems

List 3 cultural regions of Native North Americans

State 2 examples of shared beliefs between Native North Americans

EARLY SOCIETIES Earliest people in N America- hunters & gathers

After about 5000 BC some learned to farm and lived in villages

Not as populated as South America and Mesoamerica; they were complex societies before Europeans

EARLY SOCIETIES Anasazi

Present day Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah Dry environment, but grew maize, squash & beans Learned how to use irrigation to increase food production

EARLY SOCIETIES Anasazi Dwellings

Early lived in pit houses dug into the ground After 750 AD began to build pueblos (aboveground houses made of heavy clay

called adobe) Built them on top of each other, multi-storied (some housed about 1000 people) Cliff Dwellers- built houses in canyon walls, only be reached by ladder. WHY?

Protection from enemies

Cliff Dwellers

DECLINE OF THE ANASAZI Drought

Disease

Or invasions from nomadic tribes from the North

Might have caused them to move

MOUND BUILDERS Eastern part of North America

Farming societies

Hopewell Lived along the Mississippi, Ohio, and lower Missouri River valleys Agriculture and Trade Built large burial mounds to honor their dead Declined around 700AD

MOUND BUILDERS Mississippian- same area as the Hopewell

Skilled farmers and traders

Built large settlements; largest city Cahokia, near present day St. Louis (30,000)

Mounds- had flat tops and temples were built on top of the mound. Mounds could be up to 100ft tall and cover 16 acres Mound builders had declined by time Europeans arrived

Mound Builders

NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AREAS Sub-artic

Followed seasonal migrations of deer Lived in shelters from animal skins and log homes Further south they had a rich supply of fish, plants, and animals. So developed

large villages, without the need to farm

NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AREASSEE MAP on PG 13

Pacific Northwest Carved images of totems– ancestor or

animal spirits, on tall wooden poles Great religious and historical

signficanceWest and Southwest California Region

* Food sources were plentiful* lived in large families or groups 50-300

* over 100 different languages spoken

Great Basin Little Rain, so they gathered

seeds, dug roots, trapped small animals

SouthwestPueblo groups, like the Anasazi,

irrigated. Focused on Rain and successful maize. Large towns

NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AREASGreat Plains

Mainly grasslands, home to buffalo, deer, elk, and more

Nomadic hunters– used bow and arrows, would often chase over cliffs, or into a corral

Used buffalo hides for teepees, and used almost all of the buffalo for something.

Some tribes were matrilineal-traced ancestry through mothers.

Northeast and Southeast Eastern N America rich in resources

Animals, plants, wood, fish,

Cherokee, Creek, Seminole lived in farming villages governed by village councils

Northern groups did more hunting

Southern Groups- more farmers, hunters, and traders

NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE AREAS Northeast and Southeast

Iroquois Created the Iroquois league

An alliance or confederation, that protected each other from non-iroquois groups.

The league helped them to become one of the most powerful Native Americans peoples in North America

SHARED BELEIFS RELIGION

LINKED TO NATURE

SPRIRITUAL FORCES WERE EVERYWHERE- HEAVENLY BODIES AND ON EARTH

HONORED SPIRITS DAILY

CEREMONIES MAINTAINED THE GROUP’S RELATIONSHIP TO EARTH AND SKY

PROPERTY INVIDUAL OWNERSHIP ONLY TO CROPS

YOU GREW

LAND ITSELF WAS EVERYONE. RIGHT TO USE IT WAS TEMPORARY

PRESERVE LAND FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS (not like Europeans)

LITTLE INTEREST- IN LG POLITICAL UNITS. SO NO LG EMPIRES LIKE AZTECS OR INCA OF MESOAMERICA