Native American Groups

• Eastern Woodlands• Great Plains• Pacific Northwest Coast• Southwest Desert

“Eastern Woodlands” Tribes included

• The Illinois• Iroquois• Shawnee• A number of Algonkian-speaking

peoples such as the Narragansett and Pequot

• Southeastern tribes included the Cherokee, Chocktaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Natchez and Seminole

Eastern Woodlands Culture

• Inhabited the eastern United States and Canada

• Moderate-climate regions roughly from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River and included the Great Lakes

• This huge area boasted ample rainfall, numerous lakes and rivers, and rich earth and great forests.

• Their food, shelter, clothing, weapons, and tools came from the forests around them.

Dwellings

• Several sorts of houses were used by Eastern Woodlands.

• Most popular--wigwams and longhouses made by bending young trees to form the round shape and then covering with bark

• Longhouses were long rectangular homes which were used by several families.

• The Seminoles of Florida used a chikee, a shelter without walls thatched with the palmetto tree’s fan-shaped leaves.

Eastern Woodlands

• Eastern Woodlands Iroguoian Indian House

Modes of Transportation

• Tribes lived near water for transportation purposes.

• The northern tribes fashioned birch bark canoes while southeastern tribes dug out canoes from tree trunks.

• On land, the natives traveled on foot and bore their cargo on their backs, having no pack animals.

Food/Daily Life and Roles

• In general, the natives were deer hunters and farmers.

• Men made bows, arrows, stone knives, and war clubs.

• Women tended garden plots where beans, corn, pumpkin, squash and tobacco were cultivated. They harvested the crops and prepared the food. Corn, beans, and squash were called “the three sisters.”

• Black pottery or wood and bark vessels were used for cooking.

• They dried berries, corn, fish, meat and squash for the winter.

• The diet of deer meat was also supplemented by other game and shellfish.

• During hard times when food was almost impossible to find they would boil their moccasins for soup or chew on their clothing.

Apparel

• Numerous hours were required to fashion the popular deerskin apparel.

• Women cut the skins with flint knives or shells and sutured them with animal sinew.

• Face painting and the men’s scalp lock (with shaven side hair) were typical.

• Cherokee women wore skirts woven from plants.

Beliefs

• Manitou—a heroic figure who restored the world from mud following terrible rains.

• The Iroquois had a benevolent society known as the ja-di-gonsa meaning “False Face Society.” Members wore carved false faces, some of which were extremely hideous . They believed these faces gave them power to do good, the deed being of greater benefit if the benefactor was masked and unknown.

• Southeast—sun worship temples with intricate rites featuring an altar of fire that was extinguished and re-lighted annually.

Plains Indians

• Lived on the plains and rolling hills of the Great Plains of North America.

• Divided into two broad classifications which overlap to some degree.

• First Group—fully nomadic during 16th to 19th centuries, following the vast herds of buffalo

• Included: Blackfoot, Arapaho, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Gros Ventre, Kiowa, Lakota Lipan, Plains Apache, Plains Cree, Plants Ojibwe,

Nomadic Tribes

• Survived on hunting• Some tribes are described as part of the

Buffalo Culture• Bison was the main source of food• Bison was also the source for items made

from their flesh, hide, and bones, such as food, cups, decorations, crafting tools, knives, and clothing.

• The tribes followed the seasonal grazing and migration of bison.

• Tribes lived in tipis because they were easily disassembled and allowed the nomadic life of following game.

• Assiniboine Indian Village in the 1830s

• Siouan Native American people originally from the Northern Great Plains of the United States and Canada, named after a river in the area

• When Spanish horses were obtained, the Plains tribes rapidly integrated them into their daily lives.

• The Comanche were among the first to commit to a fully mounted nomadic lifestyle.

• The horse enabled the Plains Indians to travel faster and further in search of bison herds and to transport more goods.

Semi-Sedentary Tribes

• Second Group included the aboriginal peoples of the Great Plains, as well as the Praire Indians who came as far east as the Mississippi River. These tribes were semi-sedentary, and, in addition to hunting buffalo, they lived in villages, raised crops, and actively traded with other tribes. These included the Arikara, Hidatsa, Iowa, Osage, Pawnee, Ponca, Quapaw, Santee, Wichita, and Yankton Dakota.

“Fear and Persecution”--U.S. Government Initiatives

• The U.S. Government at the federal and local level tried to starve the Plains Indians by killing off their main food source, the bison, to allow ranchers to range their cattle without competition.

• The railroad industry also wanted bison herds culled or eliminated as herds of bison could damage locomotives when the trains failed to stop in time.

• By 1884, the bison was close to extinction.

Clothing

• The Plains Indians wore bison skins in the winter.

• The women in the tribe mended the clothes using buffalo sinew for thread.

• There were two ways to prepare a buffalo hide—tanning or leaving as rawhide.

• To tan it, women would scrape the hair off the buffalo and then soak the hide in a mixture of brains and liver.

Religion

• No single religion• Animist religion—all things possessed

spirits. Game animals had spirits.• The Great Spirit (Wakan Tanka) had power

over everything that had ever existed.• Great Plains Indians believed by

worshiping him they would become stronger.

• Earth was also important as the “mother of all spirits.”

Religion, continued

• Most important group ceremony was the Sun Dance; participants danced for four days around a sacred object, and some would inflict harm upon themselves on purpose, while staring at the sun. They believed that self-sacrifice would encourage powerful spirits to support and defend them.

More Religion

• There were Wakans, or medicine men, called shamans.

• One job was to heal people.• They were considered so important that

they were the ones who decided when the time was right to hunt.

• Also important—the medicine bundle, a sack carrying items believed by the owner to be important. Items might include rocks, feathers, and more.

Pacific Northwest Coastal

At one time, more than seventy Native American tribes lived and worked along the 2000-mile Pacific Northwest coast running from Northern California to Alaska. Northwest Coast Native Americans are known today for their intricate wood carvings, including totem poles and ceremonial masks, as well as baskets and weavings.

Wooden Totem Poles

Culture

• Food supply through fishing and gathering rather than hunting and gathering,

• Plentiful food supply allowed more time for arts and social life,

• “House Societies”—key social and productive unit,

• Societies held common title to important resources as sites for fishing, berry picking, hunting, and habitation,

• Held exclusive use of particular names, songs, dances, and totemic representations.

Culture, continued

• Homesites were limited to narrow beaches or terraces because the land fell so steeply to the shore or riverbank, so it was efficient for a house group to have several bases of operation.

• Summer—time for hard work gathering food for winter—small groups moved among fishing and berry-picking sites as resources became available.

• Winter—time spent in villages often creating works of art and conducting potlatches.

Potlatches

• An important part of these tribes’ culture,• Ceremonies to commemorate important

events such as weddings, births, and funerals,

• In the past, also used to demonstrate wealth and status,

• Gifts were given to show the wealth of the host,

• Often competition between families to give the best potlatch.

Religious Concepts

• The salmon were supernatural beings who voluntarily assumed piscine form each year in order to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of humankind. On being caught, these spirit-beings returned to their home beneath the sea, where they were reincarnated if their bones or offal were returned to the water.

• Important—”first salmon” ceremony each year

Religion, continued

• Another religious concept was the acquisition of personal power by seeking individual contact with a spirit-being, usually through prayer and a vision. From these entities each person acquired songs, special regalia, and dances.

• A belief was that remote ancestors who had undertaken vision quests had been rewarded with totemic symbols or crests.

Southwest Desert

• Tribes-Anasazi, Hopi, Pueblo, and Navajo• Culture reflects the dry, desert climate.• Because water was scarce, there were

strict rules about its uses.• Because there were few animals in the

desert, the Indians could not depend on hunting to find food so became farmers.

Anasazi

• Built their homes into the side of the mesa, and thus were called “Cliffdwellers,”

• Mesas were made of stone, so there was plenty of stone to build houses.

• Buildings had over 200 rooms and housed more than 400 people,

• Houses had windows, but no doors,• Entrance was by climbing a ladder, going

through hole in roof, and then pulling the ladder in.

Anasazi Farmers

• Anasazi lived at the base of the mesa, but farmed on the top, giving the mesa a green appearance, thus the community was called Mesa Verde. Verde is the Spanish word for green.

• They grew corn, beans, and squash and tamed wild turkeys for meat.

• They used the turkey feathers to make their blankets and clothing warmer.

Religious Beliefs

• Anasazi men went to a special room called a Kiva for religious ceremonies.

• It was a round room built underground at the base of the homes with a mysterious hole in the floor as a reminder that their first ancestors came from the belly of the earth.

• The men prayed to the Gods for rain, good harvests, etc.

Mysterious Disappearance

• The Anasazi left Mesa Verde suddenly, and the Indian village was forgotten.

• Then, in 1888, two cowhands chasing stray cattle accidentally discovered the ruins.

• Since then the buildings have been repaired to look as they did when the Anasazi lived there, and the site is now a national park.

Hopi

• Lived on desert land at the foot of the mesas, in what is now Arizona, since before the time of Columbus,

• Built their houses out of stone with clay plastered on the outside and inside with no doors or windows, only the hole in the ceiling,

• Today they have doors and windows.

Culture

• When it rained hard, rain ran down the mesas forming little paths where the Hopi would plant corn, beans, and squash.

• They also planted cotton and tamed wild turkeys.

• Mostly the Hopi ate something with corn. Hopi women knew over 50 ways to cook with corn.

• Corn was dried on the roof of the house and then ground into a flour-like meal.

Religious Beliefs

• Believed in many gods,• Used Kachinas to talk to their gods,• Kachinas were Hopi spirits or gods which lived

within the mountains.• Hopi dancers would dress like Kachinas to represent

the gods—sometimes to scare children into behaving.

• Wooden Kachina dolls were made to teach the children about the gods.

• Hopi Kachinas talked to the gods by singing and dancing and believed the Kachina costume gave magic power to the wearer.

Kachinas

“Fear and Persecution”/Clash with the Europeans

• Native Americans—300 different languages—none written—”oral tradition,”

• Because of no written language, spoken words were believed to have more power,

• Because of no written language, only history is memory, (Importance of James Mooney)

• BUT Europeans saw non-written language as barbaric.

Clash, continued

• Religion causes most conflict between Europeans and Native Americans.

• In Europe, Reformation brought a “drive for conversion.”

• Europeans didn’t recognize Indian “religion”; instead they thought the Indians had no religion or that they worshipped the devil.

• Two cultures were so opposite that one had to dominate.

• European demands will later corrupt Indian beliefs.

American Holocaust

• Small pox—In Europe almost everyone had small pox; they had built up resistance. In the new world, there was no immunity. Disease was cause of death of great numbers of Indians. Puritans saw this as justice from God.

• Indians tried to add to their numbers with white captives.

• AMERICAN HOLOCAUST—80 million Native Americans wiped out through genocide and slaughter.