America and Indian race
INTRODUCTION
Traditionally,
the very beginning of the United States’ history is considered from the time of
European exploration and settlement, starting in the 16th century, to the
present. But people had been living in America for over 30,000 years before the
first European colonists arrived.
When Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador in
1492 he was welcomed by a brown-skinned people whose physical appearance
confirmed him in his opinion that he had at last reached India, and whom,
therefore, he called Indios, Indians, a name which, however mistaken in its
first application continued to hold its own, and has long since won general
acceptance, except in strictly scientific writing, where the more exact term
American is commonly used. As exploration was extended north and south it was
found that the same race was spread over the whole continent, from the Arctic
shores to Cape Horn, everywhere alike in the main physical characteristics,
with the exception of the Eskimo in the extreme North (whose features suggest
the Mongolian).
GENERAL
BACKGROUND
Origin
and Antiquity
Various origins have been assigned to the Indian race.
The more or less beleivable explanation is following. At the height of the Ice
Age, between 34,000 and 30,000 B.C., much of the world's water was contained in
vast continental ice sheets. As a result, the Bering Sea was hundreds of meters
below its current level, and a land bridge, known as Beringia, emerged between
Asia and North America. At its peak, Beringia is thought to have been some
1,500 kilometers wide. A moist and treeless tundra, it was covered with grasses
and plant life, attracting the large animals that early humans hunted for their
survival. The first people to reach North America almost certainly did so
without knowing they had crossed into a new continent. They would have been
following game, as their ancestors had for thousands of years, along the
Siberian coast and then across the land bridge.
Race
Type
The most marked physical characteristics of the Indian
race type are brown skin, dark brown eyes, prominent cheek bones, straight black
hair, and scantiness of beard. The color is not red, as is popularly supposed,
but varies from very light in some tribes, as the Cheyenne, to almost black in
others, as the Caddo and Tarimari. In a few tribes, as the Flatheads, the skin
has a distinct yellowish cast. The hair is brown in childhood, but always black
in the adult until it turns grey with age. Baldness is almost unknown. The eye
is not held so open as in the Caucasian and seems better adapted to distance
than to close work. The nose is usually straight and well shaped, and in some
tribes strongly aquiline. Their hands and feet are comparatively small. Height
and weight vary as among Europeans, the Pueblos averaging but little more than
five feet, while the Cheyenne and Arapaho are exceptionally tall, and the
Tehuelche of Patagonia almost massive in build. As a rule, the desert Indians,
as the Apache, are spare and muscular in build, while those of the timbered
regions are heavier, although not proportionately stronger. The beard is always
scanty, but increases with the admixture of white blood. The mistaken idea that
the Indian has naturally no beard is due to the fact that in most tribes it is
plucked out as fast as it grows, the eyebrows being treated in the same way.
There is no tribe of "white Indians", but albinos with blond skin,
weak pink eyes and almost white hair are occasionally found, especially among
the Pueblos.
Major
Cultural Areas
From prehistoric times until recent historic times
there were roughly six major cultural areas, excluding that of the Arctic (see
Eskimo), i.e., Northwest Coast, Plains, Plateau, Eastern Woodlands, Northern,
and Southwest.
The
Northwest Coast Area
The Northwest Coast area extended along the Pacific
coast from South Alaska to North California. The main language families in this
area were the Nadene in the north and the Wakashan (a subdivision of the
Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock) and the Tsimshian (a subdivision of the
Penutian linguistic stock) in the central area. Typical tribes were the Kwakiutl,
the Haida, the Tsimshian, and the Nootka. Thickly wooded, with a temperate
climate and heavy rainfall, the area had long supported a large Native American
population. Salmon was the staple food, supplemented by sea mammals (seals and
sea lions) and land mammals (deer, elk, and bears) as well as berries and other
wild fruit. The Native Americans of this area used wood to build their houses
and had cedar-planked canoes and carved dugouts. In their permanent winter
villages some of the groups had totem poles, which were elaborately carved and
covered with symbolic animal decoration. Their art work, for which they are
famed, also included the making of ceremonial items, such as rattles and masks;
weaving; and basketry. They had a highly stratified society with chiefs,
nobles, commoners, and slaves. Public display and disposal of wealth were basic
features of the society. They had woven robes, furs, and basket hats as well as
wooden armor and helmets for battle. This distinctive culture, which included
cannibalistic rituals, was not greatly affected by European influences until
after the late 18th cent., when the white fur traders and hunters came to the
area.
TRIBES:
Abenaki
, Algonkin
, Beothuk
, Delaware
, Erie
, Fox
, Huron
, Illinois
, Iroquois
, Kickapoo
, Mahican
, Mascouten
, Massachuset
, Mattabesic
, Menominee
, Metoac
, Miami
, Micmac
, Mohegan
, Montagnais
, Narragansett
, Nauset
, Neutrals
, Niantic
, Nipissing
,
Nipmuc
, Ojibwe
, Ottawa
, Pennacook
, Pequot
, Pocumtuck
, Potawatomi
, Sauk
, Shawnee
, Susquehannock
, Tionontati
, Wampanoag
, Wappinger
, Wenro
, Winnebago
.
The
Plains Area
The Plains area extended from just North of the
Canadian border, South to Texas and included the grasslands area between the
Mississippi River and the foothills of the Rocky Mts. The main language
families in this area were the Algonquian-Wakashan, the Aztec-Tanoan, and the
Hokan-Siouan. In pre-Columbian times there were two distinct types of Native
Americans there: sedentary and nomadic. The sedentary tribes, who had migrated
from neighbor ing regions and had initally settled along the great river
valleys, were farmers and lived in permanent villages of dome-shaped earth
lodges surrounded by earthen walls. They raised corn, squash, and beans. The
foot nomads, on the other hand, moved
about with their goods on dog-drawn travois and eked out a precarious existence
by hunting the vast herds of buffalo (bison) - usually by driving them into
enclosures or rounding them up by setting grass fires. They supplemented their
diet by exchanging meat and hides for the corn of the agricultural Native
Americans.
The horse, first introduced by the Spanish of the
Southwest, appeared in the Plains about the beginning of the 18th cent. and
revolutionized the life of the Plains Indians. Many Native Americans left their
villages and joined the nomads. Mounted and armed with bow and arrow, they
ranged the grasslands hunting buffalo. The other Native Americans remained
farmers (e.g., the Arikara, the Hidatsa, and the Mandan). Native Americans from
surrounding areas came into the Plains (e.g., the Sioux from the Great Lakes,
the Comanche and the Kiowa from the west and northwest, and the Navajo and the
Apache from the southwest). A universal sign language developed among the
perpetually wandering and often warring Native Americans. Living on horseback and
in the portable tepee, they preserved food by pounding and drying lean meat and
made their clothes from buffalo hides and deerskins. The system of coup was a
characteristic feature of their society. Other features were rites of fasting
in quest of a vision, warrior clans, bead and feather art work, and decorated
hides. These Plains Indians were among the last to engage in a serious struggle
with the white settlers in the United States.
TRIBES: Arapaho, Arikara, Assiniboine, Bidai,
Blackfoot, Caddo, Cheyenne, Comanche
,
Cree, Crow, Dakota (Sioux), Gros Ventre, Hidatsa, Iowa, Kansa, Kiowa,
Kiowa-Apache, Kitsai, Lakota (Sioux), Mandan, Metis, Missouri, Nakota (Sioux),
Omaha, Osage, Otoe, Pawnee, Ponca, Sarsi, Sutai, Tonkawa, Wichita.
The
Plateau Area
The Plateau area extended from above the Canadian
border through the plateau and mountain area of the Rocky Mts. to the Southwest
and included much of California. Typical tribes were the Spokan, the Paiute,
the Nez Perce, and the Shoshone. This was an area of great linguistic
diversity. Because of the inhospitable environment the cultural development was
generally low. The Native Americans in the Central Valley of California and on
the California coast, notably the Pomo, were sedentary peoples who gathered
edible plants, roots, and fruit and also hunted small game. Their acorn bread,
made by pounding acorns into meal and then leaching it with hot water, was
distinctive, and they cooked in baskets filled with water and heated by hot
stones. Living in brush shelters or more substantial lean-tos, they had partly
buried earth lodges for ceremonies and ritual sweat baths. Basketry, coiled and
twined, was highly developed. To the north, between the Cascade Range and the
Rocky Mts., the social, political, and religious systems were simple, and art
was nonexistent. The Native Americans there underwent (since 1730) a great
cultural change when they obtained from the Plains Indians the horse, the
tepee, a form of the sun dance, and deerskin clothes. They continued, however,
to fish for salmon with nets and spears and to gather camas bulbs. They also
gathered ants and other insects and hunted small game and, in later times,
buffalo. Their permanent winter villages on waterways had semisubterranean
lodges with conical roofs; a few Native Americans lived in bark-covered long
houses.
TRIBES: Carrier, Cayuse, Coeur D'Alene, Colville,
Dock-Spus, Eneeshur, Flathead, Kalispel, Kawachkin, Kittitas, Klamath,
Klickitat, Kosith, Kutenai, Lakes, Lillooet, Methow, Modac, Nez Perce,
Okanogan, Palouse, Sanpoil, Shushwap, Sinkiuse, Spokane, Tenino, Thompson,
Tyigh, Umatilla, Wallawalla, Wasco, Wauyukma, Wenatchee, Wishram, Wyampum,
Yakima. Californian: Achomawi, Atsugewi, Cahuilla, Chimariko, Chumash,
Costanoan, Esselen, Hupa, Karuk, Kawaiisu, Maidu, Mission Indians, Miwok, Mono,
Patwin, Pomo, Serrano, Shasta, Tolowa, Tubatulabal, Wailaki, Wintu, Wiyot,
Yaha, Yokuts, Yuki, Yuman (California).
The
Eastern Woodlands Area
The Eastern Woodlands area covered the eastern part of
the United States, roughly from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River,
and included the Great Lakes. The Natchez, the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the
Creek were typical inhabitants. The northeastern part of this area extended
from Canada to Kentucky and Virginia. The people of the area (speaking
languages of the Algonquian-Wakashan stock) were largely deer hunters and
farmers; the women tended small plots of corn, squash, and beans. The birchbark
canoe gained wide usage in this area. The general pattern of existence of these
Algonquian peoples and their neighbors, who spoke languages belonging to the
Iroquoian branch of the Hokan-Siouan stock (enemies who had probably invaded
from the south), was quite complex. Their diet of deer meat was supplemented by
other game (e.g., bear), fish (caught with hook, spear, and net), and
shellfish. Cooking was done in vessels of wood and bark or simple black
pottery. The dome-shaped wigwam and the longhouse of the Iroquois characterized
their housing. The deerskin clothing, the painting of the face and (in the case
of the men) body, and the scalp lock of the men (left when hair was shaved on
both sides of the head), were typical. The myths of Manitou (often called
Manibozho or Manabaus), the hero who remade the world from mud after a deluge,
are also widely known.
The region from the Ohio River South to the Gulf of
Mexico, with its forests and fertile soil, was the heart of the southeastern
part of the Eastern Woodlands cultural area. There before c.500 the inhabitants
were seminomads who hunted, fished, and gathered roots and seeds. Between 500
and 900 they adopted agriculture, tobacco smoking, pottery making, and burial
mounds. By c.1300 the agricultural economy was well established, and artifacts
found in the mounds show that trade was widespread. Long before the Europeans
arrived, the peoples of the Natchez and Muskogean branches of the Hokan-Siouan
linguistic family were farmers who used hoes with stone, bone, or shell blades.
They hunted with bow and arrow and blowgun, caught fish by poisoning streams,
and gathered berries, fruit, and shellfish. They had excellent pottery,
sometimes decorated with abstract figures of animals or humans. Since warfare
was frequent and intense, the villages were enclosed by wooden palisades
reinforced with earth. Some of the large villages, usually ceremonial centers,
dominated the smaller settlements of the surrounding countryside. There were
temples for sun worship; rites were elaborate and featured an altar with
perpetual fire, extinguished and rekindled each year in a “new fire” ceremony.
The society was commonly divided into classes, with a chief, his children,
nobles, and commoners making up the hierarchy. For a discussion of the earliest
Woodland groups, see the separate article Eastern Woodlands culture.
TRIBES: Acolapissa
,
Asis, Alibamu, Apalachee, Atakapa, Bayougoula
,
Biloxi, Calusa, Catawba
,
Chakchiuma, Cherokee
,
Chesapeake Algonquin, Chickasaw
,
Chitamacha
, Choctaw,
Coushatta, Creek, Cusabo, Gaucata, Guale, Hitchiti, Houma
, Jeags, Karankawa, Lumbee,
Miccosukee, Mobile, Napochi, Nappissa, Natchez, Ofo, Powhatan, Quapaw,
Seminole, Southeastern Siouan, Tekesta, Tidewater Algonquin, Timucua, Tunica,
Tuscarora, Yamasee, Yuchi. Bannock, Paiute (Northern), Paiute (Southern),
Sheepeater, Shoshone (Northern), Shoshone (Western), Ute, Washo.
The
Northern Area
The Northern area covered most of Canada, also known
as the Subarctic, in the belt of semiarctic land from the Rocky Mts. to Hudson
Bay. The main languages in this area were those of the Algonquian-Wakashan and
the Nadene stocks. Typical of the people there were the Chipewyan. Limiting
environmental conditions prevented farming, but hunting, gathering, and
activities such as trapping and fishing were carried on. Nomadic hunters moved
with the season from forest to tundra, killing the caribou in semiannual
drives. Other food was provided by small game, berries, and edible roots. Not
only food but clothing and even some shelter (caribou-skin tents) came from the
caribou, and with caribou leather thongs the Indians laced their snowshoes and
made nets and bags. The snowshoe was one of the most important items of
material culture. The shaman featured in the religion of many of these people.
TRIBES: Calapuya, Cathlamet, Chehalis, Chemakum,
Chetco, Chilluckkittequaw, Chinook, Clackamas, Clatskani, Clatsop, Cowich,
Cowlitz, Haida, Hoh, Klallam, Kwalhioqua, Lushootseed, Makah, Molala, Multomah,
Oynut, Ozette, Queets, Quileute, Quinault, Rogue River, Siletz, Taidhapam,
Tillamook, Tutuni, Yakonan.
The
Southwest Area
The Southwest area generally extended over Arizona,
New Mexico, and parts of Colorado and Utah. The Uto-Aztecan branch of the
Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock was the main language group of the area. Here a
seminomadic people called the Basket Makers, who hunted with a spear thrower,
or atlatl, acquired (c.1000 B.C.) the art of cultivating beans and squash,
probably from their southern neighbors. They also learned to make unfired
pottery. They wove baskets, sandals, and bags. By c.700 B.C. they had initiated
intensive agriculture, made true pottery, and hunted with bow and arrow. They
lived in pit dwellings, which were partly underground and were lined with slabs
of stone - the so-called slab houses. A new people came into the area some two
centuries later; these were the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians. They lived in
large, terraced community houses set on ledges of cliffs or canyons for
protection and developed a ceremonial chamber (the kiva) out of what had been
the living room of the pit dwellings. This period of development ended c.1300,
after a severe drought and the beginnings of the invasions from the north by
the Athabascan-speaking Navajo and Apache. The known historic Pueblo cultures
of such sedentary farming peoples as the Hopi and the Zuni then came into
being. They cultivated corn, beans, squash, cotton, and tobacco, killed rabbits
with a wooden throwing stick, and traded cotton textiles and corn for buffalo
meat from nomadic tribes. The men wove cotton textiles and cultivated the
fields, while women made fine polychrome pottery. The mythology and religious
ceremonies were complex.
TRIBES: Apache (Eastern), Apache (Western),
Chemehuevi, Coahuiltec, Hopi, Jano, Manso, Maricopa, Mohave, Navaho, Pai,
Papago, Pima, Pueblo (breaking into: Acoma, Cochiti, Isleta, Jemez, Laguna,
Nambe, Picuris, Pojoaque, Sandia, San Felipe, San Ildefonso, San Juan, Santa
Ana, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, Taos, Tesuque, Zia), Yaqui, Yavapai, Yuman,
Zuni. Am strongly thinking about
LIFESTYLE
and TRADITIONS
Social
Organization
Among most of the tribes east of the Mississippi,
among the Pueblos, Navahos, and others of the South-West, and among the Tlingit
and Haida of the north-west coast, society was based upon the clan system,
under which the tribe was divided into a number of large family groups, the
members of which were considered as closely related and prohibited from
intermarrying. The children usually followed the clan of the mother. The clans
themselves were sometimes grouped into larger bodies of related kindred, to
which the name of phratries has been applied. The clans were usually, but not
always, named from animals, and each clan paid special reverence to its
tutelary animal. Thus the Cherokee had seven clans, Wolf, Deer, Bird, Paint,
and three others with names not readily translated. A Wolf man could not marry
a Wolf woman, but might marry a Deer woman, or one of any of the other clans,
and his children were of the Deer clan or other clan accordingly. In some
tribes the name of the individual indicated the clan, as "Round Foot"
in the wolf clan and "Crawler" in the Turtle clan. Certain functions
of war, peace, or ceremonial were usually hereditary in special clans, and
revenge for injuries with the tribe devolved upon the clan relatives of the
person injured. The tribal council was made up of the hereditary or elected
chiefs, and any alien taken into the tribe had to be specifically adopted into
a family and clan. The clan system was by no means universal but is now known
to have been limited to particular regions and seems to have been originally an
artificial contrivance to protect land and other tribal descent. It was absent
almost everywhere west of the Missouri, excepting in the South-West, and
appears to have been unknown throughout the geater portion of British America,
the interior of Alaska, and probably among the Eskimos. Among the plains
tribes, the unit was the band, whose members camped together under their own
chief, in an appointed place in the tribal camp circle, and were subject to no
marriage prohibition, but usually married among themselves.
With a few notable exceptions, there was very little
idea of tribal solidarity or supreme authority, and where a chief appears in
history as tribal dictator, as in the case of Powhatan in Virginia, it was
usually due to his own strong personality. The real authority was with the
council as interpreters of ancient tribal customs. Even such well-known tribes
as the Creeks and Cherokee were really only aggregations of closely cognate
villages, each acting independently or in cooperation with the others as suited
its immediate convenience. Even in the smaller and more compact tribes there
was seldom any provision for coercing the individual to secure common action,
but those of the same clan or band usually acted together. In this lack of
solidarity is the secret of Indian military weakness. In no Indian war in the
history of the United States has a single large tribe ever united in solid
resistance, while on the other hand other tribes have always been found to join
against the hostiles. Among the Natchez, Tinucua, and some other southern
tribes, there is more indication of a central authority, resting probably with
a dominant clan.
The Iroquois of New York had progressed beyond any
other native people north of Mexico in the elaboration of a state and empire.
Through a carefully planned system of confederations, originating about 1570,
the five allied tribes had secured internal peace and unity, by which they had
been able to acquire dominant control over most of the tribes from Hudson Bay
to Carolina, and if not prematurely checked by the advent of the whites, might
in time have founded a northern empire to rival that of the Aztec.
Land was usually held in common, except among the
Pueblos, where it was apportioned among the clans, and in some tribes in
northern California, where individual right is said to have existed. Timber and
other natural products were free, and hospitality was carried to such a degree
that no man kept what his neighbour wanted. While this prevented extremes of
poverty, on the other hand it paralyzed individual industry and economy, and
was an effectual barrier to progress. The accumulation of property was further
discouraged by the fact that in most tribes it was customary to destroy all the
belongings of the owner at his death. The word for "brave" and
"generous" was frequently the same, and along the north-west coast
there existed the curious custom known as potlatch, under which a man saved for
half a lifetime in order to acquire the rank of chief by finally giving away
his entire hoard at a grand public feast.
Enslavement of captives was more or less common
throughout the country, especially in the southern states, where the captives
were sometimes crippled to prevent their escape. Along the north-west coast and
as far south as California, not only the captives but their children and later
descendants were slaves and might be abused or slaughtered at the will of the
master, being frequently burned alive with their deceased owner, or butchered
to provide a ceremonial cannibal feast. In the Southern slave states, before
the Civil War, the Indians were frequent owners of negro slaves.
Men and women, and sometimes even the older children,
were organized into societies for military, religious, working, and social
purposes, many of these being secret, especially those concerned with medicine
and women's work. In some tribes there was also a custom by which two young men
became "brothers" through a public exchange of names.
The erroneous opinion that the Indian man was an
idler, and that the Indian woman was a drudge and slave, is founded upon a
misconception of the native system of division of labour, under which it was
the man's business to defend the home and to provide food by hunting and
fishing, assuming all the risks and hardships of battle and the wilderness,
while the woman attended to the domestic duties including the bringing of wood
and water, and, with the nomad tribes, the setting up of the tipis. The
children, however, required little care after they were able to run about, and
the housekeeping was of the simplest, and, as the women usually worked in
groups, with songs and gossip, while the children played about, the work had
much of pleasure mixed with it. In all that chiefly concerned the home, the
woman was the mistress, and in many tribes the women's council gave the final
decision upon important matters of public policy. Among the more agricultural
tribes, as the Pueblos, men and women worked the fields together. In the far
north, on the other hand, the harsh environment seems to have brought all the
savagery of the man's nature, and the woman was in fact a slave, subject to
every whim of cruelty, excepting among the Kutchin of the Upper Yukon, noted
for their kind treatment of their women. Polygamy existed in nearly all tribes
excepting the Pueblos.
Houses
In and north of the United States there were some
twenty well-defined types of native dwellings, varying from the mere brush
shelter to the five-storied pueblo.
In the Northwest, Native American cultures lived in a
shelter known as the plank house. The plank house varied in shape and design
according to the tribe who was building it. It varied from a simple shed-like
building to a partly underground shelter like the Mogollon shelter. The plank
house was made primarily from wood pieces found along the wooded areas near the
sea or water body. Each house was built by placing the wood on poles imbedded
in the ground. Eventually the roof was placed on top in a upside-down V shape.
These houses were considered very durable to the environment, especially
dampness and rain. The villages of the Northwest revolved around the
environment which enveloped them. Large structures of enormous logs notched and
fitted together became the primary housing for most of the peoples of this
region. Each of these houses had a central living area and distinct, private
sections for sleeping areas for the many families which lived there. Other wo
oden structures were used for ceremonial purposes as well as for birthing
mothers and burial sites.
In the eastern United States and adjacent parts of
Canada the prevailing type was that commonly known under the Algonkian name of
wigwam. The wigwam was a round shelter used by many different Native American
cultures in the east and the southeast. It is considered one of the best
shelters made. It was as safe and warm as the best houses of early colonists.
The wigwam has a curved surface which can hold up against the worst weather in
any region.
The Native Americans of the Plains lived in one of the
most well known shelters, the tepee ( also Tipi or Teepee). The tipi (the Sioux
name for house) or conical tent-dwelling of the upper lake and plains region
was of poles set lightly in the ground, bound together near the top, and
covered with bark or mats in the lake country, and with dressed buffalo skins
on the plains. These skins were often painted in bright colors to show the
personalities of the people dwelling there. It was easily portable, and two
women could set it up or take in down within an hour. On ceremonial occasions
the tipi camp was arranged in a great circle, with the ceremonial
"medicine lodge" in the centre.
The Native Americans of the Southwest such as the
Anasazi and the Pueblo, lived in pueblos
constructed by stacking large adobe blocks, sun-dried and made from clay and
water, usually measuring 8 by 16 inches (20 by 40 centimetres) and 4 to 6 in.
(10 to 15 cm) thick. These blocks form the walls of the building, up to five
stories tall, and were built around a central courtyard. Usually each floor is
set back from the floor below, so that the whole building resembles a zigzag
pyramid. The method also provides terraces on those levels made from the roof
tops of the level below. These unique and amazing apartment-like
structures were often built along cliff faces; the most famous, the "cliff
palace" of Mesa Verde, Colorado, had over 200 rooms. Another site, the
Pueblo Bonito ruins along New Mexico's Chaco River, once contained more than
800 rooms. Each pueblo had at least two,
and often more kivas, or ceremonial rooms.
The semi-sedentary Pawnee Mandan, and other tribes
along the Missouri built solid circular structures of logs, covered with earth,
capable sometimes of housing a dozen families.
The Wichita and other tribes of the Texas border built
large circular houses of grass thatch laid over a framework of poles.
The living shelters of the Northeast Native Americans
are called Long Houses. The long house was favored more in the winter months
than in the summer ones. The long house was a one story apartment house, with
many people of the tribe sharing the warmth and space. In an average long
house, there would be three or four fireplaces, usually lined with small
fieldstones. With this many fireplaces, smoke would fill up the house, so the
house would be built with smoke holes in the roof. The typical long house was
estimated to be about 50 feet long.
The Navaho hogan, was a smaller counterpart of the
Pawnee "earth lodge". The communal pueblo structure of the Rio Grande
region consisted of a number—sometimes hundreds - of square-built rooms of various
sizes, of stone or adobe laid in clay mortar, with flat roof, court-yards, and
intricate passage ways, suggestive of oriental things.
The Piute wikiup of Nevada was only one degree above
the brush shelter of the Apache. California, with its long stretch from north
to south, and its extremes from warm plain to snowclad sierra, had a variety of
types, including the semi-subterranean.
Along the whole north-west coast, from the Columbia to
the Eskimo border, the prevailing type was the rectangular board structure,
painted with symbolic designs, and with the great totem pole carved with the
heraldic crests of the owner, towering above the doorway.
Not even pueblo architecture had evolved a chimney.
Food
and its Procurement
In the timbered regions of the eastern and southern
states and the adjacent portions of Canada, along the Missouri and among the
Pueblos, Pima, and other tribes of the south-west, the chief dependence was
upon agriculture, the principal crops being corn, beans, and squashes, besides a
native tobacco. The New England tribes understood the principal of manuring,
while those of the arid south-west built canals and practiced irrigation. Along
the whole ocean-coast, in the lake region and on the Columbia, fishing was an
important source of subsistence. On the south Atlantic seaboard elaborate weirs
were in use, but elsewhere the hook and line, the seine or the harpoon, were
more common. Clams and oysters were consumed in such quantities along the
Atlantic coast that in some favourable gathering-places empty shells were piled
into mounds ten feet high. From central California northward along the whole
west coast, the salmon was the principle, and on the Columbia, almost the
entire, food dependence. The northwest-coast tribes, as well as the Eskimo,
were fearless whalers. Everywhere the wild game, of course, was an important
factor in the food supply, particularly the deer in the timber region and the
buffalo on the plains. The nomad tribes of the plains, in fact, lived by the
buffalo, which, in one way or another, furnished them with food, clothing,
shelter, household equipment, and fuel.
In this connection there were many curious tribal and
personal taboos founded upon clan traditions, dreams, or other religious
reasons. Thus the Navajo and the Apache, so far from eating the meat of a bear,
refuse even to touch the skin of one, believing the bear to be of human
kinship. For a somewhat similar reason
some tribes of the plains and the arid South-West avoid a fish, while
considering the dog a delicacy.
Besides the cultivated staples, nuts, roots, and wild
fruits were in use wherever procurable. The Indians of the Sierras lived
largely upon acorns and piñons. Those of Oregon and the Columbia region
gathered large stores of camass and other roots, in addition to other species
of berries. The Apache and other south-western tribes gathered the cactus fruit
and toasted the root of the maguey. The tribes of the upper lake region made
great use of wild rice, while those of the Ohio Valley made sugar from the sap
of the maple, and those of the southern states extracted a nourishing oil from
the hickory nut. Pemmican and hominy are Indian names as well as Indian
inventions, and maple sugar is also an aboriginal discovery. Salt was used by
many tribes, especially on the plains and in the South-West, but in the Gulf
states lye was used instead. Cannibalism simply for the sake of food could
hardly be said to exist, but, as a war ceremony or sacrifice following a savage
triumph, the custom was very general, particularly on the Texas coast and among
the Iroquoian and Algonquian tribes of the east. The Tonkawa of Texas were know
to all their neighbours as the "Man-Eaters". Apparently the only
native intoxicant was tiswin, a sort of mild beer fermented from corn by the
Apache and neighbouring tribes.
Domesticated
Animals
The dog was practically the only domesticated animal
before the advent of the whites and was found in nearly all tribes, being used
as a beast of burden by day and as a constant sentinel by night, while with
some tribes the flesh was also a favourite dish. He was seldom, if ever,
trained to hunting. There were no wild horses, cows, pigs, or chickens.
Therefore, the Indians knew nothing about these animals. In Massachusetts, they
began to domesticate the turkey. Eagles and other birds were occasionally kept
for their feathers, and the children sometimes had other pets than puppies. The
horse, believed to have been introduced by the Spaniards, speedily became as
important a factor in the life of the plains tribes as the buffalo itself. In
the same way the sheep and goats, introduced by the early Franciscans, have
become the chief source of wealth to the Navajo, numbering now half a million
animals from which they derive an annual income of over a million dollars.
Industries
and Arts
In the fabrication of domestic instruments, weapons,
ornaments, ceremonial objects, boats, seines, and traps, in house-building and
in the making of pottery and baskets, the Indian showed considerable ingenuity
in design and infinite patience of execution. In the division of labour, the
making of weapons, hunting and fishing requirements, boats, pipes, and most
ceremonial objects fell to the men, while the domestic arts of pottery and
basket-making, weaving and dressing of skins, the fashioning of clothing and
the preparation and preservation of food commonly devolved upon the women.
Among the sedentary or semi-sedentary tribes
house-building belonged usually to the men, although the women sometimes
assisted. On the plains the entire making and keeping of the tipi were
appointed to the women. In many tribes the man cut, sewed, and decorated his
own buckskin suit, and in some of the Pueblo villages the men were the
basket-weavers.
While the house, in certain tribes, evinced
considerable architecture skill, its prime purpo se was always utilitarian, and
there was usually but little attempt at decorative effect, excepting the Haida,
Tlingit, and others of the north-west coast, where the great carved and painted
totem poles, sometimes sixty feet in height, set up in front of every dwelling,
were a striking feature of the village picture. The same tribes were notable
for their great sea-going canoes, hollowed out from a single cedar trunk,
elaborately carved and painted, and sometimes large enough to accommodate forty
men. The skin boat or kaiak of the Eskimo was a marvel of lightness and
buoyancy, being practically unsinkable. The birch-bark canoe of the eastern
tribes was especially well-adapted to its purposes of inland navigation. In the
southern states we find the smaller "dug-out" log canoe. On the
plains the boat was virtually unknown, except for the tub-shaped skin boat of
the Mandan and associated tribes of the upper Missouri.
The Eskimo were noted for their artistic carvings of
bones and walrus ivory; the Pueblo for their turquoise-inlaid work and their
wood carving, especially mythologic figurines, and the Atlantic and California
coast tribes for their work in shell. The wampum, or shell beads, made chiefly
from the shells of various clams found along the Atlantic coast have become
historic, having been extensively used not only for dress ornamentation, but
also on treaty belts, as tribal tribute, and as a standard of value answering
the purpose of money. The ordinary stone hammer or club, found in nearly every
tribe, represented much patient labour, while the whole skill of the artist was
frequently expended upon the stone-carved pipe. The black stone pipes of the
Cherokee were famous in the southern states, and the red stone pipe of
catlinite from a single quarry in Minnesota was reputed sacred and was smoked
at the ratification of all solemn tribal engagements throughout the plains and
the lake-region. Knives, lance-blades, and arrow-heads were also usually of stone,
preferably flint or obsidian. Along the Gulf Coast, keen-edged knives fashioned
from split canes were in use. Corn mortars and bowls were usually of wood in
the timber region and of stone in the arid country. Hide-scrapers were of bone,
and spoons of wood or horn. Metal-work was limited chiefly to the fashioning of
gorgets and other ornaments hammered out from native copper, found in the
southern Alleghenies, about Lake Superior, and about Copper River in Alaska.
The art of smelting was apparently unknown. Under Franciscan and later Mexican
teaching the Navahos have developed a silver-working art which compares in
importance with their celebrated basket-weaving, the material used being silver
coins melted down in stone molds of their own carving. Mica was mined in the
Carolina mountains by the local tribes and fashioned into gorgets and mirrors,
which found their way by trade as far as the western prairies, All of these
arts belonged to the men.
Basket-weaving in wood splits, cane, rushes, yucca- or
bark-fibre, and various grasses was practiced by the same tribes which made
pottery, and excepting in a few tribes, was likewise a women's work. The basket
was stained in various designs with vegetable dyes. The Cherokee made a
double-walled basket. Those of the Choctaw, Pueblo tribes, Jicarillo, and Piute
were noted for beauty of design and execution, but the Pomo and other tribes of
California excelled in all closeness and delicacy of weaving and richness of
decoration, many of their grass baskets being water-tight and almost hidden
under an inter-weaving of bright-coloured plumage, and further decorated around
the top with pendants of shining mother-of-pearl. The weaving of grass or rush
mats for covering beds or wigwams may be considered as a variant of the basket-weaving
process, as likewise the delicate porcupine quill appliqué work of the
northern plains and upper-Mississippi tribes.
Silver jewelry is probably the best known form of Native American art. It is not an ancient
art. Southwest Native Americans began working in silver around 1850. Jewelry
was the way many Native Americans showed their wealth. Coins were used for
silver in the early days. Navajo silverwork can be made many ways. One way is to carve a stone with a
knife and pour the silver into the shape. This is called sandcasting. Another
way is to cut the shape out of silver
and use a stamp to make a design. Stamps were made from any bit of scrap iron,
including spikes, old chisels and broken files.
Turquoise is used in jewelry. This didn't start
happening until 1880's. Turquoise is found in Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and New
Mexico.The color of turquoise is from a pale
chalky blue -almost white- to a very deep green.
The making of pottery belonged to the women and was
practiced in nearly all tribes, excepting those in the plains and interior
basin, and the cold north. The Eastern pottery is usually decorated with
stamped patterns. That of the Pueblo and other south-western tribes was smooth
and painted over with symbolic designs. A few specimens of glazed ware have
been found in the same region, but it is doubtful if the process is of native
origin. The Catawba and some other tribes produced a beautiful black ware by
burning the vessel under cover, so that the smoke permeated the pores of the
clay. The simple hand process by coiling was universally used.
The useful art of skin-dressing also belonged
exclusively to the women, excepting along the Arctic coasts, where furs,
instead of denuded skins, were worn by the Eskimo, while the entrails of the
larger sea animals were also utilized for waterproof garments. The skins in
most general use were those of the buffalo, elk, and deer, which were prepared
by scraping, stretching, and anointing with various softening or preservative
mixtures, of which the liver or brains of the animal were commonly a part. The
timber tribes generally smoked the skins, a process unknown on the plains. A
limited use was made of bird skins with the feathers intact.
The weaving art proper was also almost exclusively in
the hands of the women. In the east, aside from basket- and mat-making it was
confined almost entirely to the twisting of ropes or bowstrings, and the making
of belts, the skin fabric taking the place of the textile. In the South-West
the Pueblo tribes wove native cotton upon looms of their own device, and, since
the introduction of sheep by the Franciscan missionaries in the sixteenth
century, the Navaho, enlarging upon their Pueblo teaching have developed a
weaving art which has made the Navaho blanket famous throughout the country,
the stripping, spinning, weaving, and dyeing of the wool all being their own.
The Piute of Nevada and others of that region wore blankets woven from strips
of rabbit-fur. Some early writers mention feather-woven cloaks among the gulf
tribes, but it is possible that the feathers were simply overlaid upon the skin
garment.
It is notable that the Indian worker, man or woman,
used no pattern, carrying the design in the head. Certain designs, however,
were standardized and hereditary in particular tribes and societies.
According to Navajo beliefs, the Universe is a
balanced place. Illness and other disasters happen if the balance is upset. It
is believed only Humans can upset this balance, not animals or plants! To make
the person healthly again a ceremony is
performed. The sandpaintings, called ikaah, used in these ceremonies are made
between sunrise and sunset of the same day.
Games
and Amusements
Naturally careless of the future, the Indian gave
himself up to pleasure when not under immediate necessity or danger, and his
leisure time at home was filled with a constant round of feasting, dancing,
story-telling, athletic contests, and gambling games.
The principal athletic game everywhere east of the
Missouri, as well as with some tribes of the Pacific coast, was the ballplay
adopted by the French of Canada under the name lacrosse and in Louisiana as
racquette. In this game the ball was caught, not with the hand, but with a
netted ball-stick somewhat resembling a tennis racket.
A special dance and secret ceremonial preceded the
contest. Next in tribal favour in the eastern region was the game known to the
early traders under the corrupted Creek name of chunkee, in which one player
rolled a stone wheel along the ground, while his competitor slid after it a
stick curved at one end like an umbrella handle with the design of having the
spent wheel fall within the curve at the end of its course. This game, which
necessitated much hard running, was sometimes kept up for hours. A somewhat similar
game played with a netted wheel and a straight stick was found upon the plains,
the object being to dart the stick through the certain netted holes in the
wheel, known as the buffalo, bull, calf, etc.(remember ‘to catch the bull’s
eye’).
Foot races were very popular with certain tribes, as
the Pueblo, Apache. Wichita and Crows, being frequently a part of great
ceremonial functions. On the plains horse-racing furnished exciting amusement.
There were numerous gambling games, somewhat of the dice order, played with
marked sticks, plum stones, carved bones, etc., these being in special favour
with the women. Target shooting with bow and arrow, and various forms of dart
shooting were also popular.
Among distinctly women's games were football and
shinny, the former, however, being merely the bouncing of the ball from the
toes with the purpose of keeping in the air as long as possible. Hand games, in
which a number of players arranged themselves in two opposing lines and
alternately endeavoured to guess the whereabouts of a small object shifted
rapidly from hand to hand, were a favourite tipi pastime with both sexes in the
winter evenings, to the accompaniment of songs fitted to the rapid movement of
the hands.
Story-telling and songs, usually to the accompaniment
of the rattle or small hand-drum, filled in the evening. The Indian was
essentially musical, his instruments being the drum, rattle, flute, or
flageolet, eagle-bone whistle and other more crude devices. Each had its
special religious significance and ceremonial purposes, particularly the
rattle, of which there were many varieties. Besides the athletic and gambling
games, there were games of diversion played only on rare occasions of tribal
necessity with sacred paraphernalia in keeping of sacred guardians. The Indian
was fond also of singing and had songs for every occasion — love, war, hunting,
gaming, medicine, satire, children's songs, and lullabies.
The children played with tops, whips, dolls, and other
toys, or imitated their elders in shooting, riding, and "playing
house".
War
As war is the normal condition of savagery, so to the
Indian warlike glory was the goal of his ambition, the theme of his oratory,
and the purpose of his most elaborate ceremonial. His weapons were the knife,
bow, club, lance, and tomahawk, or stone axe, which last was very soon
superseded by the light steel hatchet supplied by the trader. To these, certain
tribes added defensive armour, as the body-armour of rawhides or wooden rods in
use along the northwest coast and some other sections, and the shield more
particularly used by the equestrian tribes of the plains. As a rule, the lance
and shield were more common in the open country, and the tomahawk in the woods.
The bow was usually of some tough and flexible wood with twisted sinew cord,
but was sometimes of bone or horn backed with sinew rapping. It is extremely
doubtful if poisoned arrows were found north of Mexico, notwithstanding many
assertions to the contrary.
Where the clan system prevailed the general conduct of
war matters was often in the keeping of special clans, and in some tribes, such
as the Creeks, war and peace negotiations and ceremonials belonged to certain
towns designated as "red" or "white". With the Iroquois and
probably with other tribes, the final decision on war or peace rested with a
council of the married women. On the plains the warriors of the tribes were
organized into military societies of differing degrees of rank, from the boys
in training to the old men who had passed their active period. Military service
was entirely voluntary with the individual who, among the eastern tribes,
signified his acceptance in some public manner, as by striking the red-painted
war-post, or, on the plains, by smoking the pipe sent round by the organizers
of the expeditions. Contrary to European practice, the command usually rested
with several leaders of equal rank, who were not necessarily recognized as
chiefs on other occasions. The departure and the return were made according to
the fixed ceremonial forms, with solemn chants of defiance, victory, or grief
at defeat. In some tribes there were small societies of chosen warriors pledged
never to turn or flee from an enemy except by express permission of their fellows,
but in general the Indian warrior chose not to take large risks, although brave
enough in desperate circumstance.
To the savage every member of a hostile tribe was
equally an enemy, and he gloried as much in the death of an infant as in that
of the warrior father. Victory meant indiscriminate massacre, with most
revolting mutilation of the dead, followed in the early period in nearly every
portion of the East and South by a cannibal feast. The custom of scalping the
dead, so general in later Indian wars, has been shown by Frederici to have been
confined originally to a limited area east of the Mississippi, gradually
superseding the earlier custom of beheading. In many western tribes, the
warrior's prowess was measured not by the number of his scalp trophies, but by
the number of his coups (French term), or strokes upon the enemy, for which
there was a regular scale according to kind, the highest honour being accorded
not to one one who secured the scalp, but to the warrior who struck the first
blow upon the enemy, even though with no more than a willow rod. The scalp
dance was performed, not by the warriors, but by the women, who thus rejoiced
over the success of their husbands and brothers. There was no distinctive
"war dance".
Captives among the eastern tribes were either
condemned to death with every horrible form of torture or ceremonially adopted
into the tribe, the decision usually resting with the women. If adopted, he at
once became a member of a family, usually as representative of a deceased
member, and at once acquired full tribal rights. In the Huron wars whole towns
of the defeated nation voluntarily submitted and were adopted into the Iroquois
tribes. On the plains torture was not common. Adults were seldom spared, but
children were frequently spared and either regularly adopted or brought up in a
mild sort of slavery. Along the north-west coast, and as far south as
California slavery prevailed in its harshest form and was the usual fate of the
captive.
Languages
One of the remarkable facts in American ethnology is
the great diversity of languages. Nearly two hundred major languages, besides
minor dialects, were spoken north of Mexico, classified in fifty-one distinct
linguistic stocks, as given below, of which nearly one-half were represented in
California. Those marked with an asterisk are extinct, while several others are
now reduced to less than a dozen individuals keeping the language: Algonquian,
Athapascan (Déné), Attacapan, *Beothukan, Caddoan, Chimakuan,
*Chimarikan, Chimmesyan, Chinookan, Chitimachan, *Chumashan, *Coahuiltecan
(Pakawá), Copehan (Wintun), Costanoan, Eskimauan, *Esselenian,
Iroquoian, Kalapooian, *Karankawan, Keresan, Kiowan, Kitunahan, Kaluschan
(Tlingit), Kulanapan (Pomo), *Kusan, Mariposan (Yokuts), Moquelumnan (Miwok),
Muskogean, Pujunan (Maidu), Quoratean (Karok), *Salinan, Salishan, Shahaptian,
Shoshonean, Siouan, Skittagetan (Haida), Takilman, *Timucuan, *Tonikan,
Tonkawan, Uchean, *Waiilatpuan (Cayuse), Wakashan (Nootka), Washoan, Weitspekan
(Yurok), Wishoskan, Yakonan, *Yanan (Nosi), Yukian, Yuman, Zuñian.
The number of languages and well-marked dialects may
well have reached one thousand, constituting some 150 separate linguistic
stocks, each stock as distinct from all the others as the Aryan languages are distinct
from the Turanian or the Bantu. Of these stocks, approximately seventy were in
the northern, and eighty in the southern continent. They were all in nearly the
same primitive stage of development, characterized by minute exactness of
description with almost entire absence of broad classification. Thus the
Cherokee, living in a country abounding in wild fruits, had no word for grape,
but had instead a distinct descriptive term for each of the three varieties
with which he was acquainted. In the same way, he could not simply say "I
am here", but must qualify the condition as standing, sitting, etc.
The earliest attempt at a classification of the Indian
languages of the United States and British America was made by Albert Gallatin
in 1836. The beginning of systematic investigation dates from the establishment
of the Bureau of American Ethnology under Major J.W. Powell in 1879. For the
languages of Mexico and Central America, the basis is the
"Geografía" of Orozco y Berra, of 1864, supplemented by the later
work of Brinton, in his "American Race" (1891), and corrected and
brought up to the latest results in the linguistic map by Thomas and Swanton
now in preparation by the Bureau of Ethnology. For South America, we have the
"Catálogo" of Hervas (1784), which covers also the whole field
of languages throughout the world; Brinton's work just noted, containing the
summary of all known up to that time, and Chamberlain's comprehensive summary,
published in 1907.
To facilitate intertribal communication, we frequently
find the languages of the more important tribes utilized by smaller tribes
throughout the same region, as Comanche in the southern plains and Navajo
(Apache) in the South-West. From the same necessity have developed certain
notable trade jargons, based upon some dominant language, with incorporations
from many others, including European, all smoothed down and assimilated to a
common standard. Chief among these were the "Mobilian" of the Gulf
states based upon Choctaw; the "Chinook jargon" of the Columbia and
adjacent territories of the Pacific coast, a remarkable conglomerate based upon
the extinct Chinook language; and the lingoa geral of Brazil and the
Paraná region, based upon Tupí-Guaraní. To these must be
added the noted "sign language" of the plains, a gesture code, which
answered every purpose of ordinary intertribal intercourse from Canada to the
Rio Grande.
Religion
and Mythology
The Indian was an animist, to whom every animal,
plant, and object in nature contained a spirit to be propitiated or feared.
Some of these, such as the sun, the buffalo, and the peyote plant, the eagle
and the rattlesnake, were more powerful or more frequently helpful than others,
but there was no overruling "Great Spirit" as so frequently
represented.
Certain numbers, particularly four and seven, were
held sacred. Colours were symbolic and had abiding place, and sometimes sex.
Thus with the Cherokee the red spirits of power and victory live in the Sun
Land, or the East, while the black spirits of death dwell in the Twilight Land
of the West. Certain tribes had palladiums around which centered their most
elaborate ritual. Each man had also his secret personal "medicine".
The priest was likewise the doctor, and medicine and religious ritual were
closely interwoven. Secret societies were in every tribe, claiming powers of
prophecy, hypnotism, and clairvoyance. Dreams were in great repute, and
implicitly trusted and obeyed, while witches, fairies, and supernatural
monsters were as common as in medieval Europe. Human sacrifices, either of
infants or adults, were found among the Timucua of Florida, the Natchez of
Mississippi, the Pawnee of the plains, and some tribes of California and the
north-west coast, the sacrifice in the last-mentioned region being frequently
followed by a cannibal feast. From time to time, as among more civilized
nations, prophets arose to purify the old religion or to preach a new ritual.
Each tribe had its genesis, tradition, and mythical hero, with a whole body of
mythologic belief and folklore, and one or more great tribal ceremonials. Among
the latter may be noted the Green-Corn Dance thanksgiving festival of the
eastern and southern tribes, the Sun-Dance of the plains, the celebrated snake
dance of the Hopi and the Salmon Dance
of the Columbia tribes.
The method of disposing of the dead varied according
to the tribe and the environment, inhumation being probably the most
widespread. The Hurons and the Iroquois allowed the bodies to decay upon
scaffolds, after which the bones were gathered up and deposited with much
ceremony in the common tribal sepulchre. The Nanticoke and Choctaw scraped the
flesh from the bones, which were then wrapped in a bundle, and kept in a box
within the dwelling. Tree, scaffold, and cave burial were common on the plains and
in the mountains, while cremation was the rule in the arid regions father to
the west and south-west. Northward from the Columbia the body was deposited in
a canoe raised upon posts, while cave burial reappeared among the Aleut of
Alaska, and earth burial among the Eskimo. The dread of mentioning the name of
the dead was as universal as destroying the property of the deceased, even to
the killing of his horse or dog, while the custom of placing food near the
grave for the spirit during the journey to the other world was almost as
common, Laceration of the body, cutting off of the hair, general neglect of the
person, and ceremonial wailing, morning and evening, sometimes for weeks, were
also parts of their funeral customs.
Beyond the directly inherited traditional Native
American religions, a wide body of modified sects abounds.The Native American
Church claims a membership of 250,000, which would constitute the largest of
the Native America religious organizations. Though the church traces the
sacramental use ofthe peyote cactus back ten thousand years, the Native
American Сhurch was only founded in 1918. Well into the reservation era, this organization was achieved with the help
of a Smithsonian Institute anthropologist. The church incorporates generic Native
American religious rites, Christianity, and the use of the peyote plant. The
modern peyote ritual is comprised of four parts: praying, singing, eating
peyote, and quietly contemplating.
The Native American Church, or Peyote Church
illustrates a trend of modifying and manipulating traditional Native American
spirituality. The Native American Church incorporates Christianity, as well as
moving away from tribal specific religion. Christianity has routinely
penetrated Native American spirituality in the last century. And in the last
few decades, New Age spirituality has continued the trend.
***
All
of the American Native cultures had in common a deep spiritual relationship
with the land and the life forms it supported. According to First Nations
spiritual beliefs, human beings are participants in a world of interrelated
spiritual forms. First Nations maintain great respect for all living things.
With the arrival of European newcomers, this delicate balance of life forms was
disrupted. In the 18th and 19th centuries, contact with Europeans began to
change traditional ways of life forever.
Native
americans and the newcomers
The formulation of public policy
toward the Indians was of concern to the major European colonizing powers.
Colonization
The Spanish tried assiduously to
Christianize the natives and to remake their living patterns. Orders were
issued to congregate scattered Indian villages in orderly, well-placed centers,
assuring the Indians at the same time that by moving to such centers they would
not lose their outlying lands. This was the first attempt to create Indian
reservations. The promise failed to protect Indian land, according to the
Franciscan monk and historian of Mexico, Juan Torquemada, who reported about
1599 that there was hardly "a palm of land" that the Spaniards had
not taken. Many Indians who did not join the congregations for fear of losing
what they owned fled to mountain places and lost their lands anyway.
The Russians never seriously
undertook colonization in the New World. When Peter I the Great sent Vitus
Jonassen Bering into the northern sea that bears his name, interest was in
scientific discovery, not overseas territory. Later, when the problem of
protecting and perhaps expanding Russian occupation was placed before Catherine
II the Great, she declared (1769): It is for traders to traffic where they
please. I will furnish neither men, nor ships, nor money, and I renounce
forever all lands and possessions in the East Indies and in America.
The Swedish and Dutch attempts
at colonization were so brief that neither left a strong imprint on New World
practices. The Dutch government, however, was probably the first (1645) of the
European powers to enter into a formal treaty with an Indian tribe, the Mohawk.
Thus began a relationship, inherited by the British, that contributed to the
ascendancy of the English over the French in North America.
France handicapped its colonial
venture by transporting to the New World a modified feudal system of land
tenure that discouraged permanent settlement. Throughout the period of French
occupation, emphasis was on trade rather than on land acquisition and
development, and thus French administrators, in dealing with the various
tribes, tried primarily only to establish trade relations with them. The French
instituted the custom of inviting the headmen of all tribes with which they
carried on trade to come once a year to Montreal, where the governor of Canada
gave out presents and talked of friendship. The governor of Louisiana met
southern Indians at Mobile.
The English, reluctantly, found
themselves competing on the same basis with annual gifts. Still later, United
States peace commissioners were to offer permanent annuities in exchange for
tribal concessions of land or other interests. In contrast to the French, the
English were primarily interested in land and permanent settlements; beginning
quite early in their occupation, they felt an obligation to bargain with the
Indians and to conclude formal agreements with compensation to presumed Indian
landowners. The Plymouth settlers, coming without royal sanction, thought it
incumbent upon them to make terms with the Massachuset Indians. Cecilius
Calvert (the 2nd Baron Baltimore) and William Penn, while possessing royal
grants in Maryland and Pennsylvania respectively, nevertheless took pains to
purchase occupancy rights from the Indians. It became the practice of most of
the colonies to prohibit indiscriminate and unauthorized appropriation of
Indian land. The usual requirement was that purchases could be consummated only
by agreement with the tribal headman, followed by approval of the governor or
other official of the colony. At an early date also, specific areas were set
aside for exclusive Indian use. Virginia in 1656 and commissioners for the
United Colonies of New England in 1658 agreed to the creation of such reserved
areas. Plymouth Colony in 1685 designated for individual Indians separate
tracts that could not be alienated without their consent.
In spite of these official
efforts to protect Indian lands, unauthorized entry and use caused constant
friction through the colonial period. Rivalry with the French, who lost no
opportunity to point out to the Indians how their lands were being encroached
upon by the English; the activity of land speculators, who succeeded in
obtaining large grants beyond the settled frontiers; and, finally, the
startling success of the Ottawa chief Pontiac in capturing English strongholds
in the old Northwest (the Great Lakes region) as a protest against this
westward movement, together prompted King George III's ministers to issue a
proclamation (1763) that formalized the concept of Indian land titles for the
first time in the history of European colonization in the New World. The
document prohibited issuance of patents to any lands claimed by a tribe unless
the Indian title had first been extinguished by purchase or treaty. The
proclamation reserved for the use of the tribes "all the Lands and
Territories lying to the Westward of the sources of the Rivers which fall into
the Sea from the West and Northwest. ”Land west of the Appalachians might not
be purchased or entered upon by private persons, but purchases might be made in
the name of the king or one of the colonies at a council meeting of the
Indians”.
This policy continued up to the
termination of British rule and was adopted by the United States. The
Appalachian barrier was soon passed - thousands of settlers crossed the
mountains during the American Revolution - but both the Articles of
Confederation and the federal Constitution reserved either to the president or
to Congress sole authority in Indian affairs, including authority to extinguish
Indian title by treaty. When French dominion in Canada capitulated in 1760, the
English announced that "the Savages or Indian Allies of his most Christian
Majesty, shall be maintained in the lands they inhabit, if they choose to
remain there." Thereafter, the proclamation of 1763 applied in Canada and
was embodied in the practices of the dominion government. (The British North
America Act of 1867, which created modern Canada, provided that the parliament
of Canada should have exclusive legislative authority with respect to
"Indians, and lands reserved for the Indians." Thus, both North
American countries made control over Indian matters a national concern.)
United States policy: the late 18th and 19th centuries
The first full declaration of U.S. policy was embodied
in the Northwest Ordinance (1787): The utmost good faith shall always be
observed toward the Indians, their lands and property shall never be taken from
them without their consent; and in their property, rights, and liberty, they
shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized
by congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall from time to time
be made, for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and
friendship with them.This doctrine was embodied in the act of August 7, 1789,
as one of the first declarations of the U.S. Congress under the
Constitution.The final shaping of the legal and political rights of the Indian
tribes is found in the opinions of Chief Justice John Marshall, notably in
decision in the case of Worcester v. Georgia: The Indian nations had always
been considered as distinct, independent, political communities, retaining
their original natural rights, as the undisputed possessors of the land, from
time immemorial. . . . The settled doctrine of the law of nations is, that a
weaker power does not surrender its independence - its right to self-government
- by associating with a stronger, and taking its protection. A weak state, in
order to provide for its safety, may place itself under the protection of one
more powerful, without stripping itself of the right of government, and ceasing
to be a state.The first major departure from the policy of respecting Indian
rights came with the Indian Removal Act of 1830. For the first time the United
States resorted to coercion, particularly in the cases of the Cherokee and Seminole
tribes, as a means of securing compliance. The Removal Act was not in itself
coercive, since it authorized the president only to negotiate with tribes east
of the Mississippi on a basis of payment for their lands; it called for
improvements in the east and a grant of land west of the river, to which
perpetual title would be attached. In carrying out the law, however, resistance
was met with military force. In the decade following, almost the entire
population of perhaps 100,000 Indians was moved westward. The episode moved
Alexis de Tocqueville to remark in 1831: The Europeans continued to surround
[the Indians] on every side, and to confine them within narrower limits . . .
and the Indians have been ruined by a competition which they had not the means
of sustaining. They were isolated in their own country, and their race only
constituted a little colony of troublesome strangers in the midst of a numerous
and dominant people.
The territory west of the Mississippi, it turned out,
was not so remote as had been supposed. The discovery of gold in California
(1848) started a new sequence of treaties, designed to extinguish Indian title
to lands lying in the path of the overland routes to the Pacific. The sudden
surge of thousands of wagon trains through the last of the Indian country and
the consequent slaughtering of prairie and mountain game that provided
subsistence for the Indians brought on the most serious Indian wars the country
had experienced. For three decades, beginning in the 1850s, raids and sporadic
pitched fighting took place up and down the western Plains, highlighted by such
incidents as the Custer massacre by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians (1876), the Nez
Perce chief Joseph's running battle in 1877 against superior U.S. army forces,
and the Chiricahua Geronimo's long duel with authorities in the Southwest,
resulting in his capture and imprisonment in 1886. Toward the close of that
period, the Ghost Dance religion, arising out of the dream revelations of a
young Paiute Indian, Wovoka, promised the Indians a return to the old life and
reunion with their departed kinsmen. The songs and ceremonies born of this
revelation swept across the northern Plains. The movement came to an abrupt end
December 29, 1890, at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. Believing that the
Ghost Dance was disturbing an uneasy peace, government agents moved to arrest
ringleaders. Sitting Bull was killed (December 15) while being taken into
custody, and two weeks later units of the U.S. 7th Cavalry at Wounded Knee
massacred more than 200 men, women, and children who had already agreed to
return to their homes. A further major shift of policy had occurred in 1871
after congressional discussions lasting several years. U.S. presidents, with
the advice and consent of the Senate, had continued to make treaties with the
Indian tribes and commit the United States to the payment of sums of money. The
House of Representatives protested, since a number of congressmen had come to
the view that treaties with Indian tribes were an absurdity (a view earlier
held by Andrew Jackson). The Senate yielded, and the act of March 3, 1871,
declared that "hereafter no Indian nation or tribe" would be
recognized "as an independent power with whom the United States may
contract by treaty." Indian affairs were brought under the legislative
control of the Congress to an extent that had not been attempted previously.
Tribal authority with respect to criminal offenses committed by members within
the tribe was reduced to the extent that murder and other major crimes were
placed under the jurisdiction of the federal courts. The most radical
undertaking of the new legislative policy was the Dawes General Allotment Act
of 1887. By that time the Indian tribes had been moved out of the mainstreams
of traffic and were settled on lands that they had chosen out of the larger
areas that they had formerly occupied. Their choice in most cases had been
confirmed by treaty, agreement, act of Congress, or executive order of the
president. The tribes that lived by hunting over wide areas found reservation
confinement a threat to their existence. Generally, they had insisted on
annuity payments or rations, or both, and the U.S. peace commissioners had been
willing to offer such a price in return for important land cessions. In time the
view came to be held that reservation life fostered indolence and perpetuated
customs and attitudes that held Indians back from assimilation. The strategy
offered by proponents of this theory was the Allotment Act authorizing the
president to divide the reservations into individual parcels and to give every
Indian, whether he wanted it or not, a particular piece of the tribally owned
land. In order not to make the transition too abrupt, the land would be held in
trust for a period of 25 years, after which ownership would devolve upon the
individual. With it would go all the rights and duties of citizenship.
Reservation land remaining after all living members of the tribes had been
provided with allotments was declared surplus, and the president was authorized
to open it for entry by non-Indian homesteaders, the Indians being paid the
homestead price. A total of 118 reservations was allotted in this manner, but
the result was not what had been anticipated. Through the alienation of surplus
lands (making no allowance for children yet unborn) and through patenting of
individual holdings, the Indians lost 86,000,000 acres (34,800,000 hectares),
or 62 percent, of a total of 138,000,000 acres in Indian ownership prior to
1887. A generation of landless Indians resulted, with no vocational training to
relieve them of dependence upon land. The strategy also failed in that
ownership of land did not effect an automatic acculturation in those Indians
who received individual parcels. Through scattering of individuals and families,
moreover, social cohesiveness tended to break down. The result was a weakening
of native institutions and cultural practices with nothing offered in
substitution. What was intended as transition proved to be a blind alley. The
Indian population had been dwindling through the decades after the mid-19th
century. The California Indians alone, it was estimated, dropped from 100,000
in 1853 to not more than 30,000 in 1864 and 19,000 in 1906. Cholera in the
central Plains in 1849 struck the Pawnee. As late as 1870-71 an epidemic of
smallpox brought disaster to the Blackfeet, Assiniboin, and Cree. These events
gave currency to the concept of the Indian as "the vanishing
American." The decision of 1871 to discontinue treaty making and the
passage of the Allotment Act of 1887 were both founded in the belief that the
Indians would not survive, and hence it did not much matter whether their views
were sought in advance of legislation or whether lands were provided for coming
generations. When it became obvious after about 1920 that the Indians, whose
numbers had remained static for several years, were surely increasing, the
United States was without a policy for advancing the interests of a living
people.
20th-century reforms of U.S. policy
A survey in 1926 brought into
clear focus the failings of the previous 40 years. The investigators found most
Indians "extremely poor," in bad health, without education, and
lacking adjustment to the dominant culture around them. Under the impetus of
these findings and other pressures for reform, Congress adopted the Indian
Reorganization Act of 1934, which contemplated an orderly decrease of federal
control and a concomitant increase of Indian self-government and
responsibility. The essentials of the new law were as follows: (1) allotment of
tribal lands was prohibited in the future, but tribes might assign use rights
to individuals; (2) so-called surplus lands not pre-empted by homesteaders
might be returned to the tribes; (3) tribes might adopt written constitutions
and charters of incorporation embodying their continuing inherent powers to
manage internal affairs; and (4) funds were authorized for the establishment of
a revolving credit program, for land purchases, for educational assistance, and
for aiding the tribes in forming organizations. Moreover, the act could be
rejected on any reservation by referendum.
The response to the 1934 act was
indicative of the Indians' ability to rise above adversity. About 160 tribes,
bands, and Alaska villages adopted written constitutions, some of which
combined traditional practices with modern parliamentary methods. The revolving
credit fund helped Indians build up their herds and improve their economic
position in other ways. Borrowers from the fund were tribal corporations,
credit associations, and cooperatives that loaned to individual Indians and to
group enterprises on a multimillion-dollar scale. Educational and health
services were also improved through federal aid.
Originally, the United States
exercised no guardianship over the person of the Indian; after 1871, when
internal tribal matters became the subject of national legislation, the number
and variety of regulatory measures multiplied rapidly. In the same year that
the Indian Reorganization Act was passed, Congress significantly repealed 12
statutes that had made it possible to hold Indians virtual prisoners on their
reservations. Indians were then able to come and go as freely as all other
persons. The Snyder Act of 1924, extending citizenship to all Indians born in
the United States, opened the door to full participation. But few Indians took
advantage of the law, and because of their lack of interest a number of states
excluded Indians from the franchise. Organization of tribal governments
following the Reorganization Act, however, seemed to awaken an interest in
civic affairs beyond tribal boundaries, and when Indians asked for the
franchise, they were generally able to secure it eventually, though not until
1948 in Arizona and New Mexico, after lengthy court action.
The federal courts consistently
upheld the treaties made with Indian tribes and also held that property may not
be taken from Indians, whether or not a treaty exists, "except in fair
trade." The latter contention was offered by the Hualapai Indians against
the Santa Fe Railway. The company was required by the courts in 1944 to
relinquish about 500,000 acres it thought had been granted to it by the U.S.
The lands had been occupied since prehistory by the Indians, without benefit of
treaty recognition, and the Supreme Court held that, if the occupancy could be
proved, as it subsequently was, the Indians were entitled to have their lands
restored. In 1950 the Ute Indians were awarded a judgment against the United
States of $31,750,000 for lands taken without adequate compensation. A special
Indian Claims Commission, created by act of Congress on August 13, 1946,
received many petitions for land claims against the United States and awarded,
for example, about $14,789,000 to the Cherokee nation, $10,242,000 to the Crow
tribe, $3,650,000 to the Snake-Paiute of Oregon, $3,000,000 to the Nez Perce,
and $12,300,000 to the Seminole. The period from the early 1950s to the 1970s
was one of increasing federal attempts to establish new policies regarding the
Indians, and it was also a period in which Indians themselves became
increasingly vocal in their quest for an equal measure of human rights and the
correction of past wrongs. The first major shift in policy came in 1954, when
the Department of the Interior began terminating federal control over those
Indians and reservations deemed able to look after their own affairs. From 1954
to 1960, support to 61 tribes and other Indian groups was ended by the
withdrawal of federal services or trust supervision. The results, however, were
unhappy. Some extremely impoverished Indian groups lost many acres of land to
private exploitation of their land and water resources. Indians in certain
states became subject exclusively to state laws that were less liberal or
sympathetic than federal laws. Finally the protests of Indians,
anthropologists, and others became so insistent that the program was
decelerated in 1960. In 1961 a trained anthropologist was sworn in as
commissioner of Indian Affairs, the first anthropologist ever to hold that
position. Federal aid expanded greatly, and in the ensuing decade Indians were
brought into various federal programs for equal economic opportunity. Indian
unemployment remained severe, however.
American Indians came more and
more into public attention in the late 20th century as they sought (along with
other minorities) to achieve a better life. Following the example set by black
civil-rights activists of the 1960s, Indian groups drew attention to their
cause through mass demonstrations and protests. Perhaps the most publicized of
these actions were the 19-month seizure (1970-71) of Alcatraz Island in San
Francisco Bay (California) by members of the militant American Indian Movement
(AIM) and the February 1973 occupation of a settlement at the Oglala Sioux Pine
Ridge (South Dakota) reservation; the latter incident was the second conflict
to occur at Wounded Knee. Representing an attempt to gain a more traditional
political power base was the establishment in 1971 of the National Tribal
Chairman's Association, which eventually grew to include more than 100 tribes.
Indian leaders also expanded
their sphere of influence into the courts; fishing, mineral, forest, casino
gambling, and other rights involving tribal lands became the subject of
litigation by the Puyallup (Washington state), the Northern Cheyenne (Montana),
and the Penobscot and the Passamaquoddy (Maine), among others. Although control
of economic resources was the focus of most such cases, some groups sought to
regain sovereignty over ancient tribal lands of primarily ceremonial and
religious significance.
Facts about
American Indians today
Source: Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of
the Interior
Who
is an Indian?
No single federal or tribal criterion establishes a
person's identity as an Indian. Tribal membership is determined by the
enrollment criteria of the tribe from which Indian blood may be derived, and
this varies with each tribe. Generally, if linkage to an identified tribal
member is far removed, one would not qualify for membership.
To be eligible for Bureau of Indian Affairs services,
an Indian must (1) be a member of a tribe recognized by the federal government,
(2) be of one-half or more Indian blood of tribes indigenous to the United
States; or (3) must, for some purposes, be of one-fourth or more Indian
ancestry. By legislative and administrative decision, the Aleuts, Eskimos and
Indians of Alaska are eligible for BIA services. Most of the BIA's services and
programs, however, are limited to Indians living on or near Indian reservations.
The Bureau of the Census counts anyone an Indian who
declares himself or herself to be an Indian. In 1990 the Census figures showed
there were 1,959,234 American Indians and Alaska Natives living in the United
States (1,878,285 American Indians, 57,152 Eskimos, and 23,797 Aleuts). This is
a 37.9 percent increase over the 1980 recorded total of 1,420,000. The increase
is attributed to improved census taking and more self- identification during
the 1990 count.
Why
are Indians sometimes referred to as Native Americans?
The term, “Native American,” came into usage in the
1960s to denote the groups served by the Bureau of Indian Affairs: American
Indians and Alaska Natives (Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts of Alaska). Later the
term also included Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in some federal
programs. It, therefore, came into disfavor among some Indian groups. The
preferred term is American Indian. The Eskimos and Aleuts in Alaska are two
culturally distinct groups and are sensitive about being included under the
“Indian” designation. They prefer “Alaska Native.”
How
does one trace Indian ancestry and become a member of a tribe?
The first step in tracing Indian ancestry is basic
genealogical research if one does not already have specific family information
and documents that identify tribal ties. Some information to obtain is: names
of ancestors; dates of birth; marriages and death; places where they lived;
brothers and sisters, if any; and, most importantly, tribal affiliations. Among
family documents to check are Bibles, wills, and other such papers. The next
step is to determine whether one's ancestors are on an official tribal roll or
census by contacting the tribe.
What
is a federally recognized tribe?
There are more than 550 federally recognized tribes in
the United States, including 223 village groups in Alaska. “Federally
recognized” means these tribes and groups have a special, legal relationship
with the U.S. government. This relationship is referred to as a
government-to-government relationship.
A number of Indian tribes and groups in the U.S. do
not have a federally recognized status, although some are state-recognized.
This means they have no relations with the BIA or the programs it operates. A
special program of the BIA, however, works with those groups seeking federal
recognition status. Of the 150 petitions for federal recognition received by
the BIA since 1978, 12 have received acknowledgment through the BIA process,
two groups had their status clarified by the Department of the Interior through
other means, and seven were restored or recognized by Congress.
Reservations.
In the U.S. there are only two kinds of reserved lands
that are well-known: military and Indian. An Indian reservation is land
reserved for a tribe when it relinquished its other land areas to the U.S.
through treaties. More recently, Congressional acts, Executive Orders, and
administrative acts have created reservations. Today some reservations have
non-Indian residents and land owners.
There are approximately 275 Indian land areas in the
U.S. administered as Indian reservations (reservations, pueblos, rancherias,
communities, etc.). The largest is the Navajo Reservation of some 16 million
acres of land in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Many of the smaller
reservations are less than 1,000 acres with the smallest less than 100 acres.
On each reservation, the local governing authority is the tribal government.
Approximately 56.2 million acres of land are held in
trust by the United States for various Indian tribes and individuals. Much of
this is reservation land; however, not all reservation land is trust land. On
behalf of the United States, the Secretary of the Interior serves as trustee
for such lands with many routine trustee responsibilities delegated to BIA
officials.
The states in which reservations are located have
limited powers over them, and only as provided by federal law. On some
reservations, however, a high percentage of the land is owned and occupied by
non-Indians. Some 140 reservations have entirely tribally owned land.
Taxes.
Indians pay the same taxes as other citizens with the
following exceptions: federal income taxes are not levied on income from trust
lands held for them by the United States; state income taxes are not paid on
income earned on an Indian reservation; state sales taxes are not paid by
Indians on transactions made on an Indian reservation; and local property taxes
are not paid on reservation or trust land.
Laws.
As U.S. citizens, Indians are generally subject to
federal, state, and local laws. On Indian reservations, however, only federal
and tribal laws apply to members of the tribe unless the Congress provides otherwise.
In federal law, the Assimilative Crimes Act makes any violation of state
criminal law a federal offense on reservations. Most tribes now maintain tribal
court systems and facilities to detain tribal members convicted of certain
offenses within the boundaries of the reservation.
Language
and Population
American
Indian Languages
Spoken
at Home by American Indian Persons 5 Years and Over in Households: 1990
Languages
Number
of
households
All
American Indian languages
281,990
Algonquian
languages
12,887
Athapascan
Eyak languages
157,694
Caddoan
languages
354
Central
and South American Indian languages
431
Haida
110
Hokan
languages
2,430
Iroquoian
languages
12,046
Keres
8,346
Muskogean
languages
13,772
Penutian
languages
8,190
Siouan
languages
19,693
Tanoan
languages
8,255
Tlingit
1,088
Tonkawa
3
Uto-Aztecan
languages
23,493
Wakashan
and Salish languages
1,105
Yuchi
65
Unspecified
American Indian languages
12,038
Source: U.S. Census Bureau. The American Indian
languages shown above are the major languages.
Many American places have been named after Indian
words. In fact, about half of the
states got their names from Indian words. Here are some:
Alabama
may
come from Choctaw meaning “thicket-clearers” or “vegetation-gatherers.”
Alaska
corruption
of Aleut word meaning “great land” or “that which the sea breaks against.”
Arizona
from
the Indian “Arizonac,” meaning “little spring” or “young spring.”
Arkansas
from
the Quapaw Indians
Chicago,
Ill
Algonquian
for "garlic field."
Chesapeake
(bay)
Algonquian
name of a village
Connecticut
from
an Indian word (Quinnehtukqut) meaning “beside the long tidal river.”
Dakota
from
the Sioux tribe, meaning “allies.”
Illinois
Algonquin
for “tribe of superior men.”
Indiana
meaning
“land of Indians.”
Iowa
probably
from an Indian word meaning “this is the place” or “the Beautiful Land.”
Kansas
from
a Sioux word meaning “people of the south wind.”
Kentucky
from an
Iroquoian word “Ken-tah-ten” meaning “land of tomorrow.”
Massachusetts
from
Massachusett tribe of Native Americans, meaning “at or about the great hill.”
Michigan
from
Indian word “Michigana” meaning “great or large lake.”
Minnesota
from
a Dakota Indian word meaning “sky-tinted water.”
Mississippi
from
an Indian word meaning “Father of Waters.”
Malibu
believed
to come from the Chumash Indians.
Manhattan
Algonquian,
believed to mean "isolated thing in water."
Milwaukee
Algonquian,
believed to mean "a good spot or place."
Missouri
named
after the Missouri Indian tribe. “Missouri” means “town of the large canoes.”
Narragansett
named
after the Indian tribe
Nebraska
from
an Oto Indian word meaning “flat water.”
Niagara
named
after an Iroquoian town, "Ongiaahra."
Ohio
from
an Iroquoian word meaning “great river.”
Oklahoma
from
two Choctaw Indian words meaning “red people.”
Pensacola
(Florida)
Choctaw
for "hair" and "people."
Roanoke
(Virginia)
Algonquian
for "shell money" (Indian tribes often used shells that were made
into beads called wampum, as money).
Saratoga
(New York)
believed
to be Mohawk for "springs (of water) from the hillside."
Sunapee
(lake in New Hampshire)
Pennacook
for "rocky pond."
Tahoe
(the lake in California/Nevada)
is
Washo for "big water."
Tennessee
of
Cherokee origin; the exact meaning is unknown.
Texas
from
an Indian word meaning “friends.”
Utah
is
from the Ute tribe, meaning “people of the mountains.”
Wisconsin
French
corruption of an Indian word whose meaning is disputed.
Wyoming
from
the Delaware Indian word, meaning “mountains and valleys alternating”; the
same as the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania.
American
Indian Loan Words
From their earliest contact with traders and
explorers, American Indians borrowed foreign words, often to describe things
not previously encountered. The language exchange went both ways. Today,
thousands of place names across North America have Indian origins - as do
hundreds of everyday English words.
Many of these "loan words" are nouns from
the Algonquian languages that were once widespread along the Atlantic coast.
English colonists, encountering unfamiliar plants and animals—among them moose,
opossum, and skunk—borrowed Indian terms to name them. Pronunciations generally
changed, and sometimes the newcomers shortened words they found difficult; for
instance, "pocohiquara" became "hickory."
Some U.S. English Words with Indian Origins:
anorak from the Greenlandic Inuit
"annoraq"
bayou from the Choctaw "bayuk"
chipmunk from
the Ojibwa "ajidamoon," red squirrel
hickory from the Virginia Algonquian
"pocohiquara"
hominy from the Virginia Algonquian
"uskatahomen"
igloo from the Canadian Inuit
"iglu," house
kayak from the Alaskan Yupik
"qayaq"
moccasin from
the Virginia Algonquian
moose from the Eastern Abenaki
"mos"
papoose from the Narragansett
"papoos," child
pecan from the Illinois "pakani"
powwow from
the Narragansett "powwaw," shaman
quahog from the Narragansett
"poquauhock"
squash from the Narragansett
"askutasquash"
succotash from
the Narragansett "msickquatash," boiled corn
tepee from the Sioux "tipi,"
dwelling
toboggan from
the Micmac "topaghan"
tomahawk from
the Virginia Algonquian "tamahaac"
totem from the Ojibwa
"nindoodem," my totem
wampum from
the Massachusett "wampumpeag"
wigwam from
the Eastern Abenaki "wik'wom" Natives.
Population
While the Indian population was never dense, the idea
that the Indian has held his own, or even actually increased in number, is a
serious error, founded on the fact that most official estimates begin with the
federal period, when the native race was already wasted by nearly three
centuries of white contact and in many regions entirely extinct. An additional
source of error is that the law recognizes anyone of even remote Indian
ancestry as entitled to Indian rights, including in this category, especially
in the former "Five Civilized Nations" of Indian Territory (now
Oklahoma), several thousand individuals whose claims have always been stoutly
repudiated by the native tribal courts. Moreover, the original Indian was a
full-blood, while his present-day representative has often so little aboriginal
blood as to practically a white man or a negro. Many broken tribes of today
contain not a single full-blood, and some few not even one of half Indian
blood. The Cherokee Nation, officially reported to number 36,000 persons of
pure or mixed Cherokee blood contains probably not 4000 of even fairly pure
blood, the rest being all degrees of admixture even down to one-sixty-fourth or
less of Indian blood, besides some 7000 claimants officially recognized, but
repudiated by the former Indian Government. In Massachusetts an official census
of 1860 reported a "Yartmouth tribe" of 105 persons, all descended
from a single Indian woman with a negro husband residing there in 1797. It is
obvious that the term Indian cannot properly be applied to such diluted
mixtures.
The entire aboriginal population of Florida, of the
mission period, numbering perhaps 30,000, is long since extinct without
descendants, the Seminole being a later emigrations from the Creeks. The
aborigines of South Carolina, counting in 1700 some fifteen tribes of which the
Catawba, the largest tribe, numbered some six thousand souls, are represented
today by about a hundred mixed blood Catawba, together with some scattered
mongrels, whose original ancestry is a matter of doubt.
The same holds good upon the plains, The celebrated
Pawnee tribe of some 10,000 souls in 1838 is now reduced to 650; the Kansas of
1500 within the same period have now 200 souls, and the aborigines of Texas,
numbering in 1700 perhaps some 40,000 souls in many small tribes with distinct
languages, is extinct except for some 900 Caddo, Wichita, and Tonkawa. The
last-named, estimated at 1,000 in 1805, numbered 700 in 1849, 300 in 1861, 108
in 1882, and 48 in 1908, including several aliens. In California the aboriginal
population has decreased within the same period from perhaps a quarter of a
million to perhaps 15,000, and nearly the same proportion of decrease holds
good along the whole Pacific coast into Alaska. Not only have tribes dwindled,
but whole linguistic stocks have become extinct within the historic period. The
only apparent exceptions to the general rule of decay are the Iroquois, Sioux,
and Navaho, the first two of whom have kept up their number by wholesale
adoptions, while the Navaho have been preserved by their isolation. The causes
of decrease may be summarized as: (1) introduced diseases and dissipation,
particularly smallpox, sexual disease, and whiskey; (2) wars, also hardship and
general enfeeblement consequent upon frequent removals and enforced change from
accustomed habitat. The present Indian population north of Mexico is approximately
400,000, or whom approximately 265,000 are within the United States proper.
Other native Americans
The Eskimo (Inuit and Yupiit)
and Aleuts are people of the treeless shores and tundra-covered coastal
hinterlands of northernmost North America and Greenland and the eastern tip of
the Chukchi Peninsula of Siberia. Custom alone designates them Eskimo and
Aleuts rather than American Indians like all other native Americans, from whom
they are distinguished principally by their language.
The Eskimo are an Asian people who are distinguishable from the
American Indians by their more Asian features, by the relative smallness of
their hands and feet, and by a few less obvious traits.
Eskimo culture was totally
adapted to an extremely cold, snow- and icebound environment in which vegetable
foods were almost nonexistent, trees were scarce, and caribou, seal, walrus,
and whale meat, whale blubber, and fish were the major food sources. The Eskimo
used harpoons to kill seals, which they hunted either on the ice or from
skin-covered, one-person canoes known as kayaks. Whales were hunted using
larger boats called umiaks. In the summer most Eskimo families hunted caribou
and other land animals with the help of bows and arrows. Dogsleds were the
basic means of transport on land. Eskimo clothing was fashioned of caribou
furs, which provided protection against the extreme cold. Most Eskimo wintered
in either snow-block houses called igloos or semisubterranean houses of stone
or sod over wooden or whalebone frameworks. In summer many Eskimo lived in
animal-skin tents. Their b asic
social and economic unit was the nuclear family, and their religion was
animistic.
Eskimo life changed greatly in
the 20th century owing to increased contacts with societies to the south.
Snowmobiles have generally replaced dogs for land transport, and rifl es have replaced harpoons for hunting purposes.
Outboard motors, store-bought clothing, and numerous other manufactured items
have entered the culture, and money, unknown in traditional Eskimo economy, has
become a necessity. Many Eskimo have abandoned their nomadic hunting pursuits
to move into northern towns and cities or to work in mines and oil fields.
Others, particularly in Canada, have formed cooperatives to market their
handicrafts, fish catches, and ventures in tourism.
Aleut - a native of the Aleutian
Islands and western portion of the Alaska Peninsula of northwest North America.
Aleuts speak three mutually intelligible dialects and are closely related to
the Eskimo in language, race, and culture. The earliest people, the
Paleo-Aleuts, arrived in the Aleutian Islands from the Alaskan mainland about
2000 BC. The Aleuts hunted seals, sea otters, whales, sea lions, sometimes
walrus, and, in some areas, caribou and bears. Fish, birds, and mollusks were
also taken. One-man and two-man skin boats known as bidarkas, or kayaks, and
large, open, skin boats (Eskimo umiaks) were used. Aleut women wove fine grass
basketry; stone, bone, and ivory were also worked. Ancient Aleut villages were
situated on the seashore near fresh water, with a good landing for boats and in
a position safe from surprise attack from other Aleuts or neighbouring tribes.
Villages were usually composed of related families. A chief might govern several
villages or an island, but there was no chief over all Aleuts or even over
several islands.
Epilogue
A long time ago North America was very different from
the way it is today. There were no highways, cars, or cities. There were
no schools, malls, or
restaurants. But even long, long ago, there were still communities. People made
their own homes, food, and clothing
from the plants and animals they found around them.
Americans today owe a great deal to the First
Americans. Over half of the states and many of the cities, rivers and streets
still have Native Americans names. Nearly 550 Indian words are part of everyday
English. Many foods, such as potatoes, corn, peanuts, turkey, tomatoes, cocoa,
beans were borrowed by later settlers from the Native Americans. It was from
the Indians that other Americans learned how to use rubber.
In fact without the help of the Native Americans many
other early settlers might never have survived.
In conclusion I would like to cite the words of George
W. Bush, today’s President of the U.S., which he said in National American
Indian Heritage Month proclamation, dated November 19, 2001:
“As the early inhabitants of this great land, the native peoples of
North America played a unique role in the shaping of our Nation's history and
culture. During this month when we celebrate Thanksgiving, we especially
celebrate their heritage and the contributions of American Indian and Alaska
Native peoples to this Nation. [ …] American Indian and Alaska Native cultures
have made remarkable contributions to our national identity. Their unique
spiritual, artistic, and literary contributions, together with their vibrant
customs and celebrations, enliven and enrich our land.
As
we move into the 21st century, American Indians and Alaska Natives will play a
vital role in maintaining our Nation's strength and prosperity. Almost half of
America's Native American tribal leaders have served in the United States Armed
Forces, following in the footsteps of their forebears who distinguished themselves
during the World Wars and the conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian
Gulf. […]
During
National American Indian Heritage Month, I call on all Americans to learn more
about the history and heritage of the Native peoples of this great land. Such actions
reaffirm our appreciation and respect for their traditions and way of life and
can help to preserve an important part of our culture for generations yet to
come. “
Список литературы
Encyclopaedia Britannica, electronic edition, 1999
Gilbert Legay, Atlas of Indians of Northern America,
Barrons Educ, 1995
Keith C. Wilbur, The New England Indians, The Globe
Pequot Press, 1978
Bryn O’Calladhan, An Illustrated Hystory of the USA,
Longman, 1990
V.M. Pavlotsky, American studies, Karo, St.- Pt., 2000
http://www.first-americans.spb.ru/n4/win/current.htm
– Russian Pages of American Indian Almanac
http://www.nativetech.org
- Native American technologies and
art
http://etext.virginia.edu/subjects/Native-American.html
– electronic texts by and about American Indians
http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/start.htm
– very
useful encyclopaedia
http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/k12/naha/maps/nausa.html
– tribe
finder
http://www.infoplease.com
– statistics and useful data
Для подготовки даннойmain sourses работы были использованы материалы с сайта http://www.refcentr.ru/