Native Americans of the United States

Long ago, North America was very different from the way it is today. The first people arrived in North America from Asia by crossing a land bridge that temporarily connected the continents. Since these were the first people to live in North America, they are known as Native Americans. Many different cultures of Native Americans developed over the course of time. Culture refers to the people's way of life. Each culture was affected by the natural resources that were available to them. Natural resources were used as tools for survival providing such necessities as food, clothing, and shelter.

Native Americans of the Southwest Location

The Southwest Native Americans come from the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Southern Colorado, and the northern part of Mexico.  Most of the land is desert covered with cactus. 

Who Were They?

The main tribes that come from the Southwest area are the Apache, Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo, & Zuni.  Some tribes spoke their own languages, had their own religious customs, and laws they followed.  Most of the Southwest Native Americans became farmers and lived in villages.

The Navajo Navajo, or Dine -they call themselves, is the

largest tribe of North American Indians.  Long ago, the ancestors lived in Northwestern Canada and Alaska.  Over 1,000 years ago they began to travel south and reached the southwestern United States.  They met farmers who are known as Pueblo Indians, and the Navajo began to settle near them and learn from them.  The Navajo learned how to plant corn, beans, squash, and melons.  The Navajo also began to learn a similar style of weaving, making clothing and art from the Pueblo Indians.

Navajo Indians used their Natural Resources

The Navajo Indians lived in homes called hogans.  They are made from wooden poles, tree bark, and mud.  The doorway opened to the east so they could welcome the sun.

The Hopi Indians

The Hopi Indians, which means good, peaceful, or wise, come from a group of Southwestern people called Pueblo, but their language is different.  They live in northeast Arizona at the southern end of the Black Mesa.  A mesa is the name given to a small isolated flat-topped hill with three steep sides called the 1st Mesa, 2nd Mesa, and the 3rd Mesa.    They live in pueblos that are made of stone and mud and stand several stories high.

Pueblo Indians

The Pueblo people are descendants of the Anasazi culture.  Their culture is the oldest north of Mexico.   They are farmers.  The men are weavers and the women are potters.  The Pueblo tribes further developed farming, pottery, textiles, and a lot of mythology and developed

their own religion. 

Kivas

The men built a large underground chamber called kivas for secret ceremonies.  A modern kiva is a rectangular or circular shape with a pit fire in the center and a timbered roof.  An opening in the floor represents the entrance to the lower world and the place through which life emerged into this world.

Native Americans of the Pacific West Coast - Location Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest lived along a narrow strip of land thathugs the Pacific Coast from what is now southern Alaskato southern Oregon.

Native Americans of the Pacific West Coast

Thousands of years ago, humans began to settle along the narrow strip of land that hugs the Pacific West Coast. Their lands stretched from what is now Southern Alaska to southern Oregon. It was a land of abundance. Fish and sea mammals crowded the oceans. The mild, rainy climate resulted in lush evergreen forests filled with berries, meats, and roots.

The Culture of the Pacific Northwest

This culture differed from other Native American cultures. First, it was the first culture not influenced by the Maya and Aztec cultures. Second, these people developed an advanced culture without practicing agriculture or making pottery. Third, since food was in abundance, these people had time to make material possessions.

Life Style of the Pacific Northwest

These people built their homes on the beach or along waterways. A

village consisted of one or more rows of wooden houses that faced the ocean or river. In the winter months,

they moved to temporary shelter further inland.

Their Crafts

Since they collected enough food in the spring and summer to last through the winter, their winter months were spent creating art, telling stories, and feasting during elaborate ceremonies.

These people are also know for their elaborate carvings of wooden canoes and totem poles.

Family Life

People of the Pacific Northwest lived in villages that were divided into two group called moieties )MOY-uh-tees). Each moiety was composed of two clans. The members considered themselves related because they shared the same spirit ancestor.

A Potlatch An important event such as the naming of

a baby, coming of age, or a wedding was held during a special ceremony called a potlatch.

Beliefs: The Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest believed that spirits lived in everything. Most of the spirits were good, but some were evil!!

Native Americans of the Plains

Thousands of years ago, small bands of hunters walked onto the Great Plains. Over time, their numbers grew and different groups developed into different nations. Each nation had their own language. In time, the Plains Indians settled into one of two ways of lives; nomadic or sedentary.

Native Americans of the Plains

The land of the Plains Native Americans stretched from the the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, and from Canada to Texas.

Groups like the Lakota and Dakota (Sioux), Pawnee and Arapaho lived in the northern and central part of the region.

Tribes like the Kiowa, Apache and Comanche lived in the southern area.

The people of the Plains came from other areas after being pushed out by other tribes.

In their old lands, they had been farmers. In the plains they became buffalo hunters.

The Buffalo

When most people think of Native Americans, images of tipis and buffalo hunts come to mind. However, Native Americans of the Plains did live slightly different lives. The sedentary tribes settled mostly on the north eastern fringes and were farmers. Occasionally they would hunt buffalo.

The nomadic tribes followed the buffalo.

Importance of the Buffalo

Most pictures of Native Americans of the Great Plains show them hunting buffalo on horseback. That didn’t happen until later. In the beginning, the Native Americans hunted the buffalo on foot! It wasn’t until the late 1600’s that horses were introduced. This opened a time of great posterity for the Native Americans of the Plains.

Hunting and Warfare

Men of the Plains tribes divided their time between hunting and warfare. Buffalo were their main prey, but they also hunted smaller animals. Warriors fought to gain the best hunting grounds and campsites for the band. They also fought to capture horses and to fight off others who might want to take their land.

Homes of the Plains

There were two very different types of homes on the plains. Most nomadic tribes such as the Blackfeet and

Comanche lived in temporary shelters called tipis.

These villages moved about following the buffalo. Farming tribes lived in permanent villages of earth lodges.

Their Beliefs

Like other Native American groups, the Plains Indians believed that spirits lived in everything. They believed that their very survival depended on living in harmony with these supernatural powers. When seeking spiritual guidance, a Plains Indian might go on a vision quest where they would fast, pray, rest, and stay awake for a few days.

Plains Indians Today

Plains Indians are still living on the Plains today. They were forced onto reservations when the “White Man” moved west and took over their lands.

Woodland Native Americans

Once, long ago, Native Americans lived right where we live today! They were part of a group known as the Woodland tribes, because, at that time, most of the area where we live today was woods.

What tribes live here? The Wampanoag, Iroquois, and

Cherokee lived in the Eastern Woodlands region.

Where do they live?

Most Native Americans in the Eastern Woodlands lived in wigwams or longhouses.

Wigwams are domeshaped houses made of birch bark and long limbs. Only one family lived in each wigwam.

Longhouses are large houses made of wood. These houses were so big that as many as 20 families could live in one longhouse.

There were two main language groups of Native Americans in the northeast region: Iroquois and Algonquin. Within those language groups were many individual tribes or nations. The Algonquin lived in two areas: around the Great Lakes, and near the Atlantic Ocean. The Wampanoag nation were the first tribe that Europeans met when they came to America. Both the Illini and Potawatomi, tribes that lived in Illinois long ago, were part of the Algonquin language group.In 1570, the League of the Iroquois was formed from five tribes: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. The Tuscarora tribe joined in 1772, and it became the Six Nations. This group of people lived in what is now New York state. The Iroquois call themselves the Hodenosaunee, which means "People of the Longhouse".

The people of the woodlands lived in forests full of trees, plants and wildlife. They lived in longhouses. Longhouses are built of small trees to make the frame, and then they are covered with tree bark.

Living in the woods meant there were plenty of resources, including food. Woodland tribes were hunters and gatherers. They hunted bear, moose and bison, and were effective fishermen. They also ate beavers, raccoons, rabbits, corn, beans and berries. Woodland Indians grew squash, pumpkins and melons. Tribes in the Great Lakes Area ate a lot of rice.

In the sense that all Woodland First Nations were living in heavily forested areas, many aspects of the cultures of the various Eastern Woodland Indians were similar. But the territory extended thousands of miles. Differences in climate meant differences in cultural practices. Variations in temperature and terrain from one end of the region to another meant that there were significant differences in types of housing, food resources and clothing.

And the restrictions imposed by the transportation and communication systems available in such a huge territory, meant that there were also many variations in social and political structures, religious beliefs, and language within the broad culture of the Eastern Woodland Indians society.

The glue that held it all together was dodem - a system of governance that included seven clans and seven subsections within the clans. Membership in one clan or another was universal across the vast Eastern Woodland Indian territory. Each clan had a specific responsibility to the welfare of the society as a whole.

At the time of European contact, there were three large sub-groups of Woodland Indians that could be divided geographically (north, northeastern and southeastern) and very roughly into three language families...Algonquian, Iroquoian and Muskogean.

Native Americans of the Southeast

Native Americans of the Southeast

Southeastern tribes lived in states like Louisiana, Georgia and Alabama. They were hunters and gatherers. Some of them moved from one area to another but the majority stayed in the same area. It just depended on where they lived and how much food was available. Some of the Southeastern tribes include Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole.

Native Americans of the Southeast

About 4000 years ago, there were many different Southeast Woodland Indian tribes. Most tribes were farmers, hunters, and gatherers. They lived in homes. They each had a structured government. They spoke different languages

and dialects. Some knew each other. Some did not. 

A Rich History

Since the earliest contact with European explorers in the 16th century, the Cherokee people have been consistently identified as one of the most socially and culturally advanced of the Native American tribes. Cherokee culture thrived many hundreds of years before initial European contact in the southeastern area of what is now the United States.

Each tribe was divided into a small number of clans. Clans were related people. When a baby was born, he or she belonged to the mother's clan. Laws varied, but some laws were the same in all tribes. One such law was that you could not marry someone from your own clan.

The Southeast Woodland people believed in honor. They believed in many gods and goddesses, deities to whom they prayed in song and dance for help and guidance. had some very strange customs, and some very beautiful ones.

They had many things in common. They were artistic, clever people. They produced colorful art using natural dyes. They made basket from natural fibers to haul food and store goods. They used shells to make really sharp knives.

They created incredible beadwork. These early people were great story tellers. They were knowledgeable about herbs and natural medicines. Knowledge was handed down orally from one generation to the next.