Native American Cultures

SW, Pacific Coast, Great Plains

I. The Southwest•Zuni, Hopi, Apache, and Navajo•descendants of Anasazi and Hohokam•“Pueblo peoples”•corn, squash, and beans

boys, 6, joined kachina cultkachina – good spirit

kachinas supposedly visited town each year, messages from gods – wearing masksand dancing helped bring the spirits to town

Hopi House

II. The Pacific Coastcoastal forests, lumberhomes, canoes, totem poles

Redwood National Park

legends, culturalbeliefs, art

no restrictions onvertical order

never objects of worship

Totem Poles

These people did not practice agriculture, they fished in riverslike the Columbia for salmon.

Columbia River Gorge...Oregon

Nez Perce and Yakima occupied land betweenCascades and Rockies

Cascade Mountains

Shoshone Falls

Shoshone and Ute, between Sierra Nevadas and Rockies, more nomadic because land was too dry and food scarce

III. The Great Plains

III. The Great Plains

•influenced by Hopewell and Mississippian

•lived near Missouri and other rivers

Sioux – followed buffalo and lived in tepees

How did life change for the Sioux and others after the Spanish introduced horses?

Sioux warriors took scalps of enemiesgreater glory came with the “counting coup” – charge towards the

enemy and touch one with a stick (humiliating)

Far North, NE, SE

IV. The Far North

•Aleut, Aleutian Islands•Inuit (Eskimos), Alaska

to Greenland

•hunted seals and caribou•kayaks and dogsleds•lamps - whale oil for fuel

dwellings - igloos

V. The Northeast

•2 language groups – Algonquian and Iroquoian•among first to encounter English settlers•Huron, Erie, Mohawk

slash-and-burn agriculture – cut forests, burned cleared land, left with rich soil

longhouses – barrel-shaped, coveredwith bark

wigwams – houses used by Algonquian Indians…means “house” in the Abenaki tribal language

wampum belts – designs recorded events

The Iroquois League

•war often erupted among Iroquoian groups•late 1500s – Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk formed this alliance, peace•Great Binding Law – constitution that defined how confederacy worked•chiefs were men, women who headed kinship groups selected them

Hiawatha

VI. The Southeast•most lived in towns•central plaza, earthen walls

Cherokee was largest groupwestern N.C. and Tennessee20,000 when Europeans arrived

Smoky Mountains

Statue of Sequoyah outside the Museum of the Cherokee Indians, Cherokee, North Carolina

The Natchez lived in the Southeast as well and nowhave a parkway named after them.

Natchez TraceParkway