Американские индейцы

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

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