Both spoken language and sign language are capable of communicating a great deal of information, but they have a limited physical range. American Indian hunting parties, for example, often needed to communicate across long distances to coordinate their hunts, and this communication needed to be quiet so as not to alert the game to the … Continued
Indians, according to the non-Indian social philosophers, bureaucrats, and politicians of the nineteenth century, were going to simply disappear by the end of the century or in the early twentieth century. Many history books about Indians stop their stories at the end of the nineteenth century, adding to the illusion that Indians somewhat stopped being … Continued
The Southeastern Woodlands is an area which is bounded by the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands of Arkansas and Missouri and the dry plains of eastern Texas on the west and the low plateaus of Kentucky and Tennessee and the interior plains of Illinois on the north. The eastern boundary is the Atlantic Ocean and southern boundary is … Continued
The Choctaw, at the time of European contact, were a loosely organized confederacy composed of three distinctly different divisions: Okla Falaya (Long People), Okla Tannap (People of the Opposite Side), and Okla Hannalia (Sixtown People). The people were living in more than 100 autonomous villages. With regard to language, Choctaw is a Muskogean language which … Continued
The Southwest Culture Area is a culturally diverse area. Geographically it covers all of Arizona and New Mexico and includes parts of Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Texas as well as parts of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua. Much of this area is semi-arid; part of it is true desert (southern Arizona); and part … Continued
In major museums, only a small fraction of the artifacts held by the museum are on display and interpreted for the public. Most of the museum’s artifacts are in vaults where they are available only to researchers. The Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History maintains a Visible Vault in which visitors can view hundreds … Continued
In 1527, The Spanish soldier Pánfilio de Narváez, with a reputation for brutality and a strong desire to find gold and wealth, began his ill-fated invasion of Florida. Failing to find the mythical gold and militarily defeated by the Indians, the surviving Spanish built five boats with the intention of sailing from the panhandle of … Continued
The river known to the Chinook Indians as Hyas Cooley Chuck collides with the Pacific Ocean to create the worst wave conditions on the planet. While Native people regularly crossed the Bar in their large ocean-going canoes, the rough water stopped many of the early European explorers who were looking for the mythical River of … Continued
The traditional homelands of the Caddo stretched from the Red River Valley in Louisiana to the Brazos River Valley in Texas. The Caddo were agricultural people whose culture emerged about 800 CE. Caddo culture is considered to be related to the Mississippian mound-building cultures. The term “Caddo” originates from one particular tribe, the Kadohadacho who … Continued
The Cahuilla homeland in California was bounded on the north by the San Bernardino Mountains; on the south by the northern Borrego Desert; on the east by the Colorado Desert; on the west by the present-day city of Riverside. The map shown above shows Cahuilla territory in relationship to other Southern California Indian nations. While … Continued
