The Plateau Culture Area is the area between the Cascade Mountains and the Rocky Mountains in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, and Western Montana. From north to south it runs from the Fraser River in the north to the Blue Mountains in the south. Much of the area is classified as semi-arid. Part of it … Continued
The Artic Culture Area includes the Aleutian Islands, most of the Alaska Coast, the Canadian Artic, and parts of Greenland. It is an area which can be described as a “cold” desert. The area has long, cold winters and short summers. All of the aboriginal peoples in this cultural area are considered to be hunting … Continued
From the Native American perspective, the sixteenth-century marked the beginning of the European invasion. The first Europeans to contact the Native nations were explorers, adventurers, soldiers, and missionaries who were seeking personal glory, gold, and souls for their god. Later the European myth of the Americas, often written in the form of histories, would describe … Continued
The Plateau Culture Area is the area between the Cascade Mountains and the Rocky Mountains in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, and Western Montana. From north to south it runs from the Fraser River in the north to the Blue Mountains in the south. Much of the area is classified as semi-arid. Part of it … Continued
A literate society does not record a complete history of all of the people in the society. History is often recorded by ruling elites to justify their actions and over time history is often revised to reflect contemporary attitudes and to provide propaganda for particular political, philosophical, and religious viewpoints. To the elites who record … 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 designation Cahuilla is said to mean “masters” or “powerful ones.” As a tribal designation, Cahuilla … Continued
The Hagerman Valley Historical Museum is a small (1,200 square foot) museum in Hagerman, Idaho. One of the exhibits in this museum is Indian Arts of the West. Arrowhead collections, such as the one shown above, are common in small museums. While they are interesting, from an archaeological perspective they tell us little about the … Continued
Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour cleverly located at the intersection of religion and politics. This is an open thread where we can share our thoughts and comments about the day. We are going to start today with some American Indian jewelry from the Southwest. Like peoples throughout the world, the Native peoples of … Continued
Linguists studying and comparing languages throughout the world have noted that some languages are similar to each other in terms of vocabulary, sound patterns, and grammatical structure. Using these comparisons, they group languages into language families. According to linguists Laurence C. Thompson and M. Dale Kinkade, in their chapter on languages in the Handbook of … Continued
The Fort Dalles Museum in the Dalles, Oregon, has a number of old photographs documenting Indian fishing on the Columbia River prior to the completion of the Dalles Dam which inundated the traditional fishing areas. Background For more than 15,000 years Indian people have lived adjacent to the Columbia River. The river provided them with … Continued
