Many museums, including the Maryhill Museum of Art near Goldendale, Washington, have displays of Mission Baskets. The designation “Mission Baskets” was developed by anthropologist Alfred Kroeber in 1922. According to the Maryhill Museum display: “Basketry from most of southern California has traditionally been grouped together under the name Mission. This term was used because the … Continued
The Great Basin Culture Area includes the high desert regions between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. It is bounded on the north by the Columbia Plateau and on the south by the Colorado Plateau. It includes southern Oregon and Idaho, a small portion of southwestern Montana, western Wyoming, eastern California, all of Nevada … Continued
American Indian people have lived along the Columbia and Snake Rivers for thousands of years. The confluence of these two rivers served as a camping area, a trading center, and a fishing site. Today this is Washington’s Sacajawea State Park. One of the exhibits in the Sacajawea Museum in the park illustrates the Plateau longhouse. … Continued
Throughout thousands of years of human history, people have utilized the healing powers of certain plants as an important part of their healthcare. Briefly described below are some of the medicinal plants used by Southern California’s Chumash. The aboriginal territory of the Chumash was in the vicinity of present-day Santa Barbara, California. Their territory included … Continued
For the Plains Indians, the buffalo (technically bison) was more than an important source of food, shelter, and clothing: the buffalo was also an important spiritual and cultural symbol. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were an estimated 30 million buffalo roaming the Great Plains. A century later, in 1900, the buffalo had … Continued
During the first part of the nineteenth century, the fur trade continued to be an important area in the contact between American Indians and Europeans. During this time, beaver was of primary importance, driven in large part by European fashion. Shown above are two made beaver pelts on display in the Heritage Museum in Astoria, … Continued
The Caddo were an agricultural tribe living in what is now Louisiana and Texas when the first European explorers entered the region. The Caddo were a group of theocratic chiefdoms who were the cultural descendants of the earlier Mississippian mound-building cultures. The term “Caddo” originates from one particular tribe, the Kadohadacho who occupied the area … Continued
During the first part of the twentieth century, the United States continued in its efforts to assimilate American Indians into an English-speaking, Christian European culture. Traditional American Indian religious practices were oppressed and discouraged as barriers to this assimilation. Briefly described below are some of the events of 1917 related to Indian religions. Native American … Continued
The Maryhill Museum located near Goldendale, Washington, has a display of Plateau stone artifacts. 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 … Continued
“We have been traveling through a cloud. The sky has been dark ever since the war began.” Moxtaveto (Black Kettle) The intent to commit genocide at Washita is hidden in plain view, unless key elements are brought together. These are: that the Cheyenne were placed on land where they would starve while promises to avert … Continued
