Chief Pretty Nose, Cheyenne, 1878. https://imgur.com/gallery/CFggo Yesterday, November 24, 2017, the day after Thanksgiving, was celebrated as Native American Heritage Day. The month of November is generally designated as Native American Heritage Month. According to www.census.gov/…, the first American Indian Day was celebrated in May 1916 in New York. Red Fox James, a member of … Continued
In providing a broad overview of the hundreds of distinct American Indian cultures found in North America, it is common for museums, historians, archaeologists, and ethnologists to use a culture area model. This model is based on the observation that different groups of people living in the same geographic area often share many cultural features. … Continued
Located inside the Shilo Battlefield National Military Park is the Indian Mounds National Park. This is a Mississipian-culture village, inhabited between roughly 1000 and 1400 CE with the remains of a number of artificial mounds. Some were ceremonial, some were burial sites, and some were houses. Some photos from a visit: The park The village … Continued
The Huron, whose traditional homeland was north of the Great Lakes, were a confederacy of four major tribes: Bear, Rock, Barking Dogs, and White Thorns (also known as Canoes). The people called their confederacy Wendat or People of the Peninsula. They were given the name Huron by the French: the name came from hure, meaning “boar’s … Continued
The Subarctic Culture Area lies south of the Arctic Circle and covers some 12 million square miles. It spreads from the interior of Alaska to the Atlantic Ocean. This is an area where the winters are cold – often colder than in the Arctic – and the summers are short. During the summer, the blackflies … Continued
Five of the Southeastern Indian nations – Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole – are sometimes called the “five Civilized Tribes”. The designation “civilized” is an indication that they had acquired many elements of European cultures and were the most acculturated Indian tribes during the nineteenth century. The Chickasaw, descendents of one of the Mississippian chiefdoms … Continued
The aboriginal homeland of the Kalispel (“Camas People”) was in the camas-rich area around Calispell Lake and the Pend Oreille River in what is now eastern Washington. Their homeland was heavily forested and mountainous with interspersed meadows. Their lifestyle prior to the coming of the horse was centered on the river. Their traditional territory followed … Continued
In 1855, Washington Territorial Governor Isaac I. Stevens set out to negotiate-or rather, impose-a series of treaties on the Indian nations of the region which would free land for non-Indian settlement and place Indians on less valuable land, out of the way of American settlement. Stevens knew very little about Indians and assumed that all … Continued
In 1792, American ships from Boston under the command of Captain Robert Gray sailed along the Pacific Coast of what is now Oregon and Washington seeking to trade with the coastal Indians and obtain furs which were valuable in the European and Chinese markets. On May 7, Gray sailed into a large estuarine bay about … Continued
A historical paradox is that once a people are freed, they sometimes become the aggressors. For instance, the Texans who defeated the Mexicans in the Texas Revolution fought exterminated the Comanche; some freed slaves became Buffalo Soldiers and joined the genocide campaign. Today, there are Christianized American Indians, and Christianized into Dominionism, who commit cultural … Continued
