Native American Cultures SW, Pacific Coast, Great Plains

I. The Southwest Zuni, Hopi, Apache, and Navajo descendants of Anasazi and Hohokam “Pueblo peoples” corn, squash, and beans

 boys, 6, joined kachina cult  kachina – good spirit kachinas supposedly visited town each year, messages from gods – wearing masks and dancing helped bring the spirits to town

Hopi House

II. The Pacific Coast  coastal forests, lumber  homes, canoes, totem poles

Redwood National Park

legends, cultural beliefs, art no restrictions on vertical order never objects of worship Totem Poles

These people did not practice agriculture, they fished in rivers like the Columbia for salmon.

Columbia River Gorge...Oregon

Nez Perce and Yakima occupied land between Cascades and Rockies Cascade Mountains

Shoshone Falls Shoshone and Ute, between Sierra Nevadas and Rockies, more nomadic because land was too dry and food scarce

III. The Great Plains influenced by Hopewell and Mississippian lived near Missouri and other rivers

Sioux – followed buffalo and lived in tepees

How did life change for the Sioux and others after the Spanish introduced horses?

 Sioux warriors took scalps of enemies  greater glory came with the “counting coup” – charge towards the enemy and touch one with a stick (humiliating)

Far North, NE, SE

IV. The Far North Aleut, Aleutian Islands Inuit (Eskimos), Alaska to Greenland

hunted seals and caribou kayaks and dogsleds lamps - whale oil for fuel

dwellings - igloos

V. The Northeast 2 language groups – Algonquian and Iroquoian among first to encounter English settlers Huron, Erie, Mohawk

slash-and-burn agriculture – cut forests, burned cleared land, left with rich soil

longhouses – barrel-shaped, covered with bark

wigwams – houses used by Algonquian Indians…means “house” in the Abenaki tribal language

wampum belts – designs recorded events

The Iroquois League war often erupted among Iroquoian groups late 1500s – Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk formed this alliance, peace Great Binding Law – constitution that defined how confederacy worked chiefs were men, women who headed kinship groups selected them Hiawatha

VI. The Southeast most lived in towns central plaza, earthen walls

CCherokee was largest group wwestern N.C. and Tennessee 220,000 when Europeans arrived

Smoky Mountains

Statue of Sequoyah outside the Museum of the Cherokee Indians, Cherokee, North Carolina

The Natchez lived in the Southeast as well and now have a parkway named after them.

Natchez Trace Parkway