Marion Donovan was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana in the year of 1917. She spent her childhood hanging around the manufacturing plant run by her father and uncle who were inventors. As she grew up she lived in Connecticut, got married, and became a post-world war II housewife. She gave birth to two children. She got frustrated by changing her youngest child’s soiled cloth diaper, bed sheets, and clothing so she decided to create a diaper to cover, comfort, and keep the baby dry. As ideas came to thought, she went into the kitchen and sat at her sewing machine with a shower curtain in her hand and went to work. It took her several attempts but she completed a waterproof diaper. At that time rubber diaper pants were used but they would pinch the…
In the 1700’s Many of the Shawnee Indians’ homeland is now present day Ohio, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. They never really settled they spent a lot of their time traveling. They didn’t live in your traditional tepee that most Indians lived in, their homes were called “wigwams” or “wikkums”, and they were small round dwellings. Most of the wigwams were about 8-10 foot tall and made with a wooden frame covered in birch bark and wooven mats. Often times they only stayed in a certain place for about two months before they would migrate to a new area. The Shawnee Indian’s clothing changed some as they traded with other Indian tribes and white people. Clothing was still simple for them, women wore long skirts with leggings and moccasins while the men wore leggings are breechcloths usually down to their knees. As the weather changed and winter approached, they added fur caps, snowshoes, robes, and ponchos to their attire. Sometimes they would wear beaded head bands some would contain a feather or two. Most Shawnee wore their hair long, except for in battle they would cut it in a Mohawk. Some would do face painting and have tribal tattoos during battle as well.…
In Northeastern tribes the people used dried bearskin, which was one of the artifacts displayed at the museum, primarily for bedding material. Although men usually hunted, women were responsible for preparing the pelts. After the flesh was removed from a skin, it was stretched out on the ground to dry. Pegs were then placed around the edge of the skin to keep it in place and reduce shrinkage. When it was also desirable to remove the hair, the next stage in the process was to tan the hide. Tanning involved the use of a mixture of purified brain, liver, and fat. This composite was applied to the flesh side of the skin and worked into it by hand. After several hours had elapsed (sometimes days), the skin was scraped and rubbed between the hands…
| They must be out in the special laundry bags which disintegrate when being washed.…
The Sundance, or known to the Lakota as Wiwanyag Wachipi, is one of the most fundamental and sacred rites of the Lakota people. It is also one of the more complex rituals, as it is a dance aligned with the sun for three days and two nights and there are numerous small details that must be done before the ritual can take place. Created as a means of bringing together the Lakota people and providing community during hardship, the Sundance is the largest and quickest pan-Indian movement up to date.…
In The Medicine Bag by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve the medicine bag is symbolic in Native American culture. A medicine bag is a small pouch, worn by some Native American people, that contains items associated with spiritual healing. This ties into the mythology and beliefs of Native American people.…
When the cause and solution are unclear in historical events or scientific studies, we speak of possibilities. We debate the possibilities of how, what and why in order to obtain a clearer or at least a step closer to the actual fact that sometimes is not accessible through anything other than possibilities. The fact here is that the Pine Ridge Reservation, home to the Lakota Sioux and the second largest reservation in America, is one of, if not the poorest, communities in America. The inhabitants suffer from a poor quality of life and health that is and has been on a downward spiral into oblivion. According to current USDA Rural Development documents, the Lakota have the lowest life expectancy of any group in America.[1] Statistics by the U.S. Census Bureau state that teenage suicide rate on the Pine Ridge Reservation is 150% higher than the U.S. national average for this age group.[2] The rate of diabetes on the reservation is reported to be 800% higher than the U.S. national average. More than half the reservation's adults battle addiction and disease; alcoholism, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and malnutrition are pervasive. The big question is why do the Lakota have a higher percentage of suicide rates, obesity, heart disease, alcoholism and many other health issues than the national average when there are only approximately 40,000 inhabitants on the Pine Ridge Reservation? Is it possible that the Lakota are genetically prone for poor mental and physical health? Or could the health of modern day Sioux be an after effect of European contact?…
In Cannon Ball, North Dakota there’s a land called Standing Rock Sioux reservation and that’s where the USACE wants to put a pipeline in. The Standing Rock Sioux reservation is a Native American sacred and burial ground. The Native Americans don’t want them putting the pipeline in because, it’ll contaminate their clean water and bother the people who were buried there. At first, the pipeline wasn’t a big deal and then the USACE wouldn’t cooperate and the THPO sued them which caused a very big problem. Once this problem started, it started to grow into a very, very huge deal and endangered people’s lives.…
Generally, many Native Americans do not have a set idea about life after death, but some believe in reincarnation as humans, ghosts, animals or a combination of these…
Two major societal factors that have contributed possibly to the health outcomes of Native Americans are discrimination and poverty. For many generations, Native Americans have been coerced to vacate their lands leaving behind culture and traditions stripping away their communal pride. They have been huddled to rural impoverished areas causing them detrimental physical and psychiatric health effects.…
For better or worse, many societies of the modern world tolerate certain methods of self-intoxication. Despite the possibility of negative consequences, all the cultures of the world the consumption of substances like alcohol and tobacco are sanctioned under particular circumstances. All societies face the reality that significant proportions of mankind seek to the same time expressly criminalizing others. This irony is made more bizarre by the evidence that a myriad of rich cultural timelines can supply to demonstrate that there is reasonable historical precedence in existence to show the use of alternative forms of drugs being cultivated and utilized.(McKenna)…
Native American culture has a very rich history and its healing rituals have been practiced in North America for up to 40,000 years and shares roots with ancient Ayurvedic and Chinese traditions. Native Americans were influenced by the environment, plants, and animals in the areas in which they settled. Some practices were influenced over time by migration and contact with other tribes along trade routes. Many tribes used herbs and seeds gathered from their immediate environment and from hunting excursions for healing rituals or ceremonies.…
In Plane’s essay, “Childbirth Practices Among Native American Women of New England and Canada, 1600-1800,” the author describes the Euro-American’s views of Native American childbirth and illustrates that people’s experience with reproduction is shaped by their own cultural values and previous knowledge. For Euro-American women, this probably involved similar emotions and events as to what we see today- pain, nervousness, excitement, and celebration. But for Native American women, this experience was anything but a spectacle.…
There are so many different cultures inside the American Indian culture. Although within the American Indian culture you can categorize or generalize the culture by making factual statements such as: Native Americans value your word, Trust is important, and Native Americans rely on information networks, there are still numerous different religions, tribes, rituals and ceremonies that all lie within the one culture of Native Americans. Birthing rituals in the Native American culture different vastly from the birthing rituals of other culturals. The word is defined as the prescribed order of a religious ceremony; The body of ceremonies or rites used in a place of worship; and the prescribed form of…
Native Americans were confined to bleak reservations in vast stretches of the country, that no one thought was good for much of anything else. But those areas, ironically enough, turn out to be essential for the production and transportation of the last great stocks of hydrocarbons (Mckibben). Repeating history, our government and huge corporations are diving through hoops and trampling over morals, wreaking havoc on what little land indigenous people have left. A 1,172- mile, sweet crude oil pipeline, reaching from North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois, is set to be built through Indian reservations, accelerating the pulverizing destruction of our earth (Mckibben).…
