Anthropologists and historians believe that the first inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere were migrants from Asia, most of whom most probably came by land between 13,000 B.C. and 9000 B.C. across a hundred-mile-wide land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. About 3000 B.C., some Native American peoples developed better cultivation techniques and began to farm a variety of crops, most notably maize (corn), which resulted in agricultural surpluses that laid the economic foundation for populous and wealthy societies in Mexico, Peru, and the Mississippi River Valley.…
David Phillips Hansen’s new book, Native Americans, the Mainline Church, and the Quest for Interracial Justice (Chalice Press, $29.99), is a sobering and important exploration of the historical, theological, and social relationships between the church and native peoples.…
As someone who has lived in Cumberland House, Saskatchewan and Terrace, British Columbia, this wasn't my first Pow Wow. I will say I don't remember going to any in Cumberland House as I was only two when we lived there, but I there are quite a few funny pictures of me, a chubby blond haired blue eyed baby in my pink jacket sitting among all the brown skinned, brown eyed, and black haired Native babies. I do however remember going to Pow Wows in Terrace. These two places are very different from each other, the Costal peoples having very different traditions from the Plains peoples.…
Native Americans have long been interested in maintaining cultural traditions they inherited from their ancestors. For Native American tribes with strong oral traditions, the primary sense of history comes from the narratives, stories, and accounts told by tribal elders. Indigenous peoples' stories are as varied as the clouds in the sky and yet have many common elements, whether told by the Cherokee in North Carolina, or the Chimariko in California. In the assortment of Native stories, we find legends and history, maps and poems, the teachings of spirit mentors, instructions for ceremony and ritual, observations of worlds, and storehouses of ethno-ecological knowledge. They often have many dimensions, with meanings that reach from the everyday to the divine. The stories fill places with…
The Cherokee tribe splits up into three different tribes; Cherokee Nation, United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, and Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Cherokee was one of the first, if not the first non-European ethnic group to become US citizens. This is one of the largest groups with an estimated population of 25,000 members. It is the largest of all of the Southern tribes. The Cherokee Nation had approximately 135,000 of land in North America. Eventually it extended from the Ohio River in the north to what is the state of Alabama to the South today.…
Lakota, a word meaning ‘allies or friends’ were religious people. They turned to the stars, using naked eye observations, for guidance from the spirits. The stars tell stories of their creation and hold information pertaining to birth and the sun dance rituals. Lakota people cherish their oral stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. Overall they embrace religion in all aspects of their life. For them religion encompassed their entire being and was integrated in their daily lives.…
It had been such a long and hard journey. The long walks and difficult terrain, the materials and luggage we had to carry seemed to weigh tons and the sweltering of summer and bitterness of winter was almost unbearable. Not to mention how precarious the whole trip was, one wrong step and we were goners, especially by the natives. We ran into some Mandan Indians and they refereed to us as the pretty people, which I mean, who am I to complain? But not all encounters with the natives were good, we had an especially frightening run in with the Teton Sioux Indians. We were just passing through the river and they cornered us! Luckily their chief called them off and we were on our way. We’re coming back home and all so obviously the journey was a…
Hello I am Kiowa’s lieutenant from the Alpha Company, I would like to give some background information about me to you guys. I am a sophomore in college and I had joined up for the Reserve Officer Training Corps because it was worth a few credits and few of my friends had joined, making me want to join. In all honesty I do not care about this war and I have no desire on becoming a team leader but I have ended up as the leader of Kiowa and his friends. I am insecure about the decisions I would make, leading me to make two of my soldier’s death. The first death would be a soldier named Ted Lavender. Instead of focusing on my men I focus on a girl who I deeply love and the fact that I care more about my love more than my men makes me and unworthy…
Crazy Horse is one on the most ambiguous yet legendary leaders in the American Indian history. The book Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life attempts to tell the story of one of the most feared by foes, and honored by allies American Indian leaders. Kingsley M. Bray draws from primary sources and other biographies to construct the tragic sequence of childhood conflict, deception, and misjudgments that shaped the leader’s adulthood affairs and eventually led to his demise. The book reveals a new biography not only in the warrior’s battles, but also the often time overlooked political and religious struggles he faced. It gives a new outlook on the man inside the legend.…
A time when I took the lead in solving a problem in my community was when I chose my Eagle Project. I wanted my project to impact as many people as possible and I also wanted to give back to the organization that had sponsored my scout troop for so long. I looked over the church grounds and found a need. The church, borders the Harpeth River in Franklin, TN and members can choose to have baptisms done in the river. The problem that existed was that the baptismal site wasn’t safe for those partaking in it or viewing it. The riverbank is steep and there wasn’t a safe place for families to view the event. An old triangular deck was present, but it was small, not adequately anchored and had poorly attached rope rails. My goal was to construct a…
Did you know that one group of native Americans don't use any type of boat for transportation. Many groups used kayaks canoes and boats but one group does not, and the Inuit, Haida, and Iroquois all hunt with bows and arrows but ,the Inuit live in a more harsh climate, the Haida have a legend on how it came to be, and the Iroquois don't use boats.…
The news vans from a dozen different television stations were gathered around the massive crowd of people outside of what was once the closed down and abandoned Museum in Coutts. Coutts is a Small town located just above the border into the United States. I saw the reporters interviewing the people looking to get their side of the story as they waited for the event to be underway the grand opening of the museum of native American history. One reporter was interviewing a tall Native American who wore a name tag that said I am Blackfoot on it. The man said to the news reporter “I remember 3 years ago when Mel started this petition to reopen this museum, we all thought he was crazy, he would come around with these little name tags…
This paper addresses a question that for some reason has received relatively less attention of psychologists. The question relates to how do persons who enter an organization with a different cultural mindset deal with the roles and fellow colleagues in work settings (in this case, academic work setting) of a diametrically different mindset. To my knowledge, studies on acculturation too have left this question unanswered, although, their major focus has been on contacts between cultures. It is in this context that I find this study quite welcome. The study focuses on the tribal world view of the Native American academics which is characterized…
Long before the United States became a nation in the Americas, Empires had risen and fallen, tribes had made their homes, and of course, established their culture. As foreigners settled their “new world,” Native people were pushed away from the homes they had long since known. Going back much farther back than this however, there were other foreigners, that came not from the sea, but from the land, from the north. Most likely coming in waves through the Bering Strait from East Asia and Russia. Such ancient cultural ties; shared history, religion, land, and especially languages, are instrumental in retaining strong identity. With these connections being threatened by cultural suppression and an unfriendly, changing world, tribal identity is…
the thought of being a real Native American, the history of these natives just intrigued me for…