Source: Fleming, Walter C. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Native American History. Indianapolis, IN: Alpha, 2003. Print.
Wikipedia
Class notes
Bering Strait Theory: theory that Paleo-Indians crossed the Bering Strait from Asia during the last Ice Age, when the sea levels were as much as 300 ft. below current levels. The Bering Strait is the body of water separating Siberia from Alaska, is only 56 miles wide and 180 ft. deep. Scientists now call this area Beringia.
Kennewick Man: is the name for the skeletal remains of a prehistoric (Paleo-Indian) man found on a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington, USA, on July 28, 1996. The discovery of Kennewick Man was accidental; a pair of spectators (Will Thomas and David Deacy) found his skull while attending the annual hydroplane races.[1]
One of the most complete ancient skeletons ever found, bone tests have shown the skeleton to be somewhere between 5650 and 9510 years old. These findings triggered a nine-year legal clash between scientists, the federal government and Native American tribes who claim Kennewick Man as their ancestor. The long dispute has made him an international celebrity.
In February 2004, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a cultural link between any of the Native American tribes and the Kennewick Man was not genetically justified, allowing scientific study of the remains to continue.
n July 2005, a team of scientists from around the United States convened in Seattle for ten days to study the remains, making many detailed measurements and determining the cause of death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man
Anasazi: The Anasazi, or Ancient Puebloans, are a people known for their elaborate villages; some, like Pueblo Bonito, were built on the desert floor and others, called cliff dwellings, like those found at Mesa Verde, in southern Colorado, were constructed in the cliff sides above the deep canyons.
The Anasazi are the most geographically extensive culture in the arid desert West. Their culture evolved, beginning sometime about 100 B.C.E. and disappearing after 1300 C.E. No early Southwestern culture is better known than the Anasazi. They seemed to be particularly skilled in the use of precious desert water. They managed to farm perhaps some of the most inhospitable land imaginable, using subsurface irrigation, flooding, canal irrigation, and terracing.
Today, the descendants of the Anasazi live throughout Arizona and New Mexico and include the Hopi, Zuni, and other Rio Grande Pueblo peoples.
Pueblo Benito: apartment complex with 800 rooms and home to 1,200 people. Located in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, in the Four Corners region of the American SW. Largest Anasazi village ever constructed, and the biggest apartment complex in what is now the US, until a bigger one was built in NYC in the late 1900s.
Cahokia: a strategically located village in the expansive floodplain of the MS R. near the confluence of the Illinois and MS Rs. This large, sprawling center, covering over six sq. mi., consisted of more than 100 mounds of diff. sizes and shapes, including the largest earthen mound north of the Valley of Mexico.
Monk's Mound: is the largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in America north of Mesoamerica. Located at the Cahokia Mounds UNESCO World Heritage Site near Collinsville, Illinois, its size was calculated in 1988 as about 100 feet (30 m) high, 955 feet (291 m) long including the access ramp at the southern end, and 775 feet (236 m) wide.[1] This makes Monks Mound roughly the same size at its base as the Great Pyramid of Giza (13.1 acres / 5.3 hectares). Its base circumference is larger than the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan.
Unlike Egyptian pyramids which were built of stone, Monks Mound was constructed almost entirely of layers of basket-transported soil and clay. Because of this construction and its flattened top, over the years, it has retained rainwater within the structure. This has caused "slumping", the avalanche-like sliding of large sections of the sides at the highest part of the mound. Its designed dimensions would have been significantly smaller than its present extent, but recent excavations have revealed that slumping was a problem even while the mound was being made.
Culture areas: In the study of Native Americans, it's easier to divide the Americas into geographic regions. Because environment determines many ways of life, tribes within each division share a significant number of cultural traits. The diff. geographic regions, therefore, define and delineate culture areas.
There are 5 or 6 basic regions:
NW Coast (Salmon)
SW (Intensive Agriculture)
Prairie-Plains (Bison)
Eastern Woodlands (Maize)
California-Intermountain (Salmon)
Great Basin & Plateau (Wild Seeds)
Arctic and Sub-Arctic (Caribou)
Great Law of Peace:
Constitution
Council of 50 sachems
Rights and Duties, how govt. works
Oral Const.
Each tribe votes as a single unit
Sachems chosen by women and can be removed by them
Any decisions that affect the league as a whole have to be unanimous
Minor skirmishes didn't require unanimous vote, but the above stated still applies to war.
League of Five (Six) Nations: The original Iroquois League was often known as the Five Nations, as it was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca nations. After the Tuscarora nation joined the League in 1722, the Iroquois became known as the Six Nations. The League is embodied in the Grand Council, an assembly of fifty hereditary sachems.
Cherokee White (peace) and Red (War) Organizations:
Cherokee White Chief:
Civil administrator-Inheritance
Most important in village
Court for Crimes
Organizes ceremonies
Performs marriages and divorces
Great Red War Chief and aids-elected-must be approved by White chief prior to contact with Europeans
Pretty women-fate of captives
Conduct war
Elective position-chosen by warriors
Great Sun: part of Natchez govt., held absolute power, like a god, can't be succeeded by women or children.
Semi-hereditary
Mother-matrilineal-inherit rank
Father-one below your father
One is usually a stinkard
Natchez social classes:
Great Sun
Suns
Nobles
Honored
Stinkards
Mandan: The Mandans and Hidatsas numbered some 4,500 people and were one of the most influential tribes on the Northern Plains. They were farmers who lived in earth-lodges but enjoyed the fruits of the plains as well. The Mandans and Hidatsas were important cultural mediators in the region. Tribes on the plains traded for corn and other crops, and white traders came to the Mandan villages, bringing beads, cloth, and other trade goods.
-Govt.
Council of Men
Women's roles-did not hold positions, but had influence
-Peaceful Traders
Dakota:
Northern Plains
Nomads
Effects of horse
-Horse-tipi-buffalo (bison) culture
Horse-natives become a little more aggressive, acts as a status symbol
Travois-pole drag
Vision Quest:
Contact with spirit world
animism: a belief that nature is animated (enlivened or energized) by distinct personalized spirit beings separable from bodies.
Signifies passage from boyhood to manhood
Process-boy gets vision, sometimes through meditation, boy returns to camp and has medicine man interpret the vision
Sun Dance:
Renewal Ceremony
Summer time
8-12 days
Events
-horse races
-social occasion
-family reunion
Commanche only had one
Women had some participation-music, et al.
Pawnee
Farmers/hunters
Dwelling-earth lodges
West camp-young women
North camp-chief, middle aged women
East camp-child rearing, old women
South camp
Social organization
Upper class
Hereditary chiefs, priests, doctors, town criers, admins
Commoners
Those with no position
Social outcasts
Lazy, fatherless, witches, criminals, etc.
charity and stealing
survivors of scalping-special, unique, but feared, respected, and above the law. If they got troublesome, getting rid of them was permissible.
Political organization
4 bands divided into towns
Each town has chiefs
Chiefs hereditary or elected
Morning Star Ceremony:
Involved human sacrifice
Tirawa-Sun was supreme sacrifice
Tirawa and Mother Earth conceived Morning Star (god or vegetation)
Ceremony commences
Patelesharo ("Man Chief")-1816-ceremony stopped
SW-Pueblos:
Sedentary farmers
men farmed
Dwelling-pueblos
No windows on 1st floor due to raiders (Apache)
1st floor used for storage
Slept on the roof some of the time
Govt.
-Council of men and women
Cure sick and/or bring the rain
predict rain
treat symptoms
connection to spirit world
Kiva: underground ceremonial chambers
Kachinas:
manifestations of supernatural beings, spirits in the flesh
use "costumes," become spirits
supernatural beings who manifest themselves in supernatural form
"clowns"-enforced conformity on adults
Navajo:
SW
Raiding economy
Adaptable
Farming from Pueblos
Sheep herding from Spanish
Wearing from Pueblos after revolt
Silversmithing from Mexico
Men deal with outsiders
Women dominate political process
Shelter
Hogans
"Diggers":
Great Basin
Hunters and gatherers
Pinyon nuts
Small bands with headmen
Dwellings wickiups
Nez Perce:
Plateau
Hunters, gatherers and fishermen
Shelter-pithouses
Horse breeders and trainers
Fishing
NW Coast Cultures:
Sedentary without agriculture
May-Sept. provides a years supplies and surplus for trade
Shleter-cedar plank houses
Totem poles
Purpose-a variety
-celebration
-wedding
-b-day
-statements of rank (almost consumed by rank)
-shame an individual
Social organization
-Nobility
-Commoners
-Slaves (diff. from African slave trade, voluntary, cared for, welfare?)
Potlatch:
used as way to validate rank
ceremony in which people who organized it give gifts to invited persons
-party-contests-drowning
coppers-valued, plates
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