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About Native Americans: Cultures CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:56 PM Page 300 III. Native Americans: Cultures and Conflicts At a Glance The most important ideas for you are: ◗ Over time, the native people of the Great Basin, Plateau, and Plains cul- ture regions had developed cultures that were adapted to the environ- ment and shared similar cultural traits and characteristics. ◗ The coming of European Americans changed the way of life of the Native Americans. ◗ The federal government established the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1824 to “safeguard” the well-being of Native Americans. ◗ From the 1860s to 1934, the Bureau of Indian Affairs forced Native Americans onto reservations, broke up tribal holdings, and attempted to impose a policy of assimilation. ◗ Between the 1850s and 1890, the army, settlers, miners, and ranchers fought a series of battles with the Native Americans that became known as the Plains Wars. What Teachers Need to Know Background Anthropologists have categorized Native American peoples into culture regions in order to study and understand them. A culture region is a geograph- ic area in which different groups have adapted to their physical surroundings in similar ways, and share similar cultural traits and characteristics, such as language, beliefs, customs, laws, dress, and housing. However, even within cul- ture regions, groups still retain certain individual group characteristics. For the purpose of presenting information to your students, the diversity of the groups within areas is not discussed. For the most part, the emphasis in this lesson is on generalizations that apply to large numbers of peoples and nations within a culture region. In what is today the United States, there are eight Native American culture regions, namely, Eastern Woodlands, Southeast, Plains, Great Basin, Plateau, Southwest, Pacific Northwest, and California. This section deals with some of the Native Americans west of the Mississippi—the Great Basin, Plateau, Northern and Southern Plains, and Pacific Northwest. These were the Native Americans whose lands stood in the way of European Americans on their mission to extend the United States from sea to sea. At the points in history that are discussed here, native-born citizens and immigrants alike believed that Native Americans stood in the way of progress. They believed that these people, who lived in buffalo-hide tents instead of wooden or brick houses and who wore animal skins instead of cotton clothes, did not understand the value of the land or of hard work and were keeping enterprising Americans from actualizing that value. Today, many people feel that the United States’ treatment of the native peoples was unfair and unjust. 300 Grade 5 Handbook CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:56 PM Page 301 It is important in teaching this unit to try to help students see how the pursuit of “manifest destiny” studied in earlier sections of the curriculum looked very different to the native peoples who were driven from their ancestral lands. A. Culture and Life There is no definitive way to know how many people were living in the Americas when Columbus first landed in the Caribbean. Various recent studies suggest that some 5,000,000 lived in what is today the contiguous United States and another 2,000,000 in Canada and Alaska. According to the 2000 United States Census, there were about 3,000,000 Native Americans living in the United States. Today, they live mostly in Oklahoma, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Alaska. Beliefs According to Alvin M. Josephy, “The life of almost all Indian societies was colored by a deep faith in supernatural forces that were believed to link human beings to all other living things. [E]ach manifestation of nature had its own spirit with which the individual could establish supernatural contact.” Along with these beliefs was the sense that there was a balance, or harmony, in nature that people should respect. Disturbing this balance resulted in sickness, pain, and death. Cross-curricular Common to many Native American cultures are the hero and the trickster. Teaching Idea These characters are the subjects of stories passed down orally from generation to generation, even to the present day. One character is the hero, who was responsi- You may wish to introduce students to ble for teaching the people their way of life. The other is the trickster, often in the Morning Star and Scarface: the Sun form of Coyote, who gets himself into all sorts of trouble. Dance (a Plains legend, also known as “The Legend of Scarface”) as well Lifestyles as some Native American trickster stories as discussed in the Language Students may have a stereotypical view of Native Americans as mounted buf- Arts section, “Myths and Legends,” falo hunters. However, only the Plains Native Americans and those from the Basin on pp. 70–71. 27 28 29 30 and Plateau areas, who acquired horses and moved onto the Plains to hunt buffa- lo, fit this description. Archaeologists have found evidence of prehistoric horses in North America, but the horses may have died out thousands of years ago for the same reason that mastodons died out. They were hunted to extinction, as they were a source of food, clothing, tools, etc., to early inhabitants of the continent. Horses reappeared in the 1500s with the Spanish, who brought herds with them from Spain. As the Spanish moved across Mexico and north of the Rio Grande to found colonies, they went on horseback. By the 1600s, Native Americans were raiding Spanish settlements for horses, which they traded to other groups in a wide network. By the early 1700s, horses had reached Native Americans in the Plateau and Great Basin areas and greatly changed their ways of life. For example, the Shoshone (Sacagawea’s people) moved into the Plains and became buffalo hunters rather than farmers. The Nez Perce turned from fishing and hunting to raising horses and trading them to hunting peoples. On the Plains, some groups that had been farmers, such as the Teton Sioux, turned to hunting History and Geography: American 301 CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:56 PM Page 302 III. Native Americans: Cultures and Conflicts for their main source of food. The horse, which didn’t become widespread on the Plains until the early- to mid-18th century, made it possible for a number of tribes living as agriculturalists along the rivers and fringes of the Plains to venture out onto the Plains following the bison herds. Name Date Culture Areas Native American Culture Review Fill in each blank with the correct term from the list below. Plateau Ute totem pole Dakota ceremony Chinook Great Basin carving tipi buffalo Cheyenne unjust knee 1. Another name for Sioux is Dakota . • Intermountain lowlands (from Rocky Mountains to Sierra Nevada, across 2. Atotem pole is designed to represent spirit beings of the Northwest. Utah and Nevada and parts of Idaho, Oregon, Arizona, California, and ceremony 3. The Ghost Dance is an example of a . Wyoming); very dry and rocky with desert in places 4. One of the Native American culture regions is thePlateau . 5. The current view is that policies toward Native Americans were • Hunting small game unjust . 6. An armed conflict occurred at Wounded Knee . • Gathering seeds, nuts, plants, and roots 7. A tipi is a cone-shaped structure used as a home. 8. Many Cheyenne were massacred at Sand Creek. • Seminomadic groups that traveled on a regular cycle from lower lands to carving 9. A totem pole is made by wood. higher elevations in search of food 10. TheUte lived in the Great Basin region. 11. About 80 percent of theChinook died during a smallpox outbreak. • Wickiups, cone-shaped houses made of poles covered with brush, bark, or 12. Buffalo was an important resource for many Native Americans. grass mats Purpose: To review concepts and vocabulary relating to Native Americans Copyright ©Core Knowledge Foundation Copyright ©Core Master 37 Grade 5: History & Geography • Animal skins for clothes Sandals made of plant fibers Use Instructional Master 37. Basketry hats for women • Believed in what dreams told people • Shoshone Acquired horses Moved into Plains to hunt buffalo from horseback Took on traits of Plains peoples, such as using buffalo skins for clothing Today, some 12,000 live on reservations • Ute Acquired horses Moved into Plains to hunt buffalo from horseback Today, some 7,000 live on reservations and farm or raise cattle Plateau • Plateau of the Columbia and Fraser river basins in the area between the Rocky and Cascade Mountains (including Canada); changes of season with accompanying rain and snow; full rivers and lush forests • Fishing, especially salmon, as major food source Gathering of plants and berries Hunting game • In winter, round houses covered with earth In summer, poles tied together and covered with bark or reeds • Clothing made of animal skins Wove mats and baskets from grass • Believed that each person could acquire a guardian spirit for life, which could be the spirit of an animal, a force of nature, such as the wind, or a thing, such as rock 302 Grade 5 Handbook CK_5_TH_HG_P231_324.QXD 2/13/06 1:56 PM Page 303 • Nez Perce Acquired horses in the 1700s and developed large herds; bred Appaloosas Turned from fishing for their main food source to hunting buffalo on the Plains on horseback Continued to live in the Plateau but traveled to the Plains to hunt Lost much of their land in the 1800s Today are farmers on an Idaho reservation Plains Teaching Idea • From Canada to central Texas and from the Rocky Mountains to the Plains native peoples, like most other Mississippi River; all changes of season with heavy to moderate precipita- Native Americans, did not have a tion written language.
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