Native Peoples of North America

Native Peoples of North America Native Peoples of North America SUSAN STEBBINS OPEN SUNY TEXTBOOKS GENESEO, NY Native Peoples of North America by Susan Stebbins is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Contents About vii Introduction ix Chapter 1: In 1491... 1 Chapter 2: All Our Relations 25 Chapter 3: Resources and Their Distribution 49 Chapter 4: Status, Rank, and Power 83 Chapter 5: Religion and Spiritual Beliefs 105 Chapter 6: Is There a Word for Art? 131 Conclusions 159 References 165 About the Author 181 About Open SUNY Textbooks 183 Errata 185 About Native Peoples of North America is intended to be an introductory text about the Native peoples of North America (primarily the United States and Canada) presented from an anthropological perspective. As such, the text is organized around anthropological concepts such as language, kinship, marriage and family life, political and economic organization, food getting, spiritual and religious practices, and the arts. Prehistoric, historic and contemporary information is presented. Each chapter begins with an example from the oral tradition that reflects the theme of the chapter. The text includes suggested readings, videos and classroom activities. Native Peoples of North America | vii Introduction The attempt to write any book, especially a textbook, about the histories and cultures of the indigenous peoples of what is now called North America is a daunting task. Similar to the continent of Europe, the histories and cultures of the peoples are diverse. It is readily accepted by both scientists and the general public that humans were in Europe over 40,000 years ago. However, the hypothesis, based on archaeological sites in South America that fully modern humans were in the Americas 40,000 years ago is hotly debated. While there is evidence of hominid species (for example, Homo erectus and Neanderthals) in Europe as well as Asia and Africa, the skeletal remains of the fully modern humans called Paleo-Indians have been found only in the Americas. While humans have not been in the Americas as long as in Africa (from whence all humans come), Europe, or Asia, archaeological evidence shows that people have been in the Americas for at least over 12,000 years. The historical inquiry about human activity around the world is broken into two large categories: prehistoric and historic. The term proto-historic applies to a period of transition between the two. With the exception of societies like the Maya and Aztecs of Mesoamerica, who had written documents and historical accounts on monumental architecture well over 2,000 years ago, research about Native societies prior to 1492 is prehistoric. A number of academic fields and sources—geology, archaeology, botany, zoology, and the oral traditions of contemporary Native societies—are used to make hypotheses about their lives before historical documents were kept. Archaeologists and historians use historical categories that are unique to the Americas: Paleo-Indian, archaic, and formative. Paleo-Indian refers to the first migration of people to the Americas during the final glacial episodes of the late Pleistocene period. Archaic refers to the period from 8,000 BCE (before the common era) to 2,000 BCE when many but not all societies across the Americas developed horticulture and agriculture. The estimated devel- opment of horticulture and agriculture vary for different parts of the Americas. The formative stage refers to the period of 1,000 BCE to 500 CE (common era) in which, in addition to horticulture/agriculture, societies developed pottery, weaving, and permanent towns with ceremonial centers. These categories and dates were first Native Peoples of North America | ix postulated in the 1950s. Contemporary archaeological data now tells us that the estimated dates of these developments can be off by 1,000 years or more. Further, the original peoples of the Americas had technology such as pottery and weaving before they developed horticulturally, if they ever did. Such technologies are not dependent on horticulture or permanent settlements. So, while these time frames are not sup- ported by current data, the terms Paleo-Indian, archaic, and formative are still used to describe the resources strategies of American indigenous peoples. In the Americas, a wide assortment of crops was grown, including, but not limited to: corn, potatoes, tomatoes, and several varieties of beans, chili peppers, and cocoa. Despite the popular media image of Indians hunting bison on horseback, by the time of European contact many, many Native Americans produced much of their food through horticulture (the domestication of some plants) and agriculture, while still foraging, fishing and hunting. Societies in South America, Mesoamerica, and most of the eastern, mid-western, and southwestern parts of what is now the United States were prosperous horticultural and agricultural societies. The original inhabitants of the Americas developed horticultural/agriculture, a high level of technology, as well as ceremonial/spiritual life and expressive culture (the arts) without influence from Europe. The Americas were separated from Africa, Asia, and Europe (the Old World) by vast oceans. People may indeed have sailed those oceans hundreds of years before Columbus; or people may have crossed from the Americas to the Old World. There is little evidence for either hypothesis, and even less evidence that possible early explorers had any impact or influence on the people and societies they may have encountered. Another hypothesis is that during glacial eras people migrated over the ice-covered Arctic areas between northern Asia, Europe, and North America. Unfortunately, there has been little research in this area; it is a hypothesis that deserves more investigation. The physical separation of the Americas from the Old World slowed human migration, but people did eventually arrive (some hypotheses about how and when will be discussed in Chapter 1). When they did, they brought the technology and knowledge they had developed and used these to adapt to new environments they encountered, and continued to develop new technologies and new knowledge. People came to the Americas as foragers, who, like all people around the world before 12,000 years ago, x | Susan Stebbins acquired their food through a combination of gathering wild edibles, fishing, and hunting. Around 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, the indigenous peoples of the Ameri- cas, like people in the Old World, started domesticating some plants and started the process of producing their food (horticulture). Some aboriginal people lived in rel- atively large cities; some had hierarchical forms of government. If you could time travel back to a Native American Mississippi River Valley village, and a village in Eng- land 1,000 years ago, you would be struck by the similarities. Both villages would be farming some of their food, while also gathering some wild edibles and fishing and hunting. Chances are, the villages would be built around a mound, on which the leader of the village lived (Chapter 3). In today’s England, he would be referred to as a king; in the Mississippi River Valley, we would probably call him a chief, although their roles would have been very similar. They both would have achieved their posi- tions, rather than been ascribed (born to) their status, probably because of the status of extended families (kin groups) and would probably still be directly accountable to the people of their respective villages (Chapter 4). There are marked dissimilarities between Native American and European societies as well. Religious beliefs and practices would have been different (Chapter 5), as well as the expressive culture, or today what we call the arts (Chapter 6). While in Europe, Asia, and to a lesser extent Africa, kin organization became more centered around men (patrilineal), many Native American societies were matrilineal and matrifo- cal, meaning that their kin groups were descended from women, so inheritance or usufruct rights went from mother to daughter (Chapter 2). Perhaps because of the important roles of women within kin groups and religion, they held important roles within the political systems of many Native American societies (Chapter 4). Native American women also had very important roles within the economies of their societies, both producing and distributing important resources. This text is written from an anthropological perspective. That is, I attempt to write about some Native American societies from the categories frequently discussed within cultural anthropology: kinship, gender roles, economic resources and distribution, political organization, religion, and expressive culture. To write a history or ethnography (cultural description) of all the estimated 700 indigenous societies of just North America would require an encyclopedia (the Smithsonian has such a ref- erence, The Handbook of North American Indians and The Handbook of South Ameri- Native Peoples of North America | xi can Indians, which contains nearly forty volumes). For this book, I selected different societies from the areas of what are now Canada and the United States to illustrate the different anthropological concepts discussed. While this is the method I have chosen, it can pose some problems. One of them is approaching a society from com- ponents such as kin groups and the other categories mentioned above. These com- ponents are part of the cultural whole for any society, but when studying ancient cultures, any of these pieces may be missing. For example, kinship systems are very flexible and change over time. So a kinship system observed in the 19th century in a society that has experienced much change—the Lakota for example—may have different kin organization then it did in the 18th century. Since each one influences the other, just as kinship influences status, resources, and religious beliefs, which in turn influence other aspects, it helps to think of culture as a spider web.

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