Native American cultures in the United States
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Native American cultures across the 574 current
European colonization of the Americas had a major impact on Native American cultures through what is known as the Columbian exchange. Also known as the Columbian interchange, this was the spread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, and ideas between the Americas and the Old World in the 15th and 16th centuries, following Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage.[1] The Columbian exchange generally had a destructive impact on Native American cultures through disease, and a 'clash of cultures',[2] whereby European values of private property, smaller family structures, and labor led to conflict, appropriation of traditional communal lands and slavery.[3]
Cultural areas
Academics tend to group the cultures of Indigenous North America by geographical region where shared cultural traits occur, based on how these cultures have continued since the Pre-Columbian era. The northwest culture area, for example, shared common traits such as salmon fishing, woodworking, large villages or towns, and a hierarchical social structure.[4]
Native Americans in the United States fall into several distinct ethnolinguistic and territorial phyla, with diverse governmental and economic systems.
They can be classified as belonging to several large cultural areas:
- Contiguous United States
- Interior Salish, Plateau Penutian
- Great Basin tribes: Uto-Aztecan
- Coast Salish, Wakashan
- Yuman, Southern Athabaskan
- Tepiman
- Plains Indians: Siouan, Plains Algonquian, Southern Athabaskan
- Southeastern Woodlands tribes: Muskogean, Caddoan, Catawban, Iroquoian
- Alaska Natives
- Arctic: Eskimo–Aleut
- Subarctic: Northern Athabaskan
- Arctic:
- Native Hawaiians
These cultural regions are not universally agreed upon. Some systems combine the Great Basin and Plateau into Indigenous peoples of Intermountain West. Others separate Northern Plains from Southern Plains and Great Lakes tribes from Northeastern Woodlands tribes. Some identify Prairie tribes as distinct from Northeastern Woodlands tribes and Plains tribes.
Language
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There are approximately 296 spoken (or formerly spoken) indigenous languages north of Mexico, 269 of which are grouped into 29 families.
The major ethno-linguistic phyla are:
- Na-Dene languages,
- Iroquoian languages,
- Caddoan languages
- Algonquian languages
- Algic languages,
- Siouan–Catawban languages,
- Uto-Aztecan languages,
- Salishan languages,
- Tanoan languages
- Eskimo–Aleut(Alaska)
The Na-Dené, Algic, and Uto-Aztecan families are the largest in terms of number of languages. Uto-Aztecan has the most speakers (1.95 million) if the languages in Mexico are considered (mostly due to 1.5 million speakers of Nahuatl); Na-Dené comes in second with approximately 200,000 speakers (nearly 180,000 of these are speakers of Navajo), and Algic in third with about 180,000 speakers (mainly Cree and Ojibwe). Na-Dené and Algic have the widest geographic distributions: Algic currently spans from northeastern Canada across much of the continent down to northeastern Mexico (due to later migrations of the Kickapoo) with two outliers in California (Yurok and Wiyot). The remaining 27 languages are either isolates or unclassified)[citation needed], such as Penutian languages, Hokan, Gulf languages and others.
Organization
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Gens structure
Early European American scholar described the Native Americans (as well as any other
- The right to elect its sachem and chiefs.
- The right to depose its sachem and chiefs.
- The obligation not to marry in the gens.
- Mutual rights of inheritance of the property of deceased members.
- Reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and redress of injuries.
- The right to bestow names on its members.
- The right to adopt strangers into the gens.
- Common religious rights, query.
- A common burial place.
- A council of the gens.[5]
Tribal structures
Early European American scholars described the Native Americans as having a society dominated by clans.[5]
Tribes, Nations, bands and clans may define and organize themselves in a variety of ways.
Traditional diets
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The traditional diet of Native Americans has historically consisted of a combination of agriculture, hunting, and the gathering of wild foods, variable by bioregion.
Post-contact, European settlers in the northeastern region of the Americas observed that some of the Indigenous peoples cleared large areas for cropland. These fields in New England sometimes covered hundreds of acres. Colonists in Virginia noted thousands of acres under cultivation by Native Americans.[8]
Native American agricultural communities have commonly used tools such as the hoe, maul, and dibber. The hoe is the main tool used to till the land and prepare it for planting; and later used for weeding. The first versions were made out of wood and stone. When the settlers brought iron, Native Americans switched to iron hoes and hatchets. The dibber was historically a digging stick, used to plant seeds. Once plants are harvested, traditionally women have prepared the produce for eating, using the maul to grind the corn into mash. It is then cooked and eaten that way or baked as corn bread.[9]
Religion
Traditional Native American ceremonies are still practiced by many tribes and bands, and the older theological belief systems are still held by many of the
The
Another significant, though more recent, religious body among some Native Americans is the
The
Gender roles
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Doctor.susan.la.flesche.picotte.jpg/170px-Doctor.susan.la.flesche.picotte.jpg)
Gender roles can vary significantly between tribal nations, with
Many tribes, such as the
, where hereditary leadership passed through the male line, and children were considered to belong to the father and his clan.Historically, when European-American male settlers had children with Native American women, if the tribe was patrilineal, their children were considered "white" like their fathers. If the mother was from a matrilineal tribe, the children would be considered tribal members. While rules have, in most cases, been modernized so the sex of the parent is irrelevant, historically the children of white fathers could have no official place in a patrilineal tribe because their fathers did not belong to it, unless they were adopted by a tribalmale and made part of his family.[13]
In most of the Plains Nations, men traditionally hunt, trade and go to war. The women have traditionally held primary responsibility for the survival and welfare of the families (and future of the tribe). Traditionally, Plains women own the home, and tend to jobs such as gathering and cultivating plants for food and healing, along with caring for the young and the elderly, making clothing and processing and curing meat and skins. Plains women have historically tanned hides to make clothing as well as bags, saddle cloths, and tipi covers, and have used cradleboards to carry an infant while working or traveling.[14]
Several dozen tribes have been documented to practiced polygyny to sisters, with procedural and economic limits.[5]
Apart from making homes, women traditionally hold many additional responsibilities essential for the survival of the tribes, including the manufacture of weapons and tools, maintenance of the roofs of their homes, as well as historically participating in the bison hunts.[15] In some of the Plains Indian tribes, medicine women gathered herbs and cured the ill.[16]
The Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota girls have traditionally been encouraged to learn to ride, hunt and fight.[17] Though fighting was predominantly the duty of men and boys, occasionally women fought as well, especially if the tribe was severely threatened.[18]
Sports
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Ball_players.jpg/220px-Ball_players.jpg)
Notable Native American athletes include Jim Thorpe, Joe Hipp, Notah Begay III, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Billy Mills.
Team based
Native American ball sports, such as lacrosse, stickball, or baggataway, have historically been used to settle disputes, rather than going to war, as a civil way to settle potential conflict. The Choctaw called it isitoboli ("Little Brother of War");[19] the Onondaga name was dehuntshigwa'es ("men hit a rounded object"). There are three basic versions, classified as Great Lakes, Iroquoian, and Southern.[20]
The game is played with one or two rackets/sticks and one ball. The object of the game is to land the ball on the opposing team's goal (either a single post or net) to score and to prevent the opposing team from scoring on your goal. The game involves as few as 20 or as many as 300 players with no height or weight restrictions and no protective gear. The goals could be from around 200 feet (61 m) apart to about 2 miles (3.2 km); in Lacrosse the field is 110 yards (100 m). [citation needed]
Music
Native American musicians have occasionally found broader fame in more mainstream American music. Artists such as Robbie Robertson (The Band) and Redbone have had success on the rock and pop charts. Some, such as John Trudell, and Blackfoot have used music as political commentary and part of their work as activists for Native American and First Nations causes. Others, such as flautists Charles Littleleaf record traditional instruments with an aim of preserving the sounds of nature, or in the case of R. Carlos Nakai, integrate traditional instruments with more modern instrumentation. A variety of small and medium-sized recording companies offer an abundance of contemporary music by Native Americans and descendants, ranging from pow-wow drum music to rock-and-roll and rap.
A popular Native American musical form is
Art
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Kachina_dolls.jpg/220px-Kachina_dolls.jpg)
Writing and communication
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Sequoyah.jpg/170px-Sequoyah.jpg)
Native Americans in the United States have developed several original systems of communication, both in Pre-Columbian times, and later as a response to European influences. For example, the Iroquois, living around the Great Lakes and extending east and north, used strings or belts called wampum that served a dual function: the knots and beaded designs mnemonically chronicled tribal stories and legends, and further served as a medium of exchange and a unit of measure. The keepers of the articles were seen as tribal dignitaries.[22]
A widely used form of communication historically, that is still in use to some extent today is
In the late 1810s and early 1820s, the Cherokee syllabary was invented by the silversmith Sequoyah to write the Cherokee language. His creation of the syllabary is particularly noteworthy as he could not previously read any script.[25] He first experimented with logograms, before developing his system into a syllabary. In his system, each symbol represents a syllable rather than a single phoneme; the 85 (originally 86)[26] characters provide a suitable method to write Cherokee. Although some symbols resemble Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic letters, the relationship between symbols and sounds is different.
The success of the Cherokee syllabary inspired
Relationships with other cultures
Relationships between Native Americans, European-Americans, and African-Americians have taken different forms over many generations since European contact.
Assimilation
European impact was immediate, widespread, and profound—more than any other cultural groups that had contact with Native Americans during the early years of colonization and nationhood. There was fear on both sides, as both peoples realized how different their societies were.
Slavery
A number of Native American tribes took captives in war, but usually these captives were able to later become full members of the community via adoption or marriage.[34] While this has been called "slavery" by some anthropologists, none of the named tribes exploited slave labor on a large scale.[34] In addition, Native Americans did not buy and sell captives in the pre-colonial era, although they sometimes exchanged captives with other tribes in peace gestures or in exchange for their own members.[34]
The conditions of enslaved or hostage Native Americans varied among the tribes. In many cases, young captives were adopted into the tribes to replace warriors killed during warfare or by disease. Other tribes practiced debt slavery or imposed slavery on tribal members who had committed crimes; but, this status was only temporary as the enslaved worked off their obligations to the tribal society.[34]
Among some
There was heavy incentive by colonizing Europeans to adopt slavery, and it was most common among tribes who were allied with the British.European enslavement
During the European colonization of North America, the practice of
All servants imported and brought into the Country... who were not Christians in their native Country... shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion ... shall be held to be real estate. If any slave resists his master ... correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction ... the master shall be free of all punishment ... as if such accident never happened.
— Virginia General Assembly declaration, 1705[37]
The slave trade of Native Americans lasted only until around 1730. It gave rise to a series of devastating wars among the tribes, including the
Native American women were at risk for rape whether they were enslaved or not; during the early colonial years, settlers were disproportionately male. They turned to Native women for sexual relationships.[38] Both Native American and African enslaved women suffered rape and sexual harassment by male slaveholders and other white men.[38]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/Portrait_%28Front%29_of_Lillian_Gross%2C_Niece_of_Susan_Sanders_%28Mixed_Blood%29_1906.jpg/170px-Portrait_%28Front%29_of_Lillian_Gross%2C_Niece_of_Susan_Sanders_%28Mixed_Blood%29_1906.jpg)
Relation with Africans in the United States
African and Native Americans have interacted for centuries. The earliest record of Native American and African contact occurred in April 1502, when Spanish colonists transported the first Africans to Hispaniola to serve as slaves.[39]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Buffalo_soldiers1.jpg/220px-Buffalo_soldiers1.jpg)
Native Americans were rewarded if they returned escaped slaves, and African Americans were rewarded for fighting in the late 19th-century
While numerous tribes used captive enemies as servants and slaves, they also often adopted younger captives into their tribes to replace members who had died. In the Southeast, a few Native American tribes began to adopt a slavery system similar to that of the American colonists, buying African American slaves, especially the
Among the
Philosophy
Native American authors have written about aspects of "tribal philosophy" as opposed to the modern or Western worldview. Thus,
According to Carlin Romano, the best resource on a characteristically "Native American Philosophy" is Scott L. Pratt's, Native Pragmatism: Rethinking the Roots of American Philosophy, which relates the ideas of many 'American' philosophers like Pierce, James, and Dewey to important concepts in early Native thought.[47] Pratt's publication takes his readers on a journey through American philosophical history from the colonial time period, and via detailed analysis, connects the experimental nature of early American pragmatism to the empirical habit of indigenous Americans. Though Pratt makes these alliances very comprehensible, he also makes clear that the lines between the ideas of Native Americans and American philosophers are complex and historically difficult to trace.[48]
References
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- ^ Emmer, Pieter. "The Myth of Early Globalization: The Atlantic Economy, 1500–1800." European Review 11, no. 1. Feb. 2003. p. 45–46
- ^ Emmer, Pieter. "The Myth of Early Globalization: The Atlantic Economy, 1500–1800." European Review 11, no. 1. Feb. 2003. p. 46
- ^ "Native American | History, Art, Culture, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. February 16, 2024.
- ^ ISBN 0-674-03450-3.
- ^ This right was upheld by the US Supreme Court in Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez in 1978, which is discussed in Ray (2007) p403
- ^ "The U.S. Relationship To American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes". america.gov. Archived from the original on May 19, 2009. Retrieved February 8, 2006.
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- ^ "American Indian Agriculture". Answers.com. Retrieved February 8, 2008.
- ^ "Plains Indian - Material culture and trade | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved October 6, 2022.
- ^ A Brief History of the Native American Church Archived August 21, 2007, at the Wayback Machine by Jay Fikes. Retrieved 2006-02-22.
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. June 8, 1940. Retrieved August 17, 2023.
- ^ Melvin Randolph Gilmore, "The True Logan Fontenelle", Publications of the Nebraska State Historical Society, Vol. 19, edited by Albert Watkins, Nebraska State Historical Society, 1919, p. 64, at GenNet, accessed 2011-08-25
- ^ [1]Beatrice Medicine, "Gender", Encyclopedia of North American Indians, February 9, 2006.
- ^ "Native American Women", Indians.org. Retrieved 2007-01-11.
- ^ "Medicine Women" "Medicine Women". Archived from the original on June 18, 2012. Retrieved April 15, 2013., Bluecloud.org. Retrieved 2007-01-11.
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- ^ Thomas Vennum Jr. (2002–2005). "History of Native American Lacrossee". Archived from the original on April 11, 2009. Retrieved September 11, 2008.
- ^ Bierhosrt, John (1992). A Cry from the Earth: Music of North American Indians. Ancient City Press.
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- ^ Darin Flynn. "Canadian Languages". University of Calgary. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved August 8, 2015.
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- ^ "Slave-owning societies". Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Black History.
- ^ "The Terrible Transformation:From Indentured Servitude to Racial Slavery". PBS. 2009. Retrieved January 7, 2010.
- ^ a b Gloria J. Browne-Marshall (2009). ""The Realities of Enslaved Female Africans in America", excerpted from Failing Our Black Children: Statutory Rape Laws, Moral Reform and the Hypocrisy of Denial". University of Daytona. Archived from the original on November 5, 2011. Retrieved June 20, 2009.
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- ^ Pratt, Scott L. Native Pragmatism: Rethinking the Roots of American Philosophy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. 6-10. Print.