Native Americans of North America

Native Americans of North America, indigenous peoples of North America. Native Americans had lived throughout the continent for thousands of years before Europeans began exploring the “New World” in the 15th century.

Most scientists agree that the human history of North America began when the ancient ancestors of modern Native Americans made their way across a land bridge that once spanned the Bering Sea and connected northeastern Asia to North America. Scientists believe these people first migrated to the Americas more than 10,000 years ago, before the end of the last ice age (see First Americans). However, some Native Americans believe their ancestors originated in the Americas, citing gaps in the archaeological record and oral accounts of their origins that have been passed down through generations.

Native Americans excelled at using natural resources and adapting to the climates and terrains in which they lived. Over thousands of years distinct culture areas developed across North America. In the Northeast, for example, Native Americans used wood from the forests to build houses, canoes, and tools. Dense populations in the Pacific Northwest exploited the abundance of sea mammals and fish along the Pacific Coast. In the deserts of the Southwest, Native Americans grew corn and built multilevel, apartment-style dwellings from adobe, a sun-dried brick. In the Arctic, inhabitants adapted remarkably well to the harsh environment, becoming accomplished fishers and hunters.

Among the several hundred Native American groups that settled across North America, there existed, and still exist, many different ways of life and world views. Each group had distinctive social and political systems, clothing styles, shelters, foods, art forms, musical styles, languages, educational practices, and spiritual and philosophical beliefs. Nevertheless, Native American cultures share certain traits that are common to many indigenous peoples around the world, including strong ties to the land on which they live.

When European explorers and settlers began to arrive in the Americas in the 15th century, Native Americans found themselves faced with a new set of challenges. Some Native Americans learned to coexist with Europeans, setting up trade networks and adopting European technologies. Many more faced generations of upheaval and disruption as Europeans, and later Americans and Canadians, took Native American lands and tried to destroy their ways of life. During the 20th century, however, Native American populations and cultures experienced a resurgence. Today, Native Americans are working to reassert more control over their governments, economies, and cultures.

The indigenous peoples of North America are known by many terms. Most tribal peoples prefer to be identified by their tribal affiliation, such as Hopi, Onondaga, Mohawk, or Cherokee. The most common collective terms are Native American or American Indian. For many years, Indian was the most prevalent term. When Christopher Columbus and other European explorers arrived in the Americas, they thought they were in Asia, which the Spanish referred to as “the Indies.” They called the native peoples indios, as in the people of the Indies, later translated to Indian. However, some scholars believe the Europeans were not calling native peoples indios, but rather In Dios, meaning “Of God.”

The term Native American became popular in the United States in the 1960s, although some people believe it is too broad because it can refer to anyone born in the Americas, including Hawaiians and descendants of immigrants. In Canada, aboriginal people is a commonly used collective term. It refers to Indians, Métis (people of mixed indigenous and European ancestry), and Inuit. In the 1970s many Indians in Canada began calling their bands First Nations. When referring to the original inhabitants of the United States, this article uses Native Americans, American Indians, Indians, and native peoples interchangeably. When referring to the original inhabitants of Canada, the article generally uses aboriginal peoples, indigenous peoples, and native peoples.

This article divides its discussion of Native Americans into four main parts. The Culture Areas section examines Native American ways of life in ten different geographic regions. Traditional Way of Life looks at specific aspects of Native American life, such as food, clothing, and music. The History section describes the history of Native Americans in North America from the earliest times to the present day. Native Americans Today discusses contemporary life for indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada.

For a discussion of the indigenous peoples of Middle and South America, see Native Americans of Middle and South America. Other major articles on Native Americans in North America include Indian Treaties in Canada, First Americans, Native American Architecture, Native American Art, Native American Languages, Native American Literature, Native American Policy, and Native American Religions.

POPULATION: PAST AND PRESENT

Early Population

Scholars vary greatly in their estimates of how many people were living in the Americas when Columbus arrived in 1492. Estimates range from 40 million to 90 million for all of the Americas, and from 2 million to 18 million for the aboriginal population north of present-day Mexico. These figures are hypothetical; exact population figures are impossible to ascertain. Furthermore, the date of Columbus’s arrival was not necessarily the peak of the Native American population. Civilizations had risen and fallen before that time—the Hopewell culture, for example, flourished from 200 bc to ad400 in eastern North America. Some anthropologists believe the peak occurred around ad 1200.

The number of distinct Native American groups or cultures that existed at the time of European contact is more difficult to estimate. Scholars do not estimate the number of tribes that existed at the time because few Native American peoples had the level of political organization associated with true tribes. For many native peoples, especially those who lived in areas with sparse resources, the family was the largest unit, while others were organized into bands. Some tribes did exist, but it is impossible to estimate their number, for smaller groups were constantly merging into new, larger groups, or in some cases, disappearing. Europeans applied the term nation to people with a common language and customs and a name for themselves, and by 1700, they were aware of some 50 or 60 distinct Indian “nations” east of the Mississippi River. The Spaniards found some 50 Indian nations in the West, including the Pueblo, Athapaskan-speaking peoples, Comanche, and Piman- and Yuman-speaking peoples. In the Southeast and East, many Indians tried to meet the European invasion by creating confederacies or by increasing their reliance on existing confederacies of smaller groups.

Decline

European settlement of the Americas drastically reduced the Native American population. The European conquest was primarily a biological one. Explorers and colonists brought a wide range of deadly communicable diseases directly from crowded European cities. These diseases spread quickly among Native Americans, who had no immunity to them. Transmitted through trade goods or a single infected person, measles, smallpox, and other diseases annihilated entire communities even before they had seen a single European. From the 16th century to the early 20th century, 93 epidemics and pandemics (very widespread epidemics) of European diseases decimated the native population. To cite only one example, in the American Southwest, the Pueblo population fell by 90 to 95 percent between 1775 and 1850. In addition to smallpox and measles, explorers and colonists brought a host of other diseases: bubonic plague, cholera, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, pleurisy, mumps, diphtheria, pneumonia, whooping cough, malaria, yellow fever, and various sexually transmitted infections.

Despite the undisputed devastation wreaked on Indian populations after European contact, native populations showed enormous regional variability in their response to disease exposure. Some peoples survived and, in some cases, even returned to their pre-contact population level. Others disappeared swiftly and completely. Today, as scholars explore the magnitude of the Native American population decline, they are finding that the issues are much more complex than was previously assumed. Archaeological evidence indicates that illness was increasing in the Native American population in many regions before the arrival of Columbus, probably in response to problems of population density, diet, and sanitation.

Although the introduction of new diseases was the main cause of the rapid decline of indigenous populations, other reasons were genocidal warfare, massive relocations and removals of Native Americans from their homelands, and the destruction of traditional ways of life. With white encroachment on their land, Native Americans no longer had access to their traditional hunting, gathering, and farming areas. Their subsistence patterns broke down, leading to malnutrition and greater susceptibility to disease. Relocation to new areas, often among hostile Indian tribes that were already living there, meant that people demoralized by their circumstances had to establish new subsistence patterns as well as come to terms with their forced dependency. By 1900, these factors, along with increased mortality and decreased fertility, had reduced the Native American population to its low point of only about 250,000 people in the United States and about 100,000 in Canada.

Recovery

During the 20th century, Native Americans experienced a remarkable population recovery because of decreased mortality rates, including declining disease rates. Intermarriage with nonnative peoples and changing fertility patterns have kept Native American birthrates higher than birthrates for the total North American population. Another factor in the increase is that more people in the United States are identifying themselves as Native American on their census forms. By one estimate, as much as 60 percent of the population increase of American Indians from 1970 to 1980 was due to these changing identifications.

In the United States, 2.48 million people identified themselves as American Indian in the 2000 census, up from 1.8 million in 1990. More than 300 American Indian tribes are recognized by the U.S. federal government. In Canada, there are about 600 bands of Indians. At the 1996 census, about 805,000 people—including Indians, Métis, and Inuit—identified themselves as aboriginals. For more information on current population trends in the United States and Canada, see the Native Americans Today section of this article.

Trudy Griffin-Pierce contributed the Population: Past and Present section of this article.

EARLIEST PEOPLES

Most anthropologists believe the ancestors of Native Americans were hunter-gatherers who migrated from northeastern Asia during the last part of the Pleistocene Epoch (1.6 million to 10,000 years before present). From about 25,000 to 10,000 years ago a now-submerged land bridge, called Beringia, linked northeastern Asia and northwestern North America. At that time, sea levels were lower than they are today because more of the world’s water was frozen in glaciers. The early colonizers who crossed this natural land bridge were surely unaware they had arrived on a new continent. Scholars may never know why ancient peoples ventured to the Americas. Perhaps they were in pursuit of wide-ranging game; perhaps they were driven by the enduring human urge to explore unknown territory. Whatever their motivation, these peoples, or their descendants, pushed south toward what is now the continental United States. Eventually, they made it all the way to the southern tip of South America.

Traveling south during the late Pleistocene would have been no easy task. Massive glaciers buried much of present-day Canada and parts of the United States. By about 14,000 years ago, however, the glaciers had retreated far enough to open a passable southern route down the Pacific Coast. Then, about 2,500 years later, a habitable ice-free corridor opened in the continental interior, along the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains. Many scholars suspect that both routes were used by ancient peoples migrating to the Americas.

The First Americans

For much of the 20th century, the earliest archaeological evidence of a human presence in the Americas was of the Clovis people, who first appeared about 11,500 years ago. For decades archaeologists believed these early Americans were fast-moving hunters who singularly pursued mammoth, mastodon, and other large, now-extinct Pleistocene-age animals. There is little doubt Clovis groups were highly mobile and spread rapidly, for their distinctive fluted stone spearpoints occur throughout North America in the centuries after 11,500 years ago. However, there is now evidence that Clovis people relied on a variety of food resources and were less dependent on big game than once supposed. It also appears they were not the first Americans.

Excavations in the late 20th century at the site of Monte Verde, in southern Chile, testify to an earlier human presence in the Americas, one dating to at least 12,500 years ago. Archaeologists had long suspected a pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas, but no site achieved wide acceptance until Monte Verde. The artifacts unearthed at Monte Verde include well-preserved remains of leaves and seeds, meat and bone, and ivory, as well as stone tools that are quite different from those produced by Clovis peoples. For some archaeologists, these findings suggest that Monte Verde’s ancient inhabitants were descendants of a separate, pre-Clovis migration to the Americas—possibly one that traveled down the Pacific Coast.

Paleo-Indians

The early colonizers of the Americas, known as Paleo-Indians, faced the challenge of adapting to vast new lands with a great diversity of local environments. These lands were themselves undergoing dramatic changes as the great ice sheets melted off and global climates rapidly warmed. Living in small bands of perhaps 25 to 75 people, Paleo-Indians had to learn how to survive in the new lands and to maintain contacts with distant kin. For this reason, they were highly nomadic, moving regularly and camping in easily transported animal-skin tents or other lightweight shelters. Equipped with an assortment of tools made from stone, bone, and wood, they hunted a variety of animals, from small prey such as turtles and birds, to large game, including deer and the occasional mammoth. They probably also relied on wild plant foods as well, although evidence of this is rarely preserved.

By about 10,000 years ago the descendants of the first Americans had left traces of their presence in virtually every corner of the Americas, from high in the Rocky Mountains down to lush tropical lowlands near the equator. After that time, regionally distinctive ways of life began to appear throughout the Americas as Paleo-Indian groups adapted to local environments. In North America these environments included deciduous woodlands and evergreen forests, vast deserts, grassy prairies, fertile river drainages, and coastal lowlands. Paleo-Indians living in desert country became adept at collecting wild plant foods because game animals were scarce. Buffalo- (or bison-) hunting cultures appeared on the Great Plains, where large herds of the animals lived. People living in forests hunted woodland game animals, while those near rivers and lakes fished and hunted waterfowl. Along the coasts, Paleo-Indians fished and gathered shellfish. In time, agriculture spread to North America from Mesoamerica, where cultivation of food crops began as early as 7,000 years ago, and sophisticated farming cultures appeared in the southwestern and eastern regions of what is now the United States.

CULTURE AREAS

When European explorers first arrived in North America, they encountered a great diversity of Native American peoples with widely varying customs. Over time, these indigenous peoples had developed different cultural practices that were suited to their local environments. Scholars find it convenient to group Native Americans who shared similar cultural patterns before European or Euro-American contact into regions known as culture areas.

Culture areas are applied to distinct geographic regions. Each region has a characteristic habitat made up of the prevailing climate, landforms, and natural resources, including plant and animal life. Prior to European or Euro-American contact, habitat profoundly influenced how Native Americans lived. Indigenous peoples adapted to the available resources in each habitat to obtain foods and materials for shelter, clothing, tools, and arts. The environment shaped how they organized their communities and how they viewed the world around them. Peoples living where land was suitable for farming but rainfall was limited, for example, were likely to develop similar types of agricultural practices and to share mythological themes surrounding their farming. Similarly, peoples living in areas with large herds of migrating game were likely to have nomadic or seminomadic lifestyles and to celebrate the animals they hunted in their mythologies.

Culture areas may also help provide a framework for understanding Native Americans after European or Euro-American contact, as non-Indians made inroads onto indigenous lands and influenced indigenous culture. One culture area in particular—that of the Great Plains—came to be defined long after the first Europeans had arrived in North America. Horses brought to the Americas by Spanish colonizers transformed aboriginal ways of living on the vast North American Plains.

Scholars have devised a number of different systems for defining culture areas. The most common system divides North America north of Mexico into ten culture areas. These include the Southeast culture area, Northeast culture area, Southwest culture area, California culture area, Great Basin culture area, Northwest Coast culture area, Plateau culture area, Great Plains culture area, Subarctic culture area, and Arctic culture area.

Whichever culture area system is used, it should be kept in mind that each tribe or group had its own distinctive customs, making cultural generalizations difficult. It is also important to remember that many Native American customs and behaviors that originated in pre-contact times are still practiced today. The Native American saga is ongoing.

Southeast

Land and Habitat

The Southeast culture area is a semitropical region north of the Gulf of Mexico and south of the Middle Atlantic-Midwest region. Humid and well-watered, the area extends from the Atlantic coast westward approximately to what is now central Texas.

The terrain and vegetation of the Southeast culture area consists of a coastal plain along the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, with saltwater marshes, grasses, and stands of cypress. Especially rich soils are found in present-day Alabama and Mississippi in a narrow belt, called the Black Belt, and along the Mississippi River floodplain. The region also includes the vast swamplands, hummocks (rounded hills), and high grass of the Everglades in present-day Florida, and the rolling mountains of the southern Appalachian chain.

At the time of early contacts between Native Americans and Europeans, much of the region was woodland, with southern pine generally thicker near the coasts and more broadleaf trees further inland. Because of these extensive forests, some scholars refer to this region as the Southeast Woodlands culture area. Others combine the Southeast culture area with the Northeast culture area—another heavily wooded region—and refer to it as the Eastern Woodlands culture area.

Peoples and Languages

The larger Native American groups of the Southeast culture area included the Alabama, Caddo, Catawba, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Coushatta, Creek, Natchez, Timucua, Yamasee, and Yuchi. Also important were the Seminole—a post-contact offshoot of mostly Creek. There were many other tribes as well, a great number of them now extinct. Many Southeast peoples spoke languages in the Muskogean family. Scholars have identified at least 48 distinct Muskogean-speaking tribes at the time of European contact. In addition to Muskogean, language families of the Southeast included Siouan, Iroquoian, Caddoan, Timucuan, and Tunican. Other tribes spoke languages not associated with the main language families, including Atakapan by the Atakapa, Chitimachan by the Chitimacha, and Natchesan by the Natchez.

Early Peoples

Humans have occupied the Southeast for many thousands of years. For millennia, prehistoric hunter-gatherer bands were on the move, preying on large and small game, fishing, and collecting wild plant foods. Cultivation of some native plants—including sunflower, marsh elder, and goosefoot—began in the region about 5,000 years ago. A dramatic shift in agriculture occurred in the Southeast about ad400 as indigenous peoples looked beyond native species and began to cultivate maize, or corn, a crop domesticated thousands of years earlier in Mesoamerica. This development, which spread to the Southeast from the Southwest culture area, revolutionized subsistence and permitted the development of large, complex societies.

By ad 800 a great agricultural culture of mound builders, called the Mississippian or Temple Mound culture, arose in the Southeast. Like the earlier Adena and Hopewell mound-building peoples living along the Ohio River Valley to the north, Mississippian peoples constructed great earthen burial mounds. They also built massive earthworks that supported temples and rulers’ residences. Across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis, Missouri, the Mississippians built the city of Cahokia, which may have been home to 20,000 or more people.

Master farmers, Mississippians typically settled along riverbeds, where soils were rich and productive. Mississippian peoples are thought to be ancestors of some Native American peoples of the region. Spanish explorers reported seeing earthen mounds among the tribes of the Creek Confederacy—an alliance of some Muskogean-speaking peoples—and Cherokee in the 1500s. As late as the early 1700s, at the time of contact with French explorers, the Natchez people were still using earthen mounds, growing maize, and exhibiting other cultural traits consistent with Mississippian culture.

Diet and Subsistence

Three Kinds of Maize

Southeast Indians were expert farmers, growing maize, beans, squash, and sunflowers as staple crops. The Cherokee, among other peoples, cultivated three different kinds of maize. They roasted one, boiled another, and ground a third into flour for cornbread. Because sandy soil conditions were common in many areas, Southeast peoples frequently changed agricultural fields to keep crops healthy, moving their villages when necessary to develop new farmlands.

Hunting and Gathering

Southeast peoples also hunted and foraged to supplement their diets. They used bows and arrows to kill deer and blowguns equipped with poison-tipped darts to hunt turkeys and other small game. For fishing they used spears, traps, weirs (enclosures set in waterways), and poisons. They also foraged for nuts and fruits, as well as edible roots, stalks, and leaves. These were collected and sometimes stored in baskets or ceramic pots.

Social and Political Organization

Villages served as the primary form of sociopolitical organization among Southeast Indians. Among many Southeast tribes, villagers governed their own affairs and claimed control over a specific geographic area, such as a river valley. Village councils of tribal leaders, often led by a head chief, met to discuss matters important to the community, such as cultivating fields owned by the community, building or repairing public buildings, or providing for village defense.

Some Southeast tribes were organized into chiefdoms—societies with a supreme ruler and with social rank determined by birth—and some chiefdoms encompassed many villages. Chiefdoms typically had powerful priesthoods. The Natchez, a Sun-worshipping people, were ruled by a leader known as the Great Sun, a supposed living deity who held autocratic power. His relatives, called Suns, formed a class of high priests. Beneath them were nobles of varying rank, and under nobles were commoners, who did most of the farming, hunting, and mound building. The tribes of the Creek Confederacy also had well-developed hierarchies, as did the Chickasaw, although less so. Other tribes of the region, including the Cherokee and Choctaw, were more democratic and less formal in their social structure, with leadership roles usually determined by a person’s achievements.

Settlement and Housing

Most Southeast peoples located their villages along river valleys and planted their crops in nearby fields. Homes and public buildings were typically rectangular or, less frequently, circular. Most structures were constructed of wattle and daub, a type of architecture in which branches and vines are tied over pole frameworks and covered with a mixture of mud or clay. Sometimes structures were covered with plant materials, including thatch—made from straw, reeds, rushes, and grasses—as well as woven mats, bark, bamboo stalks, and palm fronds. Animal hides were also used as coverings. For swampy areas the Seminole people built chickees, distinctive open-sided houses on stilts with wooden platforms and thatched roofs.

Transportation

In addition to travel by foot on established trails, Southeast peoples used dugout canoes for transportation along the waterways that crisscrossed much of the region and along coastal areas. To make these boats, they charred parts of logs with embers from a fire and then hollowed out the softened parts with stone and bone scrapers. Some dugouts, having hull walls just a few centimeters thick, were light enough for one person to carry. Native Americans propelled these boats with wooden paddles.

Clothing and Ornamentation

In warm weather Southeast Indian men typically wore only breechcloths, usually of deerskin. Women typically wore wraparound plant-fiber skirts and shell necklaces. In cold weather men wore deerskin shirts, leggings, and moccasins; women wore deerskin capes and moccasins. For ceremonial purposes, tribal leaders and priests wore capes of feathers. Among some Southeast tribes, men plucked out their hair with shell tweezers and tattooed themselves with designs representing exploits in war and with totems(symbols that serve as an emblem of a family or clan). Elaborate tattoos also adorned some Southeast women.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

Southeast peoples, like indigenous peoples throughout North America, regarded themselves as part of the natural and spiritual worlds. They considered religion a function of daily activity, with rituals capable of influencing the interconnected realms of physical and supernatural existence. Shamans, or medicine men, served as priests, and they led tribal members in rituals believed to ensure an adequate food supply. Since Southeast Indians practiced agriculture, many of their ceremonies surrounded the planting and harvesting season.

The Green Corn Ceremony, or Busk, was an annual renewal and thanksgiving festival performed by the Cherokee, Creek, and other Southeast tribes. It was held in mid- to late summer, when the corn was ready for roasting. The ceremony lasted from four to eight days and included ritual fasting, dancing, and feasting. Old fires were extinguished, and a new sacred fire was lit from which every household obtained fire. New tools, weapons, and clothing were made. Wrongdoers were forgiven for most crimes except murder. A beverage known as the Black Drink—so named by English traders because of its dark color—was believed to purify spiritually all those who imbibed it. Different tribes had different recipes for this ritual tea, made from varying species of holly, tobacco, and other plants.

Post-Contact History

Spanish explorers are the first known outsiders to have visited the Southeast. They sailed northward from the Caribbean region in the late 1400s and early 1500s, soon after Christopher Columbus reached the West Indies. The earliest cross-cultural contacts took place along coastal areas. Southeast coastal tribes received European goods as gifts or in trade; they also were exposed to European diseases and were kidnapped as slaves. These early contacts probably impacted inland groups as well through the spread of diseases, when exposed coastal peoples traded with interior tribes. Entire villages may have perished before the first European explorers even reached them.

From 1539 to 1543 an expedition under the Spaniard Hernando de Soto explored many of the Southeast's interior regions and came into contact with numerous peoples. In 1565 the Spanish founded the first permanent settlement in North America at Saint Augustine in modern-day Florida. By the 1600s the English and French had also taken a strong interest in the Southeast. The English established settlements on the Atlantic Coast, and the French built towns along the Mississippi River Valley. Epidemics among Southeast peoples and intermittent warfare with Euro-Americans took a heavy toll on the indigenous population, and many tribes were displaced from their lands. For many groups, displacement led to a loss of tribal identity.

By the time the United States achieved independence from Britain at the end of the American Revolution in 1783, many Southeast tribes had disappeared. Refugees of smaller tribes were often absorbed by the larger groups that remained. Some Southeast peoples, including the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole, came to adapt Euro-American customs. The Cherokee, for instance, created a representative form of government with a constitution and a written form of their Iroquoian language. Non-Indians eventually referred to these groups as the Five Civilized Tribes.

Euro-Americans soon displaced many of the remaining Southeast peoples from their lands. Pressure by non-Indian settlers led U.S. president Andrew Jackson to pass the Indian Removal Act of 1830, under which the Five Civilized Tribes were relocated to the Indian Territory (a region encompassing present-day Oklahoma). Many Indians died on the long journey in difficult weather with little food or water. This forced exodus came to be known among the Cherokee as the Trail of Tears. Today, many descendants of the Southeast tribes live on reservations in Oklahoma. Some Southeast Indians still live in their ancestral homelands, since pockets of their ancestors did manage to avoid relocation. In recent times, small groups throughout the Southeast have tried to reestablish tribal unity and identity.

Northeast

Land and Habitat

The Northeast culture area consists of the temperate-climate regions of what is now the eastern United States and southeastern Canada. The region stretches east from the Mississippi River Valley across the Appalachian Mountains to the Atlantic seaboard. In the east the region encompasses the portion of the Atlantic Coast that extends from southeastern Canada to the Chesapeake Bay region in Maryland and Virginia. Inland it includes the northern Appalachian chain, which runs in a north-south direction and creates a natural barrier. In the north central part of the culture area are the large inland bodies of water known as the Great Lakes.

Hundreds of rivers flow throughout the Northeast, and much of the soil, especially in the valleys, is suitable for agriculture. Although generally humid, the climate is varied, like the terrain, with the lengths of the four seasons determined by latitude and altitude. The Northeast culture area is sometimes referred to as Northeast Woodlands because of the widespread forests, including broadleaf hardwoods and coniferous evergreens. Sometimes the area is grouped with the Southeast culture area and referred to as the Eastern Woodlands.

Peoples and Languages

At the time of European contact, two great lines of people of two major language families lived in the Northeast: Algonquian-speaking peoples and Iroquoian-speaking peoples. These peoples can be organized into five major groups. In addition, there were many other smaller tribes and bands that maintained distinct political identities.

The first of the five groups was the Algonquian peoples of Nova Scotia, New England, Long Island, Hudson Valley, and the Delaware Valley. The largest tribes of this group were the Abenaki, Delaware (Lenni Lenape), Mahican, Maliseet, Massachuset, Mi’kmaq (Micmac), Mohegan, Montauk, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pennacook, Pequot, Wampanoag, and Wappinger. Second were the Chesapeake Bay and Cape Hatteras tribes, including the Algonquian Nanticoke, Powhaten, and Secotan. Also in this group were the Iroquoian Susquehannock and Tuscarora (the latter tribe eventually migrating northward and settling among other Iroquoians). Third were the Great Lakes Algonquian tribes. These included the Algonquin, Menominee, Ottawa, Potawatomi, and some bands of Ojibwa (Chippewa), along with the Siouan-speaking Winnebago (Ho-Chunk). Fourth were the Prairie Algonquian tribes, including the Fox (Mesquakie), Illinois, Kickapoo, Miami, Sac (Sauk), and Shawnee. Fifth were the New York and Ontario Iroquoian tribes. These included the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca—referred to collectively as Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)—and the Erie, Huron, Neutral, and Tobacco.

Early Peoples

Ancient hunter-gatherers entered the Northeast more than 10,000 years ago, possibly following game animals into the region from the west. By about 9,000 years ago, as the climate warmed, the peoples of the area became increasingly dependent on deer, nuts, and wild grains.

The early history of the Northeast is similar to that of the Southeast culture area. About 5,000 years ago Northeast peoples began cultivating plants they found growing wild. All of these wild plants—including amaranth, marsh elder, and goosefoot—were grown for their seeds, which were ground into flour. Maize agriculture had reached the region from the Southeast after about ad400, permitting many peoples to rely more heavily on farming for subsistence.

Exact connections between prehistoric peoples and the later Native American inhabitants of the region are not known. It is generally thought that the Algonquian-speaking tribes, who spread out over a huge area from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, occupied the Northeast first. Algonquian groups may be descendants of some of the earliest hunter-gatherer peoples in the region. Alternatively they may be descendants of the ancient mound builders, the peoples of the Adena and Hopewell cultures, centered along the Ohio River Valley. The Iroquoian-speaking peoples, who settled to the east of the Great Lakes and in the southern reaches of the culture area on the coastal plain, appear to have entered the area later and from the south. A Siouan-speaking group called the Winnebago lived west of the Great Lakes. Other Siouans had made their homes nearby, but eventually migrated westward and adopted a different way of life on the Great Plains.

Diet and Subsistence

Hunting and Gathering

Northeast peoples hunted a variety of game, large and small: deer, rabbit, squirrel, beaver, and various birds, such as turkey, partridge, duck, and goose. Peoples of the northern woods also hunted moose, elk, and bear. Some peoples living near the prairies of the Mississippi River Valley hunted the North American bison, or buffalo. In addition to hunting with spears, bows and arrows, and clubs, Northeast Indians used traps, snares, and deadfalls(traps designed to cause heavy objects, such as logs, to fall, disabling or killing prey). They used disguises to get close to animals, lured prey with animal calls, and set fires to drive animals toward hunters or traps.

Northeast Indians also fished rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds. They caught fish with harpoons, hooks, nets, and traps. Peoples living along the Atlantic Coast depended on shellfish for part of their diet. Wild plant foods were also an important food source, including berries, nuts, roots, stalks, and leaves. Some tribes along the western Great Lakes collected a tall grass with an edible grain, referred to as a wild rice. Peoples living in maple country collected sap from the trees in early spring and boiled it down into maple syrup and sugar.

Farming

Most Northeast peoples supplemented a hunting-gathering diet with farming. The Iroquois thought of their three most important crops—maize (corn), beans, and squash—as the Three Sisters and planted them together on small earthen hills. Corn stalks supported the vines of bean plants while the large-leafed squash plants served to block weed growth. Algonquian peoples introduced the Pilgrims and other early settlers in their homelands to these cultivated crops in addition to many wild foods, including maple sugar, cranberries, blueberries, lobsters, clams, and oysters.

Social and Political Organization

Families and Clans

The family played an important role in Northeast Indian society. Most tribes were further organized into clans—clusters of related families who claimed a common ancestor. Clans often took animal names, such as the Deer Clan or Bear Clan. The Iroquois were a matrilinealsociety, with descent and property passing through the female line. Each clan was headed by an elder woman, known as a clan mother. Clan mothers owned the crops and the communal dwellings and held great political power. They elected tribal chiefs, who were generally male, retained the right to veto actions they opposed, and had to approve declarations of war. Unlike the Iroquois, the Algonquian were a patrilineal society, with descent and property traced through the male line.

Confederacies

To reduce conflict and maintain unity against enemies, Northeast tribes organized into a number of confederacies. The Iroquois Confederacy, also called the League of Five Nations, helped its member tribes achieve great power and long-term political stability. The confederacy was founded by the late 1500s, possibly earlier, and was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. It became known as the League of Six Nations after the Tuscarora migrated to the area from present-day North Carolina and formally joined the confederacy in 1722. Central to the alliance was a deliberative council composed of delegates from all the member tribes. Clan mothers selected a proportion of the delegates to the council, and many procedures were established in a constitution that was passed down orally from generation to generation.

Confederacies were also common among the Algonquian tribes, although they were less tightly organized than the Iroquois Confederacy. Some Algonquian alliances resulted from the abilities of a single strong leader, such as Chief Powhatan of the Powhatan Confederacy. Other Algonquian confederacies included the Abenaki Confederacy, Delaware Confederacy, Wampanoag Confederacy, and the Wappinger Confederacy.

Settlement and Housing

Some Northeast Indians maintained permanent villages. Other peoples were seminomadic, changing village sites depending on food availability. They made clearings in the woods, usually near streams or rivers, and sometimes surrounded them with palisades (tall walls made from sharpened logs stuck upright in the earth) for defensive purposes. Two types of houses were common in the Northeast: the Iroquoian longhouse and the Algonquian wigwam. The region’s vast forests provided the main building materials for these shelters.

Longhouses

The Iroquoians built longhouses, communal dwellings capable of housing a dozen or more families. Longhouses had pointed or rounded roofs and doors at both ends. The buildings were constructed with post-and-beam and bent sapling frames and usually covered with sheets of elm bark. Raised platforms were used for sleeping. Smoke holes in the roofs allowed smoke from open fires to escape.

Wigwams

Algonquian peoples generally lived in smaller structures known as wigwams. Wigwams were domed or cone-shaped dwellings consisting of pole frames overlaid with birchbark or elm bark, reed mats, or animal hides, depending on what materials were available. They were typically built over a shallow pit, with earth piled around the base. Fires in the center provided a source of heat and light. Longhouses were sometimes used as council or ceremonial buildings.

Transportation

Northeast peoples frequently relied on birchbark canoes for transporting people and provisions in waterways. Algonquian peoples crafted them using a framework of cedar or spruce wood and a covering of birchbark. They sewed pieces of bark together with spruce root, then sealed the seams with melted spruce gum. These elegant boats drew little water, making them well suited for navigating shallow lakes, rivers, and streams. Light and strong, birchbark canoes could be carried easily overland, making them advantageous for hunting or raiding expeditions. Iroquoians used heavier elm bark instead of birchbark to cover their canoe frameworks.

Clothing and Ornamentation

Hide Garments

Deerskin was the material of choice for clothing before Europeans brought cotton and other trade goods into the Northeast. Treated and softened hide was used for shirts, leggings, dresses, skirts, breechcloths, and moccasins. Northeast Indians also made robes and mittens from beaver and bear fur. To decorate clothing they used feathers, shells, stones, paint, and porcupine-quill embroidery. Sometimes they used paint for body decoration or adorned their faces with tattoos, although tattooing was not as prevalent as in the Southeast culture area.

Wampum

The Algonquians and Iroquoians placed a high value on wampum, an Algonquian-derived term that refers to small beads made from shells, or the strings, belts, or sashes made from these beads. Wampum was used for a variety of tribal and intertribal purposes. Especially valued were beads made from the dark purple, black, and white quahog clamshells. Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples used beads to decorate tools and weapons, and as jewelry. They also used belts of wampum with beads arranged in pictographs for keeping tribal records and to communicate messages of peace or war to other tribes. Some tribes used wampum belts in religious and kinship ceremonies.

Prior to European contact, wampum sometimes served as a medium of exchange, although its other cultural functions were more significant. The Europeans began making wampum out of glass beads for trade purposes—especially for the fur trade—and it eventually became used as a form of money. Native Americans also began making wampum from European glass beads.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

The Great Spirit

Northeast Indians believed in a spirit world that interacted with the physical, or natural, world. This included belief in a primary spirit, a great animating force that pervaded all existence. Algonquians called this animating force Kitche Manitou (“Great Spirit”), or simply Manitou, and by other names depending on language dialects. The Iroquoian version of Manitou is known as Orenda, among other names, and Siouans referred to it by variations on Wakan, or Wakanda. According to indigenous beliefs, the Great Spirit had many manifestations. It was believed to be present in all things—animals, plants, water, rocks, and other natural phenomena, such as the Sun, Moon, weather, or sickness. Lesser manifestations of the Great Spirit were sometimes referred to as manitousor by other names, such as Thunderbird, Bringer of Rain. Shamans were believed to be capable of controlling these spirits.

Apart from a general belief in the Great Spirit, Algonquian tribes had different legends and believed in different supernatural beings. Some of these beings were considered heroes or guardian spirits, such as Manebozho, the Great Hare, who, according to the legends of the Ojibwa and other Algonquian tribes, remade the world after bad spirits had destroyed it in a flood.

Medicine Societies

Medicine societies, composed of practitioners skilled in the arts of healing, were important among many Northeast peoples. These societies sought the help of the spirit world and dispensed herbal cures to ward off disease and heal the sick. One of the most famous Northeast medicine societies was the Medewiwin (Grand Medicine Society), which originated among the Ojibwa and spread to other Great Lakes Algonquians. Members, known as Mides, served a long apprenticeship before gaining admittance to the society. Separate apprenticeships were necessary to attain the four ranks of Mides, each of which was associated with ever-greater supernatural powers.

Members of the False Face Society of the Iroquois wore wooden masks known as false faces. The masks, which represented spirits known as Faces of the Forest, were carved on a living tree. Then a ceremony of prayer and tobacco offering was held while the masks were cut from the trunk. The masks were believed to frighten away malevolent spirits that caused illness, and False Face dances were performed to heal the sick.

Post-Contact History

Some Northeast coastal peoples may have had contacts with non-Native Americans as early as about ad1000, when Vikings sailing from Iceland attempted to found colonies in North America, including at least one settlement in what is now Newfoundland and Labrador. The first known contacts with later European explorers occurred in the 1500s. However, it was not until the 1600s that European influences began to alter significantly indigenous ways of life. Trade goods, including iron tools and pots, brightly colored clothing, glass beads, and firearms, spread throughout the region at varying rates depending on the location of tribes.

Many groups maintained something close to their traditional ways of life for generations, even with the new tools and materials. European goods were incorporated into aboriginal technologies, art forms, and rituals. However, alcohol was one trade good that rapidly and consistently proved detrimental to tribal identity. The spread of European diseases also led to significant loss of life among Northeast peoples, as it did throughout North America.

Patterns of non-Indian expansion in present-day eastern Canada—much of which was once a part of New France (the French Empire in North America)—were less disruptive than they were further south. The economy of New France revolved around the fur trade, which began with the voyages of French explorer Jacques Cartier in the 1530s. The French were more likely to develop trade relations with Native Americans than to settle permanently on their lands, and European settlement of indigenous lands in Canada occurred more gradually.

English colonists, pushing inland from the Atlantic Coast in what is now the northeastern United States, were more land hungry than the French traders, since many of them hoped to establish new lives as farmers. In 1607, with the help of Chief Powhatan and his daughter, Pocahontas, the English founded their first successful American colony at Jamestown in what is now Virginia. However, conflict between Indians and colonists—who wanted land to grow tobacco as a cash crop—eventually destroyed the Powhatan Confederacy. Warfare between Native Americans and English colonists also occurred in the years after the Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620 in present-day Massachusetts. Although these colonists were subsistence farmers rather than cash-crop farmers, their desire for land sparked a series of conflicts that ultimately led to the destruction or displacement of many New England tribes.

Colonial wars in the 1700s drew in many Northeast tribes on opposing sides. A long succession of attacks and skirmishes between the British and French culminated in the French and Indian War (1754-1763). The Iroquois Confederacy blocked French efforts to control the waterways from the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes. The Mohawk, a leading Iroquois tribe, became firm allies of the British and helped defeat the French in Québec in 1759. Many Northeast peoples, however, came to resent British restrictions on trade and British expansion west of the Appalachians. Beginning in 1763 a series of Indian attacks on British outposts swept through the Great Lakes country and along the Ohio River Valley. In an attempt to maintain peace the British issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which guaranteed indigenous peoples all the land west of the Appalachians. Nevertheless, non-Indian settlers continued to cross the mountains in the wake of such explorers as Daniel Boone.

During the American Revolution, pro-independence colonists tried to win the support of Northeast peoples by halting Euro-American settlement on Indian lands. However, Mohawk chief Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) and Seneca chiefs Cornplanter and Red Jacket persuaded four of the six Iroquois nations to join the British side. At the end of the war in 1783, the Iroquois ceded large tracts of land to the United States, and many Iroquois moved with their British allies to Ontario in Canada. Most Seneca, as well as smaller numbers of the other Iroquois people, remained on ancestral lands.

Increasing non-Indian settlement in the Northeast pushed many of the remaining tribes westward across the Mississippi River and onto the Great Plains. By the mid-1800s, few indigenous peoples still lived in the Northeast. Those who stayed retained a small land base and became in many instances forgotten neighbors of the dominant Euro-American culture around them. Beginning in the 20th century, Northeast peoples in both the United States and Canada sought to revive their traditional cultures.

Southwest

Land and Habitat

The Southwest culture area reaches across a great swath of arid country in what is now the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. It includes diverse terrain, from the high mesas and canyons of the Colorado Plateau in the north to the Mogollon Mountains of present-day southern New Mexico. Cactus-dotted deserts flank the Little Colorado River in present-day southern Arizona and the Gulf of Mexico in present-day southern Texas.

Few rains water the Southwest, and most rainfall occurs during a six-week period in the summer. Snowfall is infrequent except in mountain areas. Three types of vegetation are dominant, depending on altitude and rainfall: western evergreen in the mountains; piñon and juniper in mesa country; and desert shrub, cactus, and mesquite in lower, drier regions.

Peoples and Languages

Three language families predominated among peoples in the Southwest: Uto-Aztecan, Yuman, and Athapaskan. Uto-Aztecan speakers included the Hopi of Arizona and the Tohono O’Odham (Papago) and Akimel O'Odham (Pima) of Arizona and northern Mexico. Some Pueblo peoples, including the Tewa, Tiwa, and Towa in modern-day New Mexico, spoke dialects of Kiowa-Tanoan, a language family related to Uto-Aztecan. The Cocopah, Havasupai, Hualapai, Maricopa, Mojave, Yavapai, Yuma (Quechan), and other neighboring peoples in Arizona spoke Yuman, and they are referred to collectively as Yumans. The Apache and Navajo (Diné) of New Mexico and Arizona and the southern fringe of Colorado and Utah spoke Athapaskan. Southwest languages considered distinct from the main language families included Coalhuitecan of the Coalhuitec in Texas and northern Mexico; Karankawan of the Karankawa in Texas; Keresan of the Keres, a Pueblo people in New Mexico; and Zunian of the Zuni, another Pueblo people of New Mexico.

Early Peoples

When prehistoric peoples first arrived in the Southwest more than 10,000 years ago, there was enough rainfall in the region to support mammoths, bison, and other large mammals. Stone spearpoints found with the remains of these animals provide evidence that ancient Southwest peoples hunted them. After the climate became drier and the large animals disappeared, subsequent generations of Southwest peoples hunted deer and small game and collected fruits, nuts, and seeds of wild plants. About 5,000 years ago the Cochise people in present-day Arizona and New Mexico began growing a primitive species of maize (corn), which was domesticated in earlier centuries in Mesoamerica. By 4,500 years ago they had become skilled farmers.

In later centuries, four distinct farming peoples occupied the Southwest: peoples of the Mogollon, Hohokam, Anasazi, and Patayan cultures, as well as a number of smaller offshoots. The people of these cultures raised maize, beans, and squash. For each of these peoples, the adoption of agriculture permitted the settlement of permanent villages and the continued refinement of farming technology, arts, and crafts, especially pottery.

The Mogollon people of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, who appeared about 2,300 years ago, are believed to be descendents of the Cochise people. Mogollon Indians built permanent villages in the region’s high valleys and learned to make pottery decorated with intricate geometric patterns. The Mimbres people, a Mogollan subgroup, is famous for painting pottery with dramatic black-on-white geometric designs of animals and ceremonial scenes. From about ad1200 to 1400 the Mogollan culture was gradually absorbed by the then-dominant Anasazi culture.

The Hohokam people of southern Arizona may also have descended from the Cochise. First appearing about 2,100 years ago, Hohokam Indians dug extensive irrigation ditches for their crops. Some canals, which carried water diverted from rivers, extended many kilometers. Hohokam people also built sunken ball courts—like those of the Maya Civilization in Mesoamerica—on which they played a game resembling a combination of modern basketball and soccer. Hohokam people are thought to be ancestors of the Tohono O’Odham and Pima, who preserved much of the Hohokam way of life.

In the Four Corners region, where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado now join, lived the Anasazi Indians, also known as ancestral Pueblo peoples. The Anasazi culture, which gradually emerged from older Southwestern cultures, had taken on its distinctive characteristics by about 2,100 years ago. Anthropologists refer to the Anasazi of this early era as Basket Makers because they wove fine baskets from rushes, straw, and other materials. Basket Makers hunted and gathered wild foods, tended fields, and lived in large pit houses, dwellings with sunken floors that were topped by sturdy timber frameworks covered with mud. By about ad 700 Basket Maker culture had evolved into the early Pueblo cultural period. Over the next 200 years these peoples made the transition from pit houses to surface dwellings called pueblos—rectangular, multistoried apartment buildings composed of terraced stone and adobe. They built large planned towns connected by an extensive network of public roads and irrigation systems. At its peak, after about 900, Pueblo culture dominated much of the Southwest. From about 1150 to 1300 Pueblo peoples evacuated most of their aboveground pueblos and built spectacular dwellings in the recesses of cliffs (see Cliff Dweller). The largest of these had several hundred rooms and could house a population of 600 to 800 in close quarters.

The Patayan people, who lived near the Colorado River in what is now western Arizona, learned to farm by about ad 875. They planted crops along the river floodplain and filled out their diets by hunting and gathering. Patayan Indians lived in brush huts and made brownish pottery, sometimes painted red, as well as baskets. They were known to use seashells from the Gulf of California in trade. The Patayan people are thought to be ancestors of the Yuman-speaking tribes.

During the late 1200s the Four Corners area suffered severe droughts, and many Pueblo sites were abandoned. However, Pueblo settlements along the Rio Grande in the south grew larger, and elaborate irrigation systems were built. Between 1200 and 1500 a people speaking Athapaskan appeared in the Southwest, having migrated southward along the western Great Plains. Based on linguistic connections, these people are believed to have branched off from indigenous peoples in western Canada. They are the ancestors of the nomadic Apache and Navajo. Their arrival may have played a role in the relocation of some Pueblo groups.

Diet and Subsistence

Desert Farmers

Two principal ways of life developed in the Southwest: sedentary and nomadic. The sedentary Pueblo peoples were mainly farmers who hunted and foraged to fill out their diets. They cultivated a variety of crops, including corn of many varieties, squash, beans, sunflowers, cotton, and tobacco. Pueblo Indians also raised tame turkeys. A number of desert peoples, including the upland and river Yuman tribes and the Tohono O’Odham and Pima, maintained a largely agrarian way of life as well.

Agriculture north of Mesoamerica—the cradle of farming in the Americas—reached its highest level of development in the Southwest. Growing food crops gave many Southwest peoples the ability to prosper in a harsh landscape with few game animals or edible wild plants. The agricultural peoples were such skilled farmers that, even in the dry country, they managed to maintain sizable populations in permanent villages.

Nomadic Subsistence

In addition to the Apache and Navajo, the Karankawa and Coahuiltec tribes of southwestern Texas practiced a nomadic hunting and gathering way of life. Game was scarce throughout the Southwest, with larger mammals, such as deer and elk, found only in high, forested country. Smaller game included rabbits, birds, and rattlesnakes. Southwest peoples also gathered wild plant foods, especially mesquite seeds and cactus. Some tribes, such as the Karankawa living along the Gulf of Mexico, supplemented their diet through fishing. When nomadic peoples could not find enough food to eat in their rugged homelands, they raided the village peoples for their crops.

Social and Political Organization

Sociopolitical structure varied throughout the Southwest. Pueblo Indians had a closely knit village life. Descent was matrilineal—traced through the female line. Women owned the houses, and married men lived in the homes of their wives. Tribes were organized into clans, groups of families who claimed a common ancestor. Pueblo priests served as both civil and religious leaders, and they were organized into secret societies. The civil responsibilities of priests included advising on matters affecting the entire pueblo, such as defensive measures against raiding peoples; settling disputes between individuals; or helping individuals make personal decisions. Various clans helped the priests direct a full calendar of religious events, with elaborate rituals of dance, song, and prayer. Women prepared food for these unifying events.

Apache and Navajo bands had less formal types of social and political organization. Each band, which was made up of extended clans, had a headman who was chosen informally for his leadership abilities and military prowess. However, other warriors could launch raids on their own without a headman's permission.

Settlement and Housing

Pueblos and Kivas

One of the most distinctive types of housing in the Southwest was the pueblo (Spanish for “village”).Pueblo-style dwellings are unique among Native American homes because of their apartment-like design, as high as five different levels. The flat roof of one level served as the floor and front yard of another, and the different stories were interconnected by ladders. Inhabitants entered their rooms by ladder through holes in the roofs. The largest pueblos, known as Great Houses, could shelter perhaps 1,000 people.

Southwest peoples used different types of building material to construct pueblo walls. The Hopi and Zuni typically used stones, which were cemented with adobe mortar and sometimes covered with adobe plaster. Pueblo Indians along the Rio Grande typically used adobe bricks made from sun-dried earth and straw.

Pueblo Indians also built a type of pit house, known by the Hopi term kiva. Anthropologists believe kivas evolved from the earlier Basket Maker pit houses. Kivas were circular or rectangular in shape and served as ceremonial chambers or clubhouses for men. They were usually located at a central place in the pueblo, often on the plaza. The largest pueblo towns had Great Kivas that could hold hundreds of people. These kivas are thought to have been used for councils and for the most important religious ceremonies.

Wickiups and Hogans

The most common type of dwelling for Apache bands was the wickiup, a dome- or cone-shaped hut with a pole framework. The Apache covered this framework with brush, grass, or reed mats. Wickiups frequently had a central fire pit and a smoke hole.

The Navajo lived in shelters called hogans. These structures were either cone-shaped or dome-shaped with six or eight sides. Logs and poles were used for the frameworks, which were covered with mud, sod, and bark. In later years the frameworks were covered with stone or adobe. The doorways of hogans always faced east, with the floor symbolizing Mother Earth and the roof Father Sky.

Tohono O’Odham and Pima houses were small, round, flat-topped, pole-framed structures, covered with grass and mud—a type of wattle-and-daub architecture. Their villages also contained ramadas, rectangular structures with no walls, or sometimes just one wall as a windbreak. Ramadas served as clubhouses. Some Yumans lived in dwellings similar to those of the Apache and some built homes resembling those of the Tohono O’Odham and Pima.

Clothing and Ornamentation

The main clothing material used by Pueblo Indians was cotton, which they spun into fabric for garments. They also used animal skins, furs, and feathers for clothes. Men typically wore a cotton loincloth, a short kilt, and skin moccasins. For cold weather or ceremonies, they added a poncho(a rectangular cut of cloth with a hole for the head). Women wrapped a cotton rectangle around themselves, tying it over the shoulder, and they wore calf-length skin boots. The Tohono O’Odham and Pima also wore cotton and animal-skin clothing, but they favored hide sandals over moccasins. The Yumans, who wore minimal clothing, preferred garments made from animal skins and woven bark, as well as hide sandals. Some Southwest peoples also crafted sandals from woven plant fibers. The Apache and Navajo originally wore deerskin clothing. In later centuries they adopted some of the dress customs of Pueblo Indians.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

Gods and Legendary Beings

Southwest religions centered on an unseen world of gods and legendary beings. For the agricultural peoples, the ritual calendar revolved around the growing cycle of corn; the function of most rituals was to enlist the help of spiritual beings to bring good crops upon which life depended. Central to the religions of nomadic peoples were mythologies relating to natural forces and spirits thought to intervene in human affairs. Southwest nomads sought the protection of the supernatural to cope with illness, shortage of game, drought, and other matters of daily survival.

Among the Pueblo Indians, kivas provided an important space for their ceremonies and rituals. An underground chamber, the kiva represented a primordial homeland, the place from which the Corn Mothers—legendary ancestors of Pueblo peoples—entered this world. A shallow hole set in the floor of the kiva, called a sipapu, symbolized the connection to the spiritual world below. Ceremonies in kivas lasted as long as a week or more and included singing and prayer.

Spiritual beings known as kachinas to the Hopi and by other names to other Pueblo Indians were revered as bringers of rain and social good. Pueblo men carved wooden masks to represent these spiritual beings in ceremonies. They also carved figures, called kachina dolls, to teach their children about their religion.

The most powerful gods among the Tohono O’Odham and Pima were Earthmaker, who created the Earth, and Elder Brother, who made the people out of clay and passed their arts and crafts to them. Directed by their shamans, both peoples practiced a ceremony called the Viikita, or harvest ceremony, every fourth year. In the Viikita, costumed and masked dancers and clowns were believed to bring about tribal prosperity and good fortune. Shamans also directed the religious practices of the Yumans, whose rituals were less elaborate than other Southwest Indians.

To attain the aid of supernatural forces, nomadic peoples made offerings to their gods and spirits, which were often represented in ceremonies by painted and masked men. The ga’ns, or mountain spirits, were important in Apache ceremonies. Men dressed up in elaborate costumes to impersonate the ga’ns in dances in order to gain their protection. The men wore kilts, black masks, tall wooden-slat headdresses, and body paint, and they carried wooden swords. The Navajo believed in ghosts, thought to be the spirits of dead ancestors, and witches, people who practiced magic.

Sand Painting

The Navajo practiced sand painting, a ceremonial art in which colored powders made from ground minerals and organic materials are trickled onto neutral sand, often for the purpose of healing. Sand painters, under the guidance of shamans, typically created their mosaics on the floor of a lodge at dawn. Using five sacred colors—white, black, blue, red, and yellow—they depicted legendary beings and natural phenomena. At the end of the ceremony the sand paintings were destroyed; no works were kept after sunset.

Arts and Crafts

Southwest Indian women, especially of the Pueblo peoples, crafted elegant pottery from coiled strips of clay. The pottery was polished and frequently painted with intricate geometric patterns. Southwest peoples also made baskets in many shapes and sizes, often with elaborate designs. The Apache, Navajo, Tohono O’Odham, and Pima were known more for basket making than pottery making; Yumans crafted both.

Post-Contact History

After the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés invaded present-day Mexico and conquered the Aztec Empire in 1521, the Spanish began exploring northward. Reports of gold and other riches in the Southwest convinced the Spanish viceroy in Mexico, then called New Spain, to send an expedition to the region. From 1540 to 1542 a group of explorers led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado searched in vain for the legendary gold-studded Seven Cities of Cíbola. Coronado never found these mythical cities, but his expedition came into contact with many Southwest peoples. Spain soon established a military, economic, and religious presence in the Southwest.

In 1598 the Spaniard Juan de Oñate founded a settlement at San Juan Pueblo along the upper Rio Grande, and he claimed New Mexico as a colony for Spain. After sacking the villages that resisted, Oñate added much of the Rio Grande region to Spain’s dominions. At about the same time, Jesuit missionaries began moving into present-day Arizona. In 1610 Santa Fe was founded near San Juan Pueblo to serve as the capital of New Mexico. Southwest Indians, especially Pueblo peoples, were forced to accept Spanish rule and Roman Catholic religious customs. Throughout the region the Spanish imposed the encomienda system, which bound the Indians to work on Spanish ranches in virtual slavery. Southwest peoples were also forced to work in textile and dye factories, and in silver mines.

In 1680 Pueblo Indians staged the Pueblo Revolt under Popé, a Tewa shaman of the San Juan Pueblo, and the Spanish were driven out of the region. For a time Pueblo Indians lived free from the Spanish yoke and followed their traditional ways. However, the Spanish recaptured Santa Fe in 1692, and by 1696 they once again controlled most of the pueblos. The Spaniards permitted more freedom of religion following reoccupation, however, and many Pueblo Indians continued to practice their traditional kiva-centered religion as well as Catholicism. Spanish missionaries soon were present among the Tohono O’Odham, Pima, and Yumans, in addition to the Pueblo Indians. Bands of Apache and Navajo, as well as Comanche from the southern plains, remained unconquered, however, and continued raids on the Spanish as well as on Pueblo Indians.

Spanish rule in the Southwest lasted until Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821. Mexico controlled the Southwest until it was forced to cede much of the region to the United States in 1848 following the Mexican War; additional Southwest lands were acquired by the United States after the Gadsden Purchase in 1853. Throughout this period the Apache maintained their nomadic way of life. Many Navajo, however, became sheepherders and master weavers after the introduction of domesticated sheep by the Spanish.

During and after the American Civil War (1861-1865), U.S. authorities attempted to pacify militant bands of Navajo and Apache, who frequently raided the ranches of non-Indians for livestock. In the mid-1860s the U.S. army destroyed Navajo orchards, seized Navajo flocks, and rounded up militants, and the Navajo were relocated to eastern New Mexico. The Navajo refer to this forced migration as the Long Walk. They were later allowed to return to reservations in their ancestral homelands. Apache resistance ended with the surrender of Apache chief Geronimo in 1886, and the last free Apache bands were moved onto reservations. Other Southwest peoples were also resettled onto reservations in the late 1800s.

In modern times the Navajo still hold many reservation lands in both New Mexico and Arizona. The Apache retain smaller parcels, as do the Tohono O’Odham, Pima, and Yumans. Many Pueblo Indians still live in their ancestral villages, a continuum from ancient times. The Acoma Pueblo, located atop a mesa in west central New Mexico and founded in ad 1075, is believed to be the oldest continuously occupied settlement in the United States. Today, many Southwest peoples raise livestock, farm, and practice their traditional religious ceremonies. The sale of traditional handicrafts frequently supplements income from agriculture. The discovery of oil, natural gas, and rich mineral deposits on tribal reservation lands has helped raise the standard of living for some, as have tourism and casino gaming.

California

Land and Habitat

The California culture area includes roughly the present-day state of California as well as the Lower California Peninsula, or Baja California. Two mountain ranges run north-south along the California culture area: the Coast Ranges to the west and the Sierra Nevada to the east. The Coast Ranges drop off to coastal lowlands along the Pacific Ocean in most areas. Between the Coast Ranges and the Sierra Nevada, the San Joaquin River and Sacramento River form a natural basin, the Central Valley. The climate is generally mild, with many days of warm weather, especially in the south. Rainfall varies significantly from north to south, with the forests in the north receiving the most and the deserts in the south the least. Bountiful plant and animal life is found throughout much of the region.

The Sierra Nevada long provided a natural barrier to the movement of peoples. As a result, Native Americans east of the Sierra Nevada practiced different ways of life and are often included in the Great Basin or Southwest culture areas. Some Native American peoples just south of California’s present-day northern border shared ways of life with peoples of the Northwest Coast culture area and the Plateau culture area.

Peoples and Languages

California was one of the most populous North American culture areas before European contact, with numerous tribes and bands speaking more than 100 distinct languages. Many California peoples spoke languages based on the Penutian and Hokan language stocks—older language groups from which a variety of language families evolved. Penutian-based languages were spoken by tribes in the north and north central regions, including the Costanoan, Maidu, Miwok, Wintun, and Yokuts. Hokan-based languages were spoken by tribes in the central and northern coastal areas, including the Achomawi, Atsugewi, Chimariko, Chumash, Pomo, Esselen, Karok, Salinas, Shasta, and Yana. Hokan-based languages were also spoken by the Diegueño and Kamia to the south.

Other major language families found in the north and north central regions included Athapaskan, spoken by the Hupa and Tolowa, among others; Yukian, spoken by the Wappo and Yuki; and possibly an offshoot of Algonquian, spoken by the Wiyot and Yurok. In the south languages of the Uto-Aztecan family were spoken by the Tubatulabal, Kitanemuk, and Serrano, as well as by the Mission Indians—tribes whose European names were taken from the Spanish missions where they were relocated. The Mission Indians included the Cahuilla, Cupeño, Fernandeño, Gabrieliño, Juaneño, and Luiseño, among others.

Early Peoples

Little is known about the most ancient Californians, who were drawn in great numbers to the region’s warm climate and plentiful food supply. The California culture area is thought to have been a melting pot of tribes from other regions, based on the number of different languages spoken there. For thousands of years California peoples practiced a hunting-gathering way of life that persisted virtually unchanged until recent centuries. They hunted large and small animals, fished, and collected nuts and wild grains.

Diet and Subsistence

Acorns

California had abundant resources to support a large Native American population without agriculture. The dietary staple of California Indians was the fruit of the oak tree, the acorn, collected in the fall. Acorn kernels were removed from their shells and placed in the sun to dry out. They were then pounded into flour, which was rinsed repeatedly with hot water to remove the bitter-tasting tannic acid. Acorn meal could be boiled into a soup or mush, or baked into bread.

Other Wild Foods

California peoples ate many other wild plant foods, including various nuts, seeds, berries, greens, roots, bulbs, and tubers. Insects were also a food source. Grubs and caterpillars were plucked from plants and boiled with salt. Grasshoppers, driven from fields into pits, were collected and roasted.

California Indians hunted deer and small animals, especially rabbits, using bows and arrows, clubs, and snares. They also hunted ducks, geese, swans, and other birds from boats with nets or from blinds(camouflaged areas) with bows and arrows. On the Pacific Coast people hunted sea lions, seals, and sea otters, and they fished a variety of species. Their fishing methods included hooks and lines, spears, nets, and weirs. They also gathered clams, oysters, mussels, scallops, and other shellfish.

Social and Political Organization

Tribelets

Most Native Americans in the California culture area lived in villages of related families with descent and property ownership traced patrilineally, or through the male line. A permanent village often had temporary satellite villages nearby, presided over by one principal chief. Anthropologists sometimes refer to these types of small, tightly integrated villages as tribelets. Tribelets typically occupied a distinct territorial area, such as a river drainage, and they were often relatively isolated from each other. Chiefs, as members of leading families, usually inherited their positions. Most decisions made by chiefs involved economic matters, such as how food would be collected and distributed. Some northern groups, including the Yurok, lacked chiefs or other formal political structures.

Peaceful Relations

Unlike peoples from other culture areas, California Indians did not have war chiefs, nor did they bestow war honors. Raids were generally carried out for the purpose of revenge rather than for acquiring food, possessions, or slaves. The great wealth of natural resources in California stimulated extensive trading relationships among indigenous peoples. Strings of disk-shaped dentalia (tooth-shaped mollusk shells) were used as a medium of exchange.

Settlement and Housing

California peoples constructed many different kinds of dwellings, the majority to house a single family. The most common design was cone-shaped, usually about 2.5 m (8 ft) in diameter at the base. A pole framework was covered with brush, grass, reeds, or mats of tule, a kind of bulrush. Other common dwellings included dome-shaped pit houses covered with earth and lean-tos (shelters with a single slanted roof) covered with bark slabs. Some northern California peoples built wood plank houses that resembled those found in the Northwest Coast culture area.

Transportation

The most common type of watercraft used by California peoples was the raft, made from logs or from tule reeds. To make tule rafts, known as balsas, Indians wove reeds together into watertight bundles. The bundles became waterlogged after repeated use, but they could be reused after drying out in the sun. Some peoples, such as the Yurok, made simple dugout canoes, carved from redwood logs. Another tribe, the Chumash, made the only plank boats known among Native Americans. To do so, they lashed pine planks together with fiber cordage and caulked the seams with asphalt.

Clothing and Ornamentation

Because of the generally warm climate, most California Indians needed minimal clothing. Men often went naked or wore animal-skin or bark breechcloths. Women wore fringed animal-skin or shredded bark aprons in front and back. Headwear included basket hats, hairnets of iris fiber, feather headbands, and feather crowns. Footwear included ankle-high leather moccasins or sandals made from the yucca plant, although most California Indians went barefoot year around. In cold weather, robes and blankets of rabbit skin, sea-otter fur, or feathers were worn. Shell jewelry was widespread for ornamentation, as was the practice of tattooing.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

For California peoples, spirits and spiritual forces infused all existence. Some spirits were worshipped as god figures. Shamans were highly regarded for their ability to cure diseases, often through the practice of sucking illness out of patients, and they were frequently seen as aided by spirit helpers. Some groups had specialized weather shamans who attempted to control weather, and animal or mythical shamans who impersonated particular animals and legendary beings.

The peoples of central California practiced the Kuksureligion, or Kuksu Cult. The principal deity of this religion was Kuksu, who was surrounded by an array of lesser beings. Members of the secret Kuksu Society wore elaborate feather or grass headdresses, both to conceal their identities from women and children of the tribe and to impersonate spiritual beings in order to acquire power. The Kuksu Society held its ceremonies in the winter months in hopes of securing plentiful game and wild plant foods the following spring and summer. One of the ceremonies, known as Hesi, was a four-day dance. Some participants drummed a beat for the dancers, usually by stomping on a foot drum, while others chanted sacred songs.

Arts and Crafts

California Indians crafted objects from stone, antlers, shells, wood, and ceramic, but they are most famous for fine basketry. They wove many useful items from readily available grasses, reeds, barks, and roots. These included containers, mats, traps, baby carriers, ceremonial objects, games, hats, and footwear. They fashioned baskets of all sizes and shapes, from large containers 1 m (3 ft) in diameter to tiny baskets no wider than a few centimeters. Among some tribes as many as eight different kinds of baskets were made for holding and processing acorns. Some peoples of the region, such as the Pomo, added intricate designs and decorations with dyes, shells, and feathers.

Post-Contact History

In the mid-1500s the Spanish explored the California coast by boat. English navigators soon followed. Yet indigenous traditions endured until the colonizing expeditions carried out by the Spanish in the late 1700s. In 1769 the Spaniard Junípero Serra, a missionary of the Franciscan order of the Roman Catholic Church, founded a mission at San Diego in present-day southern California. Before long, Serra and other Franciscans constructed a string of missions northward along the Pacific Coast to San Francisco.

Peoples of many different tribes were rounded up and forced to work at the missions and to accept Catholic teachings. The missions continued to operate until 1834, a decade after Spain withdrew from California, which had become a formal territory of Mexico in 1825. Some indigenous peoples fled to the interior and others revolted, although challenges to Spanish, and then Mexican, authority were short-lived. European diseases brought by the Spanish also had a devastating impact on California peoples.

The United States won control of California in 1848 after the Mexican War (1846-1848). The discovery of gold in California that same year and the ensuing gold rush of 1849 further disrupted the lives of indigenous peoples. Native Americans who did survive lost most of their tribal lands. Modern-day California tribes now hold only small parcels, which are sometimes referred to as rancherias.

Today, the state of California has a large Native American population. Especially since the 1950s and 1960s, many rural Native Americans have moved from reservations in other states to urban areas in California, encouraged by U.S. government policies that supported migration from reservations to towns and cities. A renaissance of traditional culture is currently underway among many groups.

Great Basin

Land and Habitat

The Great Basin culture area is an arid inland region encompassing much of the western United States. The Great Basin consists of a vast natural basin, with occasional rocky uplands breaking up long stretches of mostly barren desert. The region is surrounded by mountains and plateaus: the Sierra Nevada on the west; the Rocky Mountains on the east; the Columbia Plateau on the north; and the Colorado Plateau on the south. The open expanse of the Mojave Desert in the southwest portion of the region is the one exception.

The rivers and streams of the Great Basin drain from the flanking high country into the central depression and disappear into sinks; the waterways thus have no outlet to the oceans. The mountains to the east and west block the rain clouds, leading to low rainfall and high evaporation. The Great Basin once contained dozens of enormous lakes, the remnants of which include Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, and Pyramid Lake, among others. These modern lakes have a high salt content. In the western part of the Great Basin is found Death Valley, where summer temperatures exceed 52°C (125°F). The sparse vegetation throughout the Great Basin is called desert shrub, in which sagebrush is dominant with some piñon and juniper trees in the higher elevations.

Peoples and Languages

The nomadic tribes ranging throughout much of the sparsely populated Great Basin spoke languages of the Uto-Aztecan family. The lone exception was the Washoe to the west who—like some peoples of the California culture area—spoke a Hokan dialect. The major Great Basin peoples were the Paiute, Shoshone, and Ute, with various subdivisions and offshoots, including the Bannock, who branched off from the Northern Paiute. Although dialects varied throughout the region, their similarity made it possible for different groups to find common words to communicate.

Early Peoples

Human settlers may have arrived in the Great Basin around 11,000 years ago, when the prevailing climate was cooler and wetter. Lacking plentiful food resources, the indigenous population remained sparse for thousands of years. Early peoples settled around lakes or along rivers, where game animals were more abundant. As the warming climate dried up marshes and lakes and larger game animals grew scarce, ancient settlers turned to hunting smaller animals and collecting and processing a variety of wild plant foods. For millennia, small bands of Native Americans managed to eke out an existence in the Great Basin.

Diet and Subsistence

Life in the Great Basin was an unrelenting quest for food, water, firewood, and materials for basic tools and utensils. The vast deserts supported few large game animals, so indigenous hunters preyed upon available small game, including rabbits, rodents, snakes, lizards, and birds. They were adept foragers and collected insects, grubs, seeds, nuts, berries, and roots. They had to dig for much of their food—small mammals, reptiles, roots, and insects. As a result, non-Indians who encountered these peoples often referred to them as Diggers.

The availability of food dictated whereabouts and activities in the course of a year. Some food gathering was communal. Families would occasionally gather to drive rabbits and other mammals into brush corrals where they were slaughtered. Grasshoppers were driven into trenches with fire, roasted alive, and ground into flour. Peoples venturing into highland areas hunted pronghorn antelope and mountain goats, fished rivers and lakes, and harvested pine nuts from piñon trees.

Social and Political Organization

Great Basin Indians adopted a nomadic lifestyle to exploit wild food resources as they became available, and they had no permanent social group larger than the family. They typically traveled in small bands of extended families without the formal organization and shared rituals evident among other Native Americans. Band leaders of related families acted more as advisers than as decision makers. When various bands gathered for hunting drives in warmer weather, temporary leaders would be appointed. Some bands congregated for the winter months as well.

Settlement and Housing

Most Great Basin peoples lived in small, simple cone-shaped structures that were made of willow pole frames and covered with brush, reeds, and grasses. Such dwellings were similar to wickiups made by the Apache in the Southwest culture area. Some Great Basin Indians also built larger huts and windbreaks using similar materials.

Clothing and Ornamentation

Clothing was scanty among Great Basin Indians. Men sometimes went naked or wore nothing more than a deerskin apron or loincloth; women wore overlapping front and rear aprons of shredded bark. Most people went barefoot or wore sandals made from yucca, deerskin, or rabbit skin.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

Great Basin peoples believed in a spirit world and spirit beings, who communicated with them through dreams and visions. Their shamans conducted rituals to locate food and heal the sick, and they passed on mythological traditions through storytelling. The folklore of many peoples included Wolf as the good brother who makes things and Coyote as the trickster bad brother who disrupts things.

Arts and Crafts

Many Great Basin Indians, like peoples in the California culture area, used baskets as both carrying and cooking containers, although their baskets were typically less sophisticated. To traverse large streams, they built bulrush floats to carry their belongings. They wove nets for hunting small game from plant materials, and they made bows and arrows and clubs. Long, hooked sticks were fashioned for pulling small animals from burrows. Some groups made duck decoys using tule reeds covered with duck skins. In Ute society, arrow and spearhead makers held a special place of honor.

Post-Contact History

Much of the Great Basin is landlocked desert country, and Native Americans living there avoided contact with non-Indians until later than tribes to their west and south. A Spanish expedition ventured into what is now central Utah in 1776 and 1777. By then, some Ute bands had traded with Pueblo Indians to the south for horses. They adopted a lifestyle similar to tribes east of the Rocky Mountains, traveling onto the Great Plains as horse-mounted hunters. Some Shoshone bands also took to the plains on horseback.

For most Great Basin peoples, the first contacts with outsiders that significantly altered traditional ways of life occurred in the 1840s. At that time, many Euro-American migrants began traveling through the Great Basin on their way to California. Other newcomers sought land in the western interior for homes, including the Mormons who settled near the Great Salt Lake in Utah. The Colorado gold rush that began in 1858 brought more settlers to the region. A number of wars ensued in the 1860s and 1870s, in which indigenous peoples unsuccessfully fought non-Indians in an effort to retain traditional lands and ways of life. In the following decades, most Great Basin peoples were settled on reservations.

Today, the Ute retain the largest share of Native American lands in the Great Basin. They are followed by the Paiute, who hold scattered parcels, then the Shoshone, Bannock, and Washoe. Oil, gas, and mineral leases provide some income for present-day Great Basin peoples. Other economically important activities include farming and raising livestock, casino gaming, and the sale of traditional arts and crafts.