Native Americans: The Beginning

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Native Americans The Beginning

• Junior English

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The First Migration Ice Age Travelers

• Ice Age hunters
• Traveled with dogs, crossed Bering Land Bridge
  (now under Bering Strait) from Siberia to present
  day Alaska
• 20-40K yrs ago
• Others followed route throughout
  the years
• By 1490great European
  explorationnumerous groups of Native Americans
  scattered throughout continent

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Native Americans Eight Geographical Groups

• 1.  Northeast Coast Coastal dwellers fishers
  developed complex culture
• 2.  Plateau River valley dwellers primarily
  fishers relatively small population
• 3.  Great Plains grassland dwellers nomadic
  buffalo hunters after introduction to the horse
• 4. Northeast forest dwellers
  primarily hunter-gatherers,
  also farmers and fishers

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Native Americans Eight Geographical Groups

•   5.  Great Basin Desert basin dwellers
  primarily gatherers because of barren
  surroundings small population
•  6.  California Desert, mountain, river, or
  coastal dwellers depending on location primarily
  gatherers and fishers
•  7.  Southwest Canyon, mountain, and desert
  dwellers either farmers or nomadic hunters
•  8. Southeast River valley dwellers primarily
  farmers, but also hunter-gatherers and fishers

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Native American Literature

• Did not use written language
• Stories passed from generation to generation
  through story and song
• Stories centered around a particular character,
  event, or element
• Most common stories
  center around
• The trickster
• The gambler
• The creation
• Abduction
• Migration

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The Oral Tradition

• Stories were reliant upon repetition
• Used in ceremonial situations
• Repetition aided in memorization
• Provided narrative cohesion
• Participatory
• Powerful and unifying

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Creation Stories

• Similar to the account in The Bible
• Similar from tribe to tribe
• Used to explain how world/universe was created
• Explained the origin of man
• Sometimes had animal
  characteristics
• Sometimes non-gender, or only
  one gender (usually female
  mother earth)

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Creation Stories

• Contained what the tribe generally believed the
  relationships between
• People
• People and nature
• Contained origins of
  tribal customs and
  structures

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Creation Stories

• Creation occurs primarily in one of five ways
• From chaos or nothingness
• From a cosmic egg or primal maternal mound
• From world parents who are separated
• From the process of earth diving
• Land was created from mud pulled from bottom of
  ocean by animal spirit
• From several stages of emergence from other
  worlds, or states of being
• Every story, there is a sense of birthboth of
  the world and humans

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Creation Stories Characteristics

• Characteristics include
• A Creator (medium for creation)
• Such as clay, fluids, and supernatural power
• The trickster can be
• A negative force
• A cultural hero (dives to the depths of
  nothingness to find form)
• The first man and woman
• Job is to continue to create both
  offspring, and plants and animals
• The flood hero
• Saves mankind from great waters
  and begins again

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Trickster Tales

• One form of creation story
• Trickster is usually a coyote
• Vary from tribe to tribe, but contain same basic
  qualities
• Tricksters are more than deceivers who make us
  laugh
• By crossing social boundaries, they both break
  rules and show how important rules are
• Tricksters are creators in their own rights

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Trickster Tales

• Presence of traditional elements, such as
• Animals --buffalo, coyote, spider, salmon
• Vegetables usually corn
• Mineralsclay, obsidian
  (type of rock)
• Landscapea holy mountain,
  a vast sea
• Weatherstorm
• Supernaturalspirits, etc.
• Also, colors, directions, time,
  and dances

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Native American Religion Commonalities

• At time of European contact, nearly all
  indigenous cultures in North America had
  developed coherent religious systems that
  included creation myths
• Most natives worshiped an all-powerful,
  all-knowing Creator or "Master Spirit" as well as
  numerous lesser supernatural entities, including
  an evil god
• Members of most tribes
  believed in the immortality
  of the human soul and an
  afterlife

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Religious Similarities with Europeans

• Three beliefs common to Native American tribes
• All had developed a religion creation myths,
  origin myths, etc.
• Worshipped an all-powerful Great Spirit
• Immortality of the human soul an afterlife
• Sought assistance of their deity with prayers and
  offerings
• Called upon specially trained clergy, such as a
  Shaman, to assist them, particularly during times
  of crisis

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Religious Differences Native Americans
Europeans

• Native Americans did not distinguish between the
  natural and supernatural as Europeans did
• Native Americans perceived the material and
  spiritual worlds as one
• Protestant and Catholic traditions were
  more inclined to separate the
  pure/spiritual beings in heaven
  from sinful men and women

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Conclusion

• Europeans arrived in the 15th century
• The Pequot War in 1636
• Friction between Puritans and Pequot Indians
• Pequot defeated in 1637 massacre
• Survivors were
  beheaded
  or sent into
  slavery

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Works Cited

• Lewis, S. Native American Literature
• Native Voices unit, American Passages website
• Unit Overview www.learner.org/amerpass/unit01/inst
  ructor.html
• Authors Stories of the Beginning of the
  Worldwww.learner.org/amerpass/unit01/authors-8.ht
  ml
• Divining America Religion and the National
  Culture
• Native American Religion in Early
  Americawww.nhc.rtp.nc.us/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo
  /natrel.htm