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By Bornali Halder
© 2002 by Bornali Halder
Url: http://www.lakotaarchives.com/natcultpr.html
By the time of European arrival, Native America was a vast region, with numerous and diverse nations ranging from the Arctic in the north to the Tierra del Fuego in the south. No single language or culture characterised these people who had apparently all arrived from Asia across the Bering Straits. Socio-political organisations covered bands, chiefdoms and states; customs, traditions and material cultures were as diverse as each tribe, band, village and community; there were nomadic hunter-gatherers, semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, small farming communities and large, complex agricultural systems supporting populous urban centres.
In order to organise and analyse so much diversity, anthropologists or ethnologists have tried to come up with various heuristic devices to classify Native American nations according to tribe, cultural traits or general geographic regions. The most popular and yet controversial device has been that of the culture area concept.
This concept tries to find regions where inhabitants share certain ecological, social, economic and ideological systems. A culture area can be said to be one whose inhabitants share and adapt to a particular environment in order to survive. Through geographical adaptation, cultures emerge and change and grow. According to this rather materialistic concept, geography is the primary factor that defines cultural activity and so groups of people sharing the same terrain with share similar cultural characteristics. So, for example, desert-dwellers have not developed maritime cultures but gather seeds and other wild foods, hunt small game, utilise or divert scarce water resources for small or large-scale agricultural ventures. Inhabitants of the arid Great Plains do not farm or spend large amounts of time gathering wild foods, but instead hunt buffalo.
There are many problems with the culture area concept that you must be aware of. It tends to freeze cultures in time and place, not allowing for cultural diversity within a specific region and not allowing for cultures to change. It has a very materialistic bias that has been challenged by many anthropologists and other social scientists over the years. Culture has as much of a constraining effect on the environment as the reverse. There is also the stress upon material culture - cultural possessions such as tools, clothing, housing styles, pottery styles - as a defining mode of classification. The Southwest culture area, for example, encompasses people who differ quite widely in terms of subsistence, housing styles and languages. There have been hunter-gatherers as well as agriculturalists predominant in the region; housing styles range from the Navajo hogans to the multi-room complexes of the Puebloan nations; and at least four major language stocks are represented there. When you read about specific cultural regions, pay attention to the dissimilarities as well as the similarities between Indian nations.
A further problem is that anthropologists have not agreed on the number of culture areas and who should be represented in them. Variations of the following scheme tend to be the most popular: the Arctic, Subarctic, Northwest Coast, Northeast, Southeast, the Plains, Southwest, Plateau and Basin and California.
The Southwest provides wonderful examples of the diversities and similarities that can exist within a single culture area. The region encompasses Arizona, New Mexico, southern regions of Colorado and Utah, a slither of western Texas and adjacent northern Mexico, particularly the states of Sonora and Chihuahua. It contains a diversity of ecological niches that, though predominantly desert-like, also include pine forest, snow-capped mountains, sweeping grasslands and fruitful river valleys. There are over 50 reservations in the Southwest.
The Clovis peoples of the region hunted mammoths and other game with particular spearpoints known as Clovis-style. As the Ice Age began its thaw and mammoths became extinct, the so-called Archaic age began and the Southwest became dominated by the generally agricultural cultures of the Mogollon, the Anasazi and the Hohokam. These people reached their decline just before the Spanish arrived in the AD 1400s.
Though their geographical extents overlapped at different times and places, the Mogollon peoples tended to be centred in southwestern New Mexico and the northern Sonora and Chihuahua regions. They are believed by some to be the ancestors of today's upper Rio Grande Puebloan nations, possibly even the Zuni. The Hohokam were centred in southern Arizona and are believed by some archaeologists to be the ancestors of the Pima Alto and Tohono O'Odham tribes. The Anasazi nation settled the Four Corners area where Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet. Many of today's Pueblo nations are thought to have descended from the Anasazi, including the Hopi.
The Mogollon tradition was a largely egalitarian one that centred upon the steep mountains and within the narrow valleys along the Arizona and New Mexico border. The people tended to be farmers who worked the forests and upland meadows. Though the earliest archaeological record shows the Mogollon residing in round, D-shaped or kidney shaped pithouses, their housing later shifted above-ground and developed into single-story, apartment-style structures with up to 150 rooms built of cobbles and adobe. These were known as pueblos by the Spanish and they further developed into clusters of grouped rooms centred around an open plaza. Their architecture was also characterised by small or large, semi-subterranean ceremonial enclosures or kivas. Distinctive artistic or material culture focused upon the black on white pottery of the Mimbres River region in southwestern New Mexico. These black on white pottery were painted with intricate geometric designs, human forms, birds, rabbits, bats and the famous hump-backed flautist.
The Anasazi inhabited the high desert of the Colorado Plateau, an area of high mesas and deep canyons. The beginning of the Anasazi period is marked by the increase in horticulture in the Four Corners region. Maize and squash were cultivated and irrigation was developed to provide adequate water. Terrace gardening was developed. Permanent settlements were established with extended family groups living in distinctive multi-room apartment-style complexes, sometimes built in caves or cliff overhangs. Subterranean kivas were used for ceremonies. Elaborate baskets and later black-on-white pottery, turquoise jewellery, clay figurines and loom-woven garments were created. Dogs were bred for hunting and for use as companions; turkeys were kept as domestic birds. The Anasazi produced at least 125 large, planned towns with public architecture, all connected by roads, of which over 400 km have been mapped so far. The archaeological record also provides evidence of the creation trading networks by the Anasazi, dealing with food and luxury items such as turquoise.
The Hohokam made their home in the scorching Sonoran desert of central and southern Arizona. Accomplished desert farmers, they are infamous for the hundreds of miles of irrigation canals they built and utilised and for a thriving trade with central Mexican civilisations and also with the California coast. They developed towns with populations in excess of a thousand people. Their adobe pueblo houses clustered around central plazas. They had a privileged, elite class, possibly based on the chiefdom system. Discovery of ball courts in prominent places suggests that leisure was used for ritual and social functions. Their art ranged from mosaic mirrorwork, acid-etched California coast shells and sculpted stonework, to jewellery of turquoise beads and acid-etched shell pendants, rings and bracelets. They imported macaws from Mexico and kept them as pets or for ceremonial purposes. They built special, small beehive-shaped adobe structures to house these beautiful birds. They farmed maize, beans, squash, chillies and mesquite beans as well as harvesting certain cacti fruit.
Sometime in the AD 1400s, if not a little earlier, Athabascans from the Subarctic north swept into the region having migrated southward along the western Great Plains. They continued to hunt and gather their new surroundings. Later they divided into the Navajo and the Apaches. The Navajo borrowed heavily from their Pueblo neighbours and the Spanish colonists, and took up agriculture, sheepherding, weaving, silversmithing and various elements of Pueblo religion. The various groups of the Apache continued with their semi-nomadic existences and developed the reputation for being accomplished equestrians and warriors.
Covering some 17 million acres, the Navajo today inhabit the largest reservation in the United States. These descendants of the original Subarctic Athabascans call themselves the Dine, or the People. The tribe is divided into more than 50 clans, and descent is traced through the female line.
In 1863, the US sent Kit Carson to subdue and remove the Navajo people. His men wreaked havoc upon livestock and corn supplies and many Navajo had starved to death before they surrendered. They were forced to go on the Long Walk - a 350-mile journey that relocated them to a new home. Their new home was a region of flat, inhospitable land with alkali water that made people sick. 1500 more Navajo died there until, four years later, the US relented and allowed the survivors to return to the homeland, or at least to a much-diminished portion of it that became their reservation.
A distinctive feature of Navajo material culture is the hogan - the traditional domed dwelling that today is used almost exclusively for ceremonial purposes. These domed, mud structures can even be seen in the back yards of city Navajo dwellers, though plywood and lumber versions are increasingly common. The entrance always faces the rising sun, and the hogan symbolises the security of shimah, the Navajo mother or the earth.
A distinctive feature of Navajo religion is the sand paintings traditionally traced over several days during a ritual, to ascertain cause and cure of a spiritual, physical or emotional malady. In their ritualistic contexts, they are rich with a religious symbolism that goes beyond mere representation. They frequently feature images or embodiments of the First Man and First Woman.
Artistic traditions still include silversmithing, especially with turquoise, and also hand-woven blankets, rugs and garments, and pottery. Though sheep and goat herding are still carried out, much, if not most, economic revenue on the Navajo reservation is generated from the extraction and processing of oil, coal and timber. People also make a living through tourism and the sales of their pottery, baskets, blankets and silverwork.
The Hopi believe they were birthed through a cave in the Southwest and then roamed all over the American continent before returning to settle for good in the arid plateau between the Rio Grande and the Colorado River. Their reservation resides within that of the Navajo - a situation that has led to a fierce land dispute between the two tribes. The Hopi reside on top of and below three finger-like mesas. The oldest continuously inhabited village in the US is thought to be Old Oraibi in Hopi land, believed to have been settled at least 1000 years ago.
When the Spanish made their entrada into the region in 1540, the Hopi had already been settled in their mesa homes for hundreds of years, coaxing melons, beans and corn from the desert as their ancestors the Anasazi had done for centuries before. Searching for gold as well as 'pagan souls', the Spanish closed the kivas, forbade Hopi ceremonies and forced many Indians into slavery. The Hopi and other Pueblo nations revolted in 1680, executing all the friars on the Hopi mesas and destroying the missions. The Hopi enjoyed a period of relative peace, until westward expansion brought Americans into the region and led to the Hopi being forced onto their reservation.
Traditionally, self-governing, autonomous bodies consisting of a spiritual leader, a group of decision-makers and a war captain maintained Hopi villages. More recently, the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 obliged most Hopi villages to organise themselves into federally instituted and accountable tribes, or quasi-sovereign governments as some Indian activists assert today. Various societies such as the Snake and Kachina societies have formed the spiritual infrastructure of the various Hopi clans and villages for centuries. Kachinas are spiritual beings that mediate between the physical and spiritual realms; as ancestral spirits, they also connect the Hopi to their past. In an arid terrain, kachinas play important roles in manifesting themselves as clouds and bringing rain to the Hopi's fields. Kachina and Snake dances provide distinctive features to Hopi religious culture.
Like the other tribes across America, the Hopi are divided into numerous clans. Like other Pueblo cultures, they follow their descent through the female line and females own the houses. Marriage is monogamous and must be with someone outside one's clan, that is, exogamous.
Corn is the lifeblood of the predominantly agricultural Hopi. It features heavily in their religious symbolism. The four colours of corn, for example, exemplify the four directions of the Hopi universe, and sacred cornmeal is frequently used in rituals. An ear of corn each is placed next to a newborn child and his or her mother for some 20 days as an embodiment of life-giving earth. After this period, the baby is blessed with the ear of corn at a naming ceremony, thus completing the baby's passage from the spirit to the earthly world. Similar blessings occur throughout one's life, culminating the final rite when cornmeal is placed on the face of the deceased.
Silversmithing, pottery and basketwork all feature in the Hopi artistic tradition, but what probably defines this tradition as distinctively Hopi is the carving of tihu or kachina dolls. These dolls are not toys but sacred objects. Though they are sold in the market for much-needed income, they tend to be given to children so that they can learn the religious ways.
The Athabascan linguistic cousins of the Navajo are the various tribes of the Apache. Today there are six groups: the Kiowa, the Lipan, the Jicarilla, the Mescalero, the Chiricahua and the Western Apache. Upon arrival in the Southwest from the Subarctic north, they led a nomadic life, hunting buffalo, primarily, although they practiced limited farming also. Upon arrival of the Spanish, they became accomplished equestrians and expanded their territorial range from the prairies of Nebraska to the mountains of Durango, Mexico. The Apache - led in later years, though in part, by Goyathlay or Geronimo - also used the horse effectively in their reactions to Spanish and then American intrusion. Such reactions took the form of raids and warfare.
In 1848, New Mexico moved into United States ownership. In 1853, Arizona came under US control. Subsequent gold rushes into the region led to Apache territory being inundated by Anglo settlers and prospectors. The US decided that the only thing that could be done to alleviate problems in the area was to implement a so-called Peace Policy. This Policy called for the rounding up of all Apache onto small reservations. There, it was hoped, the Apache would make their livings by growing crops and raising livestock - something most Apache had had little experience of compared to other Southwestern Indian nations. Weakened by disease and hunger, and with the buffalo gone, the Apaches had little choice but to resign themselves to the reservation system that by the end of the 1800s had swept all across the United States. Some Apaches - Geronimo's tribe of the Chiricahua, for example - were taken as prisoners and confined in Florida and Oklahoma. It was not until around 1913, after some 27 years of internment, that these prisoners were allowed to return to their homeland. Many, including Geronimo himself, died before they got a chance to return.
The clan system is as strong among the Apache as it is among other Indian nations in America. Ancestry can usually be traced through four major clans: Roadrunner, Bear, Eagle and Butterfly. Traditionally the Western Apache trace their descent through the female lines, but other Apache groups trace descent through both parents.
A distinctive feature of Apache religion is the presence of supernatural beings known as ga'an, protective mountain spirits that are represented or embodied in rituals, such as the girl's puberty rite that is still widely performed by Western Apaches. This puberty rite is known, in English, as the Sunrise Ceremony.
Most Apaches nations derive much of their income from gas, oil, minerals, timber, ranching and tourism. As across the United States, there has been a marked shift over the years from revenue derived from livestock to a wage economy.
The Northeast encompasses a vast culture area that approximately stretches from the Great Lakes region and south along the northern stretch of the Atlantic coast as far as the Virginia-North Carolina coastal plain. Though characterised by a predominantly woodlands environment, the region contains much cultural diversity. Three major language families are represented there: the Algonquian-speaking nations such as the Delaware, Chippewa (or Ojibwa), Menominee, Shawnee and Illinois; Iroquoian-speaking tribes such as the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca and Huron; and the Siouan-speaking peoples such as the Winnebago.
Because of such diversity within this so-called culture area, some scholars prefer to classify Indian nations here according to the following scheme:
| Linguistic Group | Major Tribes | Cultural Patterns |
| EASTERN ALGONQUIAN | Micmac Eastern Abenaki Delaware | Concentrated along the coast - the Atlantic provinces of Canada and the United States seaboard to North Carolina. The population dependence on agriculture increased southwards. Political variation varied from northern fishing and hunting groups to rudimentary states in the south. These nations were the first to come into close contact with Europeans and thus experienced the most decimation and dispersal of all the Northeastern tribes. |
| NORTHERN IROQUOIAN | Mohawk Onondaga Oneida Huron Seneca | These groups were concentrated in Southern Ontario, upper New York State and the Saint Lawrence and Susquehanna Valleys. Their livelihoods focussed on intensive horticulture and fishing and they lived in fortified villages. Their kinship systems tended to be matrilineal. Though the Iroquois, for example, managed to maintain their autonomy after the fall of New France, as the centuries have passed, the tribes in this region have also seen their homelands increasingly depleted by non-Indian settlement. |
| CENTRAL ALGONQUIAN | Chippewa (Ojibwa) Menominee Shawnee Illinois | These Great Lakes tribes depended, to varying degrees, on horticulture. Their kinship systems were patrilineal. Through intertribal cooperation, this region became central to efforts to oppose European domination, with the leadership of such men as Pontiac in 1763 and Tecumseh in 1811. |
In the Coastal Zone, the eastern Algonquian-language group, the Micmac probably reached some 20,000 inhabitants, though by 1620, European epidemics had reduced their numbers to around 4000. Calculations of Micmac numbers are difficult because of dispersal across Canada and the United States and because of extensive inter-marriage with the French, however, currently, Canada lists more than 16,000 self-declared Micmac. They live Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
The Micmac were proficient hunters of both land and sea mammals. They also relied on fishing, honing their skills from humped-back, birch bark canoes to which sails were later added in the 1600s. Birch bark was also used to cover their wigwam dwellings. There were two types of wigwams: the smaller, conical shaped variety that housed around 10 people during winter, and the larger, oblong-shaped variety which housed up to 25 people during the warmer season. The semi-nomadic Micmac moved between coastal fishing villages in the summer to inland hunting locations in the winter. During the winter inland hunting seasons, families scattered and only came together into larger communities as the weather warmed and there was maple sap to be gathered in the spring and seafood and fish such as salmon and sturgeon to be persued. Inland hunting began in the autumn and focussed on deer, moose, bear, beaver, caribou and otter hunting. Hunters trudged through the deep snow wearing snowshoes and using sleds and toboggans.
Politically, the Micmac were a loose confederacy made up of patrilineally-descended clans. Each clan had its own symbol and ceremonies and councils. Occasionally the clan councils would gather together, most commonly to assign specific hunting and fishing territories and to wage war.
Their artistic traditions are best exemplified by their elaborate porcupine quillwork, such as quilled boxes and baskets. Birch bark was also used for making tools and clothing. The Micmac are believed to have carried on an elaborate ceremonial and religious life, but unfortunately, little is known of this.
Another eastern Algonquian-speaking group is the Delaware, or Lenni-Lenape. They also dwelled in bark wigwam constructions, which they arranged along the Delaware - the river after which they were named by the Europeans. At their peak, they probably numbered 20,000, but by 1910, their numbers had dwindled to a mere 2000. Today there are almost 16,000 Delaware, most of whom live in Oklahoma and, until 1996, had been considered to be part of the Cherokee nation by the US government. Until European colonisation, the Delaware largely concentrated in the Delaware River Valley and Hudson Valley regions, but subsequent to European arrival on the northeastern shore, they slowly migrated as far south as Oklahoma.
The Delaware seem to have been loosely divided into three groups based largely on geography and dialect. Three matrilineal clans cut across such differences, however: the Turtle, Wolf and Turkey clans. Communal villages were occupied for the summer season, but families split off and inhabited individual family hunting territories during the winter. Dugout rather than birch bark canoes were used, and though hunting and fishing was carried out, farmed produce such as corn, squash, beans, sweet potatoes and tobacco made up the bulk of the Delaware diet. Farmed fields frequently spanned more than 200 acres.
Ceremonial life centred on a dedicated Big House. Priests were divided into two classes: those who interpreted dreams and could divine the future, and those who were healers. The deceased were buried in shallow graves.
The central Algonquian-speaking nations were concentrated in the Great Lakes region of the northeast. This culture area extended west almost to the Mississippi River. The Chippewa, Ojibwa or Anishinabe occupied much of the present-day states of Wisconsin, northeastern Minnesota, parts of North Dakota and Michigan plus the southwestern area of Ontario in Canada. By 1800, there were five divisions of the Ojibwa and they were the largest and possibly most powerful Great Lakes nation.
Ojibwa subsistence is distinguished by the cultivation of wild 'rice'. The rice was not rice, of course, but an aquatic grass that grew in abundance in the countless lakes and streams of the Mississippi headwaters region. The rice was collected in the late summer or early autumn. People worked in groups and certain areas of it were recognised to be the property of certain families. Maple tapping in spring was another communal and tribal activity and was accompanied by social and ceremonial gatherings. In fact, maple sugar was an important feature of numerous Ojibwa ceremonies. Fishing and hunting was also carried out. The poor quality of the soil over much of the region and the short growing season meant that agriculture or crop cultivation was not widespread, especially in the northern woodlands.
The Ojibwa also made maximum use of the abundance of such wild foods as cranberries, gooseberries, blueberries, black and red raspberries, cherries and grapes, hickory, hazel, beech and butternuts, and also wild onions and potatoes that the vast woodland areas seemed to throw their way. In the summer, herbs and medicines were collected and tobacco offered to the spiritual realm and smoked in special pipes. Herbs were also used to lure animals their way: a certain herb would be smoked to attract the deer, for example.
Birch bark dominates Ojibwa material culture. The bark was used to make the canoes that enabled people to gather the rice, to cover their dwellings (generally wigwams) and to make the leak-proof containers needed to collect the maple syrup and water.
Monogamy was also the norm. Social organisation was based on around 20 patrilineal clans, which extended across band lines. Especially pre-European contact, there was little centralised political organisation. Each band had its own hereditary chief or leader. Tribal councils did occur during times of war, however, and after European contact, councils began to unify.
The ceremonies of the Grand Medicine Society have been particularly well documented for the Ojibwa, though they are shared, to a greater or lesser extent, by some other woodlands tribes in the western Great Lakes region. Much attention was poured into correct ethical conduct, the attainment of a long life, the interpretation of dreams and the phenomena of the natural world. As far as ethics were concerned, male members of the Medicine Society were taught to be moderate in speech, quiet in manner and cautious in action. Stealing, lying and alcohol were all banned for members. During the initiation ceremony, members received spiritual powers.
The Iroquois is a major tribe of the northern Iroquoian-speaking nations in the northeast woodland area. They had matrilineal social structures: the women owned all the property as well as determined the kinship lines. The various bands or groups of the Iroquois were composed of three clans: the Turtle, Bear and Wolf. A clan mother headed each clan and all children became members of their mother's clan group.
Iroquois villages tended to be permanent and elaborately fortified, frequently with stockades and moats. A distinctive feature of their culture was the presence of often large and communal longhouses. Depending on their size, longhouses could accommodate between 5 and 20 families and each was divided into family apartments. Towards the end of the 18th century, there was a gradual abandonment of communal longhouses in favour of single family dwellings. The longhouse became the community's council chamber. Today, reservation longhouses tend to be ritual centres for the increasing numbers of Iroquois peoples who seek to follow the traditional ways, as exemplified by Seneca prophet Handsome Lake. Between 1799 and 1815, Handsome Lake urged a return to the ancient annual Iroquoian ceremonies and beliefs, during a time of much social disorganisation.
Meat played a minor role in the Iroquois diet. Agriculture provided the bulk of the diet. Squash, corn and beans were known as deohako or life-sustainers. They were also known as the Three Sisters. Six agricultural festivals were held each year as people gave thanks for their harvests. Women owned and tended the fields, under the supervision of the clan mother. Men left the village in the autumn to hunt and the spring was their fishing season. Otherwise, the men cleared the fields, built the villages and engaged in warfare.
Probably the most distinctive feature of Iroquoian-speaking nations was the political system, which was dominated by the Iroquois League - a political confederacy made up of male leaders of the Seneca, Onondaga, Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, and later the Tuscarora Iroquoian nations. The League was founded around the mid- to late 1500s, as a response to intertribal war in the region. It operated under a carefully worked out constitution and all the laws and regulations were transmitted orally from one generation of selected leaders to the next. Leaders or chiefs were males, chosen by the clan mothers, and there was no overall leader - decisions were usually made by unanimous vote of the entire council. One of the nations that made up the League - generally the Onondaga - was the firekeeper and wampum keeper. Wampum belts were belts of polished shell beads that were arranged in motifs symbolic of agreements and treaties made between tribes and with Europeans. Wampum shells were also used as a medium of exchange. The Iroquois League heavily influenced the American Articles of Confederation and Constitution.
The region of the Southeast covers roughly, the present-day states of Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South and North Carolina, and Alabama. Tribes include the Seminole, Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and the Lumbee. The region is the warmest part of the northern temperate zone, with southern Florida enjoying a sub-tropical climate. The Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic borders this broad coastal plain, which is characterised by meandering rivers, oxbow lakes, broad valleys and vast swamps. Before the colonisation by Europeans, Southeastern diets were rich with fish, water fowl, white-tailed deer, racoons and other mammals, as well as such wild plant foods as nuts, fruits and berries. In coastal southern Florida, plentiful resources of shellfish and fish enabled a complex sedentary society to develop. Elsewhere, such settled and complex societies were enabled by the cultivation of corn, beans, squash, sunflowers and gourds. In general, the annual economic cycle of Indian nations in the Southeast revolved around the growing of crops and fishing in the warm season, and hunting deer in the cooler season.
When Europeans first arrived in the region, there were numerous chiefdoms spread across the interior. These complex societies each had a capital town containing massive earth mounds that supported temples and council houses. Often, these capitals were surrounded by large canals and stockaded. Each chiefdom supported several smaller towns, subordinate to the capital.
The largest of these chiefdom capitals was at Cahokia, in the Mississippi Valley. The problem of defining a culture area is highlighted here, for although Cahokia's location is outside the boundaries of the historic southeast, it is culturally located there. First inhabited around AD 600-700, during its heyday, Cahokia was situated at the centre of a major trading network that linked nations from Oklahoma to the Atlantic coast and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf coast. It reached its height by about AD 1250. With a peak population of 10,000 to 40,000, it was the largest city north of central Mexico. The entire Southeast culture area is renowned for its earth mounds. These generally fell into two types: platform mounds, whose flat tops served as ceremonial and elite residential bases; and burial mounds. Burial mounds were apparently used for important people, or to mark important locations, and it is generally believed that most Cahokians were buried in cemeteries. Cahokia's central earth mound rose four terraces, to a height of 30 metres. Smaller earth mounds were grouped around plazas. Most of the mounds supported public, ceremonial and civic buildings, and perhaps the houses of leaders. There were conical burial mounds and the entire central area of the capital was stockaded behind a wall of upright logs set in a deep trench, with watchtowers and gates.
Another important chiefdom had its capital at Moundville, in present-day Alabama. Earth mounds surrounded a central plaza. On top of these mounds were temples or ceremonial structures, and the houses of the leaders. High-ranking individuals, such as the holders of ritual offices, were buried in many of the mounds. The central plaza was separated from the settlement area by a wall, and the entire town was surrounded by a palisade. Moundville controlled several smaller towns that radiated out from the central town into the valley for a few miles. It has been estimated that Moundville drew labour from as far as 45 miles away.
These were hierarchical societies, each ruled under a high chief in a large town, which was surrounded by smaller towns and villages headed by subordinate chiefs. Chiefs had immense power and prestige, and they accrued appropriate possessions and special insignia. Their subordinates offered them tributes and deferred to them. Each chiefdom was expansionist and frequently invaded neighbouring territories.
Each person belonged to a clan, each of which was also hierarchically organised. According to French reports, the Natchez, for example, had two social classes: nobility and commoners. Natchez nobility contained three further ranks: Suns, Nobles, and Honoured People. The highest ranking chief or king was known as the Great Sun. All clans were matrilineal and exogamous - that is, people belonged to their mother's clan and marriage within the clan was prohibited. Clans crossed village and town boundaries, so that members of several clans inhabited each settlement.
The economic base of most interior southeastern nations was supported by agriculture. The 18th century Choctaw, for example, were so successful in cultivating and growing corn that they were able to export it also. Although corn was the main crop, beans, squash gourds and sunflowers were also grown. By the end of the 18th century, the Choctaws had added peas, watermelons, sweet potatoes and fruit trees to their agricultural production. After the corn first ripened in early summer, the Choctaw resumed fishing, hunting waterfowl and gathering wild foods, returning in the fall to harvest and store the ripe corn. After this work was completed, the men left to hunt such game as deer and bear, and the women gathered nuts and berries in the woods. By the middle of winter, the men had returned and everyone engaged in clearing the fields to prepare them for planting in the spring. Ceremonies and other ritual activities accompanied each stage of the annual economic cycle.
Dramatic changes in the Southeast occurred during a hundred-year period following the mid-16th century. The aboriginal chiefdoms broke up and were superseded by towns, tribes and confederacies. Epidemics of European diseases are most commonly blamed for the breakup of chiefdoms and the massive depopulation of the entire region. The social and political chaos shifted the tribal balance of power. Sites that had been populated for centuries were abandoned; the building of the distinctive earth mounds ceased; and the marked hierarchical nature of socio-political power disappeared. The founding of Charleston in 1670, the English capture and purchase of Indians for the slave trade in the West Indies, and the development the trade in deerskins for the European market added new disruptions to the region. During the 19th century, non-Indian settlement expanded across the southeast and Indians were pushed aside and their land taken. In the 1820s and 1830s, most Indians of the Southeast were forcibly deported to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma - many died in the process of removal. Despite this, a few tribes did manage to avoid deportation: the Catawba in South Carolina, the Tunica and Chitimacha in Louisiana, and the Lumbee in the Carolinas escaped it entirely, as did some bands of the Seminole in south Florida, a few Cherokee in western North Carolina, a few Creeks in southern Alabama, and many Mississippian Choctaw.
Once in Oklahoma, the removed tribes established themselves into new tribal governments, the most famous, perhaps, being that of what became known as the Five Civilised Tribes - the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Seminole. However, this organisation lost much land to non-Indians in the 1880s and 1890s, and when Oklahoma attained statehood in 1907, it lost most of its remaining sovereignty.
From such massive social and political upheavals, the Creek Confederacy emerged in the Southeast. This was a loose confederacy based on a network of socio-political rather than residential towns. Within each town, people were affiliated to a ceremonial centre and a square or stomp ground, though actual residence could often be quite scattered and far from the centre. From the middle of the 19th century to the 1930s, the Confederacy was made up of some 25-30 such towns. There were 'White' Creek towns and 'Red' Creek towns. White towns concerned themselves with civil affairs of the Confederacy whilst Red towns tended to deal with military ones. White towns controlled the Confederacy's executive affairs; Red towns controlled legislative and judicial ones. The old days of considerable and entrenched hierarchies were gone, and towns were independent and self-governing. The Confederacy was generally governed by irregular council meetings of town leaders, which did not always meet as a single body.
Clans were still important within the Creek Confederacy, and they cut across residential lines - that is, representatives of many clans could be found in each town. But there was no formal, overall clan organisation. Clans tended to be totemic - that is, they took their name from animals or birds, members had special relationships to the clan species, but they did not trace descent from such totems.
The Cherokee provide us with the most detailed information of Southeastern religion, rituals and healing practices. Hundreds of medicinal plants were recognised by Cherokee doctors. Specific herbs were collected as needed for specific cases and then they were usually boiled in water. The medicine would either be rubbed on the patient's body or blown over the patient through a cane tube. Cherokee doctors also cured by singing or reciting spiritual formulas in order to belittle the spirit of the disease. A rival spirit would be invoked to drive it away. Colour and directional symbolism was also utilised in healing practices. Dreams also played an important role.
I shall end this article by describing a southeastern culture whose complexity and sophistication was not based on an agricultural but a maritime economy. The Calusa Indian nation had probably reached its peak around the time of Columbus. It was based in the southern peninsula of Florida. The Calusa built their capital city upon huge shell mounds on the peninsula's southwest coast. They farmed the sea by creating systems of lagoons for oyster beds and stone holding pens for a variety of fish and sea animals such as sea turtles and mullet. They took part in the extensive inland trading routes. But they also traded in the Florida Keys, the Bahamas and Cuba, travelling long distances in canoes that had been strung together and equipped with a sail. Such contraptions would hold up to fifty people at a time. Under the guidance of a hereditary leader or king, the Calusa built numerous transportation and trade canals through difficult inland terrain, as well as artificial islands in the coastal waters made up shell mounds. The Calusa were sophisticated artisans, suggesting a nation accustomed to leisure time.
By the end of the 15th century, the Spanish began arriving on the peninsula, but the Calusa managed to protect their kingdom against colonisation. But they could not protect themselves against European disease, and by the 18th and 19th centuries, with their population drastically reduced, small, surviving groups of Calusa joined bands of Creeks and other Indian groups and with them became the Seminole and Miccosukee Indian nations of today.
In the previous articles, we learned a little bit about the culture area concept that is generally used by North American anthropologists to classify and analyse Native North American cultures. We talked about some of the problems inherent in such classifications - the tendency to generalise, for example, and the tendency of artificially freezing cultures so that no attention is given to acknowledging geographic and cultural variation as well as cultural adaptations within a single culture's history. The generalisations inherent within the culture area concept mask the complexities and diversities that exist not only between cultures of a specific area but within such cultures also. As such, when you read about Indian nations of the Arctic, of California, or the South- and Northeast, for example, pay as much attention to the dissimilarities as well as to the similarities.
Anthropologists tend to divide Native North America into the following culture areas: the Arctic, Subarctic, Northwest Coast, Northeast, Southeast, the Plains, Southwest, Plateau and Basin and California. Space forbids me to write about each culture region in detail. I will concentrate instead on four: I have already generalised about the Southwest and the Northeast regions. Now I shall write about the Arctic and Plains culture areas. I cannot stress enough how important it is for readers of this article to read ethnographies of individual Indian cultures. Not only does each cultural region vary from each other, but also every single Indian nation has a history and culture uniquely its own.
The vast swathe of apparently uninhabited and inhospitable land of ice and snow in the Arctic culture area is actually the homeland of three separate linguistic groups: the Aleut, the Yup'ik and the Inuit-Inupiaq. The region spans from southern Alaska to eastern Greenland and contains many diverse culture groups.
The population of the Aleuts for the early 1700s has been estimated at 15-25,000. It spread out across the 1200 mile Aleutian archipelago - a string of volcanic islands across the northern Pacific, off Alaska. The region is divided linguistically between the Eastern and Western Aleut. Within these two regions, there resided several village-based societies, each one with their own territorial boundaries and leaders. Trade goods such as pine and birch barks were exchanged between the villages, and common feasts and masked dances were held during the winter.
Aleut houses were dug deep into the ground and roofed with driftwood and whale bones and covered with sod. These dwellings ranged from single-family homes to communal longhouses. The east was believed to be the home of the creator and so houses were oriented along an east-west axis. The location of particular families within a communal house mirrored this cosmological directional importance. Most often the headman and his family occupied the easternmost compartment and slaves or servants occupied the westernmost part.
The Aleutian diet was rich. It included the flesh and eggs of such sea birds as puffin, ducks and geese, and flora and marine fauna such as salmon berries, mountain sorrel, cowslip and seaweed. Also eaten were sea mammals such as sea lions, seals, sea otters and whale, and fish such as salmon, which was harvested throughout the summer and early autumn. Certain dune grasses were also used to make fine, elaborate baskets that distinguish Aleut material culture and artistic tradition.
All hunters used a variety of physical and spiritual means to prepare themselves for a hunt. Amulets were included in a man's hunting equipment in order that they attract the animals and appease their spirits. Whale hunting was the preserve of only a few men - those that had undergone special training.
Men hunted in a special type of kayak known as the baidarka. It had a bifurcated prow and a straight stern. It allowed the baidarka to almost glide across the choppy waters of the Gulf of Alaska. Boys were trained in kayaking skills from an early age, and often had their ligaments and tendons stretched to allow them to sit for hours in the vessel.
The Aleuts' skill in the use of the baidarka and in hunting sea otters, for example, attracted the attention of the Russians. In 1741, two Russians became the first Europeans to visit the Aleutian Islands. They returned to their homeland with their cargo of sea otter pelts - pelts that were highly prized by the Chinese Emperor of the time. Sea otter had been hunted to extinction in the western Pacific and so Russian traders seized an opportunity and set sail for Alaska. In time, they began to exploit Aleutian hunters, forcing villages to hunt by capturing hostages and returning them at the end of the hunt season. The Eastern Aleuts tried to rebel in the early 1760s, but they were crushed. The introduction of diseases reduced Aleut numbers even more. By 1799, only one-eighth of the pre-contact population remained intact.
The Russians soon built schools and churches in the area. They took control of healthcare and they took control of all hunting and trade. Moreover, when, in the 1860s, the Russians accepted an American offer to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million in gold, the Aleuts' lives changed drastically again. Russian schools, churches and hospitals closed, the sea otter market had collapsed and it wasn't until 1885 that an American mission school was built on the islands. Subsequently, various markets were exploited in the region, from salmon and seal to cod salting and gold. By the Second World War, the Aleutian Island economy collapsed.
Today, the Aleuts number some 2000 people. Most are members of the Russian Orthodox Church. They now live in woodframe houses and engage in hunting, fishing and raising sheep. Much of their diet is processed.
Yup'ik speakers have lived on both sides of the Bering Strait. Trade between Siberia and Alaska included the skins of reindeer, tobacco and iron. There are five different Yup'ik languages and such linguistic diversity extends to economy, social organisation, beliefs and contact history. Today, however, I shall focus on the Central Alaskan Yup'ik, who inhabit mainland, southwestern Alaska, as an example of Yup'ik culture.
The Yup'ik had a much less hierarchical social organisation than the Aleuts, nor were slaves kept, but it was also family-oriented. Each village had its own territory and supported its own needs. Villages almost exclusively consisted of single family dwellings, which belonged to the women, as well as one or two communal men's houses, or the qasgiq. Sometime around the age of six, a boy would leave his mother's home and move in with the men. There he would live and learn the ceremonies and Yup'ik cosmology, as his sister learned from the women in her home.
Much is known of Yup'ik ceremonial life and today Yup'ik ceremonies are undergoing a revival. Yup'ik cosmology divided the world into several layers, each of which was held in a delicate balance of relationship. Correct behaviour had to be learned so that a Yup'ik individual did not offend the spirits and thus upset this balance. There were also two different worlds: the visible and the spirit-filled invisible. The two worlds occupied the same physical space, though the occupants of the former could seldom see the spirits of the latter. The division between the two worlds was permeable, becoming most transparent at birth, at puberty and at death. As such, proper ritual was crucial during these times. All inanimate and animate objects had spirits that could transmute into human forms. All animals had this ability to shape-shift, and often a hunter would glimpse the human face of the animal he was hunting.
Shamans and elders were responsible for the yearly ceremonial cycle. The four major festivals were the Asking Festival (Petugtaq), the Feast of the Dead (Merr'aq), the Bladder Festival (Nakaciuq) and the Inviting-in Festival (Kelek/Itruka'ar). During the Asking Festival, villages gathered and kin relationships were reinforced through the exchange of requested gifts. The deceased were ensured food, drink and clothing in the afterworld at the Feast of the Dead. During the Bladder Festival, the bladders of seals caught that year were inflated, painted and hung in the men's lodge. They were offered food, dance and song in order to ensure that the souls of the seals that were contained in the bladders would hear the Yup'ik and grant them many more seal in future hunts. At the Inviting-in Festival, the spirits were called in to share the food of the people as a form of thanksgiving.
Spiritual belief permeated Yup'ik hunting life also. Hunting equipment was fashioned to appeal to and please the spirit of the prey, thus attracting the animal toward the hunter. Bears, wolves and otters were carved onto a hunter's weapons so that the hunter may embody such animals' qualities; likewise, such images were sewn onto clothing in order that certain animal qualities are appropriated.
Russians were the first Europeans to make direct contact with the central Alaskan Yup'ik around the late 1700s. They established and developed beaver interests there after sea otter populations declined. The Russians established trading posts on the mainland, and by 1845, Russian Orthodox missionaries had established themselves at almost all of these posts. Many Yup'ik, however, resisted conversion to Christianity and maintained their independence from the Russian trading companies. This resistance to foreign assimilation continued even after the United States had acquired Alaska. Although, as the years progressed, there was an increasingly dependence on trading posts for some, for other Yup'ik communities, economic reliance on traditional hunting and gathering cycles was hardly disturbed at all. The first salmon canneries were opened in the region during the 1880s and still employed most of its workers from among the native Alaskan communities until the Second World War.
Speakers of the Inuit-Inupiaq live in four countries: Greenland, Canada, the United States and Russia. The language group is composed of numerous dialects. Inuit stereotypes range from a rosy-cheeked child peeping out from a fur parka, a man poised over a seal breathing hole, an igloo, sledge huskies and a sweeping terrain of wind and ice. The 'Eskimo' stereotypes belie a far more complex picture.
A sub-group of the North Alaska Coast Inuit, the Nuvugmiut, for example, were whale, not seal hunters and they preferred to live in semi-subterranean log houses in large, permanent village, resorting to igloos or snowhouses if caught inland in a snowstorm. They rarely used kayaks, too. Their society was highly structured, with the owner of the whale-hunting boat being accorded the highest esteem.
In contrast to the Nuvugmiut in north Alaska, the Padlirmiut, a sub-group of the Caribou Inuit who lived on the west coast of Hudson Bay, were seal hunters as well as hunters of such inland creatures as caribou and musk oxen. Their society was not hierarchical but egalitarian.
It is the Central Inuit of the Canadian Arctic that has provided (and bore the brunt of) the Eskimo stereotype. The Aivilingmiut group is a part of the Iglulik Inuit, which in turn is one of several divisions of the Central Inuit group. They reside on the northwest coast of Hudson Bay. The Aivilingmiut are renowned for their dog teams and walrus hunting. Dog teams facilitated hunting over long distances, but they also enabled visiting relations and trading posts. Walrus hunting took place during the summer and were harpooned from kayaks or from the floe edge. The Inuit diet is almost exclusively meat. So long as both meat and fat are consumed and so long as a significant proportion of the meat is consumed raw, then meat contains all the required nutrients needed to survive and thrive.
After the grand communal walrus hunts of summer, people would separate into their family units and return to their usual hunting territories. As elsewhere over the Arctic and Subarctic regions of America, hunting territories were not owned as private property but they were recognised to be areas visited habitually by certain families. Some of the men, particularly the older ones, remained on the coast hunting walrus and also seals and whales until the sea ice formed. It was usually the younger men that moved inland with their families and hunted caribou. Caribou provided food sustenance as well as fur for clothing and bedding and bone and antler for tools.
Around January or February, Aivilingmiut families would gather in large villages composed of family igloos or snowhouses. The snow provided superior insulation from the biting wind. Winter snowhouses could last several months. Though they relied on cached food supplies, calm days allowed hunters to hunt seals at seal breathing holes.
Usually, a large, single snowhouse was built so that all the community could enjoy social and ceremonial pursuits such as drum dances and shamanic seances. Seances were often held when the weather was poor or game had disappeared. In the latter case, the shaman would turn into bear and visit the female spirit from whose hands had sprung all sea mammals. He would ask her forgiveness for is peoples' past transgressions. One scholar translated a shamanic song as thus:
"That woman down there beneath the sea,
She wants to hide the seals from us.
These hunters in the dance-house,
They cannot right matters.
They cannot mend matters.
Into the spirit world
Will go I,
Where no humans dwell.
Set matters right will I.
Set matters right will I."
The Aivilingmiut seemed unaffected by the earliest intrusions upon their territory, when the British came in search of the Northwest Passage during the 1570s to the 1630s. In 1670, Britain's Hudson's Bay Company set up a monopoly on trading rights in Rupert's Land, but rarely ventured north due to lack of beaver there. Although by the early 1800s, some Inuit nations were trading seals with the Company, there is no evidence that the Aivilingmiut were among them.
The Aivilingmiut remained undisturbed until 1860, when American whalers expanded their whaling into Hudson Bay. The Aivilingmiut migrated southward to search for work among the Americans. Guns and whale boats replaced the bow and arrow and kayak. The Aivilingmiut supplied the whalers with fresh meat and this practice soon depleted local wildlife stocks. Alcohol was also introduced among the Aivilingmiut as well as new diseases such as syphilis and tuberculosis.
When the last of the whalers left in 1915, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police established a post among the Aivilingmiut. The Hudson's Bay Company also moved in, as they had now become interested in seals and white fox. With these groups came Catholic and Anglican missionaries. Although the missionaries succeeded in converting most Aivilingmiut, as elsewhere in Native America, they could not fully eradicate fundamental indigenous beliefs about the cosmological world. Eventually, the Aivilingmiut became exposed to Canadian education and regular health and social services, although this did not really happen until after the Second World War.
The Great Plains stretches across the heartland of North America. This land of wind and sun and grass is actually intercepted by a network of rivers and nestles against the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. From the North Saskatchewan River in Canada, almost to the Rio Grande in Mexico, between the Missouri-Mississippi valleys in the east, to the foothills of the Rockies in the west, the Great Plains encompasses an area of some one million square miles.
The region consists of at least 4 linguistic groups. The Algonquian-speakers reside in the Northern Plains and comprise, amongst others, the Blackfeet, Plains Cree, Plains Ojibwa and Gros Ventre. In the same part of the Plains, are the Athapascan-speakers, the Sarsi, who actually allied themselves with the Blackfeet during the 19th century. On the Central Plains reside the Siouan and the Caddoan-speakers. The former group comprise the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota groups of the Sioux Nation, as well as the Crow, Mandan and Hidatsa. The Arikara Nation represents the Caddoan-speakers. The Southern Plains consists of a variety of language-groups: the Comanche belong to the Uto-Aztecan linguistic group, the Kiowa to the Kiowan group, the Wichita and Pawnee to the Caddoan linguistic group, and the Kiowa-Apache speaks an Athapaskan dialect.
There is much climactic and geographical diversity on the Plains. A limited rainfall causes the aridity of the western and southern regions. Rain, however, falls in abundance in the region of the Missouri-Mississippi valleys, producing humid and lush conditions. Generally speaking, moving east to west the prairie grass becomes dryer and shorter. Despite the aridity, however, many Plains animals thrive on this shorter variety of prairie grass known as buffalo grass. In the recent past, numerous buffalo, wolves, coyotes and prong-horned antelope thrived in such conditions. In pre-historical times, great mammals such as mammoths used to roam the Plains regions.
Once, buffalo hunting characterised the subsistence culture of the western Plains. Western tribes such as the Comanche, the Cheyenne, Sioux, Blackfoot and Kiowa would follow the buffalo on foot with bows and arrows, and later on horses with guns. The bow and arrow had come from the Athapaskan Arctic north and the horse from the Spanish. A popular method for hunting buffalo was to stampede hundreds of such animals off cliff-tops. Old buffalo jumps are scattered across the Plains today.
At their peak, buffalo reached some 40 million. At the dawn of the 20th century, their numbers had been reduced to around 500. The buffalo furnished a whole way of life for western Plains Indians. The fur provided warmth and protection in the form of tipi coverings, clothing and bedding. The flesh and organs provided food. The sinew provided thread and binding. The bones provided all manners of tools and utensils. Even the bladder was used as a waterproof container for fluids. The utilitarian importance of buffalo was carried over into ceremonial life. The buffalo skull contains spiritual power, especially the horns and is frequently a centerpiece of sacred altars. Plains Indian tribes still have Buffalo Societies where members have dreamed or have had visions of buffalo and embody a buffalo's power. The western Sioux, for example, have a creation myth that links human origin with that of the buffalo. Both nations - the Sioux and the Buffalo or Pte nations - descended from the Pte Oyate, or Buffalo People, that lived under the surface of the earth. A few members of the Pte Oyate emerged to the present world through a cave in the Black Hills, South Dakota, and eventually became the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people.
Though buffalo provided the major food source for the western Plains tribes, other animals such as deer and antelope were hunted and wild foods such as berries and edible plants were also gathered and ate. Generally, bands of individual nations would gather together for ceremony and communal hunting during the spring and summer, separating off into family hunting groups during the winter.
In contrast to their nomadic neighbours, residents of the eastern Plains, such as the Mandan, Hidatsa, Omaha and Missouri nations, were far more sedentary. They had the lush abundance of the Missouri-Mississippi valleys at their disposal. As such, buffalo hunting supplemented a diet based on farmed and garden produce, small mammals, fish and wild vegetable foods. As far west as eastern South Dakota, for example, there are archaeological remains of cultivated squash, corn, beans, sunflowers and tobacco, as well as remnants of pottery and elaborate earth burial mounds.
When the first European fur trappers and traders moved into the Mississippi and Missouri valleys, they found flourishing and socio-politically and religiously complex agricultural nations. Archaeologists have called these Mississippian developments and the Mississippian trend is thought to have lasted from AD 1000 to 1850. This period and region also saw the establishment of semi-subterranean earth lodges, each of which housed several families and each of which was grouped with others into fixed villages. Mandan towns, for example, were formally laid out with streets and a central plaza. This plaza was the focal point of the community and ceremonies and competitive games were held there. The circular Mandan earth lodge was between 40 and 80 feet in circumference. Four centre posts upheld a continuous series of horizontal cross beams, over which were laid willow-branch matting and then layers of firmly packed earth. Sometimes the tops of such lodges would be flattened to provide a platform for drying crops and to provide a kind of porch to be used on hot evenings.
This eastern Plains region was at the centre of an extensive pan-Indian trading network, which spanned all four corners of the Americas. Over time, large, settled villages began to appear across the central Plains region also, such as in central Nebraska. There was also much inter-regional trade carried on among the different Plains nations. Western tribes, for example, traded buffalo skins and manufactured clothing such as moccasins and skin shirts for eastern corn, squash and the highly valued tobacco plant. All Plains tribes traded Pan-American items: Pacific and Gulf Coast sea shells, Great Lakes copper and Yellowstone obsidian.
Among the nomadic western Plains nations, settlement patterns tended to mirror buffalo movements. As such, these groups were highly mobile and tended to have minimum material possessions.
Political organisations of western Plains bands were structured around the authority of a single or a couple of leaders who had proved themselves in war and hunting. Decision-making also lay in the hands of a single or several female elders. Leaders of each band of a specific nation would gather together at certain times during the year - generally during communal summer gatherings. A grand council of Sioux leaders, for example, was held annually during the communal summer ceremonial season. In such a way, tribal unity was maintained and reinforced each year. The Cheyenne recognised a supernaturally sanctioned ruling council of 44 leaders, each of whom had been chosen from a group of respected, older men to run under 10-year terms. On the eastern Plains, towns or villages were structured on the basis of clans. Councils of clan representatives governed each village and confederation of villages, and leaders tended to be drawn from lineages that traditionally produced leaders.
Western Plains cultures emphasised war and military societies. Social organisation and kinship tended to be bilateral - that is, kinship relations are traced through both maternal and paternal sides of the family. There were exceptions, of course. The Cheyenne and Crow, for example, both had matrilineal kinship systems. The basic social unit was the band, which comprised of 25-100, generally kin-related individuals grouped into families. Band membership was flexible, however, and a family could choose to leave a band and join or even form another.
On the eastern Plains, the functioning economic and social unit was the matrilineal or patrilineal extended family. Each extended family would own an earth lodge and would control, but not own, a certain field. This field was owned by a lineage and ultimately by the clan, which was composed of various lineages. Clans were hierarchically ranked according to size and ritual importance.
On the western Plains, ceremonial life was largely oriented toward the buffalo and its regeneration. In the east, ritual and belief was oriented towards the agricultural cycle. However, all Plains tribes shared certain religious characteristics in common. These shared religious elements included: shamanism, the vision quest, sacred medicine bundles, belief in guardian spirits and community- or nationwide ceremonials such as the Sun Dance.
Very broadly speaking, each individual has a guardian spirit, or a spiritual entity that protects an individual and provides him or her with special songs, prayers and symbols. On the western Plains especially, such spirits usually come to an individual during a vision quest, and can appear in the form of a human, an animal or a bird. The vision quest is a solitary ritual wherein a person retreats to a solitary place, fasts and prays with a pipe for, say, four days and nights, until he or she receives spiritual instructions from a spiritual entity. Such visions carry great symbolic weight among Plains nations, even today. Often, it is the shaman or medicine person who provides an interpretation to a vision quester's dream. But equally often, emphasis is placed upon the individual him- or herself to provide such an interpretation. Individuality is prized among many Plains nations, such as the Sioux.
The shaman or medicine person serves many functions and not all shamans serve all. Shamans act as intermediaries between the human and supernatural worlds. They are also interpreters of the spiritual world. They can function as healers. Often, books on shamanism talk about medicine people flying out to the spiritual worlds. This may be true for the Plains region as well, but often shamans there will say that spirits come to them, upon invitation. Shamans are also sought out to provide spiritual guidance, to locate lost objects, to provide relief from economic and social hardships, and to provide protection in war. Of the latter, this can apply as much to the Gulf and Vietnam wars as to ancient battles between tribes and between tribes and Europeans. It is important to bear in mind that not all healers are necessarily shamans.
Sacred medicine bundles feature heavily in the religious life of western and eastern Plains nations. Each bundle is associated with a complex mythology and sacred lore. Some of them pertain to specific activities such as fishing or eagle trapping; others are more generalised in their function, relating broadly to curing or fertility. A bundle can contain many or a few sacred things, ranging from the preserved skins of small animals and birds, parts of buffalo horns, eagle feathers, stones, seeds and other plant matter. An especially potent object contained in a medicine bundle is the Sacred Pipe. The pipe is a medium by which tobacco is offered as a smoke to the spirit realm. The smoke also carries the prayers of the people. The pipe in itself is sacred and its bowl and stem can only be joined during ceremony. All these objects are wrapped in layers of hide and often red cloth and opened under ceremonial conditions.
An example of a community-wide ceremony is Okipa ceremony, held annually by the Mandan. Over a four-day period, a series of rituals insures the welfare of the people. The creation of the earth, its people, animals and plants is ceremonially enacted, as are events of Mandan history, past and present. The most famous community-wide ceremonial gathering on the Plains is perhaps the Sun Dance. This Plains ritual varies in purpose and function from tribe to tribe but everywhere it draws people from far and wide, though of course there are small Sun Dances held in tiny reservation communities that attract only residents. In the past, it drew hundreds and thousands of people to the annual summer camps. The ritual could be an earth-renewal one, it could serve to unify a nation as well as to heal individuals, it could be a prayer for fertility, it could be a dance of vengeance for death.
Warfare was another defining aspect of the Plains culture area. It still is. Korean and Vietnam veterans are still highly respected in certain reservation communities, and they are frequently honoured during powwows for example. On Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, traditional male warrior societies are being re-established based on a membership of veterans of 20th century wars such as the Gulf and Vietnam wars. Distinction and glory in war, as well as the quality of generosity, enhanced the status of a Plains Indian individual, male and female. War was a social institution and warlike exploits were necessary for social enhancement. Such exploits including counting coup on a live enemy with a harmless stick, and scalping. Many Plains tribes, such as the Lakota Sioux and the Cheyenne, had female warriors and women warrior societies too, although we know much less about these as most historians have chosen not to acknowledge their existence. Today, women warrior societies are being resurrected on Pine Ridge Reservation, for example.
The earliest contact between Plains Indians and Europeans came from European explorers, trappers and traders. These initial encounters were generally friendly, especially in the Canadian Plains. However, the systematic slaughter of beaver and then buffalo for trade and then for sport, plus the increasing influx of white migrants to the area, caused a progressive collapse in Anglo-Indian relations. Numerous battles were fought and eventually treaties were signed and then broken by the US. When buffalo extermination became a part of US policy in the mid- to late 1800s, the Plains nations realised they had lost their lifestyle and their homeland forever. Their defeat was symbolised by the massacre of Minniconjou Lakota families by US troops at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. By the end of the 19th century, almost all Plains tribes had been herded onto reservations and reduced to hunting cows released from corrals. Religion, language and other cultural traditions went underground, rather than disappeared, however, and today most Plains tribes, particularly western ones, are experiencing a dramatic revival in their culture.
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