NATIVE AMERICANS or AMERICAN INDIANS
 The    first people to inhabit the
Americas
are referred to as Indians. Their settlements ranged    across the
Western Hemisphere
and were built on many of the sites where modern cities now rise. They    hunted deer, buffalo, and other game and cultivated land where today    crops are still grown. Their hunters, warriors, and traders used paths    now followed by roads and railroads. Indian words dot the map of the
United States
. Twenty-seven states    and large numbers of cities, towns, rivers, and lakes bear names from    the languages of the first Americans.  
   Native American farmers were the first in the world to domesticate    potatoes, tomatoes, and many other food plants that help feed the    peoples of the world today. The Native Americans were also the first to    raise turkeys. They found uses for such Native American plants as    rubber, tobacco, the sugar maple, and the cinchona tree (for quinine).
   The Native Americans had lived in
America
for thousands of years when the first European explorers    set foot on their land. When Christopher Columbus landed in the
New World
, he called    the native people indios (Spanish for Indians) because he thought    he had reached
India
   Because of European colonization of North and
South America
since    1500, Native Americans have been greatly reduced in numbers and largely    displaced. In Central and
South America
a large percentage of the modern population is of mixed Indian and    European ancestry, and in the
Caribbean
South America
a portion of the population is    of mixed American Indian and African descent.  
   Native Americans belong to the American Indian geographic race.    Characteristics include medium skin pigmentation, straight black hair,    sparse body hair, and a very low frequency of male pattern balding. In    addition to a marked absence of blood type B and the Rh-negative blood    type among Native Americans, several other characteristics of their    blood types set them apart from the Mongoloid peoples, with whom they    were sometimes classed in the past. 
WHERE DID THE INDIANS COME FROM?
Like the white settlers, the first Indians were    immigrants. Anthropologists say they came from northeastern
Asia
. They resembled    the early Mongoloid people of that region. Nobody knows when or how they    came. They probably arrived when ice sheets covered much of northern
North America
.  This may have been 20,000    to 30,000 years ago. 
   They may have come because they were wandering    hunters, like most people of that era. They crossed the
Bering Strait
to
Alaska
, seeking new hunting grounds. Bridges of land existed    then, making passage easy. There seem to have been ice-free land and    game in
Alaska
and open land east of the
Rocky Mountains
,    leading into the heart of
North America
. Perhaps the Indians moved along this area as they needed new hunting    grounds. Gradually the ice melted, and the Indians spread to most parts    of both
Americas
. They did not fill this    vast area. It has been estimated that only about 1,025,000 were living    north of
Mexico
when the first white men    came to
America
.  
Differences in Ways of Living
The    Indians lived in different ways in various parts of the country. When a    roaming band of Indians found a place with good hunting and plenty of    seeds and berries, they settled down. Gradually they learned to utilize    the area's trees and plants, its animals, fish, and birds, and its    stones and earth.  
   The vast American continents have many kinds of land and climate. In    each area nature provided special plants, animals, and raw materials.    Thus Indians of various areas had different food, clothing, and shelter.    They worked out different ways of life.  
   Since the Indians depended upon nature, they studied its ways. They knew    the habits of the animals. They found out which plants were nourishing    and which poisonous. They knew signs that foretold the turning of the    seasons and the changes in the weather.  
   They had no science to explain nature, and they believed the sun, rain,    and other forces were controlled by spirits. In religion they worshiped    animals, plants, the sun, rain, and wind. In ceremonies and prayers they    tried to gain the favor of these gods.  
CULTURE AREAS IN
NORTH AMERICA
  Scholars give the name culture to the way of life of a    people, including its arts and crafts. In studying Indian cultures north    of
Mexico
, they    found seven great culture areas in the region. The Indians of each area    shared similar natural surroundings and had much the same kind of    culture. Peoples who lived along the border between two culture areas    often reflected the two ways of living.  
   The pictures throughout the article illustrate ways of life in some of    the areas. They show that in each area the Indians had special ways of    acquiring clothing, food, houses, and utensils.  
   One thing they had in common was the use of stone tools. All made a    variety of hammers, scrapers, knives, arrowheads, and spear points from    stone. They were handicapped by the lack of sharp metal tools.  
Indians of the Eastern Forests
The Indians who made their homes in the eastern part of
North America
had a region with plentiful rainfall. Forests spread over mountains and    valleys. There were many lakes and streams. The
Woodland
tribes largely depended upon the trees, the    animals that lived in the woods, and the fish and shellfish from the    streams and the sea. They used tree bark and branches to make their    houses, many of their weapons and utensils, and the canoes in which they    skimmed over the waters. They made clothing from the skins of game.  
   They did not have to wander seeking wild food. Since they knew how to    grow crops, they could live in villages. The women planted corn,    pumpkin, squash, beans, tobacco, and gourds. The plants flourished in    the warm, rainy summers.  
Wanderers of the Plains
The    Plains Indians lived on a vast rolling plain. There was enough rain for    a thick carpet of grass but not enough to grow many trees. Trees grew    only beside the rivers. Huge herds of grazing animals fed on the grass.    The most important of these was the buffalo, or bison. Indeed, the    buffalo has been called "the Plains Indians' galloping department    store." This animal gave the Indians almost everything they needed. The    flesh supplied food. From the skin they made tents, called tepees,    boats, utensils, baggage, and some of their clothing. These Indians    moved about the plains following the herds. They also hunted other    plains animals, notably elk, deer, and antelope.  
   After Spanish settlers in the southwest brought horses    to
America
, the    Plains Indians became famous as expert hunters. With their swift ponies    they could overtake a herd of buffalo and kill all the animals they    needed. Hunting was usually a tribal activity, and it involved driving    large numbers of buffalo off a cliff or into some type of    encirclement.  
Pueblo
Indians of the Southwest
The    Indians of the Southwest had land that was high, dry, and cut by    mountains and canyons. They had little rain, but it came mostly in    summer when it could help plants grow. Snow fell on the mountains in    winter and supplied water for streams, springs, and water holes. The    Pueblo Indians learned to irrigate their fields and to find moist spots    for dry farming. Good crops gave them a dependable food supply. They    built large dwellings, like apartment houses, from stone and adobe    (sun-dried clay). A whole village, or community, lived in one of these    huge houses. When the Spanish explorers saw them in the 16th century,    they called the community houses pueblos from the Spanish word for    village.  
Nomadic Raiders and Herders
The    region also had nomadic Indians who did not build villages. The Navajos    were hunters and raiders of the settled villages until the Spaniards    brought sheep and goats. They gradually began tending flocks of these    animals for a livelihood.  
   They moved over the dry, rocky land seeking grass for their flocks. They    made homes, called hogans, of stone, logs, and earth.  
Seed    Gatherers of the Desert
The Seed Gatherer Indians had an even drier homeland.    They lived in the arid parts of
California
and in the dry basins and plateaus between the
Rockies
and the
Sierra Nevada
. Game animals were scarce, and the    men could not supply enough food by hunting. So the family roamed the    desert, and the women gathered berries, nuts, seeds, and roots. They    ground the seeds into flour for gruel.  
   Their shelters were mere windbreaks or flimsy huts covered with rushes    or bunches of grass. Their greatest skill was basketry. They wove the    baskets so closely that they would hold the finest seeds--even water.    The women cooked the gruel in them.  
Fishermen of the Northwest
The    Northwest Fishermen had a land of heavy rainfall along the northern    Pacific coast. The ocean and the rivers were rich with fish. Forests    grew tall and dense. The giant red cedar provided straight-grained wood    which even crude tools could split. So these skillful Indians built    large houses by tying big slabs of cedar to wooden frames. They made    dugout canoes for river travel, as well as seagoing whaleboats.  
   Hunters added game to the fish supply. The women gathered bulbs,    berries, and seeds. They wore little clothing--fringe skirts and    raincoats made from the inner bark of the cedar. The men were skillful    wood-carvers. Examples of their craftsmanship have survived, from small    dolls to large, painted totem poles.
Northern Hunters
North of these areas lived the Mackenzie-Yukon Valley Caribou Hunters    and the Inuit. The Caribou Hunters depended upon the caribou and other    northern game much as the Plains Indians depended upon the buffalo. They    made their tents and clothing of caribou or other deer hides. In winter    they tracked their game on snowshoes. As they roamed, their dogs carried    the baggage or pulled it on sledges.  
   The Inuit today still live along the chill northern    fringes of the continent. There are Inuit across the whole Arctic    region, ranging from
Alaska
and
Siberia
. Many depend    upon seal, whale, walrus, caribou, polar bear, Arctic birds, and other    Arctic animals. They make warm clothing of the animal skins--turning the    fur inside to hold the body's warmth.  
GAMES, SPORTS, AND CEREMONIES
The    Indians did not give all their time to the work needed to stay alive.    They had many games and sports. Tribal members came together for    festivals that lasted a week or more. The gatherings usually had    religious ceremonies as their main purpose, but there was time for games    and visiting, storytelling, and social singing and dancing.  
   Children played much as children play today. Girls played with dolls    dressed in the costumes of their tribes. Boys shot small arrows from toy    bows and crept through the woods pretending to be hunters or warriors.    There were whip tops to spin, stilts, slings, and other toys. They had    dogs and small wild things as pets. Around the fire in the evening, old    and young played guessing games such as hunt-the-button. They made cat's    cradles with fiber string.  
   Children learned skills from games then as they do    now. Archery, target practice, and footraces taught skills needed by the    hunters.
Pueblo
children learned about kachinas from    their kachina dolls. The kachinas were mythical ancestors of the
Pueblo
people. They were thought to live in    a lake beneath the earth. The tribes held kachina dances to celebrate    visits from the spirits. The dancers gave kachina dolls to children, to    inspire them to be like the kachina ancestors.  
Intertribal Meets and Women's Games
Young people competed in athletic sports. The "ball play" popular throughout the east has become the modern sport lacrosse.    Athletes were highly trained for intertribal contests in this game. The    ceremonial dancing and feasting before the games may be compared to    modern football pep rallies. Inter-village footraces were held by the
Pueblos
, and horse racing    was popular among the buffalo-hunting Plains tribes.  
   Ring-and-pole and hoop-and-pole games were popular in many areas. The    players shot poles or spears through stone rings or into a netting on a    rolling hoop. Snow snake was popular among northern tribes. The players    hurled a long stick, sometimes painted to resemble a snake, to see who    could send it farthest over the ice or frozen ground.  
   Shinny was a woman's game. Plains women used a small buckskin-covered    ball of buffalo hair. Women of the Southwest played a kind of football.    They kicked a small ball around a long course. In early times, the game    was thought to have magical powers, such as protecting the fields    against sandstorms.  
Games of Chance
Indians of all tribes liked games of chance. The commonest was called    the hand game. A player held in his hands two bone or wooden cylinders,    one plain and the other marked. His opponents attempted to guess which    hand held the unmarked piece. One camp might compete against another.    Backers lined up beside the players, shouting and singing to distract    them. A man might lose his horses, buffalo robes, or everything he owned    in the excitement.  
   Numerous games used markers resembling dice. Common among northern    tribes was the bowl game. Players tossed marked peach or plum seeds in a    bowl.  
Dancing and Ceremonials
Most    of the Indian dances and ceremonies were held for religious or    superstitious reasons. By honoring their spirits, or gods, the Indians    hoped to gain help and favor. Medicine men, or religious leaders, danced    to seek aid for the sick. Hunters danced the deer dance or the buffalo    dance to attract abundant game. Farming tribes staged ceremonials to    bring rain or to make the corn grow or ripen. Certain dances dramatized    stories from the history or mythology of the tribe. Other ceremonies    were held when children arrived at manhood or womanhood or to initiate    them into the religious secret societies of the tribe.  
   Although the purpose of a dance was serious, the Indians usually made it    the occasion for fun and sociability. In many tribes, there were clowns    or other fun makers among the musicians or dancers. In the evening or at    the end of a festival, social dances were sometimes held. The squaw    dance of the Navajos was a social dance in which both men and women took    part. Originally it came at the end of elaborate ceremonials to welcome    the braves at the end of a war.  
Songs and Musical Instruments
Singing accompanied every public ceremony as well as the important    events in an individual's life. Both the tune and the rhythm seem    strange to the white man's ears. Religious songs passed down from    generation to generation, as they were an important part of the    ceremonies. Women sang songs not only to ease the burden of their own    activities, such as spinning and grinding, but also to encourage the    warrior as he went forth. Every mother, of course, sang lullabies. Birds    or animals, in folk stories, were supposed to sing their own quaint    songs, which were imitated by the storyteller. On the northwest coast    there were spirited song contests between tribes. Certain songs were the    exclusive property of clans and societies. Individuals in the clan,    however, could sell their songs or even give them away.  
   A variety of instruments accompanied dance and song.    These included drums, rattles, whistles, flutes, bull-roarers, and    notched sticks rasped on bones. The Indians made them of materials at    hand. Plains drums had painted horsehide heads. Northwestern tribes used    wooden boxes, and their rattles were made like masks from wood or native    copper. The
Pueblos
and other farming    tribes made gourd rattles. The Iroquois used a turtle shell and a pot or    water drum.  
Tales of the Old People
Every tribe had its legends--some more fanciful than true--of the    history of the tribe. When the day's work was done, the old people would    tell these tales. There were also many stories of animals and mythical    beings which could assume human form and yet retain some of their own    particular traits. Children were thrilled by these stories. The Indian    stories and myths were passed by word of mouth from one generation to    another. This is known as the oral tradition.  
Woodland Indians of the Eastern Wilderness
The Indians of the eastern forests were the first ones    the American colonists met. In the beginning, the settlers from
Europe
looked upon the Indians as ignorant savages.    Then they found that there was much the Indians could teach them. They    learned to grow corn and to bury a fish in each hill for fertilizer.    They adopted the Indian's swift, graceful bark canoe for water travel.    They found out how to hunt and make war--Indian style.  
   Indian ways were valued because they were suited to the wilderness of    forests, rivers, and lakes. The Indians had to convert the things around    them into food, clothing, shelter, weapons, tools, and utensils. There    were no stores in the wilderness to sell a family what it could not get    or make for itself.  
   From the beginning, the American people have used Indian methods and    equipment when living in the forests of the east. The fur traders    patterned their lives on the Indian way of life. They traveled in canoes    and on snowshoes, wore moccasins and other clothing of deerskin, and ate    Indian foods. Later, the pioneer settlers often wore buckskin too, and    housewives followed many Indian recipes in their cookery.  
Kinds of Houses in the East
All    the Eastern Woodland Indians lived in much the same way. But from place    to place there were differences in climate and in available plants and    animals, and the tribes differed in housing and clothing styles, in food    habits, and in means of transportation.  
   Pictures in this section show houses from different    parts of the
Eastern Woodland
. Perhaps the most widely used    was the bark-covered wigwam. Sometimes it was shaped like a cone, and    sometimes it was more of a dome. The Indians made a frame for this hut    of small, flexible trees, or saplings. They stuck them firmly in the    ground in a circle, then bent them overhead in an arch and tied them    together with tough bark fibers or with rawhide. Next, other slender    branches were wrapped in circles around the bent poles and tied to them.    Slabs of bark were tied to this frame to form the roof and walls. Space    was left vacant for a door and a smoke hole. Platforms inside served as    beds, chairs, and shelves.  
   The Iroquois and certain other
New York
tribes built the larger longhouse.    Its shape was similar to that of the arched metal Quonset hut built    during World War II. Five to a dozen families might live together in the    longhouse.  
   In the warm southeast, certain tribes raised bigger    crops and had a more involved culture than the northeast tribes. They    had winter houses of clay plastered on a framework of poles and woven    twigs, with a domed or cone-shaped roof. The Seminoles in
Florida
used palmetto-thatched shelters    without sidewalls. These people still live in this type of house.  
   All the houses were crowded, by modern standards, but the Indians did    not mind. Every family spent most of its time outdoors. In good weather    the women cooked at an open fire and did much of their work sitting    outside.
Life in a
Woodland
Village
Eastern Indians lived in villages clustered beside a lake or stream.    They drove sharpened poles into the ground to make a high fence, or    palisade, around the village to protect it from attack. The women had    garden patches beyond the fence. When the ground lost its richness    through years of planting, the game in the neighborhood became scarce,    or the firewood was used up, the villagers left their old homes and    moved to a new location.  
   The village was a busy place. Men and women shared the work, but the    men's share was more fun than the women's. They hunted the forest    animals to get meat and hides for food and clothing materials; they    trapped or seined fish. But there was time between hunts to join war    parties and to take part in religious and medicine-society ceremonials    and to sit in the tribal councils.  
   The men helped with building wigwams and with clearing the ground for    gardens by burning off the trees and bushes. Trees were felled by    girdling. A fire set at a tree's base charred the wood so a man could    chip it with his stone ax until the tree fell. A ring of wet clay kept    the flames from spreading up the trunk. Skilled men of the tribe made    the bows and arrows, war clubs, and stone knives.  
Babies Carried on Cradleboards
The    women's many chores kept them busy all day. They wrapped the babies in    moss and furs and bound them to wooden cradleboards. They carried the    boards on their backs when they gathered food in the woods. In the    village they stood the boards by the house. In the garden they hung the    baby's cradle on a convenient branch.  
Preparing Food and Making Clothing
The    women planted corn, beans, pumpkin, squash, tobacco, and gourds in the    gardens. They harvested the crops and prepared the food. It was not    difficult to roast green corn in a pit with hot rocks or to broil meat    or fish on a grill of green twigs over a fire. But most jobs were    harder. To grind the dry corn into meal they pounded it in a mortar made    of a hollowed log, with a small log for a pestle. They made hominy by    soaking the grains in a solution of wood ashes that loosened the tough    hull of the kernel. They parched, or toasted, corn for warriors on the    march. They dried corn, squash, berries, meat, and fish for the cold    months. They stewed corn and beans into succotash and made soups of corn    with meat or fish in pottery jars.  
   Some areas offered special things to eat. In the    forests of the northeast, the Indians tapped the sugar maples and boiled    the sap to make sugar. The Ojibwa and other tribes of the northern
Great Lakes
area had plenty of wild rice    for their grain supply. They did not need to raise garden crops. The    seashore and many rivers offered shellfish. Heaps of discarded shells    mark the sites of many ancient camps.  
   Many days of work were required to make the buckskin garments the    Indians wore. Tanning deer hides called for many processes--scraping off    flesh and hair, washing the hide, drying and stretching it, treating it    with a deer-brain mixture, and sometimes smoking it to waterproof it.  
   Tailoring the garments meant cutting the skins with shell or flint    knives and sewing them with animal sinews. Awls and needles were made of    bone and horn. Indian women added beautiful colored porcupine-quill    embroidery They created designs of the flowers, leaves, and vines they    saw in the woods. They decorated ceremonial costumes richly.  
   At work the women wore a wraparound skirt, the men a breechcloth. The    men usually shaved their heads, leaving only a scalp lock. Their    headdresses were of dyed deerhair or a few feathers. (The forest would    have been a poor place for the warbonnet of the Plains Indian. Tree    branches would have torn off its feathers.) Winter's fur robes left one    shoulder bare.  
Baskets, Pottery, and Boats
Women of many eastern tribes knew how to weave mats, baskets, and belts    from shredded bark, wood splints, and other fibers. Most tribes of the    region made pottery jars for cooking and storing foods. Boxes and dishes    were fashioned from bark and wood.  
   The Eastern Woodland Indians traveled fastest by water. The northern    tribes made bark canoes in which they skimmed swiftly and silently over    the lakes and rivers. Southeastern tribes made dugout canoes. They    hollowed out a log by burning the inside and scraping away the charred    wood. The Indians used their canoes in hunting and fishing. From their    canoes they could readily shoot the fleet deer and moose when the    animals were wading or swimming.  
   On land the Indians traveled on foot and carried burdens on their    muscular backs. They had no draft animals to haul loads, and their roads    were only narrow paths. The dog was their only domestic animal. In    winter the northern hunters could move after their prey swiftly on    snowshoes.  
Hunters of the Broad Plains
Today the word Indian is usually symbolized by the Plains Indian    brave--a majestic figure with strong, sharp features, a dignified    manner, and a colorful costume of beaded and fringed buckskin. He was a    splendid horseman, hunter, and mounted warrior who took pride in    defending his hunting grounds against the invasion of white settlers. In    war, the eagle feathers of his long-tailed warbonnet streamed in the    breeze as he galloped over the plains.  
A    Land of Abundant Game
Game was plentiful on the plains.
Buffalo
and antelope grazed over the grassy land. In the hills    and mountains nearby lived deer and elk, grizzly bears, mountain sheep,    and mountain goats. The buffalo were the most valuable game animals. But    the big herds moved about constantly seeking pasture, and the Indians    had a hard time catching them when they had to hunt on foot. After    horses were brought to
North America
from
Europe
, the Plains tribes became    successful mounted hunters and spent their lives following the herds.    Spanish settlers first brought horses to the Southwest. Between 1650 and    1750 they spread to the plains.  
   Before the coming of the horse this splendid hunting ground contained    but few Indian tribes. Most people there lived in the river valleys    where they could raise corn. Their homes were villages of earth huts.  
   At buffalo-hunting time, a tribe moved after the feeding herds on foot.    They had invented a dwelling they could carry--the tepee. They made an    A-shaped drag, called a travois, on which their dogs hauled the tepee    cover of buffalo hides and other gear. The tents were small because the    dogs could not pull heavy loads.  
Buffalo
Hunting Without Horses
Before they gained the benefit of horses, the hunters had, over the    centuries, worked out cunning methods by which they could kill enough    buffalo to supply the tribe with meat and hides. If the herd was    scattered, a few hunters might move softly among the animals and shoot    several without scaring the others. In snowy weather, Indians would    encircle a herd and kill many of the animals before they could flounder    away in the drifts or get lost in a blizzard.  
   Another effective method was to drive the herd over a cliff. One man,    draped in a buffalo robe, would move ahead of the herd toward the cliff.    Then other Indians would jump behind the animals, shouting and waving    robes. The buffalo would begin to trot, then gallop in terror, the    animals in the rear pushing those in front. The decoy leader would dodge    to safety at the last minute, and the crazed herd would pour over the    precipice. Many were killed in the fall. The injured were disposed of    with spears or clubs.  
   After the hunt, the work of the women began. They skinned the carcasses    and cut up the meat. The meat might be hung on green branches over the    fire to cook. Or it could be boiled by dropping hot rocks into the    cooking pot. The pot too came from the buffalo. A buffalo stomach or a    piece of hide was fitted into a hole in the ground and used for    cooking.  
   Most of the meat was cut into thin strips and jerked. Jerking meant    hanging the strips on a rack in the dry wind that swept the plains. This    dried meat would keep for a long while. Sometimes it was pounded fine    and mixed with melted fat and dried berries, then stored in containers    of skin or membrane. Called pemmican, this was an excellent concentrated    food for warriors or hunters.  
Plains Indian Homes and a "Ferryboat"
After following a herd until they had a good supply of    meat and hides, the hunters would return to their permanent village.    Among the early Plains tribes that lived in earth lodges were the
Mandan
, Hidatsa, Pawnee, Arikara,
Omaha
, and Osage. Other tribes on the eastern fringe of the    plains blended the plains and woodland ways of life. Among those who    lived in bark-or mat-covered wigwams were the Kansa,
Missouri
, used grass    houses. These tribes grew corn and other crops and made pottery cooking    vessels.  
   Village tribes along the
Missouri River
used a bowl-shaped bullboat. They    made it by stretching a buffalo hide over a wooden frame. It was too    clumsy for water travel, but it could be used to ferry people and gear    across a river.  
How    Horse-Owning Tribes Moved
Many Plains tribes gave up permanent villages after they    got horses. Among the tribes which changed were the Sioux (or Dakota),    the Blackfeet, the Crow, the
Cheyenne
, the Arapaho, the Comanche, and the Kiowa.    Each tribe knew where the buffalo should be from month to month and    moved as necessary for convenience in hunting.  
   To get horses, the Indians were willing to trade their most valuable    goods. They also raided the camps of other tribes and white traders and    roped any wild ponies they found. On a big hunt, the many bands in a    tribe gathered in a huge camp. Their tepees were much larger after the    Indians had horses to haul the heavy covers on the travois.  
  
Buffalo
runs were wild, exciting affairs.    First scouts located a herd. Then the long line of mounted hunters rode    forward. Sometimes fantastically dressed medicine men trotted ahead,    chanting and shaking rattles. At a signal the hunters charged among the    buffalo at a gallop. Guiding his trained buffalo horse by knee pressure,    the hunter pulled alongside his quarry and drove an arrow into its body.    He gripped a pair of arrows in the left hand, which held the bow, and    held another in his mouth. A quiver with spare arrows hung from his    shoulder. A brave, skillful, and lucky hunter might kill four or five    animals during a run.  The number increased after the Indians got guns    from the settlers.
Celebrations and Honors for Bravery
Almost as exciting as the hunt itself was the feast that followed. It    was an event the whole tribe took part in. Happy and filled with good    red meat, the Indians would sing and dance and recite war chants.    Boasting at such times was not considered bad manners. When getting    ready for a hunt or a war party, or upon returning, a brave would get up    and tell how strong and courageous he was.  
   No Indians honored bravery, daring, endurance, and other warlike    qualities more than did the Plains hunters. They held huge religious    ceremonials to arouse enthusiasm and to win the help of the gods. Each    tribe had its secret societies in which young men passed from rank to    rank to win high honors. the men withdrew from the camp for fasting and    for purification to evoke a guardian spirit which would give them magic    powers. They painted their visions of the spirits on shields and    tepees.  
   The tribe rewarded warriors for bravery. For a courageous deed an Indian    was given the right to wear one or more feathers in a headdress. Most    prized were the feathers of the eagle. It was in this way that the    famous warbonnet came into being.  
   Each brave kept track of his heroic deeds by counting coup. (Coup is a French word meaning "stroke," "blow.") Among the deeds that counted    as coups were killing or scalping an enemy, touching a living enemy's    body or an enemy tepee, and stealing a horse from an enemy.  
Contrasting Work of Men and Women
Each    tribe had a division of labor. The exciting, glamorous life of the men    makes that of the women seem dull and hard. There was, however, a good    reason for making the women do the work of moving camp. The men had to    be armed and ready to fight at a moment's notice. Enemy raiders might    appear at any time, trying to capture the precious horses. Some of the    tribesmen guarded the camp. Others were scouts who rode ahead and    signaled the appearance of game or the enemy. Signals included riding in    a certain pattern, waving a buffalo robe, sending up puffs of smoke by    day, and using fire by night.  
   The women became so expert that they could set up the tepees or take    them down in a few minutes. They packed all equipment and lashed it onto    the travois. The mother usually rode a horse, with the baby on its    cradleboard hanging beside her.  
   In camp the women spent hour after hour scraping flesh and hair from the    buffalo hides and tanning them. From the hides they made all sorts of    things--robes, bedding, rawhide utensils, and carrying cases, called    parfleches. The horns were carved into spoons and ladles, the hooves    cooked to make glue.  
   When it was time to make a new tepee cover, a woman invited friends to    help her sew the big white hides together. They used buffalo sinews for    thread. Later the man painted designs on the tent.  
   The chief skill of the men lay in making weapons. They whittled bows    from Osage orange or other tough wood and shaped them in a double curve.    They made arrows with a sharp stone head. They lashed feathers to the    arrow butt to make it fly straight. Each hunter had his design in the    feathers to show which animals he had killed in a big hunt.  
Clothing and Crafts
The    women used the softer, finer skins of deer and antelope for most    garments. They embroidered the ceremonial costumes with dyed porcupine    quills and painted the carrying cases and the tepee linings. In the    designs, they drew triangles, diamonds, and other geometrical figures.    They beaded the costumes after beads were brought in by traders.  
   Women's dresses and men's shirts were made of a pair    of skins fastened together at the top, except for a neck opening. Often    the women covered the yoke and belt of their ceremonial dresses with    beads. The men wore breechcloths and thigh-length leggings in addition    to shirts when they were dressed up. The legging seams ran down the    sides. (The
Woodland
leggings had a front seam.)  
Men's Ornaments and War Paint
Plains warriors loved ornaments. They decked themselves with trophies of    war and the hunt. Locks of hair from the scalp of an enemy and soft    white ermine tails dangled from the seams of the ceremonial shirt.    Grizzly-bear claws and buffalo teeth were strung on otter skin for    necklaces. Quivers, tobacco pouches, and medicine bags were made from    pelts of panthers, otter, and beaver. Eagle quills were used in their    headdresses and decorated their shields, dance bustles, ceremonial    pipes, and lances. On his robes of young buffalo skin, the warrior often    painted sketches showing the battles he had fought during his life.  
   The braves painted their bodies for dances and for battle. The designs    might be special "medicine," or magic, to protect their lives, or they    might be drawn to make the men look more ferocious. For paint the    Indians used red and white clays, black charcoal, and yellow pigment    from bullberries or moss. They first smeared their bodies with buffalo    or deer fat, then rubbed on the color.  
   The practice of using animal grease or fish oil on the skin to clean and    soften it was common among Indians. The resulting odor was frequently    unpleasant to white people. An Indian method of bathing in use    throughout the country was the sweat bath. The Indians built an airtight    hut for this purpose. Hot stones were placed in the hut and sprinkled    with water to make them steam. The Indians stayed inside until they were    perspiring freely. Then they rushed out and plunged into a cold stream.    This treatment was used for purification before ceremonials and as a    cure for disease.  
   Love of ornament was a spur to trade among the Indians    and, later, between the Indian and the white man. Shells and coral from    the seacoasts, native copper from the
Great Lakes
region, turquoise from the    Southwest, pipestone from
Minnesota
, and bear claws from the
Rocky Mountains
were    passed from tribe to tribe, long before
Columbus
discovered
America
. The Plains tribes had buffalo hides    and fur pelts to trade. Their region was the scene of bitter rivalry    among French, English, and American traders. The Indians there used    glass beads, needles, steel knives, copper kettles, and other    manufactured wares long before white settlement.  
Farmers and Herders of the Southwest
Modern
and
Arizona
offer visitors an    opportunity to see and study Indians following ancient customs,    activities, and ceremonials and engaging in traditional handicrafts.    Although the Southwest Indians have adopted many of the white man's ways    and his manufactured goods, they retain more than a few of their old    ways which are well-suited to this dry, rugged, highland region.  
Farming with Irrigation Before
Columbus
Southwest Indians worked out two means of winning a livelihood in this    region--farming and herding. Farming is much the older occupation.    Perhaps four thousand years ago the forefathers of the Pueblo Indians    began planting corn. Centuries before Spanish explorers found them in    1539, the Indians had become settled villagers and, in spite of scanty    rainfall, could grow crops by using irrigation. They built many-storied    houses from stone and adobe clay, and they were skilled at basketry,    pottery making, and weaving.  
   Other Southwest farmers were the Pima and Papago    tribes of southern
Arizona
. Archaeologists say their ancestors    (called the Hohokam) built the finest irrigation systems in prehistoric
North America
. The forefathers of the Pimas    and Papagos lived in simple huts with a framework of logs and poles    covered with arrowwood or grass and plastered with clay. They made fine    baskets.  
   The herding way of life did not develop until after the Spaniards    introduced sheep and goats. Before this the Navajo and Apache peoples,    who came from the north, had lived by hunting. When game was scarce,    they raided the farming settlements for food.  
   The Navajos gradually adopted herding. They ceased    fighting and turned entirely to herding after 1867, as a result of    defeat by
United    States
troops. The Apaches were    even slower to give up hunting and raiding. Today they farm and raise    livestock.  
Life    and Skills of the Navajo Herders
The    Navajos have been called nomads because they followed their herds from    place to place seeking pasture. This does not mean that they were    aimless wanderers. They followed the same route year after year because    they knew where to find the best grass at each season. Each family had    winter and summer homes, called hogans, along the route. The hogans were    made of logs, earth, and rocks. At one home, the Navajo family often had    a garden and a fruit orchard.  
   The Navajos were clever at learning the skills of    their neighbors and adding improvements and individual touches. They    learned weaving from the Pueblo Indians, and today the Navajo blankets    and rugs are better known than the
Pueblo
products. The women do all the work    involved--from shearing the sheep to the final weaving.  
Spanish Designs in Silver and Clothing
Navajo men learned silverwork from the Mexicans. They    adapted designs from many sources, especially the patterns stamped on    Spanish bridles and saddles. The "squash blossom" necklace was taken    from the pomegranate pattern of
Mexico
. They set their jewelry with native    turquoise stones.  
   In their hunting days, the Navajos had worn clothing made of animal    skins and plant fibers. After the white people came, the Indians copied    their clothes in cloth bought from traders. Both men and women wear a    velveteen blouse held in at the waist with a belt of silver disks,    called conchas. The women's skirts are long and full. Both men and women    twist their long black locks into a knot at the back, called a chonga.    Men tie a kerchief about their heads. For warmth they wrap a striped    blanket around their shoulders.
Villages and Houses of the
Pueblo
Indians
The Pueblo Indians are often thought of as one people,    mostly because of the similar kinds of dwellings and communities they    lived in. Actually there were many tribes among them. They spoke a    variety of languages, belonging to four distinct language families.    Customs also differed somewhat from place to place. Farthest west were    the Hopi villages on high, flat-topped, rocky plateaus (called mesas) in    northern
Arizona
. Next came those of the Zunis,    across the border in
New    Mexico
. These two village groups are called the desert pueblos.    The river pueblos are those strung along the
Rio Grande
and its tributaries in eastern
New Mexico
. Between lie several other pueblos, including those in
Acoma
  
Pueblo
homes had several stories and many    rooms, like a city apartment house. Each family had only one room. Early    ancestors of the
Pueblo
tribes set their buildings in caves    high in canyon walls or on the ledges of cliffs and so they have been    called Cliff Dwellers. Later the
Pueblos
built these houses in the valleys and    on the mesas.  
Building Methods and Materials
To    keep out enemies, they made the ground story without doors or windows.    The next story was set back the width of a room, and the roof of the    lower story provided a "front yard" for the people of the second story.    Higher stories were set back the same way, giving a terraced effect. The    residents used ladders to reach their apartments.  
   Desert peoples found sandstone they could split easily. They used slabs    of it to build thick walls. River valley people made walls of earthen    material, stiffened with stones and saplings. The earth contained a    mixture of clay and sand that did not crack easily when dry. The    Spaniards called it adobe, a kind of building clay. They taught the    Indians to make bricks by shaping adobe in wooden molds and drying it in    the sun. Many modern pueblos are built of such bricks.  
   Roofs were harder to make. The builder went into the mountains for log    rafters. He laid them, ends jutting, across the walls. Next came    crisscross layers of willow branches, sticks, grass, and brush. A heavy    coating of adobe was plastered on top.  
   Each pueblo had dark interior rooms for storing corn, pottery, clay,    wood, and sacred objects of the families and clans. Special rooms    (kivas) were set aside for religious purposes. Here the men taught the    boys religious legends and dances and initiated them into secret    societies. Here too they purified themselves and prepared for dances and    religious ceremonies. These were held in a plaza outside the pueblo. To    watch the dances, people gathered on the roof "front yards." In some    pueblos, a guard kept watch from the highest roof. The town crier also    stood there to make announcements. On ordinary days the "front yards" were used by women making pottery and baskets and preparing food.  
   Since the people relied upon crops, especially corn,    for their food, they located each village where it could get a supply of    water for the fields. The Hopi had springs at the foot of their mesas.    The
Rio Grande
pueblos utilized that river and    smaller streams.
Pueblo
farmers knew how    to locate underground moisture by watching the growth of wild plants.    They placed their fields where moist spots occurred and where streams    overflowed after storms. This meant that a man might have to travel 10    miles across the desert from home to field.  
   The man was the farmer among the
Pueblo
tribes. He had planted corn, beans, squash, cotton, and    sunflowers before the white men came. The Spaniards brought him wheat,    chili peppers from
Mexico
, onions, watermelons, peaches, and    apricots.  
Pueblo
Farming Customs
At    planting time relatives and neighbors came to watch and help each    planter. They set up prayer sticks decorated with turkey or eagle    feathers to bring rain. The planter used a tough, sharp digging stick,    hardened by fire. It sometimes had a branch on one side to serve as a    footrest. He drove the stick 18 or 20 inches into the ground. Then he    dropped in 20 kernels of corn to be sure a few sprouted. The seeds sent    their roots deep to seek out the moisture. The stalks grew in a bunch    that would resist the hot desert winds. The farmer scraped off the tops    of the weeds with a sword-shaped wooden hoe.  
   Summer rain was needed for growth of the corn. Many of the religious    ceremonials, therefore, were prayers to the gods for rain. After a storm    the water gushed down dry stream beds, tearing away the soil. The    farmers made dams of brush to check and spread the water over the land.    In some places they made ditches from stream to field.  
   At harvest everyone had a gay time at the husking parties. Then the corn    was laid to dry on the flat roof. The women cut strips of squash and    hung them to dry. They pounded the dry beans with sticks to open the    pods. Then they shook them in a flat basket and let the wind carry away    the pods. In the same way they winnowed the wheat chaff after the grain    was threshed by driving horses over it. They kept a two- or three-year    supply of food stored so they would not go hungry if a drought came.  
  
Pueblo
corn was grown in many kinds and    colors--yellow, red, blue, white, purplish, and mixed. The girls and    women spent three or four hours a day grinding it on the stone metates.    To make the thin wafer bread, called piki, they spread a thin batter on    an oiled stone set on stone props. A fire under the stone cooked the    thin sheets quickly.
Pueblo
cooks also made    dumplings, stews, and hominy dishes. A gruel of toasted meal, called    pinole, was the chief beverage.  
   The men often held village hunts. If they were lucky, they brought in    deer, antelope, or rabbit for stew.  
Pueblo
Pottery, Basketry, and Weaving
During their centuries of living together in villages the Pueblo Indians    improved their skills. One of the main advantages of living in a settled    agricultural society is being able to develop skills that would be    difficult to perfect in a nomadic existence. Also, settled community    life usually creates the need for a greater variety of goods. Nomads    prefer to travel light, but this is not a consideration when a tribe is    fixed in one location.  
   Among the
Pueblo
tribes there was, as in all Indian life, a    division of labor. The goods the Indians made included items for the    household, clothing, and decorative objects. They also had to make the    tools with which to create other objects. Modern Pueblo Indians have    continued to be active with their arts and crafts, though they now have    the advantage of better tools.  
   The women made beautiful, strong pottery--some of it handsomer than they    make and sell today. Each village, and sometimes each family, had its    own styles, colors, and designs. The women had been skilled at basketry    since early times. They wove twigs, grass, and fibers from yucca and    other tough desert plants into baskets, trays, mats, cradleboards, and    sandals.  
   They learned how to build looms and weave cloth. The    men were the weavers. They first made blankets by twining strips of    rabbitskin or turkey feathers together with strings of yucca. They began    raising cotton and making cloth by the 8th century AD.    They used small looms to make belts and other narrow pieces and a    blanket loom for wide strips.  
   The men also did the work of tanning and making moccasins and other    leather goods. They made the bows and arrows, stone knives, and tools.    They drilled and polished turquoise and other stones to make beads.    After the Mexicans taught them silverwork, they created silver jewelry    set with these stones.  
   Costumes for
Pueblo
ceremonials offer the best idea of    the clothing worn before the Spaniards came. The woman's dress was a    long strip of dark cloth, wrapped across the body from left to right and    fastened on the right shoulder. Her left shoulder and arm were bare. A    colorful, fringed belt held the garment at the waist. Her high boots    were made from soft, white buckskin. Her wedding robe, or shawl, of pure    white cotton was woven by the men of her husband's family as a gift.  
   The man wore a breechcloth of white cotton cloth and a short woven kilt    with a colorful border. In most pueblos, the high moccasins reached    halfway up the calf of the leg. They had a hard sole turned up over the    edge of the upper. The Pueblo Indians who lived near the plains wore    ankle-height moccasins like those of Plains hunters.  
Seed Gatherers of
and the
Sierra Nevada
belonged to many tribes and    spoke various languages. They shared the problem of finding food in a    land that would have baffled most white men in search of food. Since    seeds and roots were among their chief foods, they have been called Seed    Gatherers, and also Diggers.  
   The food hunt filled their days. Each group moved on foot over its range    of land--seeking spring greens, summer seeds, and autumn acorns or pine    nuts. In the winter they camped in a sheltered valley and lived on dried    foods. Throughout the year they added game whenever they could get it.  
Finding Food in the Desert
They    did not have summer rain or a dependable water supply, so they could not    grow corn or other field crops. They had to keep moving about, seeking    food--thus they could not live in villages.  
   During their yearly march they found an amazing number    of things to eat. Tribes of southern
California
used 60 different plants. Preparation    of the food was hard work. Thus, they had to crack acorns, remove the    kernels and pound them into meal, then treat the meal with hot water to    remove the poisonous tannin. They beat the tiny seeds from flowering    plants and ground them into flour on a metate. The women made gruel from    these meals and flours. They cooked it by dropping hot rocks into a    tightly woven basket that held water and meal. The thick gruel could be    eaten in the hand.  
   They pried up bulbous roots of the camas lily and baked them overnight    on hot rocks covered with earth. Berries, seeds, and nuts were dried for    use the following winter.  
   The Seed Gatherers ate quite a few things which other people would think    unpleasant. These included crickets, grasshoppers, insect larvae, ants    ground into flour, and certain lizards and snakes. When bigger game was    scarce, hunters were glad to dig out a nest of pack rats or to trap    ground squirrels, rats, or mice.  
   The tribes in northern
California
and in the foot-hills found deer, antelope, or elk.    Elsewhere rabbits supplied most of the meat. The men made fiber nets to    trap them. They stretched a net across a feeding patch and drove the    rabbits into it. The animals became entangled in the net and could be    killed easily. A curved throwing stick was more effective than a bow and    arrow in hunting rabbits, quail, and ducks.
Tribes near the lakes, the salmon rivers, or the sea caught fish with    nets or used spears with stone points or bone barbs. Sometimes they    threw a poisonous plant into the water to stupefy the fish.  
How    the Bands Traveled and Camped
Bands of relatives traveled together. Each band had its own territory    and would fight to keep out intruders. In the autumn several bands might    meet in the pinon forest and camp together until they had picked and    eaten the nut supply. The whole tribe gathered for the fall hunt. The    medicine man worked his magic to make the antelope come. If the hunt was    successful, there was food for a celebration. The older men made    speeches. In the evening came ceremonials and dances and the songs    telling tribal legends.   
   The weather was hot and dry most of the year, and    there was no need for substantial shelter. Sometimes campers in the
Great Basin
would throw together a    windbreak of sagebrush. At times a family would set up a rough frame of    boughs and cover it with twigs and brush. Scattered marshy places in the    basins and valleys grew cattails and bulrushes, called tule. Mats, or    fringes, made from their stems were used to cover some houses. Bundles    of long, coarse grass were used like shingles on others. Usually the    builders dug a pit about two feet deep under the house. This saved wall    building and kept drafts off the floor. Storage baskets woven of twigs    were set on platforms to keep animals out of the seeds.  
   For the winter camp, the Indians of southern
California
heaped earth over the huts to make them warm. The tribes    of northern
California
could get redwood    and split it with wedges of elk or deer antlers. They tied these slabs    to frames and built better houses than did tribes to the east and    south.  
   In the hot, dry climate there was little need for clothing. Children    wore none at all. Men usually went unclad, though they might wear    breechcloths if they had deerskin or rabbit fur to make them. The women    made fringed double aprons from the fibers of sagebrush bark, milkweed,    or Indian hemp.  
   Both men and women tattooed designs on their skin. Stripes on the chin    were fashionable among the women. These marks were tattooed on a girl's    chin as part of the ceremony celebrating coming of age. Necklaces and    earrings were made of bones, deer hooves, berries, and seashells.  
   Thick sandals for travel were made of yucca fiber. People who could get    hides wore moccasins. Tribes that had buckskin learned to make clothing    similar to that of the Plains Indians. In winter a man was lucky if he    had a furry pelt to wrap around his shoulders or several skins tied    together with thongs. In some tribes, the old men found time to twine    blankets from strips of rabbitskin.  
   The Seed Gatherers found baskets ideal as containers during their    constant moving. They were light and not easily broken like pottery. The    Seed Gatherer women wove them so closely that they would hold tiny seeds    and even water. There was a basket for every use--from the big gathering    basket slung by a net over the forehead, to bottle-shaped water jars,    covered with pine pitch to keep them from leaking.  
   Cradleboards were made of wickerwork. In some tribes women wore caps of    basketry. The baskets were beautiful, with graceful shapes and designs    in color.  
Fishermen of the Northwest
The    towering forests of the rainswept north Pacific coast contrast sharply    with the dry, brown hills and rocky wastes of the Seed Gatherers'    region. The contrast in the Indian life of the two regions was just as    striking. the Seed Gatherers had to work hard every day to get enough to    eat. The Northwest Fishermen could get a wealth of food from the sea,    the rivers, and the forests. They had good materials for making houses,    boats, and tools. As they added possessions, they began to honor wealth    and family prestige. Prominent families erected totem-pole monuments to    call attention to their achievements. They kept war captives and other    persons as slaves. The greatest honor came when a man gave away wealth    at a feast called a potlatch. This was a festive ceremonial distribution    of property that often lasted for days.  
   Since wandering Seed Gatherers seldom met other people, they had no    definite political organization. Among the Northwest tribes, powerful    hereditary chiefs or headmen controlled and distributed hunting and    fishing rights. The Haida society had three grades--aristocrats,    commoners, and slaves.  
The    Sea's Gifts to the Northwest Tribes
The various tribes along the coast from northern
California
to southern
Alaska
had no pressing food problems. They could    get plenty of fish, shellfish, and even whales, seals, and porpoises    from the sea and streams. They became expert fishermen. The men built    weirs and traps to catch huge hauls of salmon and candlefish as they    swam upstream to spawn.  
   The women smoked a year's supply of salmon and pressed the oil from the    candlefish. The Indians used large amounts of this oil, dipping dried    foods into it at meals. They dug clams along the beach and smoked them.    The lovely shells of some varieties of shellfish made ornaments. Strings    of shells served as money in some tribes, just as wampum was used among    Eastern Woodland Indians.  
Riches of Whaling
Whaling was difficult and dangerous. The leader of the hunt performed    elaborate ceremonials to get help from the spirits. Each man in the big    seagoing dugout canoe was trained for his special task. Success brought    wealth, honor, and feasting. The whale's flesh and skin were eaten. The    blubber made oil. The intestines were used as oil containers. The sinew    became strong rope.  
   The men journeyed to the mountains to hunt deer, elk, mountain goat, and    bear for hides and meat. The women collected and dried berries and    seaweed. They dug camas bulbs and roots to vary the fish diet. By winter    the people had an ample store of food. They could spend much of their    time at festivals, ceremonials, secret-society initiations, wood    carving, and other activities.  
Gifts of the Great Forests
The Northwest tribes made greater use of their trees than    did the
Eastern Woodland
tribes. Their evergreen timber    was easier to work than the eastern hardwoods. They knew how to split    slabs from the straight-grained red cedar and how to use them to build    houses. They girdled the trees with fire and let them season a few years    before felling.  
   The boatbuilders hollowed logs with fire to make the canoes they paddled    in the streams as well as the big seagoing whaling canoes. Other    woodworkers steamed and bent planks to make boxes, tying the edges    together with spruce roots. These boxes were built to hold the huge    winter stores of dried food and were even used for hot-rock cooking.  
Clothing from Cedar Bark
The    inner bark of the cedar served as raw material for garments and    beautifully woven baskets. The women pounded the bark into shreds and    made fringed aprons and short capes for themselves and raincoats for the    men. They wove a cedar-fiber man's hat with a brim to shed the heavy    rains.  
Killer Whale Design
The    children and men went without clothing in the summer. These Indians got    along without moccasins, perhaps because they did most of their    traveling by canoe. Winter garb included a robe of sea-otter skins or a    blanket. The women used cedar-bark fiber, mountain-goat wool, dogs'    hair, and feathers in the blankets. Their crude loom had only one    crosspiece. The weavers worked out intricate patterns in various colors    entirely with their fingers. The handsomest blankets were made by the    Chilkat Tlingits.  
   Like tribes of other regions, these Indians adopted manufactured blankets after white traders reached their region. But the trade    blankets seemed dull so they trimmed them with rows of pearl buttons.  
Skulls Deformed to Look "Pretty"
The    Northwest people tattooed their skins and deformed their heads to look "pretty." The top of a baby's cradleboard was so attached that it    pressed a pad of cedar bark against the baby's forehead, causing the    head to rise in a peak. This deformed skull was the sign of a freeman.    Slaves were not permitted to flatten their children's heads.  
   Wood carving, often painted, was the outstanding art of the Northwest.    The artists carved grotesque faces of animals, birds, and people on    boxes, house fronts, house posts, boats, and grave posts. They made    wooden helmets and masks for the ceremonial dances and dramatic    performances.  
Totem Poles of
,
British Columbia
Most spectacular of the artworks was the totem pole.    These tall, carved posts were erected by important men among certain    tribes of
British Columbia
and
Alaska
. The carved and painted faces on a pole represented the    owner's totem animals or birds. These animals were his mythical    ancestors who gave him power in war, hunting, or whaling. The designs    were carved to represent human and animal faces rather than to look    exactly like them. So each figure bore a symbol of some sort to identify    it. Erect ears distinguished an animal from a man. The killer whale had    a protruding dorsal fin, and the eagle, a curved beak.   
   Northwest craftsmen also had some native copper to work with. They made    some of their arrow points from it, as well as copper knives for weapons    in war. They engraved designs on a plaque, called a "copper," that    served in the place of a valuable bank note. One famous copper was    valued at 7,500 blankets.  
Tribes and Languages Among the Indians
Early explorers and settlers tended to think of the    Indians as a single people, but the Indians themselves did not. An    Indian considered himself a
Delaware
, a Sioux, or a Navajo. The name of many tribes meant "the people" in the tribe's language. Other tribes were considered    foreigners--even enemies.
Variations in Indian Languages
The separation into small groups was emphasized by    differences in language. The Indians of North America spoke    approximately 600 dialects in many different languages--several times as    many as are spoken in
Europe
. The differences were great    enough to hamper understanding only a short distance from home. These    differences handicapped white explorers who were trying to get    information. When Lewis and Clark met the Flathead Indians in 1805,    their questions had to be interpreted through six languages before the    Flatheads understood them.  
   Both Indians and white traders tried to overcome communication    difficulties by creating trade jargons combining words from Indian and    European languages. Among them were the Chinook Jargon of the northwest    and the Mobilian of the southeast.  
   Indians of the
Great    Plains
worked out a sign language for communicating    with each other. They could convey much information with hand gestures.    Some of the gestures were so graphic they could be understood by persons    who did not know the signs.  
   An Indian gave his loyalty first to his village or hunting group. Such a    group might have less than 50 adults. Neighboring village groups might    act together in war and exchange other help if they spoke the same    language and if their hunting ground provided enough for all. This large    group could be a tribe.  
   The map shows the larger and more important tribes in the localities    where English-speaking explorers and settlers first found them. A    multitude of smaller tribes with less than 2,000 people lived among the    larger. Only about 10 percent of all the tribes are named on the map,    but they included about two thirds of the Indian population.  
Rich    Vocabularies and Exact Meanings
North American Indian languages are rich in words and    intricate in structure. Their vocabularies differ with the need for    words to convey important distinctions in meaning. For instance, the    Eskimos in the
Arctic
have words to distinguish many    kinds of snow. One means "snow on the ground," another "falling snow," and so on. Similarly the Plains horsemen used many words to describe    horses.  
   Indians have been adept at coining names for articles introduced by    white traders. A translation of the Blackfoot name for pork is "squealing meat," and the name for candy is "long white man berries." The settlers, in turn, adopted many Indian words which have remained in    the English language.  
   Indian languages may employ sounds not in English while lacking sounds    common in that language. Many Indian tongues combine into one word ideas    needing a whole sentence in English. Indian grammatical structures often    differ from those of English.  
Language Relationships and Families
Scholars have studied the Indian languages, seeking    relationships between them. In 1891 Maj. J.W. Powell of the Bureau of    American Ethnology classified the languages spoken by the tribes north    of
Mexico
into    some 56 distinct stocks, or language families. He grouped those tribes    with markedly similar vocabularies into language families. He made a map    showing their geographical location. In naming each language family he    generally selected the native name of a major group speaking that    language and added to the name the ending -an. Thus the Caddoan language    is derived from the Caddo tribe, the Iroquoian from the Iroquois. 
   The fact that two languages or dialects were placed in the same language    family did not mean that persons speaking one of these dialects could    understand the other dialect, any more than Germans and Italians    understand each other's language. For example, many tribes of the    Central Plains spoke dialects of the Siouan language, but members of one    tribe could seldom understand the speech of their neighbors.  
   Later studies have revealed far-reaching resemblances among families    which Major Powell considered distinct. Some linguists have suggested    the reduction of North American Indian languages to six primary stocks.    These are:  
   1. Eskimo and Aleut, of the Far North.  
   2. Algonquian and related languages, spoken by many    tribes of the Eastern Woodlands, the Blackfeet and
Cheyenne
of the Plains, and the Salish and neighboring tribes of    the
Far West
   3. Athabascan and related languages, used by all    the tribes of the
Mackenzie-Yukon
Basin
, by the Navajos, and by    some west coast peoples.  
   4. Uto-Aztecan and related languages, of the Shoshonean tribes in the    Great Basin and Rocky Mountains area, the Kiowas of the Plains, the    majority of the Pueblos, and the Aztecs of Mexico.  
   5. Chinookan and related languages, spoken by a    number of scattered Far Western tribes, especially in what is now
Oregon
Washington
.  
   6. Siouan and related languages, including the tongues of such widely    separated peoples as the Iroquois of the northeast, the Creeks and their    neighbors in the southeast, the Sioux and Caddos of the Plains, the    Keresan Pueblos, and the Pomos of northern California.  
Seeking Regions Where Languages Originated
The    languages of the same primary stock are probably related historically    and they may even have descended from a common language. But scholars    have not yet been able to trace in detail the lines of descent or to    locate the region in which any ancestral language originated.  
   Indians north of the
Rio Grande
had no written language. They    managed, however, to keep alive traditions of important events and many    beautiful folktales by handing them down by word of mouth. Some of the    tales in this oral literature were passed from tribe to tribe,    translated into many tongues.  
   Picture writing helped aid memory and communicate ideas. On the plains,    a sort of calendar known as the winter count was kept in the form of a    series of pictures painted on buffalo hides.  
   Widely scattered over the continent are picture writings painted or    pecked on rock cliffs, on walls of caves, and on huge boulders. These    petroglyphs doubtless carried a message when they were made.  
Differences in Appearance Among Indians
Certain racial characteristics are shared by nearly all    pureblood Indians, since it is likely that all of the tribes developed    from an original ethnic stock in the
Far East
many centuries ago. They generally have    straight, black hair. Their skin color ranges from yellowish brown to    reddish brown. Their cheekbones are usually more prominent than those of    white or black people. These characteristics are more closely related to    those of the Mongoloids of Asia than to any other of the world's    races.  
   In other features there is great variety among Indians. There are great    differences in shape of head (relative proportions of length, width, and    height), in prominence of jaw, in size and shape of nose, and in total    standing height.  
   The head of the Plains Indian resembles the Indian head on the reverse    side of the buffalo nickel. Their clear-cut features are generally    marked by a sloping forehead, bold nose, thin lips, and firm, heavy    jaw.  
   The Eskimo of the
Arctic
generally has a yellowish skin tone and a    flat, fleshy face, with a short, spreading nose. He is short and sturdy.    The Pueblo Indians are generally shorter than the Plains people and    possess more delicate features.  
   Anthropologists study these differences in efforts to    trace common ancestries. Since combinations of head shape, stature, and    features tend to occur in certain regions, it may be that
America
was populated by a series of peoples    who differed in appearance and came in widely spaced migrations. It is    known that the Eskimos were relatively late arrivals. Some scholars say    that environmental influences, as in diet and climate, may lie at the    root of regional differences.  
Indian Religion, Government, and Social Practices
Like    other people who live close to nature, the Indians were concerned    largely with day-to-day problems on which their survival as a people    depended. They were interested mostly in whether there would be enough    food, whether the tribe would avoid illness, and whether they would win    in war. They gave little thought to notions of reward or punishment    after death that are common in other religions.  
   Indians believed in a supernatural force which pervaded all nature. To    the Algonquin, this force was manitou. The Iroquois called it orenda,    and the Dakota, wakanda. Indians also thought that animals, plants,    rocks, the sun, the winds, and other natural objects had spirits (or    souls) just like men. The Indians thought these spirits helped those    they liked and injured those who offended them.  
   When an Indian faced a critical problem or decision, he sought help from    the spirit forces. To make himself worthy, he cleansed himself, fasted,    prayed, and sometimes underwent severe tortures. He sought a vision,    hoping a friendly spirit would appear and promise him aid. In many    tribes, this guardian spirit became the Indian's sacred totem animal. A    Plains Indian might paint its picture on his tepee. The Northwest    wood-carvers put the sacred animals on totem poles.  
Ceremonials to Bring Spirit Help
Villages and tribes used dances and other ceremonials to seek spirit    help. In general, the men conducted these activities. Usually they had a    house where secret societies met, sacred objects were kept, and    ceremonials were taught to the young.  
   Important ceremonials lasted for many days and were preceded by periods    of fasting and prayer. As a rule, the aid sought was rain for the crops,    game for the hunters, or success in war. The most spectacular Plains    ceremonial was the Sun Dance. This included self-inflicted tortures by    some of the warriors.   
   Corn dances were held by all farming tribes and are still a feature of    Pueblo Indian life. One of the most elaborate corn festivals was the    ï¿½buskï¿½ held by the Creeks. After feasting on the new corn, dancing,    drinking the "black drink," and carrying on ceremonies for several days,    the tribe began a new year by destroying old equipment and getting new.    They extinguished fires and lit new ones from a ceremonial flame. Old    enmities were forgotten and evildoers forgiven.
Healing and Medicine Men
Believing that diseases were caused by evil spirits, the Indians used    charms and magic to remove the evil influence. The magical procedures    were usually performed by those supposed to have the power to control    spirit forces. Indians might call them such names as "mystery man," "singer," or "the wonderful." White people called them medicine men. The    magicworkers also served somewhat as priests in leading ceremonials and    in preserving sacred objects.  
   Charms and ceremonies varied from tribe to tribe. The Navajos made sand    paintings. Iroquois False Face Society members wore masks carved from a    living tree. In spring and fall they went from house to house shaking    turtle-shell rattles and chanting to drive away the demons of disease.  
   Some treatments included the use of herbs and roots as medicines. Men    and women other than magicworkers could prepare medicines and nurse the    sick.  
Tribal Organization and Women's Role
Since most Indians lived in small communities, they based their    government and social organization upon loyalty to the family and to the    tribe. In most tribes families were linked in a third group, called a    clan or a gens. In a clan, inheritance and relationship traced through    the female line; in a gens, through the male line. Families in a clan    frequently lived together in community houses. Here children looked upon    their cousins as brothers and sisters and regarded their aunts and    uncles as parents. Men and women were required to marry outside their    own clan.  
   Women's influence was greatest in such tribes as the Iroquois, whose    descent was through the mother. Marriage customs differed from tribe to    tribe. As a rule they were the result of mutual agreement by the    husband- and wife-to-be. Often the bridegroom gave some sort of present    to the bride's family to compensate for the loss of her help.  
   Divorce was usually easy if a couple could not agree, but the children    did not suffer from the breakup of the home. They continued to live in    the clan group and could look to uncles and aunts for attention.  
   Indians were universally kind to children. Discipline was strict, yet    never enforced by whipping or any other physical punishment. Children    were expected to help with the family duties. The first time a boy    brought home an animal shot with his own bow, his proud father might    celebrate with a feast. Ceremonials marked the date when youngsters    reached 13 or 14 years of age and were considered men and women.  
How    Indians Buried the Dead
Methods of disposing of the dead varied among the tribes. Burial in the    ground was most commonly practiced. Mounds were constructed for burial    among certain prehistoric Indian peoples. In the southwest, bodies were    sometimes placed in caves where they dried, or mummified, in the dry    air. On the northern plains a common practice was to place the dead in    trees or on scaffolds. On the northwest coast they might be laid in    canoes set high on posts.  
   Cremation was practiced by various tribes from the    Pacific coast to
Florida
. Usually the    ashes were buried in pottery vessels. Almost invariably, domestic    utensils, food, and the ornaments, implements, and other personal    belongings of the departed were placed with the remains.  
Leadership and Government
Government was generally extremely simple and democratic among the    Indian tribes. The chief was not an autocratic ruler. He was usually    chosen because of his ability and wisdom, though in a few tribes the    office was hereditary. He advised the people and attempted to settle    their disputes. A war chief was selected to lead a raid or campaign.  
   Tribal and village councils discussed and acted upon important matters.    A council might consist simply of the adult men of a village or of    chiefs of clans. Among the Iroquois, matrons took part in grand    councils.  
The    Iroquois Confederacy
The Iroquois Confederacy was the highest form of    political organization among the North American Indians. About 1570, the    Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga,
Oneida
, and Cayuga tribes (all the Iroquoian    language family) created this confederacy to promote peace among    themselves. White people called this league the Five Nations, and later    the Six Nations, after the Tuscaroras were admitted in 1722. The    Iroquois called it the Brethren of the Long House. This constitution was    put into writing in about 1850.  
   The founders set up the framework of a code of laws    which, though unwritten, had the force of a formal constitution. The    Great Council Fire of the league, held at Onondaga, was its governing    body. Representatives of the tribes met annually to formulate policies    and to take action. Claims have been made in the late 20th century that    the Iroquois constitution influenced the Constitution of the
United States
. The suggestion is highly unlikely,    given the strong European influences on the Founding Fathers.  
Indians of Other Times and Places
The Indians of the five leading culture groups are of    chief interest to the people of the
United States
and
Canada
. They helped make the history of the    two nations. They are part of American literature and folklore. Their    achievements in making clothing, shelter, tools, utensils, and weapons    seem more meaningful because they used materials from familiar stones,    trees, and animals.  
   The Indians north of the
Rio Grande
probably made up less than one tenth of the Indian    population of the
Americas
when the continents were discovered.
Middle America
Tribes of hunters are believed to have migrated from
Asia
and eventually peopled the entire hemisphere. No single person made any    large part of the long journey from
Alaska
down the continents. One group after    another continued the march over many centuries, traveling in small    bands.  
   Archaeologists have dug into their camping places.    They have found the ashes of their fires, bones and shellfish shells,    and primitive tools and weapons. The findings indicate that the first American Indians lived by hunting, with some fishing and gathering of    seeds and other wild foods. They had lances or spears tipped with stone    points. Perhaps they hurled them with a throwing stick, called an    atlatl. The bow and arrow were probably invented or brought to
America
later. These early Indians knew how    to make rough stone tools. They had fire-lighting methods and may have    had one domestic animal, the dog. They had no knowledge of farming,    pottery, or metals.  
Work    of the Archaeologists
Information about early people is compiled by archaeologists, who use    scientific methods to determine the dates of their finds. From geology    they learn when the soil layer was laid down. They compare the annual    growth rings in timber with a "tree-ring calendar" and test the amount    of carbon-14 remaining in wood, charred bones, and other organic    materials   
   The radiocarbon dating method was used on charcoal    from an ancient campsite at
Tule Springs
,
Nev.
With it were bones of extinct    animals and man-made tools. The test showed the charcoal to be more than    23,800 years old.  
   A find indicating human presence even earlier was made    near
Puebla
,
Mexico
, in 1959. It was    a piece of mammoth bone carved with pictures of such prehistoric animals    as the giant bison, the tapir, and the mastodon. Geologic studies and    other tests show the hunter-artist may have lived about 30,000 years ago    during an interglacial period.  
   The first proof that humans were in
America
in the Pleistocene epoch, when Ice    Age glaciers were melting, was found near Folsom, N.M., in 1926. Fluted    projectile points were discovered with the bones of an extinct bison.    Carbon-14 tests and geologic studies indicate that Folsom points were    made some 9,000 to 10,000 years ago.
   A    widespread search for added evidence of humans in Pleistocene times    followed the Folsom discovery. Points and other man-made objects were    found in sites across the continent.  
Human Skeletons from Pleistocene Strata
Skeletons and lesser pieces of human bone were also found in ancient    earth layers. Dating of skeletons by geologic means is difficult since    people may be buried in strata laid down eons before their birth.  
   A skeleton found near Pelican Rapids,
Minn.
, in 1931, in deposits attributed to Pleistocene times,    has been called
Minnesota
man. The bones are those of a    15-year-old girl, who is believed to have drowned in a glacial lake    sometime between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. The skull is relatively    long and narrow and shows Mongoloid characteristics. The protruding jaws    contained large primitive teeth. Midland woman was uncovered in an oil    well blowout near
Midland
of
Mexico
, in 1947. In ancient lake flats that contained fossil    elephant remains the skeleton of a man was located. A date of 11,000 to    12,000 years ago has been ascribed to it. The skull is moderately round    headed.
   In
fossilized skulls were found in strata with bones of Pleistocene animals    in
Ecuador
and in the highlands of
Brazil
. They    are long-headed. Other characteristics of these Lagoa Santatype skulls    include a slightly projecting face, a low forehead, and prominent    cheekbones.  
Ways    of Life in East and West
Scientific studies of the artifacts found have led    archaeologists to believe that the ancient folk (called Paleo-Indians)    east of the
Rocky Mountains
had a different way of life from the people of the west. Those of the    east depended chiefly upon hunting and apparently made few attempts at a    sustained agriculture. Spear points, therefore, were the most abundant    implement at their sites, though scraping and cutting tools also were    found. West of the
Rockies
the Paleo-Indians were chiefly    collectors of seeds, wild grains, and nuts, roots, and other plant    materials. Many grinding stones were discovered at their camping places,    though points, choppers, and scrapers were also uncovered. The indicated    differences in human behavior, based upon the types of artifacts    discovered, have guided archaeologists in formulating cultures in each area.  
   The people of the Elephant Hunter, or Llano, culture    roamed the plains, hunting the mammoth--an extinct elephantlike animal    adapted to the grasslands. With its bones have been found a fluted point    larger than the Folsom point. It is called the
Clovis
fluted point    after the site near
Clovis
,
N.M.
, where it was first found.    Farther east similar points were used to hunt the mastodon, a type of    elephant adapted to forested regions. The period of this culture is from    9,000 to 12,000 years ago.  
   The Sandia culture takes its name from a crude point    with a single notch, or shoulder, first found in the
Sandia
of
New Mexico
. These points    were discovered in an earth layer beneath, and sealed off from, a layer    containing Folsom remains. They were in association with bones of    extinct animals. The Sandia culture is older than the Folsom and Llano    and may go back 20,000 years.  
   On the
Great Plains
the people of the Bison Hunter    culture used Folsom points and various types of leaf-shaped points in    pursuing big bison of a now extinct species. The period of the culture    extends from about 6,500 to 10,500 years ago.  
Desert Cultures of Paleo-Western Tradition
The
culture is based on finds at a site near
Las Vegas
,
Nev.
Points and other manmade objects were    discovered in strata with remains of extinct ground sloths, camels, and    horses. Carbon-14 measurements of sloth dung date the culture from about    8,600 to 10,500 years ago.  
   This cave and other explored caverns contained at upper layers the    remains of late peoples--including Indians of historic times.    Archaeologists have made progress in tracing connections between these    Paleo-Indian cultures and those of more recent times.  
From    Cochise to Historic Cultures
The Cochise culture of
and
New    Mexico
has been explored and studied through several stages of    development ranging from about 6000 to 2000 BC.    The people depended chiefly upon food gathering. Over the centuries they    improved their grinding stones and made mortars and pestles.  
   At the later sites hard-beaten earthen floors and storage pits indicated    that some sort of house had been developed. Pottery was found.    Archaeologists believed that the Cochise people were the predecessors of    the Indians who later developed the advanced Hohokam and Mogollan    cultures.  
   The Archaic culture of eastern
North America
dates    from 3,000 to 7,000 years ago. These people were hunters and food    collectors. They had some copper tools made by cold-hammering pure    copper obtained from the
Upper Great    Lakes
region. They used axes, gouges,    and adzes of ground and polished stone. During the Early Woodland    culture period that followed, burial mounds and pottery appeared as well    as some agriculture. The Middle Woodland cultures, which include the
Hopewell
culture, extended from about 400 BC to AD 700 or 800.  
The    Wanderers Settle in Villages
The Paleo-Indians were able to give up their roaming    existence and advance to a settled way of life only after they learned    to get food by planting and harvesting corn, beans, and squash. They may    have received corn from farming Indians of Middle America as early as    2000 BC. 
   The most abundant evidence of the changing way of life is found in the    dry Southwest. Digging into ancient village sites there, archaeologists    have traced the people's slow progress as they learned to raise crops,    to weave baskets and cloth, to make pottery, and to build houses.  
   The scientists followed the Anasazi culture from the    Basket Maker settlements of AD 100, through Great Pueblo times when the huge cliff dwellings were    built, to the pueblos of today. The section on Southwest farmers in this    article describes their way of life. These Indians lived on the plateau    where
Colorado
Utah
meet.  
   The desert people of the Hohokam culture lived in the    drainage basin of the Salt and Gila rivers of southern
Arizona
. Their culture has been traced from 300 BC to historic times. They were descended from the Cochise people, and the    Pimas and Papagos are their modern descendants. They lived in pit    houses, made buff pottery decorated in red designs, and wore woven    sandals and, later, cloth garments. They played a ball game on huge    courts like those of the Mayas and were famous for their irrigation    canal systems.  
   The Mogollan-Mimbres culture dates from 100 BC. These people    were an eastern branch of the Cochise. Their villages were in    mountainous country of southeastern
Arizona
and southwestern
New Mexico
. They lived in pit houses and buried    their dead under the floors of the rooms, with grave offerings. They    smoked pipes of stone or pottery and used stone tools and weapons.  
Early Eastern Indians
The roving hunters east of the
Mississippi
began settling in villages and raising corn, beans, and    squash from 1000 to 400 BC.    In their new sedentary life many tribes made pottery and buried their    dead in mounds. Other mounds were used as temple platforms. Some great    earthworks took the form of animals and birds.  
   The
culture of southern
Ohio
was among the most advanced. Its    expert artists and craftsmen made carved stone pipes, a variety of    pottery, flint and obsidian spear points, and sharp knives, axes, adzes,    and other tools of obsidian and native copper. The women wove cloth    skirts for themselves and breechcloths for the men.  
   Tribes of the
Mississippi
Valley
reached their highest achievement after AD 700. White settlers arriving about 1700 found their huge flat-topped    pyramid mounds supporting temples where elaborate religious rituals were    performed. The Indians had a government or social organization that    could enlist the toil of many workers, for the mounds were built by    heaping up basketful after basketful of earth. Some of these large    mounds still exist.  
Cultures of
The picture map of Indian cultures reveals that in
South America
, as in
North America
, the Indians worked out three    general ways of life. One depended principally upon hunting; one upon    farming, hunting, and fishing combined; and another upon intensive    farming.  
   The hunters of the southern plains used bolas, clubs, and bows and    arrows in pursuing the guanaco and ostrich, while the women gathered    starchy roots and grass seeds. They depended upon the guanaco as the    Plains Indians depended upon the buffalo, using its skin to cover their    huts and to make containers and capes, moccasins, and other clothing.    Their hunting improved after the Spanish brought in horses.  
   Indians of the southwest coast have been called Canoe Indians. Their big    seagoing canoes were made of beech bark. They fished and hunted seals    and sea otters and gathered shellfish and wild plants.  
   In the forested, northern tropical lowlands the men hunted, fished, and    made war, while the women tended fields cleared by slashing and burning    the thick growth. Bread from the cassava (manioc) they raised was the    principal food, though the work of squeezing poison from the root and    making flour was tedious.  Blowguns with poisoned darts, longbows and    arrows, and clubs were the chief weapons used in killing the deer,    tapirs, peccaries, monkeys, birds, and rodents of the area. Houses were    made of log frames covered with thatch, and boats were built for river    travel. Indians of this region learned to weave and to make useful and    ceremonial pottery.  
The    Inca Civilization
The advanced civilizations developed where intensive    agriculture provided an ample food supply. The fertile soils of the    central
Andes
proved hospitable to man's    newly domesticated plants and to his progress toward civilization.  
   Villages grew in coastal valleys where water was available for    irrigation. Population centers spread to the high Andean plain. The    farmers raised corn, beans, squash, potatoes, quinoa, sweet potatoes,    cassava, peanuts, cotton, peppers, tobacco, coca, and other plants. They    domesticated llamas and alpacas to carry loads and to supply wool. The    Andean people made amazing progress in weaving, pottery making,    metalworking, and stone construction.  
   The strongest group--the Incas of the highlands--ruled    the vast area from northern
Ecuador
before they were conquered by the Spanish. They organized    an empire government which
was    so closely knit that the life of even the smallest farmer was regulated
Mayan and Aztec Achievements
The Mayas of Middle America created two great centers. In    their first cities in
Guatemala
and
Honduras
stood stone temples and huge monuments, or steles, carved    with images of gods and sacred animals and bearing the date in their    numbering system. The astronomer-priests devised a calendar and wrote    religious and scientific books in hieroglyphic writing. This era, called    by archaeologists the Classic period, lasted from about AD 320 to 900.  
   The great cities of the Postclassic period (about 975    to the Spanish conquest) were built on the
Yucatan
. Their handsome architecture shows the influence of the    Toltecs from
Mexico
who    overran and ruled them. Weakened by civil war, the Mayas were conquered    by the Spanish in the years 1527-46. 
   Prehistoric
Mexico
saw several Indian nations rise to eminence. Among them    were the Toltecs, Zapotecs, and finally the ruthless Aztecs.  The    article Aztecs tells of their conquests, their arts and crafts, their    fabulous city,
Tenochtitlan
, and their cruel    religion, with its human sacrifice.  
   Scholars marvel at the achievements of the Indian civilizations. They    wonder that they could build their mammoth structures without strong    draft animals or sharp metal tools. The Indians had no wheel to help    them in carrying, lifting, or making pottery. Only the Mayas had writing    to pass on their knowledge.  
Centuries of Struggle Between Indians and Whites
None of the Indian cultures in the
Americas
developed a system of private    landownership. Unlike the European settlers, who came from countries    where land was individually owned, the Indians practiced communal    landownership. Within the boundaries of each tribe's territory, the land    was used by all members of the tribe. No individual owned any of the    land, and no one person, not even the tribal leader, could dispose of    it. When European settlers obtained permanent title to Indian lands by    purchase, they bought something which by Indian custom could not be sold    from leaders who had no right to sell it. It was this difference of    attitudes over ownership of land that was a major cause of conflict    between the Indians and the Europeans. Differences in race, language,    religion, and life-style only sharpened and sometimes obscured this    basic conflict.  
   Another source of conflict was that the Europeans did not consider    themselves to be under the sovereignty of the Indian tribes on whose    land they had settled. Instead, they claimed the land in the names of    their mother countries. The European settlers began to mark off    boundaries and to assert their land claims by the force of superior    weapons and, eventually, of far greater numbers.  
   The Indians met the first Europeans with curiosity and    friendship. But friendship was rarely returned. During their    explorations of
South America
, and
Mexico
in search of gold, silver,    and precious stones, early Spanish conquistadores plundered the Indian    villages and enslaved and murdered the inhabitants. Spanish colonists    later forced Indians to labor in mines and on large estates to produce    commodities for export to
Spain
. Early French colonists mainly traded for furs with the    Indians in the St. Lawrence Valley and around the
Great Lakes
. Rivalry for a monopoly of the fur    trade led to warfare among the tribes. Intermarriage between the Indians    and the French was frequent.  
   The Indians along the Eastern seaboard of
North America
helped    the early English colonists establish settlements, raise crops, and    adjust to living in a wilderness. Powhatan (Wahunsonacock), leader of an    Algonquian-speaking confederacy in Virginia, and Massasoit (Wasamegin),    leader of the Wampanoag Indians in
New    England
, established generally peaceful trade    relations with the English.  
   Indians generally had bitter experiences with the Europeans. Traders    often made them drunk to take advantage of them, and European diseases    like smallpox and tuberculosis wiped out whole tribes. Many Indian    skills and much of Indian tribal identity was lost through the gradual    adoption of European ways and increasing dependence on European goods.  
Indian Wars in the English Colonies
One of the earliest violent clashes between Indians and    whites took place in 1636 in
Connecticut
when colonists attacked the principal village of the    Pequots. About 600 Indians were killed, and the Pequot tribe was    virtually destroyed. In 1675 various Indian tribes in
New England
formed an alliance to resist white    settlement. It was led by Massasoit's son Metacomet, who was called King    Philip by the colonists. But in about a year Metacomet's forces were    defeated . 
   By the end of the 1600s, the Indians' struggles for    their land became caught up in a series of wars between
England
for dominance in
North    America
. Some Indians aided the    English, while others helped the French. In 1763, the final year of the    French and Indian War, Pontiac, an
Ottawa
chief and ally of the French, led attacks on British    outposts in the
Great Lakes
area. When the French made peace with the English in that year,
Pontiac
concluded a peace treaty with them also.  
   During the American Revolution many Indian tribes, under such leaders as    the Mohawk known as Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea), fought for the    British, who posed as defenders of Indian land against the colonists.    Although Indian aid was of questionable value to the British, it did    provoke retaliatory campaigns by the Continental Army like that of Gen.    John Sullivan on the Iroquois of New York.  
Indian Wars of the
After the American Revolution the new
United States
government hoped to maintain peace with the    Indians on the frontier. But as settlers continued to migrate westward    they made settlements on Indian lands and demanded and received    protection by the Army. Tecumseh, a
Shawnee
chief, organized several tribes to oppose further ceding    of Indian lands. But they were defeated in 1811 by Gen. William Henry    Harrison at the battle of
Tippecanoe
.  
   During the War of 1812 many of the Indians again sided    with the British. Afterward, with the victorious
United States
secure in its borders, federal policy turned    to one of removal of the Indians west of the
Mississippi River
American
Desert
, where, supposedly, no white man    would ever want to live. To implement this policy, the Indian Removal    Act was signed into law on
May 28, 1830
. It gave    President Andrew Jackson, a dedicated foe of the Indians, the power to    exchange land west of the
Mississippi
for the southeastern territory of the    Five Civilized Tribes--the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and    Seminoles.  
   The removal policy led to a clash between Jackson and    the United States Supreme Court, which had ruled in favor of the right    of the Cherokees to retain their lands in
Georgia
.
Jackson
refused to enforce the Court's    decision, and in 1838 and 1839 the Cherokees, like the other tribes    before them, were forced westward to
Indian Territory
(later
Oklahoma
). Their bitter trek during the dead    of winter has become known as the Trail of Tears.  
   In 1832, Sauk and Fox Indians under Black Hawk in
Wisconsin
had been defeated after refusing to    abandon their lands east of the
Mississippi
. In the 1830s and 1840s, Seminoles under Osceola    unsuccessfully resisted removal from their homes in
Florida
. By the end of the 1840s, except for    small segments of tribes who had fled to the wilderness, the "Indian    problem" had ended in the East.  
Indian Wars of the
United States
: The West
Along with the Eastern tribes, the tribes of the North    and the Southwest were pushed from their homelands to the land between    the
Mississippi River
and the
Rocky Mountains
. By the 1840s the United States Army and the various Indian tribes in    that region were in a continual state of war. As white settlers    encroached on Indian land, war would break out. Either the Indians would    be defeated and transported elsewhere, or a treaty would be made in    which the Indians lost part of their lands in exchange for peace.    Sometimes the
United States
government would promise    food, financial aid, and schools to the Indians, but these promises were    often unfulfilled.  
   Thousands of white settlers poured into the
Oregon
after it was acquired from
Great Britain
in 1846. Numerous clashes erupted with tribes in the    Northwest. In the 1850s, wars broke out around
Puget Sound
after several small tribes were    deceived into signing treaties in which they gave up most of their land.    But they were quickly defeated and confined to reservations.  
   In other areas of the Northwest, war continued into    the late 1870s. In 1877, the Nez Perce Indians, led by Chief Joseph    (Hinmaton-yalatkit), were defeated after refusing to agree to treaties    ceding nearly all their land in the
Pacific Northwest
to the
United States
. Privations from loss of land, lack of food, and disease led to an unsuccessful uprising of    the Bannock Indians of Idaho in 1878.  
   The Southwest came under
United States
control as a result of the Mexican War. In    1847, Pueblo Indians rose up against settlers at
Taos
) and were defeated. But relations between settlers and    the
Pueblos
, Pimas, and    Papagos were usually peaceful. The Navajos and Apaches retaliated when    settlers seized their lands and destroyed their animals and gardens. The    Navajos were overpowered in the 1860s and forced onto a reservation. But    the Apaches fought on. Even after they too were restricted to    reservations, small bands continued to mount raids. When the Apache    leader Geronimo (Goyathlay) finally surrendered in 1886, Indian    resistance in the Southwest ended.  
   Around 1850 the tribes of the
Great Plains
had begun    attacking wagon trains carrying settlers westward. They were angered by    ill-treatment from the settlers and by the driving away of buffalo herds    on which they were dependent for food, clothing, and shelter. Efforts by    the Army and the government to preserve peace led to the Fort Laramie    Treaty of 1851. The Plains tribes promised to confine themselves to    designated hunting grounds, and the government agreed to keep settlers    out. But when the government violated the treaty in 1865 by starting to    construct forts and a wagon road to mining camps in
Montana
Territory
, the Oglala Sioux under Red Cloud (Mahpiua Luta)    attacked and destroyed several forts. By the terms of a new peace treaty    in 1868, the government stopped the road construction, dismantled the    forts, and again guaranteed the Indian reserve.
   In 1871 Congress decided that Indian tribes were no    longer to be recognized as sovereign powers with whom treaties must be    made. Although existing treaties were still to be considered valid,    violations continued to occur. The treaty of 1868 had made the
Black Hills
of the
Dakota Territory
part of a large Sioux reservation. The discovery of gold there in 1874    started a stampede of gold seekers. In 1875 the Sioux refused to sell    the land to the government, which then ordered them out of the area and    onto reservations. When the Sioux refused, the Army, including troops    under Lieut. Col. George A. Custer, was sent to enforce the order. The    main body of Indians, under the Sioux leaders Sitting Bull (Tatanka    Iyotake) and Crazy Horse (Tashunke Witko), wiped out Custer's men on
June 25,    1876
. 
   But this was the last major military victory by the    Indians. Gradually they were rounded up and confined to reservations. In    a final, futile rebellion, Sitting Bull and other Sioux joined a new    supernatural cult that predicted the white man would be wiped out and    the Indian way of life preserved if enough Indians would perform the    ceremonies known as the Ghost Dance. But the Ghost Dance movement was    crushed in 1890 with the arrest and murder of Sitting Bull and the    massacre by the Army of several hundred Indians at Wounded Knee Creek in
South Dakota
. This event    ended the conquest of the American Indian.  
Historic Relations with Government
The    first federal agency to oversee governmental promises under Indian    treaties was placed under the secretary of war by Congress in 1789. A    Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was created within the War Department in    1824 and was transferred to the new Department of the Interior in    1849.  
   The BIA enforced the restrictions on Indian lands and prevented their    illegal loss. The BIA helped the Indian sell or lease his land when it    was legal to do so. It kept track of land inheritance when the owner    died. Money deposited in the United States Treasury to the credit of    Indian tribes in payment for land was administered on behalf of the    Indians by the BIA.  
   Forcibly restricted to reservations, and finding it difficult to make    them productive, the Indians came to depend on the government for the    necessities of life. Many whites, regarding ownership of land as the    basis of success, hoped that by owning their own farms the Indians would    become independent farmers. Other whites, hungry for land, thought that    too much land had already been reserved to the Indians.  
   Both groups of whites urged the passage of the Indian General Allotment    Act of 1887. This act provided for dividing reservations, which had been    held in common by the tribes, into parcels to be allotted to individual    Indians. The "surplus" land, in at least one case a larger area than    that divided among the Indians, was eventually sold to white    homesteaders. Provisions of the act also granted citizenship to the    Indians receiving parcels of land and to any other Indians who agreed to    give up tribal life for "civilized" ways.  
   The Indian General Allotment Act resulted in the loss of tens of    millions of acres of Indian land. Many Indians were unused to the idea    of individual ownership of land and had little understanding of money    values. They sold their allotments at absurdly low prices, spent the    money, and became destitute. Where land was retained, the amount    possessed by each Indian became smaller as the land was divided through    inheritance. Although the solidarity of the Indian tribes was thereby    endangered, the traditional tribal values and customs persisted.  
   Eventually it became apparent to government officials that the programs    forcing Indians to adopt an alien way of life had been largely    unsuccessful. In 1934 Congress enacted the Indian Reorganization    (Wheeler-Howard) Act, which ended the allotment policy. The new law's    most important provisions reestablished tribes as political entities and    partially restored their internal sovereignty. A revival of Indian    culture and religion was promoted.  
   Under the new law many of the tribes set up    governments patterned after that of the
United States
. The tribes wrote constitutions and    bylaws, set up executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and    proceeded to elect tribal officials by secret ballot. The new law    appropriated money for buying back some of the "surplus" land that had    passed out of Indian ownership. Money was also provided for better    educational and medical facilities and for general economic    development.  
   The tribes used the powers granted in 1934 to remove white men from    their land and to assert their legal rights to its natural resources.    But growing attacks on the Indian Reorganization Act finally bore fruit    when in 1953 Congress declared that all federal relations with Indian    tribes should be terminated as soon as possible. Congress also permitted    the state governments to assume civil and criminal jurisdiction over    Indian reservations without the consent of the tribes occupying them.    The tribes fought strenuously against termination laws in court actions    and in appeals to the public. By the 1960s, termination as a national    Indian policy was dying. But in the meantime, federal responsibility for    a number of tribes, such as the Klamath of Oregon and the Menominee of    Wisconsin, had been terminated. Many tribes also fought to regain    jurisdiction over their reservations from the state governments. Some    tribes pressed claims to land taken in the 19th century and earlier.  
   The Indian Reorganization Act had not given the tribes control of the    federal funds that were spent on reservations. But the Indians took    advantage of government programs for the poor created by the Economic    Opportunity Act of 1964. The success of the Indian programs developed    under this act spurred other agencies aiding the Indians, including the    BIA, to let the tribes assume greater control over the funds given them.    Indians also took advantage of the civil rights movement to press their    cause.  
Indian Life in Modern
The American Indian population in the
United States
was about 1,400,000 in 1980. It had    increased sharply from 343,000 in 1950, 524,000 in 1960, and 800,000 in    1970.
California
.  
Government Control of Indian Affairs
The    United States Congress has complete authority over Indian affairs. It    can disband the Indian tribes as it did under the Indian General    Allotment Act of 1887 and the termination legislation of the 1950s, or    it can permit them to organize as it did under the Indian Reorganization    Act of 1934. Congress can overrule court decisions dealing with Indian    tribes.  
   Congress exercises its authority over Indian affairs through the Indian    Affairs subcommittees of the Interior and Insular Affairs committees of    the Senate and the House of Representatives. Congress also controls    Indian affairs through appropriations. Money to support the tribal    organizations, to pay for social services and education, and to provide    development capital is appropriated through the House and Senate    Appropriations subcommittees on Interior and Related Agencies.  
   In 1924 all the Indians in the
United States
were made citizens. They    now possess the same citizenship rights in the states where they reside    as do other citizens of those states. However, those Indians who are    members of federally recognized tribes or who live on individually owned    restricted or trust land enjoy a special status. Their tribes are    political entities which generally are outside the jurisdiction of the    individual states in which they are located, and their treaty rights are    still valid.  
   Most of these tribes were formed under the provisions of the Indian    Reorganization Act of 1934. They have the power to tax their membership    and make certain laws, to issue charters, to regulate marriage and    divorce, and so forth. This authority is recognized by the federal    government and by the individual states. Those tribes that were not put    under state civil and criminal jurisdiction have full civil jurisdiction    on their reservations and jurisdiction over all but major crimes--such    as murder, arson, and larceny--which are under federal jurisdiction.  
   Title to tribal land and to restricted land belonging    to individual Indians is held in trust for the Indians by the
United States
government. These trust    lands and the proceeds therefrom are tax-exempt. Indians residing on    their tribal reservations or on restricted land are eligible for    services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the Department of    the Interior and from the Indian Health Service of the Department of    Health, Education, and Welfare. The BIA also serves Indians living in    the cities.  
   Prior to the restoration of tribal governing bodies under the Indian    Reorganization Act of 1934, the Department of the Interior, acting    through the BIA had complete control of the Indian reservations. The    Department of the Interior still legally controls many aspects of Indian    life, such as regulating tribal attorney contracts and authorizing the    leasing of Indian land. In addition, the approval of the secretary of    the interior must be obtained before any Indian land in trust    status--either tribal or individual--can be alienated from Indian    ownership.  
   The Department of the Interior is also responsible for the protection of    Indian interests. Often, however, the department has been indifferent to    its responsibility, has substituted its judgment for that of the    Indians, or has worked actively against what the Indians wanted. Cases    in point were the Indian General Allotment Act of 1887 and the    termination legislation of the 1950s.  
   The Interior Department's difficulties in meeting its responsibility    also stem from internal conflicts of interest. The BIA is under the    Interior Department's assistant secretary for public land management. It    is almost inevitable that situations will arise, for example, in which    Indian interests will conflict with those of the Bureau of Reclamation,    also in the Interior Department. In most cases the Indians do not have    enough political influence to force a resolution of such conflicts in    their favor.  
   Conflicts also arise with the Justice Department, on    which the Interior Department must rely to bring suit on behalf of the    Indians. Often the Justice Department will fail to bring suit,    especially if the suit is against the
United States
.  
The    Indian Claims Commission
Congress enacted the law establishing the Indian Claims    Commission in 1946. Until then it had been necessary for the tribes to    secure a jurisdictional act from Congress before they could sue the
United States
for land and money    losses in the Court of Claims.  
   Under the Indian Claims Commission Act, the Indians were given a    statutory limit of five years in which to file their claims. By 1951,    about 600 claims had been filed. By 1970, half of the claims were still    pending and one fourth had been dismissed. Awards totaling about 330    million dollars had been made on the other fourth
   The awards were based on the value of land at the time it was taken from    the Indians. This meant mostly 19th-century land prices. Indians were    thus being paid, in some instances, at the rate of only 50 cents an acre    for land that was later worth up to 30 dollars an acre. After an award    has been made in such cases, any past federal expenditures, or offsets,    are deducted. Because funds from the awards are held in trust by the    federal government, they are tax-exempt. Money is usually paid out on a    per capita basis or is put into tribal development programs.  
   The Indian Claims Commission, like the Court of Claims    generally, is permitted to make only money judgments. Sometimes the    Indians do not want the money but rather want the return of the land.    The Taos Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, for example, refused a money    judgment awarded by the Indian Claims Commission. In 1970 the tribe    secured Congressional passage of a bill returning the
Blue
New    Mexico
to them.   
   In 1971 Congress approved the largest single land    settlement--44,000,000 acres (17,800,000 hectares)--with an award of    almost 1 billion dollars to the Indians, Aleuts, and Eskimos of Alaska    to clear the way for construction of the oil pipeline from
Prudhoe Bay
to
Valdez
. In the 1980s land settlements for land in excess of    several hundred thousand acres were being sought by various tribes    throughout the
United States
. In many cases, a critical issue in    the court battles over land is the fact that much of it was bought by    individuals and corporations without knowledge of Indian claims.  
Other Government Involvement
Until the mid-1950s, when Indian health services were detached from the    BIA and placed under the United States Public Health Service in the    Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the BIA had sole    responsibility for the provision of services to the federally recognized    tribes. However, the Indians did participate in some of the federal New    Deal programs of the 1930s. They also receive such benefits as old-age    assistance from programs under the Social Security Administration.    Besides the services connected with the execution of its trust function,    the BIA provides services in the areas of education, welfare, and    economic development.  
   Indians were equally eligible with non-Indians for an array of federal    programs created for the benefit of the poor during the 1960s. The    Departments of State, Treasury, and Defense also developed major    programs to help the Indians. Among the independent agencies with    programs that benefited Indians were the Environmental Protection    Agency, the Commission on Civil Rights, and the Small Business    Administration. In 1968 the National Council on Indian Opportunity was    created to coordinate the federal programs, but it was discontinued in    1974.  
   The Administration for Native Americans, a division of    the Department of Health and Human Services, is concerned with the    social and economic development of all Native Americans. This    administration coordinates legislative proposals, develops social and    economic policy, and administers a grant program on behalf of Native    Americans. In November 1989 United States President George Bush signed    legislation to establish a new
National
of the American Indian in
Washington
,
D.C.
, as part of the Smithsonian Institution. The legislation    included a promise by the Smithsonian to return thousands of Native    American human remains from its collection to modern tribal groups. Many    of the new museum's artifacts will be contributed by the Heye    Foundation's Museum of the American Indian in
New York City
.  
The    Modern Indian Reservation
An    Indian reservation appears much like the surrounding countryside. It    resembles a small town, and sometimes a town has grown up around it.    Unless a motorist were to leave the main highway and drive by a small    Indian community or catch sight of a pueblo or a hogan, only a sign    giving the name of the reservation would reveal that the vehicle was in    Indian country. The Indian agency, or local headquarters of the various    federal offices on the reservation, may be on farming, grazing, or    forest land. Here also are the tribal office, schools, stores, and    churches.  
   Until the 1960s most tribes subsisted on the natural resources of their    reservations. Farming, ranching, logging, and fishing were the usual    kinds of occupations. Other Indians received small royalties from    mineral rights; eked out a living as seasonal workers in orchards and as    part-time workers on railroads, roads, or farms; or worked for local    federal agencies or merchants. In some areas Indians made a living by    making and selling their own handmade products.  
Specialized Indian Education
Many    of the treaties provided for the establishment of schools. Congress also    provided schools for Indian children where other educational facilities    were not available. In 1979 the BIA operated more than 200 schools for    Indian children and 15 dormitories for children attending public    schools. In 1979 there were about 44,000 Indian students enrolled in    boarding, day, and dormitory schools that were operated by the BIA.    There were about 6,400 Indian students enrolled in private, mission, and    tribal-operated schools. Increasingly, as fewer Indian families live on    reservations, more children are attending the public schools in their    local school districts.  
   Congressional education appropriations to the BIA are    limited to the education of children who are one-fourth or more Indian    and of native children in
Alaska
. An exception is the Cherokee agency, where    children who are less than one-fourth Indian may also attend federal    schools. Less than half of the BIA budget is used for education, and    there are supplemental funds from other agencies.  
   The
in
Arizona
, which was established in 1969, is the    oldest chartered tribal community college. There are now more than a    dozen tribal community colleges. There are also vocational-technical    schools above the high-school level.  
Economic Development
Before the 1960s the only alternatives for those Indians unable to find    work on their reservations were accepting welfare assistance or    migrating to the cities. When the federal Indian policy changed from    tribal termination to tribal self-determination, large sums of    government money began to pour into the reservations. In 1967 the    Economic Development Administration began a program to assist Indians    residing on trust lands. The program's direction has been largely in the    field of planning and technical assistance, with funding for the    construction of community and commercial projects. The Office of    Minority Business Enterprise also helps to promote expansion of Indian    businesses.  
   Some of the industries created were electronic parts    assembly plants on reservations in
Nevada
; and a semiconductor plant on the Navajo reservation at
Shiprock
N.M.
  
   Tribes were also working to expand their tourist    industries. New Indian-owned campgrounds were set up in
Arizona
and
South    Dakota
. The Cheyenne River Sioux of South Dakota    owned the telephone system on their reservation. The Navajos operated    the public utilities on their reservation. One of the long-range    benefits of these developments was that such arrangements enabled the    tribes to tax their membership and opened the way to economic    self-sufficiency for their tribal government operations.  
Indian Activism
One    of the first modern Indian political organizations to be formed was the    National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). Established in 1944, the    NCAI sought to act as representative for the Indian tribes at the    national level. Its membership included delegates from each of its    member tribes as well as individual Indians. The NCAI was active in    influencing legislation.  
   Many tribes have also organized politically at the    state and local levels. The United Sioux of South Dakota was formed in    an attempt to prevent the state from assuming jurisdiction over the    Indian reservations in
South    Dakota
. The Sioux were successful in securing    enough signatures on a petition to have the assumption-of-jurisdiction    law submitted to the voters, but the measure was defeated.  
   In the 1960s Indians in the state of
Washington
began agitating to maintain their traditional right to    fish in the streams in
Washington
free from state regulation. By the    provisions of century-old treaties, the Indians had given up most of    their land along the rivers but had inserted articles in the treaties    specifying that their people could continue to fish in their "usual and    accustomed places" along the rivers. In 1964 the newly organized    Survival of American Indians Association began to dramatize the issue of    Indian fishing rights by staging demonstrations, or fish-ins. Shots were    exchanged when a group of armed Indians staged a fish-in on the Puyallup    River in 1970; 54 Indians were arrested for violating state fishing    regulations. The Indians also carried their fight into the courts, but    the various decisions that were rendered were vague and contradictory.  
   In 1966 a more militant organization, the American    Indian Movement (AIM), was founded to force reorganization of the BIA in    order to make it more responsive to the needs of native Americans. It    also supported tribal demands for the return of Indian lands. In 1973    about 200 armed AIM supporters, led by Russell Means and Dennis Banks,    occupied a
South Dakota
reservation in a 71-day siege that    became known as the second battle of
Wounded Knee
. They declared it the Independent Oglala    Sioux Nation. The area was the site of a bloody massacre of Indians by    the United States Army in 1890. During the takeover, hostages were    seized and government blockades cut off supplies.  
Urban Indians
During World War II many Indians left the reservations to seek work in    the war industries of the big cities. This start of Indian urban    migration coincided with the government's efforts to get the Indians off    the reservations and curtail its responsibilities.  
   In the early 1950s the BIA launched a relocation program to speed the    migration. The Indians, who could find little work on the economically    depressed reservations, were eager to take advantage of the program. But    as the decade progressed, participants in the relocation program came to    include many who were poorly educated and thus ill-equipped to succeed    in an urban environment. But the newcomers were refused social services    in the city because they were "BIA Indians." At the same time the BIA    refused them services on the grounds that they were no longer living on    or near a reservation. The BIA relocation program failed because the    Indians either returned to the reservations or remained in the cities    and made unsuccessful adjustments to urban life.
   In 1969 the Office of Indian Affairs in the Department of Health,    Education, and Welfare sponsored an all-Indian study group called the    Task Force on Racially Isolated Urban Indians. It was to investigate the    urban Indian problem and develop a program leading to its solution. The    study group found that the needs common to urban Indians were: (1) more    effective systems of social-service delivery; (2) expanded programs for    Indian youth; (3) better physical facilities to house Indian centers;    (4) additional staff to work in those centers; (5) training for staff    and board members of the centers; and (6) improved techniques for    informing urban Indians of programs and resources available to them. The    task force recommended the creation of a model Indian center    demonstration project. Some centers were funded in 1971. Enactment of    the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act in 1973 was another    attempt to help urban Indians by providing grants for manpower programs,    including vocational training, to the unemployed, underemployed, and    disadvantaged.  
Native Alaskans
There are more than 85,000 Inuit (Eskimo), Indians, and    Aleuts in
Alaska
. Most live in towns and villages.    The Inuit live on the western and northern coasts along the
Bering Sea
. The Indians live in southeastern, interior, and south-central
Alaska
. The Aleuts live in the southwest, along the
Alaska Peninsula
Aleutian Islands
.  
   Prior to 1924 the Native Alaskans were almost all    under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior's Trust    Territories Division. When they became citizens under the Indian    Citizenship Act of 1924, jurisdiction was transferred to the BIA, which    is responsible for providing the same kinds of services in
Alaska
as it does in the other states.  
   When the
acquired
Alaska
in 1867, the settlement of native land titles was left to    Congress. But Congress persistently put off action, and the matter was    still unresolved when
Alaska
became a state in 1959. The Native    Alaskans, frustrated by this long delay--especially after a method was    found to exploit the state's vast oil reserves--organized the Alaska    Federation of Natives (AFN) in 1966. The AFN contended that in the    settlement of their land rights the natives should get just    compensation. In 1971 Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims    Settlement Act, which awarded Native Alaskans nearly a billion dollars    and 40,000,000 acres (16,000,000 hectares) of land. Several regional    corporations were established to administer the settlement