The First Americans, Part 2

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I have long believed that Americans need to know much more about the native nations who lived here before Christopher Columbus came and about their descendants who continue to live in America today. To help me answer the excellent questions of the homeschooling mama I told you about yesterday, I took a quick look through the index of America the Beautiful. We reference more than 80 specific native nations or individual members of a native nation. I have likely told this story before, but my particular concern for people of native nations began near Rapid City, South Dakota, in 1986 when our family joined hands with members of a native nation and danced one of their traditional dances. I have a wonderful photo of our younger daughter staring up at a young man, dressed in traditional clothing. Today I would like to share with you a few excerpts about native nations from America the Beautiful.

Pueblo People

Elaborate villages lie in ruins on top of mesas and in the sides of cliffs in the Colorado Plateau. Archaeologists believe that people lived in these villages from about 550 to 1300. The Pueblo people who live in the American Southwest today are descendants of the Ancestral Puebloan, some of whom lived in these villages. People sometimes call these ancestors Anasazi. Pueblo and Puebloan come from the Spanish word pueblo, meaning “village.”

For hundreds of years, the Pueblo people have built homes that are like apartment houses. One family’s home shares one or more walls with the home of another family. The Pueblo people build them of stone and mortar or of adobe. Adobe is made of earth and straw. We use the term pueblo for these homes. Many pueblos are several stories high.

One group of Ancestral Puebloan were the Chaco people. Between about 850 and 1250, they built dozens of massive stone great houses in Chaco Canyon in what is now northwest New Mexico. The great houses had hundreds of rooms in several stories. Ancestral Puebloan people traveled on straight roads between 150 other great houses and their cultural center in Chaco Canyon.

Structure in Chaco Canyon

Some Chaco roads led toward the Mesa Verde region, which is 100 miles to the north in the Colorado Plateau region. Evidence shows that the Ancestral Puebloan of Mesa Verde lived and farmed mainly on top of mesas for hundreds of years. For some unknown reason, around 1190 they began to build structures in cliffs beneath mesas, while they continued to grow beans, corn, and squash on the top.

The Ancestral Puebloan of Mesa Verde built sleeping rooms behind courtyards which were on the cliffs’ edges. To make walls, they cut sandstone into blocks about the size of a loaf of bread. They held the stones together with a mortar made of mud and water. They added chinking stones to make the walls strong. They used wooden beams to support ceilings. The Ancestral Puebloan did not use metal. They used hard creek stones to shape tools from bone, stone, and wood.

The people of Mesa Verde raised turkeys.  Their pottery had beautiful black and white designs. They also made baskets and used them for storing grain, carrying water, and cooking. They lined cooking baskets with pitch. To cook, they put food and water in a basket and dropped heated stones into it.

The largest cliff village at Mesa Verde is the Cliff Palace. It had 150 rooms, 21 kivas, and 75 open areas. It also had round towers. Residents covered many walls with brown, pink, red, white, or yellow plaster and painted designs on them.

Cliff Palace ruins at Mesa Verde National Park. Courtesy Gates Frontiers Fund Colorado Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

For less than one hundred years, Ancestral Puebloan people built, repaired, remodeled, and lived in their cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. Around the late 1270s, they began to leave the mesa and move south into New Mexico and Arizona. All Ancestral Puebloan left Mesa Verde by about 1300. In New Mexico and Arizona, they built new pueblos or perhaps joined ones already there.

Hopi girls at a mealing trough by Edward Curtis. Courtesy Library of Congress.

Over time, the Pueblo people of New Mexico and Arizona came to speak six different languages, but they shared many beliefs and customs. All Pueblo nations farmed. The Hopi, for example, grew corn, beans, squash, cotton, and other crops. They have farmed some of the same gardens since the 1200s. The Hopi had a reputation for being peaceful. God teaches all people to seek peace. As David wrote in Psalm 34:

Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
Psalm 34:14

Nations of the Eastern Woodlands

Historians believe that by the end of the 1400s the great Mound Builder city of Cahokia was in ruins and people had abandoned most of the mounds in the Eastern Woodlands. Small nations, many of whom were probably descendants of the Mound Builders, lived in small villages. They harvested wild foods from the woodlands; fished in rivers, streams, ponds and lakes; and hunted forest animals for food and clothing. Many also grew crops.

In this lesson, we learn about the Wampanoag and other nations in the northern portion of the Eastern Woodlands, an area known as the Northeast Woodlands region. People throughout the world speak thousands of languages. A linguist studies languages. Linguists believe that many languages around the world are part of language families. They believe that the languages in a language family began as one language. The people of the Eastern Woodlands spoke languages from two main language families: Algonquian and Iroquoian.

The Wampanoag spoke an Algonquian language. Wampanoag means “People of the First Light.” They lived in villages along and near the Atlantic Ocean, where the first light shines on America each morning at sunrise. The Wampanoag homeland is in what are now Massachusetts and Rhode Island. About 4,000-5,000 still live in New England.

Wootonekanuske, a Wampanoag woman, December 29, 1924. Courtesy Library of Congress.

A Wampanoag leader was called a sachem. A sachem led several villages. Fast-running messengers took the sachem’s messages from village to village. The sachem led his people in peace and in war. He assigned each family the fields they could use for growing crops. He helped to care for widows, orphans, and the poor among his people. The sachem worked to protect his people against other nations. He was responsible for making agreements with neighboring nations. Northeast Woodlands nations had frequent small battles against each other. The sachem was responsible for making the decision to declare war.

The Wampanoag spent spring, summer, and fall near the coast. God provided the Wampanoag with a bounty from the sea. They also fished in freshwater ponds and rivers, catching catfish, eels, herring, perch, and trout. The Wampanoag moved each year. In the winter, they went to inland valleys and forests a short distance from their summer homes. Here they found protection from high tides and storms.

The Wampanoag built canoes called mishoons. Some mishoons were 60 feet long and held 40 people. The Wampanoag used them for fishing and for travel.

Wampanoag children grew up in a close relationship to their parents. They played games, had races, and learned to swim. They listened to stories and participated in celebrations. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, and uncles taught them how to live as a Wampanoag.

God loved the people of the Northeast Woodlands, just as He loves everyone. When Jesus died, He died for us all, as we learn in Revelation:

. . . for You were slain,
and purchased for God with Your blood
men from every tribe
and tongue and people and nation.
Revelation 5:9b

Nations of the Southeast

More than 70 nations lived mainly in small villages across the Southeast region. The Cherokee Nation was the largest with about 20,000 people. Southeast nations used poles and paddles to propel dugout canoes along the many rivers and streams in the region. They built their villages nearby. In addition to villages, some Southeast nations built central towns. They built stockades or palisades around these towns. People from surrounding villages gathered for ceremonies there.

Nations of the Southeast spoke many languages. Only the Cherokee spoke a language from the Iroquoian language family so common among their Northeast Woodlands neighbors. The Choctaw Nation developed a trade language that used simple words and signs. The Choctaw grew crops so well that they had more food than they needed and were able to use some for trade. Many nations understood the Choctaw trade language.

Southeast men were often away from their villages. Like native nations in other parts of America, Southeast nations sometimes went to war with one another and the men left home to fight. Southeast men also traveled to trade and to hunt. Men’s responsibilities in the village included building homes and public buildings. They also cleared fields and helped with harvesting crops.

The women in Southeast nations spent most of their time in and nearby their villages. They took care of children and the elderly and gathered wild foods. They also made baskets, clothing, and pottery. Southeast women were responsible for most of the farming. Like the native nations of the Southwest and the Northeast Woodlands, the main crops were corn, beans, and squash. People sometimes call these crops the Three Sisters.

Many nations, including the Cherokee and Choctaw, played stickball, a game like lacrosse. The Choctaw used hickory to make playing sticks called kabocca. They also made a small, round ball called a towa. Players could never touch the ball. They used the kabocca to move the ball toward goal posts. Stickball goal posts could be as close as 100 feet apart or as far as five miles. The game had referees, but referees allowed players to bite, hit, and stomp, so injuries were common.

Tul-lock-chísh-ko with kabocca by George Catlin. Courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.

Residents of different villages competed against each other. Choctaw priests performed rituals that they believed would influence the outcome of the game. The Choctaw continue to enjoy dancing and stickball matches, but stickball now has more rules.

Like each of us, the Choctaw Nation and the other nations of the Southeast are the work of God’s hand. As Isaiah wrote:

But now, O Lord, You are our Father,
We are the clay, and You our potter;
And all of us are the work of Your hand.
Isaiah 64:8

 

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