Native American societies before contact

Western

• 13000 BCE is marked as the native settlement of the Americas
• Many different groups of Native Americans, with distinct cultures based on their resource allocation and climate, inhabited the western region of north america.

The native societies were surrounded in a very natural environment so they could only use what they had. Places that weren’t known for getting much water were dry. The Great Basin, the Southwest, and the Great Plains were quite dry. People in the Great Plains were hunters. They hunted bison and other animals such as snakes, lizards, and other small mammals. People in the southwest made their own irrigation projects in order to water their corn and other crops. Fishing was the main part of Native American food sources. Fishermen used harpoons to catch salmon and different kinds of fish they found swimming along the Columbia and Colorado rivers They also relied on a popular farming method known as Three sister farming.

Three sister farming: The grouped cropping of beans, squash, and corn, altogether.

The Great Basin Natives:

• First to create canoes to make catching fish much easier
• Were healthy and protein sufficient

Societal organization

A popular place for trade was in the Dalles. Here, the Chumash people were well-known for their trade fairs. They’d sell stuff like marine mammals and animal hides for the Great Plains. Here, acorns were used as a currency.

In places that didn’t provide sufficient resources for the people living would rarely have homes built there. For example, in the Western places, indigenous people would build temporary houses called wikiups. They consisted of wood, leaves, and brush. There weren’t many homes there because people didn’t live there; the reason for that is the fact that the resources are scarce. On the contrary, in the Pacific northwest, more houses were built because the resources made it worthy of staying there. In other words: places with barely any food or water for the citizens, barely had homes and if they did, they were made out of very simple materials. However, places that were rich with resources, more homes were built there because it has things to offer.

Social Norms

Just like in today’s society, social norms were prominent in the Indigenous society. The men’s job was usually to hunt and fish, while the women would harvest crops and prepare meat to and to sell for trade. While social norms were rapidly evolving, people started forming tribal relationships, like a family, almost. They were called tribelets. But this was mainly a thing in places with a large population.

Tribelets: includes a few hundred to a thousand people that aligned culturally.

Religious Norms

Western American Indians were spiritual and sometimes prayed for good luck hunting.

Southwest

• Started in 7000 BCE
• Tribes like the Anasazi (aka ancestral Pueblos), Mogollon, and Hohokam began farming in 2000 BCE

Geographics of the Pueblo desert

• Pueblo means “town” or “village”
• Main groups of this desert were the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Anasazi
• Anasazis lived in either Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, or Arizona
• The Mongollon lived in Southwestern New Mexico
• The Hohokam lived in the desert of Southern Arizona

Common food practices: intro of agriculture

• Corn was the first crop the ancestral Pueblos learned to make

Corn was more than just a food that they grew, but also a spiritual gift.

To combat the dry environment, the ancestral pueblos developed their own irrigation system. It was effective, even in the hot sun. Soon after, the Hohokams had created one of the largest irrigation systems to date. This system made it possible for the Pueblos to expand their growth of crops to foods like beans and squash

However, food was not the only good thing that came out of a successful irrigation system. Women were able to make ceramic pots to hold the corn, squash, and beans. They also made baskets that were used to collect the harvest.

Societal organization: villages and pueblos

The great agriculture around the Pueblos changed the way they lived. They didn’t have to work as much and they lived in strong, luxurious homes. They were made of stone and boasted multiple stories. Because of this, their population grew to thousands of people.

Religious norms

Due to natural disasters destroying the hard work of the southwesterns people, the Pueblos started spiritual ceremonies and prayed for things like good weather and plentiful harvests. Rather than praying to gods or lords, they prayed to animals and plants.

Social norms

Families lived and worked together and assigned themselves to different jobs. The men worked with the farming while the women raised the children and did the household tasks. The male leaders of the household participated in councils with other household leaders to contribute ideas for positive changes to the community.

-most of the ancestral pueblos fled the area due to a drought

Northeast

• This is where three-sister farming started
• Began republican political projects
• The most popular groups: Algonquians, Iroquois, Susquehannocks, Mohicans, Hurons

Geographics

• Northeast extends from the province of quebec through the Ohio River Valley, and down to the North Carolina coast; landscape is dominated by the appalachian mountains
• Settled from 200 BCE to 500 CE

Common food practices (shift towards three-sister farming)

Growing corn, squash, and beans together became known as the “three sisters.” For the Algonquians, hunting and gathering was a popular method of finding food, along with gathering berries. Because they lived near water, they would catch fish, salmon, and shellfish. Due to their surplus in food resources, they started making pottery to preserve it and wove baskets to make the farming process easier.

Societal structure: village and communities

Soon after the three-sisters farming method became well known, the northeastern’s trade flourished making corn, beans, and squash cash crops. In return for their crops, they received beautiful things like shells, pearls, copper, and silver.

Social Norms

As the northeastern area became more agricultural, the community became more urbanized. Many of the indigenous people lived together in longhouses to help each other protect their crops. But as certain groups got more attention for their crops and started cultivating more farming and agricultural success, other groups got jealous. Ongoing conflict occurred between the Iroquois and Algonquins. Because of this issue, other groups went to establish the Great League of Peace. This was an event where Iroqouians met for about a year to come up with solutions to end violence make peace the algonquians

The Great League of Peace

• Each member would maintain a level of control over local affairs.
• Developed republican principles, a dual system of federalism, a balance between local and national powers

Southeast

• The Native Americans heare built enormous mounds and organized urban centers

Formed chiefdoms and alliances with europeans settlers

Geographics

• Stretches down the Mississippi river, into the area surrounding the gulf of mexico
• Main Native American groups here were: cherokees, choctaws, chickasaws, creeks, and seminoles, also known as the Five Civilized Tribes

Common food practices

Cherokee women planted and harvested crops such as beans, squash, corn, tobacco, and sunflowers. While having great success in the farming department, they continued to hunt and catch fish. They caught fish in the gulf of Mexico and hunted deer with bows and arrows.

Societal structure: Urban centers

The Missipians continued Hopewellian traditions by continuing the building of mounds. Most people lived in hamlets or villages. The villages were built by the Seminole peoples

Social norms

The Missisippians’ agriculture flourish brought much wealth to the community. In Georgia, the Creek people forced prisoners of war to work on their fields. The southeast native Americans were the first to organize villages with chiefdoms, a concept of families being ranked by social status and general proximity to the chief himself.

About the chief

The chiefs lived in wooden homes on large mounds. The large mound was a symbol of power. In the society, there was a peace chief and a wartime chief, with different jobs/purpose and strengths in leadership.

The Great Plains

• Lived BOTH comfortable and nomadic lives
• Farmed, hunted, and gathered
• When the Spanish colonizers arrived onto the Plains, it disrupted the agricultural norms and made hunting harder for the Native american groups

Geographics

• Spreads to the east of the rocky mountains, up to 400 miles across the flat land of the center of present-day USA
• Main groups included the Pawnees, Mandans, Omahas, Wichitas, and Cheyennes

Common food practices

The Plains Native Americans used the three-sister method and used agriculture medically, too. For example, they used chokecherries to cure stomach sickness. One social norm noticed in the Plains natives is that the women mostly farmed and gathered while the men hunted.

Path to nomadic hunters

Horses were introduced to the native americans around 1519, when a spanish explorer named Hernan Cortes brought about 600 of them to the region. This wouldn’t be the end of it though, other explorers would bring more horses, making them more prominent in the environment of the native americans. So much so that they would eventually ditch agriculture altogether and become nomadic buffalo hunters

Societal organization: sedentary to nomadic

Back then, Plains natives would set up sedentary bases. Wichitas would build grass homes near their crops. When the plains natives became more focused on hunting, they became more nomadic. So they started building tepees, which are cone shaped tents made out of buffalo skin and wood. They were easy to build and take down. But they weren’t constantly living nomadically. Sometimes the natives would combine the natures of both nomadic and sedentary. For example, they would plant/establish crops and villages in the spring, hunt in the summer, go back to harvesting in the fall, and hunt again in the winter.

Social and religious norms

Hunting groups were divided into the skill sets of the members or band. A band could consist of a dozen to a few hundred people who live, hunted, and traveled together. As far as religion goes over in the Plains, every group was different, spiritually. Indigenous people on the Plains saw the buffalo as sacred

As horses become more common in society, it became used for measurement of social status. Men with the most horses were seen as high class and had the most economic power. Conflict between the tribes increased because of this competition. Groups started stealing horses from other groups, and this became a pattern of violence between the Native American groups and Euro-American colonists as they started to settles across the Plains