Native American societies before contact | 1.2

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##Geographic and temporal setting: the diverse West

The western part of the present-day United States, extending from the top corner of Washington, through California and into parts of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho, was home to a diverse array of Native American groups. They lived off the region's rich **natural resources**.

It's hard to generalize about the cultural practices of indigenous people in the West since its climate and resources varied immensely, creating microenvironments which different groups used to their advantage. Over one hundred federally-recognized tribes lived in modern California. The Great Basin—the vast expanse of land between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas—was home to the Mono, Paiute, Bannock, Shoshone, Ute, and Gosiute peoples, among others.

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##Common food practices: hunting, gathering, and fishing

Most Western indigenous people fished, hunted and gathered for sustenance. Along the Colorado River, Native Americans gathered a variety of wild food and planted some tobacco. **Acorns** were a pivotal part of the Californian diet. Women would gather and process acorns. They removed toxins from the pulp inside the nut and made it into flour, creating a less perishable source of nourishment. In the Pacific Northwest, people foraged for pine nuts, wild plants, and more.

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American bison also roamed the Pacific Northwest, proving an easy target for hunters. Along the coast of modern-day California, natives hunted small mammals, snakes, and lizards. In the Great Basin, fishing sustained the native people. **Salmon** was plentiful along the Columbia and Colorado rivers. Native fishermen would use large **harpoons** to stab the fish swimming through the rushing water, along with complex trapping systems. However, a natural disaster like a mudslide or earthquake could completely disrupt the salmon patterns.

The Great Basin natives were the first to create **canoes** to aid the fishing process and secure a surplus of fish in preparation for times of scarcity. Evidence suggests that the Western American Indians had an extremely healthy, protein- and nutrient-rich diet, much more so than other groups in the Plains or Northeast who relied on farming.

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##Societal organization: distinct, yet connected communities

Salmon dominated trade networks as well as diets in the West. The Dalles, the area upstream of Long Narrows on the Columbia River, became a central point for trade networks that extended to the Plains and to the Pacific. The Chumash people of the region near modern-day Santa Barbara were known for their trade fairs, where they would exchange marine mammals for shells from the Pacific Northwest and animal hides from the Plains. Acorns were often used as currency.

Many Western indigenous people, including the Acjachemen people of California, lived in compact, easy-to-build, and easy-to-move **wikiups** made of wood, leaves and brush. Others, in resource-rich areas in the Pacific Northwest, lived in more permanent villages. The structure of shelter oftentimes indicated the reliability of the food source: the more plentiful the fish and acorns in the area, the more likely that indigenous people lived in homes within societies that were there to stay.

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##Social and religious norms: resources dictated wealth

The great concentration of resources also created rigidly stratified class structures throughout the West. Villages were organized by a complex social system in which men would hunt and fish and women would harvest crops and prepare the meat for food and trade. The Chinookan people, whose strategic position along the Columbia River ensured fishing and hunting success, practiced **slavery** to complete the laborious tasks required to process large animals like bison.

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In less densely populated areas, sociopolitical organization and tribal relationships were constantly evolving. People generally identified with family-based bands called **tribelets**. A tribelet would include a few hundred to a thousand people that aligned culturally, but hunted and gathered in smaller units of 10-12 people. In areas with sparse natural resources, groups were more nomadic and less connected to others.

Even monotonous tasks like hunting and gathering had **spiritual** significance to Western American Indians. Some groups would pray for good hunting luck, and others developed rituals around such processes. In the Great Basin, Sahaptin-speaking people would throw salmon bones back into the Columbia River as to rejuvenate the supply of fish for the following season.

##What do you think?

How did proximity to natural resources determine social position in the West?

What do you think would happen to the societal structure of a large village near the river if natural resources were depleted, by overfishing or natural disaster? How would the group’s lifestyle and social organization change?

When did hunters and gatherers live nomadically? When did they establish villages? Why?

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##Geographic and temporal setting: the Pueblo desert

The Southwest region, expanding through present-day Arizona and New Mexico and into Colorado, Texas, Utah, and Mexico, was home to a variety of indigenous groups and cultural practices pre-colonization. In this region dwelled several groups we collectively call the Pueblo. The Spanish first gave them this name, which means “town” or “village,” because they lived in towns or villages of permanent stone-and-mud buildings with thatched roofs. The three main groups of the Pueblo people were the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Anasazi.

Anasazis, sometimes called the Ancestral Pueblos, resided in the Four Corners region (where the states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona meet today); the Mogollon lived mostly in southwestern New Mexico; the Hohokam dominated the desert of southern Arizona.

Historians estimate that these three groups reigned over the region from approximately 200-1500 CE, and either dissolved or evolved into the Pueblos, whom the Spanish encountered during colonization and who still reside in modern New Mexico. They have also transformed into the Zuni and Hopi tribes. The Apache and Navajo tribes arrived in the Pueblo region around 1200 CE from the Pacific Northwest and remained distinct from the Pueblo people living in the region.

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##Common food practices: introduction of agriculture

Historians credit Anasazis, Mogollons, and Hohokams as the first farmers in America. Corn, the first crop the Ancestral Pueblos cultivated, permeates many creation stories of the Pueblo people. The Ancestral Pueblos regarded the harvest of corn not only as a nutritional necessity but as a spiritual gift. Although agriculture seemed to represent the society’s advancement, the Ancestral Pueblos had a much healthier diet when they hunted and gathered, as opposed to the limited diversity in a diet dominated by corn.

In the arid climate of the Southwest, Ancestral Pueblos developed complex irrigation systems, which maintained crops even in the hot sun. By 800 CE, Hohokams had created one of the largest irrigation systems to date, stretching through most of what we call Arizona today. This new irrigation system allowed the Pueblos to begin planting beans and squash in addition to corn.

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These elaborate systems enabled agriculture to flourish, which allowed new forms of production and societal development. Women began to make ceramic pots to hold the surplus of corn, squash, and beans, and large vessels to grind the corn. They also wove baskets with which to collect the harvest.

Although agriculture boomed in the region, Navajos and Apaches arrived from the Pacific Northwest in about 1200 CE and retained the dominant food practice of their home region, hunting and gathering.

##Societal organization: villages and pueblos

Agriculture dictated the way the Ancestral Pueblo people lived. With surplus food and stability, they became more sedentary, living in stone and adobe houses. Equivalent to massive present-day apartment complexes, these buildings had multiple stories, each with multiple rooms. The Ancestral Pueblos, regarded as highly developed for their time, tended to live in larger towns with thousands of people and intricate dwellings.

Chaco Canyon, a center for the Anasazi people, was a trade hub and home to over twelve thousand people. The Chacoans, a branch of the Anasazi people living in the canyon, created over four hundred miles of roads that connected the town to other villages in the region. The Chacoans mostly traded away turquoise, traveling west for seashells from California, south for exotic birds from Central America, and north for minerals and ores from the Rocky Mountains.

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Navajos and Apaches were more nomadic as they continued to hunt and gather. Since they were always on the move, their homes were much less permanent than pueblos. For instance, Navajos fashioned their iconic eastward-facing round houses, known as hogans, out of materials like mud and bark.

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##Social and religious norms: the spirit of the crop

These southwestern peoples believed that farming was a more reliable way to ensure their society’s sustenance than hunting and gathering. But that hypothesis proved false in the face of natural disaster. A persistent drought, lasting from about 1130-1180 CE, decimated Anasazis' crops, while a major flood in 1358 destroyed the Hohokam irrigation system.

These disasters led the Ancestral Pueblos to hold spiritual ceremonies, praying to their gods for a bountiful harvest and good weather. They would pray to natural entities, like plants and animals, for agricultural, hunting, and personal success. These religious ceremonies brought together lots of people to create larger religious communities than social units like the family.

The extended family lived and worked together, both women and men participating in the agricultural processes. Since the Pueblos did less hunting, men helped with farming. In addition to farm labor, women raised children and performed household tasks, while male heads of households would participate in an informal council to make community, or band, decisions.

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Ultimately, most of the Ancestral Pueblos fled the area, probably due to drought. The Spanish encountered a hodgepodge of remaining descendants of the Ancestral Pueblos in the mid-1550s, whom they named the Pueblos.

##What do you think?

How did the introduction of agriculture affect the religious practices of the ancient southwestern Native Americans?

How did the Ancestral Pueblos urbanize the southwest region? How did that compare to the Native Americans in the northeast region?

Do you think the Ancestral Pueblos should have continued hunting and gathering for their main source of nourishment? Why or why not?

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##Geographic and temporal setting: the Hopewellian period

The geographic area of the Native American Northeast extends from the province of Quebec in modern-day Canada, through the Ohio River Valley, and down to the North Carolina coast. The Northeastern landscape is dominated by the Appalachian Mountains, which include rolling hills and prominent peaks.

Native Americans settled extensively in this area, especially during the Hopewellian period from 200 BCE to 500 CE, due to the temperate climate, accessible waterways, and good farming conditions. The most notable groups in this area include the Algonquians, Iroquois, Susquehannocks, Mohicans, and Hurons.

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##Common food practices: a shift towards three-sister farming

The Hopewellian period included the cultural shift from hunting and gathering to budding agricultural systems. Some historians estimate that Native Americans were farming squash in Illinois as early as 5000 BCE. Corn farming spread through trading networks to the Ohio River Valley from the Southwest by 350 BCE. They soon began to plant and grow beans.

Together, the corn, squash, and beans, became known as the sacred "three sisters,” a term coined by the Iroquois people. According to the Iroquois, the three crops would only thrive if planted close together.

Algonquians retained hunting and gathering as a source of food while beginning to farm. Women would gather berries and cultivate the cornfields, while men would hunt and occasionally aid in farming. Northeastern indigenous people living near rivers would fish salmon and collect shellfish, as well. With an abundance of food, Iroquois and Hurons made intricate pottery to store the surplus. They also wove baskets to aid in the farming process.

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##Societal structure: villages and communities

All “three sisters” quickly became cash crops, a crop in high demand by Native Americans on the Plains and West Coast who were eager to trade. They received large shells, pearls, copper, and silver in return for the foods. Groups within the region would trade food and commodities with other Northeastern peoples, depending on their area’s niche good. For example, the Susquehannocks of Pennsylvania traded wampum beads for nets and furs from the Hurons of the Great Lakes region.

Indigenous people in the Northeast generally lived in villages with a few hundred residents. Hochelaga, modern-day Montreal, was inhabited by several thousand people and surrounded by extensive cornfields. In agricultural Hopewellian societies, men planted and harvested, while women worked in the home, took care of the children, and processed the crops.

Hopewellian culture began the tradition of mound-building, which would extend down to the Southeast into the next century. Throughout the Ohio River Valley, Native Americans built mounds in the earth, which may have served burial and ceremonial purposes. Large mounds and animal-shaped earthworks still exist throughout this area today.

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##Social and religious norms: establishing alliances and democratic principles

As the Northeast became more agricultural, the region became more urbanized. Although we consider agricultural areas less densely-populated today, farming required people to live together in fortified villages to protect their harvests. Many indigenous people in the Northeast lived in longhouses, dwellings up to 100 feet in length. Since Algonquians farmed while also maintaining hunting and fishing, they “commuted” from less permanent villages of wigwams. But as certain groups, like the Iroquois, began having farming and thereby trading success, intertribal violence intensified.

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Trade competition led to ongoing conflict between the Iroquois and Algonquians. In hopes of ending intertribal conflict, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas established the Iroquois League, or the Great League of Peace between 1100 and 1400 CE. During this time period, the Iroquoians met for about a year to devise a solution to this cyclic pattern of violence and retribution between tribes.

The Iroquois League devised a system in which each member group could maintain a level of autonomy over local affairs, but the League would unite over trade policies and diplomacy issues. The Iroquois League put forth republican principles, and a dual system of federalism, or balancing local and national powers, for the first time in North America. Therefore, many historians argue that the Iroquois League was the first American democracy, established at least four hundred years earlier than the US Constitution of 1787.

##What do you think?

How did agriculture contribute to the settlement types of indigenous people in the Northeast?

Make your own hypothesis about why Native American communities constructed mounds. Draw a connection to relevant historical evidence.

How does the political organization of Iroquois League resemble the United States of America? What is different and what is the same?

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##Geographic and temporal setting: the Mississippian period

This region stretches down the Mississippi River and into the area surrounding the Gulf of Mexico, through some of the most fertile lands in North America. Native Americans were the first to take advantage of such promising agricultural conditions.

The prominent Native American groups in this area were known as the Five Civilized Tribes: Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. Mississippian culture, dominant from 1000 CE onward, developed from the beginnings of farming in Hopewellian culture, which dominated a few centuries before in the Northeast.

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##Common food practices: corn farming

The Mississippian peoples were excellent farmers. Notably, Cherokee women planted and harvested crops, including beans, squash, corn, tobacco, and sunflowers. They supplemented their diets with acorns, nuts, seeds, and fruits. Since they did not use any fertilizer, they had to burn the fields and create new ones every season. This required immense amounts of time and labor but ultimately led to large crop yields.

While they had great farming success, Southeastern Native Americans also continued to hunt and fish. They hunted deer with bows and arrows and fished in rivers and in the Gulf of Mexico for protein. In southern Florida, Calusa people developed complex fishing and trapping systems for clams, mussels, and saltwater fish.

Mississippians also created intricate pottery and arrow points. They fashioned elaborate serving utensils and dishes for food, as well as weaponry for hunting larger animals.

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##Societal structure: urban centers

Mississippians continued the mound-building traditions of the Hopewellian people and extended them to the south and west. Mississippian mound societies were larger and more complex than previous communities, indicating unprecedented population growth and wealth.

Cahokia, near modern-day St. Louis, was home to an estimated 40,000 Cahokian people, after whom the city was named. It became the major urban trade center along the Mississippi River and remained the largest city ever recorded in North America until Philadelphia surpassed its population numbers 500 years later. Monk’s Mound, at the center of Cahokia, is the largest pre-contact earthwork in modern America, expanding 955 feet in length and 100 feet in height. Cahokia's population declined sharply around 1250, probably due to environmental factors such as overhunting or deforestation.

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Poverty Point, another mound city, linked large trade networks throughout the Americas. Located in the northern part of modern-day Louisiana, the city provided a place to export stone and clay items on dugout canoes up the Mississippi River. In return, flint and soapstone came to the South from the Ohio River Valley. Historians hypothesize that Poverty Point also had religious significance, indicated by large plazas most likely used for worship.

Most people lived in hamlets, or villages, which would form political units of under one thousand people. Seminoles, in modern Florida and Georgia, constructed villages out of chickees, buildings with thatched roofs and open sides.

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##Social and religious norms: stratifying wealth

The agricultural boom of the Mississippian culture concentrated wealth at the top. The Creek people in Georgia practiced slavery, forcing prisoners of war to work their fields. The Southeast Native Americans were the first to organize villages around chiefdoms, in which families were ranked by social status and proximity to the chief himself.

Chiefs lived in elaborate wooden structures atop large mounds, indicating their power. Societies often had both peace chiefs and wartime chiefs, with distinct purposes and leadership strengths.

Historians know little about the religious practices of the American Indians in the Southeast. Yet they agree that the groups had a spiritual connection to the land and used the mounds for ceremonies worshipping natural features, including the sun, corn, and water, the elements which sustained them.

##What do you think?

Compare and contrast Hopewellian (Northeast, 200 BCE to 500 CE) and Mississippian culture (Southeast, 1000-1300 CE). How were they similar? How were they different?

Why do you think the agricultural success of Mississippians led to social stratification?

How did trade influence large Mississippian societies like Cahokia or Poverty Point?

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[[☃ explanation 1]]

##Geographic and temporal setting: across the flatlands

The Plains region spreads to the east of the Rocky Mountains, up to 400 miles across the flat land of the center of the present-day United States. The Plains were very sparsely populated until about 1100 CE, when Native American groups including Pawnees, Mandans, Omahas, Wichitas, Cheyennes, and other groups started to inhabit the area.

The climate supported limited farming closer to the major waterways but ultimately became most fruitful for hunting large and small game.

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##Common food practices: introduction of corn, but shifts back to hunting and gathering

Plains Native Americans planted the three sisters—beans, squash, and corn—as they arrived from the Southwest around 900 CE. Agriculture was most commonly practiced and most fruitful along rivers. Plains inhabitants also harvested plants for medicinal purposes; for example, chokecherries were thought to cure stomach sickness. Women farmed and gathered, while men hunted. Hunting became a more dominant practice when a drought struck in the 1300s.

Indigenous people hunted large animals early as 12,000 BCE. They practiced a mixture of agriculture and hunting on foot, using large spears with Clovis points at the end. Clovis points, sharp points carved out of stone, have been now discovered all across North America. Archaeologists estimate that a spear with a Clovis point at the end could kill animals the size of African elephants, corroborating the idea that Native Americans used these two-centimeter spearpoints to hunt massive animals like mammoths, buffalo, and bison.

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Horses did not arrive in North America until 1519, when they were introduced by the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés. Cortés brought about 600 horses to the region throughout his expeditions. Later, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado and Juan de Oñate would bring more. When horses became widely available in the 1600s, Lakotas and Cheyennes gave up agriculture altogether to become nomadic buffalo-hunters.

##Societal organization: sedentary, and then nomadic

In earlier, more agrarian societies, Native Americans on the Plains would set up sedentary bases in earth lodges. Highly agrarian groups, like the Wichitas, built grass homes near their crops. In the eastern part of the Plains, where the Hidatsa and Mandan peoples cultivated maize, they established trade networks along the Mississippi River. They made bull boats by stretching bison skin over a wooden frame to trade goods along the rivers. They traded elaborate baskets and leather for metal and furs from the Northeast.

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As Native Americans on the Plains became more focused on hunting, they became more nomadic. They constructed teepees—conical tents made out of buffalo skin and wood—shelters that were easy to put up and take down if a band was following a buffalo herd for hunting. Sometimes, Native Americans on the Plains lived in a combination of nomadic and sedentary settings: they would plant crops and establish villages in the spring, hunt in the summer, harvest their crops in the fall, and hunt in the winter.

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##Social and religious norms: competition and trade puts pressure on social order

These hunting-agrarian groups were mostly divided at the level of the band. A band could consist of a dozen to a few hundred people who lived, hunted, and traveled together. Often, bands would unite in a village setting to farm or hunt a large herd of bison. Villages usually had fluid populations and little to no political structure.

It is nearly impossible to generalize the religious traditions of the Plains region since every group had its own practices. Rituals often revolved around the sun and nature, with the Earth as the mother of all spirits. Cheyennes, for example, performed the Sun Dance, which forced people to sacrifice something personal for communal benefit. Lakotas believed that certain individuals were blessed to be spiritual leaders or medicine men. Indigenous people on the Plains regarded the buffalo and their migration patterns as sacred.

With the introduction of horses, Plains societies became less egalitarian; the men with the most horses had the most political impact, social status, and economic power. As European colonists arrived, the Sioux, in particular, began to trade with them. They received guns and horses in exchange for buffalo robes, blankets, and beads.

Intertribal conflict increased due to this heightened competition, with groups stealing each others' horses for economic gain and glory. This began a pattern of violence between the Native American groups and Euro-American colonists as they settled across the Plains during the centuries to come.

##What do you think?

Consider the teepee and the earth lodge. How do different living structures across the Plains reflect the cultural practices of Native Americans?

How did the introduction of horses change Native American life?

Why do you think some Native Americans organized in larger groups or villages, while others operated in small bands?

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