Origins of the Amerindians

Variations in Indian languages

Games and entertainment

Social and political organization

American Indian Culture areas

Spirituality

Conclusion

Bibliography

2. Political organization

"The smallest societies are found in regions that are poor in food resources"¹.
The least complex political structures found in North America were the hunting-gathering bands. These were nomadic or semi-nomadic small bands that followed the availability of food. Among these peoples, two or three couples and their children often lived together, moving camp several times a year to take advantage of seasonal foods in different localities. In general, the women stayed around the camp and gathered vegetation while the men moved away from the settlement and hunted small game. It is likely that they gathered each summer for a few weeks with other bands to celebrate religious ceremonies and to trade, compete in sports, gamble, and visit. Within one group, the authority usually rested on the eldest member of each individual family who took most of the decisions for his relatives. Owing to the absence of central means of resolving conflicts, the bands could easily break apart.

However, the most common political structure among American Indians seemed to be chieftaincies which included more than one kinship group and often more than one local settlement or clan. These sedentary communities were larger than hunting-gathering bands. As a result, they also had considerably more social demands, including property, use of resources, use of surpluses, questions of membership in the community, and so on. The kinship group consequently needed to be more structured.

Government was generally extremely simple and democratic among the Indian tribes. The process of leadership itself was greatly spontaneous and it is correct to say that Indian political and social organization was largely based on freedom and democracy. Of course, several men would often compete for leadership so that when a band became too numerous, one of these men would leave the group and form a new community with the people willing to trust him. This procedure went on for centuries.

a) The chief

With a few notable exceptions, there was very little idea of supreme authority and the chief was not an autocratic ruler. Indians had a very loose political status and believed that a man was born a leader, that he was equipped to lead by nature. He was usually chosen because of his ability and wisdom or his individual achievements. Yet in a few tribes the office was hereditary and the authority of the chief was vested through a descent line. In this case, the chief was often selected from a family that trained its children for leadership. Some societies included several chiefs of equal authority while others rather had a single individual to lead them.

The roles of the chief varied considerably from society to society but 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. In some communities, he was the chief arbiter of disputes, in others, he was a religious leader and in others still, he was a military leader. A war chief was selected to lead a raid or campaign. Among the Iroquois, for instance, the chiefs served mainly as war leaders while the day-to-day decision making in the settlements fell completely to the elder women of the settlement. The principal role of the chief was to settle the disputes and advise the people. Beneath the chief an entire hierarchy of decision-making developed.

Occasionally, head men would meet in tribal council but there again, a village was allowed to refuse to cooperate temporarily or permanently if its leaders did not agree with the decisions of the council.

b) The tribal council

Most of the time, neighboring villages united to form an alliance. The authority that governed such an alliance as well as each village was called a council which was the real authority as interpreters of ancient tribal customs. Tribal and village councils discussed and acted upon important matters.

The village councils usually consisted of representatives from each family, and the alliance council was made up of representatives from the villages. There again, some tribal council representatives were hereditary while others were elected. The council selected a man (or among specific tribes, a woman) to preside over the council. He also was the main liaison between the different members of the villages included in the alliance. The Iroquois being a matriarchal society, matrons took part in grand councils.

The Iroquois of New York had progressed in the elaboration of a state and empire and probably would have in time founded it if not prematurely checked by the arrival of the Europeans. The founders set up the framework of a code of laws which had the force of a formal constitution, the Great Council Fire of the league was its governing body and representatives of the tribes met annually to formulate policies and to take action. Through a carefully planned system of confederations, the five allied tribes had secured internal peace and unity and had been able to acquire dominant control over most of the tribes from Hudson Bay to Carolina.

c) Warfare

For the most part, Indian groups would fight whether to defend their tribal territories against intruders or, in the contrary, to take over nearby tribes’ territories but some Indian battles were also fought for revenge. Native American Indians frequently moved into the attack by surprise and in small groups. On the Plains the warriors of the tribes were organized into military societies of differing degrees of rank, from the boys in training to the old men who had passed their active period. Military service was entirely voluntary. Contrary to European practice, the command usually rested with several leaders of equal rank, who were not necessarily recognized as chiefs on other occasions. The custom of scalping the dead, so general in later Indian wars, was confined originally to a limited area east of the Mississippi.

In attacks, bows and arrows were generally used. But they were not the only weapons available for Indian use. Indeed, Indians also had knives, clubs, lances, and tomahawks, or stone axes at their disposal. The latter were soon replaced by light steel hatchets supplied by European traders, though. To these, certain tribes added defensive armor, as the body-armor in use along the northwest coast and some other regions, and the shield more particularly used by the equestrian tribes of the Plains.

As a rule, the lance and shield were more common in the open country, and the tomahawk in the woods. The bow was usually of some tough and flexible wood but was sometimes of bone or horn. Besides, fire arrows could be effective against thatched-house villages. Indian peoples in present U.S. territory also conducted war raids to obtain captives. When the Spaniards brought horses to the New World, Indians developed techniques of raiding from horseback. Enslavement of captives was more or less common throughout the country. Along the northwestern coast and in California, slavery prevailed and was the usual fate of the captive. Moreover, not only the captives but also their children and later descendants were slaves. Captives among the eastern tribes were either condemned to death with every horrible form of torture or ceremonially adopted into the tribe, the decision usually resting with the women. If adopted, he became a member of a family and acquired at once full tribal rights. Adults were seldom spared, but children frequently were and either regularly adopted or brought up in a mild sort of slavery.

In many western tribes, the warrior's prowess was measured by the number of his coups (strokes upon the enemy) for which there was a regular scale according to the kind, the highest honor being accorded to the warrior who struck the first blow upon the enemy.

The departure and the return were made according to the fixed ceremonial forms, with solemn chants of defiance, victory, or grief at defeat. The scalp dance was performed, not by the warriors, but by the women, who thus rejoiced over the success of their husbands and brothers.

¹ Encyclopaedia Encarta - Native Americans http://encarta.msn.com/find/concise.asp?mod=1&ti=761570777&page=4#s22