Contents:
(Click on the appropriate link)
Origins of the Amerindians
Variations in Indian languages
Games and entertainment
Social and political organization
American Indian Culture areas
Spirituality
Conclusion
Bibliography
1. Eastern Woodlands
"The Eastern Woodlands consist of the temperate-climate regions of the eastern U.S. and Canada, from Minnesota and Ontario east to the Atlantic and south to North Carolina. The Southeast culture area is the semitropical region north of the Gulf of Mexico and south of the Middle Atlantic-Midwest region; it extends from the Atlantic coast west to central Texas"1. These two woodland areas are now known as the Northeastern and Southeastern Maize region.
The large area had plentiful rainfall, vast forests and many lakes and streams. They did not have to wander seeking wild food. Since they knew how to grow crops, they could live in villages. 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.
a) Housing
Many different kinds of houses were found throughout the Eastern Woodland. The most widely used was probably the bark-covered wigwam. "Wigwams were made by bending young trees to form the round shape of the home"2. The frame of the hut was made of small, flexible trees while barks were generally used to form the roof. A space was left vacant for a door and a smoke hole.
The Iroquois and certain other New York tribes built the larger longhouse in which five to a dozen families might live together. The house was divided into compartments opening upon a central passageway.
In the warm Southeast, certain tribes had winter houses of clay plastered on a framework of poles, with a domed or cone-shaped roof. The Seminoles in Florida used a palmetto-thatched shelter without sidewalls called a chikee.
All the houses were crowded but the Indians did not mind since they spent most of their time outside. A village of the Iroquois is usually built by a river or lake so the people could travel by water. The houses of a settlement were often scattered according to the convenience of the owner except on disputed tribal frontiers were they were compactly set together. They drove poles into the ground to make a high fence around the village to protect it from attack. "Villages were permanent in the sense they were moved only for defensive purposes or when the soil became exhausted (about every twenty years)"3. When the ground lost its richness, the game became scarce, or the firewood was used up, the villagers would actually leave their old homes and move to a new location.
The historic peoples of the Eastern Woodlands included the Iroquois, Delaware, Shawnee, Illinois and a number of Algonquian-speaking peoples. Some of them moved west in the 19th century. Southeastern peoples of historic times include the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, the Creek and the Seminoles. Those tribes are known as the Five Civilized Tribes because of their economy and political organization, similar to those of European nations. Not to mention the numerous European goods and habits these communities incorporated into their way of life.
b) Economy and division of labor in a Woodland village
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.
Men hunted the forest animals to get meat for food as well as clothing materials. The men helped with building wigwams and with clearing the ground for gardens. Skilled men of the tribe made the bows and arrows, war clubs, and stone knives. The Eastern Woodland Indians traveled fastest by water. So, many tribes had canoes at their disposal. As a rule, the northern tribes made bark canoes while southeastern tribes made dugout canoes. The Indians used their canoes in hunting and fishing. On land the Indians traveled on foot. Having no draft animals, they carried burdens on their backs. The dog was their only domestic animal.
The women had garden plots where corn, beans, pumpkin, squash, tobacco, and gourds were planted. The cultivation of squash was learned from Mexicans. They harvested the crops and prepared the food. They dried corn, squash, berries, meat, and fish for the cold months.
Some areas offered special things to eat such as sugar. Indians extracted and boiled the sap from tapping the sugar maples that sprout in the forests of the northeast.
Many days of work were required to make the buckskin garments the Indians wore. Tailoring the garments meant cutting the skins with shell or flint knives and sewing them with animal sinews.
Women of many eastern tribes knew how to weave mats, baskets, and belts and most tribes of the region made pottery jars for cooking and storing foods.
The Indians of the eastern forests were the first ones the American colonists met. From the beginning, the American people have used Indian methods and equipment when living in the forests of the east. Indian ways were valued because they were suited to the wilderness of forests, rivers, and lakes. They learned to grow corn and to bury a fish for fertilizer, they adopted the Indian’s canoe for water travel and found out how to hunt Indian style. The fur traders patterned their lives on the Indian way of life. Later, the pioneer settlers often wore buckskin too, and housewives followed many Indian recipes in their cookery.
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1 Encyclopaedia Encarta - Native Americans http://encarta.msn.com/find/concise.asp?mod=1&ti=761570777&page=4#s22
2 Eastern Woodland Indians http://www.germantown.k12.il.us/html/woodland2.html
3 Iroquois History http://www.dickshovel.com/iro.html
