There are several different ideas as to the origin of Native Americans. Some say they migrated from northeastern Asia to Alaska and then to the Americas. The fact that it was possible for people to cross the Bering Straits to North America and make even longer journeys along the Alaskan coast have been proved, making this a plausible explanation as to the origin of the Native Americans.
Regardless of their origin the Native Americans were scattered around villages in all parts of north and South America when Columbus arrived in the America's. And although they may have, at one time, descended from one tribe of people, they spoke many languages and had many customs and traditions.O
ne of the beliefs held by almost all tribes was that
one day a "Great
White God" would come to them and teach them many wise and wonderful things.
Therefore, when Columbus arrived, he was treated as a god, a fact which
lead to much grief for the Native Americans of that day and to this day!
In the United States tribes were different and they spoke so many languages that, except in a few cases, members of neighboring tribes could not understand the language of the other. In order to overcome the difficulty in communication sign language was invented. This language is said by some authorities to be the finest gesture language ever devised by man. By using this sign talk Native Americans could communicate, no matter how different their spoken languages.
The Native American of the United States, although they differed in many ways, had a lot of customs, costumes and habits that were the same. Ethnologists have divided the US Native Americans into seven culture groups: Eastern Woodland, Southeastern Woodland, Northwest Coast, Californian, Southwestern Plateau and Plains.
In the forest that were stretched from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean and from Hudson's Bay to the Gulf of Mexico lived the Woodland Tribes. The Ojibwa people were one of these tribes.
The Native American people achieved the formation of a political organization known as the League of the IroquoisLeague of the Leaquois, a "League of Nations" organized by five tribes that lived in NY State. The Tuscaroras of North Carolina were admitted later. Each tribe in the League elected representatives to the supreme council which made the laws for the tribes. The officers of this league were: fire-keeper, wampum keeper, door-keeper and head war chief. This league was so successful that it was instrumental in abolishing hatred among the Native nations, putting a stop to "hate" wars within its membership. It grew so powerful that, at one point, it was on its way to controlling the eastern half of North America. When the white man arrived it started the beginning of the decline of power in the League but, even then it was powerful and played a great role in the struggle between Britain and France for control of this country.
To make a meal, keep warm or "heat up the tea" the Native Americans had to make a fire from scratch, not the scratch of a match mind you, but scratch! They would make a depression in the earth, filling it with tinder which would catch the spark from the wood being rubbed together. The devises they used for this purpose were made with an apparatus called a fire drill.
T
he Native American food
supply was not as limited as one
may believe.
They were expert fishermen and hunters. But they also used wild plants
and learned to cultivate and developed some of them to grow in their own
gardens. Wild plants and herbs were used for food as well as healing the
sick. Modern people are just beginning to explore the many and varied ways
in which the American Natives used "natural cures" and, much to their dismay,
are finding very useful in the treatment many ailments.
These were a people who were next to genius in the art of surviving. They taught the early settlers how to make foods from Maize (corn), including corn bread, popcorn, hominy and succotash. The Natives ate surprisingly well. Their larders were seldom, if ever empty before the white man came to this country. They had learned how to make corn cakes, baked squash, wild rice soup, acorn mush, acorn bread, Indian potatoes, puddings and maple sugar, to name a few items on their food list. Their diet also included several teas using sassafras roots, sweet-birch twigs, wintergreen leaves and other plants, including the young leaves of the strawberry plant.
The information I am using was taken from some old sources as they refer to the Native Americans as "Indians," not proper in our modern age. And, since they were here long before Columbus or any other white man, they are truly the only "Native Americans."
