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We do not yet have a great deal of information on individual tribes, but our list of tribes is gradually expanding. We will list the various tribes we have information on alphabetically. The Iriquois Confederation was the most important Native American group the early European colonists encountered. The story of the Cherokee is probably the most tragic. The Cheyene dominated the Great Plains. The Navajo were the most important tibe in the Southwest. The Apache proved the most difficult to pacify. The Piute were an importan tribal group in the Great Basin and would be primarily included in the Califotrnia cultural area. The Sioux were especuially important on the northern plains. Another important Plains tribe was the Cheyenne. The Aleuts inhabited the Aleutian Islands separating the North Pacific and Bearing Sea. The Yuman were an important Southwestern language group. We group these tribes by cultural areas, but here an alphabetical listing makes them easier to find.
The Aleuts are the people of the Aleutian Islands and western Alaska who survived as maritime hunters. The Aleutians extend for about 1,800 kilometers (km) southwestward from the Alaskan mainland toward Russian Siberia. They separate the North Pacific from the Bering Sea, one of the roughest bodies of water in the world. These Islands are what is left of the land bridge which once connected Siberia and Alaska and which waves of migration from Siberia populated North and evenntually South America. The Aleuts are presumably descended from the last wave of migration, but I have little information about this. The Aleuts were the people encontered by Danish explorer in the service of the Russian Vitus Bering (1681-1741) in his voyage of discovery, from which he did not survive. The Russians proceeded to colonize Alaska. The Russians were attracted by furs, especially the luxurious sea otter pelts. It was the Russians who provided the name "Aleuts", the original Russian meaning is now unknown. They called themselves Unangan, meaning "the people" in their language. The Aleuts are racially and ethnically related to the Eskimo, but have a destinctive language and culture. The encounter with Bering and the Russians (1741) was the Aleuts first contact with Europeans. The Aleuts lived in widely scattered villages a survived by hunting marine mammals and fishing. The population at the time Bering encountered them has been various estimted at 12,000 to 25,000. Their houses were semisubterranean, designed to withstand the severe weather of the North Pacific and Bering Sea. There class system included both nobles and slaves and had a system of bilateral descent. Shamans or priest, medicinemen were important in hunting rituals as well as social taboos and medicine. The Aleutians are extremely baren. wind-swept islands. Intensive agriculture is not possible. The Aleuts thus turned to the sea. They primarily went after sea otters, sealions, seals, whales, and fish using skin-covered boats. Land resources imcluded birds, eggs, and a variety of plants. It was the fur trade that attracted the Russians who by 1750 had set up trading posts. Sea otters have the most luxurious pelts in the animal kingdom. Other valuable pelts were available, including fur seals, and foxes. The Russians essentially enslaved the Aleuts to hunt for them. The Aleuts were decimated by the Russians who treated them severely and by the European diseases they introduced. The Russians sold Alaska including the leutian Islnds to the United States (1867). By this time the populations of sea otters and fur seals had been badly depleted. There are today about 8,000 Aleuts in Alaska.
The Apache are perhaps the best known American Native American tribe. This is not because they were the largest are most important. Tt probably reflects their war-like nature and the fact they were the last tribe the Calvalry succeeded in pacifying. Their dramatic resistance at atime in which other tribes had been driven into reservations made them dramatic subjects for both books and movie depictions. Their charasmatic leader, Geronimo, was aother factor. The Apache proved the most difficult to pacify.
The story of the Cherokee is probably the most tragic.
The Cheyenne people originsated east of the Mississippi in the wooded head waters of the Mississppi. The French explorer La Salle is the first European to mention thecCheyenne which he called Chaa--his spelling of the Sioux name for the Cheyenne (1680). He encountered them in what is now Illinois. They lived in permanent villages and engaged in agriculture. They began moving west and southwest, pushed by the tribes beung driven west by the English settlers. Eventually the Cheyenne moved into the Great Plains east of the Rockey Mountains. They are one of the most widely known of the Plains tribes. The Cheyenne Nation comprised ten bands, spread over the Great Plains, from southern Colorado to the Black Hills in South Dakota. The Sioux in the mid-19th century began to divide. Some bands remained near the Black Hills, while others tended to keep close to Platte River of central Colorado. In this process they split into two groups, the northern and southern Sioux. Their easterly origins is conformed by their languge. The Cheyenne speak a dialect belongs to the Algonquin language family. The alphabet consists of only fourteen letters. As the Cheyenne moved west on to the Plains, their culture changed from a settle agricultural existence to a more nomadic hunting society. The men capture wild horses which descended from animals that escaped from the Spanish. This helped them hunt bufalo. They also traped beaver. An important custom shared with orther Algonquin people was the smoking of the peace pipe. There was a some very carefully followed process involving the smoking of the pipe. A prayer was offered before the pipe was lit. Braves often had their own way to smoke the pipe. Another important Cheyenne tradition was story telling.
The Hopi at their peak inhabited virtually all of northern Arizona, including areas of southwestern California and southern Nevada. The Hopis have a reservation in Black Mesa, Arizona near the famed Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park. The Hopi speak a Shoshonean language, which is one of the Uto-Aztecan languages branches of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock. An exception is the Hano Pueblo where the people speak a language which belongs to the Tanoan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock. The Hopi or Moki/Moqui are one of the principal Pueblo tribal groups. The Hopi were a pre-literate people. Researchers have been avle to develop some basic history of the Hopu through archeology, anthropology, and linguistic studies. DNA studies may be avle to tell us more. The written record, however, only begins with the European discovery and exploration of the America. Within only decades of Columbus' voyages, Spanish Conquistadores reached the Hopi nd other Pueblo peoples (1540). The Hopi began involved in a fight for their existence with both the Spanish and Navho. Theur response was to move into more remote areas and build better protected pueblos. Spanish missionaries built missions, but they were destroyed in the Hopi Revolt. The remote inhospital lands and the small Spanish population was their best protection. The same was true after Mexican independence. The expanding United States reached the the Hopi after the Civil War. American authorities moved the Hopi on to the Black Nesa Reservation. The Hopi are best known for their agricultural skills. To achieve high levels of agricultural production they used methods like terracing and varius types of irrigation. Corn was the primary crop. They also raised cotton, beans, squash, and tobacco. This thriving agricultural economy was a phenomenal technological achievement in the middle of the Arizona desert. Since the coming of the Spanish, sheep ranching has become important. A further social impact as the villages grew was that clans began to form with land ties. Hopi villages were divided into the clans and governed by a chief, who was a political and spiritual leader. Clans became very important in Hopi society. Both political and religious duties revolved around the clans. Each clan became responsible for specific fields in the valleys (arroyos) below the mesas. Hopi society was organize on matrilineal lines. All important field inheritance and social status was thus passed through the mothers. It was the men who worked the fields.
The Iriquois Confederation was the most important Native American group the early European colonists encountered.
The Navajo were the most important tibe in the Southwest.
The Paiute/Piute were an importan tribal group in the Great Basin and would be primarily included in the Southwestern cultural area rather than the California area, although their range included eastern California. The Paiute are often divided into two related groups, the Northern and Southern Paiute. The Norrther Paiute lived in what is now California, Nevada and Oregon. The Southern Paiute were found in Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah. Both Paiute groups spoke languages (Northern Paiute and Ute-Southern Paiute) belonging to the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan family, but are not as closely related as with other Numic languages. The relationship between the Northern and Souther Paiute is primarily linguistic and cultural and not necesarily political or ethnic. Several small tribes (Bannock, Mono, Timbisha and Kawaiisu) are related to the Paiute and other associated tribes. The origin of the word Paiute is disputed. These were relativey small tribes. The Northern Paiute may have been no larger than 6,000 people. The Southern Paiute were the first to come into contact with Europeans, Spanish missionries (1776). They suffered from slave raids by the Navajo and Utes and the Spanish made matters worse. The Mormos ended the practice, but took control of water sources. The Northern Paiutes encountered Europans, mostly after the California Gold Rush. Bothe Paute groups suffered from exposure to European diseases. The Paiute War was a series of raids and ambushes initiated by the Paiute pressured by American encroachments (May-June 1860). One result was the creation of the Pony Express which had an effect on the development of the Pony Express.
The Sioux were especuially important on the northern plains. The Sioux, also called the Dakotas, were the most powerful tribe of the notthern plains. Sioux life came to center on the bufalo after they were able to capture and tame wild horses. The Sioux followed the migrations of the bufalo. They lived in bufalo hide teepees which were highly portable, an important atribute on the Great Plains. They could be easily put up and taken down. The poles needed for tepes could be pulled by the Sioux horses.
Yuman Tribes Indian are an important linguistic family related to the Hokan-Siouan lingistic group. The Yuman tribes were found a large area in the extreme southwest portion of what is now the United States (primarily far southern California and western Arizona) as well as northern Lower California or Mexico's Baja Peninsula. This area included great deal of the Colorado River valley. The Colorado is of course the major river system in the southwestern United States. The Yuman also occupied the lower valley of the Gila. The warm climate climate ofvthis area favoured nudity, especially during the summer. The men wore the breechcloth while women were content with a short petticoat made of strips of bark. Traditionally the primary way that Native American tribes have been grouped by ethnologists for study has been lingistics. Other shared cultural aspecs include origin mythologies, ceramic styles and technology, food items (acorns and pine nuts), gourds, songs and dances, keruk commemoration ceremonies, and coyote stories. DNA studies offers new scientific tools, but the lingistic groups are still the primary method of studying the tribes. Experts hve differed somewhat as to just which tribes fall into the Yuman grouping. The culture and social organization of the Yuman peoples was strongly affected by the environment. Generally speaking they were less advanced the Pueblo peoples and never adopted irrigation. This limited the agricultural productivity of the Yuman tribes and as a result their wealth and ability to develop a refined culture. Some of the Yuman tribes living in inhospitable areas were extremely primitive. This is reflected in cultural artifacts like pottery and clothing. The Yuman lingisistic group included quite a number of different tribes. Some of the major tribes of the northern Yuman area are the Cocopa, Diegueño, Havasupai, Maricopa, Mohave, Tonto, Walapai, Yavapa
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