Native Americans of North America

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Moieties

Many Indian tribes were divided into two groups called moieties (pronounced MOY-uh-tees). Each moiety, in turn, was often composed of related clans. For example, among the Osage, farmers who lived in present-day Missouri, 9 clans formed the “household” moiety, which symbolized the sky and peace, and 15 clans formed the “sacred ones” moiety, which symbolized the Earth and war. People were not allowed to marry someone from their own moiety. Each Osage village had two chiefs, one from each moiety, and each chief had identical authority. The chiefs’ primary role was to keep peace among village families and to organize and lead the village bison hunts.

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Chiefdoms

Chiefdoms, even more complex than tribes, were governed by a single chief who was both the political and religious leader. His position was often hereditary within a single family or clan that had rights based on supernatural powers attributed to them in their origin story. Whereas bands and tribes were egalitarian societies, in which lineages and clans had equal status in principle, chiefdoms were ranked societies, in which certain families enjoyed greater authority and privileges. Access to resources was based on inherited status. The chief, viewed as a god on Earth, evoked reverence and fear from his subjects. His supernatural status conferred authority and power, and he governed through decree rather than consensus.

Powerful chiefdoms in North America arose with the Mississippian culture, which flourished in the eastern part of the continent from approximately ad 800 until the arrival of European explorers. Its people, who subsisted through intensive maize farming, built large towns with earth platforms, or mounds, supporting temples and rulers’ residences. Across the Mississippi River from present-day St. Louis, Missouri, the Mississippians built the city of Cahokia, which, at its apex between ad 1100 and 1200, may have had a population of 20,000. Its central temple mound rose in four terraces to an elevation of 30 m (100 ft), atop which lived the chief and his close relatives, who were considered nobles.

A similar chiefdom, the Natchez, survived into the 18th century in the Southeast. Like the earlier Mississippians, the Natchez had a central temple mound as well as other mounds for nobles’ residences and for burials. The supreme ruler, known as the Great Sun, was considered divine, as were his relatives. Most of the Natchez were commoners, but those who were nobility were divided into three ranks: Suns, Nobles, and Honored People. All ranks of nobility were allowed to marry only commoners.

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Confederacies

In areas where warfare among tribes, usually over resources and territory, occurred frequently, some tribes formed confederacies (also called federations), or alliances of several tribes. By becoming part of a confederacy, tribes could amass greater forces against their enemies. The best-known confederacy of Native American tribes is the Iroquois League, or League of Five Nations, formed in the 16th century as an alliance of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk tribes; the Tuscarora later joined and it became the League of Six Nations. A Grand Council, composed of male delegates from each tribe, met annually to settle disputes between tribes and to plan military strategy. Many believe that the ideals of the Iroquois Confederacy—unity, democracy, vision, and fair representation—inspired American colonial leaders to seek the help of the Iroquois in their attempt to replace the British monarchy with a democratic alternative; in 1754 they formulated the Albany Plan of Union, which may have been based on Iroquois ideals (see Albany Congress). Today, the Haudenosaunee, as the Iroquois call themselves, continue to maintain the confederacy and to regularly convene the Grand Council.

The Algonquian tribes of the Northeast also formed confederacies, including the Abenaki Confederacy, Delaware Confederacy, Powhatan Confederacy, Wampanoag Confederacy, and Wappinger Confederacy. Another important Native American confederacy was the Creek Confederacy in the Southeast.

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Marriage and Family Life

In contrast to industrial societies, where marriage is usually a private relationship between two individuals, marriage in Native American tribal societies was more a public relationship between two families. Instead of simply taking a spouse, a person assumed obligations to a group of in-laws. For example, among certain Apache tribes of the Southwest, when a man married, he assumed the support of his wife’s parents for the rest of his life—even if his wife died. Kinship played an important role in organizing family and work life. Kin ties helped to determine potential marriage partners, where a person lived, whom a person farmed or hunted or gathered with, and whom a person called on for aid and advice.

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Selecting a Partner

In most Native American societies, children married at a relatively young age. Girls were considered eligible for marriage after first menstruation, around age 13. Boys usually married before the age of 20. However, many young men waited to marry until their early 20s, so they could prove their ability as a good provider. Most societies tolerated sexual activity before marriage, although some, like the Cheyenne and Crow, placed a high value on sexual abstinence before marriage.

Parents usually chose a mate for their children. A child’s older relatives might also participate in the choice of marriage partner. In some tribes, marriages were arranged far in advance, during a child’s infancy or early childhood. In other areas—particularly the Arctic, Subarctic, and Great Basin—young people had greater control over their choice of spouse. If a boy and a girl expressed interest in each other, their families would decide whether to permit them to marry. If the families approved, a date was set for a wedding ceremony or an exchange of gifts. Marriage to someone from another tribe was unusual but not prohibited unless the person was from a warring tribe.

The only rule that universally governed the choice of marriage partners was the incest taboo, a prohibition against marrying close relatives. Members of the same nuclear family—specifically, sister and brother, father and daughter, or mother and son—were never allowed to marry and produce children. In most societies, the incest taboo was extended to prohibit marriage between some cousins, uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, and other close relatives. However, each group had its own definition of which relationships were considered to be too close for marriage. Among some groups, such as Northwest Coast peoples and the Chipewyan of the Subarctic, first cousins were preferred as marriage partners.

Most North American Indians allowed polygyny, the marriage of one man to two or more women. Often these wives were sisters. But usually only wealthy or powerful men were able to support several wives. In some societies, such as those of the Great Plains, women far outnumbered men, because a large number of men were killed each year through bison hunting or warfare with other tribes. Men were expected to have several wives not only to maintain the population but also to lighten the wives’ crushing workload of tanning, sewing, beading, cooking, and packing camp. The wives could also share childrearing responsibilities. Polygyny was most common in the Northwest Coast region; in some parts of this region more than 20 percent of marriages were polygynous. Other groups, such as the Iroquois and the western Pueblos, exclusively practiced monogamy, the marriage of one man to one woman.