Native Americans of North America

Article Outline

Introduction; Population: Past and Present; Earliest Peoples; Culture Areas; Traditional Way of Life; History; Native Americans Today

Transportation

Northeast peoples frequently relied on birchbark canoes for transporting people and provisions in waterways. Algonquian peoples crafted them using a framework of cedar or spruce wood and a covering of birchbark. They sewed pieces of bark together with spruce root, then sealed the seams with melted spruce gum. These elegant boats drew little water, making them well suited for navigating shallow lakes, rivers, and streams. Light and strong, birchbark canoes could be carried easily overland, making them advantageous for hunting or raiding expeditions. Iroquoians used heavier elm bark instead of birchbark to cover their canoe frameworks.

Clothing and Ornamentation

Hide Garments

Deerskin was the material of choice for clothing before Europeans brought cotton and other trade goods into the Northeast. Treated and softened hide was used for shirts, leggings, dresses, skirts, breechcloths, and moccasins. Northeast Indians also made robes and mittens from beaver and bear fur. To decorate clothing they used feathers, shells, stones, paint, and porcupine-quill embroidery. Sometimes they used paint for body decoration or adorned their faces with tattoos, although tattooing was not as prevalent as in the Southeast culture area.

Wampum

The Algonquians and Iroquoians placed a high value on wampum, an Algonquian-derived term that refers to small beads made from shells, or the strings, belts, or sashes made from these beads. Wampum was used for a variety of tribal and intertribal purposes. Especially valued were beads made from the dark purple, black, and white quahog clamshells. Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples used beads to decorate tools and weapons, and as jewelry. They also used belts of wampum with beads arranged in pictographs for keeping tribal records and to communicate messages of peace or war to other tribes. Some tribes used wampum belts in religious and kinship ceremonies.

Prior to European contact, wampum sometimes served as a medium of exchange, although its other cultural functions were more significant. The Europeans began making wampum out of glass beads for trade purposes—especially for the fur trade—and it eventually became used as a form of money. Native Americans also began making wampum from European glass beads.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

The Great Spirit

Northeast Indians believed in a spirit world that interacted with the physical, or natural, world. This included belief in a primary spirit, a great animating force that pervaded all existence. Algonquians called this animating force Kitche Manitou (“Great Spirit”), or simply Manitou, and by other names depending on language dialects. The Iroquoian version of Manitou is known as Orenda, among other names, and Siouans referred to it by variations on Wakan, or Wakanda. According to indigenous beliefs, the Great Spirit had many manifestations. It was believed to be present in all things—animals, plants, water, rocks, and other natural phenomena, such as the Sun, Moon, weather, or sickness. Lesser manifestations of the Great Spirit were sometimes referred to as manitous or by other names, such as Thunderbird, Bringer of Rain. Shamans were believed to be capable of controlling these spirits.

Apart from a general belief in the Great Spirit, Algonquian tribes had different legends and believed in different supernatural beings. Some of these beings were considered heroes or guardian spirits, such as Manebozho, the Great Hare, who, according to the legends of the Ojibwa and other Algonquian tribes, remade the world after bad spirits had destroyed it in a flood.

Medicine Societies

Medicine societies, composed of practitioners skilled in the arts of healing, were important among many Northeast peoples. These societies sought the help of the spirit world and dispensed herbal cures to ward off disease and heal the sick. One of the most famous Northeast medicine societies was the Medewiwin (Grand Medicine Society), which originated among the Ojibwa and spread to other Great Lakes Algonquians. Members, known as Mides, served a long apprenticeship before gaining admittance to the society. Separate apprenticeships were necessary to attain the four ranks of Mides, each of which was associated with ever-greater supernatural powers.

Members of the False Face Society of the Iroquois wore wooden masks known as false faces. The masks, which represented spirits known as Faces of the Forest, were carved on a living tree. Then a ceremony of prayer and tobacco offering was held while the masks were cut from the trunk. The masks were believed to frighten away malevolent spirits that caused illness, and False Face dances were performed to heal the sick.

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