CONFLICT & TENSION - Native Americans
Lifestyle
Culture
Hunting
Beliefs
Warfare
Horses were their main transport
Poles from tepees used to drag possessions with horses.
Nomadic
Captured horses and tamed them.
Traded possessions for other things (including horses)
Stole horses from neighbouring tribes
They had large families (because they practised polygamy)
Tepees were set out in a village-style and close together.
Every aspect of the buffalo was used. Nothing went to waste.
Put patterns and designs on clothing
These patterns represented/authority their status in the tribe or for gods/spirits (WAKAN TANKA).
Use of the dance & ceremony to please Wakan Tanka (the great spirit)
The sun dance - Hung up and pushed thorough pain in order to see a vision/hallucination of the great spirit.
The ghost dance, the buffalo dance and the sun dance.
Organisation of the tribe
Each person in the tribe had a role
WOMEN
Prepared the camp
MEN
Hunting
Protecting the tribe
Set up/looked after the tipis
In charge of cooking and using buffalo in their creative ways (image above).
Look after and care for the children.
Planting crops
Decorating clothes and tipis with paint, beads and quils
Participating in the decision making (depending on their status in the tribe)
CHILDREN
Learning from their parents (grils would learn from their mothers, boys wold learn from their fathers)
Acted as lookouts for the tribe
ELDERLY
Stroytellers
considered wise since they had experience
Were left behind if they weren't fast enough because they needed to be nomadic (to catch up with the bison)
Exposure: putting the good of the tribe first
When they were too old, they were willing to be left behind to die.
Hunted the buffalo mostly
Dog soldiers
Organised the buffalo hunt
Ensured that not to many buffalo are killed to that their major resource continues to exist.
Often the younger men who were in this group
Tribe was split into groups which each had their own elect leader (democracy)
CHEIF
In charge, but didn't make the decisions alone since they were democratic.
Only killed as many as needed
Never killed female or calfs so that they were able to reproduce.
Horses and guns made hunting the bison easier
Bows and arrows and spears were also used
HOW DID THY HUNT THEM?
3 Methods used
Buffalo Jump
Buffalo Chase
Tipis used because the hole at the top kept it ventilated so it was cool during the day and warm throughout the night.
Native Americans herd up the bison and get them to chase them off a cliff, at the last second, the natives would move out the way, killing the bison.
Where they would follow along side the buffalo and kill them off one by one
Buffalo stampede
They would corner the buffalo in a ravine and shot them off one by one.
Scalping
Dog Soldiers would protect the tribe as warriors, mostly young men trying to prove themselves to the tribe and get a higher status.
Inter tribal conflict
Between the Cheyenne and Sioux
Tribes would fight each other to get horses, buffalo, soldiers/wives and more.
Very aggressive
Natives would scalp their enemies to stop them from meeting again in the afterlife.
Be lived that without a scalp you wouldn't go to the afterlife or fight again - it was a looked upon as a shame upon that person.
Wives who had their husband or son killed in battle, the person who killed them was the possession of the widow and she decided if she wanted to keep them as her own or to have then killed/scalped.
Body parts from their wars were peraded up and down in a celebration if they won and then used as medicine by the medicine man or were sacrificed to the God.
Bows, arrows, lances used in warfare.
Medicines would cure with chance and only if God wanted you to get better, invoking the great spirit.
Various hunting tools used, lances, bows and arrows and more.
Used many advanced hunting techniques
The medicine man
The Great spirit (Wakan Tanka)
Counting Coup
Spiritual advisor.
Aversay religious events/ceramonies
Explained people's hallucinations form the sun dance
spoke with the great spirit and applied medicines/cured to tribal members.
Land
Land was sacred
Had to ask the Earth's permission to damage it/dig a hole
No ownership of land
Animals have rights to the land as much as humans do.
Nomadic
Nature's Great Circle
Balance and harmony.
Respect for all living things.
The circle of life
Sacred Dances
Sun dance
Ghost Dance
Buffalo Dance
Belived that a dead Native wasn't a good Native
They would tap their enemy with a stick to show how close they could get without dying!
No killing alowed
Like jousting