North American Indians
From Conservapedia
North American Indians (also Native Americans) are the original inhabitants of the Americas. The Native Americans of North America are typically considered to be all those tribes north of Central Mexico. While technically part of North America, most archaeologists tend to place the civilizations of Central Mexico into a separate category.[1] Tribes in North America maintained a wide variety of subsistence patterns, from hunting and gathering, to intensive agriculture. North America is also home to two of the most unusual groups of hunter-gatherers, the Northwest Coast tribes, and the Aleuts. The first Native Americans are believed to have migrated from Asia via the Bering land bridge, the exposed continental shelf through Alaska between Asia and North America during the last Ice Age.
While the American Indian population once numbered over 100 million, over 90% were killed by European diseases augmented by changes in the natural habitat caused by the new arrivals.[2]
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Culture Areas of North America
American Indians of North America are generally divided into culture areas according to similarities in geography, environment, subsistence patterns, language family, and similar social practices. According to the Handbook of North American Indians, there are ten such cultural areas.[3]
- Arctic
- Greenland, extreme northern Canada, and the northern and western coastlines of Alaska.
- Subarctic
- Most of central Canada and interior Alaska.
- Northeast
- New England, Nova Scotia, the Great Lakes region, the Chesapeake Bay area, and most of current day W. Virginia, the Ohio River valley, and Illinois.
- Southeast
- N. Carolina excluding the NE corner, western Virginia, southern W. Virginia, and all the southern states east of the Mississippi River, in addition to parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, and eastern Texas.
- Plains
- the entire Midwest United States from Texas north to southern parts of Canada.
- Southwest
- Central Mexico north into W. Texas, NM, and AZ.
- Great Basin
- Nevada, Utah, N. Arizona, W. Colorado, W. Wyoming, S. Idaho, SE Oregon, and parts of W. California.
- California
- Interior and Coastal California and N. Baja.
- Northwest Coast
- N. California to S. Alaska along 1500 miles of coastline.
- Plateau
- Parts of Oregon, Washington, N. Idaho, W. Montana, and SW Canada.
Today
Today, many Indian tribes are seeing a resurgence, such as in California, through laws that give them special privileges in allowing gambling in the form of slot machines and other gaming, through outreach programs to reunite urban Indians with both their reservation families and other urban tribal members; programs set up both by the tribe themselves (often with assistance of state and local governments) to teach their languages and open schools that focus on a tribal way of life. Most tribes have been granted some limited power in self governance as well, significantly in the area of the sentencing of tribal members in various criminal and civil issues. Special tax breaks have helped Indian people and Indian reservations become more self-sufficient. Some states have even revisited the definition of 'reservation' based on the Dawes Act which originally provided for substantially more "reservation" land if the Indian people would buy it as individual land, and either market it or farm it (the intent was to help Indian Peoples integrate into the American social and economic systems). So for instance in Wisconsin, Indian reservation land can include buying real estate in Milwaukee - far from the physical location of the tribes themselves.
Self governance is a huge issue, with each of the over 300 recognized tribes having different rules and regulations placed on them by the Government. As with every other political system in the world, Indian People disagree with each other about many issues from how to spend government money to how "traditional" to become, to what religion should be the focal point of the tribe.
Other issues remain between recognized Sovereign Nations and the US government including mineral right issues, natural resource husbandry and mediation, conflicts with government run museums (as well as a few private museums) over who has the right to various artifacts, what rights modern Indian peoples should and should not have when dealing with artifacts that are clearly earlier than the oldest known existence of any particular tribe (for example, who has rights to archaeological finds at Mesa Verde, which represents an extinct tribe, the Anisazii).
Social Issues
When the American Indian Peoples were rounded up onto reservations, the sudden dependence on the government created situations that are often associated with welfare situations. Both because of biology (Indian people like many Asian people do not break down alcohol the same way Europeans do) and the lack of being a "bread winner" that men throughout history find critical to identity as head of the family, alcohol and drug abuse are very common both among reservation and urban Indians today. [4] A strong rise in child and spousal abuse occurred after the "welfare state" like existence for the men came into being. Without the need to provide for the family, depression sets in, and is a common problem on the reservation.
Conflicts between "traditionalists" and "modernists", between "Christian Indians" and "tribal religion" Indians, between urban Indians and reservation Indians, and "full bloods" and "mixed bloods" are common among Indian people and effect their politics and social life. In the 1980's, Indian reservations began to see a rise in gangs, often as a result of drugs and drug wars with other social cultures in large cities.
Yet at the same time, Indian People have a proud heritage and find strength there to renew their cultures. They are, as a people, generally both proud to be American and (since World War I), proud soldiers for this country. At any Indian gathering, the first people onto the dance floor, or introduced politically, or recognized for contributions to the tribe are the elder male veterans, then the elder women (non veterans), the all other veterans, and only then people who have not served in the US military.
Indian People have many problems to solve, but new social services, generally run and funded by the tribes themselves, along with new recognition of Indian People's contributions to society are ways that tribes and individuals are trying to change things.
References
- ↑ Swidler, Nina, Dongoske, Roger. 1997. Native Americans and Archaeologists: Stepping Stones to Common Ground. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.
- ↑ Trail of Tears
- ↑ Washburn, Wilcomb E. 1998. Handbook Of North American Indians, Vol. 4, History of Indian-White Relations. Washington: Smithsonian Institute.
- ↑ 12% of Indian deaths are related to alcohol, several times the national average. http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Aug28/0,4670,IndianDeathsAlcohol,00.html
