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Understanding Native American Myths PDF

51 Pages·2014·14.755 MB·English
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Crabtree Publishing Company www.crabtreebooks.com MYTHS UNDERSTOOD UNDERSTANDING NATIVE AMERICAN MYTHS MEGAN KOPP Crabtree Publishing Company www.crabtreebooks.com Author:Megan Kopp Photographs and reproductions: Publishing plan research and development: Cover: Thinkstock (except middle center); Shutterstock (middle center) Sean Charlebois, Reagan Miller Maps: Stefan Chabluk Crabtree Publishing Company Getty Images: 11 Editor-in-chief:Lionel Bender Library of Congress: 23 (LC-USZ62-50348), 24b (LC-USZ62-88073), 42b Editors:Simon Adams, Lynn Peppas (LC-USZC4-8937). Proofreaders:Laura Booth, Wendy Scavuzzo shutterstock.com: 1 (Leene), 4 (CreativeHQ), 6t (karamysh), 10t (Dennis Project coordinator:Kathy Middleton Tokarzewski), 16 (Rago Arts), 21 (Jamen Percy), 24t (Rago Arts), 30 Photo research: Kim Richardson (Duncan Gilbert), 36t (John C. Hooten), 36b (Josemaria Toscano), 40t Designer: Ben White (Ryan Richter), 40b (RIRF Stock), 41 (Katrina Brown), 42t (Lori Martin). Cover design:Margaret Amy Salter Topfoto (Fortean/Aarsleff): 31; (The Granger Collection): 5l, 8, 13, 26, Production coordinator and Prepress technician: 27, 28, 32, 34, 35, 38, 39; (Imageworks): 5r, 10b, 17; (topfoto.co.uk): 6b; Samara Parent 10, 44 r, (ullsteinbild): 33. Production:Kim Richardson Werner Forman Archive: 13 (Centennial Museum, Vancouver, British Print coordinator:Katherine Berti Columbia, Canada), 14 (Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, Albuquerque), 17 (Arizona State Museum), 18 (Provincial Museum, Consultants:Amy Leggett-Caldera, M.Ed., Elementary Victoria, British Columbia, Canada), 20 (Sheldon Jackson Museum, and Middle School Education Consultant, Mississippi Sitka, Alaska), 22 (Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago), 29 State University. (Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago), 37 (Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, New York), 44 (Private Cover:Bald Eagle (top middle); Bison (bottom left); Collection). Totem Pole (bottom middle); Coyote (bottom right); Native North American tipis (middle center) This book was produced for Crabtree Publishing Company by Bender Richardson White Title page:Haida Totem Pole Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kopp, Megan CIP available at Library of Congress Understanding native American myths [electronic resource] / Megan Kopp. (Myths understood) Includes index.Electronic monograph in multiple formats. Issued also in print formats. ISBN 978-1-4271-9060-4 (PDF).--ISBN 978-1-4271-9114-4 (HTML) 1. Indian mythology--North America--Juvenile literature. 2. Indians of North America--Religion--Juvenile literature. I. Title. II. Series: Myths understood (Online) E98.R3K66 2012 j299.7 C2012-906376-2 Crabtree Publishing Company www.crabtreebooks.com 1-800-387-7650 Copyright © 2013 CRABTREE PUBLISHING COMPANY. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or be transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Crabtree Publishing Company. In Canada: We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities. Due to rights restrictions and copyright protection, contents in this ebook may vary from the published original. Published in Canada Published in the United States Published in the United Kingdom Published in Australia Crabtree Publishing Crabtree Publishing Crabtree Publishing Crabtree Publishing 616 Welland Ave. PMB 59051 Maritime House 3 Charles Street St. Catharines, Ontario 350 Fifth Avenue, 59th Floor Basin Road North, Hove Coburg North L2M 5V6 New York, New York 10118 BN41 1WR VIC 3058 CONTENTS WHAT ARE MYTHS?................................................4 What are myths and how and why did the early Native Americans tell them? How did myths affect their traditions and cultures? ANCIENT NORTH AMERICA.................................6 The first peoples to arrive in North America. How they spread through the continent and set up several different nations, each with its own mythology. RELIGION AND GODS...........................................10 The importance of spirits, visions, and quests in addition to gods. Myths about the creation of the world, living a long life, death, and mortality. THE NATURAL WORLD........................................16 Myths about animals and plants, the climate, natural disasters, and wonders. How each nation and tribe had similar myths. DAILY LIFE................................................................24 Myths about birthrights, family life, respect for elders, marriage, and the home. The social structure of nations, tribes, and clans. TRADE AND WARFARE........................................36 Myths about courage, duty, and loyalty to one’s tribe. The interaction between Native Americans and European settlers. NATIVE AMERICAN LEGACY.............................40 How Native American culture, myths, and beliefs remain alive today in arts and crafts, movies, literature, design, and clothes. Time Chart 45 Glossary 46 Learning More 47 Index 48 WWHHAATT AARREE M Y T H S ? M Y T H S ? Myths are ancient stories passed down through many generations. Most are NAMING THE PEOPLE so old that they began as spoken tales. Native Americans were referred to as Indians Myths are stories that help people make or American Indians in the United States for sense of their lives. centuries after Italian explorer Christopher Without myths, ancient people Columbus mistakenly thought he had arrived would have been bothered by in the Indies in 1492. He referred to the unknowns. Topics such as the creation people he saw as los indios. In Canada, of Earth, the Sun, and the stars, the aboriginal or early native people as a group origins of humankind, and life and are referred to as First Nations. death, would have been very difficult for them to understand. Myths also shaped their beliefs and traditions. There were several thousand different tribesof people living in North America prior to European contact in the 1500s c.E. Each tribe had its own mythology. Native American myths are rooted in nature and the belief that everything— living or nonliving—has a spirit. Many Native American ceremonieswere based on myths. Native American mythology, ritual, ceremonies, and religionare often difficult to separate. Navajo ceremonies, such as Blessingway, which is concerned with healing, creation, and peace, are based on events and incidents in their mythology. 4 Many Native American myths are late 1800s. The myths still reflect strong related to the belief that all animals have roots in the oral tradition of storytelling. soulsor spirits that give them supernatural Stories told on long winter’s nights powers. Myths about gods who control around campfires taught about right from the elements are also common. The close wrong and helped explain why things connection animals and the weather had happened the way they did. The myths also in people’s daily lives influenced their helped keep ancient beliefs alive, and they survival, which is why these topics entertained. Native American storytelling figure so prominently in Native involved a range of accompaniments, American mythologies. including dance, masks, costumes, and Other countries have mythologies music. Humor was also used. shaped and ordered by traditional authors over many centuries. In North America, few myths were written down before the Below:On a Pribilof island near Alaska, a traditional Aleut storyteller and environmental activistuses a drum to tell his mythological tale to young people. Left:A photograph from 1906 shows an Apache elder marking the ground with a stick while explaining to fellow tribesmen an ancient myth about the landscape. 5 AANNCCIIEENNTT NNOORRTTHH AAMMEERRIICCAA According to archaeologists, the first It is believed the Inuit (formerly called people of North America arrived in the Eskimo), Aleut, and Athabascan peoples far northwest about 20,000 to 60,000 migrated to Arctic North America by boat, years ago. Now called Paleo-Indians, arriving around 10,000 years ago. These they crossed the Bering Strait land hunters relied on marine mammals, bridge from Asia. Small, scattered caribou, birds, and fish for their survival. communities slowly became Later, Subarctic cultures formed, including established across great distances the western Athabascan-speaking tribes and in vastly different environments. and the eastern Algonquin-speaking people. Using snowshoes and canoes, they hunted moose, deer, and fish. TRAVEL BEFORE HORSES Tribes of the Pacific Northwest lived in an area of mild climate with cool summers Dogs were an important part of early Native and wet winters. These tribes were hunter- American tribal life. Before horses, Plains gatherers, harvesting food from the land tribes used dogs to haul their travois, or and sea. Inland, tribes of the Great Basin sled, carrying food and belongings. In the and Plateau lived in harsher, semidesert Pacific Northwest, the Tahltan bear dog was conditions. They survived on fish, small a scrappy little fighter used for tracking and game, nuts, and seeds. hunting bears. The Qimmiq or Inuit dog hauled sleds for Arctic tribes. Why Dogs do Below:A Cree native North Not Speak is a Kiowa myth, one of many dog American mother with her tales in Native American mythology. children and dogs stands outside the family tepee. This photograph was taken in the early 1900s. 6 PACIFIC ATLANTIC OCEAN OCEAN ARCTIC NORTHWEST COAST SUBARCTIC EASTERN WOODLANDS N GREAT PLAINS PLATEAU CALIFORNIA SOUTHEAST GREAT BASIN SOUTHWEST 500 Miles 500 Kilometers californian tribes enjoyed a pleasant Above:This map of North America shows the main climate, with warm winters and abundant geographical regions. Native peoples and tribes are resources from the land and ocean. They usually referred to by region. did not need to travel far to find food. In the Southwest, desert conditions brought long periods of drought and In the Northeast, summers were hot intense floods. Native American tribes and winters cool. Tribes hunted deer and hunted and tended crops of beans, squash, harvested corn and wild rice. To the and corn. Across the Great Plains, many Southeast, Native Americans such as the tribes were nomadic, always on the move Seminole and creek enjoyed good rainfall, following herds of bison, which they hot, humid weather year-round, and hunted for food, leather, and dung for fires. abundant plant and animal life. 7 IN HARMONY WITH NATURE Native Americans were aware of their natural surroundings, whether in the Arctic or on the Great Plains. As a result, there are common themes in their mythologies. The themes tell why things are the way they are in nature and include animals, plants, geographical features, the weather, and the Sun, Moon, and stars. The myth could be about a natural cycle such as the cycle of light and dark in the north. During the darkest months of winter in the far north, the Sun never shines, and in the height of summer, it never sets. In an Inuit myth, crow travels north and south. He knows about sunlight but, living in darkness, the northern people do not believe him. crow steals a ball of light from the south. The ball drops releasing all the sunshine. crow warns them it will not last and it will take six months to rebuild its power again. Above: A carved and painted wooden mask Myths could also explain landforms of the Kwakiutl tribe of British Columbia, such as Niagara Falls. One Iroquois myth Canada. The mask represents a sea monster. suggests the falls were created after a CREATION MYTHS struggle between the Thunder god and the Great Snake Monster. The thrashing of An enduring topic of all mythologies is the Snake Monster’s tail scooped out the basin creation of the world. The Cherokee believed where the water falls. A myth could answer that a water-covered world was already in a question about a physical characteristic, existence and soil was brought up from the for example the choctaw myth about the depths by a water beetle to create the land. theft of fire tells how smoke from the fire The Pueblo tribe believed that humans turned the crow’s white feathers black. emerge into the present world from the underworld. The Siksika people believed BEYOND NATURE in the creator god Napi, or Old Man. Another common theme in Native American myths is the power associated 8

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