Not to be confused with the Mohegan, the Mohawk, or, indeed, the Mohican hairstyle, the Mahican were part of the Algonquian language family whose territory extended up both sides of the upper part of the Hudson River.
Mahican means “wolf.” In common with other Native American peoples, the Mahican territory was encroached upon more and more by the white settlers until the tribe seemed almost to disappear, apart from a band who settled in a mission in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
It was actually the Mohegans that James Fenimore Cooper wrote about in his famous book, The Last of the Mohicans. The book features a hero, Uncas, who was in real life a chief of the Mohegan tribe.
See Sacred Arrows
A vitally important crop for the Native Americans, maize proved to be nutritious and versatile. Foodstuffs taken from the grain include popcorn, hominy, flour, and meal, among others. Maize grain is used as food for both humans and animals. Maize is often referred to as “Indian corn.”
The Native Americans were the first to develop and cultivate maize, and it was one of the products that was taken back to Europe by the Spanish explorers. After this, the cultivation of the crop spread rapidly all over the world.
Chief Massasoit famously taught the art of growing maize to the Pilgrim Fathers when they first settled in America.
Because maize is such an important crop, it stands to reason that there is a great deal of mythology surrounding its provenance. A gift from the gods themselves, “Mother Corn” was considered equal to the gift of life itself. The corn harvest was celebrated extensively during all phases of its growth, from planting through to its ripening and eventual harvest. A good example of this type of celebration is the Green Corn Ceremony.
Also called the Maliseet, this was a band of the Algonquian language family who lived in what is now New Brunswick, Canada, along the banks of the St. John’s River. Their name, it is believed, came from a Mi’kmaq word meaning “broken talkers.” The Malecite, as well as the Mi’kmaq, played a version of soccer. A farming people, the Malecite grew maize; they were more dependent on agriculture than on either fishing or hunting.
The evil twin brother of the legendary trickster-hero of the Wabanaki and Abenaki peoples, Glooskap. Malsumis, according to myth, was created from the debris that remained after mankind had been created. Constantly trying to foil the good work of his brother Glooskap, Malsumis symbolizes night, darkness, evil, and all negative forces.
Long extinct, the prehistoric Native Americans hunted this animal, which was similar in appearance to an elephant.
This tribe were originally from the area that we know as Bismarck, North Dakota. The Mandans were an important subdivision of the Sioux tribe, and they became famous after they were the subject of George Catlin’s paintings.
A distinctive aspect of the Mandan was that he had a genetic predisposition, very unusual among Native Americans, of having gray hairs, often at a young age. Because of this they were sometimes called “white Indians.” This white hair was also sometimes mistaken for blond, and so the tribe became the subject of a curious legend that was supported wholeheartedly by Catlin. There was a rumor that a Welsh king, Madoc, had come to live in Canada, and so it was supposed that the Mandans might be descended from this so-called “Lost Welsh Colony.” Catlin posited this link in his 1841 book, North American Indians. Another supposed clue that the Mandans might have originally been Welsh was their bullboat, which bore a remarkable resemblance to the coracle used in Wales.
Mandans were almost made extinct when, in 1837, smallpox ravaged their population. In common with other Native peoples, the Mandan had no natural defenses with which to fight the disease, and of 1,600 tribal members, it was estimated that the disease spared only 31 people. The remaining Mandans joined the Hidatsa tribe.
The island of Manhattan belonged to a band of Native Americans, also called the Manhattan; they may have been a band of the Lenni Lenape, otherwise a part of the Wappinger. The actual island, whose name is believed to originate in the words Manah (meaning “island”) and Atin (meaning “hill”), now the center of New York City and one of the wealthiest areas in the world, is the subject of controversy. The Canarsee people of Brooklyn had tried initially to sell the island to the Dutch, but the land was not a part of the territory that they controlled. This privilege belonged to the aforementioned Manhattan. They made a deal in 1626 with Peter Minuit, a Dutchman, to sell him the island for some $24 worth of “trade goods”; this would have been beads, trinkets, and possibly some tools. However, it is necessary to put this “sale” into context, and in doing so we can begin to understand a fundamentally different way of thinking between the white settlers and the Indians. The Native Americans did not really believe that anyone could ever own land, much less sell it; they viewed the exchange as more of a leasehold arrangement, giving Peter Minuit the right to use the land. It was only later that they would realize that they were, again and again, deceived by the white settlers.
See Cassava
An Algonquian word to describe the universal intelligences or forces of nature. There were thousands of different Manitou, and other tribes had different names for the same concept, such as Orenda of the Iroquois or the Wakanda of the Sioux. Because of the multitude of Manitou, it is inappropriate to suggest that the concept is exactly the same as that of the Great Spirit.
?–1893
Manuelito—a.k.a. Bullet—was a Navajo chief, and was among the many Native Americans who wielded their influence to try to prevent the obligatory relocation of his people by the U.S. Government.
We don’t know a great deal about his life until the 1860s. Kit Carson, a U.S. Army Colonel, had waged a war against the Navajo in which he destroyed their villages, their domestic animals, any wild animals, and their crops. In 1864 Carson rounded up 8,000 of the tribespeople and herded them to the Bosque Redondo, a grimly arid patch of land, further south than Santa Fe in the New Mexico territory. Manuelito and 4,000 of the Navajo simply refused to surrender, escaping instead to the mountains where they waged a furious guerrilla war against Carson and his army. Carson continued to make sure it would be impossible for the Native Americans to survive, destroying everything in sight. In 1866 Manuelito’s band were starving and so had no choice but to surrender, upon which they were taken to the dreaded Bosque Redondo.
Conditions were impossible, so much so that Manuelito and a few other Navajo leaders were permitted, in 1868, to travel to Washington, D.C. to plead for a different territory. The plea was successful, and Manuelito persuaded the Government to allow his tribe to move to a new reservation that was actually located in their original homeland.
A delicious confection that was likely to have first been discovered by Native Americans, primarily from the Algonquian areas. Travelers’ journals from 1609 record that the Natives at that time had a process for making the syrup, and in 1557 there’s the first written record of maple trees in North America yielding a sweet sap, described by French writer André Thévet.
Maple trees exude “sapsicles,” icicle-shaped stalactites of solidified sap that gather at the ends of broken twigs. It’s likely that this sweet stuff triggered the method of tapping the tree for its sweet sap.
The Native Americans were so fond of maple syrup that entire families would relocate into the woods at the coming of the spring when the sap started rising and where the maple trees were plentiful. These “sugar camps” stayed in situ for the month or so that the sap flowed plentifully. The gatherers would make a slash in the tree trunk and simply collect the sap that trickled out in a pot or other vessel. Around 1790 it was realized that this method could injure the tree, so it was altered so that a small hole would be hammered into the tree and a grooved stick inserted to allow the sap to flow into the vessel. Once the sap had been collected, the hole would be sealed up, so preserving the tree. Then the sap was boiled; as it thickened it would be poured into a new pot, and fresh sap poured into the first pot, and so on.
Maple sap can be boiled down into maple sugar, a technique that was probably taught to the Native Americans by the French. A delicious treat was to pour the syrup onto frozen snow and eat it.
As well as providing an important source of sweetening, maple syrup and maple sugar were used for trading, too. The manufacture of the sugar was particularly approved of by the Quakers, since it provided an alternative to the West Indian cane sugar produced using slave labor.
1925–
Maria Tallchief is renowned as the first Native American prima ballerina. Born in Oklahoma, Maria’s mother was of Scottish/Irish descent and her father was a chief of the Osage Nation.
To understand Maria’s achievement—which included dancing with the Ballet Russe and the New York City Ballet—we need to know something of the time in which she was born. The thought of a Native American child pursuing any sort of career in the arts in the 1920s and 1930s was almost unheard of. Nevertheless, her family moved to Beverly Hills in the early 1930s and Maria studied under Madame Bronislava Nijinska. Dedicated and disciplined, Maria moved to New York when she was 17 and successfully auditioned for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
Maria became the muse for the renowned choreographer George Balanchine, who created works specially for her; the couple married in 1946. Maria became the first prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet the following year; the position was hers until 1960. She and Balanchine continued to work together even after their marriage ended in 1952.
Maria remarried in 1956, wedding a Chicago builder named Henry “Buzz” Paschen. They had one daughter, Maria’s only child.
In 1965 Maria retired from dancing, but went on to found the Chicago City Ballet in 1981. Since 1990, she has been artistic advisor to the Chicago Festival Ballet.
Marin County in California is named after a chief of the Pomo people. After leading a rebellion against the Spanish in around 1815, Marin was defeated and taken prisoner; he was taken from the Marin homelands some 50 miles away to San Francisco. Marin escaped and sailed across the bay on a precarious raft made of reeds. He then gathered together his men and launched raids once more on the Spanish, with the objective of keeping them out of his territory. But when Spain relinquished its control of California and the territory was taken over by Mexico, Mexican troops were sent after Marin. Marin retreated with his men to two islands at the mouth of the San Rafael River, and was able to hold off the troops for two days before he had no choice but to surrender. After a year in prison, Marin succumbed to the persuasive forces of the Jesuits and accepted the teachings of the missionaries, and lived out the rest of his days at the San Rafael Mission.
Remembered in the state of the same name, the Massachusett were named after the bay. Belonging to the Algonquian language family, they lived around the place that became Boston. The Massachusett, according to the explorer Captain John Smith, writing in 1614, had 11 villages along the coast. The tribe lived in villages of wigwams surrounded by palisades, and were a farming community, planting the “Three Sisters” of corn, beans, and squash. They also fished and hunted small game, and supplemented their diet with foraged foods.
Helpful to the early English settlers, the Massachusett, in common with many other Native Americans, fell prey to European diseases. Smallpox in particular decimated the population of the Massachusett in the second decade of the 17th century; there was a further epidemic some ten years later.
The Christian faith proved to have a strong influence on the Massachusett, too, brought to the tribe by the early missionaries of the Protestant faith. One particularly persuasive Puritan, John Eliot, established 17 communities where the Indians lived like Europeans and followed Puritan beliefs. Converts were called “Praying Indians” and, although they were generally well looked after, the loss of their own culture led to confusion and depression, and some of the tribe even turned to the white man’s poison, alcohol.
1581(?)–1661
Massasoit means “Great Sachem”; a sachem was the supreme chief and overall ruler of a territory that was inhabited by a number of allied tribes. Massasoit’s birth name was Ousamequin, and he was the sachem of seven Wampanoag tribes, each of which had their own sachem.
Massasoit was born in a place which would later be named Rhode Island. When in 1621 the first English settlers founded the Plymouth Colony, they were visited by an Indian of the Abenaki tribe who introduced himself as Samoset, the representative of Massasoit. Massasoit himself visited the settlers and was received with ceremony. Massasoit and the leader of the Plymouth Colony, John Carver, sat down together and smoked the calumet or peace pipe.
Something of a diplomat, Massasoit guaranteed the settlers their safety so long as they joined his alliance against the Narragansett. For the Great Sachem, there really did need to be safety in numbers since his people had been devastated by smallpox and the tribe was severely weakened. Both Massasoit and the last remaining member of the Patuxet tribe, Tisquantum, were instrumental in aiding the survival of the pilgrims. Without this help, it is almost certain that the English would have died of starvation after their first harsh winter.
Until Massasoit died in 1661, there was a 40-year period of relative peace between the white men and the Native Americans. Massasoit had complied with the English requests to purchase certain tracts of land. He also warned them of possible dangers from other tribes, and did all he could to keep relations harmonious.
Ornaments made of quills, braided sinews, beads, and feathers, which were used to decorate the papooses of the Maine Indians.
The word used to describe Native American and other societies whose children were considered to belong to the mother’s family rather than that of the father. In this case, the eldest brother of the mother would often provide an important role model to the child, of more significance than the actual genetic father.
See also Patrilinear
A subsection of the Santee division of the Lakota/Dakota Sioux. Historically they lived in the lakes area of central Minnesota, whose name, Mde Wakan, meant “spiritual lake.”
This is a small bag or pouch used to contain various items that are considered to be magical. The medicine bag, too, has powers of its own. Traditionally, the medicine bag and its contents would have been among the tools of the Wise Man or Woman, or shaman, of the tribe. Latterly, though, the medicine bag has become relatively popular among non-Native people, and it seems that anyone can concoct a medicine bag and fill it with items that are meaningful to him or her.
Items in that bag might include stones, bones, pieces of root, perhaps an animal tooth, and small bundles of herbs. Fetish objects, sweetgrass, and feathers would also fit. All these items would have significance for the owner of the bag, meant for the purpose of communicating with the world of the spirits, or intended to confer good luck in hunting, fighting, or healing.
Medicine bags are now made commercially and can even be specially commissioned, but traditionally the bag is made by its owner, from skin or hide.
The term initially used by the Native Americans for the guns that were introduced to them by the white explorers and settlers.
Three treaties were signed in a short space of time—just one week—in the fall of 1867: collectively they were known as the Medicine Lodge Treaty. This agreement between the United States Government and the Plains Indians was intended to bring about peace. This would be achieved, it was hoped, by relocating the Natives to the Indian Territory, allowing the white settlers to take over former Indian lands.
The Indian Peace Commission had investigated affairs between the Natives and the Government, and had concluded that if the Government and its agents had treated the Native Americans with honesty and carried out their promises, subsequent battles would have been prevented. The U.S. Government, according to the Commission, had not adhered to their legal obligations regarding the Indians.
The Medicine Lodge Treaty was signed by the Kiowa and Comanche, the Kiowa-Apache, and finally by the Arapaho and Southern Cheyenne. However, the treaty was supposed to have been ratified by the vote of three or four men from each tribe; because the tribes were decentralized, this was considered the fairest way to ensure everyone had a say. But this never happened, meaning that the treaty was never actually considered legal.
Via the treaty the tribes were assigned reservations of a smaller size than previously agreed, and the difference in what the Indians were giving up compared to the size of what the white man traded with them was incomparable. For example, the first of the three treaties saw the Comanche and Kiowa surrender over 99,500 million square miles of their ancestral lands in exchange for a 4,633-square-mile patch of the Indian Territory in Oklahoma. The tribes were promised housing, agricultural buildings, and schools, which none of the tribes had asked for.
Other legislation which would come into force later meant that the land allocated was even smaller than the tribes realized. The Native Americans would go on to fight the Medicine Lodge Treaty right on into the 20th century, and would win significant amounts of money in compensation for their losses.
Also known as the shaman, the medicine man was the healer of a people, able to converse with the spirits in order to bring about this healing.
Sometimes the position of medicine man was hereditary; at other times the position was attained because of the obvious gifts and attributes of a certain individual.
Many great leaders and tribal chiefs were also medicine men. These include Black Hawk and Sitting Bull.
An alternative name for the Grand Medicine Society, otherwise called the Midewiwin, particularly belonging to the Ojibwe people. This particular Medicine Society at times counted over 1,000 members. Its rituals were said to have been initially performed by superhuman, supernatural beings in order to help Nanabozho, an important mythological figure who was able to provide a bridge between mankind and the spirit world, after the death of his beloved brother Chibiabos.
A fully initiated member of the Medicine Society would not only be able to heal but to harm, to influence the course of events such as battles and the weather, and would also be able to ensure the overall health, material and spiritual, of the tribe.
Also called the Sacred Hoop, medicine wheel structures are not unique to Native American culture but are also found among African peoples. In Europe, ancient circular structures dot the landscape, some made from wood, some from stone.
The Native American medicine wheels generally follow a pattern. A central stone is surrounded by an aureole of stones, with lines of stones radiating from that central stone to the outer circle, like spokes. In fact, the medicine wheel does rather resemble a large cartwheel lying on its side.
In the case of these circles, the word “medicine” is used as a description of the sacred nature of the landscape where the wheel is sited, and also of the spiritual significance of the rocks that form the wheel, as well as the shape of the wheel itself.
The circle itself, as a symbol, denotes eternity; the wheel has no beginning and no end, and as such also represents the seasons and the unending, constantly turning cycle of life. One of the best of many good examples of these wheels is in Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming. At some 75 feet across, this impressive structure is evidence that there was Native American activity for at least 7,000 years in that particular area.
These stone structures are scattered throughout North America, primarily in Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Montana, Alberta, and Wyoming, as well as Manitoba. There are literally thousands of smaller stone circles, too, although many of these are simply the stones that once held the edges of a tipi in position. Other very large circles—some as large as 40 feet across—are believed to have been used as markers for sacred dances. The spokes of some circles protrude out beyond the edge of the outer ring of stones, which would suggest their use as a pointer of some kind. Other circles have a stone path leading toward the center. Others have further concentric circles surrounding the first circle. In short, no two medicine wheels are quite the same.
The precise use and meaning of these wheels has never been determined precisely but, like their European counterparts, they are believed to have been used for ceremonial purposes and ritual observances. It is possible that these wheels were used to record various astronomical phenomena such as the appearance of the sun on the horizon or, similarly, the moon and other planets and stars at certain significant times of the year. Effectively, in this way the wheel connects the “below” with the “above,” the earth with the heavens, and the material with the spiritual.
Because of the differences in each wheel, it has been difficult for archeologists to define their precise meaning; additionally, there’s evidence that many wheels were added to over the centuries and, indeed, millennia since they were first constructed. It is also possible that the spokes defined the four cardinal directions, too.
These ancient constructions have been put to contemporary use by certain practitioners, used as an aid to meditation in the same way as the mandala found in Eastern religions.
Belonging to the Algonquian people, the Menominee lived on the shores of the western Great Lakes, where one of their staple foods was the wild rice that grew abundantly in the area. The name for this crop in the Ojibwe tongue is manomin, meaning “good berry,” and it is this word that gave this people their name. They are sometimes referred to as the “rice Indians” or, alternatively, as the “wild rice men.”
The wild rice in question is neither a berry nor is it actually rice. It is the starchy seed of a type of grass that prefers to grow in water. Hence when the women of the Menominee harvested it, they did so from canoes. It was easy to collect. The women would bend the ends of the long grasses into the canoe and rap the heads (which contained the seeds) sharply. The seeds fell into the bottom of the boat. Afterward, they were allowed to dry out so that the husks (or “polishings”) could be removed. The grains were then cooked exactly as we cook rice today.
The value of wild rice was such that all the tribes that had access to it—including the Ojibwe, the Potawatomi, and the Winnebago as well as the Menominee—guarded their “patch” jealously. Having this wild crop meant that a tribe did not need to farm, and had a freely abundant commodity that could be traded for furs and other valuable items. The Menominee stayed close to the rice, as they believed it would be against the will of the Great Spirit to attempt to cultivate it elsewhere. In the summer they lived in oblong wooden houses with pitched roofs, and in the winter lived in domed wigwams covered in grasses and cattail mats. The wigwams were much smaller than the wooden houses and retained the heat.
The Menominee were skilled weavers, and the women were renowned for the pouches that they made, another item that could be traded. These pouches were beautifully made and colorful, using plant fibers as well as buffalo hair to make them durable. The tribe loved color and decoration, and were famous for their attractive clothes, which were decorated with designs that were either woven in or painted on. They also covered their clothes in beads, feathers, and quillwork.
The Menominee, like other tribes, were keen on smoking tobacco, which they offered to the gods. They believed that smoking stimulated the brain and made people more intelligent.
Although the Menominee avoided much of the warfare that affected other tribes, some of their warriors did fight on the side of the British during the War of 1812. The tribe were later forced into moving away from their traditional beloved lands, and went in 1854 to live on a reservation in central Wisconsin, on the Wolf River.
This is the Spanish/Portuguese word for “table,” and refers to the elevated, flat-topped areas with steep sides that are a distinctive part of the landscape in the arid environment of the southeastern United States. These naturally formed structures provided a well-defended place for the Hopi Indians to dwell upon.
Belonging to the agave family of plants, the mescal’s juicy trunk and leaves were used as a foodstuff by the Native Americans of the southwest. The mescal had to be steamed before it was edible. To do so, a large pit would be dug and lined with rocks. A fire was started over the stones to heat them, the embers raked flat and the mescal put into the pit and covered over with fresh grasses. Two days later the mescal was ready to be eaten. As well as food, the mescal is used to make a potent fermented drink. The Mescalero people got their name because of their predilection for the plant.
A tribe of the Apache, the Mescalero got their name because of their custom of eating mescal, a plant belonging to the agave family.
The term given to part of Central America and Mexico. The Native peoples who lived in this area had a sophisticated culture with organized societies and political systems, and often lived in cities.
“Mesoamerica” is the name given to the parts of Central America and Mexico that formed a specific cultural area. The four great civilizations that are grouped together as Mesoamerican are, in chronological order, the Olmec, the Mayan, the Toltec, and the Aztec. It must be remembered that, prior to the coming of the Europeans, the Mesoamerican region was by far the most densely populated part of America.
Referred to as the “mother civilization” of Mesoamerica, the Olmec—whose name references the abundant rubber trees, called Olmeca—were the dominant culture in what is now modern-day Mexico and the central area of South America, in a time period that spanned from 1200 B.C. to A.D. 300. The Olmec influenced the cultures that followed them.
Although their own homelands ranged from what is now Mexico City and all along the Gulf coast, the Olmec had an extensive trading network all over the entire Mesoamerican territory. Unusually, the Olmec had a hierarchical society in which the priests were the most powerful, holding sway over a pecking order of merchants and craftsmen. It was not possible to switch from one social class, or caste, into another; the class you were born into was where you remained for your entire life. The Olmec were fine stonemasons, and the upper echelons of society lived in sophisticated stone houses and enjoyed walking along paved roads. The key focal points of the Olmec settlements were San Lorenzo, La Venta (which was where the largest Olmec pyramid was built), and Tres Zapotes. There’s a site, too, at Copalillo, which is close to the oldest stone-built constructions in North America, dating back to 600 B.C. The Olmec are also known for the jaguar symbol; the animal itself was an important animal in the religion of the people, as was the Plumed Serpent, also known as Quetzalcoatl, the god who influences the cultures that followed the Olmec.
There was also a class of farmers, very important members of Olmec society. Agriculture in the Mesoamericas dates back at least as far as 7000 B.C., and during that time farmers developed smart ways of crop combining, irrigation, and also cross-fertilization. The skills of generations of farmers supported the Olmec civilization as it grew.
The Olmec carved distinctive gigantic heads, choosing basalt as the base material for these sculptures. The stone itself was not readily available, though, and great efforts were made to transport it; it was taken overland and then floated on rafts to its final destination. Knowing that some of these statues weighed in the region of 20 tons, you can imagine the efforts that the removal of the basalt would have involved.
The Olmec also played a game with a rubber ball on a paved court, and were the first to have a system of writing with hieroglyphs and also a calendar system.
The reasons why the Olmec civilization simply seems to have faded away are unknown. However, there are so many echoes of the culture in that of the Mayan that it is likely that the two peoples were related.
These people lived in the area of Mesoamerica that encompassed El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. There were also areas of Mayan population in Honduras.
The Mayan civilization followed on from that of the Olmec, refining and defining what had gone before. The population centers are referred to as City States, since each of the cities that were built in the tropical forests had its own leaders.
The Mayan were great builders. Their pyramids are iconic, even today, and their City States also had shrines, temples, and astronomical observatories in the form of strategically built platforms; they built paved courts for ball games, bathing areas, roads and bridges, terraces, aqueducts, and elaborately vaulted tombs.
Like the Olmec, the Mayan had a strict class system. At the top were the priests, who had access to knowledge. The Sun Children, under the priests, took care of technicalities such as taxation, justice, and commerce. Then came the craftsmen, including the stoneworkers who would have constructed the plethora of buildings; potters, jewelers, and the people who made clothes and shoes. Then came the farming society, who lived outside the cities in simple wooden homes with thatched roofs. They employed a system called “slash and burn” farming, in which areas of the jungle were chopped down and burned to clear space for fields. They irrigated these fields to supply water for their crops, which included beans, squash, peppers, and many other vegetables.
The Mayan, of course, are renowned for their sophisticated knowledge of mathematics and their ability to calculate astronomical phenomena for hundreds, and even thousands, of years into the future. They also had a system of writing that used hieroglyphs—shapes representing sounds and words—as well as pictographs.
There are still many aspects of the Mayan civilization that remain a mystery and which archeologists are still exploring today. We do not know for sure why the Olmec civilization diminished; the same goes for the Mayan.
We do know that the era of Mayan dominance was between A.D. 300 and 900; this is called the Classic Period of Mesoamerican Culture, when the Mayan thrived in the mountains of Guatemala. One of the major City States of this era was Tikal, in Guatemala; Tikal boasted six pyramid/temples, one of which was 145 feet high, and another, 125 feet high. The next era of Mayan civilization runs from A.D. 900 to 1450 and is known by archeologists as the Postclassic era. During this time the Mayan learned to make beautiful objects using metalworking skills; they learned how to fashion tin and zinc as well as silver and gold.
The next era of the Mayan culture saw the people in the Yucatan Peninsula take precedence, in the years from A.D. 1000. The Toltec arrived in the area and the merging of the two peoples strengthened both. It was at this time that the famous City States of Chichen Itza and Mayapan were prominent. The pyramids at Chichen Itza are iconographic.
From the 1450s the Mayan civilization began to decline; again, reasons for this have not been determined, although sheer overpopulation may have been one of the causes.
Christopher Columbus’ exploration provided the first contact between the Mayan and the Europeans, when, in the very early 16th century, they met with a canoe trading goods in the Gulf of Honduras. The Spaniards tried to colonize the area, but found the thick jungles difficult to penetrate. The Mayan, however, suffered from the diseases brought by the white settlers, and the Spanish systematically laid waste to their cultural artifacts, destroying their valuable sacred objects as well as their written texts. Eventually, the Mayan culture was eradicated—religion, language, and identity all gone—although even today some Mayan dialects are still spoken.
Arriving from the north into the Valley of Mexico in approximately A.D. 900 as a nomadic hunting tribe, interbreeding of the Toltec and the Mayan breathed new life and energy into the Mesoamerican culture. At this time the Valley of Mexico was the site of many centers of learning and culture, and the Toltec added to this by constructing their own city, Tula. One of their leaders, Topiltzin, actively promoted knowledge and the arts among his people. He and his father, Mixcoatl, attained the status of deities, Topiltzin aligned with the great Plumed Serpent, whose name he took. The Toltec, like the Mayan and the Oltec, were great builders, and constructed beautiful palaces. They also developed agriculture even further, experimenting with new strains of existing harvests such as cotton and corn; they made wonderful fabrics and had a writing system devised of hieroglyphics. At its zenith the Toltec empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.
However, Topiltzin eventually fell. This may have been because he tried to prevent the sacrifice of human beings, an important practice among the Toltec people. After Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl disappeared, his followers waited for his return. Many of them, seeing the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, glittering in his armor as he approached by boat, assumed that this was their god coming back to them.
The Toltec fell into a decline, for reasons which have not been determined with any certainty, and the great city of Tula was razed to the ground in 1160. Eventually the last of the great Mesoamerican cultures, the Aztec, rose to prominence.
The Aztec culture was at its zenith during the period between A.D. 1200 and 1500. Like the Toltec before them, they were related to a people called the Chichimec, and at the time that they were still called the Mexica they were nomadic hunters; this was how they arrived in the Mexico Valley in the middle part of the 12th century during the decline of the Toltec. A warlike people, the Mexica worked as mercenary warriors for some of the cities, and eventually founded their own settlements on the little islands of Lake Texcoco in the early 14th century: Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan. The latter city conquered the smaller one and the inhabitants—called Tenochca—worked hard to expand their territory, creating good farm land by making artificial islands—this was achieved by piling the silty soil into baskets and then anchoring the baskets to the lake bed. These artificial islands were called chinampas. It may have seemed a strange choice to settle in an area that needed so much work to make the land useable; however, one of the folk-myths of the Aztecs told them to watch out for an omen, an eagle perched on a stump protruding from marshy water; this augury would tell them where they should build a great city.
Around this time, the Tenochca started to call themselves Aztec in honor of their mythical homeland, Aztlan. The settlement that started as a small village constructed from chinampas would eventually become Mexico City.
The Aztec then set about conquering the neighboring peoples. Highly efficient in warfare, the Aztec had a number of ingenious weapons at their disposal, and effective armor made from quilted cotton fabric. Eventually, because of numerous conquests, the Aztec nation encompassed some five million people and its wealth was prodigious. One of the ways that the Aztecs became so rich was by imposing taxes on the people they conquered; often these taxes were taken in kind—i.e. natural resources. These included precious stones and metals (gold, silver, obsidian, turquoise) and foods (chocolate, chilis, avocados, mangoes). In fact, much of the food we think of as Mexican have their origins in the Aztec diet, including tortillas. Chocolate—the preserve of the upper classes—would in time spread all over the world, albeit in quite a different form than that enjoyed by the Aztec nobles.
One of the more infamous traits of the Aztec was their practice of human sacrifice. This was not unusual among the Mesoamerican peoples, but the Aztec were the most extreme. They believed that human blood was desired by their gods. The god of war, Huitzilipotchli, who appeared in the form of a huge hummingbird, was the most bloodthirsty deity. Quetzalcoatl, worshiped as a merciful god by all the Mesoamerican peoples, demanded no such honor as human sacrifice. Huitzilipotchli was accordingly appeased with the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of human captives, slaughtered at the summits of the colossal stone pyramids.
Like other Mesoamerican peoples, the Aztecs had a strict hierarchical system. The emperor was the supreme leader; under him were the influential priests and the noble classes, who ruled sectors of the cities. Then came the war chiefs, then merchants and traders, soldiers, then farmers and artisans. Almost at the very bottom of the pile were the laborers, unskilled workers who owned no land. Slaves were the lowest people in the Aztec social structure. The clothes worn by these different strata of society were an indicator of status. The emperor dressed richly in furs, feathers, and plumes; he wore jewelry made of precious metals and was the only member of society to wear turquoise, either the stone or the color. The nobles dressed richly, too, wearing brightly colored dyed cotton cloaks and facial jewelry. The warrior chiefs—the Eagle Warriors and the Jaguar Warriors—wore the feathers and pelts of their respective totems. Soldiers showed their status, too: they dressed plainly unless they had taken prisoners; in which case they wore brightly colored shirts or tunics. The lowest classes were actually not permitted to wear colorful clothes at all.
The housing accorded to each strata of society, too, was a symbol of status. The emperor lived in a sophisticated two-story palace with lots of different rooms, as did the higher nobles. The flat roofs of these buildings made a perfect space for gardens. At the bottom of the ladder, the farmers and laborers lived in one-room shacks made of clay bricks or timber filled with plant material and mud.
When the Spanish arrived in the Americas, they had heard of the Aztec empire and knew of its wealth and power. In 1519 Hernán Cortés arrived with the purpose of finding this empire; he marched north with some 400 soldiers.
Despite this relatively small party, Cortés was successful in overthrowing the Aztec empire. One factor on his side was that many of the conquered peoples were tired of the stranglehold that the Aztecs held over them, and Cortés used a “divide and rule” strategy. Another asset he had on his side came in the form of a Mayan woman, Malinche, who, although originally a slave, proved to be a good translator and a talented mediator. Further, Cortés had guns and horses, neither of which had been seen by the Aztecs. As mentioned earlier, an Aztec legend also told of the return of Quetzalcoatl; the pale-colored Cortés with his glittering armor cut a godlike figure, and the Aztec leader, Montezuma, was thrown into confusion, uncertain as to whether Cortés should be welcomed as the god. Ultimately, the Spanish vanquished the Aztecs and wasted no time in removing as much of their epic civilization as they possibly could, smashing down the buildings, pyramids, and temples, melting down the precious metal artifacts, and setting fire to the hieroglyphic writings. Mexico—called New Spain—was used as the base from which the Spanish set out to travel into California and the southwest, and also into South America.
One of the important plant foodstuffs for the Native Americans of the southwest, the mesquite is a spiny shrub whose pods are sweet and rich in sugar.
In 1906, it became apparent that the use of a particular symbol was becoming incredibly popular among the Apache people. The symbol in question was a combined crescent moon and cross. The sign could appear anywhere: made into wooden or metal amulets, inked onto the skin as a tattoo, even branded onto horses. It appeared in woven contemporary basket and fabric designs and was worked in beads, too. The symbol was nothing new for the Apache; what was noteworthy was its sudden presence everywhere.
The origins of this symbol’s popularity are told in the curious story of a medicine man, Das Lan, who was living in the same part of the world as Doklini, also an Apache medicine man, whose visions had precipitated the Apache Medicine Craze just three decades earlier. Das Lan—whose name meant “Hanging Up”—took on another name once he became a medicine man; this name translates as “Turquoise Rolling Stone,” although the Census records of the time listed him simply as “V-9.”
Das Lan had undertaken to perform a series of prayers and meditations to the gods as they appeared, with the sun, over the mountains toward the east. On the fourth morning, Das Lan was completing his prostrations when he had his revelation.
There appeared to him a small, bearded man, who told Das Lan that he was the child of the sun. Das Lan should bear a message back to his people that changes were coming to their lives. Instead of living in a world of constant hardship and hunger, they were about to be transported to a paradise-like realm where all their needs would be met easily and simply; this place would be abundant with crops, fish, and game. Any illnesses or infirmities would be left behind; everyone would become youthful and strong again. Their lost loved ones would be there to meet them, too. All that had to happen for this heavenly fantasy to become a reality was for the entire tribe to believe in it, and to follow instructions. Believers should show themselves to one another by the use of a symbol: the combined cross and crescent, which was called the daiita ilhnaha. The symbol would act as a “map” for the new world to come and should be worn, rendered in beads, on the deerskin caps of all the males, surmounted by two eagle feathers on the top of the cap. As well as this, they were instructed to wear new clothes, also featuring the symbol. The women, too, should show the cross and crescent on their clothing so that they would be recognized when the time came. Horses should also be marked. A great cloud, continued the message, would consume the tribe; it would be expedient for them to gather together beforehand. All other medicine signs and symbols should be rejected in favor of the daiita ilhnaha.
Das Lan first spread the word among the influential spiritual leaders of the various bands of the Apache. These disciples spread the word and, whatever the truth of the revelation, Das Lan found himself at the head of a cult, where he met with unexpected opportunities of gaining wealth. The use of any symbols other than the cross and crescent led to the users of such symbols being reported to the “authorities,” which resulted in threats and harassment. In 1903, just a couple of years before the use of the symbol became noteworthy, the Apache virtually stopped planting crops, expecting to be taken to the promised land. Another curiosity which arose because of this Messiah Craze was that the usual Apache villages, which consisted of scattered thatched huts, were organized into long rows, as requested in Das Lan’s vision, for ease of removing collectively when the time came. In 1906 Das Lan persuaded his followers to chop off his head so that he might prove to them that he would return to life afterward. When this failed to happen, the movement came to an end.
A sort of mortar, the metate was a flat stone with a natural indentation or hollow in the center which provided a useful surface for grinding foodstuffs such as acorns, spices, seeds, or maize.
From the French word meaning “mixed,” if someone is referred to as Métis then they are likely to be of mixed race, usually Native American and European. In Canada, the Métis are regarded as an indigenous people. Here, the Europeans with whom the tribes intermarried were usually French. These offspring might be the children of French trapper fathers and indigenous women. The language they spoke was either Métis French (which is today preserved in Canada) or Méchif, a variation of Métis preserved in the U.S.
Originally from the central part of the U.S. including Indiana and Ohio, the Miami are part of the Algonquian family. The name Miami means “people from downstream” or “people from the peninsula,” although the Miami people referred to themselves as the twightwee after the call of the very ancient Sandhill crane, the bird that the Miami people considered to be the most sacred of all the avian world.
The Miami lived in wooden cabins covered in woven rush matting. They believed that marriage should take place outside of the immediate clan, a practice which had the benefit of forming interconnected communities with good relationships between them. Each village had a large building that was used for communal gatherings. The chiefs of the clans were members of village councils, with one of the chiefs elected to be the overall leader. A war chief, selected for his tactical ability in battle, was chosen during times of war. The diet of the Miami consisted of corn; this they cultivated in permanent settlements during the summer, leaving these settlements to follow and hunt the buffalo on the prairies during the winter months. The tribe had a unique way of killing the buffalo: they would set fire to the grass on three sides of a large herd, and then shoot the animals with arrows as they charged to escape the flames.
In common with other Native American peoples, the Miami did all they could to resist the incursion of the white settlers as they gradually infiltrated west, joining up with Chief Pontiac and the Ottawa in this endeavor. The first contact the Miami had with any European settlers was in the 1600s, in the form of French missionaries. At this time the Miami had shifted toward the western and southern shores of Lake Michigan, having been pushed there by the Iroquois.
By the third decade of the 19th century, most of the Miami lands had been ceded to the U.S. Government and the tribe were living in the Kansas area. Subsequently, the Miami would be relocated onto the reservations at the Indian Territory in Oklahoma.
Also called the Grand Medicine Society, the Midewiwin is a secret society devoted to healing, of mind, body, and spirit. The Midewiwin is an important part of the culture of the Three Fires Confederacy—that is, the Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwe peoples. Midewiwin societies also exist among other peoples, including the Abenaki, Anishinaabe, Sauk and Fox, Miami, Nipmuc, Sioux, Winnebago and Wampanoag.
It’s difficult to translate, definitively, the word Midewiwin. Often interpreted as “medicine,” its meaning is far-ranging, encompassing everything in the universe in the quest for “healing” in the broadest sense of the word. Accordingly, there are many different kinds of healers within the society. For example, the Meda is the healer of the family, the Tcisaki is a male diviner, the Nanandawi is the doctor to the tribe, and the Wabeno works with fire in order to interpret dreams, which are a very important part of life for Native American peoples. Members of the Midewiwin can be male or female, but all members are subject to a rigorous initiation carried out over the course of several ceremonies. There is a hierarchy of Midewiwin practitioners, ranked by degrees. Only after one stage of the initiation is complete can the next stage be embarked upon.
The source of Midewiwin and its introduction to the tribes is explained in several different myths. For example, Nanabozho, the trickster figure, is one of the characters said to have brought Midewiwin, according to the Anishinaabe. Mateguas, according to Abenaki tales, was its founder.
There is a great deal of conjecture as to the form of the ritual practices of the Midewiwin but, in common with the inner workings of any such society, the finer details remain a secret kept by those directly involved.
A part of the Algonquian language group, the Mi’kmaq originated in eastern Canada and the northeastern United States. Archeological investigations have shown that the tribe arrived in the area some 10,000 years ago, from the west, and had probably arrived in the east as hunter-gatherers, following the herds. Like other tribes, the Mi’kmaq lived in encampments of wigwams during the winter months and followed the hunts during the summer, even seeking out whales as one of their food sources. The moose, too, was an important animal to the tribe, providing food, fur, and bones that could be carved into tools; a boy was considered to have become a man only after his first moose kill. The hunting dogs were not fed for two or three days prior to the moose hunt, and the animal itself was chased so that it would wind up relatively close to the camp (and therefore be easier to drag back home), and then was injured by arrow shots; once it fell the job was completed, and the animal would be killed by the dogs.
The Mi’kmaq divided their homeland into seven districts, with a district chief in charge of each area. A Grand Council ruled overall. This Grand Council consisted of several “officers” as well as the grand chief. These included a treaty holder, an adviser on political affairs, and an officer who designated specific areas for families to hunt or fish or establish camp. Then there was a Women’s Council. The Council also handled negotiations, where necessary, with other tribes.
The Mi’kmaq were part of the Wabanaki Confederacy, a loose alliance of tribes, including the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, and Maliseet.
It’s likely that, because of their position in the east, the Mi’kmaq were one of the first tribes to have been “discovered” by the white men, possibly the Norse voyagers who arrived in America around A.D. 1000. Much later, in 1497, they were visited by Sebastian Cabot. It’s also likely that the Mi’kmaq were less surprised to see the foreigners than others, since, according to an ancient legend of the tribe, one day a blue-eyed race would arrive and cause trouble and upset; there was also the story of a Mi’kmaq woman’s vision, in which a floating island full of living people would float toward their land.
When the first explorers arrived, they were welcomed warmly, and trading was rapidly established with the French. The first Mi’kmaq to convert to Catholicism, the Grand Chief Membertou, did so in 1610 after meetings with the Jesuits who had settled in the territory. The relationship with the French settlers was good, and although the tribe resisted the British attempts to take over, in 1710 the British eventually succeeded. The tribe did not cede their lands to these new rulers, however, despite the signing of several treaties of peace and friendship.
The most important spiritual site for the Mi’kmaq is a place called Mniku, which is where the Grand Council still hold their meetings.
Belonging to the Iroquoian language family, the Mingo people are sometimes referred to as the Ohio Iroquois. The Mingo were an independent branch of the powerful Iroquois Confederacy. The name “Mingo” has its roots in a word that meant “treacherous,” and, indeed, the group was looked upon with suspicion by other Native American peoples. However, “Mingo” was also the title given to chiefs of the Chickasaw Nation.
One of the most famous chiefs of the Mingo was John Logan.
A branch of the Lakota/Dakota Sioux whose name, in their own dialect, means “plants by the water.” Their ancestral homeland was in the Black Hills in what is now western South Dakota. Illustrious leaders of the Miniconjou have included Spotted Elk, Kicking Bear, and Touch the Clouds.
Craftwork in which small shards of mirror are embroidered into cloth to form part of the design.
In California, the Indians who were brought together by the Franciscan Friars of the Catholic faith were called Mission Indians. Many of these Indians chose the new way of life, but many others were forced into it. The first Mission was the Mission of San Diego, founded in 1769. The Mission area of modern San Francisco is a reminder of those times.
The Missouria, or Missouri, lend their name to both the state and the river. The name Missouria originally meant “People with dugout canoes.” Part of the Sioux language family, an ancient legend tells that the Missouria were once part of a large people that included others who subsequently split away, including the Winnebago. The splits occurred initially as different bands set off in pursuit of the buffalo, and then the Missouri came into being after a further split, this time caused by a quarrel when a chief’s son seduced the daughter of another chief. Shamed, the tribe of the errant young man headed north to become a group called the Otoe, a word meaning “lechers.”
Originating in the woodlands of the east before the split, the Missouri retained the skills that they had needed at that time: farming and woodworking or carpentry. They lived in small villages for most of the year, following the herds of buffalo.
When a French explorer, Jacques Marquette, discovered the people in the early 1670s living in villages along the Missouri River where it is joined by the Grand River, they had been there for at least 100 years. But a couple of years before the end of the 18th century the tribe were attacked by the Sauk and Fox peoples, and the remaining members of the defeated Missouri moved out toward Nebraska, where the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered them in 1804. In 1829 the Missouri reunited with their one-time enemy, the Otoe.
From northern California, the various bands of this people were a part of the Utian language family. As is the case with many other Native peoples, the tribe’s name translates as “the people.” The coastal branch of the Miwok extended to Bodega Bay in the north, Sonoma in the east, and embraced all of what we now call Marin County.
The Miwok people preferred to settle close to sources of water: lakes, streams, etc. Their homes were conical structures with domed roofs, often covered with grass or boards made from a redwood tree also known as the “lodge pine.” Each home also had a smaller, similar structure that was used as storage for foodstuffs such as acorns. Miwok settlements also included sweat lodges, used for purification, and roundhouses, used for rituals and meetings.
The tribe supported themselves by fishing, hunting (including both large and small game), and by gathering wild plants. Acorns were an important food crop, as were buckeye nuts, clover, oak sap (harvested in the same way as maple syrup), hazelnuts, and honey. They harvested kelp from the sea. They made baskets and, subsequently, pottery. The most important members of the Miwok society were the headmen (hoypu), headwomen (maayen), and the doctors. The hoypu were there to resolve disputes and provide advice. These were the people who would have welcomed visitors to the tribe. Both men and women were doctors, treating not only physical ailments but emotional problems, too.
Archeological excavations have revealed artifacts that suggest that the Miwok lived in the area for at least 5,000 years. In the late part of the 1700s the tribe were “discovered” by the Spaniards, and were subsequently enslaved.
Belonging to the Muskhogean language family, the Mobile (meaning “doubtful”) people are believed to have originally inhabited the region near the Choctaw Bluff on the Alabama River in Clark County. The explorer De Soto would have encountered the tribe in the 1540s, but they resisted incomers under the leadership of their chief, Tuskaloosa. The Natives lost the fight, however, and 2,500 members of the tribe were killed.
When French explorers “discovered” the tribe in the 18th century they had already moved south toward Mobile Bay, where the French established a colony. Relationships between the two were friendly, and the Mobile readily accepted the new Christian faith.
The Mobile were primarily a farming people. The tribe were absorbed by the Choctaw Nation, although their legacy remains in the place names of Mobile, as a city, a county and as a river, and in the name of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Except for the Pacific Coast Indians or some scattered along the Mexican border, all Native Americans wore the footwear made from animal skin. This was called “moccasin” from the Algonquian word Mockasin.
There were in general two types of moccasin. Those belonging to the Woodland Tribes were made from a single piece of leather, whereas the Plains people favored a shoe with a tough (probably buffalo) rawhide sole and a softer upper, made of buckskin or a similarly pliable skin.
Moccasins were beautifully decorated with beadwork, quilling, fringing, painting, etc., and it was actually possible to identify the tribe the wearer belonged to by examining the moccasin. The Cheyenne, for example, always left a little piece of leather at the back of the heel, like a small tail. Moccasin “boots” that came up to the knee were often worn by women. It was women who made this traditional footwear, and a man would often carry several pairs with him if he needed to go on a long journey.
A colloquial term used by frontiersmen, referring to the information received or carried by a Native American runner. A person accused of being a “Moccasin Telegraph” was generally thought to be a gossip.
A container made from birch bark, in which to keep sugar and other food substances.
A small tribe, the Modoc were related to the Klamath, although relations between the two tribes were not generally amicable. Both tribes lived in the area of southwest Oregon.
The fact that the Modoc were “discovered” by the white men fairly late on did not stand in their favor, since the tribe quickly gained a reputation for being “troublesome.” The problems started when the tribe were ordered away from their homelands and sent to live on Klamath territory. Their leader, Kintpuash, a.k.a. Captain Jack, decided after a year that they would return to their home in the Lost River Valley, Oregon; after being rounded up and returned, the tribe’s second “escape” saw them holed up in an area of natural caves, where their defensive actions resulted in the deaths of several white soldiers. Captain Jack and a number of other Modoc braves were executed.
The name of these ancient Native American people is derived from where they lived, near the mountain ranges along the border of Arizona and New Mexico. The Mogollan culture was in existence from 300 B.C. to A.D. 1300. They are believed to have been the first people to have made pottery, using a method called “coiling” in which a long, rolled strip of clay is coiled into the desired shape. As well as this, they made baskets from various kinds of plant material. The Mogollan grew maize, beans, squash, cotton, and tobacco, as well as foraging for wild foods, berries, and roots. They lived in permanent settlements, building pithouses—semiburied dwellings which provided effective insulation against the heat.
The Mohawk tribe belongs to the Iroquois language family.
The colonists had a slang term, “mohock,” which meant something like “ruffian.” This was derived from “Mohawk,” the name of a notoriously ferocious and warlike tribe that originally lived in the Mohawk Valley between the Utica and Albany areas of New York. Accounts from the Jesuit priests who subsequently came to the area describe that the tribe would kill and eat one another; the name “Mohawk” is a Narragansett word meaning “man eater” or otherwise “they who eat animate things.” The Mohawk call themselves Kaniengehaga or Kanien’kehake, meaning “the people of the place of the flint” or the “people of the crystal.” This could be because they used the flint stone available where they lived to carve tips for their arrows.
The name of Hiawatha is perhaps the best known of all the Mohawk chiefs, because of the poem of the same name by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. But the Hiawatha that is the subject of the poem is primarily based on an Ojibwe deity, so the poem doesn’t describe the true life of the chief. Hiawatha was one of the guiding forces behind the Iroquois Confederacy of Five Nations, later joined by the Tuscarora, when the confederation became the Haudenosaunee.
The Mohawk had a tribal council; the members of this were chosen by the female leaders of the tribe, the matriarchs. The clans were largely controlled by women, who made major decisions regarding the well-being of the tribe as a whole, including the family, farming, and property. Although they also chose the leaders, only men were allowed to represent the tribe at the tribal council, and military decisions and trade agreements were also the province of the menfolk.
The Mohawk lived in longhouses, large permanent buildings constructed from a wooden frame and covered with sheets of timber, birch, and elm bark, etc. These houses were large, up to 115 feet long, and provided a home for many—maybe up to 60 or 70 people.
Among the first white people that the Mohawk encountered were the Dutch, who in the early 1600s opened a trading post in Mohawk territory, near what is now New York. The Dutch primarily traded in furs with the tribe. Relations between the two served both: the Mohawk grew wealthy from the trade, exchanging furs for rifles, and they were smart in ensuring that they had a monopoly on the trade, making sure that no other tribes traded with the wealthy Dutch merchants.
After the French attacked the Mohawk in the New York area and conclusively “won” the fight after razing the Native settlements to the ground, one of the conditions of the peace pact was that the Mohawk cooperate with the Jesuit missionaries, who established two missions on Mohawk territory and set about trying to convert the tribe to Christianity. Numbers of Mohawks did convert to Catholicism, including one Kateri Tekakwitha, who was actually later beatified—this is one of the stages toward being canonized as a saint.
The Mohican hairstyle (a long, narrow, upright plume of hair running from the front of the forehead to the nape, with shaven sides), popularized during the punk era of the 1970s and early 1980s, was believed to have been inspired by, and was subsequently named after, the male Mohawk style. However, this is not correct, although the Pawnee in the Great Lakes area did sport such a hairstyle. Traditionally, the Mohawk would painfully pluck the hair from his scalp in tufts, until all that was left was a small square of hair on the back of his head. This was then braided into three strands and decorated with beads and feathers. During times of mourning, women would cut off their hair.
Mohawk men wore a breechcloth only in the warmer months, and added a deerskin shirt and leggings in the winter months. Women wore only a deerskin skirt in the summer, and in the winter, a full dress of the same material. In common with other Native Americans, the Europeans influenced their form of dress as well as making more materials available, such as wool, cotton, ribbons, and even lace.
Today the Mohawk people live in Ontario and Quebec; four First Nations tribes are situated there. These tribes are autonomous, making up their own laws and government. As well as these peoples, whose lands include a reservation that straddles the U.S./Canadian border, there are communities in New York as well as on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario.
The literal meaning of this word is “half”; it is used to describe a social group within a tribe. Some tribes divided themselves into two, with each half being responsible for different aspects of the everyday tasks and running of the tribe.
Sometimes spelled “Mohave,” this people belongs to the Yuman language family, which in turn belongs to the Hokan family, spoken by peoples who originated in Arizona, Mexico, and California. The original meaning of the word Mojave is “next to water”—appropriate, since the Mojave originally lived on the banks of the Colorado River. It was likely that their proximity to the river, and the possibilities for irrigation that it offered, enabled the tribe to become skilled agriculturalists. They cultivated the “Three Sisters” of corn, beans, and squash. When the river ran low, the Mojave performed ceremonies and dances to encourage the rain to fall. This river, which was the lifeblood of the Mojave and possibly the most important aspect of their universe, had been gifted to them, they believed, by Mastamho, the son of the creator Mutavilya.
Because of their agricultural lifestyle, the Mojave were not nomadic, but sedentary, living in simple wickiups. This sedentary, settled lifestyle gave the tribe the means to experiment with clay, and their pottery was decorated with beautiful geometric designs, valuable for trading with tribes from the Pacific Coastal areas, maybe for furs or skins.
The Mojave diet was supplemented with animals that they trapped (generally small mammals that existed close to the banks of the river) and fish that they caught. Clothing made from the skins of these animals was worn by the Mojave women and girls, although the Mojave men and boys were generally naked except for their breechcloths. The tribe identified their status by means of dark blue tattoos made from the “ink” of cacti; servants, for example, were given markings on the chin.
The fertile richness of the Mojave territory did not go unnoticed by the white trappers. Mountain men, led by Jedediah Smith, arrived there in the 1820s. Initially welcomed, the Mojave were shocked at the brutality and waste of the white trappers, who, instead of using all parts of an animal, discarded the unwanted carcasses of beaver along the riverbanks since they were interested only in the pelts. Subsequent trappers simply helped themselves to any livestock they found on Mojave territory, ignoring requests that the beavers on their land be traded for horses. Unsurprisingly, conflict arose. When Smith returned, he was attacked by a posse of Mojave; nine of his men were killed, and a 20-year period of violence erupted between the white men and the Mojave. In the worst incident, 26 Native American men were killed.
In the 1850s, U.S. Army troops moved into Mojave territory. It was their mission to build an outpost on the Colorado River to protect the incoming settlers from the Native Americans, who were warned that the outpost would be established by means of force if necessary. The Mojave warriors chose not to resist, and Fort Mojave was established. Lieutenant Hoffman, who was in charge of the operation, met with Mojave chiefs to discuss what would happen next; he offered them a choice between peaceful cooperation or extermination. The Mojave opted for peace.
A reservation was assigned to the tribe: the Colorado River Reservation, established in 1865, was where they were meant to relocate. However, when they refused to go, there was no enforcement. Since the Mojave were peaceable and did not pose any threat to the settlers, they were left alone and remained living on the land that they had inhabited for generations.
In the 1890s, the former Fort Mojave was converted into a boarding school as part of an endeavor to teach Native children the English language and also to inculcate them into Christianity. The regime was harsh; the punishment for speaking their native tongue earned a child five lashes of the whip. The children were also given English names and European clothes as part of the drive to assimilate the Native peoples.
Occasionally, Native Americans are born with a particular kind of birthmark, one or more purplish marks on the back. Sometimes known as “Mongolian spots,” such marks are given as evidence of the provenance of the Native Americans among the nomadic tribes of eastern Siberia, who would have accessed North America by crossing the Bering Straits when all the land was covered in ice.
Part of the Algonquian language family, like the Naskapi with whom they had much in common. Both spoke very similar dialects of their “family” language, and because both groups lived in the challengingly tough environment of the subarctic in what is now Labrador, their lifestyles were also very similar. Montagnais means “mountains” in French, and it was the French who gave the tribe their name. The tribe allied with the French, helping them with the trade of furs and also fighting the English on their behalf.
The main game animal that the tribe hunted was the moose. A difficult animal to capture, the hunters took advantage of the fact that the bulky creature tended to sink into the deep winter snows, making it easier to kill. The tribe fished the rivers, catching salmon, eels, and, in the summer months, followed the course of the river to kill seals. Such trips often meant a gathering of the clans, a cause for celebration after the arduous winter months. The rocky ground and harsh environment meant that farming was impossible, but there were wild plants and berries to be foraged seasonally. Life for the Montagnais was so tough that, when their elders were no longer able to function, they were killed off.
The Montagnais lived in wigwams; the preferred covering was flexible birch bark, but where this was not available they used elm or perhaps animal hides, primarily from the moose.
This people, also called the Shinnecock, were part of a powerful confederacy that was named after them. They lived in the central and eastern parts of what is now Long Island, and were part of the Algonquian language family. Living in wigwams, the tribe were able to farm the sandy soil on the banks of the river, hunted small mammals, and caught fish by various methods, including with spears. They also went whaling, setting off into the ocean in dugout canoes. If they were lucky, they might catch whales that had drifted onto the shore and were stranded; when this happened the Montauk thanked a deity named Moshup, who was believed to deliver whales in this way.
The Montauk were in general well-disposed toward the white people, and because of their location along the eastern seaboard were among the earliest groups that were encountered by these explorers. They were quick to trade with the colonists and worked with both the Dutch and then the English. Wampum—a currency made from specific shells—was one of the natural resources of the Montauk, and they guarded it jealously. Although the Montauk and the settlers were on friendly terms, the Native population suffered a decline after the Europeans’ arrival. The biggest losses were caused by the diseases that the settlers inadvertently brought with them, against which the tribes had no immunity.
1866–1923
Also called Wasaja, which means “beckoning,” Carlos was an Apache/Yavapai who did a great deal to help the cause of the Native Americans. Born in Arizona, in the Superstition Mountains, when he was just four or five years old Wasaja was kidnapped in a raid by a band of Pima Indians. Wasaja wasn’t the only child who was kidnapped; at least a dozen children were taken. The captives were taken to the Pima encampment on the Gila River and shortly afterward the little boy was sold for the sum of $30 to Charles Gentile, a prospector and photographer. At the time, $30 was the price of a horse. Gentile renamed his young charge Carlos, after himself, and Montezuma after the Casa de Montezuma ruins in the area (despite the name, these ruins were not of Aztec origin). Upon Gentile’s death, Wasaja was given into the care of one W.H. Stedman, a minister living in Illinois.
Wasaja enjoyed a good education; he was fortunate enough to have a private tutor for two years, after which he entered the University of Illinois, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1884. While working as a pharmacist, the self-motivated Wasaja continued to study, and graduated from the Chicago Medical College in 1889.
He worked as a private practitioner for a short time, but then got an appointment to work as a surgeon and physician at the Fort Stevenson Indian School, which was situated in North Dakota. He was able to see conditions on other reservations, working also at the Western Shoshone Agency and at the Colville Agency. Increasingly frustrated at what he saw on the reservations, he transferred to the Carlisle School, where he served for two years before opening a private practice. All this time he was getting more and more interested in Native American affairs. He was then offered a teaching post at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Wasaja’s political interests gained in intensity and he began to give lectures, in which he described the conditions he had seen. He was openly critical of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He also spoke out for the cause of full citizenship for Native Americans. He could see no reason why Indians and non-Indians should not assimilate, while leaving room for Native Americans to be proud of their heritage and also be able to continue with their traditional practices. He wrote three books expounding his ideas; the most famous, Let My People Go, was published in 1914. He started a magazine under his own name in 1916. Although he was offered the post of Commissioner of Indian Affairs by President Teddy Roosevelt, he refused, and continued to advocate for the entire department to be shut down. His political activities inspired a whole generation of Native peoples. Wasaja died in 1923.
1724(?)–1804
Also known as Queen Catharine, Montour was an important member of the Iroquois people. She was the daughter of Margaret Montour, who was half-French, half-Iroquois, and a Mohawk named Katarioniecha, a.k.a. Peter Quebec.
Catharine married Telenemut, a chief of the Seneca, and settled in a village named Chequegah, which would eventually be named after her: Catharine’s Town.
Telenemut died in 1760, after which Catharine came to be known as Queen Catharine, the leader of the Seneca. In 1779 she evacuated her people in advance of U.S. troops reaching her territory, fleeing to western New York and Canada. It is rumored that she received a payment from the English because of her useful influence with her people.
Catharine survived her husband by several years, dying at around the age of 80. She acted in all ways like a chief; her people respected her fearlessness, her direct manner, and her intelligence. As chief, it was up to Catharine to direct all matters within the tribe and also to mete out justice.
“I would rather die in freedom on my way back home than starve to death here.”
1810(?)–1883
A chief of the northern Cheyenne, Morning Star was also known by his Lakota Sioux name, the less-glamorous sounding Dull Knife.
Morning Star vehemently resisted the encroachment of the Europeans onto Native American territories and did all he could to resist it; in fact, it is due to the determination of Morning Star and his compatriots that the Cheyenne are still situated on a part of their hereditary lands, in what is now called Montana.
Morning Star was among the chiefs present in 1868 at the signing of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which was intended to stop the white men encroaching onto Native American territory. He became allied with the Sioux after the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, to try to fight the United States. Unfortunately, after a battle named in his honor (the Dull Knife fight), the Cheyenne warriors had no choice but to surrender and were forcibly taken to the reservation at the Indian Territory in Oklahoma.
The Cheyenne, like other Native Americans, suffered terribly—not only on the journey to the Territory but also when they arrived there. Starvation and disease beset the Cheyenne, and in 1878 Morning Star had had enough. He asked his people whether they would rather die in “captivity” or during an attempt to get back to their homeland. They opted for the latter. So Morning Star led them back toward their homelands. They were captured in Nebraska, and during an attempted escape in 1879, most of the band were killed by troops. Morning Star was among those who managed to escape. This small group walked the 18-day journey to Red Cloud’s reservation at Pine Ridge, where Morning Star died in 1883, a year before the Cheyenne were granted a reservation of their own. He is buried on a hill overlooking the Rosebud River.
It was the custom in some tribes that a man must never look at the mother of his wife; neither could he even be under the same roof, and he must certainly never speak to her. In order to effect this habit, mothers-in-law of the Navajo tribe wore small bells in their ears so that their sons-in-law would be warned of their arrival.
Archeologists have discovered that several groups of the indigenous peoples of America built mounds. Many were found to have been built after the arrival of Columbus, and the mounds were built over a period of 2,000 years. The Natchez, when first encountered by the French, were mound builders; their Great Emerald Mound was considered the center of their Nation.
The earliest of these mound-building civilizations were the Burial Mound People, who moved into the Ohio Valley. Later, the Temple Mounds culture moved into the same area. These people built the mounds as a base for their temples, which were constructed from timber. These mounds were still being built into the 1800s.
The largest mound in North America is in Illinois, in Madison County at the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Collinsville.
This was the term used to refer to the European fur trappers, many of whom were independent agents not employed by or attached to the large fur-trading companies. These mountain men often lived closely with the tribespeople and so became familiar with Native American ways of life.
The boots first worn by the Inuit, often made from comfortable, soft, and supple sealskin.
Native American musical instruments consist primarily of drums (or other means of percussion), and whistles or flutes.
Drums were arguably the most important musical instrument to the Native American peoples, and the most commonly used was a frame drum—i.e., a skin stretched tautly over a wooden frame. But anything that could be hit to provide a rhythm was used: a wooden box, a piece of wood. Another simple percussion instrument is something that is today known as the guiro or the guajos, and was once more commonly known as the morache, a notched piece of wood which, when stroked with a stick, made a sort of chirping sound rather like a cricket or a frog.
Flutes and whistles were often made from the hollow wing bones of birds; the Native Americans believed that not only did the whistle sound like the bird but carried something of its spirit, too. Otherwise, pottery was molded and baked to make a whistle; the ocarina is a good example of this type of flute.
Bells, too, were tied to the wrists and ankles of dancers to provide a rhythmic accompaniment to dancing. Rattles could be made from dried gourds, the seeds either placed inside or woven into a loose mesh on the outside. Rattles were also made from shells.
The Native name for the most powerful of all the Creek band, and also the name for one of the Native American language families.
The name first given by the Dakota Sioux to the horse. Prior to the coming of the horse, the dog was the most important animal to the Natives, as it was able to carry goods and chattels by means of the travois, and accompanied those on hunting expeditions. The horse opened up many possibilities for the Indians, enabling them to travel further and faster, and to carry more than the dogs had been able to.