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History of Native Americans (classes de 203-8 et 204-7)
They were the first people ever to live in North America. Exactly when they came and
how they arrived is still a mystery. But many scientists believe that as long as 30,000
(thirty thousand) years ago some hunters from Asia walked or sailed along the coast of a
land bridge that once connected Russia to Alaska. Their descendants became known as
Native Americans or American Indians. As they spread out over the vast continent
Native Americans adapted to living in different regions and hundreds of unique cultures were born.
The plains Indians hunted buffalo by stampeding them over cliffs. On the northern Pacific
coast tribes like the Haida and the Kwakiutl sailed the ocean and fished. They cut down
giant red cedar trees for their houses, dugout canoes and ceremonial totem poles.
When the first white settlers arrived in the 1500s (fifteen hundreds) about a million Native Americans
lived north of Mexico but the outsiders changed everything. Diseases from Europe such
as small pox and tuberculosis wiped out entire tribes.
Settlers began to claim Indian land for themselves. Some tribes resisted and fought back, others attempted to cooperate. In the
end the result was the same. In the late 1800s the US government forced the remaining Indians
to leave their traditional homelands and live on tracts of land called reservations.
Over the next century Native Americans continued to fight for their rights through political
activism. "We were told that our religion was wrong, we were told right before our faces
that we were heathens but no more, we are going to take this." Today there are more
than five hundred and fifty federally recognized tribes in the US. Native Americans are working
to improve living conditions on the reservations and to preserve their languages, religions
and cultural identities. The pot-latch, a religious ceremony that was once banned by
the Canadian government is being held again by the Kwakiutl. On the Navajo reservation
some ancient ways are blended into modern lives. This sand painting depicts the cloud
people. It's being created to pray for the safety of a group traveling by airplane.
Other Native American artists are reviving their tribes' traditional art forms, a movement
which could help these unique cultures survive into the next century.