Animals have always been mentors to humans, informing them about upcoming dangers, and teaching them how to hunt, gather, and find fresh water. The animals’ ways were of such a magnitude of importance that the Native Americans began to use stories based on these animals to teach lessons in life. Stories about these animals have emphasized the virtues of the animals, and repeatedly taught children to be, “wise, gentle, brave, or cheerful in the same manner as certain birds and animals” (Caduto and Bruchac, XI). An animal of great importance to the tribes of North America, was and still is, the elk. The elk was not only a source of food but also for clothes, tools, glue, and even teepee coverings. The teeth of the elk were used a jewelry to be worn only by the women of the tribes, also as a currency among the Native Americans. By scrutinizing Native American stories and scientific facts we can see how elks’ physical traits and ecological interactions can be traced to the culture of the Native American people.
The elk is thought to be a prey animal, seeing the elk eats only vegetation and is not a predator of any sorts. In the Sioux legend The Rabbit and the Elk, the elk is a complete jokester. He tricks the rabbit into thinking the rabbit had killed an elk in his trap. When the rabbit came to check his trap he saw the “dead” elk and ran home to tell his grandmother of the good news. “Grandmother, I have trapped a fine elk. You shall have a new dress from his skin. Throw the old one in the fire” (First People of America). When the rabbit came back to the trap, the elk got up and said “Ho, friend rabbit. You thought to trap me; now I have mocked you,” as he ran into the thicket. This is a prime example of anthropomorphism because ne...
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Works Cited
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Lapinski, Mike. The Elk Mystique. Stevensville, MT: Stoneydale, 1998. Print.
Caduto, M. J., and J. Bruchac. Keepers of the animals, Native American stories and wildlife activities for children. Fulcrum Publishing, 1998. Print.
Toweill. "Elk Anatomy and Physiology - Elk Article #2." Elk of North America; Ecology and Management. By Thomas. N.p.: Stackpole, n.d. N. pag. Bowhunting.net. Web. 27 Apr. 2014. .
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Shoemaker, Nancy. “ Native-American Women in History.” OAH Magazine of History , Vol. 9, No. 4, Native Americans (Summer, 1995), pp. 10-14. 17 Nov. 2013
Modern day Native American are widely known as stewards of the environment who fight for conservation and environmental issues. The position of the many Native American as environmentalists and conservationists is justified based on the perception that before European colonists arrived in the Americas, Native Americans had little to no effect on their environment as they lived in harmony with nature. This idea is challenged by Shepard Krech III in his work, The Ecological Indian. In The Ecological Indian, Krech argues that this image of the noble savage was an invented tradition that began in the early 1970’s, and that attempts to humanize Native Americans by attempting to portray them as they really were. Krech’s arguments are criticized by Darren J Ranco who in his response, claims that Krech fails to analyze the current state of Native American affairs, falls into the ‘trap’ of invented tradition, and accuses Krech of diminishing the power and influence of Native Americans in politics. This essay examines both arguments, but ultimately finds Krech to be more convincing as Krech’s
In the introduction, Hämäläinen introduces how Plains Indians horse culture is so often romanticized in the image of the “mounted warrior,” and how this romanticized image is frequently juxtaposed with the hardships of disease, death, and destruction brought on by the Europeans. It is also mentioned that many historians depict Plains Indians equestrianism as a typical success story, usually because such a depiction is an appealing story to use in textbooks. However, Plains Indians equestrianism is far from a basic story of success. Plains equestrianism was a double-edged sword: it both helped tribes complete their quotidian tasks more efficiently, but also gave rise to social issues, weakened the customary political system, created problems between other tribes, and was detrimental to the environment.
Many people are under a false impression that early Native Americans are the original environmentalists. This is an impression that many people share. The Abenaki tribes that resided in Maine from 3700 BP were not by our traditional definition, environmentalists. In fact they were far from ecologically sound. This paper is meant not to criticize the Native Americans of the age, but to clarify their roles in the environment. To better understand this subject some background is needed.
Before the urbanization of America, the Bigfoot was known as a “wild man.” People would occasionally capture a glimpse of one or have a brief interaction with them. They were known to exist and the newspapers from the 1700’s through to the late 1940’s have hundreds of accounts of “wild men” being spotted, captured, or misbehaving. Only after the majority of the North Americans moved into communities and left the rural farms did the national consciousness forget about the wild man.
Any discussion of the American culture and its development has to include mythology, because that is where most of the information about early America is found. Mythology is a unique source in that it gives a shared understanding that people have with regard to some aspect of their world. The most important experience for American frontiersmen is the challenge to the “myth of the frontier” that they believed in – “the conception of America as a wide-open land of unlimited opportunity for the strong, ambitious, self-reliant individual to thrust his way to the top.” (Slotkin, 5) In particular, the challenge came from Indians and from the wilderness that they inhabited.
Hundreds of sightings in Northern America and Canada date back to the nineteen hundreds, though most sightings have happened in the Pacific Northwest. The first swamp ape witness was by David Thompson who was attempting to cross the Rocky Mountains on his trip he wrote in his Journal-- "I saw the track of a large Animal - has 4 large Toes abt 3 or 4 Inch long & a small nail at the end of each. The Bal of his foot sank abt 3 In deeper than his Toes - the hinder part of his foot did not mark well. The whole is about 14 In long by 8 In wide & very much resembles a large Bear's Track.
To better understand Josanna’s attachment to Elk one must understand her background and where she was in her life when she met Elk. Josanna and the narrator had both been married before, marriages that like Wyoming were not easy, “Wyos are touchers, hot-blooded an...
The Native American Indians had no beasts of burden, no plows, no wagons, no means of transportation, and no way to move heavy objects other than by their own power. The Europeans brought over horses, oxen, donkeys, and camels. Horses became very valuable to the Native Americans. For the hunter-gatherers or nomads, the effect was beneficial because the horse enabled them to cover great distances, and hunters could locate and kill the bison more easily. H...
In his essay, “The Indians’ Old World,” Neal Salisbury examined a recent shift in the telling of Native American history in North America. Until recently, much of American history, as it pertains to Native Americans; either focused on the decimation of their societies or excluded them completely from the discussion (Salisbury 25). Salisbury also contends that American history did not simply begin with the arrival of Europeans. This event was an episode of a long path towards America’s development (Salisbury 25). In pre-colonial America, Native Americans were not primitive savages, rather a developing people that possessed extraordinary skill in agriculture, hunting, and building and exhibited elaborate cultural and religious structures.
Hence, the image of the trickster Coyote is the focal point in these two cultures, because of his/her never-ending desire to start the next story for the creation of the world and have everything right. Native American culture has a lot of dialogic perspectives in it; in the form of stories and conversations in which all humans and non-humans communicate (Irwin,2000, p39) and writers often highlight the importance of the oral cultural inheritance both as the notion of their being and as method for their writing. Coyote in traditional oral culture reminds us the semiotic component of sufferings of
Native Americans chose to live off the land such as animals and the trees for houses from the time of early civilization in the Americas to when Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic. In Thomas Morton’s writing he said “they gather poles in the woods and put eh great end of them in the ground, placing them in form of a circle.”
Kugel, Rebecca, and Lucy Eldersveld Murphy. Native women's history in eastern North America before 1900: a guide to research and writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007.
My heart began to beat very rapidly and I breathed deeply to try to calm myself. These deer would step into a clearing in a few feet, and I needed to try to be calm to make a good shot. I picked a spot where I thought that the buck would pass and estimated the distance. I guessed the range to be fifteen yards and waited. I let the doe pass through my ...
For most Americans, their knowledge of Native Americans and their culture of both past and present are based predominantly on outdated labels and stereotypes. Over the past 7 weeks, we have covered several sources that have contributed to the continuous development of the stereotypical images that have unsettled the Native Americans over time. These misleading pictures, novels, Hollywood films, professional sports mascots, and other mediums have misrepresented and alienated the indigenous peoples within in each respective time period regarding the current Euro-American centered culture. In order to empathize with their situation one need to understand how and why these stereotypical images of Native Americans were first created in the first