Chippewa/Ojibwe:title

Potawatomi / Bode'wadmi: Artisans of the Midwest

The Potawatomi Tribe

It is a challenge to find information pertaining to the Potawatomi tribe for the exact reason that sets them apart in history; they were not involved in a major historical event such as battles or conflict, and therefore many historians simply don't see the 'reason' to write about them. Unlike the stereotype of Native people being primitive or warlike, the Potawatomi were very advanced in the arts of healing and craftsmanship and valued peace, finding glory in art and culture rather than war. The picture featured above is of Conapaka, a Medicine Man (circa 1900), which I chose to represent the values of peace and community, and the emphasis on advancement of health, botanical, and agricultural sciences. Although all of the resources I selected for this paper are secondary sources, as very few primary sources exist, I have evaluated al of them thoroughly and all five of them are created for the purpose of education, with no further bias or agenda beyond informing the reader. Three of them are, in fact, created by tribe members themselves, and all are reputable. 

The ‘Potawatomi’ or Bode’wadmi are a midwestern Native American tribe who's name means ‘those who tend to the hearth-fire’.  They were historically spread through most of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, but after contact were forced to either settle in smaller patches of their homelands or even south west to Kansas and the great plains, in an effort to make room in the upper midwest for French and English settlers. There was an estimated population of up to 15,000 tribe members at the time of contact, but after thirty years of they had decreased to 4,000 or less.

They spoke a polysynthetic Algonquian language (by the same name of the tribe itself) which has now mostly died out and is only spoken by less than a hundred people. They’d long had a written pictographical alphabet before contact with settlers, but in the mid-1800s, sometime between 1830 and 1860 Fr. Christian Hoecken and Fr. Maurice Gailland, two Jesuit missionaries, developed a romanized syllabic alphabet, and much later in the 1970s, the Wisconsin Native American Languages Program created a revised pedagogical alphabet was created for the purpose of teaching modern-day Bode’wadmi their own language.

The Bode’wadmi were relatives and allies to the Ojibwe and Ottawa tribes in an alliance commonly known as The Council of Three Fires. The role of the Bode'wadmi was as keepers of the fires, tending to the well being of both the people and the culture. The three tribes have many similarities in region, dress, arts, and language, and often cooperated and intermixed. The Bode'wadmi were mostly distinguished by a more sedentary lifestyle, and their focus on agriculture, farming, and medicine as opposed to hunting deer or fish like their neighbours.

The mythology of the Bode'wadmi is very similar to that of other Anishinaabe tribes such as the Ottawa, Ojibwe and Algonquin. The main characters of most Bode'wadmi stories are Nanaboozhoo, the hero, Nokmes, his grandmother, and Chibiabos, Nanaboozhoo's brother and the ruler of the dead. The spirits and monsters often mentioned in these myths are Deer Woman, Underwater Panther, Thunderbird, Mermen, Pa'is (little forest people, comparable to gnomes), and windigo, created from the spirits of evil Bode'wadmi turned into monsters as punishment.

Bibliography

Ager, Simon. "Potawatomi (Bode'wadmi)." Omniglot. Last modified 2015. Accessed October 8, 2015. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/potawatomi.htm.

Edwards, Rose. "Native Genealogy: People of 3 Fires." US Gen Web Project. Last modified 2004. Accessed October 8, 2015. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~minatam/.

"Native Languages of the Americas: Nanaboozhoo Stories and Other Potawatomi Legends." Native Languages of the Americas. Last modified 2015. Accessed October 8, 2015. http://www.native-languages.org/potawatomi-legends.htm.

"Native Languages of the Americas: Potawatomi (Nishnabek, Pottawatomie, Pottawatomi)." Native Languages of the Americas. Last modified 2015. Accessed October 8, 2015. http://www.native-languages.org/potawatomi.htm.

Sultzman, Lee. "Potawatomi History." Tolatsga. Last modified December 18, 1998. Accessed October 8, 2015. http://www.tolatsga.org/pota.html.

Image:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/342977327844497585.

Anasazi: People Of Change

Image via energy-reality.org

The Anasazi were as advanced as Europeans and changed/developed just like Europeans did, but they lacked some essential aspects of success that Europe had. I chose the above picture to be my main platform, because it helped to lay out my four topics (History of the Anasazi, the culture, the economy, and the social and family systems) in a cohesive and concise way that showed how the Anasazi were just as advanced as they could be. The different aspects of the Anasazi connect together, and this image displays smalls portions of the tribe in one picture, such as the surroundings and roads, which connect to key parts of Anasazi life. Since the Anasazi are known for their intricate basket making, it seemed fit to me to have my primary source be a basket that was found at an Anasazi site. The Anasazi preserved their artifacts, and corn has even been found at their former sites. When Europeans invaded the Americas and the rest of the world, they won wars and wrote the history textbooks to glorify themselves. Because of this bias in books, scholars must work against Eurocentrism, and propaganda. Native Americans are often portrayed in inferior ways to Europeans, but in reality, they had the same detailed systems that Europeans did. The only difference is that the Native Americans lacked Guns, Germs, and Steel, according to Jared Diamond. The secondary sources included are largely from databases and sources from my world history class from last year. These sources are unbiased and can give accurate information since they come from professionals and scholars who are extremely educated on the topics. Ways of the World and Guns, Germs, and Steel are both secondary insights into the world of the Anasazi and other Native Americans. The purposes of the secondary sources are not for money but instead to educate those who read them. Eurocentrism is often forgotten or put aside by our society, so we must counter this ourselves by knowing the unbiased truth through trustworthy sources. When bias has been removed, it is clear that the Anasazi took the same actions as Europeans, but simply had less opportunities, and different appearances or forms.

References:

• Kingham, Jeffrey. "Colorado." In American History. ABC-CLIO, 2000-. Accessed September 9, 2015. http://americanhistory.abc-clio.com/.
• Hutchinson, Jennifer. "Chaco Canyon." In World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras. ABC-CLIO, 2004-. Accessed September 9, 2015. http://ancienthistory.abc-clio.com/.
• Diamond, Jared. Gun, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13.000 Years. London: Jonathan Cape, 1997.
• Greene, Danielle. "Pueblo Bonito." In World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras. ABC-CLIO, 2004-. Accessed September 9, 2015. http://ancienthistory.abc-clio.com/.
• American History, s.v. "Anasazi culture," accessed September 9, 2015. http://americanhistory.abc-clio.com/.
• Strayer, Robert W. Ways of the World: A Brief Global History with Sources. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011.
• World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras, s.v. "Ruins of Chaco Canyon," Photos/Illustrations, Shutterstock, accessed September 9, 2015. http://ancienthistory.abc-clio.com/.
• "Anasazi." Anasazi. Accessed September 9, 2015. http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/american_indians/anasazi.html.
• "The Anasazi." DesertUSA. Accessed September 9, 2015.
• Britannica Academic, s. v. "Southwest Indian," accessed September 09, 2015, http://academic.eb.com/EBchecked/topic/556984/Southwest-Indian.
• Katz, Jacqueline. "World History Freshman Year." Interview by author. June 20, 2015.
• Britannica Academic, s. v. "Ancestral Pueblo culture," accessed September 09, 2015, http://academic.eb.com/EBchecked/topic/22804/Ancestral-Pueblo-culture.
• "National Museum of the American Indian : Item Detail." National Museum of the American Indian : Item Detail. Accessed September 9, 2015. http://www.nmai.si.edu/searchcollections/item.aspx?irn=59348®id=2797.
• Energy-Reality.org. Accessed September 9, 2015. http://www.energy-reality.org/action/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/scotthaefner-moontrack-1024x685.jpg.

Cheyenne - Horses of change

The introduction of horses to the Cheyenne radically changed the way they lived from a peaceful life of agriculture to a more war driven way of life. Before the Europeans came to America, the Native Americans lived a very peaceful farming focused life. They grew crops and hunted small animals without moving around very often because their food supply was substantial. But once the Europeans introduced horses into the Native American culture, all of that changed. The horses indirectly caused the Cheyenne to go to war with many other tribes. The Cheyenne developed a way of life that was very suited to constant warring with other tribes. They started to train their boys from a young age to be able to participate in battle. The boy in the account gets to participate in a raid on another tribe because he has been trained and he has one of the fastest horses. In the account the narrator stated that he was 10 at the time and that the raid he participated in then was not the first one. The Primary source illustrates how horses were an important tool once the war started and how they were used. It also shows that boys were being trained in combat from an age as young as ten.

Bibliography

King-Ries, Kristin. "Cheyenne." Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America. Ed. Thomas Riggs. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 2014. 465-477. U.S. History in Context. Web. 7 Sept. 2015.

ncyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "Cheyenne", accessed September 07, 2015,http://www.search.eb.com/topic/Cheyenne-people.

Grinnell George, “The Cheyenne Indians,” Nebraska, First Bison Book Printing, 1972, September 7

Grinnell George, “The Cheyenne Indians,” Pg 5, Nebraska, First Bison Book Printing, 1972, September 8