American Indians

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Chapter 8

• American Indians

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Symbol American Indian Woman
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Symbol American Indian Man
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SAA 8.2 What do you know about American Indians?

• Sports team mascots and logos pay tribute to
  their place in history
• All who enroll get a monthly check from the
  government
• Population is decreasing rapidly
• Have been on continent nearly 5,000 years
• Were great mathematicians architects

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What do you know (cont)?

• U.S. always accorded Indian nations the rights of
  independent nations
• Tribal system was run by warrior-chiefs
• Basic worldview all things in natural world are
  connected
• Planning tends to be short-range and
  in-the-moment
• Key value maintaining lifelong relationships

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Myths Stereotypes

• Myth 1. Vanishing relics of the pastredskin
  savages, warriors, squaws
• Expanding population.
• Younger, faster-growing than total American
  population
• terms offensive to most American Indians
• perpetuate media stereotypes
• Myth 2. Sports-team mascots logos honor
  American Indians place in history
• Mock and trivialize American Indian culture.
• Not accurate representations of American Indians

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Myths Stereotypes

• Myth 3. Indian theme programs pay homage to
  American Indian traditions
• Who controls how a culture is displayed and
  perceived?
• Distilling a complex culture into superficial
  images
• Encouraging stereotypes
• Myth 4 Lazy and wont work
• Myth 5 An expert on Indian lore

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American Indian Demographics

• Mainland population - almost 1 percent
• Mainland and Alaskan - 1.5 percent
• One of youngest ethnic groups
• Household income 32,100
• All Americans 42,200
• Poverty rate 26
• All Americans 10
• Number of Tribes 558
• Largest tribes Cherokee and Navajo

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States where they live all states

• Most populous
• California
• Oklahoma
• Arizona

• of Population
• 15 (628,000)
• 10 (392,000)
• 7 (293,000)

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American Indian Worldview

• Nature Live in harmony, preserve human-nature
  balance
• Who We Are A stable people, build homes,
  identify with land
• Role of Tradition Conservative, remember the
  past
• Knowledge is holistic Focus on the whole first,
  parts second
• web of life means all is connected, related
• Truth is relative Many possible truths,
• grounded in experience, which evolves, is
  multi-dimensional
• Holistic Worldview - Experience and relate to a
  living universe
• web of life where humans must participate
• Time Multi-focus, natures cycles

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American Indian Values

• Education For wisdom in the why of things
• Planning Consider decisions impact on 7th
  generation
• Future, present equally important greater than
  past
• Expressing Self Doing first, then becoming,
  then being
• Relationships Collectivist
• sharing, helping relatives comes first
• lifelong relationships are common
• Use of Space - People more important than privacy
  
• Borrow and lend things often and easily

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American Indian Contributions

• Architecture unexcelled
• Astronomy - calendar extremely accurate
• Math - used the zero before Arabs, Europeans
• Languages 500 to 1,000 spoken in No. America
• more than in all of Old World
• Agriculture worlds greatest farmers,
  pharmacists
• Their plants now feed much of world, allowed
  population expansion
• Medical system - far superior to European systems
• Natural pharmaceuticals, sanitation, surgery,
  other
• Made possible many modern medicines, drugs
• Political system - primary model for the U.S.
  democratic political system in turn influenced
  U.N. and the world
• 30,000 years of living in the Americas

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Skill Builder Cases

• 8.1. To Cut or Not to Cut
• 8.2 Matt, a Chippewa Clerk

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Teams

• Select a reporter (rotate this over time)
• Report write names of team members
• Take notes
• Report highlights to class
• Turn in notes to professor dont put in stack
  of homework