While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Environment. The natural phenomena that surrounded the
aborigines of North America, stimulating and conditioning their life and
activities, contrasted greatly with those of the European-Asiatic continent. The
differences in the two environments do not lie alone in physical geography and
in plant and animal life, but are largely meteorologic the sun operating on air,
land, and water, producing variations in temperature and water supply, and as a
result entirely new vegetal and animal forms. The planets and stars also
affected cultural development, since lore and mythology were based on them.
Within the American continent N. of Mexico there were ethnic; environments which
set bounds for the tribes and modified their industrial, esthetic, social,
intellectual, and religious lives. Omitting the Eskimo, practically all the
peoples dwelt in the temperate zone. Few impassable barriers separated the
culture areas, as in Asia. In some respects, indeed, the entire region formed
one environment, having easy communications x. and s. and few barriers E. and w.
The climate zones which Merriam has worked out for the U. S. Department of
Agriculture in regard to their animal and vegetal life correspond in a measure
with the areas of linguistic families as delimited on Powell s map (see
Linguistic families). The environmental factors that determine cultural
development of various kinds and degrees are (1) physical geography; (2)
climate, to which primitive peoples are especially amenable; (3) predominant
plants, animals, and minerals that supply the materials of drink, food,
medicines, clothing, ornaments, houses, fuel, furniture and utensils, and the
objects of hunting, war, the industrial arts, and activities connected with
travel, transportation, and commerce.
Twelve ethnic environments may be distinguished. There are Cosmopolitan
characters common to several, but in each area there is an ensemble of qualities
that impressed themselves on their inhabitants and differentiated them.
(1) Arctic. The characteristics of this environment are an intensely cold
climate; about six months day and six months night; predominance of ice and
snow; immense archipelagos, and no accessible elevations; good stone for lamps
and tools; driftwood, but no timber and little fruit; polar bear, blue fox,
aquatic mammals in profusion, migratory birds, and fish, supplying food,
clothing, fire, light, and other "wants in the exacting climate.
(2) Yukon-Mackenzie. This is Merriam s transcontinental coniferous belt,
separated from the arctic environment by the timber line, but draining into
arctic seas. It has poor material resources, and barren grounds here and there.
Its saving riches are an abundance of birch, yielding bark utensils, canoes,
binding materials, and houses, and of spruce, furnishing textile roots and other
necessaries caribou, muskox, bear, red fox, wolf, white rabbit, and other
fur-bearing mammals, and porcupines, migrating birds, and fish. Snow
necessitates snowshoes of fine mesh, and immense inland waters make portages
easy for bark canoes. Into this area came the Athapascan tribes who developed
through its resources their special culture.
(3) St Lawrence and Lake region. This is a transition belt having no distinct
lines of separation from the areas on the N. and s. It occupies the entire
drainage of the great lakes and includes Manitoba, E. Canada, and N. New
England. It was the home of the Iroquois, Abnaki, Chippewa, and their nearest
kindred. The climate is boreal. There are a vast expanse of lowlands and
numerous extensive inland waters. The natural products are abundant evergreens,
birch, sugar maple, elm, berries, and wild rice in the w.; maize, squash, and
beans in the s.; moose, deer, bear, beaver, porcupines, land and water birds in
immense flocks, whitefish, and, on the seacoast, marine products in greatest
variety and abundance. Canoe travel; pottery scarce.
(4) Atlantic slope. This area, occupied principally by tribes allied to the
Delaware, but also by detached Iroquoian tribes and perhaps some Siouan and
Uchean bands, included the region of the fertile piedmont, poor foothills lands,
bays and rivers abounding in aquatic life, and vast salt meadows. The low
mountains were not ethnic barriers, but the differences in physical conditions
on the two sides were marked enough to produce separate cultures. Minerals for
tools and weapons were present in great variety, and ochers, clays, and some
copper were found. Plant life was varied and abundant. Forests of hard wood,
birch, elm, maple, and evergreens furnished materials for supplying a great
diversity of wants. From the soft wood were made dugout canoes. The dense forest
growth rendered foot traveling irksome. Nuts, berries roots, and maize furnished
food; flax and tough pliant woods and bark gave textile materials. The life
conditions for economic animals were as varied as possible. Beginning with the
shallow marshes and numerous salt-w rater inlets, furnishing clams, oysters,
crabs, cod, mackerel, her ring, halibut, shad, sturgeon, eels, and terrapin, as
shell-heaps attest, it terminated in the trout streams of the mountains. There
were birds of the air, like the eagle and wild pigeon, ground birds, like the
quail and the turkey, and water birds innumerable. Mammals of the water w y ere
the muskrat, otter, and beaver; of the land, moose, elk, deer, bear, rabbit,
squirrel, raccoon, opossum, and wood-chuck. The wide range of latitude
necessitated different dwellings for different climates, as the bark tipi, the
mat house, and the arbor house. For clothing, garments of hide, rabbit skin, and
feathers were used. Stone was abundant for making tools, for flaking or
grinding, but neither materials nor motives for artistic work of a high order
were present.
(5) Gulf coast. The Southern states, from Georgia to Texas, were inhabited by
Muskhogean tribes and several small linguistic families. The characteristics of
this area are a climate ranging from temperate to subtropical, with abundant
rain, low mountains, and rich river valleys and littoral with varied and profuse
mineral, vegetal, and animal resources. The environment yielded a diet of meat,
fish, maize, pulse, melons, and fruits. It was favorable to meager dress and
furnished materials and incentives for featherwork and beadwork, stonework,
earth work, and pottery. Traveling on foot and in dug out canoes was easy.
(6) Mississippi valley. This area includes the states of the Middle West beyond
the Great Lake divide, extending to the loosely defined boundary of the great
plains. Its characteristics in relation to Indian life were varied climate,
abundant rainfall, numerous waterways, fertile lands, alternate timber and
prairie, and minerals in great variety and abundance, including clay for
pottery. The economic plants were soft and hard woods, and plants yielding nuts,
berries, fruits, and fiber. The fertile land was favorable to the cultivation of
maize and squashes. Animals of the chase were buffalo, deer, small rodents, and
wild pigeons and other land birds; but there was a poor fish supply, and the
only shellfish were river mussels. This environment developed hunting and
agricultural tribes, chiefly of Algonquian lineage, including sedentary tribes
that built remarkable mounds.
(7) Plains. This environment lies between the Rocky mts. and the fertile lands
w. of the Mississippi. To the x. it stretches into Athabasca, and it terminates
at the s. about the Rio Grande. The tribes w r ere Siouan, Algonquian, Kiowan,
Caddoan, and Shoshonean. The Missouri and Arkansas and many tributaries drain
the area. The plants were boisd` arc and other hard woods for bows, cedar for
lodge poles, willows for beds, the pomme blanche for roots, etc., but there were
no fine textile fibers. Dependence on the buffalo and the herbivorous animals
associated with it compelled a meat diet, skin clothing and dwellings, a roving
life, and industrial arts depending on the flesh, bones, hair, sinew, hide, and
horns of those animals. Artistic and symbolic de signs w r ere painted on the
rawhide, and the myths and tales related largely to the buffalo. Travel was on
foot, with or with out snowshoes, and transportation was effected by the aid of
the dog and travois. The horse afterward wrought profound changes. The social
order and habit of semi-nomadic wandering about fixed centers were the direct
result of the surroundings and discouraged agriculture or much pottery. No
canoes or other craft than the Mandan and Hidatsa skin boats.
(8) North Pacific coast. From Mt St Elias to the Columbia mouth, lying along the
archipelago and cutoff from the interior by mountains covered with snow, was the
area inhabited by the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Nootka, and coast Salish. It
has a moist, temperate climate, a mountainous coast, with extensive island
groups and landlocked waters favorable to canoe travel. The shores are bathed by
the warm current of the N. Pacific. The days in different seasons vary greatly
in length. The material resources are black slate for carving and good stone for
pecking, grinding, and sawing; immense forests of cedar, spruce, and other ever
green trees for houses, canoes, totem-posts, and basketry; mountain goat and big
horn, bear, beaver, birds, and sea food in great variety and in quantities
inexhaustible by savages. This environment induced "a diet of fish, mixed with
berries, clothing of bark and hair, large communal dwellings, exquisite twined
and checkered basketry to the discouragement of pottery, carving in w rood and
stone, and unfettered travel in dugout canoes, which provided opportunity for
the full development of the dispersive clan system.
(9) Columbia-Fraser region. This includes the adjoining basins of these streams
and contiguous patches, inhabited principally by Salishan, Shahaptian, and
Chinookan tribes. In the s. is a coast destitute of islands. At the head waters
of its rivers it communicates with the areas lying to the E. across the
mountains. Rich lands, a mild climate, good minerals for industries, textile
plants, excellent forests, and an abundance of edible roots and fruits, fish,
mollusks, and water fowl ready at hand characterize this environment, with skin
and wool for clothing. The manifold resources and varied physical features
fostered a great variety of activities.
(10) Interior basin. This is embraced between the Rocky mts. and the Sierras of
the United States, terminating in a regular line in the s., and is the home of
the great Shoshonean family. It partly coincides with the arid Sonoran area of
Merriam, consisting of partial deserts, with rich wooded patches among the
mountains. Good stone for various crafts is present. Timber is scarce, but wild
seeds are abundant for food, and excel lent woods and roots for basketry.
Animals available were buffalo, rabbit, deer, antelope, wolf, mountain sheep,
and birds, but fish were scarce. The environment made necessary the brush
shelter and the cave dwelling. Little pottery was made, but the sinew-backed bow
was developed. Traveling was necessarily done on foot, and carrying effected by
dogs and women, as there w r as no transportation by water.
(11) California-Oregon. This includes s. Oregon and the greater part of
California that embraced in the drainage basins of the Sacramento, San Joaquin,
and smaller rivers flowing into the Pacific. The temperature is mild, neither
cold in winter nor hot in summer, and the year is divided into wet and dry
seasons. The Sierras form a mountain boundary, and mountain groups of some
height are obstructions within the area, but the Coast range is low and broken
and not a barrier. Obsidian, steatite, and other good stones for the arts were
plentiful. There was clay, but no pottery. The region was well but not heavily
timbered, consisting of open plains, with hillsides and ranges covered more or
less with brush and scattered oaks, many species furnishing acorns for food. The
open spaces alternating with the wooded lands yielded grasses and medicinal
herbs. Other useful plants were the buckeye, manzanita, nut pine, redwood, and
tule in the s. for balsas, baskets, matting, and houses, and edible and textile
roots were also found. The animals entering into Indian economy were the deer,
rabbit, bear, coyote, squirrel, jaguar, condor, salmon, sturgeon, eel, trout,
smelt, mussel, clam, haliotis and other shellfish whose shells furnished media
of exchange. This environment was the Caucasus North America here 25 linguistic
families were assembled. On Merriam s bio-geographic maps, published by the
Department of Agriculture, a great variety of life is shown, due to vertical
zones of temperature, only the lower of which were inhabited by Indians. The
more elevated of these were just as effectual as boundaries as though they were
impassable. Owing to the peculiar nature of materials, the arts of this
environment were w r ell defined.
(12) Pueblo country. This area includes s. Utah, s. w. Colorado, all of New
Mexico and Arizona together with the Mohave desert, and extends southward into
Mexico. It embraces the drainage basin of the San Juan in the N., the Rio Grande
and the Pecos in the E., and the Colorado in the w. In physiographic character
it ranges from semiarid to desert. There are deep canyons, elevated mesas,
narrow fertile valleys, broad stretches of plains, and isolated mountain masses.
The climate demands little clothing in the lowlands, but on the plateaus the
nights are cold and the summer temperature that of Maine. Rain is irregular and
periodic, being plentiful for weeks, followed by months of drought; most of the
streams are therefore intermittent. Useful minerals are gypsum, obsidian,
varieties of quartz, potter s clay, adobe, ochers, lignite, salt, and turquoise.
Plant life, except after rains, is comparatively meager, the species giving rise
to native industries being chiefly cactus, yucca, cotton wood, grease wood,
willow, scrub oak, conifers, and rushes. Maize, beans, and cotton were
cultivated from a very early period. Wild animals hunted or trapped were the
rabbit, deer, bear, turkey, prairie dog, mountain lion, wildcat, wood-rat,
mountain sheep, coyote, and wolf. Dogs were trained, and burros, sheep, goats,
and cattle found a con genial home in this area after their introduction by the
Spaniards. Travel was formerly done on foot only, and goods had to be carried
chiefly on the heads and backs of men and w r omen, there being few navigable
waters. This peculiar environment impelled tribes coming into the region to lead
the life of the Pueblo. The outskirts of the region were even less favored with
resources, hence the Pueblos were brought into conflict with predatory tribes
like the Ute, and later the Navaho, the Apache, and the Comanche, w r ho robbed
them and constantly threatened to consume w r hat they raised. These conflicts
developed the cliff-dwelling as means of protection. Southwest of the region
proper are Piman and Yuman tribes and the Mission Indians, dwelling in oases of
the desert that extends into Mexico. Here grow mesquite, ironwood, agave, palo
verde, cacti in the greatest variety, and, along the water courses, cotton wood
and rushes. The people live a life partly sedentary, housed in shelters of brush
and grass. The effects of this environment, where the finding of springs was the
chief desideratum in the struggle for existence, were to influence social
structure and functions, manners and customs, esthetic products and motives,
lore and symbolism, and, most of all, creed and cult, which were conditioned by
the un ending, ever-recurring longing for water.
This site
includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Frederick Webb Hodge, 1906
