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3. Camouflage

When Native hunters throughout the Americas stalked game, they dressed with style and purpose—wearing the hides of animals they sought.

Some were especially creative: hunters in California and the Great Basin built blinds in which they could hide when tracked birds. These techniques were integral to both hunting and warfare

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4. Sunscreen

Spring and summer are just around the corner, which means it's almost time to break out the sunblock. Did you know that Native tribes of the Northeast used sunflower oil for protection against harmful UV rays?

In the Southwest, American Indians used a mixture of western wallflower and water. Others fought burns with the sap of the aloe plant. Today, aloe is grown commercially to produce aloe vera.

Both the Mayans and the Aztecs found ways to extract resin from the Central American sapodilla tree, subsequently cooking and drying it to create a chewable latex. They used it for the same things we do today: alleviating hunger, thirst and of course bad breath.

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Native Americans retain a strong influence on American living - and the majority of Native American inventions came long before European settlers arrived on North American land. Just as an example of Native Americans' impact, where would the world be without gum, chocolate, syringes, popcorn, and peanuts? Let's take a look at just a few of the many Native American inventions.

Totem Pole

West Coast First Peoples believe that the first totem pole was a gift from Raven.

It was named Kalakuyuwish, "the pole that holds up the sky." The totem poles were often used as family crests denoting the tribe's descent from an animal such as the bear, raven, wolf, salmon or killer whale.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, there are several different types of totem poles, among them, for example, the "memorial, or heraldic, poles, erected when a house changes hands to commemorate the past owner and to identify the present one; grave markers, house posts, which support the roof; portal poles, which have a hole through which a person enters the house; and welcoming poles, placed at the edge of a body of water to identify the owner of the waterfront."

Toboggan

The word "toboggan"is a French mispronunciation of the Chippewa word "nobugidaban," which isa combination of two words meaning "flat" and "drag." The toboggan is an invention of the First Nations Peoples of northeastern Canada, and the sleds were critical tools of survival in the long, harsh, far-north winters.

Indian hunters first built toboggans made of bark to carry game over the snow. The Inuit (sometimes called Eskimos) used to make toboggans of whalebone; otherwise, a toboggan is made of strips of hickory, ash or maple, with the front ends curved back. The Cree word for toboggan is "utabaan."

Tipi and Other Housing

Tipis, or tepees, are adaptations of wigwams that were invented by the Great Plains First Peoples, who were constantly migrating.

The seven main styles of housing that Native Americans invented include the wickiup, wigwam, longhouse, tipi, hogan, dugout and pueblo. These nomadic Native Americans needed sturdy dwellings that could stand up against the severe prairie winds and yet be dismantled at a moment's notice to follow the drifting herds. The Plains Indians used buffalo hides to cover their tepees and as bedding.

Kayak

The word "kayak" means "hunter's boat." This transportation tool was invented by the Inuit Peoples for hunting seals and walruses in the frigid Arctic water and for general use. First used by Inuits, Aleuts, and Yupiks, whalebone or driftwood was used to frame the boat itself, and then seal bladders filled with air were stretched over the frame - and themselves. Whale fat was used to waterproof the boat and skins.

Birch Bark Canoe

The birch bark canoe was invented by Northeast Woodlands tribes and was their main mode of transportation, allowing them to travel long distances. The boats were made of whatever natural sources were mainly available to the tribes, but mainly of birch trees found in the forests and woodlands of their lands. The word "canoe" originates from the word "kenu," meaning dugout.

Some of the tribes that built and traveled in birch bark canoes include the Chippewa, Huron, Pennacook, and Abenaki.

Lacrosse

Lacrosse was invented and spread by the Iroquois and Huron Peoples - Eastern Woodlands Native American tribes living around the St. Lawrence River in New York and Ontario. The Cherokees called the sport "the little brother of war" because it was considered excellent military training. The Six Tribes of the Iroquois, in what is now southern Ontario and upstate New York, called their version of the game "baggataway," or "tewaraathon." The game had traditional purposes in addition to sport, such as combat, religion, bets and to keep the Six Nations (or Tribes) of Iroquois together.

Moccasins

Moccasins - shoes made of deerskin or other soft leather - originated with the Eastern North American tribes.

The word "moccasin" derives from the Algonquian language Powhatan word "makasin"; however, most Indian tribes have their own native words for them. Chiefly used for running and exploring outdoors, tribes could generally identify each other by the patterns of their moccasins, including the bead work, the quill work and painted designs.

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Native Americans retain a strong influence on American living - and the majority of Native American inventions came long before European settlers arrived on North American land. Just as an example of Native Americans' impact, where would the world be without gum, chocolate, syringes, popcorn, and peanuts?

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Native American Indian Facts

Great Plains Indians Hunting

Introduction
In this section of Native American Indian Facts you will find information about the amazing American Indians of the Great Plains. Below is a list of the Great Plains Indian tribes followed by several facts about these amazing people. Within this section we will be adding pages on where these tribes lived, their history, the tribal traditions, what they wore, how they survived, their religions, who their great chiefs and warriors were, their jewelry, and the cultural roles of the tribes men and women.
The Great Plains region extends from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west, and from Canada in the north to Texas in the south. This grasslands region has very few trees and has many rolling hills and valleys. The summers are very hot and the winters are very cold.

Click here for a great selection of Great Plains American Indian books on AMAZON .
List of Great Plains American Indian Tribes

Arapaho

Arikara

Assiniboine

Blackfoot

Comanche

Cheyenne

Crow

Gros Ventre

Hidatsa

Ioway

Kaw

Kiowa

Kitsai

Missouria

Mandan

Omaha

Osage

Otoe

Pawnee

Plains Ojibwe

Plains Cree

Plains Apache

Ponca

Quapaw

Sarcee

Sioux

Stoney

Tonkawa

Wichita

Facts about the Great Plains American Indian Tribes

Many of the tribes of the Great Plains were nomadic and followed the buffalo migrations which provided their food. These tribes spent a good part of the year living in camps that could easily be dismantled and moved to follow the buffalo migrations. Other tribes of the plains were more sedentary. These tribes lived in permanent villages year round. They hunted but also relied on farming for their food supply.

Buffalo were extremely important to the Native Americans of the Great Plains. It was their main food source, the hide was used for shelter and clothing, the bones were used to make weapons and tools, the horns were used for various items including spoons and cups, tails were used as whips, and the buffalos stomach was used as a container to hold water.

The Indians used the natural resources available to them wisely. They only killed the number of buffalo they needed and did not waste what they killed. White settlers however hunted buffalo for sport and brought them to near extinction by 1884.

Buffalo was the Plains Indians made food source but they also hunted other animals like antelope, and elk.

The Indians of the Great Plains were known for living in tepees while on their hunting trips. Tepees were easy to assemble, disassemble, and transport; making them excellent housing for the nomadic tribes of the plains. They were assembled by leaning long poles together and then placing buffalo hides over them.

The Plains Indians would transport many of their processions by using the long poles of their tepees, with animal hides strung between them, to create a sled. This sled was named a travois. The travois would be dragged behind horses or dogs.

A Spanish explorer named Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was one of the first Europeans to encounter the Great Plains Indians. He came across the Querechos who would later be called the Apaches. He noted many aspects of their culture including how they lived in tents made of dried bison skins.

The early European explorers and settlers reintroduced the horse to the Native American Indians of the Great Plains. The horse had been hunted to extinction centuries earlier in North America. The horse greatly improved the Plains Indians life enabling them to hunt better, travel faster, and travel further.

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Native American Indian Facts In this section of Native American Indian Facts you will find information about the amazing American Indians of the Great Plains. Below is a list of the Great Plains Indian tribes followed by several facts about these amazing people.

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Much has been made of the indigenous innovations that go largely unrecognized in today's societies. Indian Country Today Media Network, having profiled a number of these, has decided to give credit where credit is due, by highlighting who thought of what. Here is the first of several lists on what various tribes have contributed in the name of science, health, transport and just plain convenience. Without further ado, we give you five items that the Cherokee pioneered the use of, culled from our favorite source, the exhaustively researched Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions to the World: 15,000 Years of Inventions and Innovations (Checkmark Books, an Imprint of Facts on File, 2002), by Emory Dean Keoke and Kay Marie Porterfield.
The Chisholm Trail, and (Possibly) the Convenience Store
Many indigenous inventions get shared credit, with many tribes and cultures developing and using variations on a theme simultaneously. But props go solely to the Cherokee for this cattle-driving road that still exists today. In fact the trail is named after one particular Cherokee, the part-Scottish trader and interpreter Jesse Chisholm, who singlehandedly created one of the most popular cattle trails as he drove herds from Texas to Kansas. His exploits have been recounted in numerous places, even a graphic novel.

RELATED: Picture Perfect: The Graphic Novel as Vehicle for Nonfiction

"Chisholm established the route as a wagon road in 1832 to haul freight from Kansas in order to stock his trading posts," say the authors. "Some western historians credit him with being the father of the first chain of convenience stores, since his posts sold provisions to the cattlemen on their way north."
Anthelmintics, or Intestinal Anti-Worm Medications
Long before Chisholm began driving cattle, several cultures including Cherokee were using anthelmintics, a fancy clinical name for worm medicine, an anti-parasitic.

"One of the most effective and widely used antiworm herbs of American Indians was the pinkroot, the book says. "Sometimes this plant is called the Indian pink, the Carolina pink, worm grass, or wormroot. A beautiful wildflower, it grows two feet tall and has about 12 flowers. The Cherokee and Creek of the Southeast discovered that the roots, which contain an alkaloid, would kill intestinal parasites. They also knew that ingesting too much pinkroot could be fatal since it becomes toxic in large doses."

This was adopted by early European settlers to Turtle Island, the book notes, and "was a standard home remedy for Americans until the early 20th century, when it was replaced with derivatives of the alkaloids found in this American Indian biopharmaceutical discovery."
Double Cropping, or M ultiple Cropping
When European settlers arrived, they found several tribes, the Cherokee among them, planting crops on a rolling basis in the same field so that they would mature at different times, creating a steady supply.

"Indians of North America routinely made two and sometimes three successive plantings of crops," the encyclopedia says. "Colonial farmers soon adopted this practice."
Mint Tea
In what is today Georgia, the Creek and Cherokee Indians used this method. So did the Apalachee and Timucua Indians in today's north Florida, and the Hidatsa on the banks of the northern Missouri River.

Tribes all over Turtle Island used botanical mints, the Cherokee among them.

Plants that belong to the mint family (Lamiaceae) contain a volatile oil in their stems and leaves. It is this oil that gives them their distinctive aroma and taste," the book states. "The Chippewa of the Northeast drank mint tea, as did the Cherokee of the Southeast."
Soft-Drink Ingredients, Specifically Sassafras
The Cheyenne used it medicinally, for coughs.

Though we think of cola and other sodas as all-American drinks, most of us don't know the half of it. Neither root beer nor Dr. Pepper would be possible without Native innovation, including that of the Cherokee.

"The Cherokee used sassafras as an intestinal worm medicine and for colds," the encyclopedia says. "European colonists in North America made root beer from sassafras, wintergreen, and birch, plants that American Indians had used as medicines over hundreds of years. Sassafras was used by the Iroquois of the Northeast and the Cherokee and the Seminole of the Southeast as a blood purifier. The Chippewa of the Midwest and Cherokee also drank sassafras tea as a beverage."

RELATED: Purify the Body With a Spring Tonic

Not only that, but sassafras tea became known as a "wonder tonic" among non-Indians, the book says.

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Native Innovation: 5 Indispensables You Didn't Know Were Cherokee - Indian Country Media Network

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Much has been made of the indigenous innovations that go largely unrecognized in today's societies. Indian Country Today Media Network, having profiled a number of these, has decided to give credit where credit is due, by highlighting who thought of what.

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The history and culture of the Southwest Indians

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There are many American Indian tribes native to the Southwest of the United States.