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native american mohican indians mohicans history mahican culture stockbridge indian reservation wappinger 
casino mahicans canoes artifacts wappingers nation country

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Native Americans: Mohican History and Culture (Mahican Stockbridge Indians)

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Culture, history and genealogy of the Mohican Indians (including the Stockbridge Mohicans).

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Taino Indians of Puerto Rico

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Taino Indians of Puerto Rico for Children

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Puerto Rican Studies for Children. A concise history and culture of Puerto Rico's indigenous tribe for children.

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FAST FACTS

OFFICIAL NAME: Canada
FORM OF GOVERNMENT: Federal parliamentary state
CAPITAL: Ottawa
POPULATION: 34,834,841
OFFICIAL LANGUAGES: English, French
MONEY: Canadian dollar
AREA: 3,849,674 square miles (9,970,610 square kilometers)
MAJOR MOUNTAIN RANGES: Rockies, Coast, Laurentian
MAJOR RIVERS: St. Lawrence, Mackenzie

GEOGRAPHY

Canada is a vast and rugged land. From north to south it spans more than half the Northern Hemisphere. From east to west it stretches almost 4,700 miles (7,560 kilometers) across six time zones. It is the second largest country in the world, but it has only one-half of one percent of the world's population.

Canada features black-blue lakes, numerous rivers, majestic western mountains, rolling central plains, and forested eastern valleys. The Canadian Shield, a hilly region of lakes and swamps, stretches across northern Canada and has some of the oldest rocks on Earth.

Canada's far north lies in the frozen grip of the Arctic, where ice, snow, and glaciers dominate the landscape. Few trees grow here, and farming is not practical. Native Canadians, called First Nations people, live in this region by hunting and fishing.

PEOPLE & CULTURE

In some ways Canada is many nations in one. Descendents of British and French immigrants make up about half the population. They were followed by other European and Asian immigrants. First Nations peoples make up about four percent of the population.

Inuit people live mostly in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Many Native Canadians live on their traditional lands, but many others have moved to cities across Canada. First Nations artwork is widely recognized and is seen as a symbol of Canadian culture.

NATURE

Canada's remote north and extensive forests are home to wildlife, from bears, wolves, beavers, deer, mountain lions, and bighorn sheep to smaller animals like raccoons, otters, and rabbits. The country's lakes and rivers, which contain about 20 percent of all fresh water on Earth, are full of fish such as trout and salmon.

Canada's prairies in the south are home to bison and pronghorn antelope. Farther north are Canada's sprawling evergreen forests, which have lots of wildlife, including moose and black bears. Even farther north is the cold, bare tundra, where herds of caribou and musk ox live.

Canadians work hard to protect the native wildlife. Canada has 41 national parks and three marine conservation areas. Nevertheless, species like wolves, lynx, and Atlantic fish have been overhunted and overfished.

Canadian Dollar,

Photograph by Peter Spirer, Dreamstime

GOVERNMENT & ECONOMY

The British monarch is the head of state of Canada. The monarch is represented by a governor-general, who has very limited powers. Laws are made by Canada's elected federal government, which includes a parliament and a prime minister.

Britain's Quebec Act of 1774 granted Quebec its own legal and religious rights. Despite this concession, many Quebec citizens have long sought independence. In votes held in 1980 and 1995, Quebec decided to stay in Canada. But the second vote was very close, and the debate is still alive.

Canada has provided fish, furs, and other natural resources to the world since the 1500s. Today, it is a world leader in agricultural production, telecommunications, and energy technologies. The vast majority of Canada's exports go to the United States.

HISTORY

The first people to come to Canada arrived between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago across a land bridge that joined Asia and North America. Around A.D. 1000, the Viking explorer Leif Eriksson reached Newfoundland, Canada. He tried to establish a settlement, but it didn't last.

In the 16th century, French and British settlers arrived. Land disputes between farmers and fur traders led to four wars between 1689 and 1763. The final war, called the French and Indian War, left the British in control of Canada, but French influence remains strong even today.

In 1867, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick combined to form a dominion with its own government, parliament, and prime minister. Manitoba joined soon after. In 1931, Canada became an independent nation.

Check out the interactive map and discover more countries.

Get Facts, Photos, and videos.

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Canada Country Profile - National Geographic Kids

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FAST FACTS OFFICIAL NAME: Canada FORM OF GOVERNMENT: Federal parliamentary state CAPITAL: Ottawa POPULATION: 34,834,841 OFFICIAL LANGUAGES: English, French MONEY: Canadian dollar AREA: 3,849,674 square miles (9,970,610 square kilometers) MAJOR MOUNTAIN RANGES: Rockies, Coast, Laurentian MAJOR RIVERS: St. Lawrence, Mackenzie GEOGRAPHY Canada is a vast and rugged land.

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Search Engine

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Enter the topic into the search bar and research through images.

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Kid Safe Surf Engine

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SweetSearch - A Search Engine for Students

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A search engine for students that emphasizes high quality resources evaluated and approved by educators, librarians and research experts.

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Facts for Kids: Mohican Indians (Mohicans, Wappingers, and Stockbridge Indians)

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Information about the Mohican and Stockbridge Indians for students and teachers. Covers the Mohicans' houses, food, canoes, language, and culture.

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Homes - Native Americans in Olden Times for Kids

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Today, Native Americans live in houses just like yours and mine. But in olden times, they lived in very different homes. Everything was made by hand. Everything was made with things they found in nature. It took hard work to make a home. Come learn about the creative homes people built in olden times.

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http://www.tainoage.com/canoe.html

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How did the Tainos travel from island to island in the Caribbean?

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General Information

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The Taíno are pre-Columbian indigenous inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and some of the Lesser Antilles. Their name Taino comes from their encounter with Christopher Columbus. Other Europeans arriving in South America called the same culture of people Arawak from the word for cassava flour, a staple of the race.

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Lifestyle of Arawak / Taíno

The Arawak/Taíno society was basically a very gentle culture. It was characterized by happiness, friendliness and a highly organized hierarchical, paternal society, and a lack of guile.

Each society was a small kingdom and the leader was called a cacique. The cacique's function was to keep the welfare of the village by assigning daily work and making sure everyone got an equal share. The relatives of the caciques lived together in large houses in the center of the village. These houses reflect the warmth of the climate and simply used mud, straw and palm leaves. The houses did not contain much furniture. People slept in cotton hammocks or simply on mats of banana leaves. The general population lived in large circular buildings called bohios, constructed with wooden poles, woven straw, and palm leaves.

At the time of Columbus there were five different kingdoms on the island of Hispaniola. The Indians practiced polygamy. Most men had 2 or 3 wives, but the caciques had as many as 30. It was a great honor for a woman to be married to a cacique. Not only did she enjoy a materially superior lifestyle, but her children were held in high esteem.

Housing and Dress

The Arawak/Taíno used two primary architectural styles for their homes. The general population lived in circular buildings with poles providing the primary support and these were covered with woven straw and palm leaves. They were somewhat like North American teepees except rather than being covered with skins they needed to reflect the warmth of the climate and simply used straw and palm leaves.

The caciques were singled out for unique housing. Their house were rectangular and even featured a small porch. Despite the difference in shape, and the considerably larger buildings, the same materials were used. When the Africans came beginning in 1507 they introduced mud and wattle as primary building materials. However, there is no record of the Arawak/Taíno having used these materials.

The house of the cacique contained only his own family. However, given the number of wives he might have, this constituted a huge family. The round houses of the common people were also large. Each one had about 10-15 men and their whole families. Thus any Arawak/Taíno home might house a hundred people.

The houses did not contain much furniture. People slept in cotton hammocks or simply on mats of banana leaves. They also made wooden chairs with woven seats, couches and built cradles for their children.

In addition to houses the typical Arawak/Taíno village contained a flat court in the center of the village which was used for ball games and various festivals, both religious and secular. Houses were around this court. This was a hierarchical society, and while there was only one cacique who was paid a tribute (tax) to oversee the village, there were other levels of sub-caciques, who were not paid, but did hold positions of honor. They were liable for various services to the village and cacique.

Stone making was especially developed among the Arawak/Taíno , but they seem not to have used it at all in building houses. It was primarily used for tools and especially religious artifacts.

The men were generally naked, but the women sometimes wore short skirts. Men and women alike adorned their bodies with paint and shells and other decorations.

Food and Agriculture

The Arawak/Taíno diet, like ours, centered around meat or fish as the primary source of protein. There never were many wild animals to hunt on Hispaniola, but there were some small mammals which were hunted and enjoyed. They also ate snakes, various rodents, bats, worms, birds, in general any living things they could find with the exception of humans. They were able to hunt ducks and turtles in the lakes and sea. The costal natives relied heavily on fishing, and tended to eat their fish either raw or only partially cooked. Since they did grow cotton on the island, the natives had fishing nets made of cotton. The natives of the interior relied more on agriculture and de-emphasized meat or fish in their diet.

The Taíno had a developed system of agriculture which was environmentally friendly and almost maintenance free. They raised their crops in a conuco, a large mound which was devised especially for farming. They packed the conuco with leaves which improved drainage and protected it from soil erosion. One of the primary crops cultivated by the Taíno was cassava or yuca, which they ate as a flat bread. They also grew corn, squash, beans, peppers, sweet potatoes, yams, peanuts as well as tobacco.

(As an aside I would like to comment that many people in the pre-Columbian Americas had virtually work free agriculture. This system meant that people living in these materially simple social systems had enormous amounts of free time and often developed elaborate religious rites which took a lot of their time, but also had highly developed systems of games and recreation. There are some nice advantages to very simple living and diet!)

One of the Arawak/Taíno's primary crops was cassava. This is a root crop from which a poisonous juice must be squeezed. Then it is baked into a bread like slab. The current method of doing this in Haiti produces a flat bread, sort of like a stale burrito or pizza shell. The Arawak/Taíno grew corn (maize), squash, beans, peppers, sweet potatoes, yams and peanuts.

They not only had cotton, but they raised tobacco and enjoyed smoking very much. It was not only a part of their social life, but was used in religious ceremonies too.

Transportation

The Arawak/Taíno had no large animals like horses, oxen or mules to ride or use for work. But they did have river and sea transportation. They used dugout canoes which were cut from a single tree trunk and used with paddles. They could take 70-80 people in a single canoe and even used them for long travels on the sea. These dugouts allowed fishing the few lakes of Hispaniola as well as fishing out a bit off the coast.

Defense

The Arawak/Taíno themselves were quite peaceful people, but they did have to defend themselves from the Caribs who were cannibals. The Caribs of this area were centered at what is today Puerto Rico, but some did live in northeast Hispaniola, an area that today is the Dominican Republic. The Caribs were war-like cannibals. They often raided the more peaceful Arawak/Taíno , killing off the men, stealing and holding the women for breeding, and fattening the children to eat.

Thus the Arawak/Taíno had some weapons which they used in defense. They used the bow and arrow, and had developed some poisons for their arrow tips. They had cotton ropes for defensive purposes and some spears with fish hooks on the end. Since there were hardwoods on the island, they did have a war club made of macana. This was about 1″ thick and reminds one very much of the cocomaque stick used in later Haitian days. They did not develop any armor or specifically defensive weapons (shields, etc.).

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Lifestyle of Arawak / Taíno The Arawak/Taíno society was basically a very gentle culture. It was characterized by happiness, friendliness and a highly organized hierarchical, paternal society, and a lack of guile. Each society was a small kingdom and the leader was called a cacique.