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The Great Plains People

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made by TY steury and Asa dean

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Comment here on whether you would want to live as a eastern woodland or great plains

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Weapons the Great Plains People used to hunt were bows and arrows and spears. They hunted buffalo.

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The most important thing was buffalo it provided everything they needed.

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The most important thing was buffalo it provided everything they needed.

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Tools the Great Plains People had were serving spoons made from buffalo horns, hunting weapons, (see Hunting Weapons for more information) elk antler hammer, buffalo horn shovel, flint knife, and bone awl.

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The Great Plains People believed that everything had a spiritual life. They also believed that there were evil spirits and the evil spirits would cause droughts and sicknesses. A tradition the Great Plains People had was following the buffalo.

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One of the Eastern woodlands peoples most popular homes was the wig wom. They were built using tree saplings bent towards each other and tied together. Then birch bark was attached by making holes in the bark with a stone knife. Then the bark pieces were tied to the main structure. Then a grass skirt was attached to the bottom. Then they furnished them.

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The Eastern woodlands people had a lot of different tools. A few were Spears, war clubs, snares, traps, stone knives, and fish hooks.

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Food

The Algonquian people of the Eastern Woodlands were hunter-gatherers, meaning they relied on collecting edible plants and hunting wild animals as their main source of food.

Tobacco

Corn

Farming

They were too far north to rely solely on horticulture; however, some groups did farm.

The Mi'kmaq's grew tobacco.

Ottawa, Abenaki, and Algonquin grew corn, beans, and squash.

Hunting

The people of the Eastern Woodlands became very skilled hunters and fishermen because they lived in forested areas and were usually close to water.

During the winter, when the lakes were frozen over, were spent hunting larger game and trapping smaller animals.

In the summer months, they would focus a lot of their time on fishing. They would hunt too.

In the fall and winter, most of the families moved, following the animals they needed to hunt. Because there was a lot of snowfall in the area, the hunters would use snowshoes as a way of traveling.

The most important animal to the Eastern Woodlands Hunters was the white-tailed deer. White-tailed deer were hunted for their meat, but the skins were also dried and used in making their houses and clothing.

They also hunted:

raccoon

bear

squirrel

beaver

moose

seal

caribou

whale

The types of animals that they hunted depended on the region where they were living and what wildlife was available to them. For example, the coastal people were able to hunt for seals and whales, while the people in the northern regions were unable to do so, but they could hunt for caribou and moose.

Moose Hunt in winter

Fishing in Canoes

Preparing the Meat

Algonquin family tends to the fire

There were two ways to prepare the meat.

The first way was to cook it, by either roasting or boiling it over a fire, and then eat it right away.

The second method was to smoke-dry the meat, as a way to preserve it, and then save it to eat at a future time when they were short on fresh meat.

Fishing

Spear fishing in a lake

They spent a lot of time fishing, particularly in the St. Lawrence area, the Great Lakes and along the Atlantic coast.

So they often put their villages close to good fishing grounds.

The inland people fished in rivers and lakes and their diet included a lot of freshwater fish.

The coastal people, like the Mi'maqs, took advantage of the ocean and caught a lot of eels, mulloscs, and crustaceans, in addition to eating a lot of saltwater fish, like cod, smelt, and salmon.

Roles of Men and Women

Men hunting deer in camouflage

In Eastern Woodlands society it was solely the man's responsibility to hunt and fish.

The women were in charge of farming (if they did any), and gathering various wild berries, nuts, tubers and other plants to eat from nearby forests.

Around the Great Lakes region in Ontario, the women also harvested wild rice in the fall and maple sap in the spring to make maple sugar.

Along the coastal region, it was the woman's responsibility to collect shellfish and mussels from the ocean. They would then have clambakes, where they ate clams, oysters, lobsters, mussels, and other shellfish wrapped in seaweed and cooked over a fire pit.

Tools

Ojibwa deadfall

Most tools that the Eastern Woodlands Hunters used were made of wood or bark.

For hunting larger animals they used bows and arrows and lances, and for smaller animals they used traps, snares, and deadfalls.

For fishing, they used hooks, weirs, leisters, and nets, all of which they made themselves from forest material.

Cooking was done in containers made of wood and bark, mainly from birch trees.

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The Eastern Woodland Hunters - Food / Hunting / Tools

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Food The Algonquian people of the Eastern Woodlands were hunter-gatherers, meaning they relied on collecting edible plants and hunting wild animals as their main source of food. Tobacco Corn Farming They were too far north to rely solely on horticulture; however, some groups did farm. The Mi'kmaq's grew tobacco.

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The Eastern woodlands people believed that everything had a spiritual life. The Eastern woodlands people would try not to kill a lot of things if possible. The Eastern woodlands people were good people.

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The Eastern Woodland Culture consisted of Indian tribes inhabiting the eastern United States and Canada. The Eastern Woodlands were moderate-climate regions roughly from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River and included the Great Lakes. This huge area boasted ample rainfall, numerous lakes and rivers, and great forests. The rich earth and forests from the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico comprised the southeastern part of the Eastern Woodlands. This culture region abuts the Plains Culture to the west and the Subarctic Culture to the north.

The Adena and Hopewell were the earliest historic Eastern Woodland inhabitants. Between 800 B.C. and A.D. 800, they lived in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys. Both societies are noted for their prominent burial mounds, frequently graced with sophisticated grave goods. Like earlier archaic groups, the Adena were hunters and gatherers who erected seasonal camps. The Hopewell also were hunters and gatherers, but like later Woodland tribes, they lived in villages and supplemented their diet with cultivated plants.

Later peoples of the Eastern Woodlands included the Illinois, Iroquois, Shawnee and a number of Algonkian-speaking peoples such as the Narragansett and Pequot. Southeastern peoples included the Cherokee, Chocktaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Natchez and Seminole.

Eastern Woodland tribes lived in similar ways. Their complex societies were typically divided into classes, including a chief, his children, the nobility and commoners. Overall there were some variations in climate and harvestable flora and fauna. It followed that the tribes varied somewhat in diet and housing, apparel and transportation.

Since warfare was harsh and frequent, villages were often fortified by fencing reinforced with dirt. Causes of conflict between tribes varied, but typically involved terrritorial rights, male coming-of-age rituals, or retaliation.

In general, the natives were deer-hunters and farmers. The men made bows and arrows, stone knives and war clubs. The women tended garden plots where beans, corn, pumpkin, squash and tobacco were cultivated. Women also harvested these crops and prepared the food. Black pottery or wood and bark vessels were used for cooking. They dried berries, corn, fish, meat and squash for the winter. The diet of deer meat was also supplemented by other game and shellfish.

The tribes lived near water for transportation purposes. In general, the northern tribes fashioned birchbark canoes while southeastern tribes dug out canoes from tree trunks. On land, the natives traveled on foot and bore their cargo on their backs, having no pack animals. Dogs were their sole domesticated animals.

Several sorts of houses were erected throughout the Eastern Woodlands. The most popular was likely the wigwam, a bark-covered structure and the longhouse, home to several families. Some southeast tribes lived in cold-weather houses of clay applied to an armature of poles, complete with a cone or round roof. The Seminoles of Florida used a chikee, a shelter without walls thatched with the palmetto tree's fan-shaped leaves.

Numerous hours were required to fashion the popular deerskin apparel. Women cut the skins with flint knives or shells and sutured them with animal sinew. Face painting and the men's scalp lock (with shaven side hair) were typical.

Beliefs associated with Manitou, a heroic figure who restored the world from mud following terrible rains, were widely held. In the southeast, there were sun worship temples; rites were intricate and featured an altar of fire that was extinguished and re-lighted annually.

The Eastern Woodlands' original inhabitants were the first the European colonists met. From the beginning, the settlers adopted many of the natives' proven methods and paraphernalia, including deerskin clothing.

See Indian Wars Time Table.
Native American Cultural Regions Map.

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The Eastern Woodland Culture consisted of Indian tribes inhabiting the eastern United States and Canada. The Eastern Woodlands were moderate-climate regions roughly from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River and included the Great Lakes. This huge area boasted ample rainfall, numerous lakes and rivers, and great forests.

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One of the very important resources the Eastern woodlands people used was birch trees. The bark was very strong and also waterproof. Birch bark was used to build roofs for wig woms, woven into bags, crafted into bowls, and carved into canoes