The Jim and Vanita Oelschlager
Native American Ethnographic Collection
"Drums, Tomahawks, and the Horse: Native American Cultural Tools"
North America 1492
The “New World” was not new to the millions of people who had lived here for thousands of years. They had developed social and political structures, vast trade networks, tools, and methods of living that were adapted to the widely varied environments. Across North America, before European contact, demographers estimated the population to be between two and eighteen million people. More current population studies, based upon new research, now argue there were about fifteen million.
Native Americans spoke about four hundred different languages from more than twenty language families. Sign language was also used between many tribes of the Great Plains where diverse languages made communication difficult. The hand gestures allowed better communication on matters of trade and diplomacy as extensive trade networks connected people from distant regions. The Native population represented a variety of cultures each that had a name for their own group. They did not use the word or united concept of “Indian.” That name began with the Spanish.
Agents of Change
As a group, the Europeans rarely recognized the differences between native populations. The goals were to exploit the resources as much as possible and that included the people. Although the European explorers and colonizers brought some beneficial technology with contact and colonization, there were also many agents of change that were detrimental to the resident populations. This exhibition features many tools that came to be used by Native Americans that are best understood in this larger cultural and historical context.
The two most devastating agents of social change for Native peoples were the diseases introduced by the Europeans, and the European insistence that all Natives should become Christians. Examples of tools that were agents for change include objects made of metal, guns, and especially for the Prairie-Plains Native Americans, the horse.
Resources
North America in the 1500s was a land of rich resources where some cultural groups lived in villages where they practiced extensive farming. Others lived in scattered extended family units and they gardened and hunted, while other groups specialized in hunting and gathering or fishing and gathering. Although some of the population was concentrated in areas with rich resources such as river valleys, seacoasts and lakes, tribes such as those of the Southwest, Great Basin, and Great Plains demonstrated remarkable adaptations to more difficult climates with fewer resources.
Native Americans of the 1500s lived in cultural systems that included complex spiritual beliefs, with well defined social relationships that determined status, leadership, kinship obligations, patterns of marriage and ceremony. They knew who they were and where they came from.
The ecological zones of North American contributed many new plants to the European world. These include plants for food, and medicine. Remember when you eat some of these foods that the original ancient plants came from Central and South America. Many of these early vegetable and grass seeds, such as maize or corn, were taken north along trade networks and were part of regional diets in North America long before European contact. This small list has only the most common items that are used today.
To the European explorers and colonist alike, this was a rich land; they quickly recognized the value of native resources and land to the Old World. Land was restricted in the Europe of England, France, and Spain in the 1500 and 1600s. Because of the sometime scattered populations, North America seemed to them to be under inhabited and underused by native peoples. Of course, the Europeans thought their cultures were far superior to that of the indigenous population and believed they should be “helped” with Christianity, European moral systems, and education.
Animals
Were important also, not just for
food but also for hides and fur.
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Buffalo (American Bison)
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Deer
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Antelope
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Beaver
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Fox
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There were also abundant species of fish used for food.
Plants
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Maize (corn)
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Potatoes
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Squash
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Beans
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Tomatoes
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Chili Peppers
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Tobacco
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Cotton
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Cocoa
Religion
The Christian religion in the form of Catholicism via the Spanish and French and Protestantism from the English was a significant and forceful agent for change in North America. The Spanish were harsh in both their imposition of the Spanish version of religious orthodoxy and suppression of indigenous religions by the military as well as missionaries. The Pueblo peoples seemed to receive the most cruel treatment, leading to the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 that drove the Spanish out for a time.
The French were more benign towards the native peoples. French missionaries were usually Jesuits who were educated and interested in exploring, mapping, and supporting the fur trade system. Although they worked on conversions, they accompanied those efforts with encouraging the local Natives to do more farming and adjust their social systems to a European model, especially regarding the roles of women.
The British advocated converting Native Americans to Protestantism but actually were more interested in acquiring land for settlements. If the natives were religious “heathens” and did not utilize land in the proper British manner, it further justified pushing them back from the Atlantic seaboard. The British were able to gain more Native allies in political alliances because of not suppressing native spiritual beliefs and customs. This attitude shifted after the Revolutionary War when the new country began additional conversion efforts.
Disease
Diseases were the most critical agent of change, having a disastrous effect on the native population all over North America. The causes of immense loss of life among the Native peoples were diseases that were introduced by the Europeans beginning in the late 1400s and continuing through the next three centuries. These diseases, such as smallpox, measles, and new forms of influenza were unknown in the Western Hemisphere and the population had no immunity to them, unlike the Europeans who with generations of exposure had acquired some immunity. The rates of decline in population are difficult to track, but conservative estimates suggest about thirty to forty percent of the population died of diseases over three centuries. The human tragedy and suffering was immense, the political and social systems were destabilized and the spiritual belief systems undermined. The diseases killed all ages, from children and elders to those in the prime of life. Often the leaders were the first exposed to the disease as they had the first contact with the European traders, missionaries, or military.
Among the Huron, a tribe of the eastern Great Lakes, the population of about twenty thousand at the time of French contact dropped to ten thousand in twenty years. Even the French missionaries admitted that smallpox started after they began to live in the communities. In Virginia, John Smith was told by a Powhatan chief, “I have seen two generations of my people die. Not a man of my generation is alive now but myself.” As settlers moved west, the exposure of disease and population decline was repeated. Little Wolf, a Cheyenne, said, “Many have died of disease we have no name for.”
Tomahawks, Spears and Clubs
Metal was a dramatic introduction into the Native American tool collection. The many types of clubs, hatchets, spears, and tomahawks in this exhibition are examples of tools used in all types of activities for living. The old ones would have chopped more firewood and killed more animals than scalping humans in battle. The tomahawk is a prime example of technology change. The metal heads were brought from Europe and valued especially in trading for furs, which were highly valued by Europeans between 1600 and 1850s. The metal heads were traded widely throughout the continent with Native groups adding their own handles. Tomahawks were multipurpose tools, they were used in food gathering, hunting, processing, in battle, and as ceremonial gifts. An observer of the Cherokee tribe that began to use the pipe tomahawk by the 1750s noted, “this is one of their most useful pieces of field-furniture, serving all the offices of hatchet, pipe, and sword.” As metal became more prevalent in trade, the Native Americans began to make their own tomahawk heads and reuse metals from other European objects.