Chapter Two Indian Problems

Indian History

Before Colurnbus

The ancestors of the American Indians had lived in the Americas for tens of thou-sands of years before Columbus and other Europeans arrived in the hemisphere,but only the barest outlines 0f their past are known, and much of it is in dispute.While some Indian tribes recorded important events with pictures-rock paintings,petrlglyphs, and drawings-they did not have a written language based on analphabet. Nevertheless, all tribespeople had an interest in their past and recountedthe important events of their history in stories that were handed down from gener-ation to generation. These oral accounts do not arnount to a complete verbal recordof the pre-Columbian past, but they do clnvey 6 sense of Indian history before1492. Indian oral history also confirms that there was nlt one unified Indian his-tory, but many individual tribal histories-a reflection of Indian social, linguistic,and cultural diversity that survives to the present day.

To Indian oral accounts we may add the archaeological record. Archaeologistsdisagree over the date of the first human arrival in America, and some argue thatpeople may have come here as early as fifty thousand years ago. Today, mostarchaeologists believe that the ancestlrs of today's Indians cdme t0 America fromAsia by way of a land bridge that connected the continents from fifteen to thirty-fivethousand years ago , when glaciers locked up enoug h of the world's water to lower the

level of the sea. The first Indians hunted big game-wooly mammoths, giant bison,

camels, and the like-that died out when the climate became drier and warmer abouteight thottsand years ago. These new conditions obliged Indians to embrace a way oflife based on wild plant foods and small game. More than two thousand years agothe Indians in the Southwest-some of them ancestlrs of today's Pueblo Indians-cultivated maize, beans, and squash. These people built impressive stlne and adobetowns that still exist. Likewise, Indians along the Mississippi River took up farmingand butlt huge earthen mounds that continue to inspire wonder in the Midwest.Elsewhere, many Indians came t0 rely on agriculture , as well as wild plants, game,

and ftsh. Along with these adaptations to local environmental conditions, there grewa rich cultural diversity. Hundreds of dffirent languages and tribes as well as sclresof cultures covered the human landscape of North America when Columbus sailedinto view. Recent estimates of the pre-Columbian Indian population range from seven

to eighteen million people north of Mexico, though some scholars continue to argue

l8

CHAPTER2

20 Mnjar Prablents in Anteri,nn Indinn Hist,:ty

2. Maidu Account of the Beginning of the World, n. d.

All the earth was covered with water, and everything was dark in the beginning.There was no sun, no moon, no stars. Then one day a raft appeared, floating on the

water. In it was Turtle. Down from the sky a rope of feathers came and danglednear the bow of the raft, and then a being, who shone like the sun, descended. Hewas Earth Initiate. When he reached the end of the rope he tied it to the bow of theraft, and stepped in. His face was covered, so that Turtle was not able to see it. Infact, no one has ever seen his face uncovered. Earth Initiate sat down and for a longtime said nothing.

"Where do you come fiom?" Turtle asked at last."I come from above," Earth Initiate said.

Then Turtle asked: "Brother, can you not make for me some good dry land, so

that I may sometimes come up out of the water?"Earth Initiate did not answer at once, and Turtle asked, 'Are there going to be

any people in the world?"After thinking fbr a while, Earth Initiate said, "Yes.""How long befbre you are going to make people?" Turtle asked."I don't know," Earth Initiate answered. "You want to have some dry land:

well, how am I going to get any earth to make it of?""If you will tie a stone about my left arm I will dive for some," Turtle answered.

So Earth Initiate did as Turtle asked. Reaching around he took the end ofa ropefrom somewhere and tied it to Turtle.

"If the rope is not long enough I will jerk it once, and then you must haul me

up; if it is long enough I will give two jerks and then you must pull me quickly, as Ishall have all the earth that I can carry."

Turtle was gone for six years, and when he came up he was covered with greenslime, he had been down so long. He returned with only a very little earth under hisnails. The rest had all washed away.

Earth Initiate scraped the earth out from under Turtle's nails, and put it in thepalm of his hand and rolled it about until it was round and about the size of a smallpebble. This he laid on the stern of the raft, and went away and left it. Three timeshe returned to look at it, and the third tirne found that it had grown very large. Thefourth time he looked at it it was as big as the world, the raft was on ground, and allaround were mountains.

When Turtle knew the raft was on ground, he said: "l cannot stay in the darkall the time. Can't you make a light so that I can see?"

"Let's get out of the raft, and then we will see what we can do," Earth Initiatereplied.

As they got out Earth Initiate said: "Look that way, to the east! I am going totell my sister to come up."

"The Beginning of the World," in Edward W. Gifford and Gwendoline Hanis Block, ed,s., CaliforniaIndianNighrs (1930; reprint, Lincoln, Nebr.: University ofNebraska Press, 1990), 85-88. Reprinted bypermission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright O 1930 by the Arthur H. Clark Company.Renewal copyright @ 1958 by the Arthur H. Clark Company

Indian History Before Columbus 21

Then it began to grow light, and day began to break, and the sun came up."Which way is the sun going to travel?" Turtle asked.

"I will tell her to go this way, and go down there," Earth Initiate answered.After the sun went down it grew very dark."I will tell my brother to come up," said Earth Initiate.Then the moon rose."How do you like it?" Earth Initiate asked Turtle."It is very good," Turtle answered. "Is that all you are going to do for us?""No, I am going to do more yet."Then he called the stars each by name and they came out.Then he made a tree, which had twelve different kinds of acorns growing on

it. . . . For two days they sat under this tree, and then both set off to see the worldwhich Earth Initiate had made. Turtle was not able to keep up with Earth Initiate.All he could see of him was a ball of fire flashing about under the ground and thewater. When they returned from going around the world Earth Initiate calledthe birds from the air, and made the trees, and then the animals.

Some time afier this he said; "I am going to make people."So he took dark red earth and mixed it with water, and made two figures, one a

man and one a woman. He lay down and placed the man on his right side and thewoman on his left. Thus he lay all afternoon and night. Early in the morning thewoman began to tickle him in the side. Earth Initiate kept very, very still and didnot laugh. Soon after he got up, he put a piece of wood into the ground, and fireburst out.

The two people Earth Initiate made were very white. Their eyes were pink,their hair was black, their teeth shone brightly, and they were very handsome. Henamed the man Kuksu, and the woman Morning Star Woman. . . .

3. A Skagit Belief About the Origins of the World, n. d.

In the beginning, Raven and Mink and Coyote helped the Creator plan the world.They were in on all the arguments. They helped the Creator decide to have all the

rivers flow only one way; they first thought that the water should flow up one sideof the river and down on the other. They decided that there should be bends in the

rivers, so that there would be eddies where the fish could stop and rest. They de-

cided that beasts should be placed in the forests. Human beings would have to keepout of their way.

Human beings will not live on this earth forever, agreed Raven and Mink,Coyote, and Old Creator. They will stay only for a short time. Then the body willgo back to the earth and the spirit back to the spirit world. All living things, they

said, wili be male and female-animals and plants, fish and birds. And everythingwill get its food from the earth, the soil.

"The Beginning of the Skagit World," in EIla E. Clark, ed., Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953), 138-141. Copyright @ 1953 The Regents of the Uni-versity of California; O renewed 1981 Ella E. Clark. Reprinted with permission.

22 Major Problems in American Indian Histoty

The Creator gave four names for the earth. He said that only a few people shouldknow the names; those few should have special preparation for that knowledge, toreceive that special spirit power. If many people should know the names, the worldwould change too soon and too suddenly. One of the names is for the sun, whichrises in the east and brings warmth and light. Another is fbr the rivers, streams, and

salt water. The third is for the soil; our bodies go back to it. The fourth is for the

forest; the forest is older than human beings, and is for everyone on the earth.

After the world had been created for a while, everyone learned the four names

for the earth. Everyone and everything spoke the Skagit language. When the peoplebegan to talk to the trees, then the change came. The change was a flood. Water

covered everything but two high mountains-Kobah and Takobah. Those twomountains-Mount Baker and Mount Rainier-did not go under.

When the people saw the flood coming, they made a great big canoe. Theyloaded it with two of everything living on earth, with the male and female of everyanimal and plant. When the flood was over, the canoe landed on the prairie in the

Skagit country. Five people were in the canoe. After the flood, when the land was

dry again, they made their way back here.

A child was born to the man and his wife who had been in the canoe. He becameDoquebuth, the new Creator. He created after the flood, after the world changed.

When he was old enough, Doquebuth was told to go to the lake-Lake Camp-bell it is called now-to swim and fast and get his spirit power. But the boy playedaround and did not obey orders. Coyote fed him, and the boy did not try to get hisspirit power. So his family deserted him. When he came home, no one was there.

His family had gone and had taken everything with them except what belonged tothe boy. They left his dog behind and the hides of the chipmunks and squirrels the

boy had shot when hunting. His grandmother left fire for him in a clamshell. Fromthe skins which he had dried, the boy made a blanket.

When he found that his family had deserted him, he realized that he had donewrong. So he began to swim and to fast. For many, many days he swam and fasted.No one can get spirit power unless he is clean and unless his stomach is empty.

One day the boy dreamed that Old Creator came.

"Take my blanket," said Old Creator. "It is the blanket of the whole earth.

Wave it over the waters, and name the four names of the earth. Then there will be

food for everyone."

That is how the boy got his spirit power fiom Oid Creator. He waved the blan-

ket over the water and over the forest. Then there was food for everyone. But therewere no people yet. The boy swam some more and kept on fasting.

Old Creator came to him again in a dream."Gather together all the bones of the people who lived here before the flood.

Gather the bones and pile them into a big pile. Then wave my blanket over them,

and name the four names of the earth."The young man did as he was told in his dream, and people were created from

the bones. But they could not talk. They moved about but were not quite completed.

The young Creator swam some more. A third time Old Creator came to him ina dream. This time he told the young man that he should make brains for the new

people. So he waved the blanket over the earth and named the four names of the

earth. That is how brains were made-from the soil of the earth.


Then the people could talk. They spoke many different languages. But wherethey should live the young Creator did not know. So he swam some more. In his

dream, Old Creator told him to stop over the big isiand, from ocean to ocean, andblow the people back where they belonged. So Doquebuth blew the people back tothe place where they had lived before the flood. Some he placed in the buffalocountry, some by the salt water, some by fresh water, some in the forests. That iswhy the people in the different places speak different languages.

The people created after the flood prophesied that a new language would be

introduced into our country. It will be the only language spoken, when the nextchange comes. When we can understand animals, we will know that the change ishalfway. When we can talk to the forest, we will know that the change has come.

The flood was one change. Another is yet to come. The world will change again.When it will change, we do not know.

4. The Arikaras Describe Their Origins, n. d.

A long time ago, the Arikara lived under the ground. There were fbur animals wholooked with pity upon the people, and these animals agreed to take the people up ontop of the earth. These animals were the long-nosed Mouse, the Mole, the Badger,and the Fox. The Fox was the messenger to the people to tell them of what the ani-mals were doing. The Mole was the first to dig. He ran back, for he was blinded bythe brightness of the sun. The animals went out. The people came out of the earth,the Fox being in the lead. As the people were coming out there was an earthquake.The Arikara came out. The other people were again held fast by the earth.

These people who came out from the ground then journeyed west. They cameto a place where the earth shook, so that there was a chasm or a steep bank. Thepeople waited and cried. The Badger stepped forward and began digging, so that itmade a pathway for the people. . . . After all the people had passed the first obstaclesthey sat down and gave thanks and made offerings to the gods.

Again they went upon their journey, and it stormed. In front of them was a

river. They could not cross it, for it was very deep; but a Loon was sent by the gods.The Loon came to the people, and said: "Your mother is traveling in the heavens tohelp you. I was sent by the gods to open up this river, so you could cross and go onyour journey." The Loon flew across the river, flew back, then dived and came outon the other side of the river. The river was opened; it banked up on eaoh side; the

people crossed over and the waters came together again. Some people were left onthe other side.

Again they journeyed, and they came to a place where Mother-Corn stoppedand said: "The big Black-Wind is angry, for we did not ask it to come with us,

neither did we make it one of the gods to receive smoke. But," said Mother-Corn,"the Black-Meteoric-Star understands this storm; it will help us." Mother-Cornwent on, and said: "Here we are. We must hurry for the big Black-Wind is coming,taking everything it meets. There is a cedar tree. Get under that cedar tree. Get under

"The Origin of the Arikara," in George A. Dorsey, ed., Traditions of the Arikara (Washington, D.C.,1904).

24 Major Problems in American Indian History

that cedar tree," said Mother-Corn. "The Black-Meteoric-Star placed it there. TheStar stands solid, for its right leg is cedar; its left leg is stone. It can not be blownaway. Get under its branches." So the people crawled under its branches. The Black-Wind came and took many people, notwithstanding.

The people came out, and they went on. They came to another difficulty-asteep mountain bank, and they stopped. The Bear came forth, and said, "I will gothrough this place first." So the Bear went to digging steps for the people. Steps

were made on both sides and the people went across.

After they had been gone for some time, a Dog came up, and said: "Why didyou people leave me behind? I shall be the one that you shall kill, and my meatshall be offered to the gods. I shall also fix it so that all animals shall make great

medicine-men of you. My father is the Sun. He has given me all this power. I willgive my power to all animals, then I will stay with the people, so they will not for-get my promise to them." The people were thankful to the Dog.

5. The Iroquois Depict the World onthe Turtle's Back, n. d.

In the beginning there was no world, no land, no creatures of the kind that are

around us now, and there were no men. But there was a great ocean which occupiedspace as far as anyone could see. Above the ocean was a great void of air. And inthe air there lived the birds of the sea; in the ocean lived the fish and the creatures

of the deep. Far above this unpeopled world, there was a Sky-World. Here livedgods who were like people-like Iroquois.

In the Sky-World there was a man who had a wife, and the wife was expectinga child. The woman became hungry for all kinds of strange delicacies, as womendo when they are with child. She kept her husband busy almost to distraction find-ing delicious things for her to eat.

In the middle of the Sky-World there grew a Great Tree which was not like any

of the trees that we know. It was tremendous; it had grown there forever. It had enor-

mous roots that spread out from the floor of the Sky-World. And on its branches

there were many different kinds of leaves and different kinds of fruits and flowers.The tree was not supposed to be marked or mutilated by any of the beings whodwelt in the Sky-World. It was a sacred tree that stood at the center of the uruverse.

The woman decrded that she wanted some bark from one of the roots of the

Great Tree-perhaps as a food or as a medicine, we don't know. She told her hus-

band this. He didn't like the idea. He knew it was wrong. But she insisted, and he

gave in. So he dug a hole among the roots of this great sky tree, and he bared some

of its roots. But the floor of the Sky-World wasn't very thick, and he broke a holethrough it. He was terrified, for he had never expected to find empty space under-

neath the world.

"The World on the Turtle's Back," in Hazel W. Hertzberg, The Great Tree and the Longhouse: The Cul-

ture of the Iroquols. Copyright O by the American Anthropological Association.

Ittdian Hiyory tstlore t olumbus 25

But hrs wife was fllled with curiosity. He wouldn't get any of rhe roors for her,

so she set out to do it herself. She bent over and she looked down, and she saw the

ocean far below. She leaned down and stuck her head through the hole and looked

all around. No one knows just what happened next. Some say she slipped. Some say

that her husband, t-ed up with all the demands she had made on him, pushed her.

So she fell through the hole. As she fell, she frantically grabbed at its edges,

but her hands slipped. However, between her fingers there clung bits of things that

were growing on the floor of the Sky-Worid and bits of the root tips of the GreatTree. And so she began to t'all toward the great ocean far below.

The birds of the sea saw the woman falling, and they immediately consulted

with each other as to what they could do to help her. Flying wingtip to wingtip theymade a great feathery raft in the sky to support her, and thus they broke her fall. Butof course it was not possible for them to carry the woman very long. Some of the

other birds of the sky flew down to the surface of the ocean and called up the ocean

creatures to see what they couid do to help. The great sea turtle came and agreed toreceive her on his back. The birds placed her gently on the shell of the turtle, and

now the turtle floated about on the huge ocean with the woman safely on his back.The beings up in the Sky-World paid no attention to this. They knew what was

happening, but they chose to ignore it.When the woman recovered from her shock and terror, she looked around her.

All that she could see were the birds and the sea creatures and the sky and the ocean.

And the woman said to herself that she would die. But the creatures of the sea

came to her and said that they would try to help her and asked her what they coulddo. She told them that if they could get some soil, she could plant the roots stuckbetween her fingers, and from them plants would grow. The sea animals said per-haps there was dirt at the bottom of the ocean, but no one had ever been down thereso they could not be sure.

If there was dirt at the bottom of the ocean, it was far, far below the surface inthe cold deeps. But the animals said they would try to get some. One by one the div-ing birds and animals tried and failed. They went to the limits of their endurance,

but they could not get to the bottom of the ocean. Finally, the muskrat said he wouldtry. He dived and disappeared. All the creatures waited, holding their breath, but he

did not return. After a long tirne, this little body f'loated up to the surf'ace of the

ocean, a tiny crumb of earth clutched in his paw. He seemed to be dead. They pulledhim up on the turtle's back and they sang and prayed over him and breathed air intohis mouth, and finally. he stirred. Thus it was the rnuskrat, the Earth-Diver, whobrought from the bottom of the ocean the soil from which the earth was to grow.

The woman took the tiny clod of dirt and piaced it on the middle of the greatsea turtle's back. Then the woman began to walk in a circle around it, moving inthe direction that the sun goes. The earth began to grow. When the earlh was bigenough, she planted the roots she had clutched between her fingers when she fellfrom the Sky-World. Thus the plants grew on the earth.

To keep the earth growing, the woman walked as the sun goes, moving in the

direction that the people still move in the dance rituals. She gathered roots and

plants to eat and built herself a little hut. After a while, the woman's time came,

and she was delivered of a daughter. The woman and her daughter kept walking ina circle around the earth, so that the earth and plants would continue to grow. They

26 Major Problems in American lndinn History

lived on the plants and roots they gathered. The girl grew up with her mother, cut

off forever from the Sky-World above, knowing only the birds and the creatures ofthe sea, seeing no other beings like herself.

One day, when the girl had grown to womanhood, a man appeared. No one

knows for sure who this man was. He had something to do with the gods above.

Perhaps he was the West Wind. As the girl looked at him, she was filled with terror,

and amazement, and warmth, and she fainted dead away. As she lay on the ground,

the man reached into his quiver, and he took out two arrows, one sharp and one

blunt, and he laid them across the body of the girl, and quietly went away.

When the girl awoke from her faint, she and her mother continued to walkaround the earth. After a while, they knew that the girl was to bear a child. They didnot know it, but the girl was to bear twins.

Within the girl's body, the twins began to argue and quarrel with one another.

There could be no peace between them. As the time approached for them to be

born, the twins fought about their birth. The right-handed twin wanted to be bornin the normal way, as all children are born. But the left-handed twin said no. He

said he saw light in another direction, and said he would be born that way. The

right-handed twin beseeched him not to, saying that he would kill their mother. Butthe left-handed twin was stubborn. He went in the direction where he saw light.But he could not be born through his mother's mouth or her nose. He was born

through her left armpit, and killed her. And meanwhile, the right-handed twin was

born in the normal way, as all children are born.

The twins met in the world outside, and the right-handed twin accused his

brother of murdering their mother. But the grandmother told them to stop theirquarreling. They buried their mother. And from her grave grew the plants which the

people still use. From her head grew the corn, the beans, and the squash-"our sup-

porters, the three sisters." And from her heart grew the sacred tobacco, which the

people still use in the ceremonies and by whose upward-floating smoke they send

thanks. The women call her "our mother," and they dance and sing in the rituals so

that the corn, the beans, and the squash may grow to feed the people'

But the conflict of the twins did not end at the grave of their mother' And,

strangely enough, the grandmother favored the left-handed twin.The right-handed twin was angry, and he grew more angry as he thought how

his brother had killed their mother. The right-handed twin was the one who did

everything just as he should. He said what he meant, and he meant what he said. He

always told the truth, and he always tried to accomplish what seemed to be right

and reasonable. The left-handed twin never said what he meant or meant what he

said. He always lied, and he always did things backward. You could never tell what

he was trying to do because he always made it look as if he were doing the oppo-

site. He was the devious one.

These two brothers, as they grew up, represented two ways of the world which

are in all people. The Indians did not call these the right and the wrong. They called

them the straight mind and the crooked mind, the upright man and the devious

man, the right and the left.The twins had creative powers. They took clay and modeled it into animals, and

they gave these animais life. And in this they contended with one another. The right-

handed twin made the deer, and the left-handed twin made the mountain lion which


kills the deer. But the right-handed twin knew there would always be more deer thanmountain lions. And he made another animal. He made the ground squirrel. Theleft-handed twin saw that the mountain lion could not get to the ground squirrel,who digs a hole, so he made the weasel. And although the weasel can go into theground squirrel's hole and kill him, there are lots of ground squirrels and not so

many weasels. Next the right-handed twin decided he would make an animal thatthe weasel could not kill, so he made the porcupine. But the left-handed twin madethe bear, who flips the porcupine over on his back and tears out his belly.

And the right-handed twin made berries and fruits of other kinds for his crea-tures to live on. The left-handed twin made briars and poison ivy, and the poisonousplants like the baneberry and the dogberry, and the suicide root with which peoplekill themselves when they go out of their minds, And the left-handed twin mademedicines, for good and for evil, for doctoring and for witchcraft.

And finally, the right-handed twin made man. The people do not know justhow much the left-handed twin had to do with making man. Man was made of clay,like pottery, and baked in the fire.

The world the twins made was a balanced and orderly world, and this wasgood. The plant-eating animals created by the right-handed twin would eat up allthe vegetation if their number was not kept down by the meat-eating animals whichthe left-handed twin created. But if these carnivorous animals ate too many otheranimals, then they would starve, for they would run out of meat. So the right- andthe left-handed twins built balance into the world.

As the twins became rren full grown, they still contested with one another. Noone had won, and no one had lost. And they knew that the conflict was becomingsharper and sharper and one of them would have to vanquish the other.

And so they came to the duel. They started with gambling. They took a woodenbowl, and in it they put wild plum pits. One side of the pits was burned black, and bytossing the pits in the bowl, and betting on how these would fall, they gambledagainst one another, as the people still do in the New Year's rites. All through themorning they gambled at this game, and all through the afternoon, and the sun wentdown. And when the sun went down, the game was done, and neither one had won.

So they went on to battle one another at the lacrosse game. And they contestedall day, and the sun went down, and the game was done. And neither had won.

And now they battled with clubs, and they fought all day, and the sun wentdown, and the fight was done. But neither had won.

And they went from one duel to another to see which one would succumb.Each one knew in his deepest mind that there was something, somewhere, thatwould vanquish the other. But what was it? Where to find it?

Each knew somewhere in his mind what it was that was his own weak point.They talked about this as they contested in these duels, day after day, and somehowthe deep mind of each entered into the other. And the deep mind of the right-handedtwin lied to his brother, and the deep mind of the left-handed twin told the truth.

On the last day of the duel, as they stood, they at last knew how the right-handed twin was to kill his brother. Each selected his weapon. The left-handed twinclose a mere stick that would do him no good. But the right-handed twin picked outthe deer antlel and with one touch he destroyed his brother. And the lefrhandedtwin died, but he died and he didn't die. The right-handed twin picked up the body


and cast it off the edge of the earth. And some place below the world, the left-handed twin still lives and reigns.

When the sun rises from the east and travels in a huge arc along the sky dome,which rests like a great upside-down cup on the saucer of the earth, the people are

in the daylight realm of the right-handed twin. But when the sun slips down in thewest at nightfall and the dome lifts to let it escape at the western rim, the people are

again in the domain of the left-handed twin-the fearful realm of night.Having killed his brother, the righrhanded twin returned home to his grand-

mother. And she met him in anger. She threw the food out of the cabin onto theground, and said that he was a murderer, for he had killed his brother. He grew angryand told her she had always helped his brother, who had killed their mother. In hisanger, he grabbed her by the throat and cut her head off. Her body he threw into the

ocean, and her head, into the sky. There "Our Grandmother, the Moon," still keeps

watch at night over the realm of her favorite grandson.

The right-handed twin has many names. One of thern is Sapling. It means

smooth, young, green and fresh and innocent, straightforward, straight-growing,soft and pliable, teachable and trainable. These are the old ways of describing him.But since he has gone away, he has other names. He is called "He Holds Up theSkies," "Master of Life," and "Great Creator."

The left-handed twin also has many names. One of them is Flint. He is calledthe devious one, the one covered with boils, Old Warty. He is stubborn. He is thoughtof as being dark in color.

These two beings rule the world and keep an eye on the affairs of men. Theright-handed twin, the Master of Life, lives in the Sky-World. He is content withthe world he helped to create and with his favorite creatures, the humans. The scentof sacred tobacco rising from the earth comes gloriously to his nostrils.

In the world below lives the left-handed twin. He knows the world of men, and

he finds contentment in it. He hears the sounds of warfare and torture. and he findsthem good.

In the daytime, the people have rituals which honor the right-handed twin.Through the daytime rituals they thank the Master of Life. In the nighttime, thepeople dance and sing fbr the left-handed twin.

<>ESSAvSThe essays below encapsulate what archaeologists have pieced together from the phys-ical remains of Indian communities that existed hundreds of years before Colurnbusarrived in the western hernisphere. Neal Salisbury of Smith College provides a conii-nental overview that shows broad trends in pre-European American history. Thesedevelopments set the stage for the conquest that followed the Columbian discovery.They also demonstrate that like all human histories, Indian history was dynamic. Farfrom being isolated bands of hunters with no knowledge of other peoples, Indianscommunicated and traded over long distances. Salisbury pays special attention to themound cultures that arose in the Mississippi Valley in pre-Columbian times. Somescholars have argued that the great Mississippian cities, like Cahokia, were influencedby Mexico, but other investigators dispute this interpretation of the archaeologicalrecord and argue that these spectacular developments grew out ofWoodlands Indian

Indian Histot)t Before Columbus 29

traditions that were nearer at hand. Stephen Plog's essay takes a closer look at theremarkable urban settlements in the Southwest, precursors of today's Pueblo Indians.The Anasazi, Hohokam, and other Southwesterners built formidable towns and irriga-tion works based on agricultural crops and techniques that Indians pioneered in centralMexico. They established elaborate religious rituals and developed an impressiveartistic tradition that persists today. Whatever the origins and influences of these com-munities they are impressive reminders of the complexity of native cultures and extentof their attainments. What might Indian societies have looked like if Europeans hadnot ventured to America Dntll 1692?

The Indians' Old WorldNative Americans and the Coming of Europeans

NEAL SALISBURY

Scholars in history, anthropology, archaeology, and other disciplines have turnedincreasingly over the past two decades to the study of native peoples during thecolonial period of North American history. The new work in Indian history hasaltered the way we think about the beginning of American history and about the eraof European coionization. Historians now recognize that Europeans arrived, not ina virgin land, but in one that was teeming with several million people. Beyond fill-ing in some ofthe vast blanks left by previous generations' overlooking oflndians,much of this scholarship makes clear that Indians are integral to the history ofcolonial North America. In short, surveys of recent textbooks and of scholarlytitles suggest that Native Americans are well on their way to being "mainstreamed"by colonial historians.

Substantive as this reorientation is, it remains limited. Beyond the problemsinherent in representing Indian/non-Indian interactions during the colonial era liesthe challenge of contextualizing the era itself. Despite opening chapters and lecturesthat survey the continent's native peoples and cultures, most historians continue torepresent American history as having been set in motion by the arrival of Europeanexplorers and colonizers. They have yet to recognize the existence of a NorlhAmerican-as opposed to English or European-background for colonial history,much less to consider the impiications of such a background for understanding thethree centuries following Columbus's landfall. Yet a growing body of scholarship byarchaeologists, linguists, and students of Native American expressive traditionsrecognizes 1492 not as a beginning but as a single moment in a long history utterlydetached from that of Europe. These findings call into question historians' syn-chronic maps and verbal descriptions of precontact Indians-their cultures, theircommunities, their ethnic and political designations and affiliations, and their rela-tions with one another. Do these really describe enduring entities or do they repre-sent epiphenomena of arbitrary moments in time? If the latter should prove to be thecase, how will readings oflndian history in the colonial period be affected?

Neal Salisbury, "The Indians' Old World: Native Americans and the Coming of Elopeans," Williamand Mary Quarterly 53 (July 1996), 435-458.

l0 Major Problems in American Indian Hktory

Far from being definitive, this article is intended as a stimulus to debate onthese questions. It begins by drawing on recent work in archaeology, where most ofthe relevant scholarship has originated, to suggest one way of thinking about pre-

Columbian North America in historical terms. The essay then looks at develop-ments in several areas of the continent during the centuries preceding the arrival ofEuropeans and in the early phases of the colonial period. The purpose is to showhow certain patterns and processes originating before the beginnings of contactcontinued to shape the continent's history thereafter and how an understanding ofthe colonial period requires an understanding of its American background as weilas of its European context.

In a formidable critique of European and Euro-American thinking about nativeNorth Americans, Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., demonstrates that the idea of "Indians"as a single, discrete people was an invention of Columbus and his European con-temporaries that has been perpetuated into our own time without foundation in his-torical, cultural, or ethnographic reality. On the contrary, Berkhofer asserts,

The frrst residents of the Arnericas were by modern estinates divided into at least twothousand cultures and more societies, practiced a nultiplicity of customs and lifestyles,held an enormous variety of values and belief's, spoke numerous langua-{es mutually un-

intelligible to the many speakers, and did not conceive of thenrselves as a single people-if they knew about each other at all.

While there is literal truth in portions of Berkhofer's statement, his implicationthat Indians inhabited thousands of tiny, isolated communities in ignorance of one

another flies in the face of a substantial body of archaeological and linguistic schol-arship on North America and of a wealth of relevant anthropological literature onnonstate polities, nonmarket economies, and noninstitutionalized religions. To be

sure, indigenous North Americans exhibited a remarkable range of languages,economies, political systems, beliefs, and material cultures. But this range was less

the result of their isolation from one another than of the widely varying natural and

social environments with which Indians had interacted over millennia. What recentscholars of precolonial North America have found even more striking, given thisdiversity, is the extent to which native peoples' histories intersected one another.

At the heart of these intersections was exchange. By exchange is meant not onlythe trading of material goods but also exchanges across community lines of mar-

riage partners, resorlrces, labor, ideas, techniques, and religious practices. Longer-distance exchanges fiequently crossed culturai and linguistic boundaries as well and

ranged from casual encounters to widespread alliances and networks that were eco-

nomic, political, and religious. For both individuals and communities, exchanges

sealed social and political relationships. Rather than accumulate material rvealth

endlessly, those who acquired it gave it away, thereby earning prestige and placingobligations on others to reciprocate appropriately. And as we shall see, many goods

were not given away to others in this world but were buried with individuals to

accompany them to another.

Archaeologists have found evidence of ongoing exchange relations among

even the earliest known Paleo-Indian inhabitants of North America. Ten thousand

years before Columbus, in the wake of the last Ice Age, bands of two or three dozen

Indian History BeJbre Coltmbus 31

persons regularly traveled hundreds of miles to hunt and trade with one another atfavored campsites such as Lindenmeier in northern Colorado, dating to ca. 8800B.c. At the Lindenmeier site, differences in the flaking and shaping of srone pointsdistinguished regular occupants in two parts of the camp, and the obsidian eachused came from about 350 miles north and south of Lindenmeier, respectively.Evidence from a wide range of settlement sites makes clear that, as the postglacialwarming trend continued, so-called Archaic peoples in much of the continent devel-oped wider ranges of food sources, more sedentary settlement patterns, and largerpopulations. They also expanded their exchanges with one another and conductedthem over greater distances. Highly valued materials such as Great Lakes copper,Rocky Mountain obsidian, and marine shells from the Gulf and Atlantic coasts havebeen found in substantial quantities at sites hundreds and even thousands of milesfrom their points of origin. In many cases, goods fashioned fiom these materialswere buried with human beings, indicating both their religious significance and, bytheir uneven distribution, their role as markers of social or political rank.

While the Archaic pattern of autonomous bands persisted in most of NorthAmerica until the arrival of Europeans, the complexity of exchange relationships insome parts of the continent produced the earliest evidence of concentrated politicalpower. This was especially so for peoples who, after the first century a.o., devel-oped food economies that permitted them to inhabit permanent, year-round villages.In California, for example, competition among communities for coveted acorngroves generated sharply defined political territories and elevated the role of chiefswho oversaw trade, diplomacy, and warfare for clusters of villages. Similar com-petition for prime tishing and trading locations strengthened the authority of certainvillage chiefs on the Northwest Coast. Exchange rather than competition for re-sources appears to have driven centralization in the Ohio and Illinois valleys. Therethe Hopewell peoples imported copper, mica, shell, and other raw materials overvast distances to their village centers, where specialists fashioned them into intri-cately crafted ornaments, tools, and other objects. T'hey deposited massive quanti-ties of these goods with the dead in large mounds and exported more to communitiesscattered throughout the Mississippi Valley. Hopewell burials differentiate betweencommoners and elites by the quantity and quality of grave goods accompanyingeach. In the Southwest, meanwhile, a culture known as Hohokam emerged in theGila River and Salt River valleys among some of the first societies based primarilyon agriculture. Hohokam peoples lived in permanent villages and maintained elabo-rate irrigation systems that enabled them to harvest two crops per year.

By the tweltth century, agricultural production had spread over much of theEastern Woodlands as well as to more of the Southwest. In both regions, even morecomplex societies were emerging to dominate widespread exchange networks. Inthe Mississippi Valley and the Southeast, the sudden primacy of maize horticultureis marked archaeologically in a variety of ways-food remains, pollen profiles,studies of human bone (showin g that maize accounted for 50 percent of people'sdiets), and in material culture by a proliferation of chert hoes, shell-temperedpottery for storing and cooking, and pits for storing surplus crops. These develop-ments were accompanied by the rise of what archaeologists term "Mississippian"societies, consisting of fortified political and ceremonial centers and outlyingvillages. The centers were built around open plazas featuring platform burial

32 irlajor Prohlems in American Indian History

mounds, temples, and elaborate residences for elite families. Evidence fiom burialsmakes clear the wide social gulf that separated commoners from elites. Whereas thefbrmer were buried in simple graves with a few personal possessions, the latter wereinterred in the temples or plazas along with many more, and more elaborate, goodssuch as copper ornaments, massive sheets of shell, and ceremonial weapons. Skele-tal evidence indicates that elites ate more meat, were talleq performed less stren-uous physical activity, and were less prone to illness and accident than commoners.Although most archaeologists' conclusions are intbrmed at least in part by modelsdeveloped by political anthropologists, they also draw heavily from Spanish andFrench observations of some of the last Mississippian societies. These observationsconfirm that political leaders, or chiefs, from eiite families mobilized labor, col-lected tribute, redistributed agricultural surpluses, coordinated trade, diplomacy,and rnilitary activity, and were worshipped as deities.

The largest, most complex Mississippian center was Cahokia, located notfar from the conlluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, near modern EastSt. Louis, Illinois, in the rich floodplain known as American Bottoms. By the

twelfth century, Cahokia probably numbered 20,000 peopie and contained over120 mounds within a five-square-mile area. One key to Cahokia's rise was its com-bination of rich soil and nearby wooded uplands, enabling inhabitants to producesurplus crops while providing an abundance and diversity of wild food sources

along with ample supplies of wood for fuel and construction. A second key was itslocation, affbrding access to the great river systems of the North American interior.

Cahokia had the most elaborate social structure yet seen in North America.Laborers used stone and wooden spades to dig soil fiom "borrow pits" (at least nine-teen have been identified by archaeologists), which they carried in wooden bucketsto mounds and palisades often more than half a mile away. The volume and con-centration ofcraft activity in shell, copper, clay, and other materials, both local and

imported, suggests that specialized artisans provided the rnaterial foundation forCahokia's exchange ties with other peoples. Although most Cahokians were buriedin mass graves outside the palisades, their rulers were given speciai treatment. At a

prominent location in Mound 72, the largest of Cahokia's platform mounds, a manhad been buried atop a platform of shell beads. Accompanying him were several

group burials: fifty young women, aged l8 to 23, four men, and three rnen and threewomen, all encased in uncommonly large amounts of exotic materials. As with theNatchez Indians observed by the French in Louisiana, Cahokians appear to have

sacriticed individuals to accompany their leaders in the afterlife. Cahokia was sur-rounded by nine smailer mound centers and several dozen villages from which itobtained much of its food and through which it conducted its waterborne commercewith other Mississippian centers in the Midwest and Southeast (see Map 2.1).

At the outset ofthe twelfth century, the center ofproduction and exchange in theSouthwest was in the basin of the San Juan River at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico,where Anasazi culture achieved its most elaborate expression. A twelve-mile stretchof the canyon and its rim held twelve large planned towns on the north side and 200to 350 apparently unplanned villages on the south. The total population was probablyabout 15,000. The towns consisted of 200 or more contiguous, multistoried rooms,along with numerous kivas (underground ceremonial areas), constructed of veneeredmasonary walls and log beams imported from upland areas nearly fifty miles distant.

0gzl 'ec 'scueluv quoN uI sJeluoc uecuetuv aAIIBN pelceles l'z del/tt

€f, snqutryo) alolag fuolslH ualpul

34 Major Problems in Ameriun lndian Hisllr\i

The rooms surrounded a central plaza with a great kiva. Villages typically had ten to

twenty rooms that were decidedly smaller than those in the towns. Nearly all ofChaco Canyon's turquoise, shell, and other ornaments and virtually everything im-ported from Mesoamerica are found in the towns rather than the villages. Whether

the goods were considered communal property or were the possessions of elites is

uncertain, but either way the towns clearly had primacy. Villagers buried their dead

near their residences, whereas town burial grounds were apparently located at

greater distances, although only a very few of what must have been thousands oftown burials have been located by archaeologists. Finally, and of particular impor-tance in the arid environment of the region, the towns were located at the mouths ofside canyons where they controlled the collection and distribution of water run-off.

The canyon was the core of an extensive network of at least seventy towns or"outliers," as they are termed in the archaeological literature, and 5,300 villageslocated as far as sixty miles from the canyon. Facilitating the movement of people

and goods through this network was a system of roads radiating outward from the

canyon in perfectly straight lines, turning into stairways or footholds rather than

circumventing cliffs and other obstacles.What archaeologists call the "Chaco phenomenon" was a multifaceted net-

work. Within the canyon, the towns controlled the distribution of precious water.

The abundance ofrooms reinforces the supposition that they stored agricultural sur-

pluses for redistribution, not only within the canyon but to the outliers. The archi-tectural uniformity of towns throughout the system, the straight roads that linkedthem, and the proliferation of great kivas point to a complex of shared beliefs and

rituals. Lithic remains indicate that the canyon imported most of the raw materials

used for manufacturing utilitarian goods and ornamental objects fiom elsewhere inthe Southwest. Particularly critical in this respect was turquoise, beads of whichwere traded to Mexico in return for copper bells and macaws and to the Gulf ofCalifomia for marine shells. The Chaco phenomenon thus entailed the mobilizationof labor for public works projects and food production, the control and distributionof water, the distribution of prestige goods of both local and exotic origin, and the

control of exchange and redistribution both rvithin and outside the network. In dis-tinct contrast to Cahokia and other Mississippian societies, no evidence exists forthe primacy of any single canyon town or for the primacy of certain individuals as

paramount leaders.

Given the archaeological record, North American "prehistory" can hardly be

characterized as a multiplicity of discrete microhistories. Fundamental to the socialand economic patterns of even the earliest Paleo-lndian bands were exchanges thatlinked people across geographic, cultural, and linguistic boundaries. The eff'ects ofthese links are apparent in the spread ofraw materials and finished goods, ofbeliefsand ceremonies, and of techniques for food production and for manufacturing. Bythe twelfth century, some exchange networks had become highly formalized andcentralized. Exchange constifutes an important key to conceptualizing Americanhistory before Columbus.

Although it departs from our familiar image of North American Indians, the histori-cal pattern sketched so far is recognizable in the way it portrays societies "progress-ing" from small, egalitarian, autonomous communities to larger, more hierarchicai,

Indiott Hist,,l' Bc.liru clolunbr" )5

and centralized political aggregations with more compiex economies. That image

is likewise subverted when we examine the three centuries immediately precedingthe arrival of Europeans. In both American Bottoms and the San Juan River basin,

where twelfth-century populations were most concentrated, agriculture most pro-ductive, exchange most varied and voluminous, and political systems most com-plex and extensive, there were scarcely any inhabitants by the end of the fifteenthcentury. What happened and why?

Cahokia and other Mississippian societies in the Upper Midwest peaked duringthe late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Data from soil traces indicate that

even then laborers were fortifying Cahokia's major earthworks against attack. Atthe same time, archaeologists surmise, Cahokia was headed toward an ecoiogicalcrisis: expanded settlement, accompanied by especially hot dry summers, exhaustedthe soil, depleted the supply of timber for building and fuel, and reduced the habitatof the game that supplemented their diet. By the end of the fourteenth century,

Cahokia's inhabitants had dispersed over the surrounding countryside into smallfarming villages.

Cahokia's abandonment reverberated among other Mississippian societies inthe Midwest. Fortified centers on the Mississippi River tiom the Arkansas Rivernorthward and on the Ohio River appear to have been strengthened by influxes ofpeople from nearby villages but then abandoned, and signs from burials indicate a

period of chronic, deadly warfare in the Upper Midwest. One archaeologist ref'ers

to the middle Mississippi Valley and environs during the fifteenth century as "thevacant quarter." A combination of ecological pressures and upheavals within the

alliance that linked them appears to have doomed Cahokia and other midwesternMississippian centers, leading the inhabitants to transform themselves into the vil-lage dwellers of the surrounding prairies and plains observed by French explorersthree centuries later.

The upheavals may even have extended beyond the range of direct Mississip-pian influence to affect Iroquois and Hurons and other Iroquoian speakers of thelower Great Lakes region. These people had been moving from dispersed, riversidesettlements to fortified, bluff-top villages over the course of several centuries; theprocess appears to have intensified in the fourteenth century, when it also led to the

formation of the Iroquois and Huron confederacies. The Hurons developed fruitfulrelations with hunter-gatherers to the north, with whom they exchanged agricul-tural produce for meat and skins, and Iroquois ties with outsiders appear to have

diminished except for small-scale interactions with coastal peopies to the southand east. Across the Northeast, political life was characterized by violence and

other manifestations of intense competition. Whether the upheavals in exchange

ties occasioned by the collapse of Cahokia were directly linked to the fbrmation ofthe Iroquois and Huron confederacies, as Dena Dincauze and Robert Hasenstab

have suggested for the Iroquois, or were simply part of a larger process generated

by the advent of farming and consequent demographic and political changes, the

repercussions were still evident when Europeans began to frequent the region dur-

ing the sixteenth century.Violence and instability were also apparent across the Southeast. Unlike in the

Midwest, where enormous power had been concentrated in a single center, south-

eastern Mississippian societies were characterized by more frequently shifting

)o Major Problems in Amertcan Indian History

allianCeS and riValrjes that prevented any one center from becoming as powerful as

Cahokia was from the tenth to thirteenth centuries. A pattern of instability pre-

vailed that archaeologist David Anderson terms "cycling," in which certain centers

emerged for a century or two to dominate regional alliances consisting of several

chiefdoms and their tributary communities and then declined. Whole communities

periodically shifted their locations in response to ecological or political pressures.

ihus, for example, the great mound center at Etowah, in northwestern Georgia,

lost its preeminence after 1400 and by the time of Hernando de Soto's arrival in

1540 had become a tributary of the nearby upstart chiefdom of Coosa.

From the mid-twelfth century through the fourteenth, the demographic map

of the Southwest was also transformed as Chaco Canyon and other Anasazi and

Hohokam centefs were abandoned. Although southwesterners had made a practice

of shifting their settlements when facing shortages of water and arable land and

other consequences of climatic or demographic change, they had never done so on

Such a massive scale. Most archaeologists agree that the abandonments followed

changes in the regional cycle of rainfall and drought, so that agricultural surpluses

probably proved inadequate. They point to signs that the centralized systems lost

their ability to mobilize labor, redistribute goods, and coordinate religious cere-

monies and that such loss was followed by outmigration to surrounding and upland

areas where people farmed less intensively while increasing their hunting and

gathering. Trade between the Southwest and Mesoamerica was disrupted at the

same time, though whether as a cause or an efl'ect of the abandonments is unclear.

Most Anasazi peoples dispersed in small groups, joining others to form new

communities in locations with sufficient rainfall. These communities are what we

know today as the southwestern pueblos, extending from Hopi villages in Arizona to

those on the Rio Grande. These dispersals and convergences of peoples reinforced

an emerging complex of beliefs, art, and ceremonies relating to kachinas-spiritsbelieved to have influence in both bringing rain and fostering cooperation among

villagers. Given their effort to forge new communities under conditions of severe

drought, it is not surprising that southwestern farmers placed great emphasis on

kachinas. The eastward shift of much of the southwestern population also led to new

patterns of trade in which recently arrived Athapaskan speakers (later known as

Apaches and Navajos) brought bison meat and hides and other products from the

southern Great Plains to semiannual trade fairs at Taos, Pecos, and Picuris pueblos

in exchange for maize, cotton blankets, obsldian, turquoise, and ceramics aS well aS

shells from the Gulf of California. By the time of Francisco V6squez de Coronado's

entrada in 1540, new ties of exchange and interdependency bound eastern Pueblos,

Athapaskans, and Caddoan speaker on the Plains.

When Europeans reached North America, then, the continent's demographicand political map was in a state of profound flux. A major lactor was the collapse

of the great centers at Cahokia and Chaco Canyon and elsewhere in the Midwest

and Southwest. Although there were significant differences between these highlycentralized societies, each ran up against the capacity ofthe land or other resources

to sustain it. This is not to argue for a simple ecological determinism for, althoughenvironmental fluctuations played a role, the severe strains in each region resulted

above all from a series of human choices that had brought about unprecedented con-

centrations of people and power. Having repudiated those choices and dispersed,

Indiart Histon BeJore Columbus

midwestern Mississippians and Anasazis formed new communities in which theyretained kinship, ceremonial, and other traditions antedating these complex societies.At the same time, these new communities and neighboring ones sought to flourishin their new political and environmental settings by establishing, and in some cases

endeavoring to control, new exchange networks.Such combinations ofcontinuity and change, persistence and adaptability, arose

from concrete historical experiences rather than a timeless tradition. The remainderof this article indicates some of the ways that both the deeply rooted imperatives ofreciprocity and exchange and the recent legacies of competition and upheaval in-formed Norlh American history as Europeans began to make their presence felt.

Discussion of the transition from pre- to postcontact times must begin with thesixteenth century, when Indians and Europeans met and interacted in a variety ofsettings. When not slighting the era altogether, historians have viewed it as one ofdiscovery or exploration, citing the achievements of notable Europeans in eitheranticipating or failing to anticipate the successful colonial enterprises ofthe seven-teenth century. Recently, however, a number of scholars have been integratinginformation from European accounts with the findings of archaeologists to pro-duce a much fuller picture of this critical period in North American history.

The Southeast was the scene of the most formidable attempts at colonizationduring the sixteenth century, primarily by Spain. Yet in spite of several expedi-tions to the interior and the undertaking of an ambitious colonizing and mission-ary effort, extending from St. Augustine over much of the Florida peninsula andnorth to Chesapeake Bay, the Spanish retained no permanent settlements beyondSt. Augustine itself at the end of the century. Nevertheless, their explorers and mis-sionaries opened the way for the spread of smallpox and other epidemic diseasesover much of the area south of the Chesapeake and east of the Mississippi.

The most concerted and fruitful efforts of the interdisciplinary scholarship entailthe linking of southeastern societies that are known archaeologically with societiesdescribed in European documents. For example, Charles Hudson, David Hally, andothers have demonstrated the connections between a group of archaeological sitesin northern Georgia and the Tennessee valley and what sixteenth-century Spanishobservers ref'erred to as Coosa and its subordinate provinces. A Mississippianarchaeological site in northwestern Georgia known as Little Egypt consists of theremains of the town of Coosa; the town was the capital of the province ("chiefdom"to the archaeologists) of the same name, containing several nearby towns, and thisprovince/chiefdom in turn dominated a network of at least five other chiefdoms ina "paramount chiefdom." These conclusions would not have been as definitive ifbased on either documentary or archaeological evidence alone.

coosa, as previously noted, attained regional supremacy during the fifteenthcentury, a phase in the apparently typical process whereby paramount chiefdomsrose and fell in the Mississippian Southeast. But Coosa's decline was far moreprecipitate than others because Spanish diseases ravaged the province, forcing thesurvivors to abandon the town and move southward. By the end of the sixteenth cen-tury, several new provincial centers emerged in what are now Alabama and westernGeorgia, but without the mounds and paramount chiefs of their predecessors. Aswith earlier declines of paramount chiefdoms, a center had dectined and, out of the


resulting power vacuum, a new formation emerged. What differed in this case were

the external source ofthe decline, its devastating effects, and the inability or unwill-ingness of the survivors to concentrate power and deference in the hands of para-

mount chiefs. At the same time, the absence of Spanish or other European

colonizers from the late sixteenth century to late seventeenth meant that the natives

had a sustained period of time in which to recover and regroup. When English

traders encountered the descendants of refugees from Coosa and its neighbors late

in the seventeenth century, they labeled them "Creek."

Patricia Galloway has established similar connections between Mississippian

societies farther west and the Choctaws of the eighteenth century. She argues that

the well-known site of Moundville in Alabama and a second site on the Pearl River

in Mississippi were the centers of chiefdoms from which most Choctaws were

descended. She argues that, unlike Coosa, these centers were probably declining

in power before the onset of disease in the 1540s hastened the process. Like the

Creeks, the Choctaws were a multilingual, multiethnic society in which individualvillages were largely autonomous although precedents for greater coalescence were

available ifconditions, such as the European presence, seemed to require it.As in the Southeast, Spanish colonizers in the sixteenth-century Southwest

launched several ambitious military and missionary efforts, hoping to extend New

Spain's domain northward and to discover additional soufces of wealth. The best-

documented encounters of Spanish with Pueblos-most notably those of Coronado's

expedition (1540-1542)---ended in violence and failure for the Spanish who, despite

vows to proceed peacefuily, violated Pueblo norms of reciprocity by insisting on

excessive tribute or outright submission. In addition, the Spanish had acquired no-

toriety among the Pueblos as purveyors of epidemic diseases, religious missions, and

slaving expeditions inflicted on Indians to the south, in what is now northern Mexico.

The Spanish also afiected patterns of exchange throughout the Southwest.

Indians resisting the spread of Spanish rule to northefn Mexico stole horses and

other livestock, some of which they traded to neighbors. By the end of the six-

teenth century, a few Indians on the periphery ofthe Southwest were riding horses,

anticipating the combination of theft and exchange that would spread horses to

native peoples throughout the region and, still later, the Piains and the Southeast.

In the meantime, some Navajos and Apaches moved near the Rio Grande Valley,

strengthening ties with certain pueblos that were reinforced when inhabitants ofthose pueblos sought refuge among them in the face or wake of Spanish entradas.

Yet another variation on the theme of Indian-European contacts in the six-

teenth century was played out in the Northeast, where Iroquoian-speaking viliagers

on the Mississippian periphery and Archaic hunter-gatherers still further removedfrom developments in the interior met Europeans of several nationalities. At the

outset of the century, Spanish and Portuguese explorers enslaved several dozen

Micmacs and other Indians from the Nova Scotia-Gulf of St. Lawrence area. ThreeFrench expeditions to the St. Lawrence itself in the 1530s and 1540s followed the

Spanish pattern by alienating most Indians encountered and ending in futility.Even as these hostile contacts were taking place, fishermen, whalers, and otherEuropeans who visited the area regularly had begun trading with natives. As earlyas the 1520s, Abenakis on the coast of Maine and Micmas were trading the furs ofbeavers and other animals for European goods of metal and glass. By the 1540s,


specialized fur traders, mostly French, frequented the coast as far south as the

Chesapeake; by the 1550s or soon thereafter, French traders rendezvoused regularlywith Indians along the shores of upper New England, the Maritimes, and Quebecand at Tadoussac on the St. Lawrence.

What induced Indians to go out of their way to trap beaver and trade the skinsfor glass beads, mirrors, copper kettles, and other goods? Throughout North Amer-ica since Paleo-Indian times, exchange in the Northeast was the means by whichpeople maintained and extended their social, cultural, and spiritual horizons as

well as acquired items considered supernaturally powerful. Members of some

coastal Indian groups later recalled how the first Europeans they saw, with theirfacial hair and strange clothes and traveling in their strange boats, seemed likesupernatural figures. Although soon disabused of such notions, these Indians and

many more inland placed special value on the glass beads and other trinketsoffered by the newcomers. Recent scholarship on Indians'motives in this earlieststage ofthe trade indicates that they regarded such objects as the equivalents oftheqvartz, mica, shell, and other sacred substances that had formed the heart of long-distance exchange in North America for millennia and that they regarded as

sources of physical and spiritual well-being, on earth and in the afterlife. Indiansinitially altered and wore many of the utilitarian goods they received, such as ironaxe heads and cooper pots, rather than use them for their intended purposes. More-over, even though the new objects might pass through many hands, they more oftenthan not ended up in graves, presumably for their possessors to use in the afterlife.Finally, the archaeological findings make clear that shell and native copper pre-dominated over the new objects in sixteenth-century exchange, indicating that Eu-ropean trade did not suddenly trigger a massive craving for the objects themselves.While northeastern Indians recognized Europeans as different from themselves,they interacted with them and their materials in ways that were consistent withtheir own customs and beliefs.

By the late sixteenth century, the effects of European trade began to overlapwith the effects of earlier upheavals in the northeastern interior. Sometime betweenJacques Cartier's final departure in 1543 and Samuel de Champlain's arrival in1603, the Iroquoian-speaking inhabitants of Hochelaga and Stadacona (modernMontreal and Quebec City) abandoned their communities. The communities werecrushed militarily, and the survivors dispersed among both lroquois and Hurons.Whether the perpetrators of these dispersals were Iroquois or Huron is a point ofcontroversy, but either way the St. Lawrence communities appear to have beencasualties of the rivalry, at least a century old, between the two confederations as

each sought to position itself vis-d-vis the French. The effect, if not the cause, ofthe dispersals was the Iroquois practice of attacking antagonists who denied themdirect access to trade goods; this is consistent with Iroquois actions during the pre-ceding two centuries and the century that followed.

The sudden availability of many more European goods, the absorption of manyrefugees from the St. Lawrence, and the heightening of tensions with the Iroquoishelp to explain the movement of most outlying Huron communities to what is nowthe Simcoe County area of Ontario during the 1580s. This geographic concentrationstrengthened their confederacy and gave it the form it had when allied with NewFrance during the first half of the seventeenth century. Having formerly existed at


the outer margins of an arena of exchange centered in Cahokia' the Hurons and Iro-

quois now faced a new source of goods and power to the east'

The diverse native societies encountered by Europeans as they began to settle

North America perrnanently iluring the seventeenth cenfury were not static isolates

lying outside the ebb and flow of human history. Rather, they were products of a

"o-pl"^ set ofhistorical forces, both local and wide-ranging, both deeply rooted and

of reient origin. Although their lives and worldviews were shaped by long-standing

traditions of reciprocity and spiritual power, the people in these communities were

also accustomed-contrary to popular myths about inflexible Indians-to economlc

and political flux and to absorbing new peoples (both allies and antagonists), ob-

jects, and ideas, including those originating in Europe. Such combinations of tradi-

tion and innovation continued to shape Indians'relations with Europeans' even as

the latter's visits became permanent.

The establishment of lasting European colonies, beginning with New Mexico in

1598, began a phase in the continent's history that eventually resulted in the displace-

ment of Indians to the economic, political, and cultural margins of a new order. But

during the interim natives and colonizers entered into numerous relationships in

which they exchanged material goods and often supported one another diplomati-

cally or militarily against common enemies. These relations combined native and

European modes of exchange. While much of the scholarly literature emphasizes the

subordination and dependence of Indians in these circumstances, Indians as much as

Europeans dictated the form and content of their early exchanges and alliances.

Much of the protocol and rirual surrounding such intercultural contacts was rooted

in indigenous kinship obligations and gift exchanges, and Indian consumers exhib-

ited decided preferences for European commodities that satisfied social, spiritual,

and aesthetic values. Similarly, Indians' long-range motives and strategies in their

alliances with Europeans were frequently rooted in older patterns of alliance and

rivalry with regional neighbors. Such continuities can be glimpsed through a brief

consideration of the early colonial-era histories of the Five Nations Iroquois in the

Northeast, the Creeks in the Southeast, and the Rio Grande Pueblos in the Southwest.

Post-Mississippian and sixteenth-century patterns of antagonism between the

Iroquois and their neighbors to the nofih and west persisted, albeit under altered

circumstances, during the seventeenth century when France established its colony

on the St. Lawrence and aliied itself with Hurons and other Indians. France aimed to

extract maximum profits from the fur trade, and it immediately tecogtized the Iro-

quois as the major threat to that goal. In response, the Iroquois turned to the Dutch

in New Netherland for guns and other trade goods while raiding New France's

Indian allies for the thicker northern pelts that brought higher prices than those intheir own country (which they exhausted by midcentury) and for captives to replace

those from their own ranks who had died from epidemics or in wars. During the

1640s, the Iroquois replaced raids with full-scale military assaults (the so-called

Beaver Wars) on lroquoian-speaking communities in the lower Great Lakes,

absorbing most of the survivors as refugees or captives. All the while, the Iroquoiselaborated a vision of their confederation, which had brought harmony within theirown ranks, as bringing peace to all peoples of the region. For the remainder of the

century, the Five Nations fought a grueling and costly series of wars against the

Indian History Before Columbus 4l

French and their Indian allies in order to gain access to the pelts and French goods

circulating in lands to the north and west.

Meanwhile, the Iroquois were also adapting to the growing presence of English

colonists along the Atlantic seaboard (see Map 2.2). After the English supplanted

the Dutch in New York in 1664, Iroquois diplomats established relations with the

proprietary governor, Sir Edmund Andros, in a treaty known as the Covenant Chain'

The Covenant Chain was an elaboration of the Iroquois' earlier treaty arrangements

with the Dutch, but, whereas the Iroquois had termed the Dutch relationship a chain

of iron, they referred to the one with the English as a chain of silver. The shift in

metaphors was appropriate, for what had been strictly an economic connection was

now a political one in which the lroquois acquired power over other New York In-

dians. After 1611 , the Covenant Chain was expanded to include sevelal English

colonies, most notably Massachusetts and Maryland, along with those colonies'

subject Indians. The upshot of these arangements was that the Iroquois cooperated

with their colonial partnefs in subduing and removing subject Indians who impeded

settler expansion. The Mohawks in particular played a vital role in the New England

colonies' suppression of the Indian uprising known as King Philip's war and in

moving the Susquehannocks away from the expanding frontier of settlement in the

Chesapeake after Bacon's Rebellion.

For the Iroquois, such a policy helped expand their "Tree of Peace" among

Indians while providing them with buffers against settler encroachment around their

homelands. The major drawback in the arrangement proved to be the weakness of

English military assistance against the French. This inadequacy, and the consequent

suffering experienced by the Iroquois during two decades of war after 1680, finally

drove the Five Nations to make peace with the French and their Indian allies in

the Grand Settlement of 1701. Together, the Grand Settlement and Covenant Chain

provided the Iroquois with the peace and security, the access to trade goods, and

the dominant role among northeastern Indians they had long sought. That these ar-

rangements in the long run served to reinforce rather than deter English encroach-

ment on Iroquois lands and autonomy should not obscure their pre-European roots

and their importance in shaping colonial history in the Northeast.

In the southeastern interior, Vernon Knight argues, descendants of refugees

from Coosa and neighboring communities regrouped in clusters of Creek talwas

(villages), each dominated by a large talwa and its "great chief." In the late seven-

teenth century, theso latter-day chiefdom/provinces forged alliances with English

traders, first from Virginia and then from Carolina, who sought to trade guns and

other manufactured goods for deerskins and Indian siaves. In so doing, the Creeks

ensured that they would be regarded by the English as clients rather than as com-

modities. The deerskin trade proved to be a critical factor in South Carolina's

early economic development, and the trade in Indian slaves significantly served

England's imperial ambitions vis-d-vis Spain in Florida. After 1715, the several

Creek alliances acted in concert as a confederacy-the Creek Nation-qn qs1fain

occasions. As a result, they achieved a measure of success in playing off these

powers and maintaining neutrality in their conflicts with one another. While much

differentiates Creek political processes in the colonial period from those of the late

Mississippian era, there are strong elements of continuity in the transformation ofMississippian chiefdoms into great Creek talwas.

' gtgl 'w'€crJeruv qiloN uI sreluec uscueluY eAIleN prlseles a'a duIN

[tolstg uotpul unuaulv ut swalqot1 n[aytr Z'

Indian Histoty Before Columbus 43

In the Southwest, the institution of Spanish colonial rule on the Rio Grandeafter 1598 further affected exchange relations between Pueblo Indians and nearbyApaches and Navajos. By imposing heavy demands for tribute in the form of corn,the Spanish prevented Pueblo peoples from trading surplus produce with their non-farming neighbors. In order to obtain the produce on which they had come to depend,

Apaches and Navajos staged deadly raids on some pueblos, leaving the inhabitantsdependent on the Spanish for protection. In retaliation, Spanish soldiers capturedApaches and Navajos whom they sold as slaves to their countrymen to the south.

From the beginning, the trading pueblos of Pecos, Picuris, and Taos most resentedSpanish control and strongly resisted the proselytizing of Franciscan missionaries.From the late 1660s, drought and disease, intensified Apache and Navajo raids, andthe severity of Spanish rule led more and more Indians from all pueblos to questionthe advantages of Christianity and to renew their ties to their indigenous religioustraditions. Spanish persecution of native religious leaders and their backsliding fol-lowers precipitated the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, in which the trading Pueblos playeda leading role and which was actively supported by some Navajos and Apaches.

When the Spanish reimposed their rule during the 1690s, they tolerated tra-ditional Indian religion rather than trying to extirpate it, and they participated ininterregional trade fairs at Taos and other villages. The successful incorporationof Pueblo Indians as loyal subjects proved vital to New Mexico's survival as a

colony and, more generally, to Spain's imperial presence in the Southwest duringthe eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

As significant as is the divide separating pre- and post-Columbian North Americanhistory, it is not the stark gap suggested by the distinction between prehistory andhistory. For varying periods of time after their arrival in North America, Europeansadapted to the social and political environments they found, including the fluctuat-ing ties of reciprocity and interdependence as well as rivalry, that characterizedthose environments. They had little choice but to enter in and participate if theywished to sustain their presence. Eventually, one roLlte to success proved to be theirability to insert themselves as regional powers in new networks of exchange andalliance that arose to supplant those of the Mississippians, Anasazis, and others.

To assert such continuities does not minimize the radical transformations en-tailed in Europeans' colonization ofthe continent and its indigenous peoples. Aris-ing in Cahokia's wake, new canters at Montreal, Fort Orange/Albany, Charleston,and elsewhere permanently altered the primary patterns of exchange in easternNorth America. The riverine system that channeled exchange in the interior of thecontinent gave way to one in which growing quantities of goods arrived from, andwere directed to, coastal peripheries and ultimately Europe. In the Southwest, theSpanish revived Anasazi links with Mesoamerica at some cost to newer ties be-tween the Rio Grande Pueblos and recently arrived, nonfarming Athapaskanspeakers. More generally, European colonizers brought a complex of demographicand ecological advantages, most notably epidemic diseases and their own immu-nity to them, that utterly devastated Indian communities; ideologies and beliefs intheir cultural and spiritual superiority to native peoples and their entitlement tonatives' lands; and economic, political, and military systems organized for the en-grossment of Indian lands and the subordination or suppression of Indian peoples.

44 Major Problems in American Indian Histo4t

Europeans were anything but uniformly successful in realizing their goals, butthe combination of demographic and ecological advantages and imperial intentions,along with the Anglo-Iroquois Covenant Chain, enabled land-hungry colonists fiomNew England to the Chesapeake to break entirely free of ties of dependence on

Indians before the end of the seventeenth century. Their successes proved to be onlythe beginning of a new phase of Indian-European relations. By the mid-eighteenthcentury, the rapid expansion of land-based settlement in the English colonies had

sundered older ties of exchange and alliance linking natives and colonizers nearlyeverywhere east of the Appalachians, driving many Indians west and reducing those

who remained to a scattering of politically powerless enclaves in which Indianidentities were nurtured in isolation. Meanwhile, the colonizers threatened to ex-

tend this new mode of Indian relations across the Appalachians. An old world,rooted in indigenous exchange, was giving way to one in which Native Americanshad no certain place.

Towns, Mounds, and I(achinas

STEPHEN PLOG

Abandonments at the end of the 13th century transformed the social landscape ofthe Southwest. The once vibrant cliff dwellings of the Kayenta and San Juan re-gions became vacant and mute. The more numerous surrounding settlements, bothlarge and small, on mesa-tops and in other settings were also deserted. Not a singleMogollon or Anasazi inhabited vast areas once densely settled-including all ofsouthern Utah and Colorado and much of northeastern Arizona and northwesternMexico. Overall, the center of social gravity shifted decidedly to the south and east,

with the Phoenix Basin continuing to be a key region and the Rio Grande Valley,the Zum region of west-central New Mexico, and the Casas Grandes area of north-ern Mexico evolving into important centers. The Hopi area, once on the southernedges of the Anasazi territory, became isolated in the northwestern corner of thePueblo world. This redistribution of people was simply one aspect of a complexprocess of metamorphosis that affected almost all the Southwest during the late

13th and l4th centuries,Even in the southern and eastern areas where overall population grew, the

number of inhabited villages actually dropped as the local people and any new-

comers coalesced into large towns. Some of these towns were no larger than CliffPalace or Sand Canyon Pueblo, but others approached a dimension that matched,

and in many cases exceeded, the largest settlements of the preceding millennia.The greater number of people living in some locales meant more mouths to feed,more people to organize, more conflicts to resolve, or, fiom the point of view ofaspiring leaders, more allies to recruit and more labor to exploit.

Stephen Plog, "Towns, Mounds, and Kachinas," in Stephen Plog, Ancient Peoples of the AmeficanSouthx,est (London: Thames and Hudson, 1997),154-179. Reprinted by permission.

Indinn Hi:rory Before Columbt,,

Community cycles: boom and bust in the Rio Grande Valley

When we examine a smail region, such as the Rio Grande Valley, it becomes clearjust how intermittent and episodic was the pattern of coalescence characteristic ofthe late 13th century and after. . . . Despite the presence of one of the few largprivers in the Southwest that carries water throughout the year, the valley was thinlypopulated before about an 1000. Human numbers grew during the next two cen-turies, but Anasazi villages remained scattered in comparison with neighboringAnasazi and Mogollon areas. That pattern changed, however, in the late 12th andearly 13th centuries as people moved into the area from the west and northwest anrl

their numbers were augmented by indigenous population growth. The somewhatlater pattern of development in the Rio Grande Valley is also shown by the late riseof pueblo architecture. By the end of the 13th century, pueblos with 10-50 roomswere unexceptional and a few had 100-200 rooms or more. Sometime during the14th century, many areas of the Rio Grande Valley witnessed an even greater in.crease in population, but the exact timing of this growth varies throughout the RioGrande region.

Yet between these phases of expansion and coalescence there were puzzlingepisodes of abandonment. Take Pot Creek Pueblo, near Taos in northern New Mex-ico, eventually a 250-3O0-room settlement loosely arranged around a centralplazawith a large kiva fceremonial chamber]. Anasazi settlers built a few rooms in the1260s, many more in the 1270s, scarcely any during the 1280s, and none at all inthe 1290s. They then renewed their building activity in the 1300s, an effort thatcontinued into the next decade at a tate suggesting that new groups moved into thepueblo. By the 1320s Pot Creek had been abandoned, Iess than 70 years after it hadfirst been settled.

Two similar cycles of expansion and decline characterized the occupation ofArroyo Hondo, an even larger pueblo located about 4.3 miles south of modern-da5rSanta Fe, along a tributary canyon of the Rio Grande. Anaiysis of the tree-ring datesshows that the initial settlers built at least a single roomblock by an 1315 and thenover the next 15 years quickly erected one of the largest pueblos anywhere in theSouthwest, ultimateiy 1,200 two-story rooms distributed among 24 roomblocks ar-ranged to define l3 plazas of roughly sirnilar size. This precipitous growth was fol-lowed by an even more rapid decline. By the mid- 1 330s the pueblo was almost, if notcompletely, deserted. A second cycle of growth and decline commenced during the1370s and 1380s when a group of new residents initiated a second but much smallerpueblo of200 single-story rooms. They stayed until at least AD 1410, when a devas-tating fire destroyed much of the puebio, incinerating racks of stored corn cobs.

These relatively short-lived occupations by large numbers of people, along withthe rapid nature of both growth and decline and evidence that groups cooperated inthe construction of several roomblocks, show how fluid the social landscape wasin the 14th and early 15th centuries. People moved together, en masse, in a mannersimilar to some of the earlier population shifts in the middle of the l2th century.Groups who once formed communities of smaller, discrete villages, joined othersto form new, larger pueblos for short periods of time. The somewhat different datesfor the growth and decline of Pot creek Pueblo and Arroyo Hondo suggest thatthis social fluidity lasted for a century or more. Many groups must have traveled

46 Major Problems in American lndlan History

considerable distances. For example, over 125 miies separates the Mesa Verde ofsouthwestern Colorado from the nearest areas in northeastern Arizona or north-

western New Mexico where Anasazi settlement continued at the beginning of the

14th century. Such unprecedented journeys would not have been made without

preparation, provisions, and prayer offerings.

Farming, food, and famine?

Why did people abandon sites like Arroyo Hondo, leaving behind the hundreds ofrooms they had labored for years to construct? One reason is that inhabitants ofthese larger settlements faced greater difficulties in accumulating sufficient food.

Despite the presence of a large, perennial river, agriculture in the Rio Grande

Valley is not without its risks. Average annual rainfall is below the minimum

required for maize at all but the highest elevations, and growing seasons at those

upper elevations are shorter than the 120 days maize needs. To minimize the risk ofcrop failure, Anasazi settlers adopted a diverse range of agricultural practices. Irri-gated fields along the Rio Grande were complemented by fields in upland regions

in which a variety of water and soil conservation methods---check dams, terraces,

gridded fields with stone borders between individual plots, and stone walls to di-

rect run-off to the plots-were employed to maximize soil moisture. Yet we know

that these techniques were not always sufficient, as studies of the food remains and

burials at Arroyo Hondo show.

Even the best agricultural land around Arroyo Hondo was not very productive.

Probably no mofe than 400-600 people could have been fed during the average year,

and it would have been difficult to accumulate adequate reserves in good years to

allow everyone to survive when harvests fell short in consecutive bad years. The re-

covery by archaeologists of starvation foods such as cattails, cholla cactus, and grass

seeds indicates that the residents ofArroyo Hondo did in fact face periods of hunger.

These famines caused many residents to suffer from growth problems or afflictions

such as iron deficiency (anemia), infections, and fractures. About 15 percent ofthepeople had bowed long bones, a product of periodic or endemic malnutrition. Infant

and child mortality was very high-26 percent died before reaching their first birth-day and 45 percent before the age of five. Average life expectancy for all inhabitants

ofArroyo Hondo was only 16.6 years, the shortest period discovered for any group

of prehistoric Southwestern people . Life expectancy was so low and infant mortality

so high that it undoubtedly hindered the functioning of the community.

The abrupt florescence and decline of large settlements such as Arroyo Hondo

and Pot Creek Pueblo also typified many other areas of the northern Southwest dur-

ing the 14th and early 15th centuries. In some cases, growth of towns was associated

with a rise in the number of people, as in the Rio Grande Valley, but elsewhere pop-

ulation often declined overall. In the Cibola region of west-central New Mexico the

ancestors of the Zuni reached a peak population of c. 9,300 in 17 pueblo towns near

the end of the 13th century. Yet only 6,500 peopie remained in 10-1 1 towns in the

mid-l4th century, possibly fbllowed by an even more rapid drop to 900 people in the

last half of the 14th century, and then a subsequent recovery. The growth of large

towns was thus not necessarily a product of rising population levels.

lnJian History Belore Columbus 47

Nor were all large towns short-lived. The Hopi region of northeastern Arizona

witnessed a striking rise in the size of individual settlements in the late 13th century

as groups from surrounding areas moved into the region. Some of the larger towns

such as Awatovi and Oraibi housed as many as 500 to 1,000 people and, more impor-

tantly, some of them remained major settlements for several hundred years. Awatovi

was a thriving community when the Spanish entered the Southwest in the 16th cen-

tury and remained so until the first few years of the 18th century. The Hopi still in-habit Oraibi today, the longest continuously occupied settlement in the United States.

Why did some communities endure while others collapsed? Although successes

and failures at harvest time are part of the answerr conflict between settlements must

have played its part as well.

Warfare and defense

Ethnographers have noted there is considerable evidence that conflict was once

a much more important component of Pueblo life. For example, in oral traditionsvillage defense is often given as the reason for admitting new groups to Hopisettlements:

The Kokop people are said to have reached Oraibi after they had formerly lived in a

home situated far to the northwest. At first Matcito refused to admit them to his pueblo,

so they circled to the south of the mesa and made a temporary settlement there. Fromtime to time their leaders beseeched Matcito to allow them to move into the village,

offering to be his'hands'(warriors), but the chiefremained obdurate. In revenge, the

head man of the Kokops secretly sent word to the Chimwava, huge men with gigantic

feet, supposedly the worst enemies of the Hopi, inviting them to make a raid on Oraibi.

Soon after, the people on the mesa were horrified to find a large host of the dreaded

Chimwava marching upon their town. Matcito gathered his men, but realizing that his

forces were inadequate, he remembered the Kokops' promises and sent word that the

clan would be allowed to reside in Oraibi if it would help beat off the invaders.

Archaeological evidence supports the case for conflict in prehispanic times. In thelate 13th and early l4th centuries village plans were increasingly designed in termsofdefense. Roomblocks were built at right angles to each other to form open areas

or plaza inside the pueblo. Such plazas occur at Arroyo Hondo and Pot CreekPueblo, as well as hundreds of other pueblos throughout the northern Southwest.

Narrow passages restricted access to the plazas. Ground-floor rooms could be

entered only using ladders placed in openings in the roof. An individual standing

outside the pueblo was thus confronted with solid masonry walls several feet inheight. Even if one gained entry to the plaza, the ladders required for further access

could be quickly raised from above, providing an additional barrier.The Spanish found the plaza-oriented village plan an effective impediment

during their battles with Pueblo groups. Coronado's exploration of the Southwestin 1540 almost ended during his attempt to storm the first pueblo he encountered,

the town of Hawikuh in the Zuni area. The Hawikuhans initially resisted by retreat-ing to the rooftops of their houses: "The people who were on the top for defensewere not hindered in the least from doing us whatever injury they were able. As formyself, they knocked me down to the ground twice with countless great stones

48 Major Problems in American Indian llistoryt

which they threw down from above, and I had not been protected by the very goodheadpiece which I wore, I think that the outcome would have been bad for me."

In earlier times the towns would have been protecting themselves against otherAnasazi and Mogollon groups, rather than European intruders. Several other piecesof evidence support the case for internecine strife. A f'ew of the large towns werein fact built in highly defensible locations. Best known of these is another puebloof the Zuni region, Atsinna in El Morro National Monument, a pueblo with750-1,000 rooms that sits atop Inscription Rock where Ofrate and other explorersrecorded their presence by carving names and dates in the face of the cliff. Othersettlements had wells dug in the central plaza rather than in unprotected territoryoutside. Skeletal remains show an increase in trauma and violent deaths during thisperiod, including evidence of scalping. Some sites, such as Arroyo Hondo and

Casas Grandes in northern Mexico, were severely burnt. And we also have signsthat Anasazi and Mogollon settlements were clustered together for defense, withconsiderable gaps-of tens and sometimes hundreds of miles-left between each

cluster. The Hopi, Little Colorado River, and Cibola regions are perhaps the clear-est examples of this type of distribution, but there were similar clusters, separatedby smaller distances, in the Rio Grande area as well. Both village plans and intra-and inter-regional settlement distributions could thus be explained as efforts toincrease protection from outsiders.

Ancestors. clouds. and kachina ritual

Plazas were not simply an architectural effort to restrict access to the pueblo. SomeAnasazi and Mogollon people had always used plaza areas for a variety of domes-tic activities such as food preparation, but during this period we also see the tirstevidence that plazas became the setting for the public kachina dances that are so

well known From historic times.. . . [K]achinas feature prominently in modern-day western Puebio (Hopi, Zuni,

and Acoma) beliefs and ritual. Kachinas are ancestral spirits that act as messengers

between the people and their gods. They also bring rain, themselves forming cloudssummoned annually to the villages.

Kachinas are present on earth only half of the year. approxirnately frorn wintersolstice to summer solstice, after which they return to the underworld through thesipctpr,r in the San Francisco Peaks, the entrance through which humans firstemerged from the underworld. Individuals dressed in costumes that include a maskimpersonate the kachinas during their time on earth. performing a variety of groupdances. The Hopi believe that when the impersonator wears the kachina masks, he(and it is always a male) becomes empowered with the characteristics of the spiritbeing represented and should therefore be regarded as sacred. There are a varietyof different types of kachinas and kachina societies among the Hopi, and all indi-viduals are initiated into one ofthese societies.

Kachina ritual as it is conducted today requires large, public spaces for groupdances, and plazas are the typical setting. Plazas, as we have seen, developed in thelate l3th and early 14th centuries, and there are other changes at this time-parricu-larly in ceramic decorative styles and the introduction of kiva murals-suggestingthat modern Pueblo rituals had their origin during this period.

Inrlian History Before Columbus 49

As regards ceramics, in the first half of the 13th century, the Rio Grande Valley,the Cibola and Little Colorado regions, the Hopi area, and the Mogollon Rim coun-try all quickly came to share a similar style of vessel decoration despite the con-siderable distances between each area. That style, a radical departure from those ofearlier periods, was characterized by birds and human figures in addition to geo-metric designs, by asymmetric patterns, and by a change in the focus of decorationfrom the walls of bowls to the center. Vessel color ranged from yellow to orange tored, with designs painted in both black and red.

Patricia Crown studied the representational forms on such vessels and she con-cludes that most are symbols of the earth, sun, weather phenomena, or fertility. Thecommonest icon is the snake or serpent, often depicted using elongated triangleswith hooks (fangs) at the apex, an eye inside the triangle, and a curving horn orplume emanating from the back of the triangle. Pueblo groups today believe thatthe horned serpent controls flooding and rain and both the icon and its interpreta-tion are reminiscent of Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent of native Mesoamericanreligions. Crown suggests that the serpent and other representational symbols ex-press and reinforce concepts of the universe, afterlife, weather control and fertilitythat were central to the religious beliefs of the Southwestern societies.

The centrality of these concepts is supported by the occurrence of the symbolsin a variety of contexts other than ceramic vessels. Archaeologists have discoveredsimilar patterns of decoration painted on the walls of a few 14th- and early l5th-century kivas at half a dozen pueblos in the Little Colorado River Valley, the Hopiregion, and the Rio Grande Valley. Several layers of murals are sometimes present, aresult of the annual or seasonal replastering of kiva walls typical of certain cere-monies, a practice recorded among some historic-period Pueblo groups. At Awatoviand Kawaika-a in the Hopi region, the archaeologist Watson Smith recovered frag-ments of more than 200 individual murals from approximately 20 kivas. Smithbelieves that the painted designs supplemented, and sometimes substituted for, thewooden altars characteristic of Hopi kiva rituals when they were last observed byoutsiders in the early 20th century. These murals not only contrast with the rareexamples of earlier kiva decorations-dominated by simple geometric designs-but also illustrate a greater variety of subjects than those on contemporary ceramicvessels, including plants, animals, anthropomorphs, and altars. Perhaps the singlernost significant rnotifs are the anthropomorphs with features characteristic of thekachinas of historic Pueblo groups.

The kiva murals, the rapid appearance of the new decorative style on ceramlcs,the introduction of large plazas, and changes in burial practices all suggest thatPueblo ritual was transformed during the late I3th and 14th centuries in the north-ern Southwest. Among the most significant changes was the development or elabo-ration of kachina ritual. Some scholars believe that kachina ritual provided a sortof social glue, bonding together people within a pueblo because everyone mustcooperate for the ceremonies to be conducted properly, and membership in kachinasocieties crosscuts the discrete and potentially divisive clans and lineages. cer-tainly the public nature of the kachina dances in the open plazas suggests an in-creased emphasis on public affirmation of conventions of proper behavior. Kachinarituals helped reinforce the norms of social behavior. Such an emphasis in theselate prehispanic times would not be surprising given the concurrent evolution of

50 Major Problems in American lndian History

larger and socially more diverse villages where increased tensions and conflictswere likely and where cooperative behavior was needed for the village to survive.

Another noteworthy aspect of the archaeological evidence of kachinas. thatcontrasts somewhat with the historic focus of kachina ritual, is the depiction ofshields and hostile encounters in a few of the kiva murals. Some of these simplyillustrate two figures confronting each other, but in one mural from a kiva atKawaika-a, 'the ultimate act of warfare is very realistically portrayed, for here thevictorious champion, with shield borne before him, stands over the vanquished foe,who has fallen backward, pierced by an arrow or spear. The particular kachinasmost likely depicted in early kachina murals and rock art are also associated withwarfare in modern Pueblo ritual, often sanctifying warfare (in some oral traditionskachinas assist Pueblo groups during conflicts, for example) or commemorating im-portant encounters. Thus, kachinas initially may have had a dual role as warriors as

well as rainmakers. To propose that both increased cooperation and increased con-flict characterized the l4th and early l5th centuries in the northern Southwest mayappear contradictory, but these patterns are not irreconcilable. A greater emphasison ritual and cooperation within villages is often associated with social tensionsbetween villages or regions; an emphasis on internal unity is a logical counterpart ofthe risk of threat from others.

Green stones for red feathers: trade and elites in the Southwest

Trade in a variety of goods demonstrates the strong and multifaceted relationshipsbetween regions, in combination with the ties suggested by similarities in ceramicdecoration with kiva murals. Turquoise, parrot feathers, cotton and cotton cloth,shell, buffalo hides, obsidian, and pottery are a few of the many items exchangedby the ancient Southwesterners. Certain groups specialized in the production ofparticular goods. Inhabitants of settlements along the Little Colorado River nearthe modern town of Winslow, for example, may have specialized in cotton farming,trading either raw cotton or textiles for other commodities. The long, 172-day aver-age growing season around Winslow would have provided an excellent environ-ment for cotton cultivation as long as the Little Colorado River provided sufficientirrigation water. Plant remains from two of the pueblos, Homol'ovi II and III,demonstrate that cotton was a primary agricultural plant, close to maize in impor-tance, and more abundant than in any other area of the Southwest. Although cottonwas grown elsewhere, including the gravel mulch fields of the Rio Grande Valley,the residents of the Homol'ovis and the Hopi villages may have been the primaryproviders of raw cotton and finished textiles; we certainly know that the Hopiplayed that role when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. . . .

The casas Grandes polity. The clearest picture of the range and amounts ofgoods being traded among Southwestern communities comes from northernMexico. Roughly 150 miles south of the U.S.-Mexican border lies the spectacularpueblo of casas Grandes (also known as paquim6), once the nucleus of probably themost developed and centralized polity in the prehistoric Southwest. prior to thegrowth of Casas Grandes, the people of this region had lived in small, agriculturalvillages. Here, in the early l3th century, people began building a unique settlement

Indian History Before Columbus 5I

that differs in many ways from most Southwestern pueblos. A contemporaneouspopulation explosion also occurred in the surrounding hinterland. The town, occu-pied for several centuries, reached its zenith between c. ep 1300 and 1400, with re-modeling of residential areas and construction of most of the ceremonial moundsand public space.

Casas Grandes is noteworthy in several ways. With over 2,000 pueblo roomsin several discrete roomblocks constructed of adobe, the settlement was the largestthat ever existed in the prehistoric Southwest, its resident population numbering inthe low thousands. Public ritual architecture included at least 18 morphologicallyunique, earthen and stone mounds concentrated in the northwestern pafi of the vil-lage. These ranged from a roughly circular platform, 13 ft (4 m) high with a stonefaEade and staircase, to irregular shapes that in at least one case the excavator,Charles Di Peso, suggests depicted a bird. The Paquimans also constructed threeballcourts, all of which are I-shaped in a manner typical of ballcourts to the southand unlike those previously discussed in the Hohokam region of southern Aizona.The town's water supply system is unique in the New World. A canal networkcarried water from warm springs 2.2 miles to the northwest. The main canal fedinto a reservoir with a settling tank from which small. stone-lined channels tookwater into the roomblocks; an outflowing sewer and ditch systems removed fluidsfrom the rooms. A11 of these characteristics suggest a populous, well-planned, andintegrated town.

It is the artifacts and animal remains, however, that above all distinguish CasasGrandes from its contemporaries and demonstrate its role as a trade center. Excava-tions uncovered a total of 322 scarlet macaws (Ara macao), an exquisitely colorfulparrot native to the humid Gulf Coast region of Mexico, 81 green milit:ry macaws(Ara militaris) native to the forested regions of southern Sonora and Chihuahua,and 100 macaws that could not be identified as to species. These are tremendousnumbers given that fewer than 200 scarlet macaws are known from all other South-western sites, of all time periods combined, and that only a portion of CasasGrandes was excavated. Even more infrequent elsewhere, but abundant in severalplazas at Casas Grandes, are breeding and nesting boxes-sets of contiguousadobe compartments that were covered with mats and had round, doughnut-shapedstone circles with plugs that served as front entrances to the pens. The pens, alongwith the presence of macaw eggs, nestlings, and birds of all ages confirm thatCasas Grandes was one of the northernmost breeding locations currently known.The Paquimans also bred turkeys. Pens for those birds along with 344 skeletonswere discovered during excavations.

At Casas Grandes and at earlier settlements in the Mimbres region, the ancientSouthwesterners sacrificed the macaws in the late winter or spring (the vast major-ity died between 10 and 13 months of age) and then interred the complete skeleton,probably after plucking the long tail feathers that would have been fuly formed byspring time. Padre Luis velarde described a similar practice in 1116: ". . . at sanXavier del Bac [near Tucson] and neighboring rancherias, there are many macaws,which the Pimas raise because of the beautiful feathers of red and of other colors . . .

which they strip from these birds in the spring, for their adornment." The tail featherswould have been used for adornment, as noted by velarde, or for ritual purposes;feathers have been described as "the most basic and widely used class of obiects in


the entire field of Pueblo ritual." Pueblo people offer prayers by making pahos,

sticks with feathers attached, and depositing these at shrines and other locations, and

they also affix feathers to many ceremonial paraphernalia. (Mimbres bowls from the

1lth and 12th centuries depict prayer sticks with attached feathers comparable tothose that Pueblo peoples use today, providing a clear prehistoric analog to modern

ritual practices.) They place feathers on other objects-from peach trees to rockart-to enhance fertility or to bring rain. Feathers were thus conduits through whichpetitions could be conveyed to the supernaturals. Colors also symbolize directionsamong the Pueblos, perhaps adding to the significance of macaw feathers.

Casas Grandes was undoubtedly a major link in a trading network in macaw

and turkey feathers that encompassed much of northern Mexico and the South-

western United States. Trade in turquoise was also important: in 1536 Cabeza de

Vaca reported that the peoples of northern Mexico traded parrot feathers to people

who lived in large houses to the north in exchange for green stones. These 'green

stones' almost certainly were turquoise which occurs naturally in parts of Arizonaand New Mexico. Turquoise was abundant at Casas Grandes, with 5,895 pieces

weighing 4.6 lbs recovered during excavations, but these amounts are not as un-

usual as are the high frequency of macaws.Di Peso did find shell in extraordinary amounts at Casas Grandes, almost

four million items (counting individual beads) weighing 1.5 tons, all producedfrom species native to the west coast of Mexico. Prior to the l3th century, the

Paquimans buried much of the shell as grave offerings, but later we find almost allof it in three rooms, two in a single roomblock, together with a large concentrationof copper artifacts. This suggests that there was some type of central control overthe acquisition and distribution of shell and copper, and that a few individuals were

able to accumulate significant wealth. The discovery of almost 700 copper artifactsthroughout the site and the presence of copper ore indicate that some manufactur-ing occurred at Casas Grandes. As with the scarlet macaws, copper items are cer-

tainly known from more northerly sites, but occur in much lower frequencies and

without any indication of manufacturing.Casas Grandes was the center of a polity roughly 40-10 miles across in north-

ern and northwestern Chihuahua. Evidence of macaw breeding, similar ballcourts,and a unique type of pottery, referred to as Ramos Polychrome, produced at Casas

Grandes tie this region together. None of the villages in the hinterland approach the

scale of Casas Grandes-all are smaller and none have any mounds-indicatingthat Casas Grandes was at the apex of the political and religious organization.

There seems to have been an elite class at Casas Grandes which accumulatedand traded these macaw, shell, and copper goods and was buried in the elaborate

tombs. Copper, turquoise, and certain types of cotton cloth symbolized high status

in parts of the New World when Europeans arrived, and it was often the morepowerful elites who regulated access to these materials. Coronado and de Niza'saccounts from their travels in northern Mexico illustrate similar patterns.

One mound, at Casas Grandes, seems to have functioned as an elaborate tomb

for a few individuals, a significant contrast with normal burials at the site whichwere in simple pits beneath plaza or dwelling floors. At the base of the ground laythe remains of two men and a woman held, except for their skulls, in unusuallylarge Ramos Polychrome vessels and accompanied by a musical rasp made from a

[ndian Histor.v Before Columhus 57

human long bone, a necklace of human phalanges, and other objects. The burialswere disarticulated, indicating that the bodies had been laid out elsewhere whiletheir soft parts decomposed, again a departure from the typical mortuary practicesat the settlement. Together these patterns evoke an image of a privileged socialclass who controlled long-distance trade, lived in distinctive residences, and wereburied in special tombs.

Scholars commonly acknowledge the presence of such hierarchies in Meso-america, but in the Southwest most have argued that Pueblo people were highlyegalitarian, with minimal differences in social and political status. They highlightthe likelihood of considerable variation in harvests from year to year which theybelieve would have hindered individual accumulation of food or such items as

turquoise and shell. They argue that minimal differences in the amounts of gravegoods found with burials support this assertion.

Others have argued, however, that the magnitude of population movement dur-ing the late l3th and 14th centuries created opportunities for pioneer groups tocontrol the most productive land, while late arriving groups may have been forcedto cultivate less productive tracts. Those who controlled the best lands may havebeen able to harvest corn more consistently or grow crops such as cotton, provid-ing an advantage in trade with other groups. Hopi oral traditions describe such a

process of land allocation as new groups were allowed to settle in existing villages;disparities still exist today in the quality of agricultural land controlled by differentHopi lineages and clans. These disparities may have been enhanced by the in-evitable rise in tensions and the need for cooperation whenever larger nurnbers ofpeople live together. These needs may promote the development of formal officesheld by individuals who have the authority to make and enforce decisions. Also, inmany of these societies differential ritual education, such as knowledge of theproper ways to conduct various ceremonies, may have been significant in creatingand reinforcing social and economic differences, particularly when people be-lieved such knowledge could influence the weather and thus agricultural success.Social distinctions based on knowledge, rather than wealth, will be less likely toproduce significant differences in grave goods, making them harder to detect withonly archaeological evidence.

Hohokam big houses. Elsewhere the development of a more privileged class ofpeople is most evident in the Phoenix Basin. It is true that for most Hohokampeople the basic fabric of life remained much as before-buiir around irrigationcanals, (a declining use of) ballcourts, and platforur mounds, now with residentialcompounds built on their summits. Nevertheless, we also find evidence for thelargest towns ever seen in the Phoenix Basin, far-flung trading contacts, special-ized production ofparticular goods, and large public building projects. The town ofLos Muertos, for example, was inhabited by as many as 1,000 people living in 30different compounds. New polychrome and yellow-ware ceramics appear, similarto, and in some cases traded from, the north, including Jeddito black-on-yellowpottery produced in the Hopi region. Spindle whorls for spinning cotton and pos-sibly yucca fiber commonly occur at platform mounds suggesting that the pro-duction of textiles may have been in the hands of specialists, possibly controlled bythe elites who live atop the mounds.


Perhaps of greatest significance is the construction of massive tower-like struc-

tures or "big houses." At least three of these adobe buildings are known to have

existed in the Hohokam region, but the complete base of only one has survived at

the site of Casa Grande near Phoenix. Originally this tower had four stories and was

constructed on top of an artificially filled first story (thus resembling a platformmound). The residents of Casa Grande erected the structure in a single episode,

requiring the procurement of nearly 600 roof beams, each about 13 ft (4 m) long,

from woodland areas over 60 miles away, and the excavation ofover 1,440 cubic yd(1,100 cubic m) of soil to make the adobe walls. It would have taken at least 15-20families working full-time for three months to erect the building. In addition toserving as an elite residence, the tower may have functioned as an astronomical ob-

servatory. Holes in the walls were probably used to measure the movement of the

sun in order to predict solstices and equinoxes and properly maintain the ritual cal-

endar. Once again we find that higher status individuals were central to group ritual.

Conclusions

Some trends in the Hohokam area parallel those in the north, but social differences

here and in the Casas Grandes region appear greater than among the Mogollon and

Anasazi during the 14th and early 15th centuries. This emergence of higher status

individuals and elites characterizes all areas of the New World where civilizationsdeveloped, from the Valley of Mexico to the Inca empire of the Andes. It appears to

be a significant and necessary transition that accompanies the evolution of morecomplex societies.

In both the Hohokam and Casas Grandes regions, however, population levelsdropped in subsequent periods and simpler organizational patterns again prevailed.

In the century following e,o 1350, the large towns of the Phoenix and Tucson

Basins were abandoned and Casas Grandes was burned. This episode of abandon-

ments, now a recuffent theme of Southwestern prehistory, was duplicated in some,

but not all, areas to the north as well. Mogollon and Anasazi groups once again de-

serted densely inhabited areas, including the pueblos along the Little ColoradoRiver and its southern drainages and large settlements along the Mogollon Rim.Only the pueblos of the Cibola, Acoma, Hopi, and Rio Grande Valley regions en-

dured. It was these settlements that were to witness an even more momentous

epoch with the Spanish incursions of the 16th century.

<>FURTHER READING

Douglas B. Bamforth, "Indigenous People, Indigenous Violence: Precontact Warfare on theNorth American Great Plains," M an 29 (March 199 4), 9 5 -l l 6

Harold E. Drler, Indians of North America, 2nd ed. ( 1969)Brian Fagan, A ncient North America, 2nd ed. ( 1 995)

The Great Journey: The Peopling ofAncient America (1981)Peter Farb, Man's Rise to Civilization: The Cultural Ascent of the Indians of North America,

2nd ed. (1978)Robert F. Heizer and Albert B. Elsasser, The Natural World of the Califurnia Indians

( I 980)

'ndian History Before Columbus 5 5

Frederick Webb Hodge, ed., Handbook of the American Indian North of Mexico, 2 vols.( 1907-1910)

William Hodge, The First Americans: Then and Now (7981)Francis Jennings, The Founders ofAmerica: How Indians Discovered the Land, Pioneered

in It, and Created Great Classical Civilizations, How They Were Plunged into a DarkAge by Invasion and Conquest, and How They Are Reviving (1993)

Jesse D. Jennings, ed., Ancient North Americans (1983)Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., ed., America in 1492: The World of Indian People Before the Arrival

of Columbus (1992)Alice B. Kehoe, North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account (1981)Harriet Kupferer, Ancient Drums, Other Moccasins: Native North American Cultural

Adaptation (1988)Jerald T. Milanich, The Early Prehistoric Southeast: A Sourcebook (1985)Wendell H. Oswalt, This LandWas Theirs: A Study of North American Indians, 4th ed.

(1 988)Stephen Plog, Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest (199'7)Carroll L. Riiey, Rlo del Norte: People of the Upper Rio Grande from the Earliest Times to

the Pueblo Revoh (1995)Karl H. Schlesier, ed., Plains Indians, A.D. 500-1500: The Archaeological Past of Historic

Groups (1995)

Chapter Two Indian Problems

Education

Transcript of Chapter Two Indian Problems