THE JOURNAL OF A GIRL NAMED EHAWEE

Dear Diary

JoyAnne Molloy Social Studies Project

My tribe and region

Hello my name is Ehawee.I am part of the Blackfoot tribe.My family and I live in the Northern Plains.It is the year 1500.

This is my story…

Journal Entry #1

Hello my name is Ehawee. My name means laughing maiden. My tribe speaks the Blackfoot language. The women do the cooking, cleaning and they make the teepees. They also carry the teepee whenever we move to a different location. The men are hunters and they go to war. My dad is the chief of the tribe so he makes decisions for the tribe along with other chief members. Since my dad is the chief he has to wear a tall feathered head dress. I think he looks really funny in it.

We paint our faces for special occassions. Our main diet is buffalo but we also eat ground squirrels, nuts, berries, and camas root. Our tribe decreased over the years because of starvation and American troops killing us. My dad and the other chief members teach the children about the Blackfoot history. We are nomadic which means we follow our food source, which in our case is the buffalo.

Clothing/Hairstyles

The women in my tribe wear long deer skin dresses, and the men wear buckskin tunics, and breech clothes with leggings. The shoes we wear are called moccasins. We decorate our clothes with porcupine quills , beads, and elk teeth. The men wear their hair in 3 braids, a topknot, or a high pompadour. The women wear their hair loose or with thick braids.

Housing

Like I said before we live in teepees. Teepees are tent like structures with poles holding them up and covered with animal hide. We cover the teepee with 14 to 20 buffalo hides. We sew the hides together with sinew. Sinew is the strong tissue that connects muscles to bones. There is a whole at the top of the teepee so the smoke can come out. The teepees have 13 to 20 poles but there are 3 to 4 main poles. Since the teepees are so easy to take down the entire village can be packed up and ready to move in 1 hour! Other Blackfoot tribes build Wigwams, and Earth Lodges.

Journal Entry#2: Geography

I bet you’re wondering about where I live. There are 6 different parts of the Great Plains: Edwards Plateau, the Llano Estacado, the High Plains, the Sand Hills, the Badlands and the Northern Plains. The Northern Plains consist of Montana, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming.

Geography

The Great Plains has an elevation of 6,000 feet. Most of the Great Plains is covered by sea which I love to go swimming in. In the Northern Plains there are short grass prairies, and trees grow in the moister areas. There are very few trees in the Northern Plains. The flat land is great for building teepees. I also love playing with the tumbleweed.

Weather

I LOVE the summer here in the Northern Plains because it is never too hot. It is always nice and cool in the summer. But, in the winter it is FREEZING. The temperature can get to as low as 32 degrees. I feel like an ice cube in the winter. It is so cold I can’t even move!

Journal Entry #3: Weather

January: High: 45 degrees Low: 33 degrees February: High: 50 degrees Low: 33 degrees March: High: 55 degrees Low: 37 degrees April: High: 61 degrees Low: 40 degrees May: High: 68 degrees Low: 45 degrees June: High: 73 degrees Low: 50 degrees July: High: 81 degrees Low: 54 degrees August: High: 82 degrees Low: 54 degrees September: High 76 degrees Low: 48 degrees October: High: 63 degrees Low: 41 degrees November: High: 51 degrees Low: 37 degrees December: High: 44 degrees Low: 32 degrees

Reflection #1

Hello again. I have told you everything about my tribe and where I live. My future plans include: a nursery for the toddlers to go when their mothers are working, and a special teepee where everyone can get their hair braided.

3 Months Later

The whole tribe is running low on food because the white men that came here started hunting the buffalo. They don’t even use the whole buffalo!! My father the chief died in battle last month. My mother hasn’t been herself lately. The white men are killing a lot of the buffalo off and now that it is winter all the other resources are scarce. Our life is not going to be much better until the white men leave and NEVER come back!

Reflection #2

I think I did really good on my project because I spent a lot of time and effort on this project. I think I would give myself an A or a B because I think my project is really good and I worked very hard on it. If I had to this project again I would bring a flash drive to school so I can finish it at home so it can be better.

Bibliography

Laura, Redish. "Blackfoot Indian Fact Sheet." Native Languages of America. Orrin Lewis, 1998. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. <http://www.indians.org/articles/blackfoot-indians.html." http://indians.org/director.html. Princess Pale Moon, n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. <http://www.indians.org/>.Preszler, June. Teepees. Mankato, Minnesota: Capstone Press, 2005. Print.