Native Americans' Longhouse Essay

I took the Native American IAT and the Age IAT tests. I thought my results would be that I would have some association with Native Americans because I have Native American in my ancestry. My results were that I had little or no association between Native American and American with Foreign and American. I am not sure if I agree with them or not and that maybe from family history. I have no ideal if this method is truly effective and I would try to make sure that I am being considerate about other people's culture when teaching students and interacting with their families. I took away from this test that I learned new things about my thought process.

They have two different types of housing, one for the summer and one for the winter. The winter house would be circular in design made of mud and wattle construction, partially sunk in the ground and well insulated. The summer house were wooden structure and had a gabled roof, a porch and a balcony.

The Iroquois used nature and their natural resources to provide shelter. The Iroquois made their homes called longhouses from what was around them. In Document #1 it states that they made their homes from sticks and bark, the plant fibers. No scrap of material was ever wasted, it was always used for something else.

There are hundreds of Native American tribes and millions of people that are within North America that identify themselves as Native Americans. Each tribe has their own unique customs, language, and myths. However, within the confines of this paper I will take a broad view with regards to Native American customs and traditions from a small sample of tribes that were observed prior to the vast expansion of colonizing the west.

Popular culture has shaped our understanding and perception of Native American culture. From Disney to literature has given the picture of the “blood thirsty savage” of the beginning colonialism in the new world to the “Noble Savage,” a trait painted by non-native the West (Landsman and Lewis 184) and this has influenced many non native perceptions. What many outsiders do not see is the struggle Native American have on day to day bases. Each generation of Native American is on a struggle to keep their traditions alive, but to function in school and ultimately graduate.

The Natives built and lived in many small teepees, small dwellings, along with massive adobe homes in the woods using the materials they had found among the land

From as early as the time of the early European settlers, Native Americans have suffered tremendously. Native Americans during the time of the early settlers where treated very badly. Europeans did what they wanted with the Native Americans, and when a group of Native Americans would stand up for themselves, the European would quickly put them down. The Native Americans bow and arrows where no match for the Europeans guns and cannon balls. When the Europeans guns didn’t work for the Europeans, the disease they bought killed the Native Americans even more effectively.

The Chumash lived along the southern part of California’s warm coastal region. Chumash Indians lived in dome- shaped houses, called aps. Some of the houses could fit up to 70 people. The house was made out of bent willow branches and surf grass. The doorway was covered with a mat of weeds. A fire was usually built in the center of the ap to keep it warm. The ap, therefore, had an opening in the roof to allow smoke from cooking to come out. Each Chumash village usually had houses, a sweat lodge, buildings for storing food, and an area for ceremonies.

The houses were built cheaply while the land remained marshy ,and dense with mosquitos. When the Irish began flocking to New York during their potato famine they needed cheap shelters and the Five Points was just the place.

Culture, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is stated as “The integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief and behavior that dpends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations. The customary beliefs, social forms and material traits of a racial, religious or social group. The set shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterizes an institution or organization. The set of values, conventions or social practices associated with a particular field, activity or societal characteristic.” Of these four definitions, I shall be focusing on the second one to discuss what makes up the culture of American Indians.The culture of the various tribes that made up the Native Americans is one of close knit families, highlyspiritual peoples and living together as one with the land they lived on. They believed in spirits, worshiping and honoring them. Some settled into single locations while others were nomadic, but all had a focus on working with the land around them. Because there are so many varying tribes that make up Native

Each family had its own lot and some having up to four houses in addition some having two-story structure. Every house had its own purpose to a family for example; one house would hold food storage for winter other houses would be used for entertainment.

Sod houses had many advantages. Their thick walls made them easy to heat in the winter and kept them cool in the summer. Strong winds could not blow them over. They would not burn down under any conditions. All of the sod needed for a house could be taken from a half acre of land. Neighbors often got together to help each other build these homes in “building bees” (Porterfield 39).

The far north indigenous tribes of Australia centralised their camps and villages in the proximity of a running stream. This ensured that their food sources weren’t toxic plants, that they had an abundance of riverine species such as crayfish, eels and fish, the construction of earth oven with river sand and rock for manufacturing nutcrackers and axes7. These sorts of villages were constructed quite permanently to facilitate older relatives in a cool and providing place whist other tribe members continued to move from place to place8. Building near a stream was a sustainable idea as the surrounding area was far less dense, they didn’t need to clear much spaces to build a camp. They would aim for places with much sun light to escape the constant wet environment of the rainforest.9 They had to take care that the ground was semi-elevated to ensure the camp was not flood prone, that the river they were camped next to would not rise too much. In these base camps, more permanent dome structures were built. The indigenous understood the different between structures that would support them for longer periods of time and that of a nomadic lifestyle. Similarly, the early settlements of the first New Zealanders were often at harbors or the mouths of rivers which were close to the sea. This provided them with good access to

The house is an old wooden building that is rotting away but still is a good enough quality to withstand some of the test of time.

Their houses were primarily constructed from big game animals using bones for support and hides for insulation. They used large animal skins and bones from mammoths, rhinoceros, reindeer antlers and various fauna (1) to form shelters. Their intelligent use of animal skins to insulate their homes created a huge advantage against the harsh, windy, long, dry winters of Siberia