Since 1990, Congress has authorized an annual presidential proclamation that designates November as National American Indian Heritage Month to encourage all people to learn about the contributions and cultures of the indigenous peoples of the North American continent. Such recognition, however, dates back further with state and organizational recognition of indigenous peoples days and commemorations occurring at the turn of the twentieth century. For example, Dr. Arthur C. Parker, a Seneca Indian and co-founder of the Society of American Indians in 1911, organized American Indian Day beginning in 1915. More recently, Columbus Day, which is recognized on the second Monday of October, has been reclaimed in cities across the United States as Indigenous People's Day.
This Teacher's Guide will introduce you to the cultures and explore the histories of some groups within the over 5 million people who identify as American Indian in the United States, with resources designed for integration across humanities curricula and classrooms throughout the school year.
Guiding Questions
Who made up the first civilizations on the North American continent?
What role did indigenous Americans play in the shaping of the United States?
Where and how do indigenous Americans live today?
How have the languages, culture, and arts of indigenous Americans been preserved and engaged across the United States?
Teaching Indigenous Perspectives
The term “American Indian” was coined by the Columbus expedition when European explorers encountered human beings inhabiting the Antilles archipelago in 1492. When possible and if known, indigenous people should be referred to as belonging to a particular tribe. For the first century of the United States, the term “American Indian” was used to denote indigenous people, while “Native American” was a term that Anglo-Saxon Protestants claimed for themselves during waves of European and East Asian immigration during the 19th century. During the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, however, indigenous people used the title Native American to remind the government of their existence in North American territory long before the establishment of the United States as a nation. This term, still used today interchangeably with “indigenous American,” excludes other indigenous people whose tribes have historically spanned across the present-day borders of Canada and Mexico. Thus, the most encompassing adjective to describe the native ethnicity is “indigenous,” but “Native American” is appropriate when describing the indigenous people living in what is now the United States.
The Federal Registerrecognizes 573 separate tribal entities living in the United States today. The more populous tribes include Cherokee (729,000+), Navajo (298,000+), and Choctaw (158,000+), with the Ute(10,000+), Yakama (10,000+), and Cree (7,700+) listed among the less populous tribes. Some groups of indigenous people refer to themselves as a nation. A “people” can be used when referring to tribes that share the same language, have a similar culture, or inhabit the same geographic region of the continent.
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Early localization and languages of American Indians.
Some terms used in the past that referred to indigenous Americans may be confusing or offensive. For instance, “aboriginal” is now mostly associated with the indigenous people of Australia. “First Nation” is generally used to denote indigenous Canadians. “Amerindian” or “Amerind” can be found in scholarly writing, but might be confusing elsewhere. Any term that promotes colorism, exoticism, racism, or inferiority should be avoided except where found in historical context.
In recent years, the National Endowment for the Humanities has funded preservation projects as part of its 50 State of Preservation initiative. Grantees such as the Ohio Historical Society have been working to preserve the cultures and histories of indigenous tribes still living and thriving in the U.S. Other NEH-funded projects, such as the Cahokia Mounds Museum Society’s Augmented Reality Project, will allow modern-day humans to experience pre-Columbian life as it once existed through digital reconstruction.
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Monks Mound, Cahokia site (illustration ca. 1882).
The Institute of American Indian Arts provides courses that feature Native American culture at their center and as Ralph Canevali writes in the 2017 NEHblog article entitled "50 States of Preservation: Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM," the “IAIA is the only multi-tribal center of higher education in the United States dedicated solely to the preservation, study, creative application, and contemporary expression of Native American art and culture. To date, nearly 4,000 students have graduated from IAIA programs.”
Similarly, the Woksape Tipi Archivesin South Dakota, according to Leah Weinryb Grosghal's "50 States of Preservation: Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, South Dakota," include “genealogy and business records, correspondence, minutes, and reports reveal aspects of Oglala family history and the story of the Oglala Lakota people. Newspapers, many of them local and not preserved elsewhere, cover events on the Pine Ridge Reservation during the occupation of Wounded Knee by the American Indian Movement.”
Although many indigenous populations in the Northeast are small today, they are still vibrant. The Tomaquag’s collections emphasize that indigenous people continue to influence their communities, making history, art, and culture, and contributing to the New England region.
Additionally, the NEH-funded project Indigenous Borderlands of the Chesapeake: The Lower Rappahannock Valley Landscape, 200-1850 produced Colonial Encounters. This website provides site maps, field photos, and images of artifacts from the Chesapeake area and can help students understand what early interactions between Native Americans and European settlers might have been like.
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Mr. Tad Davis, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health, Chief Anne Richardson and Ms. Wanda Fortune of the Rappahannock Tribe at the Camden property signing ceremony in June, 2009.
Currently, the NEH is supporting projects that will increase knowledge about sites such as the Bosque Redondo Memorial, which commemorates the removal of the Navajo and Mescalero Apache people from their homelands. It is important to note that many tribes in the U.S. do not inhabit their ancestors’ land, but land that the United States has assigned to them via treaty. Students can look up documents related to treaties in the National Archives, at the University of Wisconsin Special Collections, or by using EDSITEment's Investigating Local History to access online special collection archives provided state historical societies.
Indigenous Languages
There are hundreds of Native American languages spoken in the United States today—74 in the state of California alone. As an older generation of speakers dies out, many languages run the risk of extinction. NEH supports First Nations Development Institute’s effort to preserve Native American languages through immersion classes for children and young adults. This Map of Indigenous American Cultures and Living Histories plots out specific language and tribal groups across the United States as they exist today.
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Sequoyah, inventor of the Cherokee syllabary, 1836.
Recently, the Miami-Illinois Digital Archive created a dictionary that translates from Miami-Illinois to English, and vice versa. The Sam Noble Museum has collected artifacts and samples of over 175 Native American languages for educational use.The University of Hawai'i also made locating information and examples of the indigenous languages of the Pacific Ocean more streamlined in their NEH-supported project Making Pacific Language Materials Discoverable.
In partnership with the National Science Foundation, the NEH has funded the Documenting Endangered Languages project. This video from the National Science Foundation demonstrates how language researchers use new technology to listen to an indigenous language sample recorded at the beginning of the 20th century. You can learn more about how students in Oklahoma have engaged in preservation work by recording songs, oral histories, and conversations about traditional activities and their collaborations with experienced linguists to analyze the recorded speech.
Classroom Lessons and Resources
Hopi: Language of Place
The Hopi Tribe, a sovereign nation inhabiting over 1.5 million acres in northeastern Arizona, has a rich connection with the environment that pervades their culture and language. The reverence the Hopi have for corn cultivation is apparent in their art, poetry, songs, and dance celebrations.
Language of Place: Hopi Place Names, Poetry, Traditional Dance and Song, is a three-lesson ELA curriculum unit, which guides students’ exploration of Hopi language forms in order to help them to understand the Hopi’s centuries-old relationship with the land and the process of growing corn.
Lesson 1 uncovers the Hopi homeland through maps and place names. Students examine regional place names of their own home communities and create personal maps;
Lesson 2 involves a close study of contemporary Hopi poet, Ramson Lomatewama. Students analyze how Lomatewama’s uses figurative language to describe his intimate relationship with the land;
Lesson 3 pursues corn as a symbol manifested in Hopi song and traditional dances. Students analyze examples of these in order to expand their cultural awareness.
Poetry
The foundation of a 21st-century American community is shared respect among individuals who come from different backgrounds, places, and experiences. Native Americans take that concept even further by valuing all the inhabitants of the earth and sky—animal, vegetable, mineral, and spirit. As first inhabitants of the United States, they model inclusiveness and diversity.
Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, a member of the Mvskoke (Creek) Nation, reminds us to pay attention to who we are and how we are connected to the world around us in her poem and the accompanying lesson for “Remember.” The companion lesson plan from EDSITEment’s and the Academy of American Poets’ Incredible Bridges project provides activities to use with students before, during, and after reading the poem.
As additional teaching resources, the Chickasaw poet Linda Hogan's "Trail of Tears: Our Removal" imagines her ancestors' feelings of displacement as they were moved onto reservations in the American West. Emphasizing the onomatopoeic pleasure of the Diné word for mud (tł’ish), Naaneesht’ézhi Tábaahí (Navajo) author Orlando White's poem "Muddy" is perfect for teaching sound devices in poetry.
History & Culture
The following section is organized by grade level and includes lessons and resources for history and social studies, literature and language arts, and arts and culture classrooms.
Grades K-5
Anishinabe/Ojibwe/Chippewa: Culture of an Indian Nation: While this lesson focuses on the history and culture of the Anishinabe/Ojibwe people, you can adapt the activities to a Native American tribe that has played an historical or contemporary role in your school's region or community.
Images of the New World: In the absence of photography, Europeans brought back paintings to their home countries to share Native American customs and culture. Students will analyze similar depictions of the New World for accuracy.
Native American Cultures across the U.S.: This lesson teaches students about the First Americans in an accurate historical context while emphasizing their continuing presence and influence within the United States.
Grades 6-8
Not “Indians”, Many Tribes: Native American Diversity: In this unit, students will heighten their awareness of Native American diversity as they learn about three vastly different Native groups in a game-like activity using archival documents such as vintage photographs, traditional stories, photos of artifacts, and recipes.
Mission US: A Cheyenne Odyssey: It's 1866. You are Little Fox, a Northern Cheyenne boy. Can you help your people survive life on the plains?
Grades 9-12 and AP
Breaking Barriers: Race, Gender, and the U.S. Military: This EDSITEment and Smithsonian Learning Lab collection includes resources on teaching about the involvement of American Indians during the American Revolutionary War and questions to consider when investigating their continued involvement in the military through the 19th and 20th centuries.
Empire & Identity in the American Colonies: In this lesson students will examine the various visions of three active agents in the creation and management of Great Britain’s empire in North America – British colonial leaders and administrators, North American British colonists, and Native Americans.
Life on the Great Plains:In this four-part lesson, students examine the concept of geographic region by exploring the history of the Great Plains.
Native Americans and the American Revolution:In this lesson, students will analyze maps, treaties, congressional records, firsthand accounts, and correspondence to determine the different roles assumed by Native Americans in the American Revolution and understand why the various groups formed the alliances they did.
Geography, Social Studies: You can search for territories, languages, and treaties all across North America in this comprehensive map with links to additional sources of information for many tribes and language groups.
Law and Government: Learn how indigenous groups can maintain intellectual property rights over their cultural works at Local Context, an NEH-funded project.
Oral History: Lesson plans introducing students to oral histories are only one feature of the rich trove of ideas in this collection written by alumni of the NEH Summer Institute Teaching Native American Histories.
Reference Websites
Atlas of Historic New Mexico—Examine 20 historic maps of New Mexico with descriptions by the map makers and others.
Pueblo Indian History for Kids—Bring Pueblo Indians culture to life with a glossary, maps, photos, reconstructions, and video, Visit with Respect.
Peoples of the Mesa Verde Region—Follow an unfolding chronology in the artifacts, housing, and food of the Paleoindian, Pueblo, Ute, Navajo, and European inhabitants.
Why Treaties Matter—Discover how the treaties of the Dakota and Ojibwe have impacted the indigenous peoples whose lands now comprise the state of Minnesota.
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