Assignment 1
This assignment contains four parts. Carefully read the instructions and place your responses to all four parts on one Word document.
1. The Pearson Materials link under Course Home, and then, "Native American Peoples, c. 1500."
• Pre-work
o Investigate: What is the difference between a physical and a political map?
o Locate this physical map of the United States and examine it carefully, making note of the mountain ranges, rivers, lakes, and deserts.
• Look at the map "Native American Peoples, c. 1500."
o The map to enlarge it until it fills your screen.
o Study the map legend carefully, noting Culture Areas, Trade Goods, and Trade Routes.
o According to the map legend, which of the cultural groups would have engaged in agriculture?
o Did most trade routes run North/South or East/ West? What is the most plausible explanation for this?
o On the eve of European contact, Native American tribes spread across the North American continent and encompassed a range of different cultures, languages, and religious beliefs. Trade goods exchanged among these diverse groups furnished avenues of communication across the continent. According to this map, which geographic features presented barriers to trade? Which geographic features would have facilitated trade?
o View the NBC Learn videos "A Look at American Indian Religions" and "Iroquois Confederacy" (links to these are found in the module). Explain why maps and geography are important.
2. View artist rendering of the opening scene of the film Last of the Mohicans and read the dialogue associated with the scene (see AVP Slide 19 titled, Spiritual Nature of the Hunt). Explain how Chingachgook's treatment of the deer he killed illustrates this module's discussion of Native American spirituality?
3. The Pearson Materials link under Course Home, and then, click on "Pima Creation Story."
After reading the story, write your culture's creation story. Compare and contrast the Pima creation story with your own. Are there more similarities or more differences? What do you think is most outlandish or unlikely about the Pima creation story? What would a Pima find most outlandish or unlikely about your culture's creation story?
4. Compare and contrast the Native American rites of passage discussed in this module with the rites of passage present in our society today. What does understanding these differences teach us about the importance of the SLU core value of respect?
Assignment 2
The assignment for this module contains two parts. Carefully read the instructions and place your responses to both parts on one Word document.
1. The Pearson Materials link under Course Home, and then, click on "An Early European Image of Native Americans Columbian Exchange."
• Examine the image and listen carefully to the audio explanation.
• Answer the Critical Thinking question at the end of the presentation.
2. Use simple Internet research to find Native American places, names, words, and names of sports teams in use in America today:
a. Names of states
b. Names of cities
c. Names on the physical U.S. map (rivers, lakes, mountains, etc.)
d. Names of cars and trucks
e. Names of sports teams
• Why might some Native Americans object to the use of their tribe as the name of a sports team?
Critical Thinking Short Essay
Answer the following questions in paragraph form (2 pages). Consider in your answer the Saint Leo core values of respect, community, and responsible stewardship and discuss how our values affect the decisions we make in society today. Download the grading criteria for this assignment.
1. How did European trade goods affect Native Americans' lives? Was the acquisition of these trade goods worth Native Americans' changing their lifestyles?
2. What goods or devices in modern society have we adopted that have made our lives easier, but have also caused harm to ourselves or to our environment?
Pima Creation Story
The Pima lived in the Arizona desert along the Gila and Salt rivers, a remote location that helped them resist European influence. They were named "Pima" in the fifteenth century by the Spanish, who later recorded their first narratives. However, no creation stories were transcribed until the early twentieth century when a Pima named Edward H. Wood met ). W. Lloyd at the Pan-American Fair in Buffalo and asked his help in preserving the legends of Wood's grand-uncle, Thin Leather. The Pima creation story takes us to a landscape on the other side of the North American continent, to a people who favored stability, settlement, and peace and whose artistic traditions were long and rich.
In the beginning there was no earth, no water - nothing. There was only a Person, Juh-wert-a-Mah-kai, "The Doctor of the Earth."
He just floated, for there was no place for him to stand upon. There was no sun, no light, and he just floated about in the darkness, which was Darkness itself.
He wandered around in the nowhere till he thought he had wandered enough. Then he rubbed on his breast and rubbed out moah-haht-tack, that is, perspiration, or "greasy earth." This he rubbed out on the palm of his hand and held out. It tipped over three times, but the fourth time it staid straight In the middle of the air and there it remains now as the world.
The first bush he created was the greasewood bush.
And he made ants, little tiny ants, to live on that bush, on its gum which comes out of its stem.
But these little ants did not do any good, so he created white ants, and these worked and enlarged the earth, and they kept on increasing it, larger and larger until it at last was big enough for himself to rest upon. Then he created a Person. He made him out of his eye, out of the shadow of his eyes, to assist him, to be like him, and to help him in creating trees and human beings and everything that was to be on the earth. The name of this being was Noo-ee - the buzzard.
Noo-ee was given all power, but he did not do the work he was created for. He did not care to help luh-wert-a-Mah-kal, but let him go by himself.
And so The Doctor of the Earth himself created the mountains and everything that has seed and is good to eat. For if he had created human beings first they would have had nothing to live on.