Parent Busters
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Parent Busters
Exploring Native American Heritage: History and Culture (Busting Back Episode)
Curious about Native American heritage? Ever wondered about the significance of Native American Heritage Month and the Native American Heritage Day?
On this BUSTING BACK Parent Busters Episode, we'll cover:
- Interesting Native American Heritage Month facts
- What is Native American Heritage Month? / history of Native American Heritage Month
- Is it still called Native American Heritage Month?
- What terminology do we use? (Is it OK to say Indian?)
- How do you honor Native American Heritage Month? (And some things you definitely *DO NOT* want to do!)
- How to celebrate Native American Heritage Month respectfully
- & SO MUCH MORE!
Join us as we uncover the rich tapestry of Native American history and culture, and unravel the importance of understanding and respecting the Native American Indian culture.
Grab your free Buster Deduction sheet for kids!
Check out how your can support our LISTEN FOR CAUSE to help us give back to others!
*All resources and references used in researching this podcast episode are found on the corresponding episode post on ParentBusters.com.
Hey, welcome to ParaBusters, a fun podcast where parents and kids can learn together. I'm Jackie and I'm Ella. I do this with my daughter, ella, hello, hey, I thought we would talk about Native American Heritage Month, since we're doing this in November.
Speaker 2:Exactly because at the time of recording it is Native American Heritage Month.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it's always a good idea to learn a little more about that and honor the culture. So we thought we'd do a podcast episode about it, and we have some really cool things, so be sure to stick around, but the first thing we're going to do is Tutors in a Line. Let's do a Tutors in a Line. Here we go. Yeah, please hold for a very important message. Number one many Natives prefer their American tribal name as opposed to generalizations. Number two not all tribes use TPs, oh. And number three only men could be Native Warriors. Oh, okay, so be sure you listen and you'll figure out the answers throughout the episode, and if you don't, we can give you the answers at the end. So just stick around and get the easy answer. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you listen to our amazing banter Also learn some things you know, Amazing might be pushing it. I mean, we also call this fun.
Speaker 1:Hey, what are the things that I thought we would start with, because this is I have this question often oh, like, what is the correct terminology? Yes, are you supposed to say like, what honors Native peoples? Is it American Indian? Is it Indian? Is it Native American? Is it Indigenous, or is it Native Exactly, or something else? So what is it? Well, there are a couple of things that and I mentioned this on our other episode, our Fall Facts. I briefly mentioned this, but a cool thing that you can do with your kids is go join some Native Facebook, private Facebook groups. They're very welcoming. I just put in there when I joined that I was just like trying to learn more about the culture and funny. It's funny, but this is an ongoing question that I see in there too. So really.
Speaker 1:Some people in the Native culture have preferences. So the first thing you should do is, if you're speaking with someone or a group, ask them what their preference is. So, do they prefer Native American? Some people prefer just Native. Some people say Indian and this is according to what I've learned in the groups that I'm in. Most of the people on there said that they prefer their tribal affiliation. Like the Lakota people, sous Cheyenne, like that. They prefer their tribal names to generalized terms. So it's different for everyone.
Speaker 1:So if you have a new friendship, if you're speaking to a group, if you're addressing, ask them what they prefer. If you're speaking to a Lakota people group, do they prefer Lakota? Yeah, according to the National Museum of the American Indian, it says all of these terms are acceptable American Indian, indian, native American, indigenous, native but the consensus in general is that Native people prefer to be called their specific tribal name. If you know it, in the United States Native American is like a widely used term but honestly, that's even falling out with some people. Some groups American Indian or Indigenous American are preferred by many Native people, but everybody has a different preference. So, like I said, ask them. But according to the National Museum of American Indian right now. All of those are fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know Indian's the most controversial out of them.
Speaker 1:But I thought that also. But this is one of the reasons I've enjoyed being in some of those Native American groups on Facebook. I was surprised one day when someone asked that question and a lot of people said just Indian, Like, I just prefer that.
Speaker 2:Like it doesn't need to be.
Speaker 1:So I thought that was really interesting too. American Heritage Month is actually a designated month. In the United States it is also called American Indian Month, Indigenous People's Heritage Month, and there's also Alaskan Native Heritage Month. It came into play this month. Designation came into play on August 3rd 1990.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's recent it's not that long ago, sadly, took us along A while. President George HW Bush declared the month of November as National American Indian Heritage Month, but now it's commonly referred to as Native American Heritage Month. It celebrates Indigenous People's of the past and the present Not present. No, there's that. So along with Native American Heritage Month, which is all of November, there's also a specific Native American Heritage Day. Say what? Ooh, george W Bush? Which is the sun? Oh, it's been signed. Native American Heritage Day was signed into on October 8th, 2008. Whoa, and it's on November 25th. So every November 25th is Native American Heritage Day. It's the day after what we consider Thanksgiving in the US and encourages all Americans of all backgrounds to appreciate the indigenous cultures appropriately. Yes, and.
Speaker 2:And not be jerks about it, right.
Speaker 1:Have ceremonies, activities, be respectful, understand the, learn new things, the true history about it, and that's how the history of Native American Heritage Month got started.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow. Well, you know what's something I found interesting, what Different types of housing and, yes, throughout Native American cultures.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because when you think of sadly, when you think of Native Americans, you just think of one specific type of housing and that is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, most people think about teepees or. Honestly, that seems like the only thing that we teach, damn.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and, if you don't know, teepees are compact, portable tent-like homes, typically made of a wooden frame and buffalo hide or, later on, more popular, linen cloth over it, and they're usually in kind of a triangular cone shape and usually Native American. These teepees are used by plains tribes. Oh, so they were used by people who would travel, pick up, travel, move around everywhere. They're very easy to travel with and some tribes, like the Cheyenne and the Syriaks, use three poles to support their teepees, while others, like the Crow and the Omaha, use four.
Speaker 1:Oh, I had no idea and I thought they were all made the same.
Speaker 2:I know right, and some people actually painted the outside of theirs.
Speaker 1:Hmm. I mean that would be pretty cool, do you? I don't know the answer to this and I don't know if you do, but do you know what they painted on them? Was it like things to represent their family, or was it I on one? That would be interesting to do a little.
Speaker 2:I'm sad I didn't think of looking up why.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what did you? What was paint? Was it just purely decorative or did it have a meaning Like did it represent your specific core family.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good thing to look up. We might have to do some research into that.
Speaker 1:And sad I didn't. That's a great Native American Heritage Month activity and then you could make a teepee.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Add that to your research for Native American Heritage Month slash day. The original teepee was around 12 feet tall, around 3.65 meters, but when horses came around it made it so much easier to travel that they nearly doubled in height. Oh, because their entire, a lot of families lived in that Right. It wasn't just one person living in that. You had to have enough space to do things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at our we can go into some housing around here where we live.
Speaker 2:There's some parks with diagram like diagrams, not diagrams.
Speaker 1:I was surprised when we went into a teepee about how large. I mean, it makes sense, I just never thought about it.
Speaker 2:You don't expect it to be, as it looks, bigger on the inside than the outside Right it's huge on the inside.
Speaker 2:Exactly, but besides teepees, there are, I have quite. There are many different types, but I have quite a few. I only had a few to research. Wigwams, or wickups, are another type of housing and they are also called birch bark houses and they are small houses made of a dome, cone or rectangular wooden shaped frame, a domed roof roof, and are covered with birch barks and woven mats and that are secured with ropes. Wigwams were typically used by woodland tribes. Yes, that different people from different areas use different types of housing, which makes sense. You needed different things. Yes, but we were.
Speaker 1:I was never taught that.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Annoyed.
Speaker 2:I know, like how would someone live in a teepee in the snow, right? I mean I'm sure you could, but Like it would be a lot less convenient. Right, and interestingly enough, the word wigwam literally means house in the Ebonaki tribe, oh, which makes a lot of sense, huh. Next, we have long houses which are so cool to me your coin nation, your coin nation, and I remember that and relating nations to them are multi. So long houses are multi level houses with a one frame aloft and albert covering and hey you'll.
Speaker 2:You'll be surprised to learn that they're long and rectangular here long and they can almost be as long as an american football field and could house around 60 people, say they were gigantic and they had doors at either end and then they also had holes in the ceiling wow, because you need to like fire. Yes for the fire could escape and also if someone like sunk up the place in case you want to seek out in it no, not that.
Speaker 2:And, like you said, long, long houses were mainly used by the ericoy's tribes and they were the kind of nation who lived in there, the kind nation who lived in permanent villages and farmed, so they needed permanent housing. Next we have the adobe houses, aka pueblos, and they are permanent, multi level houses made of hard clay and straw bricks called adobe or stone stone cemented with adobe.
Speaker 1:I think that's probably the set behind the teepee. That's probably the second most recognized, really. I think so.
Speaker 2:I think long houses for me is one of the is the second most recognizable. But I also learned about them a lot, especially younger. Oh, yeah, because I found them. So that's probably why I love them and find them so interesting. Yeah, like when I was researching and found adobe houses, I didn't. I was like what hold up? That's interesting, that's so weird difference knowledge, wow, wow. So they could make up an entire, just large complex with many, many adobe houses that could house entire clans. There were giant cities and adobe houses makes sense why they're also called pueblos. Were are mainly used by pueblot tribes and they're mainly found in drier climates. Yeah, we have earthen houses, which refers to several different types of housing, but all of them have, and these were.
Speaker 2:What we're doing is talking about the traditional housing, like historically yes, not a lot of these are used right today I believe I read pueblos are stun time still used um earthen houses refer to many different types but usually include, uh, half subterranean part of the house, like you dig it out, kind of like a dairy where you keep your cold, like canned goods to refrigerate it.
Speaker 1:Nobody calls it a dairy, except my family. What? Is a traditional called almost like a root cellar roots. It's like a root cellar, but a house huh, um, so like a root cellar back in the day they would put dig half of it into. It wasn't in a cellar necessarily.
Speaker 2:They dug half of the building shoved halfway into a mountain?
Speaker 1:yeah, we have one at the family farm and it keeps things cold.
Speaker 2:It's the consistent temperature, no matter what's happening outside, so cool literally um uh, but all of them have underground parts and usually a dome roof and they are typically used by people in unforested areas and were used by the navajo and many more. The sue the sue is that it navajo, the sue um, and then usually igloos.
Speaker 2:Igloos are dome shaped houses made of packed snow bricks, were you and were used by some Inuit people, and while some others made sod houses, also known as soddies. Huh, beautiful, and their houses made of a dome, shaped like wood or whale bone frame and used sod for insulation and often had tunnel entrances, so kind of like the warm version of an igloo. Huh. Something else I thought that was really cool was have you heard of the horse nation? Yes, somehow I hadn't. There's a lot of things I learned through this. Good, I'm glad to hear that I know. So. When Europeans brought horses over to America, they became such valuable resources for many Native American tribes and they helped them travel faster, hunt herded animals like buffalo and carry portable housing, allowing it to be bigger like tepees, and they did just so much more for them and for some tribes. Animals like horses are viewed as part of nations of their own and they could even be seen as part of the family. They were so valuable and respected in their nation.
Speaker 2:Um, horses are also often seen as spiritual creatures, very valuable yes and they often wore ornately decorated coverings made of buffalo leather and decorated with beadwork feathers. Buffalo horns, quails, you name it and these blankets and masks are to honor and often thought to give them strength and power, like the buffalo horns would make them stronger. Wow, wow, right. Interestingly enough, native horse culture only really lasted for around 125 years, huh. In a 2011 exhibition for the American Indian Indian Museum, they had an exhibition called a Song for Horse Nation.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, and it contained many artifacts and, like we were talking about decorating teepees earlier, included a Lakota teepee at the center, covered in paintings of horses.
Speaker 1:Wow, I bet you might even be able to kind of take a virtual field trip, I hope. Look that up online and take a virtual field trip and I'll see if I can find anything and link over on our main website, parabestercom.
Speaker 2:Dance sticks, which were often made of wood or antler and used in different dances, were made by most nations to honor a fallen horse. Wow, or that's one of the reasons they would make it. They were important, as important to these dances as drums were.
Speaker 1:Right Like they were a huge. They were now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but they were made to honor a fallen horse and would often include parts of the horse's mane and the decoration.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So it would be personalized and sometimes would even be carved to look like a horse.
Speaker 1:I feel like the native culture respects land and animals way more than like general population.
Speaker 2:I know, yeah, so researching this. When I saw something about this, it was just like I needed to include this. Yeah, super interesting it's interesting, and it's just amazing to hear the respect they have for the land and the animals that are able to help them yes, and feed them. It's like, oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:Totally agree, that is amazing. That was really interesting, right? So a very important Native American man. He was an Apache leader and a medicine man, and he was known for his fearlessness and just resistance. He was very strong and well respected. Many things were said about Geronimo, such as his songs could bring rain, that he could predict when other camps were going to be captured, and that the Apache god, usin, promised him a long life. Geronimo was an Apache leader and a medicine man known for his fearlessness and resisting anyone, mexican or American, who attempted to remove his people from their tribal lands. A quote from historycom. And he was born in Arizona in June of 1829. He was born as Gayaqla, meaning the one who yawns, which I thought was really cute, and he was part of a small tribe of Apaches numbering around 8,000 people, and he was accepted into his tribes council of warriors at the age of 17.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's like. I don't know. That seems young, but it might not be.
Speaker 2:How strong do you have to be to be accepted that young?
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was the sad part, though there's a sad part to his story. Even though he repeatedly evaded capture and didn't go live on a reservation during his last escape from being captured to be put on a reservation, he spent 23 years of his life as a prisoner of war, that's right, and he was the last Native American leader to surrender to the US military, and then he spent 23 years as a prisoner of war.
Speaker 2:It's such a mixed interesting story. I recommend going and doing as much research as you can on this. There's so much to his story Native.
Speaker 1:I'm going to ask you, I'm going to play your favorite game. Oh, no, which is Guess the Number? Oh, native Americans speak more than how many languages? 590. 300. There are 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And not all Native American tribes have their own land. There are around 326 tribal land areas in the United States. Wow, compared to the 574 federally recognized tribes, so you can do the math on that. Because many of the tribes were forcibly relocated by the US government and they were left without any land of their own. What do you think has the largest tribal land?
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:It's the Navajo Nation. Oh really, it's almost 25,000 square miles. It extends into Arizona, new Mexico and Utah and it's about the size of West Virginia. Wow, navajo has the most speakers of any Native American language. They have about 400,000 registered members. Wow, wow, did you know? And I did not know I'm sad to say I did not know this before doing the study for this podcast there were female Native warriors. Really, I only thought that the male warriors, and maybe it's because in media Well, maybe it's because I didn't take the time to learn, but also maybe in media it only ever shows male warriors. Yeah, there were female warriors and reportedly the most famous was someone called Buffalo Calf Road woman. She was a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe. She and they fought in the Battle of the Rosebud, in the Battle of Little Bighorn, and many people say that she's the one who killed Custer. She's a huge warrior. Wow, that's what she never talked about.
Speaker 2:Silly, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:So native tribes are important in the history of food. Oh, corn was created by indigenous farmers in southern Mexico and Guatemala. Those clearly it was about 10,000 years ago, wow, and native Americans cultivated beans, squash, potatoes and tomatoes. The Iroquois and the Cherokee called corn, bean and squash together the three sisters. The three sisters because they nurture each other when you plant them together. According to historycom, in 2016, it was estimated that as much as 60% of the global food supply was based on crops that originated in North America, many from native American tribes that practiced agriculture and domesticated the crops that we even eat today. That's so cool.
Speaker 1:I know, and indigenous people of the Americas first domesticated the strain of maize which produces popcorn, and guess how long ago?
Speaker 2:Thousands of years ago. I was going to say like 5,000.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they first created that strain of corn that produces popcorn, or strain of maize, thousands of years ago.
Speaker 2:Did you know that the Iroquois designed the bunk beds? Say what? No, no, they were used in longhouses. That makes perfect sense, exactly the. Do you know? The first Native American person to go to space was John Harrington of the Chicksaw Nation in 2002. And this is recent. The first Native American woman to go to space is Nicole Mann, of the Waliaki tribe of and as of October 19th 2022. Wow, wow. Maria Talchief was the first American prima ballerina. Yes, I remember, I learned about her the first American ballerina to dance with the Paris Opera Ballet.
Speaker 1:I know that was significant.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Did you know that Native Americans played a game called Shinni? Ooh, what's that? I think that's how you pronounce it. You're going to be surprised. Shinni was played with a buckskin ball and it was hit down the field using a curved stick. And in the winter months it was played over ice. And then guess what happens? White settlers took notice of it, and then Shinni was developed into the modern sport we call hockey. I had no idea.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Yes, some Native American people refer to North America as Turtle Island Because Because there are several legends on it, but the turtle is also a representation of life.
Speaker 1:I thought we would end out talking about how to celebrate and honor Native American Heritage Month in respectful ways. So if you want to learn, continue learning or do some crafts or projects, we thought we'd give you some ideas on how to keep that, learn about it, but also be respectful. So one of the ways that you can celebrate and honor this month is to learn about the real history of Native Americans or Indigenous peoples in America Exactly. Don't just paint a sweeping picture of Native Americans because each tribe as illustrated just talking briefly about some of the housing each tribe has very different practices, languages, origins and guess what they even have very different religions. It's crazy. So don't just say Native Americans and discuss or study it that way. Study each, pick some tribes and study Study where you live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, learn what Native land you're on. There is an interactive map and I'll link to that in our posts. Over on parentbusterscom. There's an interactive map or you can just look it up online that you can. It's a US map and if you click on your state, it'll tell you what Native lands your state is on. That is so cool, so you could actually do that and then learn about the Native culture for your specific area.
Speaker 1:Also, one of the things I think that we're guilty of is learning just about historical Native Americans. Yeah, don't just learn about historical Native Americans. Ella brought up some contemporary Native Americans going to space, being a ballerina Like study. People in Native cultures are contemporary also. They're not just historical figures to be studied. So learn about some people, some contemporary Native Americans or those that are today. Help kids that understand that there are many different tribes and many different cultures that go away along the way. One of the things that you can also do that we did a couple of years ago on homeschool well, a few years ago now is we learned about Native American storytelling and it was one of your favorite things and we watched some authentic videos on Native storytelling and then we watched some traditional videos on Native totem poles and how they are used to tell stories, and then we found online a vocabulary of the. I can't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then I made my own like little mini one you made your own story Native American totem pole using paper towel rolls, yep, and using the vocabulary that we learned from that. So that was a really cool craft to do Learn about and try authentic native foods and recipes.
Speaker 2:I mean food, Come on.
Speaker 1:Attend a native educational event in your area. They have them everywhere, especially during November. Look for events online. Look for them on on social media. Study indigenous artists there's lots of really cool indigenous art.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And artists, so study those. Seek out American Native Americans in children's literature and authors Traditional and contemporary authors and support a local or online native owned business. That would be kind of a cool thing to do with your kids is to look up some native businesses online and see if there's something you can order from them. Yeah, just to help support. But one thing I do want to mention is if you're going to do crafts for if you're studying native culture anytime or during Native American Heritage Month for November, and you're doing crafts, be sure that you keep your crafts respectful. Yeah, the just an FYI the traditional, the feather headdress that everyone makes with the preschoolers is not a respectful craft.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Feathers have a very important honored place in native culture and that can be seen as being disrespectful to make those paper headbands that you make for. So don't do that. There are many other things Make, learn about basket weaving and do basket. Yeah, make a paper basket.
Speaker 2:You can do that, yeah, with like card stock.
Speaker 1:Yeah, learn about beadwork, native American beadwork, and do a beadwork craft, but don't do the Native American headdress, don't do. Don't make a jingle dress, which is an important sacred women's dance in some of the tribes. So don't make a jingle dress.
Speaker 2:You can make, maybe, research, some housing, like we talked about, and make a mini model of the one you thought was the coolest diorama.
Speaker 1:Yes, so, yeah. So that's. Those are our recommendations, and we just wanted to spend a little time honoring Native American culture and and letting you know about the history of Native American Heritage Month. Yeah, we should probably do our true truths and a lie. That's a good idea. All right, I seem to have lost my oh. There we are, oh dang it.
Speaker 2:I was about to start the loading music.
Speaker 1:Here we go I'll say what they are and you tell me if they are a truth or a lie. Okay, native Americans prefer their tribal name instead of a generalization. That's true, not all tribes use tepees.
Speaker 1:That is also true, and which means only men could be Native warriors. It's the lie. That's a lie. All right, we hope you enjoyed this. Yeah, we'll see you next time. Have a good day, guys. Hey, thanks for listening. If you like what we're doing here, we'd love your five star review to help us reach more families and also to let all of know that her homeschool research isn't going to waste.
Speaker 2:Seriously, it takes forever. But hey, if you want to check out more of our stuff, we're going to have a new episode every Tuesday and if you want to see some of the older episodes, they'll always be there. You'll just have to scroll down a little bit.
Speaker 1:Also you might not know this, but we have a free Buster deduction sheet over on our website, parentbusterscom, and actually it's an entire downloadable fun pack and it's all free and you can download it. And on the Buster deduction sheet you can follow along with every episode, write down your facts and there's a place to do two truths and a lie on it. And we also have a companion learning post called Learning After Listening For every single podcast episode we do. You can continue your learning over on parentbestrcom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so just head over there and check it out. Okay, bye Thanks.
