Why is native american culture important

Medicines The Quechua peoples of Peru discovered the medicinal use for quinine. Mathematics The Mayans of Mexico appear to have been the first to use the zero in mathematics. Government Native American governments in eastern North America, particularly the League of the Iroquois, served as models of federated representative democracy to the Europeans and the American colonists. The United States government is based on such a system, whereby power is distributed between a central authority the federal government and smaller political units the states.

View not found. Download the PDF from here. Related Subjects. About Us. Native Americans were the first to raise turkeys, llamas, guinea pigs, and honeybees for food. American Indian knowledge and related innovations, goods, and technologies e. Major social, cultural, and economic changes took place in American Indian cultures as a result of the acquisition of goods and technologies from Europeans and others.

Much American Indian knowledge was destroyed in the years after contact with Europeans. Nevertheless, the intergenerational transfer of traditional knowledge, the recovery of cultural practices, and the creation of new knowledge continue in American Indian communities today. Key Concepts: Interactions among American Indian communities across the Americas contributed to the change, growth, and vitality of Native nations.

Global interactions with Europeans and others had both positive and negative consequences for American Indians. The knowledge and perspectives of American Indians and other indigenous people around the world have the potential to inform solutions as global interdependence intensifies and change accelerates. As sovereign independent nations, American Indian tribes and their citizens are participants in global politics, economies, and other facets of contemporary life. Key Concepts: As citizens of their tribal nations, American Indians have always had certain rights, privileges, and responsibilities that are tied to cultural values and beliefs and thus vary from culture to culture.

Not all American Indians today are citizens of their tribes. American Indians have acquired U. Citizenship for all American Indians did not occur until the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of Some American Indian people have neither desired nor accepted U.

American Indians today may be citizens of their tribes, the United States, and the states in which they live. They have formed movements to gain equitable rights and privileges. More than tribal governments are recognized by the United States as having rights of sovereign self-government.

Dozens of other tribes are recognized by various state governments, whose authorities and responsibilities differ according to the laws of the states.

Kwagiulth Flower , Richard Hunt Kwak'waka'wakw , Photo by NMAI. Young powwow dancer, Saguaro and prickly pear cactuses, Sonoran Desert, Lummi Nation First Salmon Ceremony, Photo by Kat Communications. Navajo code talkers in World War II, Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea.

North American Indian trade routes. Map by Cartographic Concepts, Inc. Machu Picchu from the southern agricultural terraces, Guatemalan corn. President Calvin Coolidge with Native delegation, Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. American Indian Cultures Culture is a result of human socialization. People, Places, and Environments For thousands of years, indigenous people have studied, managed, honored, and thrived in their homelands. Individual Development and Identity American Indian individual development and identity is tied to culture and the forces that have influenced and changed culture over time.

Individuals, Groups, and Institutions American Indians have always operated and interacted within self-defined social structures that include institutions, societies, and organizations, each with specific functions.

Government caused Native peoples to lose their homelands. Broken treaties and forced relocations displaced American Indians from the land of their ancestors, where they had been living for generations, to reservations. These reservation lands offered a fraction of the size and natural resources of what was taken. Laws like the Dawes Act of reinforced the dependency of reservation system with land reallocation that set forth to destroy the tribe as a social unit.

In the Boarding School Era from the late s to the mids, the U. These children were taken to hundreds of miles away from their families for years and faced severe discipline if they tried to speak their languages or practice their traditions. Many children died from malnutrition or disease. Native people pass down information—including food traditions—from one generation to the next through stories, histories, legends and myths.

Native elders teach younger generations how to prepare wild game and fish, how to find wild plants, which plants are edible, their names, The faces of four U. So while Mount In the early s, the sovereign Cherokee nation covered a vast region that included northwest Georgia and adjacent land in Tennessee, North Carolina and Alabama. Under the terms of an treaty, the United States guaranteed that Cherokee land would be off-limits to white As much as three-fifths of From the tip of South America to the Arctic, Native Americans developed scores of innovations—from kayaks, protective goggles and baby bottles to birth control, genetically modified food crops and analgesic medications—that enabled them to survive and flourish wherever they Concluded during the nearly year period from the Revolutionary War to the aftermath of the Civil War, some treaties would define the relationship between the United States and Native Americans for centuries to come.

The treaties were based on the fundamental idea that Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Recommended for you. How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland. Native American Leaders. Native American Cultures. Woodrow Wilson Addresses Native Americans. Japanese-American Internment.

Global Impact of the American Revolution. Native American History Timeline Long before Christopher Columbus stepped foot on what would come to be known as the Americas, the expansive territory was inhabited by Native Americans. Indian Reservations The Indian reservation system established tracts of land called reservations for Native Americans to live on as white settlers took over their land.

How Native American Diets Shifted After European Colonization Native people pass down information—including food traditions—from one generation to the next through stories, histories, legends and myths. Rushmore The faces of four U.