The Native American culture is diverse and robust following hundreds of tribes present in the United States of America. Despite the availability of diverse and numerous tribes, the Native Americans in United States possess and share almost common cultural and traditional characteristics. The indigenous and original people of America can be grouped into different numbers of cultural areas. The people occupying different regions can be said to belong to different cultures, tribes and traditions. The regions include the Alaska native, the Central United States, Western United States, and the Eastern United States. On the basis of the ethnolinguistic classification, Uto-Aztecan has majority of the speakers followed by the Nadene and Algic that is considered to have the widest and broad geographical distributions. The cultural identity of the Native American people was almost identical. Although the tribes were numerous and diverse, aspects of clothing, customs, and language were related to one another and sometimes shared between the tribes (Champagne 7). Despite the existence of such similarities, language and clothing enormously varied from tribe to another tribe. The main activity conducted by the Native American people was hunting and gathering, and they made hunting weapons using stones. As the evolution took place, newer technologies were being adopted for hunting and gathering. Methods such as the use of bows and arrows, spears, and its designs varied from one tribe to another.
In the Native American culture, fire also played a significant role as it was used to prepare food. Animals such as the mammoths and the mastodons were largely hunted and become extinct in the 8000BC. The introduction of the horses in the seventeenth century by the Spanish helped change the Natives culture as they learned to use them including the way and means in which they hunted and killed large game. The Native America philosophy stated that the Native American culture is under-represented due the fact there is a lot of racism and cultural differences in the state. Early scholars and European American experts describe native Americans as possessing a society made of clans and gentes before the formation of the tribes. Some of them practiced and maintained Christianity and spoke English (Champagne 7). Some of the characteristics shared by the Native Americans include common and diverse religious rights, rights regarding inheritance to property, and other traditional beliefs and cultural practices exercised by the Native Americans. The tribal structure was such that it was organized and divided based on the various groups. Work was highly specialized and differentiated on the basis of gender and duties involved the religious faith and worship as well as family duties.
Decision-making process involved consultation of both sexes within the tribe. Roles were highly differentiated on the basis of gender, and different duties were allocated to different genders. In fact, among the Native American Culture, children were believed to the mother’s clan and were given status within the clan (Champagne 8). During the war, the children were usually adopted in the mother’s tribe, and mothers owned and controlled family possessions especially among the Cherokee and other matrilineal tribes. The matrilineal cultures allowed the husbands to join their wives in the mother’s household. Such cultures protected the woman in case of conflicts and assisted them in times of giving birth and child rearing. In such cultures, women were recommended for leadership and clan chief positions were hereditary. The men’s role in this cultures was mainly hunting, negotiating for peace with other tribes, and waging war whenever it is deemed necessary by the leaders. On the contrary, the patriachal tribes and cultures included the Osage, Ponca, and Omaha and had the hereditary leadership passed through the male lineage. In this clan, the children were deemed to belong to the father, and that is the reason most American and Europeans preferred white women in marriage for their children to accepted into the tribe. The women responsibility in the patriarchal tribe was to take care of their families through cultivation and gathering of herbs and plants to treat illnesses (Salamone 111).
The main duty of men was hunting, war and trading. Women took care of their children and the elderly and made clothing, hides, bags and covers out of hides tanned from the game. Other additional tasks bestowed upon the women included making homes and assisted the men in hunting bison. Girls were also encouraged to learn skills such as fighting, riding and hunting to assist the tribe in times of trouble when the tribes is nearly being overwhelmed in war. The Native Americans had an outstanding music and art culture (Salamone 111). The traditional Native American art and music was exceptional and included the use of drums, flutes and whistles. The flutes and whistles were created by wood, cane or bone and were played by the individuals as well as large ensembles. Different scholars have used music to express the Native American culture and have often been seen in the American popular music. Performers such as Rita, Weyne Newton, and Robbie Robertson are among the famous musicians that have taken part in the Native American culture through the use of music. Other artists such as R. Carlos utilized an integration of the traditional sounds and modern sounds to release their instrumental recordings. Music relating to a mix of the ancestral heritage and nature has been recorded by artist Charles Littleleaf.
A widely recognized and popular musical form among the Native Americans in United States of America is the pow-wow recordings. Recordings such as Gathering of Nations were performed by members in drum groups and included songs of honor, grass-dances, welcome songs, war songs and intertribal songs among others. Majority of the indigenous communities observed and performed traditional songs, sports such as wrestling and ceremonies, and some of them were shared while others remained practiced exclusively by the community (Salamone 1). Native American artworks mainly included the pottery, weaving, sculpture making, basketry, paintings and carvings. One of the Cherokee artists named Franklin Gritts taught students coming from diverse tribes in the 1940s. The artworks belonging to the Native Americans are protected by a Congress Act, and the acts prohibit duplication or representation of the art except when enrolled by a Native American artist (Kosskoff 26). Moreover, the Native Americans had a traditional economy in which different tribes engaged in different forms. The Northwest tribes made seafaring dugouts for purposes of fishing while the Eastern Woodlands were farmers and cultivated maize using hoes and digging sticks. Those in the Southeast planted food crops and tobacco (Pritzker 359). During earlier years, interaction with the Europeans explorers introduced the Native American people to trade, and the trade was mainly in the form of exchange of goods and services. The goods exchanged included food, firearms, iron and steel and alcoholic beverages.
It is worth appreciating that the majority of the Native Americans people practiced some form of slavery against their fellow American tribes before the introduction of enslaving Africans by the European (Pritzker 398). It is during the pre-colonial era that the practice of slavery was growing rapidly with the Native Americans exchanging their members to those of other tribes. Other powerful tribes conducted forced slavery among the inferior tribal members and the pre-qualification of being enslaved was committing crimes or acting contrary to the rules of the tribe. During the transitional period from the enslavement of Native Americans to the enslavement of Africans, those enslaved shared similar experiences. According to the Europeans, the Native American and African races were inferior, and they made efforts to enslave them. However, after the transition, Native Americans received favors and were rewarded for returning African Americans who attempted to escape. The American colonists adopted a slavery system in which the younger slaves were captured to replace the older and those slaves who were dead.
In conclusion, music among the Native American people contributes significantly in uniting them. It can be said that the music played by the Native American people was informative and preached peace within the land. In addition, the Native American music and artists have informed the modern music industry as United States of America is ranked one of the nations with popular musicians. The country also has a properly developed music industry that continues to develop even today. The Native American culture has also been transformed, and although the majority of its cultural artifacts and music remain as historical, lessons can be drawn from the culture. The transformations have led to the abolishment of slavery and development of a just society where all people are equal before the law.
Works Cited
Champagne, Duane. Contemporary Native American Cultural Issues. Walnut Creek, Calif: AltaMira Press, 1999. Print.
Koskoff, Ellen. Music Cultures in the United States: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.
Pritzker, Barry. A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print.
Salamone, Frank A. The Native American Identity in Sports: Creating and Preserving a Culture. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, Inc, 2013. Print.
