Native Americans

AND FACTS ABOUT THEM

 • The lives of the tribes on the Plaines
were dominated by the buffalo. And
so were their beliefs. They would
Spirit of the buffalo dance and sing before a hunt
because they thought the buffalo
would up their lives for the hunters.
 Dances and visions
• The animals they saw when the boys became men. They would have a
vision about you alone with an animal with no food which is a medicine
to them.
• Examples of a ritual is a sun dance when women would cut a forked tree
and dance in a circle around it.
• Another example is they would dance around a pole and some people
would pierce their chest muscles with skewers and connect it to the pole.
• The last example was the scalp dance we’re they paraded the woman as
trophies.
The legend of the chipmunk

• The legend of the chipmunk is that all that

animals that got hunted said that id it was not
killed him proper respect it would spread
diseases.
• The chipmunk said he didn’t need a disease
because no one hunted them.
• That got all the other animals angry and
chased the chipmunks and scratched them and
that’s why they have stripes on their backs.
The three sisters
Woodland tribes were farmers as well as
hunters. Amongst the Iroquois, the three
sisters were worshipped. These were the
spirits which were thought to make
maize, beans and squash grow.
Spirits of the deserts

• For pueblo farming tribes of the south-west, such as

Zuni and the Hopi, rain brought life to their crops.
Special ceremonies in underground rooms, called
‘kivas’ were believed to make rain return. Dancers,
dressed as spirits called ‘kachinas’ carried out ritual
dances believed to bring rain. Amongst the Hopis,
snake dancers released snakes into the desert to take the
messages to the rain spirits that the crops needed water.