Native American Nations - Introduction

Thank you, niawen (in Mohawk), for asking this question,jimmythejock.

The answer will comprise more than one Hub and I hope that you find the short series informative and enjoyable. It will be a large underating that today's anthropologists, historians, the related Smithsonian Insitution project, and our innumerable tribal leaders have not yet completed, but I will attempt to summarize what is known so far.

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Other Pages in the Series:

• Native Americans Part I

• Native Americans Part II

• Native Americans Part III

• Native Americans Part IV

• Native Americans Part V

• National Pow Wow of the United States

• Native Americans in Western Novels

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Traditional Prayer

(...Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio and other groups)

" Oh Great Spirit, Whose Voice I Hear in the wind, Whose breath gives life to the world, hear me. I come to you as one of your many children, I am small and weak, I need your strength and wisdom. May I walk in beauty, make my eyes behold the red and purple sunset, make my hands respect the things that you have made, and my ears sharp to hear your voice. Make me wise so that I may know the things that you have taught your children, the lessons that you have hidden in every leaf and rock. Make me strong...not to be superior to my brothers but to be able to fight my greatest enemy.. myself. Make me ever ready to come to you with straight eyes so that when life fades as the faded sunset, my spirit will come to you without shame. "

How many blades of grass?

There are 1,000 Native American Nations within the United States alone.

Native Americans in North America are members of at least

• 579 federally recognized Native American nations,
• 17 nations that are recognized only in several US States, and
• several nations (or tribes) not yet recognized by any American government other than their own community' for example,
• 228 separate Native American entities in Alaska alone that are recognized by the US federal government.

Considering all of this, we have at least 807 Native American Nations that are known in the 50 United States, with many more in Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America.

It has been popular to consider North American Indians a group of 500 NATIONS. However, the nearly 1,000 separate tribes and communities consider themselves separate entities.

Many of these groups have applied for US federal recognition successfully and many more may be accepted. Some researchers, even of Native American blood, group some nations together, but these nations do not group themselves together. They define their own being.

Complicating the documentation process is the fact that approximately 50% of Native Americans do not live on reservations. There are many other people that do not know that they have Native American heritage! Add to this a sizeable group of people that believe that they are Native American, but are actually not, and we have a large documentation and tracking task.

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Recent publications have not addressed all of these 1,000 Native American nations yet. These particular, recent books include:

1) 200 tribes discussed:

• Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes
• Carl Waldman. New Your: Fact on File [2006]

3) 500 tribes discussed:

• 500 Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians
• Alvin M. Jr Josephy. New York: Gramercy [2002]

2) 400 tribes discussed

• The Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes
• Sahron Malinowski. Detroit; Gale [1998]

Meanwhile, The Smithsonian Insitution Museum fo the American Indian and large DNA/RNA tracking projects are discovering other tribes or nations and introducing them to the world.

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How can we know about the locations of Native Americans? There are at least four ways:

• Information from the oral traditions of the Native Peoples..
• Information from archaeological finds.
• Evidence from molecular genetics.
• Evidence in linguistics.

An early example from the tracing of linguistics among Sioux-related tribes follows below. The map following that, though first shown in 1999, is outdated.

There is a lot to be learned about Native Americans from archaeological finds and anthropoligical research and one segment of this is the religious element of life among indigenous peoples. The following is a controversial book that has provided much discussion about tribes and religions.

God Is Red: A Native View of Religion, 30th Anniversary Edition

Vine Deloria, Jr. Fulcrum Publishing [2003]

• Canada

• The United States

• Mexico

• Central America

• The Carribbean and West Indies

• South America

You may also enjoy reading my other Hubs about Native Americans:

• Native Americans in Western Novels
• National Pow Wow of the United States
• Native American Nations - Part II