Native American Encyclopedia The-Other-Magpie To Zuni
8 Tlingit made of cedar bark For special occasions such as a potlatch they wore a Chilkat robe made of goat wool and cedar bark strips A robe weaver could take as long as five years to make this robe See also potlatch Tobacco is a plant first grown in North and South America about 8,000 years ago Native Americans began smoking tobacco about three thousand years ago They believed tobacco was a gift from the creator and smoked it for religious and ceremonial reasons In the 1500s Spanish colonists grew tobacco and forced Native Americans to tend their fields European disease and starvation killed many of the Native Americans Therefore the colonists brought slaves from Africa to work the fields See also peace pipes Toboggan is a type of long narrow wooden sled with a curved front It is pulled by hand or dogs A toboggan moves through deep soft snow better than a snow sled which moves best over hard flat ice Native Americans from the Subarctic region invented the toboggan to travel and carry hunted game through deep snow The Inuit made toboggans from whalebone The word toboggan comes from the language of the Micmac Native Americans in the eastern Maritime Provinces of Canada This photo taken in 1906 shows a Tlingit woman dressed for dancing at a potlatch ceremony Tlingit are the original residents of the Pacific Northwest Historians believe they may have come from Asia or the Polynesian islands They are the only speakers of the Tlingit language Traditionally they lived on fish seal seaweed clams fish eggs venison and berries Men and women wore loincloths words to know casinos kah-SEE-noez places for gambling and other entertainment Sonoran Desert so-NOR-en DEH-sert one of the largest and hottest deserts in North America located around the northern end of the Gulf of California venison VEN-eh-sen deer meat
Tolowa 9 The Sonora Desert home to the Tohono O’odham is one of the largest and hottest deserts in North America Tohono O'odham also known as Papago meaning tepary bean eater are the original residents of the Sonoran Desert of the southwest United States and northwest Mexico Their name means People of the Desert Their language O’odham is a Uto-Aztecan language Thousands of Tohono O’odham still speak it today along with English and Spanish Traditionally the Tohono O’odham were seasonal farmers who grew corn tapery beans squash lentils and melons To bring rain for their crops they shuffled their feet in the dry sand believing that the rising dust would help make rain clouds They also ate native plants fruits and sap from the mesquite tree which they called mesquite candy They wove baskets for holding food medicine and other objects Today the Tohono O’odham Nation includes about 25,000 people and owns three casinos which is the main source of their income This Tohono O’odham woman uses a wooden stick to collect cactus fruit to be carefully peeled and then eaten Tolowa also known as Smith River Indians is a Native American tribe from the Smith River basin in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon The Tolowa fished from rivers and the Pacific Ocean and gathered acorns They organized their villages around a headman and his male relatives The men of one village would marry women of neighboring villages The Tolowa language is part of the Pacific Coast subgroup of the Athapascan language family Today only a few people speak Tolowa However the Siletz Valley Charter School in Siletz Oregon began teaching the Tolowa language in 2006 to middle school students
10 Toltec Toltec refers to an ancient civilization of central Mexico that flourished from A D 900 to A D 1200 It was the second of three great empires of its region The first was the Teotihuacan Empire and the third was the Aztec Empire The Toltec Empire was the first in the region to use military force to control its neighbors During its height the Toltec Empire controlled most of central Mexico the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf Coast Its capital Tula was a planned city with paved streets and about 60,000 residents Toltec people considered their leaders to be like gods Their religion included two main gods Quetzalcoatl a feathered serpent and Tezcatlipoca the god of fate and destiny Toltec artists decorated city walls with carvings such as snakes and skulls and built huge statues of men called the Atlantes In the 1100s attacking groups years later the Aztec Empire controlled central Mexico Tomahawk is a type of axe invented by Native Americans The word tomahawk comes from the Algonquian words tamahak or tamahakan A tomahawk is lightweight and easy for throwing It has a straight handle and a wide blade Native Americans made their first tomahawks with blades of sharpened stone They later made blades from iron or brass which were prized trade items gotten from Europeans They used the tomahawk both as a weapon and as a tool Native Americans held up tomahawks to show that a war was to begin They would bury a tomahawk to show there was a peace agreement Tomahawks could also be important symbols of leadership destroyed the Toltec Empire Two hundred Europeans presented tomahawks to Native American chiefs as a symbol of friendship Some tomahawks are richly decorated such as this Missouri River tomahawk axe
totem 11 Above is a spike tomahawk of the eastern woodlands region Below is a tomahawk pipe nonsmoking with a beaded decorative drop typical of the Great Plains region Tonkawa meaning the people of the wolf is a Native American tribe from central Texas They believed they came from a mythical wolf For this reason they would not kill wolves They lived in huts wikiups and tepees They ate deer seafood nuts and berries They tattooed their bodies and faces and lived in clans Each clan believed a mythical animal or spirit guarded them Today the tribe is stationed in Oklahoma Totem is the drawn or carved symbol of an animal The word comes from the Ojibwe term doodem meaning clan Some Native Americans make totems to represent a tribe clan family or person They believe that various animals serve people as spiritual guides They make totems of different animals to symbolize different qualities For example a beaver totem represents a skilled builder A cougar totem represents leadership and courage and an eagle totem represents pride
