TELLING TALES It's another cold winter night in the American Southwest A group of people has gathered around a skilled storyteller Some of the stories he tells are dramatic and exciting Others are funny The audience settles in They are looking forward to the adventures of Coyote and other favorite characters ANCIENT TRIBES OF THE SOUTHWEST The Southwest is a land of rugged mountains evergreen forests and hot dry deserts The region has been home to Native American Nations for thousands of years The ancestors of today’s tribes had large communities that lasted for more than Navajo storyteller Wally Brown tells a story around a fire 5
An artist’s impression of Southwest Nations farmers 1,000 years From 300 BCE to 1300 CE they built towns and irrigation systems They grew cotton corn beans and squash People from different communities met and traded with one another But around 1300 the land suffered a severe drought With no water the people were forced to leave their towns and move to other places Then around 6
1500 the ancestors of the Navajo Diné and Apache people came into the area from Canada The lifestyles and cultures of the tribes developed in different ways depending on where they settled SOUTHWEST REGIONS The two major rivers in the Southwest are the Colorado River and the Rio Grande These rivers create four different environmental regions The largest is the desert basin and range It reaches across the states of Arizona and New Mexico Most of this area is a desert covered with shrubs and cacti Some places get less than 5 inches 13 cm of rain a year Tribes here such as the O’odham and the Yuma Quechan have traditionally farmed caught wild game and eaten wild plants including agave and the fruit of cacti Another region is the Colorado Plateau It includes the area where New Mexico Arizona Colorado and Utah meet The land is made up of mountains canyons and forests Lower areas have shrubs and grasses Tribes 7
