Native American Heritage Days Press Release
NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE DAYS
Historic Lyme Village
On Rt. 4 between Rt. 113 & Rt. 20 – 2 mi. east of Bellevue, OH – 4 mi. south of exit 110 of
OH Turnpike
Sat., May 23, 2009 - 10-5 & Sun., May 24, 2009 10-5
Adults: $5.00 – Children 4-12 - $3.00 – Children 3 and under - Free
More information – (419) 668-8693
A variety of tribes will be represented again this year at our Native American event.
Those of the Eastern Woodland tribes: Shawnee, Wyandot, Cherokee, Choctaw, Delaware, and
Lenni Lenapi. The Western tribes: Lakota, Sioux, Blackfoot, and Hopi. There will be drumming,
singing, dancing, flute playing and story telling.
The American Revolution greatly affected the Eastern Indians. Indians were tied to the
trade networks of Western Europe.
The Eastern Indians could not survive without trade goods.
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Native American Heritage Days Press Release
They traded for cloth, guns and ammunition, and alcohol, but wanted metal kettles, frying pans,
pewter plates and cups, combs, mirrors, etc.
In exchange, they taught Europeans how to plant corn, squash, and pumpkins, to prepare
animal skins for clothing, and to build canoes.
After the Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s missionaries entered Indian country and
competed for souls, causing factions among the tribes.
Indians donned European clothing but maintained traditional hairstyles, slit ears and facial
tattoos.
Basket making and woodcarving were stimulated by European demand.
European rum demoralized and took many Indian lives. Choctaw and Cherokee chiefs
were generally powerless to halt social chaos caused by drunkenness and the aggressive
behavior it caused in the warriors.
Intermarriage between Europeans and Indians produced “new peoples” of mixed
ancestry and caused racial conflicts.
Trade jargons emerged. Indians adopted Spanish, English, Gaelic, Dutch, French, and
African words.
Europeans incorporated Algonquin, Iroquoian,
and Muskalogeon.
For thousands of Indians, the “new world” became a graveyard; diseases such as
smallpox, plague, measles, flu, pneumonia, tuberculosis, diphtheria, yellow fever killed them at
unbelievable rates.
Indians were caught up in wars of empire. The Americans and the British taught them
that they could be bought and sold, and both countries sought their allegiance.
Indians played the Americans, the British, the Spanish and the French against each other to
insure their neutrality and survival, while keeping up the flow of trade goods.
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Native American Heritage Days Press Release
Europeans adopted Indian clothes, canoes, some foods and some hunting and fishing
practices.
Despite the adoption of commercial hunting and the addition of fruit, potatoes, cattle,
pigs and domestic ducks and chickens to their diet, the sacred “three sisters” of the Iroquois –
corn, beans and squash – remained the staff of life for many woodland Indians.
Trader
James Adair said corn was an Indian people’s “chief produce and main dependence.”
Corn was also at the core of many tribes’ spiritual well-being:
Cherokees recalled the mythical female origins of their agriculture in the story of Selu, a woman
whose name means “corn.”
Annual Green Corn Ceremonies insured ritual purification of the community.
Like the buffalo in the Plains Indian culture and economy, corn for eastern woodland Indians
was the basis of life and prosperity.
It was also an Achilles’ heel, providing enemy armies with a target that could be burned time
and time again with devastating effect.
The language of American Indians has provided us with a rich legacy in our current vocabulary:
moose, raccoon, skunk, opossum, squaw, wigwam, totem, papoose, moccasin, and tomahawk.
Rivers: Susquehanna, Potomac, Maumee, Cuyahoga, Tuscarawas, Monongahela, Delaware,
Olantangy, and
Miami.
Ohio Counties: Seneca, Huron, Ottawa, Wyandot, Sandusky, Muskingum, & Erie.
Ohio Towns: Wapakoneta, Logan, Mingo, Osceola, Tymochtee, Chillicothe,
Chippewa–On–The-Lake, and
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Native American Heritage Days Press Release
Shawnee.
May we come to appreciate more and more the rich heritage of the Native Indians, our first
Americans.
,
-- Most of these excerpts were taken from the book The American Revolution in Indian Country
written by Colin G. Calloway. The remainder came from Melvin Braggs’s The Adventure of
English.
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