Traditions
This type of traditional story was told by American Indian groups to explain how Earth and its people came to be.
What is an Origin Story?
Most scientists believe the earliest Americans originally migrated from this continent.
Where is Siberia or Asia?
Trees, fresh water, soil, and copper are all examples of these materials found in nature that people use to survive.
What are natural resources?
A change in an animal's or person's way of life that helps them survive in their specific surroundings is known by this scientific term.
What is an adaptation?
The Lakota people painted historical pictures and calendars on the dried hide of this Great Plains animal.
What is the bison (or buffalo)?
This special circular room or underground chamber was used by Southwest tribes to hold ceremonies and share stories.
What is a kiva?
This long geographic period of extreme cold, which began roughly 2.6 million years ago, locked ocean water into massive glaciers and exposed land between continents.
What is the Ice Age?
While plants, animals, and water are physical parts of a natural environment, this weather pattern over time is NOT classified as a physical natural resource.
What is climate?
During harsh Arctic winters, Inuit families built and lived in sturdy dome-shaped shelters constructed from blocks of packed snow and ice called this.
What is an igloo?
This type of annual calendar record was marked each year at the time of the first snowfall to document the most important event of the past year.
What is a winter count?
According to Hopi tradition, people originally lived in darkness in this underground location before climbing to the surface.
Where is inside the Earth (or in caves inside Earth)?
Early hunters followed _________ across the land bridge, including caribou, bison, and mammoths.
What are "big game"?
Because this arid environment receives very little rainfall, American Indians who lived here had to dig wells and irrigation ditches to grow crops.
What is the desert?
To protect their vision from the intense glare of the sun reflecting off vast fields of snow and ice, the Inuits carved these out of bone or wood with narrow slits.
What are snow goggles?
The special tribal historian honored with the sacred responsibility of preserving and painting new symbols on the winter count was given this title.
What is the keeper?
In the Hopi origin story, the chief's advisors created this type of bird to fly out of a hole in Earth's crust and explore the world above.
What is a mockingbird?
Today, this chilly body of water separates Asia and North America where the ancient 1,000-mile-wide land bridge once stood.
What is the Bering Sea (or Bering Strait)?
This North American environment receives enough rain to support wild grasses, but not enough rainfall for dense forests of large trees to flourish.
What are the grasslands (or Great Plains)?
To prevent wounded sea mammals like whales and walruses from diving deep underwater and escaping, Inuit hunters attached these air-filled items to their harpoons.
(DAILY DOUBLE!)
What are sealskin floats (or inflated sealskins)?
A winter count painted by an actual Lakota witness is an example of a primary source, whereas a modern history textbook written about that winter count is an example of this.
What is a secondary source?
To escape their crowded underground caves and reach the surface of the Earth, Hopi ancestors climbed up a ladder made of these.
What are sturdy plants (or vines/canes)?
Besides walking across the 1,000-mile-wide land bridge, scientists hypothesize that some early Americans migrated along the Pacific coastline using these.
What are small boats (or canoes/watercraft)?
In mountain environments, forests of pine, fir, and spruce grow along the slopes, but this area at the very top has little to no plant life due to severe cold and thin soil.
What are the mountain peaks (or mountaintops / above the timberline)?
During Arctic summers, the Inuits constructed portable tents made of animal skins supported by driftwood or these massive skeletal remains of marine mammals.
What are whale bones (or ribs of whales)?
In November 1833, the Lakota observed the spectacular Leonid meteor shower, leading them to record that year on their winter counts by this famous name.
What is "The Year the Stars Fell"?
After emerging through the opening in Earth's crust, Hopi travelers journeyed in all four cardinal directions before finally establishing permanent villages in this present-day Southwestern U.S. state.
What is Arizona?
By locking enormous volumes of water into continental ice sheets, the last great Ice Age created the Bering land bridge and lasted for roughly 2.6 million years before finally ending around this time.
What is 10,000 years ago?
In the rainy and snowy mountain regions of North America, the lesson specifically names these three distinct evergreen conifer trees that grow abundantly below the rocky peaks.
What are pine, fir, and spruce?
Lacking large timber in their frozen treeless landscape, Inuit craftspeople ingeniously carved and lashed together large animal bones to build tent roof supports and the sturdy frames of these essential winter transport vehicles.
What are dogsleds?
On the famous 70-year winter count painted by the keeper Lone Dog, a pictograph depicting two hands reaching toward one another was painted to record this historic inter-tribal diplomatic milestone.
What is making peace with the Cheyenne tribe (or peace treaty with the Cheyenne)