The soft, hushed sounds of the first American steps and footprints on the fertile soil echoed the oldest natural form of migration. In short, they had come in search of the most basic of human needs; food, shelter, and security; most probably in that order. As in biblical accounts, the Siberian nomads had indeed found their promised land – their Eden on earth.
Once again, how may have they decided to leave their familiar, secure homeland and go into the unknown? We can only speculate. Tribal lead hunters discussing hunting strategies over a campfire may have made a critical decision. Most probably, it was the weather-influenced migratory events that attracted the tough Siberian people. Wondering how far the migrating herds of animals they followed went into the new land, they must have decided to find out for themselves. No doubt, small scouting parties voluntarily ventured across to visit the new strange land. Upon returning to their camp, they shared their observations with clan leaders and family.
In due time, maybe after periods of food shortage or weather conditions, core family groups opted to migrate as a way to improve their situation. Thus, they first established forward push-pull camps. In other words, once setting up settlements, a lead tribe pushed further east and south exploring new territory, while the temporary camps served to pull more of their clans to leave their old hunting grounds and join them.
The camps were most likely located near a water source; a day or two of travel in checker-board fashion. The system provided security and covered as much of the terrain as possible. They may not have possessed a written language, maps, and compasses, but they achieved their goal nevertheless. Even though we may not give them credit for it, theirs may have been very well organized and deliberate migrations.
The first Americans must have soon discovered that the pleasant weather invited a new and wider variety of game with established migration routes. All they had to do was tag along, harvesting the various herds to ensure a constant source of food. This may have been the earliest time that certain tribes claimed specific territory for themselves and their allies. Too, they may have liked the idea that the new land was more conducive to raising their families.
Equally important, the inviting new land was perfect for growing food for the up-to-now nomadic people. Some established rudimentary farming communities. Too, the new land provided a laboratory for improvements in domestication of animals and plants. For that reason, some of our nomad ancestors began to establish semi-permanent settlements. It was thus that they began to build communities from which their descendants will flourish for generations to come.
Yet, in this era of instant gratification and self-indulgence, it is indeed hard for modern-day people to grasp the difficult problems involved in basic survival. Short of a global catastrophe, humans today are unlikely to experience what it must be like to keep watch twenty four hours a day to ensure the survival of one’s family. Most people in the U.S. today are incapable of handling primeval fear. They don’t know what it’s like to fight off menacing and hungry wolf packs, lions, and bears. Neither do they know the critical importance of keeping the camp fire burning throughout the night. To put it bluntly, if the fire died, the clan could die, as well. It was as simple as that.
U.S. citizens of today cannot imagine the horrible feeling of starvation and the need to keep moving for survival, looking for a place to call home, or when putting some distance between one’s enemies wanting to do them harm. This last threat cannot be overemphasized. The most powerful clans were constantly searching for weaker clans to conquer, enslave, or to exterminate.
Their life was an incessant urge to travel one more day, cross one more river, cross one more valley, traverse one more mountain pass, and to climb that one more hill. In that regard, our native ancestors were lucky to possess toughness and grit. They certainly had the right stuff!
The multitude of game and edible plants must have satisfied their most pressing needs of food for their families. The long distances that they travelled also assured a relative sense of safety and security from their old fears and enemies. In addition to the large herds of mastodons, there were bison, deer, camel, horse, bear, and many other animals (many of them now extinct). By nature, the first demand was nutritional.
Once they killed the animal, there was no time to waste. Since early tribes were at a basic subsistence level, small edible parts were quickly devoured as the animal was butchered. (It must be noted that hunting party members sometimes didn’t eat for two or three days. So, the quick consumption of protein and fat provided the energy to return to camp.) The hides, containing prized meat chunks, were quickly folded, tied, and readied for transport to the camp.
As soon as they arrived, much of the meat was consumed; some was dried or cured, while leftovers were further processed to render fat for nutrition or medicinal purposes. Once in camp, skins were stretched, trimmed, tanned, and then used for clothing, footwear, and shelter. The bones, teeth, sinew, horns, and hooves were necessary for tool making and weapons. Theirs can best be described as a horn-to-hoof consumption system. They wasted nothing, ever thanking their many deities for giving them the things they needed to survive.
Native American stone implements attest to the first Americans’ creativity and ingenuity. One can only imagine the tools and skills they brought with them from Asia. Constantly on the move, such tools must have been precious to them. So as not to impede their movement, the tools had to be light and efficient by necessity. Surely once they arrived in America, utensils must have required modification to hunt new prey in the new terrain. Relying on their ingenuity, that effort probably did not take long. After a few trial and error hunts and fine-tuning their prototype creations, their new gear was ready.
Imagine the “eureka” moment of an unknown paleo-hunter when he first tinkered with chiseling channels or flutes on an arrowhead because of improvements that he or one of his hunting party thought it needed. In this case, the resulting experimentation and technological improvement may have made the arrow shaft more secure to the tip. It went deeper into the hunter’s prey insuring maximum effectiveness. That is an example of continuous improvement at its best. Our ancestors were such men and women of genius.
Practical in their use, the stone tools were also highly prized for their beauty. Some may have been used as items of trade. As to their regularity among common rocks, consider the following observation: Archeologists like to remind us that the spot where we find arrowheads or flint chips and flakes should be considered a possible archeological site. If that is the case, then America must certainly represent one of the biggest archeological sites anywhere in the world. Stone artifacts and their related chips and shards where native people built them are everywhere!
Our indigenous ancestors honed their skills to perfection. Once more, their likely trial and error system made the most of the nutritional value of food sources and their medicinal uses. Such experimentation is acknowledged as a critical aspect of developing cultures. One can only imagine how long it took our ancestors to determine the usefulness of a variety of roots, plants, and herbs. Observing animals eating or bypassing certain plants must have been a task assigned to young children and their mothers as they gathered dried wood for the campfire.
Once that was settled, the challenge was to pass that knowledge to the next generation. How to plant, what to plant, and when to plant must have been skills they learned as some of the groups decided to build small communities of extended families. In this manner, they balanced their diet and “on the hoof” food supply with a variety of cereals, berries, nuts, and legumes that they planted themselves. Rather than the whole group packing up and moving every few weeks, there was a division of labor. Some of the men stayed to secure the camp, while others joined hunting parties. The hunters left the camp to look for big game and returned to share it with their families at their semi-permanent campsite.
Although most of the survival skills they developed are lost forever, they ha
d a keen understanding of their environment. They exploited their resources with high degrees of efficiency and effectiveness. Theirs were impressive technical achievements that ensured their survival in their new home for countless generations. It is in granting them credit for this most central part of their existence where many mainstream historians fail. In short, we are supposed to believe that only European human development is important, not the development of Native Americans.
For example, it was our Native American ancestors who domesticated corn and other cereals that are now enjoyed throughout the world. Today, some societies around the world claim certain foods as uniquely theirs. The truth is that the first Americans were the first ones to discover and use many of these foods. They include potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate, and coffee to name a few.
It is obvious that the indigenous people in America were intelligent, creative, and industrious human beings, not the grunting brutes made so popular in Hollywood movies. Who knows what Native American cultures would have achieved had they been left alone to go to the next level of development on their own. Unfortunately, we will never know, since invaders from Europe put an end to their growth and progress.
To be sure, from the moment they crossed through Beringia, there was a continual movement of these early people to the south. Those groups that continued walking further down the hemisphere developed into marvelous societies.
Centuries before the arrival of the white usurper race from Europe, great and sophisticated civilizations will start, thrive, and end deeper in Middle America in present-day Mexico, Central America, and the upper half of South America. The more popular are the Toltec, Olmec, Azteca, Maya, and Inca civilizations. Others, such as the mythical Aztlán, homeland of the Aztecs, thought to have been located somewhere in the Southwest, is still a mystery.
The Southwest ancient people have left ruins of their multi-story cliff dwellings as reminders that they were intelligent, resourceful people. There is evidence of at least one large civilization that existed in modern-day Ohio called Cahokia where several enormous earthen mounds have been found. Some experts believe that tribes in the Gulf of Mexico were aware of these population hubs. The study of these great civilizations is not pertinent to our story. However, before we leave this topic, though, the following interesting observations need to be made.
It is astonishing that while many indigenous communities flourished in this very large hemisphere, the most powerful societies only developed within the narrow longitudinal boundaries of a few degrees. Specifically, they thrived within The Tropic of Cancer (23.5 N) and The Tropic of Capricorn (23.5S).
Were the appealing weather zones the reason? Are there other reasons for this phenomenon? Were they influenced by mysterious visitors who taught them new skills and then vanished, promising to return as some of their myths indicate? Unfortunately, the story of these super tribes is not pertinent to our story, and thus the reader is encouraged to follow up by reading the many existing sources in library and book store shelves.
To their credit, the tribes that stayed above 23.5N in what is now the U.S.A were diverse and resilient. Their resourcefulness must not be underestimated. Surviving for thousands of years, it proves that Europeans did not “discover” America. How can anyone discover a place that already had inhabitants? Their ability to maintain a thousand-year existence attests not only to their will to survive, but to their ingenuity.
All in all, living in relative harmony with their surroundings including some of the bleakest environments, the surge of humanity spread out through the continent. (Sadly, America’s Eden will change into Paradise Lost, once land-hungry immigrants from Europe push first Americans out of the way and take over their lands.) To get a glimpse of these fascinating people, brief details on a few individual groups are provided later in the following appendices.
Soon after we built our home in Universal City, Texas, in 1993, I found several Native American artifacts as we landscaped our backyard. The excitement inspired me to write the following homage to our indigenous ancestors. Hopefully, my story “Friendly Betrayal” conveys the dignity and respect they merit.
To a Stone Tool
As I the hardy soil in my yard worked,
I spotted you amid rubble and dirt.
Among the rocks and common stone,
you stood out, a silent humble gem, alone.
In you I see your maker’s hands and heart
truly formed an eternal work of art.
To untrained eyes, another rock they see,
entirely overlooking a great discovery.
Chips on one edge tell you had lots to do,
showing you were favored by your owner too.
Nestled in my palm, their niche my fingers find.
The hand fits so exactly, it really strains the mind.
As I hold you I do marvel; I can’t keep
from wondering what God’s majesty you’ve reaped.
Resting there for a thousand eons and eons untold,
watching gently, mutely, the great changes in your world.
Change, oh change, you are such an amazing thing.
Good you seek; often, bad omens you bring.
Sadly, on ancient cultures modern man adds pressures,
while blindly failing to enjoy their simple treasures.
Many, many years hence, someone else will surely find,
another fragment or reminder of your kind.
Proving yet again that little endures and survives
more than the humble things we do in our lives.
oOo
Appendix 2
“What’s in a name?”
Sadly, no one knows what the first inhabitants in America called themselves as a whole or what they called their large territory. There is evidence though that the Mexica civilization used the term “Culhua” to refer to the land now known as Mexico.
There may have been other similar references used by different indigenous groups. What is certain is that the land was enjoyed as a communal benefit, demanding awe and respect. Unlike European people, first Americans did not recognize a supreme being in heaven, but rather, they believed that multiple spirit entities lived in all things around them.
It’s a safe bet that the most basic-subsistence groups addressed the land as “Mother Earth”. It is also probably safe to say that each individual clan had a name for their immediate group. There are many examples, such as Caddo, Karankawa, and similar terms. As a matter of fact, most of the current names of present-day tribes have withstood the passing of time, while others are derivations of the names the invading Europeans heard.
Also, it appears that when the Spanish first made contact with indigenous people in East Texas, they heard the word “Techas” used by the natives, meaning friend. The Spanish pronounced the word as “Tejas” or “Texas”. Incidentally, the x in Texas may be pronounced with a “j” sound, as in “Tejas” (or as in México, Béxar, Mexia, and Ximénez).
The larger of the tribes or clans may also have had a name for the extended families in their territory. Based on accounts of the earliest explorers, some of them used names that generally translate to “our people” or “chosen people”. It is also quite possible that they named strangers as “them”, “others”, or the “enemy”. One important detail is that they didn’t call themselves “Indians”. That’s an erroneous label developed by Europeans. Here’s how that occurred.
Columbus thought that he had reached India when he sailed west from Spain. The poor man even died not knowing his mistake nor that the unknown land had been named “America”, in honor of another explorer of the day. So, due to Columbus’ unfortunate error in judgment, the New World’s inhabitants have been mistakenly called “Indians” ever since. (It must be noted that many First American descendants do not consider “Indian” as offensive.)
Using a “one-size-fits-all”
Indian label, the Europeans subtly stripped individual identity from the dozens of separate tribal territories and never considered them equal to European states. Later, the encroaching land-hungry English invaders launched several ethnic cleansing drives; the most memorable being the cruel legislation called the Indian Removal Act of 1830. General Andrew Jackson, later to be President Jackson, led the effort. Thus, hundreds of thousands of distinct groups of natives, each with its different language and culture, were led from their homelands in the east and southeast into deplorable reservations in Oklahoma. (For the reader who wishes to learn more, there are several books that delve deep into the sad journey called the Trail of Tears.)
English-led inhumane, unprovoked attacks began in the late 1700s and early 1800s. More vicious acts of violence occurred afterwards as the white settlers from across the sea expanded to the choicest living and hunting territories.
Reservations began as a supposed benevolent act from the U.S. government, but it quickly turned into a hell-on-earth experience to the indigenous people. Adding insult to injury, some whites became indignant that the natives still had been given too much land in the reservations. Dishonest government officials were easily bought off. The better parts of the reservations were sliced off for themselves or for other white settlers.
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