North American Peoples on the Eve of European Contact
What common values did Native American share despite their cast
diversity?
Native American lived in North America for thousands of
years before the Europeans. They have kept their traditions and their beliefs
such as hunting, fishing and religion for a long time. The existence of many diverse
languages and dialects started some new nations and tribes. Even with these new nations and tribes, they
have common characteristics. There are many common values in Native American.
Kinship and gender is one of the values that can be seen in
all the Native American. They prioritize their ties to cousins, uncles, aunts
which they are most part of their kinship. They believe that kinship bounds are
more important than bounds with nuclear families. Moreover, in most cultures of
the Native Americans, the marriage age is in their teens and they try to be
within their extended family. A new husband in some of the Native American societies
moved in with his wife’s extended family. Every tribes live in a small village
and they have a leader or a chief to govern them and they have to follow him. Both
men and women has played a major rule in the Native American societies. Men’s
job was focusing on hunt, trade and make tools and weapons. Women’s job was
farming, cooking and taking care of children and they shared some of the work.
Spiritual and social values is one of the common principles
that Native American societies shared. They believe that there are two ways to
access the spiritual world, either in sleep or by using physical ordeals to
alter their consciousness. They believe that Young men become adult when “through
a vision quest—a solitary venture that entailed fasting and waiting for the
appearance of a spirit that would endow them with special powers”” Boyer page14”.
On the girls’ side “Girls went through comparable rituals at the onset of
menstruation, to initiate them into the spiritual world from which female
reproductive power flowed”” Boyer page14”. The natives, despite being divided
into many cultures, sub cultures and different societies, they all shared some
common values and practices with slight different methods of applications.
I found a good article and video about the Native American
