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Essays on native american culture influence on society
A comparison of american indian culture to european culture
Native American culture and western culture
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When a story is being conveyed or told via oral tradition, the details of the story are more likely to change. This change in the details of the story is similar to the game telephone we all played as kids. When one tells a story with written language, the story is less likely to change, as the story is written on paper to be read the same each time though traditions. Most of the traditions and accounts that were passed down were mainly conveyed and told via oral translation. The accounts that influenced the Europeans were sickness, traditions, values, and culture. As I was reading, I came to believe that it seemed as if what had influenced the Europeans may have used to better influence the Native Americans. With this being said, the traditions
Oral History and Oral Tradition was incredibly important for both tribes. They passed legends and historical stories on through speech, each story holding its own important moral or message. For example,
Throughout history, literature has been inspired from the culture of the time while staying true to the literary devices used in classical novels. Native Americans also used literary devices without knowledge of European usage across the Atlantic. In their literature, the Huron tribe demonstrated the use of the literary devices analogies and exaggeration while also being influenced by their culture and society. In both the standard creation myth of the Huron natives and the story of “Skunny-Wundy and the Stone Giant[b][c]” there were influences from the Iroquois tribes, who shared a similar language (Redish and Orrin, “Wyandot/Huron Language”). The Iroquois creation myth is very similar to the Huron as a result.
Each European country treated the Native Americans distinctively and likewise the diverse Native Americans tribes reacted differently. The vast majority of the tribes didn’t wish to overtake the Europeans, but to rather just maintain their status quo. Moreover, Axtell mentions that during the inaugural stages of the encounter, the relationship between the two parties was rather peaceful since the Europeans were outnumbered by the natives. Axtell depicts that unlike the Europeans, the Native Americans treated the strangers equally or superior to themselves. The Indians would welcome the Europeans into their towns and shower them with gifts and blessings. The relationship between the two factions was going serene until the cultural differences became a burden on both
In the 1830's the Plains Indians were sent to the Great American Deserts in the west because the white men did not think they deserved the land. Afterwards, they were able to live peacefully, and to follow their traditions and customs, but when the white men found out the land they were on were still good for agricultural, or even for railroad land they took it back. Thus, the white man movement westward quickly begun. This prospect to expand westward caused the government to become thoroughly involved in the lives of the Plains Indians. These intrusions by the white men had caused spoilage of the Plains Indians buffalo hunting styles, damaged their social and cultural lives, and hurt their overall lives. The lives of the Plains Indians in the second half of the nineteenth century were greatly affected by the technological development and government actions.
In his essay, “The Indians’ Old World,” Neal Salisbury examined a recent shift in the telling of Native American history in North America. Until recently, much of American history, as it pertains to Native Americans; either focused on the decimation of their societies or excluded them completely from the discussion (Salisbury 25). Salisbury also contends that American history did not simply begin with the arrival of Europeans. This event was an episode of a long path towards America’s development (Salisbury 25). In pre-colonial America, Native Americans were not primitive savages, rather a developing people that possessed extraordinary skill in agriculture, hunting, and building and exhibited elaborate cultural and religious structures.
These stories have a continued overlapping influence in American Fiction and have remained a part of the American imagination; causing Americans to not trust Native Americans and treat them as they were not human just like African Americans.
Discuss the distinctive qualities that define the way stories are told in Native American cultures. How do these differ from what you might have thought of as a traditional story?
Overall, There were so many differences between Native Americans cultures And the Europeans. Some of the examples are, the ideas of the lands owner, religion, and the gender. Their differences are more than the similarities. The impact of their cultures it still remains in today’s society. The cultural differences and the religions differences led to a bloody was that remains for 500 hundreds
Rough Draft Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth century there was a great expansion into the European exploration and colonization of North America. Many Europeans sought to change their lives in the new world. Here, they could start a new life, and live free of the religious persecution occurring in Europe. The British were one of the main European groups who settled and colonized North America.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Europeans started to come over to the new world, they discovered a society of Indians that was strikingly different to their own. To understand how different, one must first compare and contrast some of the very important differences between them, such as how the Europeans considered the Indians to be extremely primitive and basic, while, considering themselves civilized. The Europeans considered that they were model societies, and they thought that the Indians society and culture should be changed to be very similar to their own.
As white settlers poured across the mountains, the Cherokee tried once again to compensate themselves with territory taken by war with a neighboring tribe. This time their intended victim was the Chickasaw, but this was a mistake. Anyone who tried to take something from the Chickasaw regretted it, if he survived. After eleven years of sporadic warfare ended with a major defeat at Chickasaw Oldfields (1769), the Cherokee gave up and began to explore the possibility of new alliances to resist the whites. Both the Cherokee and Creek attended the 1770 and 1771 meetings with the Ohio tribes at Sciota but did not participate in Lord Dunnmore's War (1773-74) because the disputed territory was not theirs. On the eve of the American Revolution, the British government scrambled to appease the colonists and negotiate treaties with the Cherokee ceding land already taken from them by white settlers. To this end, all means, including outright bribery and extortion, were employed: Lochaber Treaty (1770); and the Augusta Treaty (1773) ceding 2 million acres in Georgia to pay for debts to white traders. For the same reasons as the Iroquois cession of Ohio in 1768, the Cherokee tried to protect their homeland from white settlement by selling land they did not really control. In the Watonga Treaty (1774) and the Overhill Cherokee Treaty (Sycamore Shoals) (1775), they sold all of eastern and central Kentucky to the Transylvania Land Company (Henderson Purchase).
Native Americans were abused by Spanish officials when the Spanish invaded their lands. In an attempt to control the attacks of the Native Americans, they enlisted fear into the minds of the Indians.
The Effects of Colonization on the Native Americans Native Americans had inherited the land now called America and eventually their lives were destroyed due to European colonization. When the Europeans arrived and settled, they changed the Native American way of life for the worse. These changes were caused by a number of factors including disease, loss of land, attempts to export religion, and laws, which violated Native American culture. Native Americans never came in contact with diseases that developed in the Old World because they were separated from Asia, Africa, and Europe when ocean levels rose following the end of the last Ice Age. Diseases like smallpox, measles, pneumonia, influenza, and malaria were unknown to the Native Americans until the Europeans brought these diseases over time to them.
European and Indian contact took place during the fifteen and sixteenth century. Columbus is said to have discovered America, but in reality he encountered America and created unequal trading of many things that were mostly advantageous to Europeans. European settlers, such as Columbus into the “New World" had a major, but mostly negative effect on the Indian populations. Columbus in the pursuit of finding new land to help Spain bring riches in order to be able to go to war with Muslims and gain back Jerusalem left poverty, domestic and drug abuse, and hopelessness among Native American communities. Contact of Europeans to the “New World” resulted in the displacement of tribes, destruction of cultures and the practice of genocidal policies
The Native Americans or American Indians, once occupied all of the entire region of the United States. They were composed of many different groups, who speaked hundreds of languages and dialects. The Indians from the Southwest used to live in large built terraced communities and their way of sustain was from the agriculture where they planted squash, pumpkins, beans and corn crops. Trades between neighboring tribes were common, this brought in additional goods and also some raw materials such as gems, cooper. seashells and soapstone.To this day, movies and television continue the stereotype of Indians wearing feathered headdresses killing innocent white settlers. As they encountered the Europeans, automatically their material world was changed. The American Indians were amazed by the physical looks of the white settlers, their way of dressing and also by their language. The first Indian-White encounter was very peaceful and trade was their principal interaction. Tension and disputes were sometimes resolved by force but more often by negotiation or treaties. On the other hand, the Natives were described as strong and very innocent creatures awaiting for the first opportunity to be christianized. The Indians were called the “Noble Savages” by the settlers because they were cooperative people but sometimes, after having a few conflicts with them, they seem to behaved like animals. We should apprehend that the encounter with the settlers really amazed the natives, they were only used to interact with people from their own race and surroundings and all of this was like a new discovery for them as well as for the white immigrants. The relations between the English and the Virginian Indians was somewhat strong in a few ways. They were having marriages among them. For example, when Pocahontas married John Rolfe, many said it has a political implication to unite more settlers with the Indians to have a better relation between both groups. As for the Indians, their attitude was always friendly and full of curiosity when they saw the strange and light-skinned creatures from beyond the ocean. The colonists only survived with the help of the Indians when they first settler in Jamestown and Plymouth. In this areas, the Indians showed the colonists how to cultivate crops and gather seafood.The Indians changed their attitude from welcome to hostility when the strangers increased and encroached more and more on hunting and planting in the Natives’ grounds.