November 7, 2018

November is Native American Heritage Month in the United States. To celebrate the month, World Book looks at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, D.C. The NMAI is devoted to the histories and cultures of the native peoples of the Americas. The museum works in cooperation with Native American communities to present objects, exhibits, and artworks of historical significance. The museum’s collections also showcase modern Native American arts and cultures. The NMAI, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution, has three facilities: the main museum campus on the National Mall; the George Gustav Heye Center in New York City; and the Cultural Resources Center in Suitland, Maryland.

The National Museum of the American Indian is devoted to the history and culture of the native peoples of North, Central, and South America. The museum’s building, in Washington, D.C., has smooth, rounded forms that were inspired in part by windswept rock formations. Many Native American architects and designers worked on the design. Credit: Pixabay

George Gustav Heye, an American art collector, established the Museum of the American Indian in New York City in 1916. In 1989, the United States Congress created the NMAI and moved Heye’s collection to the Smithsonian. The museum opened in 2004.

November is Native American Heritage Month in the United States. Credit: © Native American Heritage Month

This November, the NMAI is featuring an exhibit called “Patriot Nations: Native Americans in Our Nation’s Armed Forces.” The exhibit details the sometimes-conflicted participation of Native Americans in the U.S. military since the days of the American Revolution (1775-1783). It also details the new National Native American Veterans Memorial that will soon grace the museum’s grounds.

Native American Heritage Month began as American Indian Day in 1916, when certain states began honoring Native Americans with a day each May. President George H. W. Bush approved a joint resolution of Congress designating the first Native American Heritage Month in November 1990. The month honors all the native peoples of the United States, including Alaskan natives and Pacific Islanders.

July 2, 2018

With around 150,000 speakers, Navajo is the most widely spoken Native American language in the United States. Navajo, known to its speakers as Diné Bizaad, belongs to the Apachean language complex, a group that includes Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Mescalero, and other languages of the American southwest. Apachean languages are part of the Athabascan family, a language group that includes languages spoken by the indigenous (native) people of Alaska, British Columbia, and other parts of North America.

A Navajo woman teaches her daughter how to spin thread for weaving. Many parts of Navajo culture—including the language known as Diné Bizaad—have been passed along from one generation to the next. Credit: © Thinkstock

Navajo is a verb-centered language. The verb conjugation is very complex. This allows a Navajo verb to give lots of information without the help of additional words. For example, to say it is very far in English requires one verb (is) and three additional words. Translated into Navajo, the sentence has just two words: Ayóó (very) ánizáád (it is far). The verb ánizáád provides most of the information, and it requires just one additional word to convey the full message. A single Navajo verb can sometimes serve as a rough equivalent of an entire English sentence. For example, the Navajo word Yidlą́ means he is drinking it.

During the 1800′s and early 1900′s, Navajo children were required by law to leave their families and live in government-run boarding schools. The purpose of “Indian schools” was to erase the traditional Navajo way of life, including the language, and to educate the children and instill in them the values of mainstream American culture. While living at these schools, children were only allowed to speak English. Speaking Navajo would often result in harsh punishment. In this way, a great many Navajo lost the knowledge of their native tongue. Luckily, many Navajo were still able to pass the language down to their children, and Diné Bizaad survives.

This photograph shows young Navajo code talkers operating a radio during World War II (1939-1945). The Navajo language was unknown to the Japanese and proved impossible for them to decipher. Credit: NARA

During World War II (1939-1945), the U.S. Marine Corps recruited more than 400 Navajo to serve as “code talkers” against Japanese forces. The code talkers sent vital messages to each other between front lines and command posts. The Navajo language was chosen as the basis for the code because of the complex structure, difficult pronunciation, and singsong qualities that made it nearly impossible to decipher.

Code talkers used familiar words to represent military terms. When referring to a fighter plane, they used the Navajo word for hummingbird. A destroyer warship became a shark, and bombs were eggs. Code talkers also developed an alphabet based on English words to spell names. One or more Navajo words could stand for each letter. For example, the Navajo word for ant indicated the letter a, bear signaled b, cat was c, and so on. The Japanese never broke the Navajo code.

December 28, 2016

On Monday, December 19, U.S. President Barack Obama signed a bill ordering the return of an ancient human skeleton known as Kennewick Man to representatives of local Native American groups for reburial. The order signaled the end of a lengthy legal tug-of-war between archaeologists and Native American groups over the handling of prehistoric graves discovered in the United States.

The exceptionally well-preserved skeleton of Kennewick Man is represented by nearly 300 bones and bone fragments. Credit: © Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution

Kennewick Man is the name given to an ancient, nearly complete skeleton that was found by two college students on the banks of the Columbia River in south-central Washington in 1996. (Local Native Americans call the skeleton Ancient One.) Thinking it might be the remains of a recent missing person, the students reported their find to law enforcement authorities. Scientists called in to examine the skeleton quickly ended the possibility of a modern murder mystery: they found a stone spearpoint in the skeleton’s right hip. Guessing they were working with an ancient skeleton, the scientists sent a bone sample to a radiocarbon laboratory for dating. The lab results determined that Kennewick Man lived between 8,500 and 9,500 years ago. Armed with these results, the scientists determined that the skeleton was that of a Paleo-Indian. Paleo-Indians were among the earliest people to inhabit the Western Hemisphere.

This clay facial reconstruction of Kennewick Man was sculpted around the features of his skull. The reconstruction lends a deeper understanding of how the Ancient One may have looked some 9,000 years ago. (Sculpted bust of Kennewick Man by StudioEIS based on forensic facial reconstruction by sculptor Amanda Danning.) Credit: © Brittney Tatchell, Smithsonian Institution

Several Native American groups from the area where the skeleton was discovered, including the Yakama, Wanapum, Umatilla, Colville, and Nez Perce peoples, requested that the skeleton be returned for proper reburial. Many Native Americans believe the excavation of burials and analysis of remains to be disrespectful, and that doing so disrupts the spirits of the dead. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 requires institutions receiving federal money to return human remains and grave items to Native American groups if the groups can prove their “cultural affiliation” to the remains.

For such an ancient skeleton, demonstrating cultural affiliation is difficult. No tools, weapons, clothing, or other artifacts that might help identify Kennewick Man were found with the skeleton. Because the remains were found on federal land, the U.S. Department of the Interior had to decide what to do with them. In 2000, the department determined that Kennewick Man was a Native American and would be returned without further study to the Indian groups that claimed him. A group of archaeologists, however, challenged this decision in court. In 2002, a federal court ruled that the skeleton should not be returned and could be further studied. In 2004, Native American groups ended all attempts to appeal the ruling, allowing scientists to keep the skeleton.

In 2015, however, new genetic evidence proved that Kennewick Man was, in fact, closely related to Native Americans in the Washington region. In 2016, officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers acknowledged the cultural affiliation of Kennewick Man. The bill signed by President Obama in December orders the skeleton to be transferred to state archaeologists in Washington. They will work with local Native American nations, who will rebury the remains according to traditional customs within 90 days. The Ancient One will soon finally rest in peace at home.

October 1, 2012

The United States and Russia have agreed to preserve the Ice Age heritage of Beringia, an area that includes parts of northeastern Asia and northwestern North America and a land bridge that once connected them. During a recent visit to Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton agreed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to establish the Transboundary Area of Shared Beringian Heritage, a specially protected region that includes the Bering Strait and adjacent areas of Siberia and Alaska. Known as Beringia, this area is home to Inuit and Yuit peoples, who have a common language and traditions but are separated by international borders. A wide range of animals, including polar bears, whales, seals, and walruses, also live there.

At the Bering Strait in the northern Pacific Ocean, the United States and Russia are separated by about 50 miles (80 kilometers) of open water. But during the most recent ice age, huge glaciers covered much of the northern half of Earth and sea level was much lower than it is today. As a result, much of the Bering Strait was a vast stretch of dry land forming a bridge about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) wide at its greatest extent that connected what are now Siberia and Alaska. Most scientists think the first American Indians, following the animals that they hunted, wandered across this harsh environment into North America at least 15,000 years ago. By 12,500 years ago, Indians had spread throughout the New World and were living from the Arctic in the north all the way to what became known as the Strait of Magellan in southern South America.

The Bering Stait is a narrow waterway that connects the Bering and Chukchi seas. (World Book map)

The Transboundary Area of Shared Beringian Heritage formally recognizes the symbolic links between the people and governments of Asia and North America. The new heritage area will aid conservation efforts in this natural ecosystem and promote international cooperation on scientific research and monitoring the enviroment. The new area will formally link two national parks in Alaska–the Bering Land Bridge Natural Preserve and the Cape Krusenstern National Monument–with the newly designated Beringia National Park in Chukhotka, Russia. The region will cover a total of about 7.2 million acres (2.9 million hectares).

United States President George H. W. Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev first announced plans to create a transnational park spanning the Bering Strait in 1990, but progress towards the creation of the park stalled. Many components of this new agreement are still being worked out, but officials hope to have a finalized agreement by the end of 2012.

Additional World Book articles:

• Bering, Vitus
• Paleo-Indians
  
• Prehistoric people
• Anthropology (1951) (a Back in Time article)
• The First Americans (a Special Report)