Native American Encyclopedia The-Other-Magpie To Zuni

Native American Encyclopedia The-Other-Magpie To Zuni — page 5
8 Tlingit made of cedar bark For special occasions such as a potlatch they wore a Chilkat robe made of goat wool and cedar bark strips A robe weaver could take as long as five years to make this robe See also potlatch Tobacco is a plant first grown in North and South America about 8,000 years ago Native Americans began smoking tobacco about three thousand years ago They believed tobacco was a gift from the creator and smoked it for religious and ceremonial reasons In the 1500s Spanish colonists grew tobacco and forced Native Americans to tend their fields European disease and starvation killed many of the Native Americans Therefore the colonists brought slaves from Africa to work the fields See also peace pipes Toboggan is a type of long narrow wooden sled with a curved front It is pulled by hand or dogs A toboggan moves through deep soft snow better than a snow sled which moves best over hard flat ice Native Americans from the Subarctic region invented the toboggan to travel and carry hunted game through deep snow The Inuit made toboggans from whalebone The word toboggan comes from the language of the Micmac Native Americans in the eastern Maritime Provinces of Canada This photo taken in 1906 shows a Tlingit woman dressed for dancing at a potlatch ceremony Tlingit are the original residents of the Pacific Northwest Historians believe they may have come from Asia or the Polynesian islands They are the only speakers of the Tlingit language Traditionally they lived on fish seal seaweed clams fish eggs venison and berries Men and women wore loincloths words to know casinos kah-SEE-noez places for gambling and other entertainment Sonoran Desert so-NOR-en DEH-sert one of the largest and hottest deserts in North America located around the northern end of the Gulf of California venison VEN-eh-sen deer meat