In Ancient Times
I
In the vast silent pine forest of northern Siberia, roamed tribes of men, who lived on the berries and fruits of summer plus the course of raw meat of the mammoth and prehistoric buffalo. They hunted the mammoth and buffalo with spear throwers and hand spears sand lived in houses made of their skins. They followed the herd of mammoth, much as a sheep herder follows his sheep, taking what animals, they needed as food and letting the others continue their eternal wandering through the forest and over the grassland. This was from thirty to forty thousand years ago.
Before the dying of the last great ice age, a land bridge existed between what is now Russia and Alaska. The tremendous amount of ice and snow which built up during the ice age caused the seas to recede and leave this land bridge. Across this low lying plain wandered may tribes that eventually became American Indians. Unknowing and unheralded, they drifted into a new world.
The migrations across the land strip continued at intervals until sea rose and covered the passage. Even after the passage became covered, other migrations continued.
Gradually, as more and more tribes wandering hunters came to the new land, they spread south and west and began to prosper. In Asia, the getting of food and clothing had been a most difficult task that let only the strongest survive but in the new land, game was plentiful and winters not as bitter as in former times. Son begat son and not so many died as before. As each family group loss less to the process of survival of the fittest, they moved north and south, but most of all, they moved south.
Through hundreds of years, this process took place until this new race had spread like a fan into the Great Slave Lake region of Canada and turned south into the central part of the United States. As they moved and increased, they prospered and learned.
They learned to make better clothes, to guard against the still cold winters, to build better shelters and to find better caves, in which to live. The women learned more about finding editable fruits and berries around the camp areas. Sometimes, the men banded together to surround a herd of bison and drive them over a cliff so they became very easy prey to spear and stone. When the first series of Asiatic men wandered out of Asia and on to the North American continent, a great part of what is now the Western States, was a vast plain grazed animal that provided sufficient food for these wandering tribes. As time passed, and the numbers of men gradually increased, it became very difficult for all to find enough wild meat to satisfy their needs. Some turned to gathering of fruits and berries and others turned to finding ways to trap fish and other aquatic life.
Down through the Great Plains of the west and into Old Mexico, gradually moved the forerunners of what we now call the Aztec and Mayan People. These tribes found and environment in which they no longer had to spend every waking hour in search of food to keep from starving. They had time to use their brains to begin to solve the mysteries of the earth and of mankind.
About five thousand years before the death of Christ, some of the forerunners of Cherokees conceived the idea of trying animal sinew to a bent piece of wood to make the first bow and arrow. This invention was probably the most single greatest step mankind had made since his discovery of the use of fire. With the bow and arrow, the hunter could easily kill game of all kinds. He did not have to roam nearly as far afield as he had before. He could lie and wait for game and with this silent weapon slay it before it was aware that he was near.
About this same time, some of the southeastern people discovered they could live on fresh water mussels that existed abundantly in the broad Southern Rivers.
About fifteen hundred years after the invention of the bow and arrow, some intelligent ancient woman somewhere, picked up a ball of clay and fashioned it into a crude bowl that became the first clay vessel in existence. From that day on, the civilization of the American Indian rapidly moved forward. The women began to learn to cook in clay vessels and to decorate them in such a manner so that now, in modern times, anthropologists can tell what ancient tribe made which vessel. As these ancient women wandered with their men from one camp site to another, they picked berries and plants which were good to eat. They brought these berries and plants into their camp and ate them as part of their food. It was the habit of early nomadic people to move from one camp site to another so often that they came back to the same camping sites year after year. Around these sites began to grow, from the refuse of previous visits, the seed from the berries that were gathered and eaten from former visits. Again, it was the women that realized the importance of having the plants grow near the camp sites. So, they began to place the seeds in the ground on purpose. Thus, began agriculture. Of course, it was a long so process of learning before these women found out that the ground should be cleaned and broken and that the biggest and healthiest seed would produce the best plants. But this did happen, and especially important in the growth and selection process was the gradual evolution of corn from a seed-bearing grass into a large plant that produced ears. With the development of corn as a food product that would feed a people from one season to another, a new security was found. For now, when game ceased to be abundant, it was no longer necessary to pick up and move to another hunting area. The corn could be stored in dry vessels and used when the winters came.
When the problem of a constant food supply was overcome, the people naturally turned to solving other needs. One was building of houses that would not rot and yet would keep out the miserable rain and cold in the winter. Another was the problem of protection from other tribes that might raid their villages and carry away what food supplies were on hand for the coming winter. This work and the fashioning of better and more durable tools took a great deal of the new leisure time.
Most of the permanent villages in the southeast were located on good-sized streams, usually where a smaller stream came into the larger one. The towns in Cherokee Country ordinarily were built near the bank of stream so that the occupants of the village were close to a source of fish and fresh water. The outer edge of the town was surrounded by a stockade that was built by placing good-sized posts in the ground about six inches apart. This space between the posts was woven with saplings and vines so that the stockade served as a protection against surprise attacks by enemies. Usually, there was an elaborate entrance-way that could be closed or effectively defended during an enemy attack. The hoses of the villages began to be constructed of logs. These logs were places vertically as closely together as possible in a kind of rough square that formed the outer walls of the house. These walls were reinforced by weaving vines and pliable pieces of wood between the upright posts. After they had reinforced in this manner, a thick coat of mud was plastered over the framework to form an airtight wall. The roof of this type of house was constructed of saplings interwoven so that they formed a kind of dome over the four plastered walls. The dome was then covered with mats of long grasses and reeds. At first, all the cooking facilities were out in the open but later, fireplaces were built in the center of the structures with a fire hole to allow the smoke to escape.
Instead of going day by day to hunt for wild berries and plants, the women went from their villages to their garden plots, where they dug, planted, weeded and harvested. The daughters were taken along to learn how to plant and cultivate and harvest the maize and other vegetables. A daughter inherited her mother’s garden plot or cleared her own. The men had little to do with the farming. It was their job to do the hunting. When the women first started planting crops, they probably used sharpened sticks to loosen up the soil but later, they began to use stone hoes and spades of very good quality. They even fashioned themselves brush arbors under which to sit in the heat of the day.
Although the first villages were little more than elaborate camp site, the later ones were far more elaborate. They contained permanent houses and stockades, meeting grounds and game grounds. And most of all, they afforded protection from weather and hostile tribes. Naturally, with this added protection and stable food production, the population of agricultural tribes increased by leaps and bounds. Where before there was a miserable little village huddled on the bank of a stream, now the village became a thriving, and busy town with public meeting house and broad cleared fields surrounding the stockades. The men had learned to fashion a log into a canoe so that it could be paddled up and down streams in quest of fish and game. No longer did the young warrior die in the prime of their ability. They lived to be old men, who sat in the public house and told marvelous tales of their youth and tales of the world beyond the forests. They learned that they could charm and mystify the young by these tales and thus became men who were so powerful that no one dared question their judgement.
This development of tribes of people, who lived in houses and built villages was true in many parts of the United States but did not hold true where the land would not produce a suitable supply of staple food products. In other parts of the Middle West and Northwest, the tribes still wandered from one hunting ground to another in search for enough food on which to live. These tribes, although they advanced some in the complexity of their social structure, remained a great deal like the old nomadic hunters who first populated the North American Continent. The Cherokees were among the Southeastern Indians, who had developed a complex way of living by the time the first white man touched the United States. They built houses, wove cloth, made vessels of clay and most important of all, organized into a loosely-knit tribal confederation.
The first and rather doubtful record of a reference to the Cherokees as a tribe of people, is found in one of the letters of DeSoto’s men. This letter spoke of them as being a tribe that lived in the region that is now South Carolina. How the Cherokees came to the Eastern part of the United States is only a matter of conjecture but the best authorities believe they were a part of Iroquoian people, who migrated from the west or northwest about thirty-five hundred years before the coming of the white man. During the period preceding the advent of the white man, the Cherokees were a part of a large group of people, who adjusted their ways of life to the eastern woodlands.
Naturally, the first travelers who came into contact with the tribes of Indians who lived along the eastern half of the United States did not make detailed studies of their cultures. They observed and recorded their outward acts but did not give a studied report on the whys and wherefores of these actions. Consequently, the only way we have of knowing their affairs, is by judging from the things they left and by observe and record their findings.
By Tom Underwood
Before the dying of the last great ice age, a land bridge existed between what is now Russia and Alaska. The tremendous amount of ice and snow which built up during the ice age caused the seas to recede and leave this land bridge. Across this low lying plain wandered may tribes that eventually became American Indians. Unknowing and unheralded, they drifted into a new world.
The migrations across the land strip continued at intervals until sea rose and covered the passage. Even after the passage became covered, other migrations continued.
Gradually, as more and more tribes wandering hunters came to the new land, they spread south and west and began to prosper. In Asia, the getting of food and clothing had been a most difficult task that let only the strongest survive but in the new land, game was plentiful and winters not as bitter as in former times. Son begat son and not so many died as before. As each family group loss less to the process of survival of the fittest, they moved north and south, but most of all, they moved south.
Through hundreds of years, this process took place until this new race had spread like a fan into the Great Slave Lake region of Canada and turned south into the central part of the United States. As they moved and increased, they prospered and learned.
They learned to make better clothes, to guard against the still cold winters, to build better shelters and to find better caves, in which to live. The women learned more about finding editable fruits and berries around the camp areas. Sometimes, the men banded together to surround a herd of bison and drive them over a cliff so they became very easy prey to spear and stone. When the first series of Asiatic men wandered out of Asia and on to the North American continent, a great part of what is now the Western States, was a vast plain grazed animal that provided sufficient food for these wandering tribes. As time passed, and the numbers of men gradually increased, it became very difficult for all to find enough wild meat to satisfy their needs. Some turned to gathering of fruits and berries and others turned to finding ways to trap fish and other aquatic life.
Down through the Great Plains of the west and into Old Mexico, gradually moved the forerunners of what we now call the Aztec and Mayan People. These tribes found and environment in which they no longer had to spend every waking hour in search of food to keep from starving. They had time to use their brains to begin to solve the mysteries of the earth and of mankind.
About five thousand years before the death of Christ, some of the forerunners of Cherokees conceived the idea of trying animal sinew to a bent piece of wood to make the first bow and arrow. This invention was probably the most single greatest step mankind had made since his discovery of the use of fire. With the bow and arrow, the hunter could easily kill game of all kinds. He did not have to roam nearly as far afield as he had before. He could lie and wait for game and with this silent weapon slay it before it was aware that he was near.
About this same time, some of the southeastern people discovered they could live on fresh water mussels that existed abundantly in the broad Southern Rivers.
About fifteen hundred years after the invention of the bow and arrow, some intelligent ancient woman somewhere, picked up a ball of clay and fashioned it into a crude bowl that became the first clay vessel in existence. From that day on, the civilization of the American Indian rapidly moved forward. The women began to learn to cook in clay vessels and to decorate them in such a manner so that now, in modern times, anthropologists can tell what ancient tribe made which vessel. As these ancient women wandered with their men from one camp site to another, they picked berries and plants which were good to eat. They brought these berries and plants into their camp and ate them as part of their food. It was the habit of early nomadic people to move from one camp site to another so often that they came back to the same camping sites year after year. Around these sites began to grow, from the refuse of previous visits, the seed from the berries that were gathered and eaten from former visits. Again, it was the women that realized the importance of having the plants grow near the camp sites. So, they began to place the seeds in the ground on purpose. Thus, began agriculture. Of course, it was a long so process of learning before these women found out that the ground should be cleaned and broken and that the biggest and healthiest seed would produce the best plants. But this did happen, and especially important in the growth and selection process was the gradual evolution of corn from a seed-bearing grass into a large plant that produced ears. With the development of corn as a food product that would feed a people from one season to another, a new security was found. For now, when game ceased to be abundant, it was no longer necessary to pick up and move to another hunting area. The corn could be stored in dry vessels and used when the winters came.
When the problem of a constant food supply was overcome, the people naturally turned to solving other needs. One was building of houses that would not rot and yet would keep out the miserable rain and cold in the winter. Another was the problem of protection from other tribes that might raid their villages and carry away what food supplies were on hand for the coming winter. This work and the fashioning of better and more durable tools took a great deal of the new leisure time.
Most of the permanent villages in the southeast were located on good-sized streams, usually where a smaller stream came into the larger one. The towns in Cherokee Country ordinarily were built near the bank of stream so that the occupants of the village were close to a source of fish and fresh water. The outer edge of the town was surrounded by a stockade that was built by placing good-sized posts in the ground about six inches apart. This space between the posts was woven with saplings and vines so that the stockade served as a protection against surprise attacks by enemies. Usually, there was an elaborate entrance-way that could be closed or effectively defended during an enemy attack. The hoses of the villages began to be constructed of logs. These logs were places vertically as closely together as possible in a kind of rough square that formed the outer walls of the house. These walls were reinforced by weaving vines and pliable pieces of wood between the upright posts. After they had reinforced in this manner, a thick coat of mud was plastered over the framework to form an airtight wall. The roof of this type of house was constructed of saplings interwoven so that they formed a kind of dome over the four plastered walls. The dome was then covered with mats of long grasses and reeds. At first, all the cooking facilities were out in the open but later, fireplaces were built in the center of the structures with a fire hole to allow the smoke to escape.
Instead of going day by day to hunt for wild berries and plants, the women went from their villages to their garden plots, where they dug, planted, weeded and harvested. The daughters were taken along to learn how to plant and cultivate and harvest the maize and other vegetables. A daughter inherited her mother’s garden plot or cleared her own. The men had little to do with the farming. It was their job to do the hunting. When the women first started planting crops, they probably used sharpened sticks to loosen up the soil but later, they began to use stone hoes and spades of very good quality. They even fashioned themselves brush arbors under which to sit in the heat of the day.
Although the first villages were little more than elaborate camp site, the later ones were far more elaborate. They contained permanent houses and stockades, meeting grounds and game grounds. And most of all, they afforded protection from weather and hostile tribes. Naturally, with this added protection and stable food production, the population of agricultural tribes increased by leaps and bounds. Where before there was a miserable little village huddled on the bank of a stream, now the village became a thriving, and busy town with public meeting house and broad cleared fields surrounding the stockades. The men had learned to fashion a log into a canoe so that it could be paddled up and down streams in quest of fish and game. No longer did the young warrior die in the prime of their ability. They lived to be old men, who sat in the public house and told marvelous tales of their youth and tales of the world beyond the forests. They learned that they could charm and mystify the young by these tales and thus became men who were so powerful that no one dared question their judgement.
This development of tribes of people, who lived in houses and built villages was true in many parts of the United States but did not hold true where the land would not produce a suitable supply of staple food products. In other parts of the Middle West and Northwest, the tribes still wandered from one hunting ground to another in search for enough food on which to live. These tribes, although they advanced some in the complexity of their social structure, remained a great deal like the old nomadic hunters who first populated the North American Continent. The Cherokees were among the Southeastern Indians, who had developed a complex way of living by the time the first white man touched the United States. They built houses, wove cloth, made vessels of clay and most important of all, organized into a loosely-knit tribal confederation.
The first and rather doubtful record of a reference to the Cherokees as a tribe of people, is found in one of the letters of DeSoto’s men. This letter spoke of them as being a tribe that lived in the region that is now South Carolina. How the Cherokees came to the Eastern part of the United States is only a matter of conjecture but the best authorities believe they were a part of Iroquoian people, who migrated from the west or northwest about thirty-five hundred years before the coming of the white man. During the period preceding the advent of the white man, the Cherokees were a part of a large group of people, who adjusted their ways of life to the eastern woodlands.
Naturally, the first travelers who came into contact with the tribes of Indians who lived along the eastern half of the United States did not make detailed studies of their cultures. They observed and recorded their outward acts but did not give a studied report on the whys and wherefores of these actions. Consequently, the only way we have of knowing their affairs, is by judging from the things they left and by observe and record their findings.
By Tom Underwood
