Indigenous American Culture

American history frequently centers on the issues of ethnic diversity and resource allocation. In the contemporary, we begin to see the experiences of the Native inhabitants of the Americas in contrast to European settlers and colonizers, is a prime example of this process in motion. When European settlers first arrived to the New World in the 15th century, firstly the Spanish, they brought with them a material cultural based upon an economic standard of resource exploitation, which in a sense was hostile to most of the Native peoples of the Americas. For instance, as Blackhawk notes that, Europeans built permanent settlements consisting of immovable structures, whereas many of the Great Basin peoples were semi-migratory in nature. Additionally, as Europeans claimed possession over the land, its resources, and began a process of territorial delimitation, Native peoples whose lives

Native American culture has faced a series of battles since the first settlers arrived. For many years, the natives were pushed further away from their food source and struggled to survive, due to famine and disease. Eventually, the government came to the aide of the natives offering sub-par substances to supply the nutritional needs and to force assimilation. In the article, , “Commod Bods and Frybread Power: Government Food Aid in American Indian Culture”, Vantrease discusses the journey of commodity foods and the diffusion into popular culture.

In the Lakota language, “wicozani” is a word that means wealth by living a happy and well balanced life with a physical and mental well-being in conformity with creation. In order to fulfill a life of prosperity and euphoria, it is crucial to be a well-behaved, humane person. In the Native American culture, being an impish, untrustworthy being goes against everything they believe in. One of the most meaningful values to the Native Americans is honesty. One of the most condemned traits is disrespect.

According to Beek, Peper, and Stegeman (1995), “the motor control theories provide an explanation on how the nervous system will solve the degrees of freedom problem and serve to direct movement command.” The following theories are the generalized motor program theory and the dynamical systems theory. The GMP theory “proposes that the movement plan is retrieved from memory within the central nervous system and neural instructions are sent down to the effectors via the efferent pathways.” The dynamical systems approach on the other hand, “does not propose a hierarchical control, but suggests that movements emerge through self-organization of the interaction of the body and environment.” It can be said that everybody’s “bodily movements occur in the context of the everyday functioning of people while realizing specific task goals.” As a general, yet acquired rule, “such movements involve the participation of multiple joints and limbs.” Moreover, when in action, these body parts are “coordinated and are brought into proper relation to one another as well as to the surrounding layout of surface.” The coordination of these body parts may “look relatively simple, as in picking up an object, or relatively complicated, as in juggling, performing an attacking forehand drive in table tennis or playing the drums.” To the psychomotor scientist or researcher, however, “all coordination is complex in that he or she is confronted with the challenge to explain

Native American culture originated in some parts North America. These countries are known as the United States of America and some parts of Canada. In the United States, there are 6.6 million Native Americans, which form about 2.0 percent of the population (Bureau, 2016). Europe had realized there were about 50 million people already living the “new world” and these people were called Native Americans. Native Americans were originally called Indians, but later through history they formed a new name. These people were called this because of them being native to the “new world” and the American part came after the colonist named the United States. Throughout history, Native Americans believed that using raw material in nature was the best way to provide for their people. Their culture thought no part of an animal should go to waste. They would eat the meat, use the skin for clothing, and make jewelry from the bones. Over the years a lot of their culture and customs were lost due to conforming with society. Their languages were referred to as “Indigenous Languages” because of them being extremely complicated and diverse. Some important factors that help understand the foundation of Native American culture are their rituals/practices, death ceremonies, holidays, family, and stereotypes.

Patricia, great post. I do think that a culture that needs some attention is the Native American culture. There are many reasons why this culture needs attention from the medical community. Some of the issues that could be covered when seeing the Native American culture are mental health, heart disease, stroke, infant mortality, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, and cancer.

How does the history of the Native American in the U.S. compare with the values that stand at the foundation of the U.S. (freedom, liberty, equality)?

Sometimes people in the second generation sometimes disown their parents – they want to assimilation and fit in. The first generation have a sense of pride and connection to their original homeland while the second generation wants to fit in and have there own security with there ‘new’ country. The culture paradigm shifts towards the state and away from their ‘nation’.

Native Americans and Asian Americans have historically been cruelly misrepresented in mainstream American media. We see the effects of this in the dancing “Apache” during halftime of a college football game or the ‘model minority’ labelled as foreigners for taking our jobs. While similar in overall degradation of cultural values and public image, I would argue Native Americans have suffered by lack of support for their values and culture within America’s schools and popular culture while Asian Americans have altogether been ignored because of their “foreign” nature.

Just when the human history of the Americas actually began is the subject of scholarly debate. The disciplinary tools of anthropology and archaeology continue to provide us with ever more refined and exact knowledge about early Native American communities, but the exact time frame remains murky, broadly defined, and subject to disagreement. This lack of precision results from the absence of writing among most of the Native American cultures, depriving us of the benefits of the account of any eyewitnesses to help guide the inquiry. Although the isolation of the western hemisphere allowed the humans there to develop distinctive cultures, some disadvantages became clear the moment Europeans appeared.

Native American Culture should be saved the human people. They need our help to keep the language and traditions alive. The Navajos are going outside the territory to find jobs to support their families because the economy isn’t very good. Like the rest Native American territories they mostly rely on the Federal Government for support. But that isn’t helping them enough with money and resources to keep the culture around.

Native American cultures and societies were without a doubt dynamic. Each society and their culture were comprised of various aspects including: creation stories, morals, beliefs and overall ways of living. Native Americans would base their beliefs on scientific, religious, or mythological studies. Unfortunately, with each society’s different style of living, it would lead to the demise of many tribes. External structural forces are circumstances that are beyond our control. It contains larger forces and institutions that one cannot personally stop. On the contrary, a historical agency is comprised of people who manifest history or history that people brought about. Throughout Native American societies, events occurred that shaped the

When asking a child, educated or not, what they ideas are when they hear the term Native American where does they mind venture to? More than likely do they not consider the former House of Representative, Charles D. Curtis or professor pitcher Joba Chamberlain. But they also do not think of a Native American as being an average person, a boy/girl like themselves. What children believe to be Native American are descriptions such as, feather headdresses, tomahawks, and long braided hair or scalped hair. This cartoon, Hollywood based description is not limited to the mind of a child, but it is what most Americans think of when they hear the term Native America. This icon of Native Americanism is a by-product of the long-lasting term, savages. Savages, by definition are “people regarded as primitive and uncivilized” . Throughout their history American Indians have had the trademark of savagery which has allowed Europeans to isolate, assimilate and mistreat this culture. In result, there has been a phenomenon, in which this paper will discuss as well as the history of savagery in the United States.

“There does not seem to be one definitive definition of indigenous people, but generally indigenous people are those that have historically belonged to a particular region or country, before its colonization or transformation into a nation state, and may have different—often unique—cultural, linguistic, traditional, and other characteristics to those of the dominant culture of that region or state” (Rights) The land to Native Americans is a very sacred object. To us, as nonnative individuals, we don’t look at the land the same. As agriculturists we have a respect for the land and want to maintain its fertility so it can continue to bless us with crops. While a ski bum may have respect for the mountains and terrain that was given to them to be able to ski and enjoy. Native Americans see the land as a whole. They as people don’t just respect it for certain entities they respect it for everything it has given to them. “Their ancestral land has a fundamental importance for their collective physical and cultural survival as peoples. Indigenous peoples hold their own diverse concepts of development, based on their traditional values, visions, needs and priorities.” As nonnative individuals it should be our job to help protect these sacred lands, and restore what damage that has been done to them. But instead, big companies are destroying sacred land all over the United States by mining, drilling for oil, or even building for scientific research.

Indian economy had experienced major policy changes in early 1990s. The new economic reform, popularly known as, Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization (LPG model) aimed at making the Indian economy as fastest growing economy and globally competitive. The series of reforms undertaken with respect to industrial sector, trade as well as financial sector aimed at making the economy more efficient.