Christine Y. House
INDIAN WOMEN OF THE WEST
There is little written information about the lives of Indians and especially Indian women during the period of westward expansion because Indians did not have a written language. Most of the information that is available has been gathered by anthropologists or gleaned from the diaries and journals of those who encountered Indians in their travels. Some Indians were friendly and helpful, others were less so. Some lived in established villages, others were nomadic.
The purpose of this lesson is to help the students “discover” that the West was inhabited by many different groups of Indians who lived in various parts of the West. The will examine the various regions of this area and identify them. Specifically we will be identifying the tribes from:
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the Northwest (the Cayuse, the Nez Perce, the Haida, the Kwakuitl, the Blackfoot, the Shoshone.)
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the Great Plains (the Pawnee, the Cheyenne, the Kiowa, the Arapahoe, the Comanche, the Mandan, the Wichita.)
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California (the Poma, the Wintun, the Salinin, the Costanoan.)
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the Southwest ( the Navajo, the Hopi, the Apache, the Rio Grande Pueblo tribes, the Zuni.)
We will use a series of books published by Children’s Press which focus on the specific tribes. While these books deal with modern life in the various tribes, they also provide some background on the history of the tribes. We will examine whether they lived in established villages or were nomads. Specifically, we will try to discover the roles, rights and responsibilities of women and how they compare with those of the other women who moved into the West.
We will also read the story of a child who was kidnapped by Indians. The book will be either
Indian Captive: the story of Mary Jemison
by Lois Lenski or
Indian Annie: Kiowa captive
by Alice Marriott (most likely the latter since the events occurred in the West.) We will discuss the book to discover how women are depicted and what their roles were. The students will be asked to write a critique of the book discussing the parts they liked, as well as those that they did not like. Students will be asked to share and defend their points of view.