Monthly Archives: November 2024

Totemism

Posted on November 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Totemism: Complex of ideas and practices based on the belief in kinship or mystical relationship between a group (or individual) and a natural object, such as an animal or a plant. The term derives from the Ojibwa word ototeman, signifying a blood relationship. A society exhibits totemism if it is divided into an apparently fixed number of clans, each of which has a specific relationship to an animate or inanimate species (totem). A totem many be a feared or respected hunted animal or an edible plant. Very commonly connected with origin myths and with instituted morality, the totem is almost always hedged about with taboos of avoidance or of strictly ritualized contact. Totem, taboo, and exogamy seem to be inextricably intertwined.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Cultural Literacy: Manifest Destiny

Posted on November 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of Manifest Destiny in United States history. This ideological oddity, which is really more of a theological than a political and social concept, held that Americans were destined, perhaps by the will of God, to expand across America to the Pacific Ocean.

In other words, basically a garbage idea that was used to justify and conduct a genocide against the aboriginal inhabitants of this continent.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Sand Creek Massacre or Chivington Massacre

Posted on November 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Sand Creek Massacre or Chivington Massacre: November 29, 1864) Surprise attack by U.S. troops on a Cheyenne camp. A force of 1,200 men, mostly Colorado volunteers, under Colonel John M. Chivington attacked several hundred Cheyenne camped on Sand Creek near Fort Lyon in southeastern Colorado territory. The Indians had been conducting peace negotiations with the fort’s commander; when the attack began, they raised a white flag, but the troops continued to attack, massacring over 200 Indians. The slayings led to the Plains Indian wars.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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The Weekly Text, 8 November 2024, National Native American Heritage Month Week II: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on Colonialism

Posted on November 8, 2024 | Leave a comment

OK, for the second Friday of National Native American Month 2024, here is a reading on colonialism along with its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. I assume I needn’t belabor the disaster that colonialism visited upon indigenous peoples all over the world–the literature on the subject is vast (but if you need a recommendation, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown is an excellent place to start, as is King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild).

I have, at times, been highly irritated and offended at the way colonialism is soft-pedaled in the high school social studies curriculum, particularly as, historically, I have tended to serve students predominantly with familial and ancestral roots in former colonies who know, with their families, of course, they are being fed (and then tested on, for what else is the point of learning something if you can’t pass a test on it?) a line of crap in their global studies courses.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Iroquoian Languages

Posted on November 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Iroquoian languages: Family of about 16 North American Indian languages aboriginally spoken around the eastern Great Lakes and in parts of the Middle Atlantic states and the South. Aside from the languages of the Iroquois Confederacy (Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, all originally spoken in New York, along with Tuscarora, originally spoken in North Carolina) and Cherokee (originally spoken in the southern Appalachians), the Iroquoian languages are extinct and with the exception of Huron and Wyandot, the extinct languages are poorly documented. Iroquoian languages are remarkable for their grammatical intricacy, Much of a sentence’s semantic content is bound around a verbal base, so a single very long word may constitute a fairly complex utterance.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Cultural Literacy: The Last of the Mohicans

Posted on November 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on The Last of the Mohicans, the novel by James Fenimore Cooper.  This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of two sentences (the first a compound separated by a semicolon with three comprehension questions.

I’ve never read Cooper; he was one of my father’s scholarly specialties, so I suppose I was aware of Cooper from an early age. Although I have never read it, I am familiar, through reading Edmund Wilson, with Mark Twain’s essay “James Fenimore Cooper’s Literacy Offenses.” I have also not seen the 1992 filmed version of Cooper’s book. I was, however, at age eleven or twelve, quite taken with the BBC series of The Last of the Mohicans, which arrived on these shores as one of the early Masterpiece Theater presentations.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Iriquois Confederacy or League of the Iroquois

Posted on November 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Iriquois Confederacy or League of the Iroquois: Confederation of five (later six) Indian tribes across upper New York that in the 17th-18th centuries played a strategic role in the struggle between the French and British for supremacy in North America. The five original nations were the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca; the Tuscarora joined in 1722. According to tradition, the confederacy was founded between 1570 and 1600 by Dekanawidah, born a Huron, carrying out the earlier ideas of Hiawatha, and Onondaga. Cemented mainly by their desire to stand together against invasion, the tribes united in a common council composed of 50 sachems; each tribe had one vote, and unanimity was the rule. At first the confederacy barely withstood attacks from the Huron and Mahican, but by 1628 the Mohawk had defeated the Mahican and established themselves as the region’s dominant tribe. When the Iroquois destroyed the Huron in 1648-50, they were attacked by the Huron’s French allies. During the American Revolution, the Oneida and Tuscarora sided with the Americans while the rest of the league, led by Joseph Brant, fought for the British. The Loyalist Iroquois were defeated in 1779 near Elmira, New York, and the confederacy came to an end.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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Cultural Literacy: Iroquois League

Posted on November 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the Iroquois League. This is a half-page worksheet with a reading of on sentence and one comprehension question. In other words, a short, basic introduction to this indigenous nation.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Iroquois

Posted on November 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

“Iriquois: Any member of the Iroquois Confederacy or more broadly, any speaker of Iroquoian languages. Iroquoian-speaking peoples were semisedentary, practiced agriculture, palisaded their villages, and dwelled in longhouses that lodged many families. Women worked the fields and, in matrilineal groups, helped determine the makeup of village councils. Men built houses, hunted, fished, and made war. Iroquoian mythology was largely preoccupied with supernatural aggression and cruelty, sorcery, torture, and cannibalism. Their formal religion consisted of agricultural festivals. Warfare was ingrained in Iroquois society, and war captives were often tortured for days or made permanent slaves, Today the various Iroquois tribes include about 20,000 members.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

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The Weekly Text, 1 November 2024, National Native American Heritage Month Week I: A Reading and Comprehension Worksheet on the Pequot War

Posted on November 1, 2024 | Leave a comment

Today begins National Native American Heritage Month 2024. Unlike this blog’s (therefore my own) woeful deficiencies during Hispanic Heritage Month 2023 last month and in September, I have a full raft of materials to post this month–which contains five Fridays.

So the Weekly Text for today, Friday, 1 November 2014, is this reading on the Pequot War along with its attendant vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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