Which indians used canoes

Today, birch-bark canoes. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them. T he first Europeans in the Western hemisphere had only to look around them to find new ways of doing things.

For example, North America has a vast network of lakes and rivers, and Native Americans had created the Indian canoe to make use of that resource. Now and then we find a technology that does much more than just catch on. Some ideas are so right that people improve them until they fit their purpose perfectly and finally accept almost no further improvement.

The Indian canoe is one such technology. Minnesota, my childhood home, is called the Land of 10, Lakes , and all those lakes have canoes on them. Nowadays, most are made of aluminum or fiberglass, with polystyrene floats in the bow and stern. But their form is still identical with the Indian birch-bark canoe. Native Americans kept little that we can call written records, and, since canoes were completely biodegradable, we have no archaeological remains either. Our earliest records of canoes are sketches left by the first European explorers.

They show this ancient craft only fluctuating about one nearly perfect design. Ojibwe birchbark canoe. Penobscot birch bark canoe. Bark canoes , used primarily in the Northeast Woodlands and Great Lakes areas, are a lightweight boat style consisting of birch-bark or elm-bark stretched over a wooden frame.

Here is a page of images comparing different tribal styles of birchbark boats. Chumash plank canoe. Plank canoes are an uncommon kind of American Indian canoe, used primarily on the West Coast, in which planks of cedar wood were seamed together instead of a single log being hollowed out.

Except for this more complicated construction technique, the style of these boats was similar to dugouts made by neighboring tribes. Picture of Mandan bullboats. The people believed in many deities, and prayed in song and dance for guidance. Explore the darkening land, battle techniques, clans and marriage, law and order, and more. Travel the Trail of Tears. Some tribes wandered the plains in search of foods. Others settled down and grew crops. They spoke different languages.

Why was the buffalo so important? What different did horses make? What was coup counting? Who was Clever Coyote? Southwest Indians - Pueblo is not the name of a tribe. It is a Spanish word for village. The Pueblo People are the decedents of the Anasazi People.

The Navajo and the Apache arrived in the southwest in the s. They both raided the peaceful Pueblo tribes for food and other goods. Who were the Devil Dancers? Why are blue stones important? What is a wickiup? Who was Child of Water? Why were woven mats so important? How did totem poles get started? What was life like in the longhouse? What were money blankets and coppers? How did the fur trade work? How did Raven Steal Crow's Potlatch?

Inland Plateau People - About 10, years ago, different tribes of Indians settled in the Northwest Inland Plateau region of the United States and Canada, located between two huge mountain ranges - the Rockies and the Cascades.