Indian Tribes #2

Fun Facts About Indian Tribes

• Aleut people traditionally crafted highly waterproof, breathable clothing from seal, sea-lion and bear intestines, sewn with fine stitches using a technique perfected over 4,000 years ago. They lived in partially udnerground homes to shelter themselves from the harsh Alaskan climate.
• The Cherokee Nation is the largest U.S. tribe, known for its sophisticated culture with a written constitution from 1839, predating Oklahoma's statehood. Today it has over 450,000 citizens.
• The Chickasaw were renowned warriors and strategic allies to the British. Located in the southeastern United States, they were often called the "Spartans of the Lower Mississippi."
• The Chippewa people are renowned for havesting wild rice, the only grain native to North America. They traditionally traveled in canoes to gather rice and were known as expert builders of wigwams.
• The Creek governed themselves through a network of towns rather than through a single, centralized state, with poitical authority resting at the local level.
• The Lakota (meaning "friends" or "allies") are one of the three major divisions of the Great Sioux Nation. They are renowned for their historic reliance on buffalo and for defending the Black Hills against gold-seeking settlers.
• The Navajo are the second-largest, federally recognized tribe in the U.S. Their language was used to create an unbreakable code during World War II.