by
Kathryn Page Camp
As a child, I was
fascinated with Native American history. Well, that isn’t quite accurate. I was
actually fascinated with the Native American culture and lifestyle back before
the days when they were herded onto reservations or integrated into white
society.
I grew up in Chippewa
County, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. There were no Native Americans in the
immediate area at the time, but there were plenty of historical reminders that
they were the original inhabitants. My father got a month’s worth of vacation
every year, and we spent many of those vacations traveling around the United
States (as well as spending time in other countries). On those U.S. vacations,
I visited and learned about various Native American sites. All of that peaked
my interest.
One thing I quickly
learned was to discount the stereotype of nomadic hunters chasing buffalos and
living in tipis. Although many of the plains dwellers fit that stereotype,
using it is like saying that all modern-day Americans live in stately homes surrounded
by Magnolia trees.
The way Native Americans
lived was dictated by their environment. Their primary means of obtaining food
ranged from farming to fishing to hunting animals to gathering plants, and they
often used a variety of these methods. Their shelters ranged from tipis to grass
houses to wood homes to adobe apartment buildings such as the pueblo shown in
the picture above. The plains dwellers lived in tipis because they needed
something that was easy to pack up and move and because the materials (buffalo
skins, for example), were easy to come by.
In parts of the
Southwest, on the other hand, game was scarce and many Native American groups
relied on farming. Since clay was plentiful and people didn’t have to move
around to find food, they built permanent structures such as the one pictured
above.
Then there were the Chippewa
and others who lived off of the forests and rivers of the upper Midwest. They
tended to move often during the summer and stay in one place during the
winter, or sometimes the other way around.
Native Americans did whatever they could to adapt to
their environment.
So if you want to write a
historical novel that includes Native Americans, do your research. Putting
buffalos and tipis in Florida makes as much sense as populating California with
Southern accents.
And someone will notice
your error.
__________
The photograph at the head of this blog is from a slide my
father took in 1965 on a family vacation to the western U.S. This picture shows
a Native American pueblo in Arizona. I don’t know if it was an original
structure or—more likely—a reproduction built for the tourist crowd, but it is
one of the buildings that peaked my interest. In any event, it shows that not
all Native Americans lived in tipis.
__________
Kathryn Page Camp is a
licensed attorney and full-time writer. Her most recent book, Writers in Wonderland: Keeping Your Words
Legal (KP/PK Publishing 2013), is a Kirkus’
Indie Books of the Month Selection. Kathryn is also the author of In God We Trust: How the Supreme Court’s
First Amendment Decisions Affect Organized Religion (FaithWalk Publishing
2006) and numerous articles. You can learn more about Kathryn at www.kathrynpagecamp.com.
