Native Americans for Kids - customs, culture, stories, myths
Enter a world very different from your own. Take part in a booger ceremony. Meet spirit guides and storytellers. Learn about table manners, village life, battle techniques, the 3 sisters, the snow snake games, secret messages, the naming ceremony, the arrowmaker, and the butterfly game. Enter the darkening land and meet clever coyote, a very bad raven, and solve symbol stories.
Today, neat frame houses have replaced former wigwams and tepees. Native Americans today have a variety of jobs, including doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, ministers, writers, artists, and workers of all sorts. But they also hold jobs like tribal leaders. Tribes are ruled by representative tribal governments. Although kids attend public school, they also attend tribal school, where they learn the fascinating and clever customs of their people, some of which are still in practice today.
Explore the Iroquois, the Navajo, the Apache, the Hopi, the Sioux, the Cherokee, the Lenape, the Ojibwa/Chippewa, the Seminoles, the Anasazi, the Pueblo, the Pacific Coastal Indians and other principal tribes. Welcome to Native Americans in olden times.
Principal TribesNortheast Woodland Tribes and Nations Southeast Woodland Tribes and Nations Northwest Pacific Coastal Tribes Native Americans of the Far North, Arctic, the Inuit Comparison Chart (Europeans & Native Americans) Indian Removal, Trail of Tears
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Customs, Beliefs
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Myths, Stories, LegendsClever Coyote (Plains People) Wise Owl (Iroquois Creation Myth) The Invisible Warrior (Woodland) Child of Water and Little Blue Rock (Apache Myth) How Raven Stole Crow's Potlatch (NW Coastal Pacific) Ye ho waah (Cherokee Myth) Word The Medicine Man (many) Word The Hero Twins (Maya) Place of the Prickly Pear Cactus (Aztec) Word Journey of a Princess (Aztec) Manco Capac (Inca) Word
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For Teachers:
Free Use Lesson Plans for Teachers
Free Use Classroom Activity Ideas
Our thanks to the many people who helped us with this site.
Dr. Adams. Over the years, Dr. Adams has been a consultant to the Sioux, Winnebago, Fox, and other tribes in the Midwest on community development. He also participated in a federal project for communication and values differences among cultures, resulting in a website - a multicultural toolkit.
Thanks to several of our old professors and some new ones, identified throughout our site, such as Dr.Peter Bakker (alf.let.uva.nl) who helped us to understand why Native Americans, unlike other ancient cultures, did not use proverbs. They used other ways to teach their kids.
Washington State History Museum, Tacoma, WA, for our private tour, with a research opportunity to learn more.
This site could not have been written without the many Native American people from many tribes and nations across the USA, who, although they did not want their names to be listed, generously shared information with us about their tribal history, customs, myths, and culture. We are most grateful for their help.
Books we used - This link takes you to the list of books we used.
A frequently asked question: What is the correct terminology: American Indian, Indian, Native American, First People, Native? The answer from the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian is: "All of these terms are acceptable. The consensus, however, is that whenever possible, Native people prefer to be called by their specific tribal name."
