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Videos of the Week
Shoshone-Bannock History in Idaho PART I OF II: 2008's historic Idaho Democratic Convention, held in Boise, ID, June 12-14, invited Idaho Native American Tribal members from the Shoshone-Bannock/Fort Hall, Shoshone-Paiute/Duck Valley, Nez Perce, and Coeur D'Alene tribal communities to take an active part in the convention activities. On June 12th, the Idaho AFL-CIO hosted a Democratic picnic for convention goers. Mr. Ted Howard, Cultural Resource Director, Duck Valley, spoke to picnic participants about the Shoshone-Paiute-Bannock history in the Boise Valley area. 9:49 minutes.
Part II-Grand Entry, Flag Ceremony and Recessional All convention tribal members participated in the grand entry at the beginning of the June 13th Idaho Democratic Convention gathering followed by a flag ceremony and presentation by Mr. Lee Juan Tyler, Council Member, Shoshone-Bannock/Fort Hall community. Fort Hall and Duck Valley singers and drummers played songs for the grand entry, flag ceremony and recessional.
9:59 minutes
7 Generations Elder Orin Lyons talks about preparing for the next 7 generations. 8:43 minutes
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Learn about native american indian culture & traditions, American Indian languages, arts & crafts, and native american history from the tribal perspective. Current events, news, stories & issues of concern to native americans. Education for non-indians on cultures, beliefs & perspectives of the indigenous native americans of North America.
QUESTION:
Is the earring worn by Russel Means in the role of Chingachgook in the 1992 movie, The Last of the Mohicans, an authentic Mohican design?
~Submitted by Reverend Keith
Answer: THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS
is the second part of a five-book series written by author James Fenimore Cooper called The Leatherstocking Tales. Leatherstocking Country refers to the area around Albany, New York, that includes Cooperstown, where the author grew up. It is a fictional work based loosely on historical facts, and the author made some mistakes.
The story told in The Last of the Mohicans is set in 1757 during the Seven Years' War (known in America as the French and Indian War), when France and the United Kingdom battled for control of the American and Canadian colonies.
He gave several of his Mohican characters Mohegan names and placed their homeland in Mohegan territory. The real Mohegan (not Mohican) sachum, Ungus, died in 1693. Because of this error, some people still call the Mohegans who live in Connecticut "Mohicans" today. The Hollywood adaptation of his book further romanticized and embellished the story with scenes that are not historically factual. The earring in question is just one example.
Because of this movie, many people still believe the Mohicans are an extinct tribe, when, in fact, more than 1,500 Mohicans live in Wisconsin today. We now know them as the The Stockbridge - Munsee Band of the Mohicans, because they share their reservation with the Munsee Indians. Small groups of Mohicans also live in New York, Connecticut, and Ohio. Mahican is a mispelling of Mohican, which is used interchangably today.
According to a Mohican oral history that was written down in 1734, the ancestors of the Mohicans "...emigrated from the west by north of another country; they passed over the great waters, where this and the other country is nearly connected."
According to this account of a Bering Strait crossing, the islands of the west were close together and the nearby water [Pacific Ocean] was effected by the tides, giving rise to their name "Muhheconnuk," (Muh-he-con-nuk), which means "great waters or sea, which are constantly in motion, either flowing or ebbing."
The narrator of this oral history said the early ancestors had been more civilized than their descendants. He said, "In time, there arose a mighty famine which obliged them to disperse throughout the regions of the wilderness after sustenance, and at length we lost our ways of former living. As they were coming from the west, they found many great waters, but none of them were flowing and ebbing like Muhheakunnuk, until they came to Hudson's River; then they said one to another, 'this is like Muhheakunnuk, our nativity'."
The Mohican ancestors soon found new homelands in the valleys of the eastern rivers, first settling on the banks of the Hudson River.
The oral history continued, "The people who first came to the upper Hudson River Valley were the ancestors of the Mohicans, Pequots and the Mohegans. Before these people were known by these names, they were all Delaware. The Mohican clans, which are matriarchial, were the turtle, the bear and the wolf."
It is from the Delaware (Lenni Lenape) that most Algonquian woodland peoples descend, and thus, the Delaware are referred to as 'grandfathers'. This Delaware parentage is supported by linguistic, cultural, and geographical evidence, as well as many traditions among the Algonquians.
The oral history continues, "The ancestors of the Mohiingan (meaning wolf), now called Mohegans, left this area and migrated west, becoming known as the Pequots, the invaders. Then some of the ancestors of the Mohegans separated from the Pequots. Thus, these three distinct cultures can trace their history back to some of the same ancestors."
There are no previous written records of this, but the first people of the area were living there over 12,000 years ago. Clovis points have been found in the Hudson River Valley dating to that era. The Mohegans, Mohicans, and Pequots have been separate and distinct nations for hundreds of years, well before 1609, when James Hudson first encountered them.
Long after their eastward migration, the Mohicans intermarried with other tribes and had become a detached body, mixing two languages together, and forming out of the two a dialect of their own, choosing to live by themselves.
The Delaware oral tradition has the Shawnee contributing to this new dialect and speaks of the Mohicans asking on behalf of the Shawnee for permission to settle the Ohio River region. The patriarchal Delaware granted the request and the Ohio River country became home to the Shawnee.
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is the second part of a five-book series written by author James Fenimore Cooper called The Leatherstocking Tales. Leatherstocking Country refers to the area around Albany, New York, that includes Cooperstown, where the author grew up. It is a fictional work based loosely on historical facts, and the author made some mistakes. 
