DEPARTMENT
OF MODERN LANGUAGES
DEPARTMENT
OF MODERN LANGUAGES
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"The Great Spirit is in all things, it is in the air we breath. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the Earth is our Mother. She nourishes us; that which we put into the ground, she returns to us,..."
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Long before the Europeans set foot on North American Soil, the American Indians, or rather the Native Americans, had been living on the American Continents. When the Europeans arrived, there was an estimated 100 million Indians populating North America and present-day Mexico. It is believed that the first native Americans enterd the American continents during the 3rd Ice Age, approximatly 60,000 years ago. The three oldest documented Indian cultures in North America are Sandia (25,000 BC), Clovis (18,000 BC) and Folsom (12,000 BC).Although it is believed that the Indians originated in Asia, few, if any, actually came from India. The name "Indian" was first applied to them by Christopher Columbus, who mistakenly believed that the American mainland was part of the Indies.
When Europeans started to arrive in the 16th and 17th centuries they were enthusiastically met by Native Americans. The natives regarded their white-complexioned visitors as something of a marvel, not only for their outlandish dress and beards and the winged ships. Their technology was even more astonishing to them - steel knives and swords, fire-belching guns and cannons, mirrors, bells, earrings, copper and brass kettles, and so on.Conflicts soon arose. As a starter, the arriving Europeans seemed attuned to another world: They appeared to be oblivious to the rythms and spirit of nature. Nature to the Europeans, the Native Americans soon detected, was something of an obstacle and even an enemy at times. It was also a commodity - A forest was so many broad feet of timber, a beaver colony so many pelts, a herd of buffalo so many robes and tongues. Even the Indians were a resource - souls ripe for Jesuit, Dominican, and Puritan plucking.
| Class Offerings: Fall 2000 |
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