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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Eastern Beads, Western Applications Wampum Among Plains Tribes, Jordan Keagle
Eastern Beads, Western Applications Wampum Among Plains Tribes, Jordan Keagle
Great Plains Quarterly
In the seventeenth century, when Europeans first arrived in what are now the New England and mid-Atlantic states, they encountered a wide array of indigenous tribes already calling the land home. The new setrlers soon realized the importance of shell beads called wampum. Manufactured primarily along Long Island Sound, these beads, shaped from marine shells, could be made into belts or grouped as strings.1 Though whites failed to grasp the nuances of wampum culture, leading to the generalization of wampum as "Indian money," they nevertheless recognized its significance in Native American trade and diplomacy. Eventually, wampum came to be …
Indians And Empires Cultural Change Among The Omaha And Pawnee, From Contact To 1808, Kurt E. Kinbacher
Indians And Empires Cultural Change Among The Omaha And Pawnee, From Contact To 1808, Kurt E. Kinbacher
Great Plains Quarterly
The Great Plains is in the middle of everywhere. It has been crossed and recrossed for tens of thousands of years. Because of its central location, the region served as a historical laboratory where people were "forever imagining new environments and trying to muscle them into being."l In what is now the state of Nebraska-the very center of the middle-divergent groups of Native Americans claimed vast territories and created dynamic cultures. Among these peoples were the Omaha, who settled on the Missouri River, and the Pawnee, who lived in the Platte Valley. Four empires-Spain, France, Great Britain, and the United …