Overview
Lesson 1: Introduction to Relationships between Humans and the Environment
Lesson 2: Forest Succession (Primary)
Lesson 3: Native Americans and Berries
Lesson 4: Native Americans and Science
Lesson 5: Dangers to Wild Berries; Responsibility of Peopl
Lesson 3, Day 1
Suggested Strategies
Hopefully, a guest speaker can attend this day and talk to your class.
Alternatively, ASK CTWS FOR ANY RECOMMENDATIONS ON AGE-APPROPRIATE VIDEO.
Lesson 3, Day 2 (or Day 1 if no guest speaker or video available)
Standards
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS
EL.06.WR.02—Discuss ideas for writing with classmates, teachers, and other writers, and develop drafts alone and collaboratively.
EL.06.WR.10—Write for different purposes and to a specific audience or person, adjusting tone and style as necessary.
CD Segments to Play
Background
A Reservation is an area of land that the U.S. government created in exchange for homelands ceded (traded) by a Treaty. A Treaty is an agreement, like a promise, that the U.S. government made with the Native American Tribes throughout the country. The reason for the Treaties was so that American citizens could buy property to build houses and create towns and States which eventually led to the United States of America. The Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute Tribes signed a treaty trading their traditional territory for the Warm Springs Reservation. The Treaty also had other promises, including a promise that the Tribes would be able to continue to hunt, fish and gather foods and medicines in their usual and accustomed areas.
Suggested Strategies
Go to the Lewis and Clark Rediscovery Project site at HYPERLINK “http://l3.ed.uidaho.edu/ShowOneObject.asp?SiteID=66&ObjectID=945&ExpeditionID”http://l3.ed.uidaho.edu/ShowOneObject.asp?SiteID=66&ObjectID=945&ExpeditionID
Click on the following tabs and print out the maps:
Current Reservation Boundaries; Reservation Boundaries of 1855; Traditional Territory of the Warm Springs and Wasco; Traditional Territory of the Paiute; and the Key Locations.
Activities
1. Role play
These three tribes, the Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute Tribes once lived independently. Divide the students into three groups. Have each group move together in the room. Assign a name to each group; Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute.
Tell the Warm Springs Tribe: You lived along the Columbia River and the smaller rivers that connect to the Columbia River. Because you lived along rivers, salmon was very important to you. You build scaffolds over waterfalls so that you could catch a lot of fish with nets called dip nets. You had both winter and summer homes, and you spoke a language called Sahaptin. You traded a lot with the Wasco Tribe. Give them maps of the Traditional Territory of the Warm Springs and Wasco and the Key Locations.
Tell the Wasco Tribe: You lived on the Columbia River and salmon were very important to you. You fished liked the Warm Springs Tribe with scaffolds and dip nets. You spoke a language of Chinookan and you traded with other Chinookan tribes and with the Warm Springs Tribe. You traded things like root bread, salmon meal (ground up salmon) and bear grass (something used in basket weaving). Give them maps of the Traditional Territory of the Warm Springs and Wasco and the Key Locations.
Tell the Paiute Tribe: You lived in southeastern Oregon, Nevada, Idaho and western Utah. Salmon was not very important. You lived on things like deer and elk. You didn’t trade much with the Warm Springs or the Wasco Tribes. You spoke a dialect of language called Shoshonean. You didn’t get along very well with the Wasco or the Warm Springs Tribes. Give them maps of the Traditional Territory of the Paiute and the Key Locations.
Give each “Tribe” a few minutes to talk to each other about their tribe.
Tell the entire class that each of their Tribes had their own homelands, their own language, their own foods, their own ways of preparing foods and their own ways of celebrating special events. Tribes lived in areas of land, commonly referred to as homelands or territories. They did not believe that they owned the lands, but that they were caretakers of the land. In addition to the homelands, Native American tribes had areas of land called usual and accustomed area of lands. Usual and accustomed area means lands that the Native Americans would travel to in addition to their homelands to hunt, fish, and gather foods and medicines.
To help the students understand this concept, use a large city park as an example. It would be helpful if you could use a park in the area that your students are familiar with. The area of the park which holds the playground equipment is the area that the children normally play in (like the Tribes who lived in their homelands). But, the children might also go to a far corner of the park to play baseball, or go to a different part of the park to have a barbeque or take a hike. These areas of the park are like the usual and accustomed lands that the Tribes would go to for hunting, fishing, etc.
Point out the number of mountains within the Tribes’ traditional territories. Ask the students if they think berries are important to their Tribe.
Remind the students that berries live in the mountain ranges and on the edges of mountains. An “edge” in ecological terms, is the area of land where the mountains end and the meadows begin. Edges are important for berries and other shrubs because this a natural area where the shrubs can trees grow bigger and create more and more shade that prevents the shrubs from growing.
Ask if anyone knows what an Indian Reservation is?
Now pass out the maps of the Current Reservation Boundaries and the Reservation Boundaries of 1855. This is the Reservation land that they had to move to. The Tribes were forced to move to this Reservation, at that time there were lots of fighting going on because the new people wanted to live in the territories of the Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute Tribes. Many Native Americans died from fighting with the military and from starvation. The Chiefs were trying to make the best decisions to save their people, so while they didn’t want to sign the Treaty, they had no choice but to do so.
Ask: What are some of the problems that might have happened when the tribes were forced to live together?
There are many answers, two big problems were the language differences and the fact that the Paiute Tribe didn’t get along with the Warm Springs and Wasco Tribes. Other problems were the foods. Not all the foods were available on the Reservation, and in the beginning of the Reservation years, the Native Americans were not allowed to leave the Reservation to gather, hunt and fish like the Treaty promised. Other problems were of a spiritual nature, the Tribes weren’t allowed to travel to their traditional ceremonial grounds and in the late 1800s all Native American ceremonies were against the law. The medicine men and women also didn’t know where the plant medicines grew on the new Reservation. Point out the mountains in and around the Warm Springs Reservation.
Ask: Do you think that berries remained important to the Tribes when they moved to the Reservation?
The answer is yes. Berries continued to be an important food source. Huckleberry Feasts continue to be an important ceremony for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Remind the students of the information they learned from Lesson 2, Day 2: “To show respect to the berries, special events were held. Before anyone could begin picking huckleberries, a Huckleberry Feast was held. To care for all things, no one ever picked all of the berries. They left some for the birds and animals. To care for the plants, they never damaged the shrub, but very carefully picked only the berries. They had special berry picking baskets they used and special hats they wore at Huckleberry Feasts. To make sure that the berries would come back the next year, they set fires to keep the small trees from growing so big that they took all the food, water and sunlight. After a fire the first plants to grow back are favorite foods for the deer and elk, so the fires also helped the animals.” After the move to the Reservation, fires were not allowed.
In 1937, the Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute Tribes became the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. The new Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is a government; commonly tribes are called sovereign nations. A sovereign nation is similar to an entirely separate country. The United States of America has a constitution. Within the constitution are requirements for people to be citizens. People born in the United States are citizens, and sometimes people from other countries are allowed to become citizens. The United States makes laws that govern all of the 50 states, and within the constitution of the United States are rules that allow the 50 states to make their own laws as long as they don’t conflict with the federal laws. Sovereign nations, like the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs also have their own Constitution. They have rules for who can be tribal members (citizens) and they have the right to make their own laws on their Reservation. Like the 50 states, the laws that the Tribes make cannot conflict with federal laws. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs have created many different offices to help them govern their tribal members and their Reservation. One of their offices is the Natural Resource Management Services. The people who work in this office also work with state and federal agencies in managing the natural and cultural resources off the Reservation.
2. Homework
Tell the class to think about how berries grow and to write down or draw one thing that might be dangerous to berries; this doesn’t need to be turned in until Lesson 5.
