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Hopi

Hopi

The Hopi are a Native American nation who primarily live on the 1.5 million acre (6,000 km²) Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The reservation is surrounded by the Navajo reservation.

Name

The name Hopi is the shortened form of the title to what they called themselves, "Hopituh Sinom", "the people of Hopi". Hopi is a concept deeply rooted in the culture's religion, spirituality, and its view of morality and ethics. To be Hopi is to strive toward this concept, but one never achieves in this life. This concept is one where you are in a state of total reverance and respect for all things, to be at peace with these things, and to live in accordance with the teachings of maasaw. A few Hopi live on the Colorado River Reservation on the Colorado River in western Arizona; for information, see Mohave. The traditional Hopi are organized into matrilineal clans. When a man marries, the children from the relationship are members of his wife's clan. The Bear Clan is one of the more prominent clans. The Hopi, more than most Native American peoples, retain and continue to practice their traditional ceremonial culture. However, like other tribes, they are severely impacted by the ambient American culture. Traditionally the Hopi were highly skilled subsistence farmers. With the installation of electricity and the necessity of having a motor vehicle and the other things which can be purchased, the Hopi have been moving into a cash economy with many people seeking and holding outside jobs as well as earning money from traditional crafts. The Hopi have been affected by missionary work by several religions and also by consumerism and alcoholism. Nevertheless there remains a traditionalist core.

External links

- [http://www.hopi.nsn.us/ Official Website of the Hopi Tribe]
- Category:Native American tribes Category:Hopi tribe ja:ホピ族

Native Americans in the United States

:This article is about the people indigenous to the United States. For broader uses of "Native American" and related terms, see Native Americans. Native Americans] Native Americans in the United States (also Indians, American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Peoples, Aboriginal Peoples, Aboriginal Americans, Amerindians, Amerinds, or Original Americans) are those indigenous peoples within the territory that is now encompassed by the continental United States, and their descendants in modern times. This collective term encompasses a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of them still enduring as political communities. A comprehensive tribal list can be found under "Classification of Native Americans." The U.S. states and several of the inhabited insular areas which do not form part of the continental U.S. territory also contain indigenous groups. These other indigenous peoples in the United States are not generally designated as "Native Americans". This includes groups such as the Alaska Natives (Inuit, Yupik, Aleut, etc.), Native Hawaiians (also known as Kanaka Māoli and Kanaka 'Oiwi), and various Pacific Islander peoples such as the Chamorros. There is some controversy surrounding the names used to describe these peoples. U.S. specific teminology considerations are also covered in the Terminology differences section, below.

Early history

See also: archeology of the Americas, models of migration to the New World, and indigenous people of the Americas for more detailed history and migration theories.

The Bering Strait Land Bridge theory

Based on anthropological and genetic evidence, most scientists believe that most Native Americans descend from people who migrated from Siberia across the Bering Land Bridge between 17,000 and 11,000 years ago, where the Bering Strait is today. The exact epoch and route is still a matter of controversy. It should be noted, however, that many Native Americans reject theories of modern anthropology, having their own traditional stories that offer accounts to their origins, which are seen only as folklore by the scientific community. The primarily Siberian origin is widely regarded as the most likely, consisting of at least three separate migrations from Siberia to the Americas:
- The first wave, during the late Pleistocene, would be the forerunners of the Clovis and Folsom cultures, both hunting the abundant large mammals of the virgin continent. This wave eventually spread over the entire hemisphere, as far south as Tierra del Fuego and is believed to have reached the New World no later than 11,000 years ago.
- The second migration brought the ancestors of the Na-Dene peoples. They lived in Alaska and western Canada, but some migrated as far south as the Pacific Northwestern U.S. and the American Southwest, and would be ancestral to the Dene, Apaches and Navajos. This group is believed to have reached North America between 6,000 to 8,000 years ago.
- The third wave brought the ancestors of the Inuit, Yupik and Aleut peoples. They may have come by sea over the Bering Strait, after the land bridge had disappeared. They are believed to have reached Alaska as late as 3,000 years ago. In recent years, molecular genetics studies have suggested as many as four distinct migrations from Asia. These studies also provide surprising evidence of smaller-scale, contemporaneous migrations from Europe, possibly by peoples who had adopted a lifestyle resembling that of Inuits and Yupiks during the last ice age. While many Native American groups retained a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle through the time of European occupation of the New World, in some regions, specifically in the Mississippi River valley of the United States, in Mexico, Central America, the Andes of South America, they built advanced civilizations with monumental architecture and large-scale organization into cities and states. A recent (2004) study has claimed evidence which, if accepted, would extensively revise the timeline of human habitation in the Americas. At the Topper site on the Savannah River near Allendale, South Carolina, a team led by University of South Carolina archaeologist Dr. Albert Goodyear reported recovering what they claimed to be stone tool artifacts from strata considerably below that of Clovis culture remains. Using stratigraphy and charcoal material found with the artifacts, radiocarbon dating performed by the University of California at Irvine Laboratory dated these remains to be at least 50,000 years old. This would indicate the presence of humans well before the termination of the last glaciation. Other archaeologists have disputed the dating methodology employed, and have also questioned whether these "artifacts" are not in fact naturally-formed, rather than of human manufacture. Other recent claims for pre-Clovis artifacts have similarly been made in some South American sites. The notion of pre-Clovis habitation continues to be a subject of scholarly debate, and the issue has not yet been satisfactorily resolved.

Settling down

By 1500 B.C. many tribes had settled into small indigenous communities. In several regions temporary hunter-gatherer settlements were transformed into small permanent or semi-permanent settlements and villages, frequently established in the regions such as river valleys which were conducive to the raising of crops. Several such societies and communities over time intensified this practice of established settlements, and grew to support sizeable and concentrated populations. Examples include those of the Mississippian Culture and the Pueblo peoples (Anasazi). They constructed large and complex earthworks, and were particularly skilled at small stone sculptures and engravings on shell and copper. Agriculture was independently developed in what is now the eastern United States by 2500 B.C., based on the domestication of indigenous sunflower, squash and goosefoot. Eventually, in the last eleven hundred years, the Mexican crops of corn and beans were adapted to the shorter summers of eastern North American and replaced the indigenous crops. The large pueblos, or villages, built on top of rocky talleland or mesas of Southwest around A.D. 700, were a complicated aggregate of family apartments. Towns were one large complex of buildings, with multistoried houses arranged around courtyards or plazas. Wooden ladders provided access to upper levels. Under the courtyards, subterranean kivas, or ceremonial structures, served as meeting rooms for religious societies. While exhibiting widely divergent social, cultural, and artistic expressions, all Native American groups worked with materials available to them and employed social arrangements that augmented their means of subsistence and survival.

European colonization

Initial impacts

The European colonization of the Americas forever changed the lives and cultures of the Native Americans. In the 15th to 19th centuries, their populations were ravaged, by the privations of displacement, by disease, and in many cases by warfare with European groups and enslavement by them. The first Native American group encountered by Christopher Columbus, the 250,000 Island Arawaks more properly called Taino of Haiti Quiskaya, Cubanacan (Cuba) and Boriquen as Puerto Rico were known then, were enslaved. It is said that only 500 survived by the year 1550, and the group was considered extinct before 1650. Yet DNA studies show that the genetic contribution of the Taino to that region continues, and the mitochondrial DNA studies of the Taino are said to show relationships to the Northern Indigenous Nations, such as Inuit (Eskimo) and others. In the 15th century Spaniards and other Europeans brought horses to the Americas. Some of these animals escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild. Ironically, the horse had originally evolved in the Americas, but the last American horses, were game for early hunters, and went extinct about 9000 years ago, just after the end of the last ice age. The re-introduction of the horse had a profound impact on Native American culture in the Great Plains of North America. This new mode of travel made it possible for some tribes to greatly expand their territories, exchange goods with neighboring tribes, and more easily capture game. Europeans also brought diseases against which the Native Americans had no immunity. Chicken pox and measles, though common and rarely fatal among Europeans, often proved fatal to Native Americans, and more dangerous diseases such as smallpox were especially deadly to Native American populations. It is difficult to estimate the total percentage of the Native American population killed by these diseases. Epidemics often immediately followed European exploration, sometimes destroying entire villages. Some historians estimate that up to 80% of some Native populations may have died due to European diseases. For more information, see population history of American indigenous peoples.

Early relations

During the Seven Years' War many Native Americans sided with France although some did fight alongside the British. During the American War of Independence, the newly proclaimed United States competed with the British for the allegiance of Native American nations east of the Mississippi River. Most Native Americans who joined the struggle sided with the British, hoping to use the war to halt colonial expansion onto American Indian land. Many native communities were divided over which side to support in the war. For the Iroquois Confederacy, the American Revolution resulted in civil war. Cherokees split into a neutral (or pro-American) faction and the anti-American Chickamaugas, led by Dragging Canoe. Many other communities were similarly divided. Frontier warfare during the American Revolution was particularly brutal, and numerous atrocities were committed on both sides. Noncombatants of both races suffered greatly during the war, and villages and food supplies were frequently destroyed during military expeditions. The largest of these expeditions was the Sullivan Expedition of 1779, which destroyed more than 40 Iroquois villages in order to neutralize Iroquois raids in upstate New York. The expedition failed to have the desired effect: American Indian activity became even more determined. Native Americans were stunned to learn that when the British made peace with the Americans in the Treaty of Paris (1783), the British had ceded a vast amount of American Indian territory to the United States without even informing their Indian allies. The United States initially treated the American Indians who had fought with the British as a conquered people who had lost their land. When this proved impossible to enforce (the Indians had lost the war on paper, not on the battlefield), the policy was abandoned. The United States was eager to expand, and the national government initially sought to do so only by purchasing Native American land in treaties. The states and settlers were frequently at odds with this policy.

Removal and reservations

Treaty of Paris (1783) In the 19th century, the incessant Westward expansion of the United States incrementally compelled large numbers of Native Americans to resettle further west, sometimes by force, almost always reluctantly. Under President Andrew Jackson, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which authorized the President to conduct treaties to exchange Indian land east of the Mississippi River for lands west of the river. As many as 100,000 American Indians eventually relocated in the West as a result of this Indian Removal policy. In theory, relocation was supposed to be voluntary (and many Indians did remain in the East), but in practice great pressure was put on American Indian leaders to sign removal treaties. Arguably the most egregious violation of the stated intention of the removal policy was the Treaty of New Echota, which was signed by a dissident faction of Cherokees, but not the elected leadership. The treaty was brutally enforced by President Martin Van Buren, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 4,000 Cherokees (mostly from disease) on the Trail of Tears. Conflicts generally known as "Indian Wars" broke out between U.S. forces and many different tribes. Authorities entered numerous treaties during this period, but later abrogated many for various reasons. Well-known military engagements include the Native American victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, and the massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee in 1890. On January 31, 1876 the United States government ordered all remaining Native Americans to move into reservations or reserves. This, together with the near-extinction of the American Bison which many tribes had lived on, set about the downturn of Prairie Culture that had developed around the use of the horse for hunting, travel and trading. Prairie Culture American policy toward Native Americans has been an evolving process. In the late nineteenth century reformers in efforts to "civilize" Indians adapted the practice of educating native children in Indian Boarding Schools. These schools, which were primarily run by Christians [http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?AuthorID=2616&id=7375], proved traumatic to Indian children, who were forbidden to speak their native languages, taught Christianity instead of their native religions and in numerous other ways forced to abandon their Indian identity[http://www.sacbee.com/static/archive/news/projects/native/day2_main.html] and adopt European-American culture. There are also many documented cases of sexual, physical and mental abuses occurring at these schools [http://www.prsp.bc.ca/history.html] [http://www.amnestyusa.org/amnestynow/soulwound.html].

Current status

There are 563 Federally recognized tribal governments in the United States. The United States recognizes the right of these tribes to self-government and supports their tribal sovereignty and self-determination. These tribes possess the right to form their own government; to enforce laws, both civil and criminal; to tax; to establish membership; to license and regulate activities; to zone; and to exclude persons from tribal territories. Limitations on tribal powers of self-government include the same limitations applicable to states; for example, neither tribes nor states have the power to make war, engage in foreign relations, or coin money. [http://usinfo.state.gov/eur/Archive/2005/Jan/28-691277.html] In addition, there are a number of tribes that are recognized by individual states, but not by the federal government. The rights and benefits associated with state recognition vary from state to state. Military defeat, cultural pressure, confinement on reservations, forced cultural assimilation, outlawing of native languages and culture, termination policies of the 1950s, and 1960s, and slavery have had deleterious effects on Native Americans' mental and physical health. Contemporary health problems include poverty, alcoholism, heart disease, diabetes, and New World Syndrome. As recently as the 1970s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was still actively pursuing a policy of "assimilation" [http://www.doiu.nbc.gov/orientation/bia2.cfm], the goal of which was to eliminate the reservations and steer Indians into mainstream U.S. culture. As of 2004, there are still claims of theft of Indian land for the coal and uranium it contains. [http://www.angelfire.com/band/senaaeurope/DRelocation.html] [http://www.shundahai.org/bigmtbackground.html] [http://lists.wayne.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9703&L=tamha&F=&S=&P=7661] [http://www.davidicke.net/emagazine/vol26/articles/tearsd.html] In the state of Virginia, Native Americans face a unique problem. Virginia has no federally recognized tribes, largely due to the work of one man, Walter Ashby Plecker. In 1912, Plecker became the first registrar of the state's Bureau of Vital Statistics, serving until 1946. An avowed white supremacist and fervent advocate of eugenics, Plecker believed that the state's Native Americans had been "mongrelized" with its African American population. A law passed by the state's General Assembly recognized only two races, "white" and "colored". Plecker pressured local governments into reclassifying all Native Americans in the state as "colored", leading to massive destruction of records on the state's Native American community. African American Even after his death, Plecker still haunts the state's Native American community. In order to receive federal recognition and the benefits it confers, tribes must prove their continuous existence since 1900. Plecker's policies have made it impossible for Virginia tribes to do so. The federal government, while aware of Plecker's destruction of records, has so far refused to bend on this bureaucratic requirement. A bill currently before U.S. Congress to ease this requirement has been favorably reported out of a key Senate committee, but faces strong opposition in the House from a Virginia member concerned that federal recognition could open the door to gambling in the state. [http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=74481&ran=162825] In the early 21st century, Native American communities remain an enduring fixture on the United States landscape, in the American economy, and in the lives of Native Americans. Communities have consistently formed governments that administer services like firefighting, natural resource management, and law enforcement. Most Native American communities have established court systems to adjudicate matters related to local ordinances, and most also look to various forms of moral and social authority vested in traditional affiliations within the community. To address the housing needs of Native Americans, Congress passed the Native American Housing and Self Determination Act (NAHASDA) in 1996. This legislation replaced public housing, and other 1937 Housing Act programs directed towards Indian Housing Authorities, with a block grant program directed towards Tribes. Gambling has become a leading industry. Casinos operated by many Native American governments in the United States are creating a stream of gambling revenue that some communities are beginning to use as leverage to build diversified economies. Native American communities have waged and prevailed in legal battles to assure recognition of rights to self-determination and to use of natural resources. Some of those rights, known as treaty rights are enumerated in early treaties signed with the young United States government. Tribal sovereignty has become a cornerstone of American jurisprudence, and at least on the surface, in national legislative policies. Although many Native American tribes have casinos, they are a source of conflict. Most tribes, especially small ones such as the Winnemem Wintu of Redding, California, feel that casinos and their proceeds destroy culture from the inside out. These tribes refuse to participate in the gaming industry. Many of the smaller eastern tribes have been trying to gain official recognition of their tribal status. The recognition confers some benefits, including the right to label arts and crafts as Native American and they can apply for grants that are specifically reserved for Native Americans. But gaining recognition as a tribe is extremely difficult because of a Catch-22 in the process. To be established as a tribal groups, members have to submit extensive genealogical proof of tribal descent, yet in past years many Native Americans denied their Native American heritage, because it would have deprived them of many rights, such as the right of probate. The Waccamaw tribe and the Pee Dee tribe of South Carolina were granted official recognition February 17, 2005. Two other tribal applications were denied for lack of documentation. According to 2003 United States Census Bureau estimates, a little over one third of the 2,786,652 Native Americans in the United States live in three states: California at 413,382, Arizona at 294,137 and Oklahoma at 279,559 [http://www.census.gov/popest/states/asrh/tables/SC-EST2003-04.pdf]. As of 2000, the largest tribes in the U.S. by population were Cherokee, Navajo, Choctaw, Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Blackfeet, Iroquois, and Pueblo. In 2000 eight of ten Americans with Native American ancestry were of mixed blood. It is estimated that by 2100 that figure will rise to nine of ten [http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:D-aV4g_I9XQJ:www.law.nyu.edu/kingsburyb/spring04/indigenousPeoples/classmaterials/class10/Class%252010%2520Item%2520A6%2520-%2520Gould.doc+genealogy++%22affirmative+action%22+%22american+indian%22%22ward+churchill%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8]. The Massachusetts legislature repealed a 330-year-old law that barred Native Americans from entering Boston on the 19th of May 2005.

Cultural aspects

Though cultural features, including language, garb, and customs vary enormously from one tribe to another, there are certain elements which are encountered frequently and shared by many tribes. Early nomadic hunters forged stone weapons from around 10,000 years ago; as the age of metallurgy dawned, newer technologies were used and more efficient weapons produced. Prior to contact with Europeans, most tribes used similar weaponry. The most common implement were the bow and arrow, the war club, and the spear. Quality, material, and design varied widely. Large mammals such as the mammoth were largely extinct by around 8,000 B.C., and the Native Americans were hunting their descendants, such as bison. The Great Plains tribes were still hunting the bison when they first encountered the Europeans. The acquisition of the horse and horsemanship from the Spanish in the 17th century greatly altered the natives' culture, changing the way in which these large creatures were hunted and making them a central feature of their lives. bison

Society

The Iroquois tribes, living around the Great Lakes and extending east and north, used strings or belts called wampum that served a dual function: the knots and beaded designs mnemonically chronicled tribal stories and legends, and further served as a medium of exchange and a unit of measure. The keepers of the articles were seen as tribal dignitaries. Pueblo tribes crafted impressive items associated with their religious ceremonies. Kachina dancers wore elaborately painted and decorated masks as they ritually impersonated various ancestral spirits. Sculpture was not highly developed, but carved stone and wood fetishes were made for religious use. Superior weaving, embroided decorations, and rich dyes characterized the textile arts. Both turquoise and shell jewelry were created, as were high-quality pottery and formalized pictorial arts. Navajo spirituality focused on the maintenance of a harmonious relationship with the spirit world, often achieved by ceremonial acts, usually incorporating sand paintings. The colors—made from sand, charcoal, cornmeal, and pollen—depicted specific spirits. These vivid, intricate, and colorful sand creations were erased at the end of the ceremony.

Religion

The most widespread religion at the present time is known as the Native American Church. It is a syncretistic church incorporating elements of native spiritual practice from a number of different tribes as well as symbolic elements from Christianity. Its main rite is the peyote ceremony. The church has had significant success in combatting many of the ills brought by colonization, such as alcoholism and crime. In the American Southwest, especially New Mexico, a syncretism between the Catholicism brought by Spanish missionaries and the native religion is common; the religious drums, chants, and dances of the Pueblo people are regularly part of Masses at Santa Fe's Saint Francis Cathedral.

Gender roles

Most Native American tribes had traditional gender roles. In some tribes, such as the Iroquois nation, social and clan relationships were matrilinear and matriarchal but several different systems were in use. Men hunted, traded and made war, while women cared for the young and the elderly, fashioned clothing and instruments and cured meat. The cradle board was used by mothers to carry their baby whilst working or traveling.

Music and art

cradle board Native American music is almost entirely monophonic, but there are notable exceptions. Traditional Native American music often includes drumming and/or the playing of rattles or other percussion instruments but little other instrumentation. Flutes and whistles made of wood, cane, or bone are also played, generally by individuals, but in former times also by large ensembles (as noted by Spanish conquistador de Soto). The tuning of these flutes is not precise and depends on the length of the wood used and the hand span of the intended player, but the finger holes are most often around a whole step apart and, at least in Northern California, a flute was not used if it turned out to have an interval close to a half step. Performers with Native American parentage have occasionally appeared in American popular music, most notably Shania Twain (ethnically European, but raised by a First Nations adoptive father), Buffy Sainte-Marie, Robbie Robertson, Rita Coolidge, Wayne Newton, and Redbone (band). Some, such as John Trudell have used music to comment on life in Native America, and others, such as R. Carlos Nakai integrate traditional sounds with modern sounds in instrumental recordings. A variety of small and medium-sized recording companies offer an abundance of recent music by Native American performers young and old, ranging from pow-wow drum music to hard-driving rock-and-roll and rap. The most widely practiced public musical form among Native Americans in the United States is that of the pow-wow. At pow-wows, such as the annual Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque, New Mexico, members of drum groups sit in a circle around a large drum. Drum groups play in unison while they sing in a native language and dancers in colorful regalia dance clockwise around the drum groups in the center. Familiar pow-wow songs include honor songs, intertribal songs, crow-hops, sneak-up songs, grass-dances, two-steps, welcome songs, going-home songs, and war songs. Most indigenous communities in the United States also maintain traditional songs and ceremonies, some of which are shared and practiced exclusively within the community. For further information, see A Cry from the Earth: Music of North American Indians by John Bierhorst (ISBN 094127053X). Native American art comprises a major category in the world art collection. Native American contributions include pottery, paintings, jewelry, weavings, sculptures, basketry, and carvings. carving Artists have at times misrepresented themselves as having native parentage, most notably Johnny Cash, who traced his heritage to Scottish ancestors and admitted he fabricated a story that he was one-quarter Cherokee. The integrity of certain Native American artworks is now protected by an act of Congress that prohibits representation of art as Native American when it is not the product of an enrolled Native American artist. See: Blackfoot music

Economy

Survival in the environments in which they lived defined the work of the native groups. The Inuit, or Eskimo, prepared and buried stocks of dried meat and fish. Pacific Northwest tribes crafted seafaring dugouts 40-50 feet long for fishing. Farmers in the Eastern Woodlands tended fields of maize with hoes and digging sticks, while their neighbors in the Southeast grew tobacco as well as food crops. On the Plains, some tribes engaged in agriculture but also planned buffalo hunts in which herds were efficiently driven over bluffs. Dwellers of the Southwest deserts hunted small animals and gathered acorns to grind into a flour with which they baked wafer-thin bread on top of heated stones. Some groups on the region's mesas developed irrigation techniques, and filled storehouses with grain as protection against the area's frequent droughts. As these native peoples encountered European explorers and settlers and engaged in trade, they exchanged food, crafts, and furs for trinkets, blankets, iron, and steel implements, horses, firearms, and alcoholic beverages.

Terminology differences

:For more detail see, Native American name controversy When Christopher Columbus arrived in the "New World", he described the people he encountered as Indians because he mistakenly believed that he had reached the islands known to Europeans as the Indies. Despite Columbus's mistake, the name Indian (or American Indian) stuck, and for centuries the native people of the Americas were collectively called Indians in America, and similar terms in Europe. The problem with this traditional term is that the peoples of India are, of course, also known as Indians.

Common usage in the U.S.

The term Native American was originally introduced in the United States by anthropologists as a more accurate term for the indigenous people of the Americas, as distinguished from the people of India. Because of the widespread acceptance of this newer term in and outside of academic circles, some people mistakenly believe that Indians was outdated or offensive. People from India (and their descendants) who are citizens of the United States are known as Indian Americans. However, some American Indians have misgivings about the term Native American. Russell Means, a famous American Indian activist, opposes the term Native American because he believes it was imposed by the government without the consent of American Indians. [http://www.peaknet.net/~aardvark/means.html] Furthermore, some American Indians question the term Native American because, they argue, it serves to ease the conscience of "white America" with regard to past injustices done to American Indians by effectively eliminating "Indians" from the present. [http://www.allthingscherokee.com/atc_sub_culture_feat_events_070101.html] Still others (both Indians and non-Indians) argue that Native American is problematic because "native of" literally means "born in," so any person born in the Americas could be considered "native". However, very often the compound "Native American" will be capitalized in order to differentiate this intended meaning from others. Likewise, "native" (small 'n') can be further qualified by formulations such as "native-born" when the intended meaning is only to indicate place of birth or origin. However, neither of these two senses invalidates the other, so long as the intended sense is made clear by the context. A [http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762158.html 1996 survey] revealed that more American Indians in the United States still preferred American Indian to Native American. Nonetheless, most American Indians are comfortable with Indian, American Indian, and Native American, and the terms are now used interchangeably. [http://www.infoplease.com/spot/aihmterms.html] The continued usage of the traditional term is reflected in the name chosen for the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004 in Washington, D.C.. Recently, the US Census introduced the "Asian Indian" category to more accurately sample the Indian American population. In practice, most Indian Americans and of course Indian nationals think of themselves as the "real" Indians. This guarantees that the terms & their usages will evolve over the next few decades.

Bibliography

- Adams, David Wallace. Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience 1875-1928, [http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/ University Press of Kansas], 1975. ISBN 0-7006-0735-8 (hbk); ISBN 0-7006-0838-9 (pbk).
- Bierhorst, John. A Cry from the Earth: Music of North American Indians. ISBN 0-9412-7053-X.
- Hirschfelder, Arlene B.; Byler, Mary G.; & Dorris, Michael. Guide to research on North American Indians. American Library Association (1983). ISBN 0-8389-0353-3.
- Nichols, Roger L. Indians in the United States & Canada, A Comparative History. University of Nebraska Press (1998). ISBN 0-8032-8377-6.
- Snipp, C.M. (1989). American Indians: The first of this land. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
- Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978-present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1-20). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1-3, 16, 18-20 not yet published).
- Tiller, Veronica E. (Ed.). Discover Indian Reservations USA: A Visitors' Welcome Guide. Foreword by Ben Nighthorse Campbell. Council Publications, Denver, Colorado (1992). ISBN 0-9632580-0-1.

External links

General information and history

- [http://www.LostWorlds.org Lost Worlds: An Interactive Museum of the American Indian]
- [http://soda.sou.edu/tribal.html Southern Oregon Digital Archives First Nations Tribal Collection], ethnographic, linguistic, & historical material.
- [http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/na_000107_entries.htm Houghton Mifflin Encyclopedia of North American Indians]
- [http://www.comanchelodge.com Comanche Lodge - American Indian History And Genealogy]
- [http://www.csulb.edu/projects/ais/ American Indian History and Related Issues]
- [http://www.nativepeoples.com/ Native Peoples Magazine - Arts, Culture and Lifeways of the Native Peoples of the Americas]

Tribal, regional and reservation information

- [http://www.kstrom.net/isk/maps/cultmap.html North American Pre-Contact Culture Areas]
- [http://www.dickshovel.com/trbindex.html List of North American Tribes]
- [http://www.rootsweb.com/~rigenweb/IndianPlaceNames.html American Indian Place Names], incl. Bibliography
- [http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030193 A Population Genetic Portrait of the Peopling of the Americas] by Jody Hey

Organizations

- [http://www.ncai.org National Congress of American Indians]
- [http://www.ncaied.org/ The National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development]
- [http://www.narf.org/ Native American Rights Fund]

Photography

- [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ienhtml/tribes.html Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian: Photographic Images (by culture area)]
- [http://www.csulb.edu/projects/ais/nae/ American Historical Images On File: The Native American Experience]

Culture

- [http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-2/antibias.htm Countering Prejudice against American Indians and Alaska Natives]
- [http://www.androphile.org/preview/Culture/NativeAmerica/ The Two-Spirit Tradition], an essay on shamanism and male love in Native American religion.
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/1992-2/natives.htm Using Literature by American Indians and Alaska Natives in Secondary Schools]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/1996-4/native.htm Teaching Young Children about Native Americans]

Language

- Map of languages in the US - William C. Sturtevant. (1967). Early Indian tribes, culture areas, and linguistic stocks.: (caution: Material is out-of-date)
- [http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/early_indian_alaska.jpg Alaska & Hawai‘i]
- [http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/early_indian_west.jpg Western US]
- [http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/united_states/early_indian_east.jpg Eastern US]

Art

- [http://www.nativetech.org/ NativeTech: Native American Technology and Art] Category:Native American history Category:North American history Category:Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica ja:アメリカ州の先住民族 nb:Innfødte amerikanere simple:Native American

Hopi Reservation

The Hopi Reservation is a Native American reservation for the Hopi people located in the middle of the Navajo Reservation in Navajo County, Arizona. The site in north-eastern Arizona has a total land area of 1,542,306 acres and as of 1999 had a population of 8,852. The system of villages are based around three Mesas in the traditional pueblo style which has been traditionally used by the Hopi. Walpi is the oldest village on the first mesa having been established in 1690 after the villages at the foot of mesa Koechaptevela was abandoned for fear of Spanish reprisal post 1680 Pueblo Revolt. The Hopi Tribal Council is the local governing body consisting of elected officials from the various reservation villages. Its powers were given to it under the Hopi Tribal Constitution. The Hopis consider their life on the reservation and their great dependence on corn the "fourth world". Hopi High School is the secondary education institute for reservation residents. Hopi Radio, a station with a mix of traditional Hopi and typical American programming is run for the reservation and provides internships for Hopi High School.

External links

- [http://www.hopi.nsn.us/default.asp The Hopi Tribe]
- [http://www.commerce.state.az.us/pdf/commasst/comm/hopi.pdf Community Profile] Hopi Indian Reservation
- [http://www.kuyi.net/pages/611237/index.htm Hopi Radio] Category:U.S. Indian reservations

Navajo Nation

Navajo Nation (Navajo: Naabeehó Dine'é) is the name of a sovereign Native American nation established by the Diné. The Navajo Indian Reservation covers about 27,000 square miles (70,000 square kilometres) of land, occupying all of northeastern Arizona, and extending into Utah and New Mexico, and is the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction within the United States. The 2000 census reported 298,215 Navajos living throughout the United States, of which 173,987 were living within the Navajo Nation boundaries. 131,166 lived in Arizona. 17,512 of these lived in Maricopa County, which includes the city of Phoenix. Because the Navajo Nation encompasses land in three states, its Division of Economic Development has extracted census date for the Navajo Nation, as a whole, and sends a representative to the Census Board. Each tribe establishes its own requirements for being an enrolled tribal member, which is usually based on "blood quantum." The Navajo Nation requires a blood quantum of one-fourth for a person to be an enrolled tribal member and to receive a Certificate of Indian Blood (CIB). In comparison, some tribes require a one-thirtysecond blood quantum for issuing a CIB. Recently, the Navajo Tribal Council voted down a proposal to reduce the blood quantum to one-eighth, which would have effectively doubled the number of individuals qualified to be enrolled Navajo tribal members.

Geography

Phoenix The Nation's boundaries abut the Ute Nation at the Four Corners Monument landmark and stretch across the Colorado Plateau into Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. Located within the Navajo Nation are Canyon De Chelly National Monument, Monument Valley, Rainbow Bridge National Monument, the Hopi Indian Reservation, and the Shiprock landmark. The seat of government is located at the town of Window Rock, Arizona. Members of the nation are often known as Navajo, also spelled Navaho. Navajo call themselves Diné, a term from the Navajo language that means people. The Navajo are closely related to the Apache, and the Navajo language along with other Apache languages make up the Southern Athabaskan language family. Congress established a Hopi (Navajo, Oozéí, or Ayahkinii "underground-house-people") reservation within the Navajo Nation's reservation at an historic homeland where Hopi history predates that of Diné in the area. A conflict over shared lands emerged in the 1980s when the Department of the Interior attempted to relocate Diné living in the Navajo/Hopi Joint Use Area. The conflict was resolved, or at least forestalled, by the award of a seventy-five-year lease to Diné who refused to leave the former shared lands. Another Diné and Hopi group lives on the Colorado River Indian Tribes reservation along the Colorado River in western Arizona.

History

Colorado River The Navajo (Diné) and Apache tribal groups of the American Southwest speak dialects of the language family referred to as Athapaskan. Linguistic similarities indicate the Navajo and Apache were once a single ethnic group, with substantial numbers not present in the American Southwest until the early 1500s. Trade between the long-established Pueblo peoples and the Athapaskans become important to both groups by the mid 16th century. The Pueblos exchanged maize and woven cotton goods for bison meat, hides and material for stone tools. Coronado observed Plains people wintering near the Pueblos in established camps. The Spanish first mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to people in the Chama region east of the San Juan River. By the 1640s, the term was applied to Athapaskan peoples from the Chama on the east to the San Juan on the west.

Government

1640s The Diné have three times refused to establish a new government under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Members twice rejected constitutional initiatives offered by the federal government in Washington, first in 1935 and again in 1953. A reservation-based initiative in 1963 failed after members found the process to be too cumbersome and a potential threat to their self-determination. A constitution was drafted and adopted by the governing council but never ratified by the members. The earlier efforts were rejected primarily because members did not find enough freedom in the proposed forms of government to develop their livestock industries, in 1935, and their mineral resources, in 1953. The Navajo Nation is divided into five Agencies, analogous to states, and 110 Chapters, analogous to counties. The Tribal Council presently consists of 88 delegates, elected every four years by registered Navajo voters. The Nation has a three branch system: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. The United States still asserts plenary power to require the Navajo Nation to submit all proposed laws to the United States Secretary of the Interior for Secretarial Review, through the BIA. Most conflicts and controversies between the federal government and the Nation are settled by negotiation and by political agreements. Laws of the Navajo Nation are currently codified in the Navajo Tribal Code. Navajo Tribal Code Local and federal law enforcement agencies that routinely work within the Navajo Nation include the Navajo Division of Public Safety, often called the Navajo Police, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, often called the BIA, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Federal Bureau of Investigation The Navajo governing council continues a historical practice of prohibiting alcohol sales within reservation boundaries. Navajo residents who drink alcohol often obtain supplies in nearby cities, such as Gallup and Grants, New Mexico. For some visitors of the area — often attracted by the Indian jewelry trade, by tourist attractions or by the Interstate Highway that passes through the area — heavy traffic to off-reservation liquor stores, and the public drunkenness that often follows have created impressions that drunkenness seems to describe Indian culture. Leaders and some member groups actively oppose the sale of alcohol, and have taken several measures to find and offer treatment for those members who are suffering from alcoholism. Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr. addressed the Navajo Nation Council in the annual State of the Navajo Nation Address on January 24, 2005 and presented his conviction to develop a governing document for the Navajo Nation. President Shirley campaigned to return their government to the Dineh by government reform. The Navajo President Shirley stated that the document must establish the structuve and authority of a central government. The Navajo Nation being organized under a code is subject to Bureau of Indian Affairs, unlike other Indian nations that do not need BIA approval for most actions.

Economy

Navajo Nation Council The Navajo Nation has built a modern economy on traditional endeavors such as sheep herding, fiber production, weaving, jewelry making, and art trading. Newer industries that employ members include coal and uranium mining, though the uranium market slowed near the end of the 20th century. The Navajo Nation's extensive mineral resources are among the most valuable held by Native American nations within the United States. The Navajo government employs hundreds in civil service and administrative jobs. One important business within the reservation is the operation of roadside stands selling handmade crafts, especially on major highways or near major tourist attractions. Other Navajo members work at retail stores and other businesses within the Nation's reservation or in nearby towns. 20th century Until 2004, the Navajo Nation had declined to join other indigenous nations within the United States who have opened casinos. That year, the nation signed a compact with the state of New Mexico to operate a casino at To'hajiilee, near Albuquerque. Navajo leaders also negotiated with Arizona state officials in talks that could lead to casinos near Flagstaff, Lake Powell, Winslow, Sanders (Nahata Dziil Chapter), and Cameron (Grand Canyon entrance).

Culture and education

Lake Powell The name "Navajo" is the name given to them by the Tewa Pueblo Indians, whose settlement preceded the Navajo, and may mean "thieves" or "takers from the fields." (The names by which many Native American tribes are commonly known are derived from epithets used by their enemies.) The Navajo, who came to the Southwest millennia after the Tewa, call themselves Diné, which is often translated to mean "the people." (Most Native American groups call themselves by names that mean "the people.") Nonetheless, many Navajo now acquiesce to being called "Navajo." left The Navajo Nation runs Diné College, a two-year community college which has its main campus in Tsaile, as well as seven other campuses on the reservation. Current enrollment is 1,830 students, of which 210 are degree-seeking transfer students for four-year institutions. The college includes the Center for Diné Studies, whose goal is to apply Navajo Sa'ah Naagháí Bik'eh Hózhóón principles to advance quality student learning through Nitsáhákees (thinking), Nahatá (planning), Iiná (living), and Sihasin (assurance) in study of the Diné language, history, and culture in preparation for further studies and employment in a multi-cultural and technological world. Tsaile Navajos are known for their sandpainting, performed for healing ceremonies and as part of other spiritual activities.

Illness

Several types of cancer are higher than the national average on the Four Corners Navajo Reservation. (Raloff, 2004) Especially high are the reproductive-organ cancers in teenage Navajo girls, averaging seventeen times higher than the average of girls in the United States. reproductive-organ It has been suspected that uranium mine sites, both active and abandoned, have released dust into the air and the water supply. Studies done on mice exposing them to a soluble form of uranium similar to what enters groundwater from the mines showed heavy increases in estrogen levels which could explain the increased cancer levels among Navajo girls. The amount of uranium given to the mice were half of the level permitted by the Environmental Protection Agency and one-tenth the level found in some wells on the reservation. Diabetes mellitus is a [http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/americanindian/index.htm major health problem] among the Navajo, Hopi and Pima, about four times higher than the age-standardized U.S. estimate. Medical researchers believe increased consumption of carbohydrates, coupled with genetic factors, play significant roles in the emergence of this chronic disease.

References

- Bailey, L. R. (1964). The long walk: A history of the Navaho Wars, 1846-1868.
- Bighorse, Tiana. (1990). Bighorse the Warrior. Ed. Noel Bennett, Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
- Downs, James F. (1972). The Navajo. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
- Gilpin, Laura. (1968). The enduring Navaho. Austin: University of Texas Press.
- Hillerman, Tony: author of a series of fictional detective novels set on and near the Navajo reservation.
- Iverson, Peter. (2002). Diné: A history of the Navahos. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0826327141
- Kluckholm, Clyde; & Leighton, Dorothea. (1946). The Navaho. Cambridge: Oxford University Press.
- McNitt, Frank. (1972). Navajo wars. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
- http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20041113/note14.asp
- Tapahonso, Luci. (1987) A Breeze Swept Through. Albuquerque: West End Press.
- ------. (1993) Sáanii Dahataal: The Women are Singing. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
- ------. (1997) Blue Horses Rush In. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
- Terrell, J. U. (1970). The Navajos.
- Underhill, Ruth M. (1956). The Navahos. Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press.
- Witherspoon, Gary. (1977). Language and Art in the Navajo Universe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
- Loewen, James. W. (1999 ). Lies Across America. Pages 100-101; The New Press.

External links

- [http://www.csulb.edu/projects/ais/dine.html Photographs of the Diné (Navajo)]
- [http://www.navajo.org/ Navajo.org]
- [http://southwest.library.arizona.edu/hav7/body.1_div.3.html The Navaho (from History of Arizona)]
- [http://southwest.library.arizona.edu/hav7/body.1_div.4.html The Navaho, continued (from History of Arizona)] Category:Native American tribes Category:Navajo tribe Category:U.S. Indian reservations ja:ディネ

Colorado River (U. S.)

:For other uses, see Colorado River (disambiguation). Colorado River (disambiguation) The Colorado River is a river in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately 1,450 mi (2,333 km) long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The natural course of the river flows into the Gulf of California, but the heavy use of the river as a fresh water source has desiccated the lower course of the river in Mexico such that it no longer reaches the sea. There are other rivers with the name Colorado River, but this one is the longest. The Colorado River drains 242,900 sq mi (629,000 sq km). Spanish explorer Melchior Diaz was one of the first Europeans to explore the river in 1540.
Course
1540 The Colorado River's headwaters are located in Rocky Mountain National Park, just west of the Continental Divide. The river's course then follows the Kewuneeche Valley to Shadow Mountain Reservoir, near the town of Granby, then flows into Lake Granby. The river then roughly parallels US 40 to the town of Kremling, then enters Gore Canyon. Shortly thereafter, the river roughly parallels I-70 through Glenwood Canyon and the city of Glenwood Springs. Below Glenwood, the Colorado runs through the Grand Valley to Grand Junction, where it is joined by the Gunnison River; from there it flows on to the Utah border. Once inside Utah, the river turns south, and goes through Arches National Park, then Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyonlands National Park, where it is met by one of its primary tributaries, the Green River. The river then flows into Lake Powell, formed by the Glen Canyon Dam. Below the dam, water released from the bottom of Lake Powell makes the river clear, clean, and cold. Just south of the town of Page, Arizona, the river forms the dramatic Horseshoe Bend, then at Lees Ferry is joined by another tributary, the warm, shallow, muddy Paria River, and begins its course through Marble Canyon. At the southern end of Marble Canyon, the river is joined by another tributary, the Little Colorado, and the river then turns abruptly west directly athwart the folds and fault line of the plateau, through the Grand Canyon, which is 217 miles long and from 4 to 20 miles wide between the upper cliffs. The walls, 4000 to 6000 feet high, drop in successive escarpments of 500 to 1600 feet, banded in splendid colours, toward the gloomy narrow gorge of the present river. Below the confluence of the Virgin River of Nevada the Colorado abruptly turns southward, and forms part of the boundary between Arizona and Nevada, and the border between Arizona and California. Along the California-Arizona reach of the river, two additional dams are operated to divert water for agricultural irrigation supplies: Palo Verde Diversion Dam and Imperial Dam. Below the Black Canyon the river lessens in gradient, and in its lower course flows in a broad sedimentary valley's distinct estuarine plain upriver from Yuma, where it joined by the Gila River. The channel through much of this region is bedded in a dyke-like embankment lying above the floodplain over which the escaping water spills in time of flood. This dyke cuts off the flow of the river to the remarkable low area in southern California known as the Salton Sink, Coahuila Valley, or Imperial Valley. The Salton Sink is located below sea level; therefore, the descent from the river near Yuma is very much greater than the descent from Yuma to the gulf. The lower course of the river, which forms the border between Baja California and Sonora, is essentially a dry stream today due to use of the river as a water source. Prior to the mid 20th century, the Colorado River Delta provided a rich estuarine marshland that is now essentially desiccated, but nonetheless is an important ecological resource.
Engineering
Colorado River Delta In the autumn of 1904, the river's waters escaped into a diversion canal a few miles below Yuma. The river, taking the canal as a new channel, re-created in California a great inland sea in a area that it had frequently inundated before, for example, in 1884 and 1891, when it had for a time practically abandoned its former course through Mexican territory to the Sea of Cortez. But it was effectively dammed in the early part of 1907 and returned to its normal course, from which, however, there was still much leakage to the Salton Sea. In July 1907, the permanent dam was completed. From the Black Canyon towards the sea the Colorado normally flows through a desert-like basin. The Colorado River is a major and in some cases life-sustaining source of water for irrigation, drinking, and other uses by people living in the arid American southwest. Allocation of the river's water is governed by the Colorado River Compact. Several dams have been built along the Colorado River, beginning with Glen Canyon Dam near the Utah-Arizona border. Other dams include Hoover Dam, Parker Dam, Davis Dam, Palo Verde Diversion Dam, and Imperial Dam. Since the completion of the dams, the majority of the river in normal hydrologic years is diverted for agricultural and municipal water supply. The Colorado's last drops evaporate in the Sonoran Desert, miles before the river reaches the Gulf of California. Hoover Dam (originally Boulder Dam, and the first dam of its type) was completed in 1936. Its impoundment of the river in the Mojave Desert creates Lake Mead, which provides water for irrigation and the generation of hydroelectric power. Several cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and Tucson have aqueducts leading all the way back to the Colorado River. One such aqueduct is the Central Arizona Project ("CAP") canal, which was begun in the 1970s and finished in the 1990s. The canal begins at Parker Dam and runs all the way to Phoenix and then Tucson to supplement those cities' water needs.
See also

- List of Colorado River rapids and features
External links

- [http://www.livingrivers.org/campaigns/drought/map.cfm Drought Watch Campaign] - map of the Colorado River system showing the fill levels of major reservoirs
- [http://www.citlink.net/~davegun/ Dams on the Lower Colorado River] - A look at all the Dams on the Colorado River from Las Vegas Nevada to Mexico Category:Rivers of Arizona Category:Rivers of California Category:Rivers of Colorado Category:Rivers of Mexico Category:Rivers of Nevada Category:Rivers of Utah ja:コロラド川

Matrilineal

Matrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's mother's lineage. It may also involve the inheritance of property or titles through the female line. However, the latter does not always hold; in some societies, titles or property went to the male heir(s) of the nearest female relative. (Basically, two such forms are: 1. from uncle to nephew, and 2. from grandfather to grandson.)

Introduction

A matriline is a line of descent from a female ancestor to a descendant (of either sex) in which the individuals in all intervening generations are female. In a matrilineal descent system (= uterine descent), an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as his or her mother. This is in contrast to the more common pattern of patrilineal descent. The uterine ancestry of an individual is a person's pure female ancestry, i.e. a matriline leading from a female ancestor to that individual. On inheritance by matrilineal kinship (= uterine kinship), see matrilineal succession. In some cultures, membership of a group is inherited matrilineally. For example, Jewish law holds that one is a Jew if one's mother (rather than one's father) is a Jew. Another example of a matrilineal culture is the Minangkabau culture of West Sumatra. The fact that mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited enables matrilineal lines of individuals to be traced through genetic analysis.

Judaism

Orthodox Judaism states that, to be a Jew, one must be either a proselyte or the child of a Jewish mother. This ruling is based on the fact that intercourse between Jews and non-Jews is forbidden, and any offspring resulting from such an act is considered to have no paternity. It is not mentioned directly in the Bible, but derives from the Oral law (Mishnah tractate Kiddushin 3:12). The Talmudic commentary finds scriptural proof from various verses in the Torah and the rest of Tanakh (the Jewish Bible). Historians have cast doubt on the claim that Judaism has always been matrilineal. Indeed, there are several instances in the Bible where Jewish men marry gentile women without direct mention of the women converting. (The standard view among historians seems to be that the very notion of conversion with a mikvah is postbiblical.) Apparently the offspring of such unions was considered to be Jewish; the Book of Ruth claims such ancestry for King David himself; however, the Talmud (Yevamoth 47b) asserts that Ruth was a convert to Judaism, and derives the laws of proselytes from the exchange between Naomi and Ruth. Flavius Josephus refers to marriages between Jewish men and Gentile women without much commentary, and seems to assume that the offspring is Jewish (or, according to one of his statements, "half-Jewish") (Antiquities of the Jews 16.225, 18.109, 18.139, 18.141, 14.8-10, 14.121, 14.403); as is usual in prerabbinic texts, there is no mention of conversion on the part of the Gentile spouse. On the other hand, Philo of Alexandria calls the child of a Jew and a non-Jew a nothos (bastard), regardless of whether the non-Jewish parent is the father or the mother (On the Life of Moses 2.36.193, On the Virtues 40.224, On the Life of Moses 1.27.147). The view of matrilineal descent as originating at the time of Yavneh is openly held by scholars affiliated with the Conservative movement. At the same time, matrilineal descent is the norm in Conservative halakha; if a Conservative synagogue accepts patrilineal descent ritually, it is generally expelled from the movement. On the other hand, polls conducted by the Conservative movement show that 68% of all regular attendants to Conservative synagogues support patrilineal descent. Reform Judaism in the U.S. officially adopted a bilineal policy in 1983: one is a Jew if either of one's parents is Jewish, provided that either (a) one is raised as a Jew, by Reform standards, or (b) one engages in an appropriate act of public identification. This declaration formalized what had been Reform policy in practice for at least a generation. Clause (b) has been generally interpreted as making any form of public self-identification sufficient, though some congregations may make more formal requirements - especially if the individual in question has been raised as a Christian. Other movements within the World Union for Progressive Judaism have adopted essentially the same position as U.S. Reform Judaism. These include: Liberal Judaism in England; Reconstructionist Judaism in the US, Canada and elsewhere; Progressive Judaism in Australia; one congregation in Austria; some congregations in Eastern Europe. Note that Reform Judaism in Canada and England adopts a different position, closer to the Orthodox one, at least in some congregations. Many secular and non-religious Jews in America, Israel and elsewhere adopt a bilineal view similar to that detailed above. In Israel, the status quo is that the Orthodox definition is followed: the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother may immigrate to Israel (and may claim rights under the Law of Return), but will be registered in official documents as a non-Jew. The consequences are various: he/she may not be wedded inside the state to anybody considered to be officially a Jew, and he/she may not be buried in a military cemetery if he/she dies in battle. Priesthood in Judaism (Kohen status) is inherited patrilineally; the same applies to membership of the tribes (e.g. Levi) and royalty (Davidic line).

Nair community

The traditional Nair community in South India is matrilineal by system. A Nair matrilineal family is called as a Tarawad or Marumakkathayam family. A traditional Nair Tarwad consists of a mother and her children living together with their mother's brother or maternal uncle who is called as Karanavan. In a Nair family, amongst all the women at home, the eldest mother would become the head of the family.

External links

- [http://www.shamash.org/lists/scj-faq/HTML/faq/10-11.html The origin of Matrilineal Descent in Judaism]
- [http://www.torah.org/qanda/seequanda.php?id=318 Why is Judaism passed on through the mother?] (torah.org) Category:Kinship and descent Category:Jewish law and rituals

Man

:This article concerns man in the sense of "human male". For other meanings of man see Man (disambiguation). Man (disambiguation) Man (disambiguation)A man is a male human adult, in contrast to an adult female, which is a woman. The term man (irregular plural: men) is a term used to indicate either a person generally, or a male person specifically.
Etymology
The term "man" (from Proto-Germanic mannaz "man, person") and words derived from it can designate any or even all of the human race regardless of their gender or age. This is indeed the oldest usage of "man". The word developed into Old English man, mann "human being, person," (cf. also German Mann, Old Norse maðr, Gothic manna "man"). It is derived from a PIE base
- man- (cf. Sanskrit/Avestan manu-, Russian muzh "man, male"). Sometimes, the word is connected with the root
- men- "to think" (cognate to mind). Restricted use in the sense "adult male" only began to occur in late Old English, around 1000 AD, and the word formerly expressing male sex, wer had died out by 1300 (but survives in e.g. were-wolf and were-gild). The original sense of the word is preserved in mankind, from Old English mancynn. In Old English the words wer and wyf (also wæpman and wifman) were what was used to refer to "a man" and "a woman" respectively, and "man" was gender neutral. In Middle English man displaced wer as term for "male human," whilst wyfman (which eventually evolved into woman) was retained for "female human." Man does continue to carry its original sense of "Human" however, resulting in an asymmetry sometimes criticized as sexist. [http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=man] sexist In the 20th century, the generic meaning of "man" declined still further (but survives in compounds "mankind", "everyman", "no-man", etc), and it is probable that future generations will see it as totally archaic, and use it solely to mean "adult male". Interestingly, exactly the same thing has happened to the Latin word homo: in the Romance languages, homme, uomo, hombre, homem etc. have all come to refer mainly to males, with residual generic meaning.
Age
Manhood is the period in a male's life after he has transitioned from a boy. Many cultures have rites of passage to symbolize a man's coming of age, such as confirmation in some branches of Christianity, bar mitzvah in Judaism, or even just the celebration of the eighteenth or twenty-first birthday. A boy is a male human child. For many, the word man implies a certain degree of maturity and responsibility that young men in particular often feel unprepared for; yet they may also feel too old to be called a boy. For this reason, many avoid using either man or boy to describe a young man and prefer colloquial terms such as bloke, chap, fellow, guy or the like.
Biology and sex
In terms of sex, men have various sexual characteristics that differentiate them from women. Just as in women, the sex organs of a man are part of the reproductive system, consisting of the penis, testicles, vas deferens and other sperm cords, and the prostate gland. The male reproductive system is oriented around producing and ejaculating semen which carries sperm and thus genetic information. Since sperm that enters a woman's uterus and then fallopian tubes goes on to fertilize an egg which develops into a fetus or child, the male reproductive system plays no necessary role during the gestation. The concept of fatherhood and family exists in every human society. The secondary sex characteristics, such as body hair and muscle growth, are involved in attracting a mate or in defeating rivals. But these secondary traits are also often related to reproduction in some manner. In contrast to women, men have sex organs that are mostly considered to be external, although many parts of the male reproductive system are internal as well (such as the prostate). The study of male reproduction and associated organs is called andrology. Most, but not all, men have the karyotype 46/XY. In general, men suffer from many of the same illnesses as women. However, there are some sex-related illnesses that occur only, or more frequently, in men. For example, autism and color blindness are more common in men than women. As well, some age-related disorders such as Alzheimer's disease appear to be more common among men, though whether this is due to a genuinely higher incidence or because men have lower life expectancies than women is uncertain. Alzheimer's disease Biological factors are usually not the sole determinants of whether a person considers themselves a man or is considered a man or not. For example, several men have been born without a typical male physiology (estimates range between one in 2,000 and one in 100,000), or some individuals with XY chromosomes can have an hormonal or genetic difference (such as androgen insensitivity syndrome), or another intersex condition; some of those intersex people, and others, who have had a sex assigned at birth seek reassignment later in their lives. (See also gender identity, gender role and transman.) Additionally, 20% of males, particularly in the U.S., the Philippines, and South Korea, as well as Jews and Muslims from all countries, have experienced circumcision, a process of altering the penis from its natural state by removing the foreskin.
Gender roles
Gender role In terms of gender, men differ from women by a variety of behaviors. Certain characteristics generally associated with men may be delineated; it is important to remember that the following are stereotypes and are by no means true of all men. Men are thought to be more:
- aggressive than women. However, in interpersonal relationships, most research has found that men and women are equally aggressive. Men do tend to be more aggressive outside of the home.
- courageous and adventuresome than women;
- competitive but also more stubborn than women.
- self-confident (even proud) and to exhibit better leadership skills than women.
- self-controlled and less emotional (see note)
- technically and organizationally skilled than women.
- prone to abstract thinking than women
- Less tidy (dirtier) than women [http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/09/22/research_uncovers_a_dirty_little_secret/] In terms of outward appearance, few men in Western cultures wear cosmetics or clothing generally associated with female gender roles. (Doing so is known as cross-dressing, and is generally stigmatized.) Fashions change, however: whereas wearing jewelry was formerly associated with females, today in Western cultures it is common for men to wear earrings without being perceived as cross-dressing. The same has become true of the shaving off of unwanted body and facial hair, though removal of the latter has long been common among men in many cultures. Note: This particular stereotype did not exist in the way it is thought of today (i.e., its applications to particular aspects and spheres of life, such as work vs. home) until the nineteenth century, beginning with industrialization.
Further reading

- Andrew Perchuk, Simon Watney, Bell Hooks, The Masculine Masquerade: Masculinity and Representation, MIT Press 1995
- Pierre Bourdieu, Masculine Domination, Paperback Edition, Stanford University Press 2001
- Robert W. Connell, Masculanities, Cambridge : Polity Press, 1995
- Michael Kimmel (ed.), Robert W. Connell (ed.), Jeff Hearn (ed.), Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, Sage Publications 2004
See also

- Masculinity
- Gender and sexuality studies
- Male chauvinism
- Masculism
- Men's Rights
- Patriarchy
- Penis
- Woman Category:Humans Category:Gender ja:男性 zh-min-nan:Cha-po·

Subsistence farming

Subsistence farming is a mode of agriculture in which a plot of land produces only enough food to feed the family working it. Depending on climate, soil conditions, agricultural practices and the crop grown, it generally requires between 1,000 and 40,000 m² (0.25 and 10 acres) per person. Subsistence farming, by definition, produces only enough food to sustain the farmers through their normal daily activities. Good weather may occasionally allow them to produce a surplus for sale or barter, but surpluses are rare. Because surpluses are rare, subsistence farming does not allow for growth, the accumulation of capital or even for much specialization of labor. The farming family is left almost entirely without implements or goods that it cannot produce by itself.

Contributing factors

In the absence of technology, the area of land that a farmer can cultivate each season is limited by factors such as available tools and the quality of the soil. If this land will not produce a surplus, due to the fertility of the soil, climate conditions, tools and techniques, or available crop types, the farmer can do no more than subsist on it. In the absence of a well developed commercialized agricultural sector, with monetary demands on the producer, such as taxes, any given agricultural producer has relatively little incentive to move beyond subsistence farming. Expending effort to produce surplusses generates very little benefit, so the extra effort is usually wasted. Unfortunately, under these conditions years with poor harvests often result in food scarcety and famine. Not all farmers have access to as much land as they can cultivate. Socioeconomic conditions may prevent an expansion of farming plots. If inheritance traditions require that a plot be split among the owner's children upon his death, plot sizes can steadily decrease.

Mitigation tactics

Many techniques have been attempted (with varying degrees of success) to help subsistence farmers to produce surpluses so the community can begin the path to economic growth. Food aid can alleviate a short famine, but does nothing to solve the inherent problem of subsistence production. It is no longer considered a long-term solution. Education about modern agricultural techniques has had some limited success, but not as much as was originally hoped. Many instructors discovered that their techniques depended on infrastructure, climate or resources which are not available in the subsistence community. Another approach to education has been to provide the farmers with non-agricultural marketable skills. The implicit assumption is that the subsistence farmer will leave the community to seek employment in an area where greater resources are available. This technique has met with marginal success because it often ignores the human desire to stay with community. Proper irrigation techniques can dramatically improve the output of farmland. Traditional irrigation methods can be extremely labor-intensive, wasteful of water, and may require community-wide infrastructure which is difficult to implement. There are new types of irrigation equipment available which are both inexpensive and water-efficient. Many subsistence farmers, however, remain unaware of the new technologies, are unable to afford them, or have difficulties marketing their crops after investing in irrigation equipment. Genetically modified crops (ex. golden rice) can have higher nutrient content or disease resistance than natural varieties. This technique has been highly successful in some parts of the world, though the long-term ecological and epidemiological effects of these crops are poorly understood. Microloans, loans of very small sums of money (often less than $25), can enable farmers to purchase equipment or draft animals. Alternatively, microloans can enable farmers to find non-agricultural occupations in their communities. Subsistence farming exists nowadays in Batswana, Benin, Congo, Guinea, Kikuyu, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Mexico, Yugoslavia, Polynesia, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Category:Agriculture

Motor vehicle

A motor vehicle can be:
- an automobile
- a motorcycle
- a motorized bicycle Many rules of the road / traffic code are usually the same for both:
- where one can and cannot drive
- speed limit
- right of way
- license plate A helmet is specific for a motorcycle. The driving license may be different. Category:Vehicles

Employment

Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. In a commercial setting, the employer conceives of a productive activity, generally with the intention of creating profits, and the employee contributes labour to the enterprise, usually in return for payment of wages. Employment also exists in the public, nonprofit and household sectors. In the United States, the "standard" employment contract is considered to be at-will meaning that the employer and employee are both free to terminate the employment at any time and for any cause, or for no cause at all. To the extent that employment or the economic equivalent is not universal, unemployment exists. Employment is almost universal in capitalist societies. Opponents of capitalism such as Marxists oppose the capitalist employment system, considering it to be unfair that the people who contribute the majority of work to an organization do not receive a proportionate share of the profit. However, the surrealist and the situationist movements were among the few groups to actually oppose work, and during the partially surrealist-influenced events of May 1968 the walls of the Sorbonne were covered with anti-work graffiti. Labourers often talk of "getting a job", or "having a job". This conceptual metaphor of a "job" as a possession has led to its use in slogans such as "money for jobs, not bombs". Similar conceptions are that of "land" as a possession (real estate) or intellectual rights as a possession (intellectual property).

Employer

An employer is a person or institution that hires employees or workers. Employers offer wages to the workers