Great
Plains:
Cheyenne
1.
Review:
We
learned about the Sioux tribe in the Great Plains region last time.
Today we will learn about another tribe in the Great Plains, the
Cheyenne tribe. Remind students where the Great Plains region is on
the regional map.
2.
Map
Skills:
Compare the regional map to the globe or map today and see what
countries or states are in the Great Plains region.
3.
Discuss:
Fill out the Tribes Chart after reading each section. Have the child
listen closely to choose what word to put on the chart. Bold type
words are good suggestions. After the chart has been filled out let
the child color the Great Plains region on the blank Native American
Groups Map.
- Habitat: The Cheyenne Indians were far-ranging people, especially once they acquired horses. By the time the Americans met them they were living on the Great Plains in what is now South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas.
- Homes: Their life style was more nomadic, so they used buffalo-hide houses called tepee. Since the Cheyenne tribe moved frequently to follow the buffalo herds, a tepee had to be carefully designed to set up and break down quickly, like a modern tent. An entire Cheyenne village could be packed up and ready to move on within an hour.
- Dress: Cheyenne women wore long deerskin dresses, and men wore breechcloth with leather leggins. Later, Cheyenne men adopted the Plains war shirt worn by other Indians of this region. A Cheyenne lady's dress or warrior's shirt was fringed and often decorated with porcupine quills, shells, and elk teeth. Cheyenne men wore moccasins and women wore high fringed boots. Cheyenne men wore their long hair in braids with a topknot or pompadour, and women wore their hair either loose or braided. The Cheyennes also painted their faces for special occasions.
- Food: The Cheyennes were originally farming people, with the women harvesting corn, squash, and beans while the men hunted deer and buffalo. They mostly gave up farming, and followed the buffalo herds as they moved across the plains. Unlike most Plains tribes, Cheyenne women took part in buffalo hunts along with men. They drove the buffalos towards the men, who shot them with their longbows.
Besides buffalo meat, Cheyenne Indians also liked to eat fish, fruit and berries, and corn that they bought from other tribes.
4. Read:
pages 1-31 in The
Cheyenne by
Andrew Santella
5.
Comprehension
questions:
- What region did the Cheyenne live in? Great Plains
- What kind of homes did the Cheyenne build? Tepee
- What kind of clothes did the Cheyenne wear? Deerskin dresses, leather leggins, breechcloth, war shirts, boots and moccasins
- How did the Cheyenne get their food? Hunted and farmed
Plains Natives
I copied page 21 in Native
Americans A Complete Thematic Unit by Jill Norris for J. He colored
the picture of the Cheyenne in their traditional clothing and then wrote 2
things that he has learned about the Cheyenne on the bottom of the page.
Cheyenne
Quillwork Parfleche
We used page 24-25 in Native
Americans A Complete Thematic Unit by Jill Norris to help with this activity.
Discuss:
A parfleche
was used by the Plains Indians to carry their possessions. It was
made from a buffalo hide. The hide was cut into a large rectangular
shape. Belongings were placed on the center of the hide. Next the
hide was folded like and envelope and tied with rawhide straps. The
parfleche was made water proof by covering it with a glue made by
boiling the tails of beavers.
Quill-
The hollow stemlike main shaft of a feather; One of the sharp hollow
spines of a porcupine or hedgehog.
Quillwork-
a form of embroidery using porcupine quills; the quills were used to
decorate clothing, pouches and birchbark boxes and baskets.
Parfleche
Quillwork
Read:
Quillworker: A Cheynne
Legend
by Terri Cohlene
and Charles Reasoner
Materials:
- parfleche pattern tracers
- brown paper bag
- scissors
- 2 pieces yarn (cut into 6” lengths)
- hole punch
- colored tooth picks
- glue
Directions:
- Draw dotted lines to show where the folds will be.
- Draw dots to show where to punch the holes.
- Turn the pattern over to the blank side.
- Punch holds on the dots.
- Fold the parfleche on the dotted lines, fold the 2 longest sides to the middle, fold the other two sides together.
Plains Bonnet
We did the activity on page 54 of More
Than Moccasins by Laurie Carlson.
Materials:
- Brown Grocery Bag
- Cardstock
- Scissors
- Pencil
- Markers
- Stapler
Directions:
1. Cut out the bottom from the bag and fold it in half longwise then unfold and cut it in half.
1. Cut out the bottom from the bag and fold it in half longwise then unfold and cut it in half.
4. Cut the cardstock into strips and staple them into a band to fit the child's head.
6. Cut the other strip of feathers in half to make 2 equal sections.
8. Decorate the headband with markers.
4 comments:
"Paper bag headbands with construction paper feathers is not an adequate craft, only a setback in cultural awareness that has been practiced in classrooms for decades. What can this kind of activity honestly teach a students besides eye-hand coordination while cutting with scissors (which there are plenty of better activities for this). There are so many more meaningful, historically accurate, culturally responsible lesson plan activities to choose from today - it's not the 60's anymore. This is not a Native American lesson plan; it is an example of what mainstream society wants Native Americans to continue to be - only a paper bag project around Thanksgiving. "
Beware of Fallacious Native American Lesson Plans
Your right there is not a lot of a learning lesson in this craft, but my boys love to play dress up and I see them learning when they do. This particular craft is not an Indian headband. This is a Plains War Bonnet, which was a signal of rank (each feather added was because of a brave deed). The 1960's Thanksgiving craft that you referred to with the Indian headband is what we did here http://mylearningboys.blogspot.com/2012/09/native-americans-day-21-northeast.html because the some of the Northeastern tribes did actually wear this type of headband (that is why we did that headband when we studied the Northeastern tribes, not the plains).
We will be studying Plains Indians next fall. I am excited to try some of your projects. Thanks for all of your hard work in posting everything!
A Nebraska homeschool mom
these are all really cool crafts
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