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Activity 2

You will discover things about Southwestern Native Americans in five areas: their location in the United States, type of home, clothing worn, food, and beliefs and crafts. You will be able to complete the chart and the questions below the chart after reading this page and completing Activity 1.

I. Homes - There exists a strong bond between Native Americans and their environments. Geography and climate helped to determine how and from what homes are made. Types of homes that existed are hogans, reed homes, wickiups, pueblos made of mud or adobe, and tipis.

II. Clothing - Contrary to popular belief Native Americans had a wide variety of decorative, comfortable clothing. The wild plants were prepared to make shoes, clothes, and blankets. Other plants were used to make the dyes to color these fibers. The colors and patterns used by each tribe are more than decoration, they also tell tribal and history stories.

III. Location - Remember, where a tribe lived determined their type of home and clothing. It also led to different eating habits. Where, in the United States, a tribe existed changed and determined much about the tribe.

IV. Food - Climate and geography determined the food a tribe would eat. Their food supply had a direct influence on the rest of their life. See how this is true. See what foods we eat today had its beginnings in the Native American cultures. How did moving the Native Americans onto reservations change them?

V. Beliefs and/or Crafts - Each tribe has its own series of festivals and ceremonies throughout the year. They believed the earth, air, water, and sky belonged to everyone and should be saved for everyone to enjoy. There were many gods. The crafts each tribe produced was special and showed a lot about the tribe itself. The colors, patterns and even materials used varied.

	Meaning of tribal name	location in US	type of home	food	beliefs, and/or crafts
Hopi
Navajo
Pueblo
Western Apache
Zuni

Complete the following questions.

1. What foods do you eat now that may have also been eaten by Native Americans?

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2. How did moving the Native Americans to reservations as settlers traveled west change the eating and living habits of the Native Americans?

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