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INTERMEDIATE

HISTORY OF THE
UNITED STATES

FOR USE IN THE

FIFTH AND SIXTH GRADES
OF CATHOLIC SCHOOLS

WILLIAM H. SADLIER

NEW YORK

į

HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Το

M. M. R.

Copyright, 1915,

F. X. SADLIER

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A few hundred years ago there were no white people in this western world where we live. The only human beings were Indians. They are so called because the discoverers of America thought they had reached India and called the natives Indians. They have a copper-colored skin, straight black hair, dark piercing eyes, high cheek bones and beardless faces. They clothed their bodies with skins of animals and covered their feet with "moccasins" made of deer hide.

2-Their Homes

To make a hut an Indian first hacked off some long limbs of a pine tree. He used a stone hatchet because he did not know how to make iron or steel.

After trimming the twigs off the boughs, the Indian hut builder drew a moderate sized circle on the ground, put an end of each pole on the circle and then brought them all together at the top. These were bound together at the top and covered with bark or skins, making a sort of tent called a "wigwam" or "tepee." This could be easily taken down and moved. The wigwam was a common form of Indian home in the eastern part of the present United States.

3-Other Indian Homes.

The Indians in the southwestern part of the country were half civilized. They knew how to build houses of sun-dried

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Indian wigwams and birch bark canoe

brick, and these dwellings were often perched high up in the side of a cañon,* to be safe from enemies. Hence these people are called cliff dwellers. They made pottery and wove rough cloth.

In the eastern part of the country, in what is now New York State and thereabouts, some Indian tribes dwelt in houses built of bark, in which several related families lived together. Many of these families together formed a clan; and each clan had its "totem." This was usually the figure of some animal, which was the symbol of the clan, and was reverenced by it. The head of a clan was called a "sachem"; many clans together formed a tribe.

* High cliffs on each bank of a river.

THE INDIANS

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4- Occupations

The Indians lived by hunting and fishing. They tilled the soil somewhat, and raised corn, which they called maize. The Indians did not have horses, cattle, or sheep until the white man came. They moved from place to place in search of game, along certain paths called trails, and fished on lakes and rivers in canoes made of birch bark. In winter, in the North, they chased their game on snow shoes made of deer throngs, stretched on a frame of wood. Indians ate well in time of plenty, but kept nothing for their future needs and when game was scarce they very often starved.

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Their weapons were the bow and arrow, the spear and the tomahawk. As they had no metal they used sharp stones or shells for points. When the white men came the Indians acquired guns and became fine marksmen. But even with the bow and arrow they could hit a running deer or a squirrel

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