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Native American Cultures

Living in the Tundra Just below the frozen Arctic is the vast tundra of northern Canada and central Alaska. The landscape is flat and almost treeless: most of the year temperatures are below freezing and very few plants grow. Although it may seem impossible, two separate groups of people live in this wasteland. The Athabaskans live to the west of central Alaska and in areas of northern Canada west of Hudson Bay. To the south and west of Hudson Bay are Algonquian -speaking people, who are linked to people living further south around the Great Lakes. Hunting and Farming The two groups survived in very different ways. The Athabaskans, whose major nations included the Chipewyan, Hare, and Dogrib, hunted caribou, moose and bighorn sheep. They ate little vegetation because there was so little growing. The Algonquian-speaking nations, such as the Cree and Ojibwa

T his photograph was taken in 1904 and shows a family of Alaskans. The father’s name was Ethlota. These people lived much as the Athabaskans did, hunting for a living during the long winter and short summer

(Chippewa), lived further south in more sheltered parts among the forests north of the Great Lakes. As well as

Inuit Spirit World The Inuit believe in a great number of spirits and demons. Some spirits are friendly, but most of them are hostile to humans. The Inuit therefore carve their spirits to look terrifying, as this model (left) shows. In order to keep themselves safe from these wicked spirits, the Inuit follow rituals that are conducted by shamans, medicine men. They make regular offerings to the spirits and say prayers over their dead and the animals that they hunt. For example, seals or whales that are killed are given a drink of water so that they can go to the spirit world saying that they were treated with respect. The shamans are also able to heal the sick.

hunting for deer, they also fished in

the rivers with canoes they built from bark, like their cousins further south.

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