Christmas Songs

Who's got a beard
That's long and white?
Santa's got a beard
That's long and white

Who comes around
On a special night?
Santa comes around
On a special night

Special night
Beard that's white

Must be Santa
Must be Santa
Must be Santa
Santa Claus

Who wears boots
And a suit of red?
Santa wears boots
And a suit of red

Who wears a long cap
On his head?
Santa wears a long cap
On his head

Cap on head
Suit that's red
Special night
Beard that's white

Must be Santa
Must be Santa
Must be Santa
Santa Claus

Who's got a big red
Cherry nose?
Santa's got a big red
Cherry nose

Who laughs this way
Ho, ho, ho?
Santa laughs this way
Ho, ho, ho

Ho, ho, ho
Cherry nose
Cap on head
Suit that's red
Special night
Beard that's white

Must be Santa
Must be Santa
Must be Santa
Santa Claus

Who very soon
Will come our way?
Santa very soon
Will come our way

Eight little reindeer
Pull his sleigh
Santa's little reindeer
Pull his sleigh

Reindeer sleigh
Come our way
Ho, ho, ho
Cherry nose
Cap on head
Suit that's red
Special night
Beard that's white

Must be Santa
Must be Santa
Must be Santa
Santa Claus

Dasher, Dancer
Prancer, Vixen
Comet, Cupid
Donner
And Blitzen

Reindeer sleigh
Come our way
Ho, ho, ho
Cherry nose
Cap on head
Suit that's red
Special night
Beard that's white

Must be Santa
Must be Santa
Must be Santa
Santa Claus

Passive Voice - with Prepositions

Click here and choose the correct answer.

Webquest: Native Americans

Click here.

Chief Seattle's Letter

Chief Seattle's Letter from Pedro Schrage on Vimeo.

You can read the letter here.

American States - Native American Origin

Native Wisdom



Alabama
Alabama is the name of an Indian tribe native to the state. This tribal name may have come from the word albina, which means "campsite" in their own language, or from the words alba amo, which mean "clearing brush."

Alaska
Alaxsxix, which is a name from the Aleut language. This name means "place the sea crashes against."

Arizona
Arizonac, which is a Spanish corruption of a local Indian name-- possibly the Tohono O'odham word alishonag, which means "little spring."

Arkansas
Acansa, which is the name of a Quapaw Indian town. Literally the name means "southern place."

Connecticut
Quinnitukqut, which is the Mohegan Indian name for the Connecticut River. Literally the name means "long river."

Illinois
Illiniwek, which is the tribal name of the Illini tribe. Literally the name means "best people."

Iowa
Ayuhwa, which is one of the tribal names of the Ioway Indian tribe. Literally the name means "sleepy ones."

Kansas
Kansa, which is the name of the Kansa Indian tribe. Literally the name means "south" and is a shortened form of their own tribal name for themselves, People of the South Wind.

Kentucky
Kentake, which is an Iroquois placename meaning "meadow land."
Massachusetts Massachuset, which is a Wampanoag Indian name meaning "by the range of hills."

Michigan
Mshigem or Misigami, which are the native names for Lake Michigan in the Potawatomi and Ojibwe languages. Both names mean "great lake."

Minnesota
Mnisota, which is the native name of the Minnesota River in the Dakota Sioux language. Literally the name means "cloudy water."

Mississippi
Misiziibi, which is the native name of the Mississippi River in the Ojibwe language. Ojibwe is not actually a native language of Mississippi state-- the language is spoken near the source of the Mississippi River in Minnesota, which is where the river got its name, and the state was later named after the river. Literally the name means "great river."

Missouri
Missouria is the name of an Indian tribe native to the state. Their tribal name came from the word mihsoori, which means "big canoe people."

Nebraska
Nibthaska or Nibrathka, which are the native names for the Platte River in the Omaha-Ponca and Otoe languages. Both names mean "flat river."

New Mexico
Of course, New Mexico was named after the country of Mexico, but since Mexico itself is named after an American Indian word, the state of New Mexico is also! Mexico is a placename from the Aztec Indian language (Nahuatl.) It literally means "city of the Aztecs."

North Dakota
Dakota, which is the tribal name of the Dakota Sioux Indians. Literally the name means "the allies."
Ohio Ohiyo, which is the name of the Ohio River in the Seneca Indian language. Literally the name means "it is beautiful."

Oklahoma
Okla Homma, which means "Red People" in the Choctaw Indian language.

Oregon
This was a name given by early American settlers to the Columbia River. It was probably a Native American name which the settlers brought with them from another state, since it does not resemble names from the Native American languages of Oregon. It may have meant "beautiful river" in an eastern Algonquian language.

South Dakota
Dakota, which is the tribal name of the Dakota Sioux Indians. Literally the name means "the allies."

Tennessee
Tanasi, which was the name of a Cherokee Indian town in the region. Although "Tanasi" was recorded as the Cherokee name of this town, it does not specifically mean anything in the Cherokee language (just as many English place names are not specific words.) It may have been a shortened form of a longer Cherokee word or phrase, or it may have been named after a Cherokee person.

Texas
Taysha, which means "friend" in the Caddo Indian language.

Utah
Ute is the name of an Indian tribe native to the state. This tribal name may have come from the word nuutsiu, which means "the people" in their own language.

Wisconsin
Wishkonsing, which is the Ojibwe name for the Wisconsin River. However, this word does not have a specific meaning in the Ojibwe language, and none of the Ojibwe Indians in our organization knows any oral traditions about where the name came from.

Wyoming
Chwewamink, which means "by the big river flat" in the Lenape Indian tribe. The Lenape Indians never actually lived in Wyoming-- it was originally the name of a town in Pennsylvania, and white settlers from that area brought the name with them when they moved west.

Native American Hairstyles

American Indian Women's Hairstyles

Klamath woman with flowing hair

Cayuse woman with long braids

Seminole woman with a topknot

Sketch of a woman wearing a chongo

Hopi maiden with squashblossom whorls

Seminole lady with board hair

The most common Native American women's hairstyles were a simple flowing hairstyle (either with or without bangs) or long braids (either two braids or one single braid.) Some women painted horizontal stripes on their hair or dyed the center part a bright color. In the southeast, many women from tribes such as the Creek and Chickasaw wore their hair on top of their heads in buns or topknots. In the southwest, women from the Navajo and Pueblo tribes often wore their hair tied behind their heads in a kind of twist best known as a chongo (the Pueblo word for this hairstyle.) Other Southwestern Indian women preferred to keep their hair cut to shoulder length. One distinctive tribal hairstyle for women was the elaborate squash blossom or butterfly whorls worn by Hopi maidens. To make this hairdo, a young woman's mother would wind her hair around a curved piece of wood to give it a round shape, then remove the wood frame. Only unmarried young women wore this complex hairstyle. Another unique tribal hairstyle was the board or bonnet hair popular among Seminole women in the 1800's. Seminole women made their hair into this disk shape by fanning it over a tilted cardboard frame (which then stayed in place under their hair.) Traditionally, most Seminole women wore their hair on top of their heads like other southeastern Indian tribes, and today the black board style is almost never worn. However, it can still be seen on Seminole palmetto dolls, which are usually made with this distinctively Seminole hairstyle.

˜American Indian Men's Hairstyles

Salish man with flowing hair and mustache

Crow chief with braids and pompadour

Caddo man with roached hair

Native American actor wearing a scalplock

Pueblo man with short hair and headband

Mojave man with painted hair rolls

The most common Native American men's hairstyles were flowing hairstyles, long braids, or shaved heads. But there were many different versions of each of these basic hairstyles. Hair held great symbolic importance for men in many Native American tribes, especially in Western tribes like the Sioux and Blackfoot. Men in these tribes only cut their hair to show grief or shame, and often wore the front part of their hair in special styles including pompadours (hair stiffened with grease or clay so that it stands up), forelocks (one long strand of hair hanging down between the eyes), or small braids or topknots arranged in various shapes. In Eastern tribes like the Lenape and Iroquois tribes, most warriors shaved their heads except for a scalplock (a single lock of hair on the crown of their head), tonsure (a fringe of hair around the head), or roach (a stiff crest of hair running down the middle of the head.) The roach hairstyle is often known as a Mohawk or Mohican hairstyle, after two tribes who frequently wore it. Native American men would often wear artificial roaches, too, which were made of brightly colored porcupine or deer hair. Men with shaved heads and men with long braids would both wear artificial roaches sometimes. Most Southwest Indian men originally wore their hair in a chongo style similar to the women's. (Chongo is a Pueblo word; the same hairstyle is also known as Tsiiyéél in Navajo and Hömsoma in Hopi.) Shoulder-length hair with a cloth bandana around it became a more popular style in the Southwest by the 1800's. Other Southwestern men twisted their hair into long hair rolls resembling modern dreadlocks, which they stiffened with clay and painted. On the Northwest Coast and northern California, men sometimes wore topknots on top of their heads. Northwest Coast men also wore mustaches and sometimes beards, while men in most other Native American tribes kept their faces shaved.

˜Do Native Americans still wear these hairstyles today?

Some of them. Braids and long flowing hair are still popular hairstyles, especially among women, but also for some men. Native Americans in some Plains and Western tribes continue to place great spiritual value on their hair, cutting it only when they are in mourning. Chongos are still worn by some Native American women in the southwest. Other special hairstyles like forelocks and squash blossoms are seen only at religious and cultural events. The roach ('Mohawk') hairstyle is almost never worn anymore, but artificial roaches are still worn at powwows all over the country.

Blackfoot man wearing long braids

Female dancer wearing braids

Male dancer with long hair and artificial roach

Miss Navajo Nation wearing a tsiiyéél (chongo)

Native American homes

Wigwam Homes

Wigwams (or wetus) are Native American houses used by Algonquian Indians in the woodland regions. Wigwam is the word for "house" in the Abenaki tribe, and wetu is the word for "house" in the Wampanoag tribe. Sometimes they are also known as birchbark houses. Wigwams are small houses, usually 8-10 feet tall. Wigwams are made of wooden frames which are covered with woven mats and sheets of birchbark. The frame can be shaped like a dome, like a cone, or like a rectangle with an arched roof. Once the birchbark is in place, ropes or strips of wood are wrapped around the wigwam to hold the bark in place. Here are some pictures of a woman building a wigwam.


cone-shaped dome-shaped rectangular shape wigwam frame

Wigwams are good houses for people who stay in the same place for months at a time. Most Algonquian Indians lived together in settled villages during the farming season, but during the winter, each family group would move to their own hunting camp. Wigwams are not portable, but they are small and easy to build. Woodland Indian families could build new wigwams every year when they set up their winter camps.

Longhouses

Longhouses are Native American homes used by the Iroquois tribes and some of their Algonquian neighbors. They are built similarly to wigwams, with pole frames and elm bark covering. The main difference is that longhouses are much, much larger than wigwams. Longhouses could be 150 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 20 feet high. Inside the longhouse, raised platforms created a second story, which was used for sleeping space. Mats and wood screens divided the longhouse into separate rooms. Each longhouse housed an entire clan-- as many as 60 people!


sketch of a longhouse longhouse cutaway a longhouse today

Longhouses are good homes for people who intend to stay in the same place for a long time. A longhouse is large and takes a lot of time to build and decorate. The Iroquois were farming people who lived in permanent villages. Iroquois men sometimes built wigwams for themselves when they were going on hunting trips, but women might live in the same longhouse their whole life.

epees

Tepees (also spelled Teepees or Tipis) are tent-like American Indian houses used by Plains tribes. A tepee is made of a cone-shaped wooden frame with a covering of buffalo hide. Like modern tents, tepees are carefully designed to set up and break down quickly. As a tribe moved from place to place, each family would bring their tipi poles and hide tent along with them. Originally, tepees were about 12 feet high, but once the Plains Indian tribes acquired horses, they began building them twice as high.


Indian tepee photograph picture of tepees being set up

Tepees are good houses for people who are always on the move. Plains Indians migrated frequently to follow the movements of the buffalo herds. An entire Plains Indian village could have their tepees packed up and ready to move within an hour. There were fewer trees on the Great Plains than in the Woodlands, so it was important for Plains tribes to carry their long poles with them whenever they traveled instead of trying to find new ones each time they moved.

Grass Houses

Grass houses are American Indian homes used in the Southern Plains by tribes such as the Caddos. They resemble large wigwams but are made with different materials. Grass houses are made with a wooden frame bent into a beehive shape and thatched with long prairie grass. These were large buildings, sometimes more than 40 feet tall.


Wichita grass house Caddo grass house construction

Grass houses are good homes for people in a warm climate. In the northern plains, winters are too cold to make homes out of prairie grass. But in the southern plains of Texas, houses like these were comfortable for the people who used them.

Wattle and Daub Houses

Wattle and daub houses (also known as asi, the Cherokee word for them) are Native American houses used by southeastern tribes. Wattle and daub houses are made by weaving rivercane, wood, and vines into a frame, then coating the frame with plaster. The roof was either thatched with grass or shingled with bark.


rivercane frame plastered and thatched

Wattle and daub houses are permanent structures that take a lot of effort to build. Like longhouses, they are good homes for agricultural people who intended to stay in one place, like the Cherokees and Creeks. Making wattle and daub houses requires a fairly warm climate to dry the plaster.

Chickees

Chickees (also known as chickee huts, stilt houses or platform dwellings) are Native American homes used primarily in Florida by tribes like the Seminole Indians. Chickee houses consisted of thick posts supporting a thatched roof and a flat wooden platform raised several feet off the ground. They did not have any walls. During rainstorms, Florida Indians would lash tarps made of hide or cloth to the chickee frame to keep themselves dry, but most of the time, the sides of the structure were left open.


drawing of a chickee Seminole chickee

Chickees are good homes for people living in a hot, swampy climate. The long posts keep the house from sinking into marshy earth, and raising the floor of the hut off the ground keeps swamp animals like snakes out of the house. Walls or permanent house coverings are not necessary in a tropical climate where it never gets cold.

Adobe Houses

Adobe houses (also known as pueblos) are Native American house complexes used by the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest. Adobe pueblos are modular, multi-story houses made of adobe (clay and straw baked into hard bricks) or of large stones cemented together with adobe. Each adobe unit is home to one family, like a modern apartment. The whole structure, which can contain dozens of units, is often home to an entire extended clan.


Pueblo Indian houses Adobe cliff dwellings Hopi Mesa pueblos

Adobe houses are good homes to build in a warm, dry climate where adobe can be easily mixed and dried. These are homes for farming people who have no need to move their village to a new location. In fact, some Pueblo people have been living in the same adobe house complex, such as Sky City, for dozens of generations.

Earthen Houses

Earthen house is a general term referring to several types of Native American homes including Navajo hogans, Sioux earth lodges, subarctic sod houses, and Native American pit houses of the West Coast and Plateau. Earthen houses made by different tribes had different designs, but all were semi-subterranean dwellings -- basement-like living spaces dug from the earth, with a domed mound built over the top (usually a wooden frame covered with earth or reeds.)


Pawnee earth lodge Navajo hogan Alaskan sod house

Earthern houses are good for people who want permanent homes and live in an area that is not forested. (It's difficult work to excavate underground homes in areas with many tree roots!) Living partially underground has several benefits, especially in harsh climates-- the earth offers natural protection from wind and strong weather.

gloos

Igloos (or Iglu) are snow houses used by the Inuit (Eskimos) of northern Canada. Not all Inuit people used igloos -- some built sod houses instead, using whale bones instead of wooden poles for a frame. Like a sod house, the igloo is dome-shaped and slightly excavated, but it is built from the snow, with large blocks of ice set in a spiral pattern and packed with snow to form the dome.


Inuit (Eskimo) igloo Building an igloo Inside an igloo

Igloos are good houses for the polar region, where the earth is frozen, the snow cover is deep, and there are few trees. Snow is a good insulator, and dense blocks of ice offer good protection against the arctic winds.

Brush Shelters

Brush shelters (including wickiups, lean-tos, gowa, etc.) are temporary Native American dwellings used by many tribes. Brush shelters are typically very small, like a camping tent. People cannot usually stand up straight inside brush lodges -- they are only used for sleeping in. A brush shelter is made of a simple wooden frame covered with brush (branches, leaves, and grass.) The frame can be cone-shaped, with one side left open as a door, or tent-shaped, with both ends left open.


conical frame conical wickiup tent-shaped frame tent-shaped brush lodge

Most Native Americans only made a brush shelter when they were out camping in the wilderness. But some migratory tribes who lived in warm dry climates, such as the Apache tribes, built brush shelters as homes on a regular basis. They can be assembled quickly from materials that are easy to find in the environment, so people who build villages of brush shelters can move around freely without having to drag teepee poles.

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