How Much Do You Know About Kentucky's Native Peoples?
Test your knowledge, fill in your name and address at the end of this the
quiz and let us know how you did, or if you have any other questions, comments,
or reactions.
Choose whether the statements listed below (a total of 10 questions) are
True or False:
The Indians came to Kentucky from India.
If your answer is TRUE then
you are WRONG See Explanation below. If your answer is FALSE then you are
RIGHT See Explanation below.
Explanation: At
least 20,000 years ago, people entered North America by crossing a
land bridge that stretched from Siberia to Alaska. After the land
bridge was covered by rising ocean waters North America
was sealed off from outside contact. Paleoindian peoples arrived
in Kentucky by about 12,000 B.C. after traveling southeast
across the Great Plains. A few people have suggested that
contact with ancient European and Asian cultures (e.g., Phoenician,
Welsh and early Irish, Hindu) accounted for agriculture, monumental
building, and other North American cultural practices, but this is
not true. Christopher Columbus, convinced he had reached southeast
Asia in 1492, was responsible for misidentifying the
native Americans as "Indians." Despite its misleading
connotation, most modern prehistorians have accepted the
term.
The people who built mounds in Kentucky were not related to modern-day
Indian tribes.
If your answer is TRUE then
you are WRONG See Explanation below. If your answer is FALSE then you are
RIGHT See Explanation below.
Explanation: Throughout the nineteenth and well into the
twentieth century, most people in America attributed
the impressive earthworks in the Ohio Valley,
including Kentucky to a "superior race of Moundbuilders,"
variously identified as Scythians of whom Herodotus wrote,
Israelites of the Bible, Romans, Vikings, people of Atlantis, and
any other group of people known to have built a mound. This
idea persisted because of prejudice against native peoples.
Europeans simply refused to believe that native peoples or their
ancestors were capable of such feats of engineering skill.
Moreover, the native peoples the first Eurpoean settlers
encountered had no knowledge of the mounds, who built them, or
when. It was not until the early 1900s, largely through the efforts
of scientists connected with the Smithsonian Institution
who undertook extensive excavations, that the
connections between the "Moundbuilders" and living native peoples
were confirmed.
Mounds are nothing more than tombs for the Indian dead.
If your answer is
TRUE then you are WRONG See Explanation
below. If your
answer is FALSE then you are RIGHT See Explanation
below.
Explanation: Some
mounds, like those built by the Adena people or Fort Ancient
people of the Bluegrass, are indeed tombs, but many prehistoric
mounds contain no burials. In western Kentucky flat-topped
platform mounds functioned as the foundations for the
houses of the leaders of these prehistoric
communities'
Prehistoric Kentuckians depended on game for food; they had a very
limited diet.
If your answer is TRUE then
you are WRONG See Explanation below. If your answer is FALSE then you are
RIGHT See Explanation below.
Explanation: Archaeologists have learned through analysis
of charred plant fragments from prehistoric Indian
sites that long before the cultivation of crops (about 1000
B.C.), native peoples had varied diets from the foods in their
environment. They ate many types of wild seeds,
vegetables (roots, leaves, stems, and barks), fruits, and
nuts, in addition to the meat from animals. Indeed, there is
evidence to suggest that native peoples' diets deteriorated after
they began farming. For example, studies of prehistoric peoples'
teeth have shown that tooth decay increased when they made
corn a major part of their diet.
Prehistoric peoples who lived in Kentucky were primitive and
uncivilized. They lived in small groups and had little contact with one
another.
If your answer is TRUE then
you are WRONG See Explanation below. If your answer is FALSE then you are
RIGHT See Explanation below.
Explanation: As many
as 2,000 (A.D. 1000-1700) towns in western Kentucky. people may
have lived at some of the Mississippian These people made their
living mainly by farming, cultivating corn, squash, and
beans. Their towns were organized around plazas. Some people
had very high status positions within these societies, and carried
out important political and religious duties. These individuals
lived on the mound tops and served as leaders of their societies.
At death, they were buried in specially prepared earth mounds,
often accompanied by objects made from exotic materials like copper
and marine shell.
The Indians of Kentucky shared a way of life which included hunting
buffalo, carving totem poles, living in tipis, eating corn, and building
mounds.
If your answer is TRUE then
you are WRONG See Explanation below. If your answer is FALSE then you are
RIGHT See Explanation below.
Explanation: Many
different prehistoric Indian societies called Kentucky home. This
cultural diversity extended to language, religion and ideology,
architecture, economics, and socio-political
organization. Each changed, developed, and waned over
time. Indian groups who lived along the Pacific coast of Oregon
and Washington State built totem poles, but only during the
years A.D. 1650-1900. The buffalo hunting peoples of the Great
Plains lived in Tipis
The Indian word for corn is maize.
If your answer is TRUE then
you are WRONG See Explanation below. If your answer is FALSE then you are
RIGHT See Explanation below.
Explanation: This is
an example of the stereotyping to which we are all susceptible.
Each Indian language has its own word for corn. "Maize" is Spanish
for corn.
The main hunting weapon of Kentucky's prehistoric inhabitants was the
bow and arrow.
If your answer is TRUE then
you are WRONG See Explanation below. If your answer is FALSE then you are
RIGHT See Explanation below.
Explanation: Native
peoples living in Kentucky began to use the bow and arrow
comparatively recently, beginning about Kentucky about A.D. 700.
Prior to the development of the bow and arrow,
native hunters used spears, often in combination with an
altatl (spearthrower). Laymen tend to call all stones
shaped to a sharp point for use as a weapon
"arrowheads." But this is incorrect, since many were
actually spearpoints or knives. Archaeologists prefer the
term "projectile points."
Indians used Kentucky only as a hunting ground.
If your answer is
TRUE then you are WRONG See Explanation
below. If your
answer is FALSE then you are RIGHT See Explanation
below.
Explanation: This
misconception of Kentucky as a hunting ground or a "dark and bloody
ground" had its beginning in a statement made by Dragging Canoe to
Richard Henderson of the Transylvania Company in 1771. During the
negotiation and signing of a transfer of a large part of what is
now Kentucky to Henderson's company, Dragging Canoe, a
Cherokee, stated that this "bloody ground was under a dark
cloud." His statement was interpreted to mean that native peoples
had not owned, bought, or lived in the reiong but only had
fought over it. This made it easier for settlers to claim
native lands for their own. In 1784, John Filson made Dragging
Canoe's statement famous in his book Discovery, Settlement, and
Present State of Kentucke, which has led to the perpetuation of
this myth in legends, novels, magazines, and in textbooks up to
today. Indian groups began to live in Kentucky as early
as 12,000 B.C. Though at first small groups of people lived
in camps, by about 6,000 B.C. aboriginal groups were living in
larger, more permanent base camps. Kentucky's native
people began to live in villages around A.D. 500, and by
A.D. 1000, larger permanent villages were inhabited. Due to
the effects of introduced European diseases, disruption of native
lifeways and trading networks, and activities of the French
and the English on the frontier, most Indian groups in
central and eastern Kentucky had moved their villages north
of the Ohio River by around 1758, though they still may
have kept their winter hunting camps in Kentucky. At the present
time, it would seem more reasonable to interpret Dragging
Canoe's statement to mean that the land Henderson was buying was
not really the Cherokee's to sell, but was claimed by the
Shawnee and was desired by the Iroquois, a situation that could
only lead to bloodshed. Dragging Canoe's statement undoubtedly
referred to the immediate past of the state or to its immediate
future, but not, as it has come to be interpreted, to the total
past of Kentucky.
Native peoples never lived in permanent villages in Kentucky.
If your answer is
TRUE then you are WRONG See Explanation
below. If your
answer is FALSE then you are RIGHT See Explanation
below.
Explanation: Indians lived in permanent villages in
Kentucky beginning around A.D. 500. These people gardened or
farmed, hunted, fished, and collected wild plants and nuts.
They traded with their neighbors for items they used in
rituals, as well as for items of everyday use.
Excerpted from "Studying the Prehistory of Man in Kentucky: Activities
for the Middle School" by Jim Carpenter and Kathryn Fraser, 1983.
