and his wife, Red Blanket, Amos grew up in the traditional way for a young Lakota boy, although his upbringing was disturbed by the growing unrest between the tribe and the European settlers. Amos was only eight years old when the Sioux defeated General Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn; despite their victory, the Great Sioux War saw the tribe eventually overcome, and Amos’ family fled north to be with the great chief, Sitting Bull, in Canada, for a few years before returning south to the Standing Rock Reservation, and then to the Pine Ridge Reservation, in the early 1880s.
Amos was interested in the history of his people and this, combined with an artistic skill, saw him start to draw pictures showing key events in the life of the tribe. His father Bad Heart Bull was responsible for keeping the Winter Count, a pictorial calendar, and it’s likely that the young Amos picked up these skills from his father.
It was during his time serving as a scout for the U.S. Army that Amos bought a ledger book—intended for accounts, etc.—from a store, and began to draw in it. By chance, he adapted a traditional Indian technique of drawing on hide or skins to a modern medium: paper. This style became known as Ledger Art, and Amos became famous for it. Once he returned to the tribe after his time in the Army, he became the Winter Keeper of the tribe, following in the footsteps of his father before him.
It wasn’t until after his death, though, that Amos’ art gained recognition. His sister, Dolly Pretty Cloud, had inherited the ledger book full of drawings, and she was contacted by a university student, Helen Blish, who wanted to study the drawings as part of her thesis. Her professor, Hartley Alexander, made photographs of the drawings to accompany his student’s text—which was fortunate, since when Dolly died the ledger book was buried with her. The text and drawings were subsequently published in 1938 by Professor Alexander as Sioux Indian Painting. Some 30 years later it was printed again, the content considered a very important record of the history and culture of the Lakota people, this time under the title A Photographic History of the Oglala Sioux, by Helen Blish’s alma mater, the University of Nebraska Press.
ANASAZI
Meaning “The Ancient Ones,” the Anasazi were among the first dwellers in the vast land that became the United States. Sometimes called the “Ancient Pueblo Peoples,” the Anasazi lived in the southwest. The Anasazi have been traced back as far as 6000 B.C., a hunter-gatherer people who had started to settle into agriculture (primarily growing maize as a crop) in the last two centuries B.C. The Anasazi also left behind a significant accumulation of archeological remains that have helped us to understand something of their culture and way of life.
By A.D. 1200, horticulture had become a very important part of Anasazi economy, although prior to this they had still traveled in search of hunting grounds and sources of food. The more settled they became, however, the more skilled the Anasazi became at basket making, and indeed this was so important that the three delineated periods of Anasazi culture, from 1000 B.C. until A.D. 750, are defined as “the three Basket-Making periods.” Remains of these baskets—and sandals—prove that they were not simply utilitarian objects, but works of art, too.
The Anasazi buried their dead in deep circular pits lined with stones, grasses, and mud; they stored goods in the same way. Houses were similar to hogans—circular permanent structures constructed of a framework of branches covered in reeds, grasses, and earth.
By A.D. 500, the Anasazi were settled into a farming culture, living in small settlements that were scattered widely over what is now southern Utah. These settlements could be as small as just three homes, or as large as a “village” containing more than a dozen buildings.
Archeological investigations of Anasazi remains have also helped us to gauge the arrival of the bow and arrow into this part of America. Sometime before A.D. 750, the bow and arrow replaced the older spear thrower. Around about the same time period, the people also started to make pots, probably as a direct result of using a basket lined with clay as a cooking receptacle. It wouldn’t have taken long to realize that the basket itself wasn’t a necessary part of the structure once the clay had hardened (probably in the cooking process). Anasazi pottery came in two grades: the plain “everyday” kind, and the more decorative ware which was patterned with black-on-white designs.
From A.D. 750 onward, we start to think of the Anasazi as the Pueblo. This name refers to the way the people came to live, in solid, stonebuilt multistoried houses. “Pueblo” is not a tribal name, as some suppose.
For 250 years onward, from A.D. 900, the Pueblo houses, formerly made from wooden poles and adobe, started to be replaced with stone masonry, and a floor was developed that was at the same level as the ground. The actual pithouses, or kiva, were used instead for ceremonies.
ANGAGOK
The shaman or medicine man of the Inuit.
APACHE
A tribe from the Northwest, the Apache were renowned for their fearlessness which, combined with a natural ferocity, meant that they were much feared, not only among the white settlers, but by other Natives, against whom were long-running feuds. Since they had been living in New Mexico when the Spaniards had first arrived there with horses, the Apache were one of the first tribes to train, breed, and ride horses after they had captured the animals in raids. It was their horseback raids on the Pueblo settlements of that area that gave them their name: Apachu means “enemy” in the Zuni language, and “fighting men” in the Yuma tongue. Inde, meaning “people,” is the term that the Apachean groups used to refer to themselves. Although the Apache and the Navajo are related, the term “Apache” isn’t used in reference to the Navajo. Both Apache and Navajo are a part of the Athabascan language group.
There were several different bands of tribes that are grouped under the general heading of Apache. These include the Chiricahua, who had the reputation of being the most ferocious of all the Apache groups, the Kiowa Apache (or Plains Apache), the Jicarilla (who cultivated corn as well as hunting buffalo), and the Mescalero (so-named because of their fondness for the roasted heads of the wild mescal plant). The Lipan Apache in Texas were known to be particularly “unruly.” These separate Apache groups didn’t really work in any kind of unity; there were seven different languages between the major groups, as well as diverse cultural differences between those groups.
The Apache were seasonal hunters, ranging after buffalo, deer, and elk. The Apache were matrilinear—that is, the children were deemed to belong to the tribe of their mother and, once married, their father’s obligations lay with their mother’s clan. Although all the separate Apache clans operated distinctly from one another, during times of warfare they banded together to make a formidable fighting force.
As soon as they gained access to firearms as well as horses, the Apache became even more dangerous than before. It’s fair to say that they posed the greatest threat to the Europeans in the desert territories of New Mexico and Arizona. In addition to their warlike ferocity, the Apache were intelligent, wily strategists. One U.S. general, whose identity has been lost, described the Apache as “the tigers of the human species,” although for the Apache themselves their nature was simply one born of the constant struggle to survive, and the guerrilla war tactics that they adopted came completely naturally to them. It was rumored that an Apache warrior
