Herrons Whisper
Crafts, Games and Activities

Craft work is a great place to start when beginning to talk to very young children about Native Americans. The tactile experience coupled with learning the function of the object is an introduction to basic culture. Try to use the same materials that would have been available at the time that Native people were using the item. Please be aware of how you speak of Native people when you deal with material culture. Many teachers speak of Native people as "long ago and far away."

Remember that Natives are still here and their culture is alive and growing. You might want to make comparisons of today's culture versus the historic culture.

Some craft materials are seasonal. As you plan your activities for the year, be aware of the proper season to gather those materials that you will need. Also check around for your sources. For example, here in Ohio, during deer hunting season, you can go to deer processing places and ask for parts of the deer that most hunters don't want. To make deer toe rattles, this is an ideal way to get the quantity needed. Gourds are a great craft material. Many grocery stores sell them as a decorative item. Find out what they do with the ones that don't sell.

K-1-2 | 3 | 4 | 5-6 | Bulletin Boards | FYI

K-1-2

1. Music: A great project for little people is the drying and painting of gourds to make rattles. The best gourds are the small ornamental "spoon" gourds. In the fall these are readily available. Be sure to provide at least two gourds per child. Do not be afraid of buying too many. Once dried they last for years.

Drying and cleaning gourds
Put gourds aside on newspaper in a cool, dry place. A basement is ideal. Leave space between them so that they do not touch. They will begin to grow a mold on their outer covering and get hairy! Do not throw them out! This is normal. The pigmentation on the outer layer is sloughing off. If they become watery and collapse, then throw them out! Otherwise, leave them alone and when the mold dies and the gourd becomes very lightweight, you are ready to clean and paint. Clean by dipping in warm water to loosen the dried outer skin. Scrub with a plastic scrub pad such as a "Tuffy" scrubber. Do not leave the gourds soaking in water for a long time, as they may become too soft. By gently tapping the gourd on your hand, you can loosen the seeds and they will begin to rattle, producing a soft sound. If the rattle breaks, save the seeds and grow more rattles.

Making a split stick
Split sticks are a percussion instrument. They are used to teach children the basics of drum beat and singing. For many Native people the drum is sacred, not a toy. The people who play the drum are not "drummers;" they are called "singers." The drum is played with a heartbeat rhythm, not the stereotyped music of the movies.

A 5/8-by-36-inch dowel rod is cut into three 12-inch sections. On a table saw, cut an 8-inch split down the center length of the dowel rod. The split should be 1/8-inch wide. Leave 4 inches uncut for a handle. Children can then sand these sticks and paint them. (Some teachers use markers for little people.) The more you sand the stick, the better the sound that it produces.

2. Personal Decoration: Bead stringing is a project that has benefits on many levelseye-hand coordination, color skills and tactile stimulation, to name a few. In this project we try to use materials that Native people would have had before Europeans came to this land. No pasta! Remember that glass and plastic occurred post-European contact.

Some natural beads are made of wood, corn, beans, seeds, walnut shell slices, acorn caps, bird bones, stones with natural holes, horn, antler or any other natural materials that can have a hole put in them. Small sumac branches can be cut into sections and a hole can be made the length of the section by running a hot wire through the center. Cut the sections of sumac to about 10 inches long, make a hole and then cut into smaller 1-inch sections. Drilled sea shells are great. Hollow chicken or turkey bones or vertebrae can be cleaned and used. There are also beads of pottery, copper, woven basketry, bark and even quills. It is not recommended that porcupine quills be used for young children, but large bird quills are fine.

3. Beadwork Design: Learn the colors and design of Native beadwork. Cut construction paper into basic geometric shapes. Have available pictures of Native American design patterns, both Plains and Woodland. Have the students arrange and glue the shapes onto a solid background sheet of construction paper. Students can copy existing patterns or develop their own. This project is good for learning shapes and colors as well as for eye- hand coordination.

4. Clothing: Learn to identify different Native American cultural and environmental areas through clothing. Have different sets of traditional Native clothing drawn on paper for use as coloring sheets. Have the children discuss the differences and similarities, i.e., a set of Woodland clothing vs. a set of Eskimo clothing. When talking about the clothing, show pictures of the animals that are in that area. Then let the children try to figure out from your clues where the environmental area is on the map. Remember to stick to very basic clothing without a lot of fancy accessories that might confuse or detract. The goal of this project is to teach that not all Native people were alike. This project works well in conjunction with a bulletin board display of the map.

A match game
Play a match game with Native American figures in traditional clothing. Match boys and girls to each other by their clothing styles for example, Woodland boy to Woodland girl. Discuss how their clothing differs from each other and other Native people. Discuss what is the same. Remember to include a modern boy and girl.

A map game
Using a map of North America, cut out figures of Native people in traditional clothing. Guess which Native person matches each geographical area. This is a repetitive game that teaches that maps represent real places and people. The environment of the area can be emphasized.

5. Stereotypes: Many children and adults think of Native people as long ago and far away. It is very important to present Native culture in both a historical and modern context. One way to do this is through comparative photographs and/or drawings. A then-and-now approach gives a great perspective.

6. Language: In most areas, many of the place names are of Native American origin. A county map is a starting place to discover what in your area has a Native name. Twenty-nine states have Native names. This includes Hawaii, which is most certainly a Native name. Delaware is not! Lord Thomas West, the second governor of the colony of Virginia, put his royal title on many features of the eastern coastal area. His royal title was Lord de la Warr. He even put it on the river that the Lenape lived along. It eventually transferred to the people themselves. Learning these commonplace names begins to teach students how the presence of Native culture is ingrained in our society.

7. Games: At this age, games are great. There are so many games to choose from! There are many very simple races that appeal to this age group. Bear race, frog race, fox and geese, and catch the fish are a few. Cat's cradle was highly developed by Native people. Also, try "button, button, who's got the button" (use a stone or bead). Make a Do Wah pouch or stick, or use corncob darts with supervision. Older children can learn more advanced games such as toss stick, darts, "spear the moose," "hot rock," silent relay and follow the leader (use obstacles and have followers track the exact steps of the leader).

Two great books to access are: Handbook of American Indian Games by Allan and Paulette Macfarlan (Dover Publications) and Games of North American Indians by Stewart Culin (Dover Publications).

8. Tools: Explore Native American recycling. How did Native people impact their environment? What permanent impact have Native people left on this continent? Look at pictures and discuss. Explore the tools used by earlier Native people and see how the tools changed with the advent of Europeans.

Try coil or slab pottery. Use incised design techniques to recreate early Native designs. Sew together leather pouches with pre-punched holes and a drawstring top.

Living in nature
Have children gather natural items such as bark, nuts, bones, stones, plants, deer antlers, etc., and have a display of them in the classroom. Find out what each item was used for, if it was used. Find out how many uses an item could have.

 

9. Hunting: Learn to identify the animals that Native Americans were familiar with and might have hunted. Cut the tracks of many different animals out of construction paper. Use a different color for each animal. For example, all deer tracks are red, all raccoon tracks are blue, all rabbit tracks are black and all turkey tracks are orange. Have "hunts" by taping the tracks to the floor from a starting place to many different ending places. Give each child a specific set of tracks to follow. At the end of each set of tracks, find the hidden animal that made the tracks! This game can also teach colors.

10. Shelter: Make a woodland village by adding a piece each day. This is a project that will take some initial time to construct, but once constructed it can be used repeatedly. Please do a little research on the village you plan on constructing. Is it pre- or post-European contact? On what type of terrain was this style of village generally constructed? What were the reasons for choosing such a site? Were the houses clumped together or scattered apart? Was this the village of an agricultural people? These are all things to think about.

Over time, you can have a very nice display that will interest the children and, it is hoped, spark them into contributing to this ongoing project.

11. Dance: Learn a simple round or social dance. There are good cassette tapes of Native American music. Ask your librarian for information and check with the interlibrary loan system.

12. Stories: At this age, rely on storybooks that retell traditional Native stories. Stay away from those that perpetuate stereotypes. Also, check out the absolutely wonderful audiotapes called I'Coyote Stories, Stories From the Earth, Retold by Dr. Cricket." Dr. Cricket is also Dr. David Hillgoss, Professor of Experimental Studies at Sangamon State University in Springfield, Illinois.

(To "beware" is to "be aware." One needs to be aware of the materials on the market that purport to be traditional Native teachings, but are actually a homogenous mix of many world cultures. Please check out your materials and guest speakers and ascertain that they are who and what they claim!)

Grade 3

1. Food and Food Preparation: Discuss and, if possible, demonstrate different cooking methods. What was used for fuel? What type of fire was used to cook what food? What sorts of containers were used? Was this a pre- or post-European contact food? (Many tribal cookbooks now in use have recipes that include foods brought to this continent from other parts of the world. Native people have been using some of these ingredients for close to 500 years; hence, these dishes have also become a part of Native traditional food.)

For a special occasion, prepare a feast of Native foods. A possible menu could be deer soup, fry bread, berries and sassafras tea. Another could include corn soup, journey cakes, grape dumplings and mint tea. In conjunction with your feast, the honored person might want to have a give-away. Learn about this wonderful custom practiced in some Native cultures.

Make a chart that shows what foods went in which direction across the Atlantic. Some examples are:

• Potatoes, corn, tomatoes, vanilla and peanuts went to the Europeans
• Wheat, barley, sugar cane, chickens and peaches came from the Europeans.

Three publications that are excellent sources are: National Geographic, "America Before Columbus," October 1991; Newsweek "Columbus Special Issue," Fall/Winter 1991; and U. S. News and World Report, July 8, 1991.

Discuss the relevance of corn, beans and squash, often known as the "three sisters." Read a story about the "three sisters" or any one "sister." Find out about the different ways these foods were prepared and eaten. Learn about the different types of corn grinders that were used by Native people and how they utilized the environmental materials at hand.

Learn about the "hot rock" game and how it taught safety and responsibility. When teaching this game, please stress that the children should never put rocks on the fire, as certain types of rocks will explode when subjected to heat!

2. Shelters: Discuss different types of housing through pictures and models. Explore construction methods and how the materials used coincide and coexist with the surrounding environment.

Learn where villages were set up and why. Consider the geology; availability of food, fuel, defenses, trade routes, flooding, etc. Find out what type of housing Native people live in today in the different cultural and environmental areas.

3. Tools: Begin to investigate the tools used by Native people in your area. What purpose was a particular tool used for? What were the tools made of? Were they pre- or post-European contact? What tools were brought here as trade items by the Europeans? Did Native tool making and use change after European contact? How? Again, be aware of different cultural areas. (Hint: Look at the tools you use in your everyday life and imagine how or if Native people coped with similar problems. Some areas to consider are farming, hunting, cooking, clothing and hide working.)

4. Music: Explore different types of Native music. View a video of a Native American dance or powwow. Try and find samples of music from each of the areas. Check out Native American rock n roll with the class. View a cartoon or movie that has stereotyped music in it. Discuss.

Make rattles from rawhide or bark. Use them to learn basic Native rhythms and unlearn stereotyped beats. Play them along with recordings of real Native music.

5. Social Structure: Begin to explore the social structure of Native culture. For teaching purposes, we tend to place Native people into specific groups. Why? We tend to think of all Sioux people as being Plains people. Why? Why were there 28 Siouan root languages in the southeastern part of this continent if the Sioux are only a Plains people? Begin to look at Native languages and where they are in use. Are there Iroquois Indians or is Iroquois a language? Start to look at language groups, then at specific Native nations. Inside some nations the social structure is further broken down into clans, and then families. Try and identify the differences and similarities within a language group and where a specific language was used.

Begin to talk of clans and the clan system. Find out which nations have clans and try and find what the names of the clans are for that nation. Use clan stories to illustrate the moral and cultural aspects of being a clan member. (Hint: Lenape, or Delaware, people have three clans. The Seneca have eight clans and the Cherokee have seven.)

Discuss the idea of matriarchy and patriarchy. Pick a few different nations and identify with which system they worked.

6. Government: Pick a specific nation and explore its government. Set up that system in the classroom and see how it works. How are leaders nominated and elected? How many positions of responsibility were there? How many were for men and how many were for women?

7. Recording History: Many Native nations had ways of recording important events and stories. Some Iroquois nations used a notched stick with pictographs on it. Many northeastern nations used the wampum belt to record important events. The Ojibwa sometimes used birch bark rolls, called Mide Rolls, engraved with symbols that are almost true hieroglyphics. These Mide Rolls helped them remember items that were important to their people. Some western tribes used the winter count to record history. The following project will help give your class a chance to record its own history.

Make a winter count hide. Take a large sheet of brown paper or poster board and tear it into the shape of a hide. Every day the class should decide on the most important event of the day and add a relevant pictograph. Use your own pictographs, not ones from a book. Next take a brown paper bag for each student and tear it into a smaller hide. Every day, each student should record his or her most important event of the day.

8. Games: Make Native American games. Some examples are: "spear the moose," throwing hoop, snow boat, snow snake, sneak up, and toss sticks. Find out which games were played at which time of the year.

9. Language: Explore Native American words in use today. Geographic names are a great place to start. What rivers, towns, states and counties bear Native names? Take a county map and mark all Native place names in one color. With another color, begin to mark all known Native sites such as villages, burials, battles, etc. Have the children talk to their parents, grandparents and other relatives for family stories of suspected sites. Mark those in a third color.

Grade 4

1. Agriculture: Gardens were very important to Native people, as many nations farmed on an extensive basis. When talking about gardens, first decide which cultural and environmental area you wish to address. Remember that the food grown in Ohio was not the food grown in Maine or Texas. How were the crops planted? Were some planted together like the "three sisters?" Why were the "sisters" planted together?

Do we still use these planting methods today? Do we still use any of the same crops today?

Trace the origins of corn. Where did corn come from? What did it originally look like? Did the corn used before the Europeans came have ears as big as the corn we use today? What is pod corn? Find out how many uses corn has today in our modern world. (Hint: Some plastics are made from corn oil and some fuels are made from corn.) Find out if Native Americans really used what we call "Indian corn."

Find out which beans were native to this land. Try growing them in the classroom. Note the color of bean flowers from the native beans. Check with your local extension agent for tips.

2. Work: Discuss the divisions of labor within the different cultural areas. What work was done by women, and what was done by men? One of the great misconceptions about Native life is that women were work slaves while the men hunted and lazed about. Take a specific nation and try to list all the work that would need to be done in a village. Then try to identify who did the work. Were they male or female, young or old, or did everyone share the job? Here are some jobs to help you start your investigation: cooking, wood gathering, education of the young, hunting, sewing, protecting the village, shelter building, religious services, harvesting, government and entertainment. Look to our own lives as a guide to identify some of the jobs. Point out to the young people the similarities and differences.

3. Shelters: Compare different types of Native housing through the construction of models. Either explore the diversity of housing within a cultural and environmental area, or pick one shelter to represent each of the areas. One way to accomplish this is to break the class into groups to facilitate the research and construction.

4. Tools: Gather and make a display of the raw materials that the Native people of your area used to make tools. Identify which material became which tool and how the tool was used. Is the tool still in use today, and if so, is it still made out of the same materials?

5. Music: Through audiotapes, explore modern Native American music. Check out Native rock n roll, ballads and political music. Also check out what is currently popular on the rock and country music charts that has a Native theme. (See if you can find a copy of "The Reservation Chipmunks"!)

6. Dance: View a videotape of Native American dance. Examples include the PBS program about the Native American Dance Theater and the videotape of a Native American social event called a powwow. Discuss how the videotape agrees or disagrees with our media perception of Native American dance.

7. Games: Learn several Native games and then set up a competition within your classroom. Work within the clan system to set up the teams. This can be an ongoing event for rainy days.

8. Stories: Use the traditional stories of various nations to learn about Native teachings. Stories taught a variety of lessons. Using stories of the different nations, identify the moral lesson taught and discuss if the same lesson can be found in another story from another cultural area. An example is to compare the "trickster" stories from eastern and western cultures, or the origin of corn stories from more than one area. In addition to books, there is a series on PBS called "Walking with Grandfather." Check with your local PBS station for times or availability When using a book, please check to make sure the story presented is a fairly accurate translation and not a loose interpretation by the author.

9. Social Structure: Some Native cultures trace their family line of descent through the mothers side of the family. Whatever clan your mother belonged to became your clan. Some nations trace descent through the father's side. To make the concept of a matriarchy more real, go back three generations and find out what your family name would be if you lived in a matriarchy.

10. Government: Compare the government systems of two nations in two different environmental areas. Find out how the necessities of environment helped shape the needs of the people when it came to governing themselves. What constituted laws? Who enforced them? How were these rules or laws enforced? Were there specific punishments for crimes? Two cultures to look at would be the Cherokee and the Sioux.

11. Language: Learn to speak a phrase in a Native language. Please be careful trying to read the pronunciation from a book, as our sounds are not necessarily those of Native languages. An example is the written "G" as in Gelelemend. In Lenape that "G" actually has a "K" sound. You may want to depend on language audiotapes. Learn a sentence in Native American sign language. Be able to sign four different animals and learn to ask for something to eat in Native sign.

12. "Go Fish": Repetition in a game form is one of the best ways to get young people to learn. One repetition game that promotes memorization and identification is the old card game "Go Fish." Make up decks of cards with information on them about Native people, such as a deck of cards with examples of Native people in their traditional clothing. A pack could have four Mandan women, four Lenape women, four Blackfeet babies in cradle boards and so on until you have 13 sets of four to make a deck. You might feature Native leaders and the dates of their place in history and where they lived or live today. You could use shelters, foods, tools or anything you feel is important to your plan of study. This is an idea with which to have fun.

Grades 5 and 6

1. Food: Prepare a Native American meal without any European foods. You can either pick a menu from a specific cultural and environmental area, or pick one food from each of the areas. Look at what we eat today and see if it is similar to traditional Native food. Take a close look at the foods associated with the Thanksgiving holiday. Another hint is to look at what we call Mexican food. Were those foods in use in Europe before 1492?

2. Clothing: Using one specific Native nation, take a look at how their clothing styles have changed over 500 years. How has European contact changed their clothing? When these people were moved, as in the Cherokee Trail of Tears, did their new neighbors influence changes in their clothing styles? What kind of clothing are they wearing today for daily life? Do they still have special clothing for special Native events? Learn to do a basic finger weaving project. Start with a simple bracelet.

3. Shelters: Look at the environmental impact of specific Native houses on their place of origin. How did a bark house work within its environment? What impact did a cliff dwelling have on its surroundings? In a shelter, what materials from the surrounding environment were used and how did they help Native people to survive? What was used to help insulate, to help weatherize and to help regulate the temperature within the dwelling? How were a dwelling's openings constructed to deal with the problems inherent to its climate? Are any Native people still living in their traditional dwellings?

4. Tools: Make a Native tool from the materials traditionally used. Try and use that tool for the purpose it was intended. This can be a project for individuals or for groups assigned to the different cultural and environmental areas on page one.

Using heavy paper or lightweight cardboard, make a birch bark bowl. Finish around the top with basket wicker.

5. Music: Learn about Native American drum groups and how they function. What are their different aspects within their specific culture? Are they spiritual, social, personal, entertaining or musical, or are there other functions to the group? Find out how many different types of drums have been used by the Native people of North America.

6. Dance: Learn a social dance used at a modern powwow. Is it northern, southern or Oklahoma traditional? Is it an off-growth of an older dance? If so, how has it evolved into today's form?

7. Games: Teach another class the Native American games you have learned. Hold an inter-class competition.

8. Stories: Learn why stories are so important to a people who are an oral society. Act out a teaching story for another class. Learn the story so well that you are not reading it. In the old days most stories were not written down. Another challenge would be to learn a Native story in Native American sign language. Sign it to your class or another class and see if they can interpret what you are saying.

9. Social Structure: Webster defines a custom as a usual practice or habit, and a social convention carried on by tradition. Native American custom covered many aspects of social behavior that are too extensive to go into here. However, one area of social custom of special interest is that of marriage and divorce. Learn the courting, marriage and divorce customs of two different nations from separate environmental and cultural areas.

10. Government: Before Columbus, Native nations presided over themselves by following their traditional forms of government that had been developed to meet that nations specific needs. In the last 500 years, many things have changed for Native people including how they now govern themselves. Learn about tribal government today. Find out about the B.I.A. Why are Native people partially governed by the Department of the Interior? What is a C.D.I.B. card and why do Native people carry it? Think about some of the difficulties in governing a Native nation within other government entities. For example, take a reservation that is partially in the United States of America and partially in Canada. You would be within two national governments, then within the state and provincial governments and then, within that, the county governments that exist on both sides of the border. Imagine just trying to sort out the paperwork!

11. Current Events: Make a scrapbook of current events. Include all articles pertaining to Native Americans. Discuss each new article. Also find out about reservation conditions, job opportunities, wages, schooling, health care, health problems, land issues and other issues that are important to Native people.

Make contact with one or more teachers who work in schools that teach Native children. Set up an exchange program between the classes. This can be as simple as a pen pal program, or as complex as you want it to be. One high school here in Ohio has an exchange program with a Native southwestern nation. During Homecoming Week, they bring the senior class from this reservation school to live with host families from the senior class in Ohio. In the spring the seniors from Ohio go to the southwest and stay on the reservation with their friends. It's a very successful program. You don't have to go that far away to find Native people. There are several reservations in New York and Canada just five hours from northeast Ohio. Subscribe to a Native American newspaper.

12. Language: Learn about the Cherokee syllabary and the Cherokee Phoenix. Find out about Native oratory. Read to the class orations such as those by Logan, Tecumseh, Seattle and Black Elk. There are many beautiful orations from which to choose.

13. Stereotypes: View a movie or television show about Native Americans. Discuss what was stereotyped and how it made you feel. Would you like to be represented like that? List the pros and cons.

Have the class bring in ads and products that use an identity with Native Americans to advertise and/or sell their product. Is the image portrayed a stereotype? Is it a positive or negative image? Talk about the use of Native identity as mascots for sports teams. Think in context of other ethnic groups, how they are portrayed how the images correlate.

14. Removal: On a map trace three tribes from their point of first contact with Europeans to where they reside today, if they even still exist as a tribal entity. Was it a great distance? Was the nation broken and scattered? Was it a forced removal such as the Cherokee Trail of Tears? Talk about being "removed" from your own home. Roll playing is appropriate.

This is an opportunity to discuss racism through setting up the pros and cons of the issue of Native removal. By briefly living one part or another, this becomes more than an abstract idea and becomes a part of ones experience.

15. Medicinal plants: Find out how many modern medications come from plants used by Native Americans.

Bulletin Boards

1. Mark the climate areas on a map of North America. Make illustrations of the different types housing used in the different climates. Have the children match the housing to the climate area. Every day, mix the houses around and then see who catches it.

2. On the same or a similar map, match specific Native Americans in traditional clothing to the climate areas. Be sure and pick a specific time period and make sure that your young people know it. Maps can change time periods to show removal and cultural compression. For example, a map of the 17505 would not be the same as a map of the 18505 or the 19505.

3. On a map, show early Native American trails and trade routes. Show what types of goods were traded to where. For example, flint from Flint Ridge in Ohio might be traded for copper from what is now the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Mica from the Carolinas might have been traded for sweet grass from up north. Check and see if a particular path became a current road or highway still in use. Overlay with different colors and be sure and label with proper dates of use.

4. Do a current events bulletin board. Examples include the reburial of Native bones now in museums and the return of sacred items to Native people from museums and private collections. There also are ongoing negotiations to return treaty lands that were wrongfully taken.

5. Make an "Armed Conflicts of the 20th Century" bulletin board. On a map of North America, mark all the spots where conflicts have occurred between Native and non-Native people. There have been ongoing conflicts over the last several years. Check out Oklahoma; Salamanca, NY; Quebec Province, Canada; and Chiapas State, Mexico.

6. Create a stereotypes board to display the ads and packaging brought in by students.

F.Y.I.: Some Things to Think About

At this point, I would like to address a couple of areas that, over the years, I have found needed some thought and discussion. Many of the incidents that we experienced as children continue to be passed down to new generations. These are ideas that have a direct impact on what we teach about Native Americans.

One of the most accepted ideas of the academic world is commonly called the Bering Straits Theory. It is taught as an absolute fact in many textbooks and has been, it seems, zealously guarded by many in the academic community. The accepted idea is that Native people first migrated here 12,000 years ago from across the Bering Straits, and then spread through what is now North America and South America in a somewhat orderly and methodical migration. New evidence has raised a great many questions about this cherished theory. There seem to be more than 500 sites scattered from Pennsylvania to Chile that date in the neighborhood of 40,000 years of age. One site may well be around 47,000 years of age and is located in northeastern Brazil.

If this site truly is this old, it would make it comparable with the time period in Europe when Neanderthals flourished. A new theory is that along with the land migration, Native peoples could have migrated along the Pacific coasts of North and South America in small boats. Even with primitive sailing techniques, one could sail the entire Pacific coast, north and south, in less than 10 years, thus speeding migration.

The discovery of America seems to be not only a historically controversial fact, but also an emotionally charged political issue as well. No matter what one personally feels about Columbus, there is little doubt that the voyage was a pivotal point in the history of the entire world. The major changes in world governments, religions and cultures that spring from the events of 1492 are still being felt. No matter who we view as the heroes and villains, this event is one of the great dividing points in human history. It is important to remember that while the name we know is Columbus, had it not been him, surely one of his contemporaries of the Age of Discovery would have found his way west. (Check out the book, Discovering Christopher Columbus, How History is Invented, by Kathy Pelta, and Rethinking Columbus, A Teachers Guide.)

The reenacting of the first Thanksgiving is another time-honored tradition, complete with brown bag Indian costumes and construction-paper feather headdresses. Prim maids in white-construction-paper coifs escort solemn Pilgrim boys in black hats as they all bring the bounty of the New World to an equally shared table. For years I had concerned myself with the stereotypes of the Native people in this often repeated play until one day it was pointed out to me how badly we stereotype the Pilgrims! Do a little research on both groups and while reenacting this part of our nations history, start some new traditions that will be passed down in a better fashion than how we received them.

(A great source of information is the book, Sarah Morton's Day, A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Girl, by Kate Waters, Scholastic Inc.)

 

The contents of Herron's Whisper was created by Rena Dennison.