ow that's certainly a far different sound than the music I heard as a Kiowa youth but those rock and roll musicians and the Kwakiutl dancers filmed some fifty years ago have something in common with me our Native American heritage our Indian Asst and that's why it's important to me to give you some information concerning that heritage three tiny shifts exactly like these helped change life in America by bringing a hundred and four colonists to Jamestown Virginia in 16:7 those settlers form the first successful English colony in the new world but in reality it was not a new world nor was it unsettled we are told that Columbus discovered America in 1492 the truth is Indians discovered America thousands of years before Columbus before the colonists built Jamestown cultural developments were taking place on both sides of the Atlantic even as great cities were springing up in Europe Native Americans were also building cities and making scientific discoveries on this side of the ocean both before and after European colonization Indians have had a major impact on the total development of the United States that impact is more than painted horseman attacking a stagecoach more than bows and the most profound impact of the American Indian on the development of our nation is reflected in our very form of government the distinctive political ideals of American life emerged from a rich Indian democratic tradition that tradition can be traced to documents here in the National Archives universal suffrage for women the pattern of states within a state the tradition of treating Chiefs as servants of the people instead of their masters the demand that the community respect the diversity of men and their dreams all of these things were part of the American Way of life long before the arrival of Columbus the first regional democratic governing body and what is now the United States was not the Continental Congress which met at Independence Hall in Philadelphia even the Virginia colonial assembly meeting here in Williamsburg was a late comer in the field of representative government the first was an organization known as the League of Five Nations or the Iroquois League it was established sometime prior to 1600 to unite five Iroquois nations in order to solve mutual problems this Iroquois beaded belt tells the story of the member nations uniting they adopted an oral Constitution and a governing council of 50 representatives the council dealt with items affecting the entire group but left purely tribal matters up to each individual Iroquois nation the original five were the Onondaga depicted in a turtle clan meeting here the Seneca Cayuga Oneida and Mohawk nations one hundred four years after its formation the league added a sixth nation the Tuscarora women had a strong voice in the iroquois society the clan mother selected the Chiefs and was the most powerful figure in a strong local form of government Iroquois women owned the family crops and houses and had voting rights although outnumbered by rival Algonquin tribes the Iroquois became the dominant force in the northeast following the formation of the Iroquois League that league continues to operate today artist Oren Lyons is a sub chief in the turtle clan in the Onondaga Nation he teaches Native American Studies at Buffalo University the unand Agha chief says the u.s. governmental ideals can be traced to the Iroquois League prior to drawing up his Albany plan of Union for the colonies in 1754 Benjamin Franklin requested a meeting with the Iroquois League chiefs to learn more about the Indian Confederacy chief Lyons recounts the substance of the meeting between colonial leaders and the Iroquois Chiefs and it was suggested at that time by a nun andhaka chief that they colonies unite ah in the form of government that was similar to ours that would represent the people the format very ancient and this is the format that was taken by the 13 colonies originally the Articles of Confederation there is ample evidence that Franklin was influenced by the Iroquois Confederacy when he did draw up the Albany plan moreover that plan was followed essentially more than 20 years later in the Articles of Confederation the forerunner of the United States Constitution Ben Franklin put it this way in his argument for colonial Union it would be a very strange thing if six nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for a union and yet that a like Union should be impracticable for 10 or a dozen English colonies to whom it is more necessary in addition to Franklin Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were familiar with the Iroquois League the founders of our nation were facing the problem of uniting sovereign states when they wrote the United States Constitution and they did adopt ideas from the Iroquois League immediately always they were war a Faton a mohawk is curator of the Six Nations Museum in on Chioda New York an expert on the Iroquois Confederacy Fadden says our form of government was not born from European ideals over here in America those chiefs were representatives something like Congress I suppose they simply represented their clan since everyone belonged to a clan in plain English that represented their people were put in office by their people to represent them in their government on a December day in 1888 two Cowboys looking for stray cattle atop a Colorado Mesa became the first non-indians to view this site cliff palace a cliff dwelling at Mesa Verde is just one of a number of construction feats accomplished nearly a thousand years ago by some amazing Indian people their impact on the architecture and urban development of the Southwest is immeasurable anthropologists call the people who built the cliff houses members of the Anasazi culture the culture appeared about the time of Christ at first the Anasazi lived in caves giving no hint of their future architectural brilliance corn was their only crop by 450 ad the Anasazi began creating permanent housing the pit house featured the first crude basements in the United States four corner posts provided support for the walls and roof which were lacings of sticks and brush covered with thick Adobe mud in addition to developing permanent houses the people learn to make pottery the turkey was domesticated and beans were added to their corn crops the Anasazi Pueblo period began developing about 750 ad arts and crafts flourished trade began cotton was introduced and the bow and arrow became a hunting tool and a weapon early in the developmental Pueblo period the Anasazi began experimenting with stone masonry this led to the classic Pueblo era during which these construction geniuses built huge apartment complexes and cliff dwellings that served as early cities you the ruins of Pueblo Bonito at Chaco Canyon New Mexico's show the remains of what were truly marvelous achievements in stone masonry engineering architecture and urban planning Pueblo Bonito rose to a height of five storeys in some places making the Anasazi the nation's first high-rise apartment dwellers the complex covered three acres and contained 800 rooms in which more than 1,000 people live for support the Anasazi builders made the walls thick at the base tapering to the top the outside veneer had the artistic touch of craftsmen each stone of the proper size was placed so as to be pleasing to the eye unlike their Anasazi brothers at Mesa Verde the people of Chaco Canyon shunned the cliff sides and did their stone masonry on the canyon floor the circular rooms were Kiva's religious and ceremonial areas that had covered tops when the Anasazi used them today it's difficult to comprehend the skill of those chaka ones who worked with only the most primitive tools sandstone was readily available but ponderosa pine which they chose for ceiling and floor beams had to be carried 17 miles from the closest forest even more striking is the fact that Pueblo Bonito was a planned community from its beginning during the 150 years it took to complete Pablo Benito each succeeding generations work fit the concept of the early designer of all the pioneer apartment complexes in the southwest webelo Benito is the most significant it was the nation's first real city and it remained the biggest apartment complex in the United States until 1882 when a larger one was constructed in New York City those pioneer urban developers the Anasazi built their apartment complexes on Canyon floors on Mesa tops and in hundreds of cliffside cave to anyone with a fear of heights the first question is always why would anyone live in cliff caves they had to climb to the Mesa tops to tend their crops and obtain water so why living the cliffs the most logical answer appears to be for protection against marauding enemies but why did these people abandon their great apartment cities all across the Southwest shortly before the year 1300 probably because of an extended drought that hit about that time perhaps another reason no one really knows today we can only marvel at the contributions of the ancient Anasazi what happened to the prehistoric Anasazi people their descendants are today's Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona the Anasazi s'long standing desire for urban living is evidenced in Pueblo towns like Akuma sky city Pueblo Akuma claims to be the oldest continuously occupied town in the United States a claim that is contested only by the Hopi town of old or IB both have been inhabited for about a thousand years the impact of the Anasazi builders is clearly evident in the classic village of Taos Pueblo in northern New Mexico it has no running water no electricity no modern conveniences at all yet Taos Pueblo has a beauty that reflects the Anasazi architecture of a thousand years ago Taos dwellings are stair-stepped up to five stories high like their ancestors of long ago residents of the upper floors must use ladders to come and go old beehive shaped ovens are still fired up each day by Taos Pueblo women for there is bread to be baked this has been the daily ritual among Pueblo women for centuries and none of today's electric or gas heated ovens does a better job of baking bread than those old Adobe kilns with increased concern over energy shortages modern builders are grappling with problems of heating and air conditioning the Pueblo Indians with these problems long ago they're thick adobe clay dwellings are cool in the summer and warm in the winter today's engineers call it utilizing mass to achieve better insulation in case you have any doubt about the architectural contributions of the ancient Anasazi and their Pueblo descendants just look around the southwest webelo influence is seen nearly everywhere even before the Anasazi began their architectural achievements in the southwest other Indian people were accomplishing engineering miracles working with only baskets to transport dirt three separate cultures of prehistoric Indians built mounds oh how they built mounds more than 100,000 mounds in the Midwest and southeast first came fairly small burial mounds from cultures called Edina and Hopewell the mounds were just what the name implies burial sites another form of early ritualistic earth work was that of the effigy mound the most famous is the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio the Serpent's body is a low rounded embankment nearly a quarter mile long the average body width is 20 feet and its height averages 5 feet the builders did precision work when they made the tightly coiled tale for decades scholars have been wrestling with the true meaning of the Serpent and other effigy mounds most likely they were religious symbols huge temple mounds were the engineering wonders for an early people known as the Mississippian culture that culture flourished for a thousand years from about 700 ad those mounds were the ritual centers for natives who gave us another form of Urban Development villages were built around the temple mounds the Ocmulgee mounds near Macon Georgia are the remains of a town site that was occupied for 200 years before being abandoned about 1100 AD Indian mounds exist in far greater numbers than do the pyramids of Egypt and some scholars believe they go far beyond the Egyptian achievement in their overall scope in spite of villages like these a false picture of Native Americans was painted by early explorers trappers and settlers those early observers did not understand Indian culture and deduced that all Indians were hunters nomads whose home was wherever the big game took them in truth there were more village dwelling Indians than nomadic hunters the recreated Cherokee village of geology at Tahlequah Oklahoma represents a typical southeastern Indian city of the 1600s these modern Cherokees are preserving the centuries-old culture and customs of an advanced people who were native to the southeast but who were relocated in Oklahoma by the government during the 1830s the Cherokee village is yet another form of urban development in which Indians used materials available to them mud cane and Timbers to build their town villages like these were early Civic Center approaches to urban living Indians everywhere displayed an ability to adapt to their environment and that adaptability is best illustrated by their housing Plains Indians who followed the Buffalo needed portability and so they lived in the teepee trees were scarce in the homeland of the pawnees Mandans under Icarus so they designed earth lodges Caddo farmers chose hatched grass houses Navajos came up with the eight-sided Hogan a Southwest group the Apaches preferred a temporary house called the wickiup Wichita tribesmen built spectacular grass houses Northwest fishermen constructed wood homes this is an ornate Haida house northeast Indian families lived in long houses the design was copied in World War 2 Quonset huts the Seminoles of Florida needed only a breezy chikki for protection while the Eskimo of the frozen north used the insulation properties of snow for his winter house in the Yukon even today Native American impact is being felt in contemporary architecture the symbolism revered by Indians is being used in design work by architect Dennis son Rhodes a Northern Arapaho he used the symbol of the turtle clan in the design of the Native American Center for the living arts at Niagara Falls New York symbols actually held nations together so this I think in in a contemporary situation if the different American Native American nations across this country could get back into symbols in their architecture they could build new symbols of home we've seen those first huge apartment cities of the Pueblo Indians to sustain people in these first urban complexes community farms were needed and farm crops needed water this is the legacy of a group of Native people called the Holcomb culture our first land reclamation ascending into an irrigation canal that represents the Hohokam culture at a late stage of development some of these canals were as wide as 25 feet as deep as 15 feet some were lined with clay one network of canals along the Salt River totaled a hundred and fifty miles at one time these canals carried water to many thousands of acres of farmland and that was more than a thousand years ago the who comes proved that man could farm the desert land of Arizona by building irrigation canals they began their experiments as early as the Year 300 BC using stone axes and hoes the hobo combs developed serviceable canal systems during a 400 year time span their skill resulted in extraordinary water engineering projects that were the greatest irrigation achievements by ancient man on this continent this irrigation canal is part of the first modern reclamation project in the United States and that project in turn is based upon ancient Native American models many of the Salt River Project canals in and around Phoenix Arizona follow exactly the routes engineered by the ancient Hohokam the impact of the Hohokam water projects can be seen today in lush farm crops growing on former desert land today's Pima and Papago Indians of Arizona are descendants of those incredible canal builders of more than 10 centuries ago but today the Pima farmers have replaced Hohokam digging sticks with modern farm implements Native American contributions in the field of agriculture are many and varied corn or maize first domesticated in Mexico is the best known crop of Indians of the Americas among the leading native agronomists with ricarose northern farming tribe who developed seven different varieties of maize including one strain that would mature quickly in a short growing season as horticulturalists Native Americans have a record that few races can match domesticating more than 40 plants none of the foods cultivated by natives was known to the old world including the white potato which somehow became labeled the Irish potato all the food on this table was developed by native people of the Americas of the world's production of leading food crops 42 percent by weight he's composed of three Native American crops corn potatoes and peanuts measured in dollar value 48 percent of the leading food and economic crops produced in the United States was domesticated by Indians that his agricultural impact it's not difficult to trace the impact of native influences upon the destiny of this nation you just have to look to colonial times this is a replica of Fort James the site of the first permanent English settlement in the new world when the British colonists arrived at Jamestown Virginia in 1607 their first task was the construction of the stockade in Fort James on the banks of the James River tribes of the powhatan confederacy made it possible for the colony to succeed as it was the Jamestown Colony almost did not survive there is no doubt that without the aid of the Powhatan Indians the colony would have perished from starvation Pocahontas the daughter of Chief Powhatan was one of the Indians whose gifts of food and advice on crop planting helped the colonists survive the first few difficult winters just as at Jamestown Indians showed friendship initially to the Plymouth Colony taught them to plant corn and other crops with methods suitable to the climate of this foreign land and in general aided their survival another Indian woman who contributed to the development of the United States was Sacagawea the Shoshone II who aided explorers Lewis and Clark on their expedition from st. Louis to the Pacific coast and back America's first business enterprise was trade at first trade among the various Indian tribes later between the Indians and the whites at first communication was a problem because there were about 300 different dialects spoken by the Native Americans when white traders first contacted them a means of communication had to be developed even for inter tribal trade the solution was sign language developed by the Plains Indians many a trade deal was completed by use of signs hande ar take a dot gam idle the Kyra's were among the most expert in using the sign language today only a few elders of my tribes still remember it though the signs are different the same principle is used today as a visual language for those who can't speak or hear while there was no written Indian language prior to European colonization many North American tribes used pictographs and petroglyphs to record events that happen to their people a Cherokee named sequoya invented the first native writing system in 1821 after 12 years of labor Sequoia produced a workable syllabary of Cherokee characters it was so well received that within months thousands of Cherokees could read and write their native language it was through the painstaking work of Sequoia that the Cherokees were able to produce the first Indian newspaper of the Phoenix there is evidence that the Cherokees established in 1839 the first free compulsory co-educational public school system in the world your first sentence this afternoon I Inc nashua day there is a resurgence of interest in native languages in classrooms throughout the country Lina Owens a member of the Yakima tribe teaches classes in her native language at White Swan Washington without classes like these the Yakima tongue would disappear in a few generations Indian impact on our terminology has been considerable our trees have Indian names Tamarac hickory persimmon to name a few city's name for Indians include Seattle Chicago Milwaukee Omaha and Wichita numerous rivers lakes and mountains have Indian names along with half of our state's Indians have given us words like peewee Punk hubbub tuxedo and okay in language alone there certainly has been Indian impact Native Americans were this nation's first environmentalists and for many Indians the Buffalo was a major part of their environment Indians regarded the earth as their mother in a perfect circle of life man and the Buffalo were only small parts of that circle and the Buffalo was seen as the Indians Ally it was the major source of food for my people the Kiowa as well as for the Arapahos the Cheyenne's the stool the crows and the rest of the plains people the Buffalo provided clothing housing material utensils and tools nearly every item of daily living for the Plains Indian was a gift from the Buffalo in the 1700s a wondrous animal the horse changed the balance of power in the buffalo hunt in favor of my people in one day a single hunter on a fast horse could kill enough Buffalo to feed and clothe his family for months the horse literally changed the entire lifestyle of the Native American Plains tribesman became the finest Horseman in the world and tough military phones on the west coast the fish was to the Indians what the Buffalo was to the plains people the staff of life once salmon were so plentiful they could be scooped out of the water by the net for within my lifetime that situation has changed so that there are no longer enough salmon to support commercial sports and Indian fishermen a Northwest Washington tribe Bellamy's decided to put their ancient fishing skills to work on the problem of declining salmon runs they built a dike some rearing ponds a hatchery research buildings and they began the first native aquaculture program in the country each year salmon released 2 to 3 years earlier returned to the Lummi ponds to spawn some are kept as brood stock for the sea ranching program and the rest are sold to fish markets the lemis have an active laboratory research program to chart their progress in the aquaculture field these copper or silver salmon will be kept in rearing ponds until they are ready to spawn they will produce a new crop of fish to head out to sea and repeat the life cycle of the salmon more jobs were created for tribal members when the lemis expanded their operations to include seafood processing and marketing salmon from their own aquaculture project from commercial fishing boats and from Indian fishermen on reservation waterways are handled at this processing plant from here the fish will go to public markets in addition to salmon and steelhead the llamas are raising oysters and clams for the commercial market in fact their oyster hatchery and research facilities are the most modern in the country the lemis are using indian technology to help solve one of today's problems and their impact is being felt in the seafood industry early Indian technology involved a substance we all know today trollee oh of course the Native American didn't have a car engine to lubricate but he worked wonders with a substance that was part of the normal environment of many Indians now pumps suck oil from wells to satisfy the tremendous demand but prehistoric Indians in many areas found it using from the ground a thousand years before Columbus reached the new world natives had dug more than 2,000 oil pits in Pennsylvania in what is now the movie Capitol Hollywood Indians took advantage of the asphalt substance bubbling up from fools in an area we call the La Brea pits prehistoric Indians use the asphalt to waterproof their houses to seal baskets for holding liquid as glue and as a caulking agent for the unique plank boat built by the Chumash Indians during construction as each plank was tied into place a thick layer of asphalt was applied to all edges generations of Indians use petroleum for fuel paint tonic bath oil and face makeup among other things the evidence continues to grow that some of the first Americans were passable chemists you're looking at a piece of Flint a stone highly prized by prehistoric Indians this particular Flint is found only in a ten-mile area of the Texas Panhandle it's called the ala bates flint quarries between 500 and 1,000 open pit mines here were worked by Indians beginning as early as 12,000 years ago those people were among the first to employ mining techniques in North America they had a variety of uses for flint including axe heads and projectile points normally Flint has one characteristic shade but al abates Flint has a multitude of bright colors and patterns it holds a sharp edge when chipped and flake alla bates flint obviously was a valuable trade item for it has been found at archaeological digs far away from the texas pan handle long before whites arrived Native Americans mind such substances as copper LED mica and coal while south of the Rio Grande silver gold platinum and Jade were mined today in Arizona Montana the Dakotas Idaho and Wyoming Indian people are working to gain control over natural resources on their own land some choosing to mine for coal uranium oil and gas others waiting for hard evidence on the environmental impact of such mining the ladies medicine man has been viewed by some as a faker using spiritualistic hocus-pocus however many of the medicine men were skilled herbalists who regularly used over 200 medicines and drugs that later were included in official pharmaceutical manuals moreover several experts on Indian healing methods now agree that medicine men with their masks and rattles had success in psychotherapeutic s-- they were early psychiatrists dr. Robert Bergman of the University of New Mexico psychiatry department worked with Navajo medicine men for six years I was surprised initially at how good they were I suppose I came with my own share of stereotypes and prejudices and I had read some that indicated they were of great value but suppose I really believed it until I saw it and sometimes I saw some very remarkable cures they were good healers they were good doctors but they were best at or things that psychiatrists do today there are other Indian contributions to technology remember our canal building friends the hobo comes those amazing people also gave the world this first the first edging process ever developed this etched shell a Hohokam work of 900 years ago predates the first European etching process by 450 years here at the Smithsonian Institution in washing in DC one can also find out that the Indians discovered rubber and invented the syringe the snowshoe is a Native American invention Eskimos devised the parka and other cold-weather apparel along with snow goggles most of the Eskimo snow goggles were made of wood or ivory with tiny slits to protect the eyes from sun glare comfortable the dogsled was another of the Eskimo creations he needed it to travel the Arctic where the snowfall is generally light but where it's so cold that the snow remains until well into the summer the Eskimos were truly an inventive people they had to be to exist in the art in climate the land of the Eskimo stretches 4000 miles over a harsh treeless area hit by storms and sunless gloom in the winter and insects in the summer hey fishing and hunting sustained the Eskimo families they devised any number of specialized methods and pieces of equipment for fishing and hunting in the frozen north this man is ice fishing for seal oil and meat from this and other mammals like the walrus and whale provided nutrients needed by the Eskimos the seal oil lamp was invented by these Native Americans as were the snow house and bone hobnails the predecessor of what today's Mountaineers call crampons today's Eskimo still goes hunting and fishing but the snowmobile has replaced the dog sled in basic ways however rural Eskimo life is still very similar to what it was many decades ago the Eskimo is now more dependent than ever on his artistic skills still using ancient methods to carve ivory and bone figurines this craftsman like many Native people must sell his carvings to get the cash he needs for today's economy you economy and transportation go hand in hand in today's society and Native Americans have had an impact in both areas Indians were the first United States map makers their sketches showed rivers streams trails and villages as a matter of fact before freeways straightened lines of travel our nation system of roads was built upon old Indian trails this is one of them transportation on waterways was by canoe and the maritime masterpieces were the dugout canoes this 50-year old film shows the dugouts of the Kwaku Hills a Northwest Coast tribe the dugout was a seaworthy a craft as was ever designed the Northwest dugout makers fashion their craft from huge cedar trees prior to the white man's arrival most small canoes were made from bark or animal skins they were the models for today's recreational canoes seen on lakes and waterways everywhere in the field of Art the American Indian has contributed greatly to American culture and society these paintings for example represent a unique and highly developed aesthetic expression of the Native American spirit other Native Americans have worked in a variety of artistic forms but there has been debate over whether Indian art should be classified as simply craft work the curator of Indian art at the Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa Ben stone has some definite ideas on that issue I choose to refer to it as art I don't think that the artistic creativity of any group of people can be looked at as merely a craft whether they be ornamental or costuming or garments or in fact a graphic piece like a painting that you'd hang on the wall they don't wish to have their creative energies called a craft when the prehistoric Edina Indian carved intricate designs on this smoking pipe he was expressing his artistic desire when the Mimbres people of the southwest added paint to their pottery they were adding beauty to an object they used daily Maria and who Lee Anne Martinez of San Ildefonso Pueblo introduced matte black on black pottery the totem pole was the crowning achievement of the Pacific Northwest Indian artists supernatural beings animals birds monsters or people were usually the decorative elements totem poles originated with the custom of carving designs into the supporting columns of a house later they became symbols of status or memorials to the dead the stately totem pole combined the arts of wood carving and painting the Navajo woman weaving an intricate blanket design is an artist for generations these women working in their hogan's have displayed a flair that transcends the mere Weaver's craft the same is true of the clink at Weaver's in Alaska they were expressing themselves as artists when they worked mountain goat hair and cedar bark into their exquisite Chilkat blankets Indians have been interested in painting for thousands of years today many of the Indian painters have developed bold and recognizable styles like top Oklahoma artist David Williams who descended from Apache Kiowa and Tonkawa ancestors Williams attracted national attention after several of his paintings were bought by actor art collector Vincent Price Hopi artist Charles Lola is the nation's number-one native jeweler he has inspired a new generation of Indian artists to express themselves and his impact on jewelry design is incalculable working mainly with turquoise and silver lo llama creates his jewelry designs in his studio home at hotel ax on the Hopi reservation in Arizona in yet another artistic field that of show business the impact of the American Indian has been sideral Will Rogers was the biggest Indian star of them all born in Oklahoma he parlayed great skill with a Cowboys lariat into stardom as a newspaper columnist a radio commentator a movie Idol we'll started out doing rope tricks in rodeos and soon gained a reputation as one of the greatest ropers in the world Rogers performing a Texas skip now the Rope goes behind the horse and rolls all the way around to catch the 4 feet from the opposite side it's a figure eight notice the Rope cross and the horse steps into it another variation of the figure 8 getting both the horse and rider one hand throwing two ropes in two places now three ropes two for the horse and one for the rider Will Rogers bridge the gap between silent movies and talkies he was proud of his Cherokee blood will brought his Indian heritage onto the movie screens but you are an American citizen thank folks both my mother and father had Cherokee blood born and raised in the territory for some not these Americans whose hands it has to move on Mayflower but we met him at the boat when they landed Indian themes dominated the United States theatres in the early part of the 19th century in the late 1800s several frontiersman including Buffalo Bill Cody organized Wild West shows Indians were stars in those Western extravaganzas when motion pictures replaced the Wild West shows again the emphasis was on the cowboy Indian theme unfortunately most of the films and Wild West shows stereotyped the Indian as the bad guy in the screen dramas of the West Native Americans have always had a flair for drama and pageantry in their dances and ceremonies back to prehistoric times this scene was filmed in 1914 by pioneer movie maker Edward Curtis women would gather the vegetable and the man would gather the fish today there's a new development in show business Indian theatre a few years ago Indian playwrights began producing works for Indian actors and directors and that spawned this new Indian theatre movement the impact of the Native American has been and continues to be truly significant in the development of our national life what I have shown you is just a sample Indians have been elected to Congress we've had an American Indian vice president Indians have held positions of leadership in virtually every field of endeavor ecologists are just now beginning to understand the importance of Native American traditions with respect to the earth the sky and the water perhaps former Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier said it best they had an ancient lost reverence for the earth and its web of life they had what the world has lost the world must have it back lest it die a renewal of those American Indian traditions may well be the impact of the Native American among this nation's future Thanks Oh Oh