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Photograph by Walter Meayers Edwards
An elder from the Stoney Indian tribe sits on horseback at the Indian Days festival in Banff, Alberta, Canada. The Stoney, who call themselves Nakoda, got their name from European explorers impressed by the Indians' method of cooking soup using hot rocks. -
Photograph by Ira Block
Girls from the Ute tribe participate in a communal Bear Dance in Randlett, Utah. Born of a Native American legend, this annual rite is traditionally held after the first spring storm. It honors the bear spirit and rejoices in the coming of warm weather. Girls flick the fringe on their shawls to attract the attentions of boys. -
Photograph by Ira Block
Luminaria candles light up Spruce Tree House, an Anasazi cliff dwelling in Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park. Anasazi, meaning "ancient people," is the name given to prehistoric Native Americans who lived in the Four Corners region of the United States, where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet. The Anasazi, who eventually became the Pueblo Indians, are known for the amazing cliff dwellings they built into the region's large sandstone formations. -
Photograph by Melissa Farlow
Native Americans carved totem poles like this to tell stories. Each item and character has its own place in the tale. The large, cedar totems in Alaska's Totem Bight State Park were originally created by the ancient Tlingit and Haida tribes. The ones that tourists see now, though, are modern re-creations. -
Photograph by Martha Cooper
The Apache Sunrise Ceremony celebrates a girl becoming a woman. Girls prepare for the ritual for six months or more. During the ceremony, which can last four days, the girls sing, pray, run, and dance, often for hours without stopping. Here, a girl from the White Mountain Apache tribe in Arizona is blessed with pollen, symbolizing fertility. -
Photograph by Maggie Steber
In Big Cove, North Carolina, Cherokee Indian Walker Calhoun and grandson, Patrick, collect witch hazel bark for brewing medicinal tea. Calhoun is knowledgeable in the Indian ways of medicine, dance, and language, and he teaches the practices to area schoolchildren. -
Photograph by Robert Sisson
The traditional Navajo home is a mud-covered log hut called a hogan. These communal structures can be cone-shaped, like this one, circular, or square, and are considered sacred. A Navajo religious song tells how the first hogan was built for man by the god Coyote. Many Navajo still live in hogans today. -
Photograph by Peter Essick
Berkeley Plantation in Charles County, Virginia, is the site of a feast in 1619 considered by some historians to be the first Thanksgiving. Each year, members of the Chickahominy, the tribe that was present at the first dinner, perform a friendship dance as part of the plantation's Thanksgiving festival. -
Photograph by Ira Block
Some of the rock art found in the Four Corners area of the U.S. is more than 5,000 years old. Scientists don't yet know what all these ancient drawings, called petroglyphs, symbolize. Some are thought to represent tribal movements, successful hunts, or the passage of time. Researchers think others may just be idle doodling. -
Photograph by Ira Block
Many tools used by the ancient Anasazi Indians have been found by archaeologists. These arrow- and spearheads were found in the desert in northern New Mexico. The Anasazi made arrowheads by chipping away at pieces of glassy obsidian (black) and chert (grey and red) until they became sharp.
