they were the first people ever to live
in North America exactly when they came
and how they arrived is still a mystery
but many scientists believe that as long
as 30 thousand years ago some hunters
from Asia walked or sailed along the
coast of a land bridge that once
connected Russia to Alaska their
descendants became known as Native
Americans or American Indians as they
spread out over the vast continent
Native Americans adapted to living in
different regions and hundreds of unique
cultures were born the Plains Indians
hunted Buffalo by stampeding them over
cliffs on the Northern Pacific coast
tribes like the Haida and the Kwakiutl
sail the ocean and fished they cut down
giant red cedar trees for their houses
dugout canoes and ceremonial totem poles
when the first white settlers arrived in
the 1500s about a million Native
Americans lived north of Mexico but the
outsiders changed everything
diseases from Europe such as smallpox
and tuberculosis wiped out entire tribes
settlers began to claim Indian land for
themselves some tribes resisted and
fought back others attempted to
cooperate in the end the result was the
same in the late 1800s the US government
forced the remaining Indians to leave
their traditional homelands and live on
tracts of land called reservations over
the next century Native Americans
continued to fight for their rights
through political activism we were told
that our religion was wrong we were told
right before our faces that we were
heathens but no more we're going to Texas
today there are more than 550 federally
recognized tribes in the US Native
Americans are working to improve living
conditions on the reservations and to
preserve their languages, religions and
cultural identities the potlatch a
religious ceremony that was once banned
by the Canadian government is being held
again by the Kwakiutl on the Navajo
reservation some ancient ways are
blended into modern lives this sand
painting depicts the cloud people it's
being created to pray for the safety of
a group traveling by airplane other
Native American artists are reviving
their tribes traditional art forms a
movement which could help these unique
cultures survive into the next century
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