Town ≠ Tribe

Many European records of first and early encounters with native populations in the New World cite the discovery or near-accidental (and definitely surprising) stumbling upon sizable communities of organized native societies--what they would call villages or, in rare cases, cities. These organized communities seemed to have structure, cooperative skill-sharing, centrally-located places of worship and/or gathering or celebration, communal working bees, communal garden plots, individual family housing, as well as shared resources, even shared store-houses. However, what looked to the Europeans as "permanent" structures were actually quite temporary. What the Europeans did not know was that these concentrated clusters of communal living "villages" rarely existed for more that a few years, that the natives understood the burden on local natural resources that their populations imposed upon the land they were living on (and its two-to-three mile radius) and were ready, willing, and accepting of the natural consequence of their drain on the system to move every few years--to find new, fresh (or favored, long dormant or "fallow" sites--usually bankside--that had had time to recover and regenerate local food supplies since last occupation by a community of People). In fact, relocation and mobility were time-honored customs, an event and adventure that probably excited many of the towns people--and were probably the source for one of the many factors that ingrained the native populations' near-universal and almost innate attitude of lack of attachment from property and things.

The single most errant belief that European observers and transcriptionists held was that native towns represented homogenous lines of blood, culture, and traditions. This belief came about due to the fact that translators, linguists, and captives seemed able to speak in one language. While, yes, the Mvksoke language(s) gave a loose unity to the peoples that could communicate in that language, so could all people on planet Earth who understand and can use, when necessary, some English be considered "English." Like English, there were several overarching language dialects that Native Americans used because their long-distance trade associations necessitated the use of a common language for inter-communication among long-distance-separated towns. In the continent's Northeast, both the Algonquian and Iroquioan languages had common enough roots and vocabulary that allowed for fairly coherent communication for independent tribes all along the Great Lakes, Ohio River and St. Lawrence seaways as well as through most of what we call New England, and Quebec and Ontario as well as down into The Appalachian to Middle Eastern Seaboard. The Peoples who had use of Muskogean-based languages were Mississippian peoples of the Southeast who, not surprisingly, held fairly common cultural values and beliefs as well as very similar origin/creation mythologies--often calling themselves descendants of the People of the Dawn. Those capable of using the Siouan languages originally travelled around and on the Great Lakes and Mississippian river ways but eventually found themselves pushed between the Mississippi River valley and the Eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. The Athabaskan-speaking peoples (which, surprisingly, include the Apache tribes) originated in the Western and Subarctic regions Canada (Rocky's and Great Plains). The Salishan-speaking tribes originated in the coastal and interior plateau regions of the Pacific Northwest--Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia--particularly along the Columbia and Fraser river watersheds. The Eskimo-Aleut-speaking tribes, of course, populated the Arctic climes of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. For the intents and purposes of this article, we are basically talking about the Eastern peoples loosely united by the Algonquian, Iroquioan, and Muskogean languages. Where the European invaders were led astray was in this ability for seemingly separate yet still-commonly acculturated towns peoples to communicate with relative ease with distant natives. What the Europeans failed to grasp, initially, was how dependent native survival was on seasonal migratory behaviors but also surprisingly long-distance trade routes (the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, the Appalachian watersheds in New England and the Mideastern Seaboard). As a matter of fact, it was more often the pattern of behavior for hunting parties of significant numbers of towns males to canoe off on long distance trade parties (might they have literally been "parties"? I can only imagine the joy that such unbound freedom and adrenaline-pumping adventure would have on young adult and middle age men!)--especially in months in which the seaways were either unfrozen or safe from seasonal flooding (caused by snowmelt and spring rains). These hunting and trade parties were not only the source of a lot of healthy intermingling of the overall genetic gene pools, but cause for unifying parties, celebrations, sharing of stories and important information, as well as cross-pollination of language vocabularies.

My point here as that our accepted conception that many large, strongly-tied tribal coalitions and tribal "nations" existed throughout American history is false. There were no Indian "nations" in effect or practice--until, that is, the native peoples had had enough of European lies and deceit and decided to take to violent means in order to fight back--which usually saw them seeking coalitions--often with language-sharing trade brothers--in order to stand a better chance against the now-more populous and more technologically advantaged White usurpers. Otherwise--before European contact--native towns--often of very small, easy-to-migrate numbers--existed as small, fairly independent and self-sufficient Vinoban anarchic Indian villages, locked into a very healthy and supportive symbiotic web of trade and blood partners. The seemingly easy ability to communicate between locally-committed communities caused the European observer-onlookers to mistakenly lump them together into nations or, because they were "infidels" and "uncivilized"-borderline-subhumans, "tribes."