1. Home
  2. Tribes by Region

Tribes by Region

Ethnographers commonly classify the native peoples of the United States and Canada into ten geographical regions with shared cultural traits. The following list groups native american indians by their region of origin, followed by the current reservation locations.

String of teenage suicide attempts turning into epedemic

94 Views
April 24, 2015

The people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation are no strangers to hardship or to the risk of lives being cut short. But a string of seven suicides by adolescents in recent months has shaken this impoverished community and sent school and tribal leaders on an urgent mission to stop the deaths.

On Dec. 12, a 14-year-old boy hanged himself at his home on the reservation, a sprawling expanse of badlands on the South Dakota-Nebraska border. On Christmas Day, a 15-year-old girl was found dead, followed weeks later by a high school cheerleader. Two more young people took their lives in February and two more in March, along with several more attempts.

Sioux Nation

The Sioux Drum

97 Views
March 13, 2015

The drum is not just a musical instrument. To the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people, it holds great cultural and symbolic power. They believe the drum has a life of its own, as well as its own powerful spirit. The drum is the heartbeat of the Indian Nation. It carries the heartbeat of Mother Earth and calls the spirits and nations together.

Sioux Nation

The Columbia Plateau, 2000 BCE to 500 BCE

114 Views
March 4, 2015

The area between the Cascade Mountains and the Rocky Mountains in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, and Western Montana is known as the Plateau Culture area. From north to south, it runs from the Fraser River in the north to the Blue Mountains in the south. Much of the area is classified as semi-arid. Part of it is mountainous with pine forests in the higher elevations. This is an area which is drained by the Columbia River.

Plateau Region Tribes

Interior Secretary approves Nooksack tribal disenrollment process

90 Views
February 12, 2015

The Department of the Interior has potentially cleared the way for the Nooksack Indian Tribe to strip 306 people of their tribal membership over the telephone. In the most recent step of a process that the tribal council started two years ago, the Secretary of the Interior has ruled that a September 2014 tribal ordinance detailing a disenrollment process is legal under the tribe’s constitution.

Northwest Coast Tribes

Southern Paiute Tribes

156 Views
November 1, 2014

The Southern Paiute traditionally lived in the Colorado River basin and Mojave Desert in northern Arizona and southeastern California including Owens Valley, southern Nevada and southern Utah. Terminated as a tribe in 1954 under federal efforts at assimilation, the Southern Paiute regained federal recognition in 1980.

Paiute Indians

Great Basin Indian Wars

98 Views
September 14, 2014

The tribes of the Great Basin, for the most part Shoshone, were severely impacted by the Oregon and California Trails and by Mormon emigration to Utah. Beginning with their encounter with Lewis and Clark, the Shoshone had generally had friendly relations with American and British fur traders and trappers. Eventually eight major conflicts developed in the Great Basin culture area.

Great Basin Indians

California Indian Wars

98 Views
September 14, 2014

Because of the small U.S. Army garrison west of the Rockies, and the economic and political effects of the California Gold Rush, most of the early conflicts with the mostly unwarlike California Indians involved local parties of miners or settlers.

California Tribes

Pacific Northwest and Plateau Indian Wars

95 Views
September 14, 2014

A number of battles occurred in the wake of the Oregon Treaty of 1846 and the creation of Oregon Territory and Washington Territory. Among the causes of conflict were a sudden immigration to the region and a series of gold rushes throughout the Pacific Northwest. These conflicts are grouped into eight Indian Wars.

Plateau Region Tribes

The Nashua Indians

117 Views
June 17, 2014

The Nashua (or  Nashaway or Weshacum) were a sub-tribe of the Western Abenaki branch of the Algonquain Indians. They lived along the upstream portions of the Nashua River valley in what is now the northern half of Worcester County, Massachusetts, near Mount Wachusett.

Abenaki Indians

Cocheco Indians

100 Views
June 17, 2014

The Cocheco Indians were a sub-tribe of Western Abenaki. They lived in an area known as Wecohamet. Today, we call it Dover, New Hampshire. Dover is the oldest permanent European settlement in New Hampshire, and the seventh oldest in the United States.

Abenaki Indians