Famers Of The Woodland

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In the essay, Algonquians and Iroquoians: Farmers of the Woodlands, Peter Nabokov and Dean Snow describe the complexity and vitality of the societies and cultures of two groups of Indians, the Algonquians and Iroquoians, as they existed in 1492. The life of both groups depends on fishing, hunting, and gardening. They lived between the Atlantic coastline and the foothills of the Appalachians, and they are considered as the importantly factors in the drama of initial contact between Europeans and Native Americans. The costume of life, tradition, and the particular of cultures of the Algonquians and Iroquoians are the main pictures of the first Americans who lives around 1492. Algonquians mostly lived along the river where they could go fishing and hunting. The authors said, “The hunting parties were traversing a well-watered and heavily forested landscape which white men would one day call Maine” (pg 5). They used to be called as “Penobscot” or “people of the white rocks country”. Their land marked the northern limits of Indian farming because late thaws and early frosts let them make only a little corn, squash, and beans (pg 6). In addition, the time-honored habits of fishing and hunting on which their survival depended were the main aspect for the annual change between seasonal camps up and down the Penobscot River valley (pg 6). From “waterways and the well-trodden trails,” Algonquian hunters could look for food with deer, moose, beavers, muskrats, and they could collect clams and lobsters, speared seals, and porpoises. Another important feature of the Penobscot was their mobility because it was needed for the hunting life. Therefore, they organized into many small groups and the men would make the decision according to the change of the weather. The social activities of Algonquians would change on each season, and “the paper birch tree” was the significant

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