NORTHERN PLAINS HISTORY AND CULTURES

How Do Native People and Nations Experience Belonging?

This online lesson provides perspectives from Native American community members, images, objects, and other sources to help students and teachers think about the significance that homelands, kinship systems, and nationhood hold for Native Peoples of the Northern Plains. Scroll to begin a Native-based exploration of the Northern Plains.
Learn more
This online lesson provides perspectives from Native American community members, images, objects, and other sources to help students and teachers think about the significance that homelands, kinship systems, and nationhood hold for Native Peoples of the Northern Plains. Scroll to begin a Native- based exploration of the Northern Plains.
Close

lesson
information


Grades:

9–12

Nations:

Apsáalooke (Crow), Arikara, Dakota (Sioux), Hidatsa, Lakota (Sioux), Mandan, Nakota (Sioux), Northern Cheyenne

Subjects:

Geography, Government and Civics, History, Social Studies

Keywords:

Great Plains, northern plains, plains, Plains Indians, Crow, Cheyenne, Northern Cheyenne, Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Oceti Sakowin, homelands, kinship systems, kinship, Native Nation, tribal nation, tribal governments, cultures, culture, history, relationships, extended family, community, rights, responsibilities, values, traditions, beliefs, elders, sovereignty

Regions:

Plains, North America


Close

essential
understandings


Framework for Essential Understandings about American Indians
Building on the ten themes of the National Council for the Social Studies' national curriculum standards, NMAI's Essential Understandings reveal key concepts about the rich and diverse cultures, histories, and contemporary lives of Native peoples. Woven throughout the lesson, the following Essential Understandings provide a foundation for students to thoughtfully understand the significance that homelands, kinship systems, and nationhood hold for Native Peoples of the Northern Plains.
This resource addresses the following Essential Understandings:
Essential Understanding 1:
American Indian Cultures

There is no single American Indian culture or language.

For millennia, American Indians have shaped and been shaped by their culture and environment. Elders in each generation teach the next generation their values, traditions, and beliefs through their own tribal languages, social practices, arts, music, ceremonies, and customs.

Kinship and extended family relationships have always been and continue to be essential in the shaping of American Indian cultures.

Essential Understanding 3:
People, Places, and Environments

The story of American Indians in the Western Hemisphere is intricately intertwined with places and environments. Native knowledge systems resulted from long-term occupation of tribal homelands, and observation and interaction with places. American Indians understood and valued the relationship between local environments and cultural traditions, and recognized that human beings are part of the environment.

Essential Understanding 5:
Individuals, Groups, and Institutions

American Indian institutions, societies, and organizations defined people's relationships and roles, and managed responsibilities in every aspect of life.

Native kinship systems were influential in shaping people's roles and interactions among other individuals, groups, and institutions.

Today, American Indian governments uphold tribal sovereignty and promote tribal culture and well-being.

Essential Understanding 6:
Power, Authority, and Governance

Today, tribal governments operate under self-chosen traditional or constitution based governmental structures. Based on treaties, laws, and court decisions, they operate as sovereign nations within the United States, enacting and enforcing laws and managing judicial systems, social well-being, natural resources, and economic, educational, and other programs for their members. Tribal governments are also responsible for the interactions with American federal, state, and municipal governments.

Long before European colonization, American Indians had developed a variety of complex systems of government that embodied important principles of effective rule. American Indian governments and leaders interacted, recognized each other's sovereignty, practiced diplomacy, built strategic alliances, waged wars and negotiated peace accords.

Close

academic
standards


Common Core State Standards
STAGE OF INQUIRY
9–10 Grades
11–12 Grades
Overarching Standards/Summative Performance Task

Anchor Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1 Write [construct] arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST11-12.1 Write [construct] arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
Staging the Question: Belonging

Anchor Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2
Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.
Supporting Question 1: What Gives Native Nations a Sense of Belonging to the Land?

Anchor Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.2
Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.9
Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.9 Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.9 Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Supporting Questions 2: How do kinship systems work to create a feeling of belonging?

Anchor Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1.A Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that establishes clear relationships among the claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.1.A Introduce precise, knowledgeable claim(s), establish the significance of the claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that logically sequences the claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
Supporting Question 3: What are the rights and responsibilities of belonging to a Native Nation?

Anchor Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.1.A Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that establishes clear relationships among the claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.1.A Introduce precise, knowledgeable claim(s), establish the significance of the claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that logically sequences the claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence.
Mapping Informed Action: Connecting to Native Histories, Cultures, and Traditions: The InterTribal Buffalo Council (Coalition Building)

Anchor Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.9
Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.9 Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.9 Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.
Mapping Informed Action Expository-Writing

Anchor Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.2 Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.11-12.2 Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/experiments, or technical processes.
College, Career & Civic Life–C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards
STAGE OF INQUIRY
STANDARDS
Overarching Standards/Summative Performance Task
D2.Geo.6.6-8
Explain how the physical and human characteristics of places and regions are connected to human identities and cultures.
D2.Geo.2.9-12
Use maps, satellite images, photographs, and other representations to explain relationships between the locations of places and regions and their political, cultural, and economic dynamics.
Staging the Question: Belonging
D2.Geo.6.9-12
Evaluate the impact of human settlement activities on the environmental and cultural characteristics of specific places and regions.
Supporting Question 1: What gives Native Nations a sense of Belonging to the Land?
D1.5.9-12
Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions, taking into consideration multiple points of view represented in the sources, the types of sources available, and the potential uses of the sources.
D2.Geo.4.9-12
Analyze relationships and interactions within and between human and physical systems to explain reciprocal influences that occur among them.
Supporting Question 2: How do kinship systems work to create a feeling of belonging?
D3.3.9-12
Identify evidence that draws information directly and substantively from multiple sources to detect inconsistencies in evidence in order to revise or strengthen claims.
Supporting Question 3: What are the rights and responsibilities of belonging to a Native Nation?
D2.Civ.6.9-12
Critique relationships among governments, civil societies, and economic markets.
D4.4.9-12
Critique the use of claims and evidence in arguments for credibility.
Mapping Informed Action: Connecting to Native Histories, Cultures, and Traditions: The InterTribal Buffalo Council (Coalition Building)
D4.7.9-12
Assess options for individual and collective action to address local, regional, and global problems by engaging in self-reflection, strategy identification, and complex causal reasoning.
D4.6.9-12
Use disciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses to understand the characteristics and causes of local, regional, and global problems; instances of such problems in multiple contexts; and challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address these problems over time and place.
down

Belonging

Instructions
Think about the connections that people have to place, family, and nation. Watch a video, explore a map, and read a Native perspective about the relationships that can create a sense of belonging.
Map: Native Nations of the Northern Plains
Examine the map to see the many Native Nations of the Northern Plains. Note the four nations featured for case study investigation: Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Oceti Sakowin, and Three Affiliated Tribes.
Essay: Northern Plains Nations — Belonging to Place, Family, and Nation
Hear from an expert. Read what educator and writer Julie Cajune (Salish) has to say about the important relationships Native Peoples have with their homelands, families, and nations.
Close

HEAR
FROM THE
EXPERT:


Julie Cajune
Educator from the Salish Nation

Julie Cajune portrait

Northern Plains Nations: Belonging to Place, Family, and Nation


One third of the United States is classified as the Great Plains. Although that term usually evokes an image of an expansive area of flat land, in fact, the Great Plains are much more varied than that. Among the large regions of tall grasslands are numerous forested mountain ranges, such as the Black Hills and the Bear Paw Mountains. The Great Plains landscape also includes rolling hills that slope to river corridors lined with groves of cottonwood and box elder trees. This enormous expanse of land was once home to immense herds of bison that were essential to the lives and economies of Native peoples. Sadly, bison were nearly eliminated during the era of westward movement that was fueled by the idea of Manifest Destiny.

Many Native Nations still call the Great Plains home. Some of these nations have inhabited the plains since time immemorial. Others established their homelands on the plains more recently, as their tribal territories shifted over time. This module focuses on the Oceti Sakowin (Sioux Nation), Northern Cheyenne, Crow, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Native nations, each of which continues to call the northern portion of the Great Plains their home. These sovereign nations live in the Great Plains among the stories and collective memories of their ancestors and relatives.

The histories of plains Native Nations extend far beyond the reservation borders of today. Sacred and important sites, of which many are ancient, speak to a relationship that these Native peoples have with the land. After living within these sacred landscapes for many generations, they have developed a deep sense of belonging to place.

Underscoring the importance of place is the knowledge that plains Native people have of their role within their family and community. Native kinship systems provide a network of care and support that extends beyond the immediate family. This network of relationships and relatives guarantees that each member of the community has an extended family in which one's belonging is continually reinforced.

Native people also belong to their tribal Nations as citizens, and that citizenship carries with it certain rights and responsibilities. Each nation's customs, values, and traditions inform an individual's role as a tribal citizen.

Over the centuries, many things have changed on the Great Plains. However, Native culture is persistent and strong; we invite you to explore this module and to learn how Native identity continues to be shaped by relationships with land, family, and nation.

up down
up down
up down
up down

How Do Native People and Nations Experience Belonging?

Instructions
What did the evidence reveal? How do Native People and Nations experience belonging? Construct an evidence-based argument about the relationships Northern Plains Native People have with their homelands, communities, and nation.
up down
up down
NK 360 logo