First Bullet point:
Cultural description & Demographic Profile: Native American
Demographic Profile:
• Total Native American alone population: 2.9 million or about 0.9 percent of the US population.
• Total Native American population alone or in combination with other races: 5.2 million or 1.7 percent of the US population.
• About 32 percent of Natives are under the age of 18, compared to only 24% of the total population who are under the age of 18. The median age for American Indians and Alaska Natives on reservations is 26, compared to 37 for the entire nation.
• The Native American population from birth through age 24 makes up 42 percent of the total Native American population; whereas the under 25 population for the United States is only 34 percent of the total population.
• States with the highest proportion of Native Americans: Alaska (19.5%), Oklahoma (12.9%), New Mexico (10.7%).
• Native Americans are also identified as Alaska Natives.
• There are 565 recognized tribes in the United States.
• In 2000, 47% of Native Americans and Alaska Natives lived on reservations or US census- defined tribal area.
• Over 1.1 million NA/AN are under the age of 24.
• 3% are under the age of 18.
• The poverty rate among AI/ANs in 2009 was 23.6% (2009 census), and 32.4% of the under-18 AI/AN population lives in poverty (NCAI Policy Research Center).
• Average AI/AN household income is $33,300, while the national average is $46,200. According to the 2000 Census, Indians living in Indian Country have incomes less than half the national average (Duthu, N. Bruce. American Indians and the Law, New York: Penguin Group, 2008. Print. Page 118).
• 1 percent of AI/ANs lack health insurance coverage (2009 census data) and rely solely on the Indian health system.
• The national graduation rate for American Indian high school students was 49.3 percent for the 2003-4 school year, compared with 76.2 percent for white students. Just 13.3 percent of Native Americans have undergraduate degrees, versus 24.4 percent of the general population.
Cultural Description:
Native Americans live in a cultural area in the United States. Native Americans speak about 296 languages. These languages include Na-Dene and Uto-Aztecan. (which are the main languages).
Early European American scholar described the Native Americans(as well as any other tribal society) as having a society dominated by clans or gentes – this is before tribes were formed. There were some common characteristics:
• The right to elect its sachemand chiefs.
• The right to depose its sachem and chiefs.
• The obligation not to marry in the gens.
• Mutual rights of inheritance of the property of deceased members.
• Reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and redress of injuries.
• The right to bestow names on its members.
• The right to adopt strangers into the gens.
• Common religious rights, query.
• A common burial place.
• A council of the gens.
Tribal structure
Subdivision and differentiation took place between various groups. Some functions and attributes of tribes are:
• The possession of the gentes.
• The right to depose these sachems and chiefs.
• The possession of a religious faith and worship.
• A supreme government consisting of a council of chiefs.
• A head-chief of the tribe in some instances.
Native American Diet
The traditional diet of Native Americans derived from a mixture of agriculture, hunting, and the gathering of wild foods. Native Americans established three main crops – beans, squash, and maize (or corn) – referred to as the three sisters. Other early crops included cotton, sunflower, pumpkins, tobacco, goosefoot, knotgrass, and sump weed
Religion
Native American religion is hard to explain. This is because there were very many tribes the religious principles were passed down verbally. Many of these groups had their own beliefs though many of them were similar in the major aspects.
Native American religion tends to focus around nature. The landscape, animals, plants, and other environmental elements play a major role in the religion of Native Americans. Many of the legends passed down were an attempt to explain events that occurred in nature.
Native American religion includes a number of practices, ceremonies, and traditions. These ceremonies may be in honor of a number of events. The practice of taking certain hallucinogens was commonly used to gain greater insight or communicate with the gods. Ceremonies may include feasts, music, dances, and other performances.
Art
Basket weaving was a very popular form of artwork that served a dual purpose. Reeds and cornhusks were woven together to create intricate baskets. The material would be dyed to make interesting tribal patterns, resulting in a beautiful piece of art that was also useful, as the baskets were used to transport fruits and vegetables. Blanket weaving was also a very common Native American art practice. Women would spend many hours weaving threads together to create unbelievable colorful blankets in a rainbow of patterns and designs. The Navajo tribe is very well known for their hand woven blankets.
References:
American Indian Ancestry. (n.d.). Retrieved October 6, 2019, from http://indians.org/.
Wikipedia contributors. (2019, September 22). Native American religion. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 02:59, October 7, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Native_American_religion&oldid=917244458
I know wikipedia can be a joke sometimes but I retrieved some pretty good info off of it.
Let me know if y’all want me to change my source, because I can definitely do that.
Third Bullet Point:
Research/literature (from Psychinfo) says about the cultural group and the mental health issue:
So I read through a few articles. Most weren’t very helpful at all. This is one of the few that I found to be pretty interesting in regards to the topic.
Abstract: The range of severity of social problems across the 564 federally recognized tribes of American Indians and Alaska Natives vary substantially, and Pine Ridge reservation faces more severe challenges than most. Nonetheless, Pine Ridge is certainly not unique in its struggles with attempted suicides, crushing poverty and disease, and lack of prospects for employment. Native American youth 15–24 years old are committing suicide at a rate more than 3 times the national average for their age group, according to the surgeon general. In fact, suicide has become the second leading cause of death for those ages 10–34. In the Great Plains, the suicide rate among Indian youth is 10 times the national average. The reservations on which many live are among the poorest places in the country, and the tribes experience all the consequences that come with poverty. Native American people have a rate of depression that is twice the national average, alcoholism that is 5.5 times the national rate, and heart disease that is twice the national average. To understand the daunting health-related statistics, one must look to history. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).
Reference: McLeigh, J. D. (2010). What are the policy issues related to the mental health of Native Americans? American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 80(2), 177–182. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.2010.01021.x
Note: I have read a ton of articles about suicide among the NA/AI community – especially pertaining to their youth. Also, substance abuse was a big one for NA/AI but not many articles on it.
Fourth Bullet Point:
Although relatively little evidence is available, the existing data suggest that American Indian and Alaska Native youth and adults suffer a disproportionate burden of mental health problems compared with other Americans. Because of the unique and painful history of this minority group, they are given the high rates of suicide documented among some segments of this population. Yet, in sharp contrast to other minority groups and the general population, there is a lack of epidemiology and surveillance.