BAND

San/Bushmen

- The San are descendants of Early Stone Age ancestors.

- These migratory people do not domesticate animals or cultivate crops, even though their
knowledge of both flora and fauna is vast.
- At the beginning of the Christian era, a group of people (Khoikhoi or Hottentot) moved into the
northern and western parts of South Africa and migrated southward. The BaNtu was also
migrating in the eastern parts of the country, moving southward.
- All these migrations led to trading of resources and livestock, and adaptaions on some parts of
culture (art and language).
- When the white settlers arrived in the mid 17th century the whole country was inhabited by 3
different groups - the hunter-gatherers (San), the pastoralists (Khoikhoi) and the farmers
(BaNtu).
- As hunter-gatherers cannot stay in one place, problems arose. The San fought with the BaNtu,
then came the Europeans with their horses and firearms, greatly reducing the numbers of the
San people.
- Colonialism destroyed the San migratory way of life
- Enslavement and sometimes mass destruction of San communities, by both White and Black
farmers, followed.

TRIBE

Yanomami

- The Yanomami is a vast indigenous tribe, situated in the Amazon rainforests and mountains
circumscribing Brazil and Venezuela.

- The Yanomami first came into sustained contact with outsiders in the 1940s when the Brazilian
government sent teams to delimit the frontier with Venezuela.

- The government’s Indian Protection Service and religious missionary groups established
themselves there. This influx of people led to the first epidemics of measles and flu in which
many Yanomami died.

- This tribe started over 8,000 years ago, and is still around today.
- During the 1980s and 1990s much of their land was lost to road-builders, logging companies and
gold prospectors, causing the population to fall to 18,000, raising international concern.
- In the early 1970s the military government decided to build a road through the Amazon along
the northern frontier. With no prior warning bulldozers drove through the community of
Opiktheri. Two villages were wiped out from diseases to which they had no immunity.
- During the 1980s, the Yanomami suffered immensely when up to 40,000 Brazilian gold-miners
invaded their land. The miners destroyed many villages, and exposed them to diseases to which
they had no immunity. 20% of the Yanomami died in just seven years.

Maasai

- The Maasai originated north of Lake Turkana (north-west Kenya) in the lower Nile Valley.
- They began migrating to the south in the 15 th century and arrived on Tanzania and Northern
Kenya during the 17 th and 18th century.
- They used shields and spears, but were most feared for throwing orinka (clubs) which could
be expertly thrown from up to 70 paces (approximately 100 meters).
- The Maasai 'Emutai' (to wipe out) of 1883-1902 came after the time of expanding, scarred by
epidemics of smallpox, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia and rinderpest and was coincided
with drought (1897-1898).
- Commencing with a 1904 treaty and followed by another treaty in 1911, Maasai lands in
Kenya were cut down by 60 percent when the British evicted them to allow space for settler
ranches.
- Maasai in Tanzania were forced out from their fertile lands and most of their fertile
mountainous regions near the Ngorongoro in the 1940s.
- The Maasai people are monotheistic, and their God is named Engai or Enkai.

CHIEFDOM

Natchez

- The Natchez settled near the Mississippi river in Adams County, Mississippi. The Natchez’s first
ceremonial and political center was located at the Emerald Mound site, which was later
abandoned in the late 17th century.
- After European contact and conflict with the French in the 18th century, many of the Natchez
Indians assimilated into other local Indian groups, such as the Chickasaw, Creek, and Cherokee.
- The first European contact with Natchez is thought to be during the De Soto expedition in 1542.
Their interaction was short and resulted in violence.
- The next encounter with the Natchez was with the French in 1682 with René-Robert Cavelier,
Sieur de La Salle. The French were well received and soon developed relations with the Natchez.
- In the late 1600s French missionaries began to live with the Natchez.
- The next extensive documentation of interaction between the Natchez and the French occurred
with Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz in the 1700s.
- In 1716 the French established Fort Rosalie in modern Natchez, Mississippi.
- By the 1720s relations between the Natchez and French began to deteriorate. This ultimately
lead to a series of wars in 1716, 1723, and 1729. The Natchez were defeated in 1731 with the
aid of the Choctaw and were forced to leave their villages. The remainder were either killed or
sold into slavery.
- In 1725, Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz visited the Natchez Indians and witnessed the funeral
of a chief known as Tattooed Serpent. He provides details, such as a sketch of the procession
and accounts of ritual human sacrifice and infanticide.
- The Natchez established trade relations with the French by the end of the 17thcentury.
- During the 1720s these relations fell apart, and the two began warring with each other.

STATES

Maori

- The ancestors of the Māori were a Polynesian people originating from south-east Asia. Some
historians trace the early Polynesian settlers of New Zealand as migrating from today's China,
making the long voyage traveling via Taiwan, through the South Pacific and on to Aotearoa (New
Zealand).
- The anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl, on the other hand, claims that the Polynesians arrived in the
Pacific from America, he bases his theory on the fact that the kumara, staple cultivated food
crop of the pre-European New Zealand Māori, originates from central South America.
 - Around thirty thousand years ago, Polynesian forbears inhabited the Bismarck Archipelago, to
the east of New Guinea. These people had a Lapita culture, of which earthenware pots,
distinctive and highly coloured, were a characteristic. This particular pottery was given the name
of Lapita Ware, after an archaeological site in New Caledonia.

- The Lapita pottery first appeared around the mid-second millennium. It can be traced through
Melanesia to New Caledonia and then east to Samoa. It was in Fiji, Samoa and Tonga that the
Lapita potters became the founding population. During the first millennium BC, many features
of the typically Polynesian culture developed here.
- The use of pottery appeared to have disappeared by the time that New Zealand was discovered.
Other crafts took over, such as the stone fabricated adzes and fish hooks. These tools can be
traced to New Zealand from Eastern Polynesia.
- Around 3500 years ago the Polynesian culture began to expand eastwards from the Bismarck
Archipelago.
- Although previously thought to have been between 950 -1130 AD, the exact date of Polynesian
settlement of the islands of New Zealand is also unknown.
- The Great Fleet, considered to be the first mass arrival of Polynesian settlers, was estimated to
have arrived in 1350.

Ancient Egypt

- The Step Pyramid at Saqqara, made for Pharaoh Djoser, was the first pyramid built in ancient
Egypt.
- It was the first monumental structure made of stone and it set the stage for the pyramids built
afterward in the 4th, 5th and 6th Dynasties.
- The Great Pyramid of Giza (Pyramid of Khufu or Cheops), built by 4th Dynasty Pharaoh Khufu,
was the tallest man-made structure until finally exceeded by the spire of the Lincoln Cathedral in
about 1300 AD.

- During the 6th Dynasty, the nomarchs (regional governors) became powerful, while the
influence of the pharaohs gradually weakened. The decline of the Old Kingdom began and a
period of civil war erupted in Egypt. The final impact was a severe drought, which followed
decades of famine and strife and as a result, the Old Kingdom collapsed.
- The first Intermediate Period (a period roughly 200 years after the collapse of the Old Kingdom),
was a period of civil war. Series of battles between upper and lower rulers took place, wherein
the upper leaders of Egypt won, and the lands was reunited in around 2055 BC.
- The Middle Kingdom, having Mentuhotep II of the 11th Dynasty reigning as its first pharaoh,
survived to the end of the 13th Dynasty.
- The pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom were thought of as just the “caretakers” of the people,
with the nomarchs having the real power.
- After the prosperous reign of Amenemhat III, the power of the 12th Dynasty started to weaken
and once again, the power of the central government began to decline.
- The period between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom is known
as the Second Intermediate Period (best known for the appearance of Hyksos, Asian people, in
Egypt).
- The Hyksos formed the 15th dynasty of Egypt and ruled the country for more than two centuries,
until Pharaoh Ahmose I from Thebes, drove out the Hyksos.

- The start of the 18th Dynasty and the New Kingdom began with the pharaoh Ahmose I. This
period of Egyptian history is noted for its expansion of territory and for its rich architecture and
art.

- For many centuries, ancient Egyptians believed in and worshipped more than one god. Pharaoh
Amenhotep IV made a religious revolution when he discarded the polytheistic beliefs and
established the worship of only one god, Aten (the Sun God).
- Many people did not want to follow the new beliefs, especially the priests. This revolution
caused priests to lose their power. The Amarna Period ended after Akhenaten’s passing, when
the nine-year-old boy king Tutankhamen was crowned. He re-established the old worship of
multiple deities.
- Ramses the Great of the 19th Dynasty reigned for 67 years. He did constructions (Abu Simbel),
he fought to recover territories. During Ramses’ battle with the Hittie king Muwatalli II, he was
caught in the first recorded military ambush.
- In 332 BC, Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) conquered Egypt with little resistance
from the Persians. Alexander gained the favor of the Egyptians by the respect he showed to
their religion. He found a new Greek city called Alexandria and made it the new capital.

- After the death of Alexander the Great one of his generals, Ptolemy I, became his successor. He
established the Ptolemaic Dynasty, which ruled Egypt for three centuries.

- The last member of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (and the last pharaoh of Egypt) was the famous
Queen Cleopatra VII. Her suicide marked the end of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, and Egypt fell under
the rule of Rome, where Christianity was introduced.
 NATION

Cherokee

- It’s recorded that the first European contact came in 1540 with Hernando DeSoto’s exploration
of the southeastern portion of the continent. Trade and intermarriage with various European
immigrants soon followed, most notably with the English, Scots and Irish.
- Treaties were made between the British and the Cherokee Nation as early as 1725, with
Cherokee Nation being recognized as inherently sovereign through those nation-to-nation
agreements.
- Cherokees took up arms in various sides of conflicts between the European factions, in hopes of
staving off further predations of Cherokee land and sovereign rights.
- In time, missionaries and European influences created a strong educational and spiritual
framework, with many Cherokees becoming Christians and sending their children to missionary
schools to be educated in English.
- By the time gold was discovered in the Cherokee Nation in 1828 near Dahlonega, Georgia, the
Cherokee Nation had a written language, a newspaper that published in both Cherokee and
English and a Constitutional government.
- By 1835 a number of treaties with the U.S. had ceded away all but a small area of Cherokee
Nation’s once vast lands. Under mounting pressure to give up what land remained, a small
group of Cherokee leaders signed the Treaty of New Echota that year, agreeing to relocate the
entire Cherokee Nation to western lands where some of the tribe (known as Old Settlers) had
already moved.
- Principal Chief John Ross refused to sign the Treaty of New Echota and urged the Cherokee
people to stay in their homelands, in hopes he could get the treaty rescinded.
- Measures to remove Cherokees from their homes and farms got underway in 1838. Cherokees,
intermarried whites and even slaves were summarily rounded up and placed into more than a
dozen stockades to await their departure, where many lost their lives due to starvation, sickness
and harsh winter conditions.
- Cherokee Nation’s government unified the Old Settlers with the Cherokees recently immigrated
from the east, ratifying a new Cherokee Nation Constitution on September 6, 1839.
- A new Supreme Court building quickly followed in 1844, along with the resurgence of the tribe’s
newspaper, schools, businesses and other entities. The Cherokee people thrived until the
advent of the Civil War once again pulled the tribe apart.
- Although Cherokee Nation was not technically part of the U.S., it was forced to take sides in the
War Between the States. While two-thirds of Cherokee men fought on the side of the Union,
another third was actively part of the Confederate effort.
- Upon the Union victory, Cherokee Nation signed its last treaty with the U.S., the somewhat
punitive Treaty of 1866.
- By the late 1800s, sentiment in the U.S. turned towards moving Indians to reservations and
opening their lands for occupation and westward expansion.
- The U.S. chose to create a new state and allot tribes’ land out to individual owners. With
Oklahoma statehood in 1907, Cherokees suddenly became land owners and state citizens. Much
 of the Cherokee Nation’s infrastructure was dissolved, including schools, courts and most of its
government.
- The Principal Chief’s Act of 1970 paved the way for certain tribes including the Cherokee Nation
to take back their government and popularly elect tribal officials once again.
- In 1971, the first Cherokee Nation election in nearly 70 years was held and a new Constitution
ratified in 1975.

STATELESS NATION

Kurds

- The Kurds are conquered (17th century) by the Arabs, beginning centuries of living under the rule
of others. Their land is later occupied by the Seljuk Turks, the Mongols, the Safavid dynasty, and,
beginning in the late 13th century, the Ottoman Empire.
- In 1920, at the conclusion of World War I, the Ottoman Empire collapses. The Treaty of Sèvres
proposes a division of the Ottoman Empire and its territory that includes an autonomous
homeland for the Kurds, which was rejected.