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Museum Educator-led Programs
Pre & Post Visit Resources
Mohicans: Post-Contact

Grades 3-5

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Program Description and Frameworks
Program Outline
Key Terms and Concepts
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Print and Web Resources
Learn More About the Mohican Room

Click here for printable version of all resources listed above

Learn how the arrival of European settlers changed the Mohican way of life. Explore the history of the Mohicans and their interactions with their European neighbors while studying the tools, food, and games traditionally used by these native people.

Location: Mohican Room   (Learn More About the Mohican Room)
Length: 1 hour
Grades: 3-5

Massachusetts Frameworks
History and Social Science Standards Strand 1: Standard 3.8, 3.11, 3.12, 4.11, 4.15, 5.5

Technology/Engineering 2.1, 2.3

New York
Standard 1 History of the US and NY: 3, 4

Standard 3 Geography: 1

Introduction
Using a wall map and painted mural, students will learn about the geographical area inhabited by the Mohicans before the arrival of European explorers, traders and settlers.

Pre-Contact: Everyday Life
Using replicas of objects commonly found in the villages, students will discover how the Mohicans made use of natural resources to create tools and wares that helped meet their needs for food, clothing and shelter.

Hands-on Discovery
Students will have an opportunity to handle a variety of replicas of Native American tools, clothing, games, and “household” objects.

Post-Contact
Students are asked to consider how contact with Europeans affected the Mohicans. Props such as wampum, a beaver pelt, arrowheads, and ears of corn help to bring trade with the Europeans alive. The program concludes with a discussion of the lives of Mohicans today.

• Before contact with Europeans, the Mohicans lived in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Map of Mohican land
• The words Mohican and Mahican refer to the same group of Native Americans; they are different spellings of the English version of the word "Muh-he-con-neok," which means "The People of the Waters that are Never Still." The Mohegans are a different tribe.
• The Mohican tribe was divided into smaller villages. Villages would move to new sites periodically to avoid excessive depletion of natural resources.
• Though Mohican technology may seem simple compared to today's tools and complex machines, the Mohicans devised intelligent, efficient, and ecologically responsible tools and methods of meeting their needs for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation.
• The Mohicans maintained the same way of life for almost 2000 years until the Europeans arrived, which changed the way the Mohicans lived.
• The English explorer Henry Hudson and his crew on the Dutch ship "The Half Moon" were the first Europeans to sail up the Hudson River in 1609.
• Contact between Native Americans and Europeans brought both benefits and problems for both parties. While they were both able to get desirable goods from each other, European traders and settlers often lived in fear that they would be attacked or robbed by Natives, and many Native Americans caught serious illnesses from the Europeans and died. Other Native Americans were pressured to adopt European lifestyles and to sell their land.
• The Mohicans now live very differently from they way they did long ago. They live in Wisconsin, and are sometimes called the Stockbridge-Munsee because of the time they spent living in Stockbridge, MA before moving west.

• Animal Hide
  The skin of an animal such as a deer, bear, or rabbit. Hides were used for blankets and clothing.
• Clan
  A smaller family group within a larger band of Native Americans. Mohican clans included the bear, wolf and turtle clans.
• Dugout Canoe
  Canoes made from the trunks of large trees like the white pine. The trunks were hollowed by burning and scraping away the inside of the tree to form a space large enough for 10 to 30 people.
• Longhouse
  A long, narrow house with a round roof that held many families of the same clan. Each section would have a place for a fire and a smoke hole in the roof.
• Native American
  The first people to live in North and South America, before people traveled from Europe to live there.
• Post-Contact
  The time after Europeans arrived in North American and began to interact with Native Americans.
• Pre-Contact
  Indicates the time before the Europeans arrived in North American and began to interact with Native Americans.
• Pump Drill
  A tool used to drill holes into bone and shells. By pumping a wooden bar up and down, the drill bit spins back and forth, creating the hole.
• Sinew
  Shredded fibers of animal tendons often used to make bow strings.
• Wampum
  Native American currency often whelk shells shaped into small beads.
• Wigwam
  A circular single-family house, with a round roof, made of saplings and bark. Wigwams were also built at winter hunting camps.

Native American Games
Many Native American Games helped to develop aim, coordination, strength, stamina, focus, and observation skills, which were all essential survival skills. Games of luck also prepared young Mohicans for hunting with its element of chance and the possibility of disappointment. Click here for a list of Native American games with directions.

Native American Inventions
As a class, brainstorm a list of things invented by Native Americans that we still use today. Once you have completed your list, ask your students what roles in Native American society did these inventions fill. Did early Europeans have inventions that were similar or that filled the same role? Why do your students think that these inventions have lasted for so many years? Click here for some examples.

Mohican Pen Pal
Many of the students at Bowler Elementary in Wisconsin are members of the Stockbridge-Munsee community. To start a pen pal program between your students and the students of this Native American Nation, please e-mail Joan Rosenow, a Bowler Elementary teacher, at rosenoj@bowler.k12.wi.us.

Create a Conversation with Journals
Using accounts of interactions between the Mohicans and Europeans as writing prompts, students imagine what it was like to be a Mohican or a European during the 1600's, and write a series of four journal entries from the Mohican or European perspective. Ask students to choose either the Mohican or the European perspective to write from. After each set of entries, ask a few students from each "side" to share their entries out loud. Alternately, you might divide the class, so that half the students are Mohicans and half are Europeans, and they always share their entry with a partner. After hearing both perspectives, discuss student reactions. Click here for prompts.

Remember the Past: Storytelling
The Mohicans did not keep written histories, so to remember their past, they would gather together and tell the history of their people out loud. Every person at the gathering would recite the entire history, one-at-a-time! This way, the elders could teach their history to younger generations. To help them remember, they would "count" on a belt made of wampum beads. Each bead would stand for a part of the story, and they would hold that bead between their fingers as they told that part of the story.

As a class, create your own story of the Mohicans, based on what you know about them. Click here for a brief history of the Mohican people. This would be an ideal review and assessment activity to follow the Journal activity above. Alternately, a story from Native American myth like could be used. Either way, the exercise involves identifying the most important ideas in a narrative, and considering their chronology.

Give each sentence a number. Ask students to work with a partner, and ask each pair of partners to be responsible for remembering one particular sentence. Ask students to think about their speaking skills, taking their time to speak clearly, thoughtfully, and making eye contact with the rest of the group. Give students time to practice with their partners, and then get together in a circle to recite entire story.

All print resources listed are available through the Central/Western Massachusetts Library System. Use the Berkshire Athenaeum’s on-line catalogue to search for these print resources in Central/Western Massachusetts.

Print Materials For Students

Aliki. Corn is Maize, The Gift of the Indians. NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976. The illustrated story of how Native Americans propogated corn from wild plants.

* Bowman, Eva Jean. Chief Ninham Forgotten Hero. Wisconsin, Muh-he-con-neew Press, 1999. The author of this book is a teacher and Stockbridge –Munsee tribal member. With illustrations by her second grade class, she wrote the story of Chief Daniel Ninham, he was the leader of the Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk tribe at the onset of the Revolutionary war. Available from the Muh-he-con-neew Press (715-787-4427) ISBN 0-935790-04-7.

Braun, Esther K. and David P Braun. The First Peoples of the Northeast. Lincoln, MA: Lincoln Historical Society, 1994. This overview of the archaeology Northeastern America begins with the Ice Age and the coming of the first inhabitants, and chronicles their life style changes through European contact.

Carlson, Laurie. More than Moccasins: A Kid’s Activity Guide to Traditional North American Indian Life. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1994. This book has fun Native American crafts for children from ages 5 to 12.

Murdoch, David. North American Indian (An Eyewitness Book). NY: Dorling Kindersly, 2000. Covers the clothing, homes, crafts, tools and ways of Native Americans across North America. As an Eyewitness Book, it does a fantastic job of illustrating the topics and items discussed.

Shemie, Bonnie. Houses of Bark: Tipi, Wigwam and Longhouse: Native Dwellings of the Woodland Indians. Plattsburgh, NY: Tundra Books, 1990. This book explores the different types of shelters Native Americans built. It includes black and white drawings and full color illustrations with explanations of the types of Natives that would be each structure and why there were different.

Siegel, Beatrice, and Bock. Fur Trappers and Traders: The Indians, the Pilgrims and the Beaver. Reprint of 1981 ed. NY: Walker and Company; 1987. Through the history of beaver trapping and trade this book discusses the effects Europeans commerce had on the Native Americans; including disease, economics and culture.

Wilbur, Keith C. The New England Indians. CT: Globe Pequot Press, 1978. A very good resource about how natural materials were used by early natives in the Northeast to create tools, pottery, canoes, clothing, and shelter. The many illustrations are extremely helpful in understanding the steps involved.

Print Materials For Educators

Calloway, Colin G. Indians of the Northeast. New York, NY: Facts on File, 1991. This is a well-balanced description of the distant and recent history of the Native cultures of the Northeast. Includes U.S. Indian policies, urban Indians, the American Indian Movement, Indian identity, legal status, land claims and hunting and fishing rights, religious freedom, economic development, education, and powwows.

Dudley, William. Native Americans: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 1998. This book discusses the conflict between Native Americans and incoming Europeans. Topics include the western frontier, assimilation, early removal policies and current Native American issues.

Dunn, Shirley W. The Mohicans and Their Land, 1609 - 1730. New York: Purple Mountain Press, 1995. An in-depth examination of the evidence of interactions between early European traders and settlers and the Mohicans.

Frazier, Patrick. The Mohicans of Stockbridge. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1994. This unique study of a local Native American Tribe covers the Mohicans' conversion to Christianity and examines the various ways they interacted with both Dutch and English settlers as traders, soldiers, and victims of expansion and alcohol.

Montgomery, David. Native American Crafts & Skills. CT: The Lyons Press, 2000. Clear, concise text and step-by-step diagrams describe traditional methods of making Native American tools, clothing, shelters, and more. Covers many different tribes from across North America.

Wyborny, Sheila. Native Americans of the Northeast. Detroit: Kidhaven Press, 2005. Provides an overview of the costumes, beliefs, social structure and everyday life of Native Americans from the Northeast.

Web Materials for Students

Native Language of the Americas: Mohican Indian Fact Sheet
This site is organized into questions and answers and responds to many questions frequently asked by students.

Nipmuc Indian Association of Connecticut
This is the official site to the Nipmuc Indians of Connecticut. This is a good site for crafts and information of current Indian traditions, ceremonies, art and publications.

Web Materials for Educators

Carnegie Museum of Natural History
This website allows you to explore a tribe from each corner of the United States. To learn more about Native Americans in the east you can look at the Iroquois, or you can compare tribes in different areas by exploring the north, south or west of the United States.

Index of Native American Native American Teaching Resources on the Internet
A searchable database that includes book reviews, articles, and web pages.

National Museum of the American Indian
This is a Smithsonian Museum website and is a good place to find current Native American art work and events, and examples of historical artifacts.

Stockbridge-Munsee Community
This is the official web site of the Stockbridge-Munsee Nation on Wisconsin. This is a good site to learn about that life and structure of the current Mohican Nation, and includes information on the history of the tribe.

 

The Institute of Museum and Library Services, an independent Federal grant- making agency dedicated to creating and sustaining a nation of learners by helping libraries and museums serve their communities supports the Berkshire Museum.

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