Eastern Woodland Indians Culture

A Brief Overview

Eastern Woodland Indians is a term coined by twentieth century anthropologists and happily picked up by school boards attempting to simplify a program of native studies.

The term describes a polygot of tribal societies that once inhabited an area in North America that extended from the northern coniferous tree line and the headwaters of the McKenzie River, through the vast hardwood forests surrounding the Great Lakes and the shores of the Mississippi River, south to the Gulf of Mexico and east through the Carolina forests to the Atlantic seaboard.

The Eastern Woodlands Indians culture became cohesive approximately 3000 years ago. It developed over time from what anthropologists refer to as the Late Archaic Period.

Although the main force that identified the Eastern Woodlands Indians' culture was dodem...the clan system of governance...another main distinction was the development of thick walled pottery that was widely distributed throughout many parts of the territory, especially below the Great Lakes.

Eastern Woodland Indians Subculture

In the sense that all Woodland First Nations were living in heavily forested areas, many aspects of the cultures of the various Eastern Woodland Indians were similar. But look carefully at the map at the top of the page and notice that the territory extended thousands of miles.

Differences in climate meant differences in cultural practices. Variations in temperature and terrain from one end of the region to another meant that there were significant differences in types of housing, food resources and clothing.

And the restrictions imposed by the transportation and communication systems available in such a huge territory, meant that there were also many variations in social and political structures, religious beliefs, and language within the broad culture of the Eastern Woodland Indians society.

The glue that held it all together was dodem - a system of governance that included seven clans and seven subsections within the clans. Membership in one clan or another was universal across the vast Eastern Woodland Indian territory. Each clan had a specific responsibility to the welfare of the society as a whole.

At the time of European contact, there were three large sub-groups of Woodland Indians that could be divided geographically (north, northeastern and southeastern) and very roughly into three language families...Algonquian, Iroquoian and Muskogean.

If you follow the links below you'll notice that there are differences in culture between the Eastern Woodland Indians who lived in the north, those who lived in the middle of the continent and those who lived in the more temperate south.