Web Gallery of Art

     I went to elementary school at Lynnwood and every year the fourth grade classes did a variety of special days that had to do with the curriculum.  One of these special days, was actually a week in October where the fourth grade built a time period accurate, very small, longhouse and village in an open area on the side of the school.  The week began with an opening ceremomny, after which we started building the village in shifts, with lots of help from the parents and teachers.  We spent the next few days finishing the building and learning as much as we could about the Iroquois Indians, who were the native group to our part of New York. We also got a clan mother-the oldest girl in each class, a chief (a boy chosen by the girls in each class) and we were put into clans at random.  On Thursday, The rest of the school came out ot see what we had accomplished.  Each clan took turns giving tours and being the experts at each section of the village.  On Friday morning we had a closing ceremony, where we all sat around the fire the teachers had started in the fire pit (it was a cold week) and waited for futher instruction, when four teachers came out of the woods and declared themselves the British and that they were willing to trade their technology for "our" land, but if we didn't trade, they would fight us for it.  Then we got time to think it over and make a decision.  We decided we would take their things and and then fight them (we were smart fourth graders).  Then once we'd had our fun, we had to take down the village and so ended our "Longhouse Week".

 

 

 

CATLIN, GeorgeThe Last Race, Mandan O-Kee-Pa Ceremony
1832
Oil on canvas mounted on aluminium, 59 x 71 cm
National Museum of American Art, Washington