Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Cresap, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Cresap, Michael krēˈsăp [key], 1742–75, American frontiersman and soldier, b. Allegany co., Md. A Native American fighter, he was accused by Thomas Jefferson and others of massacring the family o...

Boas, Franz

(Encyclopedia)Boas, Franz bōˈăz, –ăs [key], 1858–1942, German-American anthropologist, b. Minden, Germany, Ph.D. Univ. of Kiel, 1881. He joined an expedition to Baffin Island in 1883 and initiated his field...

Cherokee, indigenous people of North America

(Encyclopedia)Cherokee chĕrˈəkē [key], largest Native American group in the United States. Formerly the largest and most important tribe in the Southeast, they occupied mountain areas of North and South Carolin...

Nez Percé

(Encyclopedia)Nez Percé nĕz pûrs, nā pĕrsāˈ [key] [Fr.,=pierced nose], Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Sahaptin-Chinook branch of the Penutian linguistic stock (see Native American langu...

Bloomfield, Leonard

(Encyclopedia)Bloomfield, Leonard, 1887–1949, American linguist, b. Chicago. Bloomfield was professor at Ohio State Univ. (1921–27), at the Univ. of Chicago (1927–40), and at Yale (from 1940). His specialty f...

Pueblo, indigenous people of North America

(Encyclopedia)Pueblo, name given by the Spanish to the sedentary Native Americans who lived in stone or adobe communal houses in what is now the SW United States. The term pueblo is also used for the villages occup...

Adler, Cyrus

(Encyclopedia)Adler, Cyrus ădˈlər [key], 1863–1940, American Jewish educator, grad. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1883, Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 1887. He taught Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins from 1884 to 1893. He wa...

Brant, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Brant, Joseph, 1742–1807, chief of the Mohawk. His Mohawk name is usually rendered as Thayendanegea. He served under Sir William Johnson in the French and Indian War, and Johnson sent him (1761) to ...

pemmican

(Encyclopedia)pemmican pĕmˈĭkən [key], a travel food of the Native North American. Slices of lean venison or buffalo meat were sun dried, pounded to a paste, and packed with melted fat in rawhide bags. Dried cu...

Hardin, John

(Encyclopedia)Hardin, John, 1753–92, Native American fighter, b. Fauquier co., Va. He served in Lord Dunmore's War (1774) and was a noted member of Daniel Morgan's riflemen during the Revolution. His services at ...