Native American Family Research Paper

Native Americans also known as Alaska Natives, American Indians, and Indigenous Americans make up 1.6 percent of the United States population. Native Americans have over 500 tribes and speak over 200 unique languages. Native Americans are exceptionally diverse and in the United States, there are roughly 4.9 million Native Americans present (National Healthy Marriage Research Center, 2015). In the past, scientists were finding ways to group Native American tribes into small significant units. In 1896, a man named Otis T. Mason discovered a way to group all the tribes. The tribes were grouped based on their cultural and environmental characteristics (Oswalt, Page 21). The customs of these different tribes impact the structure of families, gender

The couple lived with the daughters parents until their first child was conceived. When a child is conceived, a family becomes more stable and sometimes the family would moved with the husband’s family afterward. Conceiving a baby happened later on in marriages, not typically when first married. Having a nuclear family consisting of a husband, wife, and kids did not last and the family was never stable. The increase of adult mortality rates caused marriages not to last as long. The average life expectancy for people in this tribe was less than thirty years old. Deaths happened on accident, from disease or not having enough food (Oswalt, Page 115). Individuals being married more than once in a lifetime were very common in this tribe. Separating or having a divorce was very normal in the Chipewyan tribe (Sharp, 2002). As well as spouse abuse was very common, men abused women and women abused men. Wife wrestling and divorce was the result of ending marriages (Oswalt, Page

The Sioux man had an option of marrying someone in his tribe or a non-Sioux captive. If the Sioux man were to marry a woman of his tribe, there would be a marriage ceremony. If a man were to marry a woman that is not from his tribe there would be no ceremony at all. A non-Sioux spouse was considered property instead of actually being a human being. The Sioux men made it seem as if a woman who is not a part of their tribe, ought to be lucky to marry someone of their tribe. For a man to propose to a woman, there were many things that had to be done. The man had to paint his face, dress in the best clothes, and toss a courting robe over his shoulders. Afterwards, the man stood outside of the woman’s tepee and paced around it until the woman appeared in the entrance. A warrior would grab the woman and the woman pretended to resist being captured. The warrior then covered the man and a woman with a robe and the man began to propose. The parents invited them both inside to be seated. If a woman denied the proposal she would turn her back on the man. If the woman accepted the proposal, she would smile and hand him a drink, welcoming him to come again. Engagement happened when the man returned to the lady’s house and the lady prepared food for him. She then gave him hand-made moccasins that she made herself. They were now