Civilizations by ldvhl

Thanks again Hiram! If I can request two icon switches please:

Would you be willing to use the central symbol (with dots) for the Muscogee:

Spoiler :


And this hand for the Illinois:

Spoiler :
 
Duly noted. Thanks Hiram!
 
ldvhl, here are the civilopedia entries for the unique units and buildings, which I have finished so far. What do you think of them?

Spoiler :
Tomol
Tomols are plank-built boats, used historically and currently by the Chumash and Tongva Native Americans in the Santa Barbara and Los Angeles area. The Tongva word for a tomol is “tii’at”. Tomols are 8 to 30 feet long. Both the Chumash and Tongva relied on the sea for their sustenance. The material used for the tomol boats were redwood driftwood or local native pine when the redwood were unavailable. The craftsmen sought straight planks without knotholes to sand them with sharkskin. Small holes were drilled in the planks to lash them to another. The seams were then caulked with “yop”, a mixture of hard tar and pine pitch melted and then boiled. As decorations, red paint and shell mosaics were added. Tomols were propelled using kayak-like paddles while in a crouching position. The boats were highly maneuverable. The Chumash and Tongva used them to paddle to the Channel Islands. Tomols were built by the descendants of the Chumash in more recent times. They can be found in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, and the Chumash Maritime Association of California.

Scorpion Tree
A centuries-old gnarled oak had the image of a six-legged, lizard-like being scrawled into its trunk, with a rectangular crown and two large spheres. The Scorpion Tree is located in a grove in the Santa Lucia Mountains in San Luis Obispo County, California. Local people believed that it was created by cowboys. However, when paleontologist Rex Saint Onge stumbled upon the tree in autumn 2006, he knew it was the work of Chumash Amerindians. The Chumash had painted similar designs on rock formations throughout the area. The scorpion tree is the West Coast’s only known Native American arborglyph. Saint Onge realized that the carved crown and its relation to one of the spheres was very similar to the manner in which the constellation Ursa Major is related to the position of the North Star, Polaris. The paleontologist learned that the constellation rotates around Polaris every 24 hours, that its placement during sunset could be used to tell the seasons, and that the Chumash Indians revered this astronomical relationship in their language and cosmology. The arborglyph and the cave paintings was the result of deliberate studies of the stars and served as significant components of the Chumash’s annual calendar. It is uncertain how long ago the scorpion tree was carved. Academics speculate that a Chumash family that lived on a nearby hillside until all dying during the 1918 flu epidemic might have tended to the arborglyph as the bark and lichen grew back. Saint Onge believed it was fortunate that the tree was discovered by academics because carpenter ants are attacking the limbs of the tree. He and the other academics are satisfied that the scorpion tree confirms that the Chumash lived in a very complex and sophisticated society despites being classified by historians as mere hunter gatherers for centuries. Joe Talaugon, a Chumash elder who visited the site, believes that the arborglyph and its implications will empower the ongoing cultural renaissance among those of Chumash ancestry.


High Mound
Monks Mound is the largest structure of the Mississippian archeological site of Cahokia in present day Illinois. It is a massive platform mound with four terraces, 10 stories tall, and the largest man-made earthen mound north of Mexico. Its height is 100 ft, its length is 951 ft, its width is 836 ft, and it covers 13.8 acres. The mound was built higher and wider over the course of several centuries. The structure received its name from a community of Trappist monks which resided there shortly after Euro-Americans settled the region. Excavation on the top of Monks Mound revealed evidence for a large building, either a temple or a residence for the paramount chief, which would have been seen by people throughout the city. This building was around 105 ft long and 48 ft wide, and could have been as much as 50 ft high. A large flat plaza adjacent to the Monks Mound was a place where games and public rituals took place, the most popular being the game of chunkey. Due to the lack of written records by the inhabitants, Cahokia’s original name is unknown. The city shows that its people had a complex and sophisticated society. The site of the city was named for the Cahokia tribe, a historic Illiniwek people living in the area when the first French explorers came in the 17th century. Due to the fact that Cahokia was already abandoned by its original inhabitants for several centuries before this, the Cahokia people are not necessarily descendants of the original Mississippian-era people who lived in the city. Some archaeologists connect Dhegihan Siouan-speakers, such as the Osage, Kaw, Omaha, Ponca and Quapaw, to the former city. These peoples are generally believed to have migrated from the east of the Ohio River valley. The ethnic identity of the Mississippian Cahokians, whether being ancestral to the Dhegihan Siouan or the Algonquian Illinois, is up for debate.

Posketv Grounds
The Green Corn festival of the Muscogee Creek and Seminole peoples is called Posketv in the native language. This ceremony is celebrated as the new year of the Stomp dance society and takes place on the central ceremonial Square Ground, an elevated platform with the flat edges of the square facing the cardinal directions. Arbors are constructed upon the flat edges of the square. The men sit there facing one of the four directions. This is surrounded by a ring-mound of earth outside of which are the clan houses. In the center of all this is the ceremonial fire, a focus of the songs and prayers of the people. During Posketv, all offenses are forgiven except for rape and murder. Historically, nearly every structure would be torn down and replaced within the town. Today, modern groups only replace the ceremonial fire, the cook fires and certain other ceremonial objects. The first day of Posketv is the Ribbon or Ladies Dance in which the females in the community perform a purifying dance to prepare the ceremonial ground. After this, there is a family meal and by midnight, all the men of the community start fasting. They sleep right outside the ceremonial square to guard it from intruders. Before dawn on the second day, the men awaken and remove the last year’s fire and clean the ceremonial area from coals and ash. Numerous dances and rites are performed throughout the day as the men continue to fast in the summer weather. The central ceremonial fire is relit, with the head woman of each family camp coming to the circle to obtain some hot coals from the new fire. They use this to start their camp’s cook fires. During this time, men who have earned the right to a war-name are named and the Feather Dance is performed. It is a blessing of the area and a rite of passage for youths becoming men. The fasting typically ends by supper-time after the women tell them that food is prepared. The men march in single-file down to a river or creek for a ceremonial deep and private men’s meeting. They return to the ceremonial square and perform a single Stomp Dance before retiring to their home camps for a feast. At midnight, a Stomp Dance ceremony is held, including fasting, and continues through the night. This ceremony does not end until after dawn. Posketv is the central and most festive holiday of the Muscogee people, representing the renewal of the annual cycle and of the community’s social and spiritual life as a whole.

Casino
In 1666, the Connecticut General Assembly voted to create a 2,000 acre reservation for the western Pequots. The eastern Pequots were given 280 acres in present-day North Stonington, Connecticut. By 1790, the western Pequot reservation was only 1,000 acres. In 1855, Connecticut sold 800 of the remaining acres at 10 dollars per acre, putting the money in a state administered trust account for the Pequots. The Pequots filed suit in May 1976 in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. The named plaintiffs were the Western Pequot Tribe and Richard “Skip” Hayward, and the named defendants included Holdridge Enterprises and its president. With the passage of the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act in 1980, attorney Tom Tureen turned his attention to the Mashantucket Pequot case. He approached the defendants’ lawyer, Jackson King, for a federally legislated settlement. Tureen proposed that Connecticut turn over the reservation to the federal government, and that the federal government pay the property owners fair market value to include their land in the federal reservation. The state government would retain civil and criminal, but not regulatory authority of the reservation. Connecticut approved the settlement in June of 1982. The federal settlement bill included a $900,000 appropriation, the appraisal value of the 800 acres, which the Pequots would use to buy the land from the landowner defendants. The solicitor general of the Department of the Interior, William Coldiron, testified against the bill for circumventing the BIA’s recognition process and as costing too much money. However, the House passed the bill in October 1982 and the Senate passed a different version in December of that year. President Ronald Reagan vetoed the bill, saying that the state should pay more of the cost, and that Pequots may not meet the BIA’s definition of a tribe. Tureen, King, Hayward and Sandy Cadwalader of the Indian Rights Association began lobbying for a veto override. Sixty-seven senators committed to voting for the bill and a compromise was reached. President Reagan signed the new bill into law on October 18, 1983. In July 5, 1986, a bingo hall opened in the Pequot reservation, despite the opposition of Connecticut’s chief state criminal attorney. Judge Peter C. Dorsey held that Connecticut’s bingo laws did not apply to the reservation. There was a desire for upgrading the bingo hall into a casino. The state governor Weicker opposed gambling, but his proposed bill was rejected by the House. The Pequots signed a financing agreement with Malaysian partners, including the businessman Lim Goh Tong, in 1991 for the construction of Foxwoods Resort Casino, which opened the next year. The Pequots and Connecticut announced a deal in 1993 that would give the state 25% of gross slot machine revenue. By 1998, Foxwoods was generating $1 billion in revenue and $152 million in net income for the Pequots.

Basket Weaver
Pomo women traditionally wove baskets with great care and technique. Pomo basketry has three different techniques: plaiting, coiling, and twining. These baskets are recognized for their exquisite appearance, the fineness of the weave, and the diversity of their form and use. Women mostly made baskets for cooking, storing food, and religious ceremonies. Pomo men also made baskets for fishing weirs, bird traps, and baby baskets. Many of the designs in Pomo baskets have cultural meanings. An example is the Dau, also called the Spirit Door. The Spirit Door allows good spirits to come and circulate inside the basket. Materials used for Pomo baskets included swamp canes, saguaro cactuses, rye grass, black ash, willow shoots, sedge roots, redbud bark, bulrush root, and gray pine root. These materials are dried, cleaned, split, soaked, and dyed after being picked. Basket weaving was considered sacred by the Pomo. The first Pomo basket craze lasted from about 1876 to the 1920s. They still practice basketry today.

Red Stick Rebel
The Red Stick rebels were from the Upper Towns of the Creek Confederacy and opposed assimilation to American culture. In contrast, the Creek of the Lower Towns had adopted American culture. The Red Stick war, or the Creek War (1813-1814) was basically a civil war among the Creek people. After the Lower Creek issued a statement of “unqualified and unanimous friendship for the United States”, violence broke out. The Red Sticks attacked the settlements of the Lower Creek. These rebels were supported by the British, who were fighting the War of 1812 against the Americans, and by the Spanish. The Red Sticks attacked the garrison at Fort Mims in Mississippi Territory (modern day Tensaw, Alabama). The Tensaw Creek were a group of Lower Creek. The Red Sticks killed most of the people who had taken refuge at the fort. Settlers demanded protection from the US government. The Mississippi territory raised state militias and recruited the aid of Native American allies such as the Cherokee. General Andrew Jackson commanded the militias against the Red Sticks, defeating them at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on March 27, 1814. Some of the survivors fled to Florida, joining the Seminole people. After the conflict, the Creek were forced to cede half their remaining lands to America, eventually losing the rest due to the Indian Removal Act.

Mound
Certain scholars believe that the Shawnee people are the descendants of the pre-Columbian Fort Ancient culture of the Ohio region. Fort Ancient culture flourished from 1000 to 1650 AD among the people who lived along the Ohio River in southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, and western West Virginia. The Fort Ancient people built mounds and were apparently descendants of the Hopewell Culture peoples. There is uncertainty about the fate of the Fort Ancient people. It is likely that their society were disrupted from the spread of infectious diseases carried by the first Spanish explorers to the American Southeast. There is a gap in the archeological record between the most recent Fort Ancient sites and the oldest sites of the Shawnee. Nonetheless, the link between the Fort Ancient Culture and the Shawnee people is accepted by some scholars.

Language School
The Squamish language, also known as Sḵwxwú7mesh, is the ancestral language of the Squamish people. Although nearing extinction today, it is still being used in ceremonies, events, and basic conversation. The language is part of the Coast Salish linguistic group, being closely related to Sechelt, Halkomelem, and Nooksack. Before contact, the Squamish language was used alongside Chinook Jargon. A residential school was set up in the village of Eslha7an by the Canadian government. At the school, Squamish children were forbidden to speak their native language and punished when they did. This created a deep resentment about speaking Squamish, causing a decline in the language in favor of English. During the 1960s and the period after, a large amount of work was carried out for revitalization of Squamish. Randy Bouchard and Dorothy Kennedy devised the present writing system for the language. A local elementary school and high school included Squamish language classes. Xwemelch'stn Estimxwataxw School, meaning Xwemelch'stn little ones School, with grades Kindergarten to 3, was built to assist in language immersion.

Potlatch House
The potlatch is called tl'e7enk in the Squamish language. During the potlatch, a host would invite guests to feast in prepared and harvested foods. Blankets would be distributed to the guests. The host hired a speaker to speak on his family’s behalf during the potlatch. For more special potlatches, a platform would be built, at around 10 or 15 feet high and 5 feet wide. The host and his speaker would pile a bunch of blankets on the platform, then distribute them to the guests. After the speaker called out the names of highly respected or ranked guests, a blanket would be thrown. A crowd gathered below and teared the blanket apart. After attending a few potlatches, the guests would have enough wool to weave their own blanket. For larger festivities, a bigger house then the normal dwelling would be built, called the tl'e7enkáẃtxw. One such house measured 200 feet long by 60 feet wide. These larger structures could hold over a thousand guests. Potlatches were banned by the Canadian government in 1885.

Dog Soldiers
The Dog Soldiers or Dog Men (called Hotamétaneo'o in the Tsehestano language) was one of six military societies of the Tsehestano people. This society evolved into a militaristic band which played an important role in Tsehestano resistance to American expansion in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming. After the cholera epidemic of 1849, the survivors of the Masikota band joined the Dog Soldiers. The Tsehestano eventually gave their respect to this society, once viewed as outlaws. The Dog Soldiers contributed to the breakdown of the traditional matrilineal clan system of the Tsehestano. Usually, married Tsehestano men moved to the camp of his wife’s band. The Dog Soldiers brought their wives to their own camp instead. They took as their territory the headwaters country of the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers in southern Nebraska, northern Kansas and the northeastern part of the Colorado Territory. The Dog Soldiers became allies of the Sioux speaking Lakota and Brulé Lakota. Many of the Dog Soldiers were half-Lakota, including their chief Tall Bull. They became separated from other Southern Cheyenne bands due to their different and more violent approach to the settlement of whites. The Council of Forty-Four chiefs favored more peaceful methods of dealing with the settlers. After the Battle of Beecher’s Island, many of the Dog Men were forced to retreat south of the Arkansas River. In the spring of 1867, the Dog Soldiers returned north for the purpose of joining Red Cloud’s Oglala band. They were attacked by soldiers led by General Eugene Carr. After their retaliatory raids, a force comprising of Pawnee Scouts led by Major Frank North and the United States cavalry nearly annihilated the Dog Soldiers in the Battle of Summit Springs in June 1869.

Arrow Lodge
A Tsehestano creation myth involved four medicine arrows, given by the creator, Maheo, to Sweet Medicine, who became the prophet of his peoples. The Sacred Arrows or Mahuts, were four arrows, two for hunting and two for war, kept by the Tsehestano people for generations. Without the Sacred Arrows, there would be no Tsehestano people. The four arrows were guarded in a tepee by a society called the Arrow Keepers. An important Tsehestano ceremony was that of the Arrow Renewal. Bands of extended families came together for a four-day ceremony. Three ceremonial lodges were placed in the center of a circle of tepees: the Sacred Arrow Lodge, the Sacred Arrow Keeper’s Lodge, and the Offering Lodge. Tsehestano men performed various rituals inside and among the lodges to renew the Sacred Arrows and the spirit of their people.
 
This is a nice surprise! Thank you for the icon DarthStarkiller and all the civilopedia entries Guandao!

(and Hoop, your stuff is awesome, don't worry)
 
Excellent work Hiram, thanks again!
 
Isn't the Paiute icon almost exactly the same as the icon for CL's upcoming Wabanaki civ? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong..
 
It is somewhat similar.

This is a potential alternative, but I'm not sure how it would turn out as an icon:

 
Better than I imagined! Thanks Hiram!
 
Oh, that's a nice Selk'nam icon. I like. It may end up looking too similar to the UU's alpha though, which is based on those guys. We were planning on going for some sort of eye thing given than most of their symbology included eyes, something like this:

 
Ehhh...I'm not so much a fan of that icon. That eye symbol looks like a bad 90s tattoo from Seattle. I think the one Hiram made is fine because we're going to be using this guy as the basis for the Shoort UU:

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...and that icon will look different enough.

Hiram, thank you so much again for the icons. Just one small request this time: can the Shawnee icon be changed to just the large star and leave off the bar with smaller stars and the dangly bits on the bottom?

Thank you all so much!
 
So, I have to say: I really, really hate icons that consist of crescents and stars. As such, I've made these ones for Comoros. If you want any of them, just say so:

I know the second one is still crescent and stars in the end, but in a way that looks more different.
 
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