Dividing North America

[Zaarin]

You read Golla's book on Californian Amerindian languages?

No. I spotted the citation on Wikipedia. My knowledge of California languages comes from Mithun, but I don't find them very interesting--most lack the complex agglutinative or polysynthetic features found elsewhere.

Maybe California's enormous linguistic and ecological diversity was a factor in the lack of more complex societies?

Perhaps. It implies that people were pretty isolated.

I'd also be curious to know why the richer culture and artistry stayed further north and didn't make much progress south beyond Oregon

I suspect it may have to do with climate. The temperate rainforests of the PNW, combined with the fish-filled waters and salmon runs, meant that the people of the PNW had to spend less time gathering food, which meant more time for pursuing other professions. Another factor would be the cedar (redcedar, Thuja plicata, in the south and yellowcedar, Cupressus nootkatensis, in the north), which is in many ways the perfect tree for just about anything you want to do: build a house, make a canoe, carve a crest pole, weave clothes from the outer bark, eat the inner bark, make bent-wood boxes from the planks, make red dye from the bark...

especially since I vaguely recall hearing that some groups like the Tlingit and Haida traded as far south California and Baja California

Yes, California was the source of dentalia and abelone shells, which were highly valued and used as currency and jewelry in the PNW.

 

[Guandao]

No. I spotted the citation on Wikipedia. My knowledge of California languages comes from Mithun, but I don't find them very interesting--most lack the complex agglutinative or polysynthetic features found elsewhere.

Well, those agglutinative and polysynthetic languages are too hard to learn.....no wonder the Native American ones went extinct.....

 

[Zaarin]

Well, those agglutinative and polysynthetic languages are too hard to learn.....no wonder the Native American ones went extinct.....

Georgian, Turkish, Finnish, and Hungarian seem to be doing just fine.

 

[Guandao]

I didn't realize that they had no agriculture, you'd think I would've seen that on the Chumash wikipedia page at some point. Its fascinating to know how similar the Californians are to the PNW (they both also have leaders that require looking away from wikipedia and into different online sources to find adequate info on) and yet lack some of the vital features that make the PNW potential favorites for brand new civs. Maybe California's enormous linguistic and ecological diversity was a factor in the lack of more complex societies? I'd also be curious to know why the richer culture and artistry stayed further north and didn't make much progress south beyond Oregon (especially since I vaguely recall hearing that some groups like the Tlingit and Haida traded as far south California and Baja California).
I do agree now that I'd prefer having even a couple of PNW groups officially included over the Chumash though I'd love to see one of the bigger Chumash cities included as a city-state. I'd hope that, by the time the Chumash ever becomes it's own official civ, the rest of North America gets to be as full as Europe!

I don't think the Californian natives were that primitive, even if they didn't have agriculture. Seeing California's struggles with water shortages and wildfires, I'm guessing they didn't see the point in taking up farming. It's a huge risk to jump from hunter-gatherers to farmers. Plus, they seemed to do fine living off those acorns. Another thing, a crop like maize was never brought to California before the Europeans arrived. Here's a link to a paper about that topic. Most of the crops they grow today in California didn't exist there before contact.

Georgian, Turkish, Finnish, and Hungarian seem to be doing just fine.

I don't want to bother to learn them. They are all pretty much limited to one country. There's no way they could've spread around the world like English or the Romance languages. How is mashing a bunch of syllables to create an incredibly long word efficient? *
*I'm just joking for the most part. I do find those languages interesting! But I find non-aggutinative/polysynthetic languages interesting as well.

 

[Zaarin]

I don't want to bother to learn them. They are all pretty much limited to one country. There's no way they could've spread around the world like English or the Romance languages. How is mashing a bunch of syllables to create an incredibly long word efficient? *
*I'm just joking for the most part. I do find those languages interesting! But I find non-aggutinative/polysynthetic languages interesting as well.

I'm inclined to believe that the major languages of the world being fusional or analytic is a coincidence. I'll also point out that polysynthetic languages have been the languages of empires, including Nahuatl and Quechua.

 

[TyrannusRex]

Probably not civ-worthy, but just wanna throw out that my favorite California tribe is the Modoc.

 

[Guandao]

I'm inclined to believe that the major languages of the world being fusional or analytic is a coincidence. I'll also point out that polysynthetic languages have been the languages of empires, including Nahuatl and Quechua.

No wonder the Nahuatl and Quechua dialogue spoken in Civ5/6 sounds like it consists of big long words as opposed to multiple ones! Well, both of them are dying out today.....

Probably not civ-worthy, but just wanna throw out that my favorite California tribe is the Modoc.

Fan of Kintpuash/ "Captain Jack"?

 

[Zaarin]

Probably not civ-worthy, but just wanna throw out that my favorite California tribe is the Modoc.

I'm more familiar with their Oregonian cousins the Klamath.

No wonder the Nahuatl and Quechua dialogue spoken in Civ5/6 sounds like it consists of big long words as opposed to multiple ones!

According to some irregular analyses, languages like Nahuatl and Quechua have no words, only phrase-length utterances. (Which is nonsense. Numerous linguistic studies have demonstrated that speakers of polysynthetic languages can agree on what constitutes a word.)

Well, both of them are dying out today.....

Nahuatl is moribund but not beyond saving if either the Mexican government would stop demonizing Nahuatl (hahaha) or the Nahuan themselves took a greater interest in their linguistic heritage. My impression of Quechua is that it's under linguistic pressure but nevertheless stable, with even non-indios in some communities learning Quechua and still a sizable body of (older, of course) monoglots who speak only Quechua.

 

[TahamiTsunami]

I don't think the Californian natives were that primitive, even if they didn't have agriculture. Seeing California's struggles with water shortages and wildfires, I'm guessing they didn't see the point in taking up farming. It's a huge risk to jump from hunter-gatherers to farmers. Plus, they seemed to do fine living off those acorns. Another thing, a crop like maize was never brought to California before the Europeans arrived. Here's a link to a paper about that topic. Most of the crops they grow today in California didn't exist there before contact.

Yeah, primitive doesn't exactly bring the right image to mind, but the Californians were comparatively less advanced than their northern cousins (I actually don't know if the Californians were more closely related to the PNW than to other groups or not). As a Californian myself I do agree that fires and droughts don't really inspire farmers plus the Chumash certainly did pretty well without needing to farm! I'm still greatly impressed with their tomols as well as their art, hopefully they can be represented in-game with something like a city-state. Thanks for the link, I do appreciate getting to learn more!

 

[Zaarin]

(I actually don't know if the Californians were more closely related to the PNW than to other groups or not).

Linguistically Klamath-Modoc and Athabaskan crossover from the PNW into California, and Penutian (if it's a thing) extends from California into Oregon. It's fair to think of southern Oregon as a transitional region from Southern PNW culture to California culture.

 

[TahamiTsunami]

Linguistically Klamath-Modoc and Athabaskan crossover from the PNW into California, and Penutian (if it's a thing) extends from California into Oregon. It's fair to think of southern Oregon as a transitional region from Southern PNW culture to California culture.

I see, it sounds like they're pretty closely related then. Thanks for letting me know, occasionally I'll have questions that are trickier to answer on a Google search so I definitely appreciate the info! I'd like to learn more about which tribes are more closely related to each other (like a sort of NA family tree) to see which groups have more connections as well as which groups are more isolated.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that the Hopi and other Puebloans are related to the Aztecs.

Probably not civ-worthy, but just wanna throw out that my favorite California tribe is the Modoc.

The Chumash are my favorite Californians but I'd like to learn more about the others too!

 

[Zaarin]

I'd like to learn more about which tribes are more closely related to each other (like a sort of NA family tree)

If you can make a NA family tree and demonstrate it's accuracy, I'd expect a Nobel prize for the effort. I think generally speaking it's probably more useful to think of North America as being comprised of culture zones, with linguistic families often spanning several culture zones (for example Algic was spoken in the Great Plains, the Plateau, the Subarctic, the the Eastern Woodlands, the Southeast, and California; Siouan was spoken in the Great Plains, the Great Lakes, the Plateau, and the Southeast; but Natchez-Muskogean was only spoken in the Southeast, Wakashan was only spoken in the PNW, etc.).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that the Hopi and other Puebloans are related to the Aztecs.

Yes, the Aztec originated in the American Southwest as speakers of an Uto-Aztecan language. Most of the Uto-Aztecans remained in the Southwest, southern California, and northern Mexico; the Nahua and their cousins the Pipil moved south into Mesoamerica. Cf. Athabaskan, where the Navajo and Apache moved into the Southwest while most Athabaskan languages are spoken far to the north.

 

[Guandao]

So would the North Amerindian cultural areas who deserve a Civ the most would be the Pacific Northwest Coast, The Northeastern Woodlands, and the Southeastern Woodlands? And possibly the Southwest? I know the Great Plains are popular too.....

 

[TahamiTsunami]

So would the North Amerindian cultural areas who deserve a Civ the most would be the Pacific Northwest Coast, The Northeastern Woodlands, and the Southeastern Woodlands? And possibly the Southwest? I know the Great Plains are popular too.....

Yeah, the consensus in this thread seems to be that the PNW, NE, and SE are particularly deserving of official Civ representation. We even went into secondary picks for those areas if our first choice wasn't picked. The SW would be nice to have too since they fill in a blank spot on the map pretty nicely. It's not that I don't like the Great Plains groups but I do admit that it would be much harder to convincingly make a civ based on them with the current game mechanics. That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing their inclusion, as long as it is inclusion with the other cultural areas and not being picked over them.

I was looking into the Wabanaki Confederacy and they look like they could be another option for the NE. I don't know if I'd want them over the Iroqouis and Powhatan but they do look like a significant force worthy of consideration. What do you guys think?

 

[Guandao]

I was looking into the Wabanaki Confederacy and they look like they could be another option for the NE. I don't know if I'd want them over the Iroqouis and Powhatan but they do look like a significant force worthy of consideration. What do you guys think?

Tpangolin/Colonialist Legacies made a great mod for them in Civ5, with Henri Membertou as the leader.
I wouldn't mind seeing the New England Algonquians as a Civ as well, with Massasoit (or possibly even his son Metacomet) as the leader. They interacted with the early colonialists in Massachusetts/RI/Connecticut, so I have a soft spot for them.

 

[TahamiTsunami]

@Zaarin I was wondering if you wouldn't mind clearing up something about the Tlingit for me since you're pretty knowledgeable about the PNW natives? No pressure of course, I'm sure I can survive if you happen to not know or you'd rather not say.

Chief Chartrich/Shaadaxicht/Shotridge (also known by his birth name Kohklux) has recently become a new favorite leader choice to lead the Tlingit for me because he's quite the fascinating character. He was called the most powerful warrior and greatest diplomat of the Northwest coast and he was also well-known for the bullet wound he had in his cheek. Obviously he'd wear a Chilkat blanket but I'm just a little unsure of what hat he'd wear. He's mentioned as being the leader of the Kaagwaantaan clan and page 68 of this paper (which has some pretty nice info on the Shotridge family) shows his marble grave monument depicting the form of the Kaagwaantaan bear crest so Chartrich's crest animal being a bear seems pretty conclusive but I'm wondering why several sources say it would've been a wolf? Additionally, while I've seen some images of a bear crest hat and a killer whale crest hat that Louis Shotridge collected from the Klukwan Whale House, I have yet to see a wolf crest hat. I'm just wanting to make sure that he would in fact wear a bear crest hat and what the rules are for what kind of hats Tlingit chiefs wear (especially since some chiefs like Chief Shakes I have worn hats from rival chiefs they've beaten).

 

[Patine]

@Zaarin I was wondering if you wouldn't mind clearing up something about the Tlingit for me since you're pretty knowledgeable about the PNW natives? No pressure of course, I'm sure I can survive if you happen to not know or you'd rather not say.

Chief Chartrich/Shaadaxicht/Shotridge (also known by his birth name Kohklux) has recently become a new favorite leader choice to lead the Tlingit for me because he's quite the fascinating character. He was called the most powerful warrior and greatest diplomat of the Northwest coast and he was also well-known for the bullet wound he had in his cheek. Obviously he'd wear a Chilkat blanket but I'm just a little unsure of what hat he'd wear. He's mentioned as being the leader of the Kaagwaantaan clan and page 68 of this paper (which has some pretty nice info on the Shotridge family) shows his marble grave monument depicting the form of the Kaagwaantaan bear crest so Chartrich's crest animal being a bear seems pretty conclusive but I'm wondering why several sources say it would've been a wolf? Additionally, while I've seen some images of a bear crest hat and a killer whale crest hat that Louis Shotridge collected from the Klukwan Whale House, I have yet to see a wolf crest hat. I'm just wanting to make sure that he would in fact wear a bear crest hat and what the rules are for what kind of hats Tlingit chiefs wear (especially since some chiefs like Chief Shakes I have worn hats from rival chiefs they've beaten).

A wolf would be an odd statement. To my knowledge, in the Pacific Northwest, wolves could not carve out a strong ecological niche, being easily crowded out by brown bears, sea lions, and cougars, at least. I don't believe they had any significantly large presence, and thus not the symbolic stature they had amongst the Plains cultures, Cree, Dene, Inuit, as well as Tungusic, Mongolic, Yeneysien, Turkic, Slavic, Teutonic-Norse, Italic, and Celtic cultures. This is my understanding.

 

[TahamiTsunami]

A wolf would be an odd statement. To my knowledge, in the Pacific Northwest, wolves could not carve out a strong ecological niche, being easily crowded out by brown bears, sea lions, and cougars, at least. I don't believe they had any significantly large presence, and thus not the symbolic stature they had amongst the Plains cultures, Cree, Dene, Inuit, as well as Tungusic, Mongolic, Yeneysien, Turkic, Slavic, Teutonic-Norse, Italic, and Celtic cultures. This is my understanding.

You could be onto something there. I do recall that wolves, while present in the area, aren't nearly as numerous there as bears are. That could be why I have seen only some wolves as art, masks, and helmets but not as crest hats while I've seen several bear crest hats not to mention the large amounts of art they're in.

Now that you mention it, it seems like the wolves aren't the only ones with a lack of crest hats. Cougars are also shown rarely in art or as masks and not as a crest as far as I know. Same with many other land animals like deer, moose, mountain goats, foxes, etc. despite them living in the area too. Meanwhile, the animals I've seen as crests are usually bears, killer whales, salmon, ravens, eagles, even things like frogs, sea lions, and sharks!

 

[Zaarin]

@Zaarin I was wondering if you wouldn't mind clearing up something about the Tlingit for me since you're pretty knowledgeable about the PNW natives? No pressure of course, I'm sure I can survive if you happen to not know or you'd rather not say.

Chief Chartrich/Shaadaxicht/Shotridge (also known by his birth name Kohklux) has recently become a new favorite leader choice to lead the Tlingit for me because he's quite the fascinating character. He was called the most powerful warrior and greatest diplomat of the Northwest coast and he was also well-known for the bullet wound he had in his cheek. Obviously he'd wear a Chilkat blanket but I'm just a little unsure of what hat he'd wear. He's mentioned as being the leader of the Kaagwaantaan clan and page 68 of this paper (which has some pretty nice info on the Shotridge family) shows his marble grave monument depicting the form of the Kaagwaantaan bear crest so Chartrich's crest animal being a bear seems pretty conclusive but I'm wondering why several sources say it would've been a wolf? Additionally, while I've seen some images of a bear crest hat and a killer whale crest hat that Louis Shotridge collected from the Klukwan Whale House, I have yet to see a wolf crest hat. I'm just wanting to make sure that he would in fact wear a bear crest hat and what the rules are for what kind of hats Tlingit chiefs wear (especially since some chiefs like Chief Shakes I have worn hats from rival chiefs they've beaten).

Wolf is a moiety, and moieties are not so culturally significant as clans (really only determining what other clans you can marry into). NB that ravens appear as both the Raven moiety and a very common clan crest, but to my knowledge Wolf is only a moiety and not a symbol of any clan (though my knowledge on that subject is not exhaustive). However, I'll also note that while carved wooden crest hats are certainly to be found among the Tlingit, far more typical would be woven cedar bark hats like this:



The chief would place rings on them for every potlatch they'd thrown, which of course was a major status symbol.

A wolf would be an odd statement. To my knowledge, in the Pacific Northwest, wolves could not carve out a strong ecological niche, being easily crowded out by brown bears, sea lions, and cougars, at least. I don't believe they had any significantly large presence, and thus not the symbolic stature they had amongst the Plains cultures, Cree, Dene, Inuit, as well as Tungusic, Mongolic, Yeneysien, Turkic, Slavic, Teutonic-Norse, Italic, and Celtic cultures. This is my understanding.

Nevertheless Wolves were one of the two Tlingit moieties, the other being Raven (though a small subset of the Tlingit had Eagle instead of Wolf); however, I'm not familiar with any Tlingit clan having a wolf as a crest.

Now that you mention it, it seems like the wolves aren't the only ones with a lack of crest hats. Cougars are also shown rarely in art or as masks and not as a crest as far as I know.

Mountain lions were not culturally significant to the Tlingit, but lynxes were.

To add to the list of missing creatures, you'll also note river otters are missing because they're taboo.

 

[TahamiTsunami]

Since the leaked list of civs for Gathering Storm is fairly certain to be accurate by this point, I am a bit disappointed that we don't have another native NA civ (I'm hyped for the Inca though).

A 3rd expansion or dlc is still theoretical right now but assuming what AssemblingTyphoon said holds up, there would at least be 1 more native NA civ. I would hope that the Iroquois return but I guess that also depends on if a 3rd expansion would allow for more returning civs or if it sticks to the 4 returning and 4 new trend. If it does stick to that trend then it would it would be hard to have the Iroqouis compete for 1 of those 4 spots with the likes of Ethiopia, Maya, Portugal, Babylon, Assyria, rtc. In that case, I would be happy with the Powhatan filling in for them. It could be too hopeful of me at this point, but I'd want 2 Cubs with 1 'covering' the east (Iroqouis or Powhatan) and the other in the west (Tlingit).