Amerindians - Information & Discussion

[Cro_Hunger999]

Well, if you're interested in winning respect for your work I suggest a change in the word describing this part of the mod from "historical" to "semi-fictional".

Like I said, I have no time to do your research. If you cannot find pictures of Cheyennes from the 18th century, I suggest you use images of either Cheyennes from the 19th century or Plains Indians from 18th century that at least appear similar in style to the illustration that I provided above (no shaved heads), and declare that this is the case somewhere, not post pics of non-Cheyennes from 18th century and 19th century (like the image of the Kansa Indian you currently have for "Head Minister", for example, which is a painting made by George Catlin) to the public as if they were historical (Cheyennes).


BTW, only a very small part of the "Amerindians" acted as a federacy at that time and place (to be precise, the Amerindians were the people who inhabited all the Americas before the arrival of Europeans). This was called the Western Indian Confederacy or the Miami Confederacy. It included parts of both Shawnee and Leni Lenape (as many others). So if you want to be more historical in keeping Buckongahelas as a chief for that faction, I suggest you change the name of this side from "Shawnee" to the aforementioned confederacy. That way you're also free historically to include pictures of chiefs from many other tribes. The head of them would be the Miami chief Little Turtle.

Look dude, I don't need your respect. I don't know what your problem is and I don't really care. "...not post pics of non-Cheyennes from 18th century and 19th century to the public as if they were historical".... I've just said that the game will be as historical as it can be, and that if we cannot find accurate portraits we will add random portraits, perhaps you need glasses. Posting images of Cheyennes from the late 19th c is also semi-fictional. The work you've presented me is just random information for the Amerindians you've copy pasted; some of it is useful and that I know. I have no time to continue an unproductive discussion with a guy who gets hyped about Cheyennes being BALD! Some of us actually take our time to help the community have the best etw experience rather than criticising without any useful historical materials.

If you want to help, help, if not, leave.

[Demokritos]

[...]We would love for you to share but we prefer that it is done in a manner that will be productive. [...]

Well, that sounds like you'd rather keep the errors in what is presented as "historical" in the development of IS. In that case, my bad. Moving on.

@Cro_Hunger999 - Just saw your latest addition to the argument. May I correct you again, firstly, you doubted me having any knowledge about Amerindians or researching them, so I gave you two examples of my work, every bit of it taken from historical sources and being relevant to the case at hand, which was not portraits of historical figures; secondly, I get "hyped", as you want to describe my reservation, about non-Cheyennes being represented as "historical Cheyennes" in a mod that purports to be historical. I also suggested ways that would be less "ahistorical" than the current take and that you should be clearer about the historical status about some parts in your presentation. If you have so little understanding of these points, this "problem of mine", and no patience with people who's no time to fill in the gaps themselves (time that I've shown that I've had before), I'll certainly have no place in this forum. Good luck with that work of yours.

[PikeStance]

Well, that sounds like you'd rather keep the errors in what is presented as "historical" in the development of IS. In that case, my bad. Moving on.

No, final decisions are made in the development forum, not here. These forums are for sharing of research and knowledge. Personally, I prefer a more professional discussion. If you can manage that then you are more than welcome to contribute. Let me stress these are discussion threads only.

[Demokritos]

No, final decisions are made in the development forum, not here. These forums are for sharing of research and knowledge. Personally, I prefer a more professional discussion. If you can manage that then you are more than welcome to contribute. Let me stress these are discussion threads only.

Alright, the text in my comments for this thread so far may have come across as a bit harsh. Sorry about that (looking at you, Cro). I'm in a better mood now.

Well, I have a load of info and ideas about Amerindians to share, if given the time. But, should I find a little time now and then to share, I'd need to have a few things clarified for me first.

One idea comes to me directly, however. Decisions about native government, portraits and stuff need only to made when the factions to represent them are finally settled. If it turns out that there's a better candidate to be part of this representation than the Cheyennes, for example, then we may find it easier to cover the holes for portraits etc in a historically correct way. But if portraits are still difficult to find, we'd have to find something else that could serve as mark of the person's identity. Here we could build upon the examples from history the practice of chiefs to sign agreements with European powers by putting a mark on the paper. These marks or "signatures" were often simple drawings that symbolized the tribe which the man or woman represented. But such drawings could also capture the meaning of their personal names - things that were almost always taken from their natural environment, an event at birth, a special deed etc. So, if all else fails in regard to historical accuracy for the natives, we could perhaps find pictures that stand for personal names. If two chiefs were named "Black Bear" and "Crazy Horse", for example, their signatures could, to at least some degree of credibility, be a bear paw and a rearing horse, respectively, and pictures of those things could be used in place of portraits. What do you guys think of this idea?

Anyhow, going back to the question of factions, if you ask me, the native nations to be featured in a mod like this should be:
1. Historically significant - i.e. they played an important role for the historical development of the place;
2. Representing a variety in native culture for increased interest and playability of the game - speaking a different language for cool new authentic unit names etc;
3. Located so that the factions are spread as evenly as possible across the map - that way to ensure interesting action all over the place;
4. Age-old rival to historically significant nation - i.e. less important nations could have a place for more interesting game if they're arch-enemies to greater ones, as it would create more complex political, diplomatic and military situations; for example, if a given European power E would make a trading deal with a given native nation N, then E would risk war with the native arch-enemy of N, which might be quite troublesome in the current situation of E, who could need the money but not the conflict.

Now Wangrin wrote a post earlier in the thread about many regions not being available for the natives to own (from the start) for some reason. This would restrict the possibilities of native distribution and therefore the selection of suitable factions to represent the natives. But my old friend HusserlTW made an ETW mod called Early American Colonization where "All North America and Newfoundland belongs to native Americans". So, before suggesting a bunch of native nations based on the points above or anything else, I'd like someone to explain to me why native distribution in IS has to be limited as specified.

Edit 1: When the latter Q has been settled, could we see the final map indicating clearly (with names and all) which regions the natives could hold from the start?


Edit 2: If no region that currently is held by a European power can be given to a native nation, the owners of the remaining regions should definitely include the Iroquois and the Sioux. I'd vote for the authentic names of these factions, homelands and main settlements to be as follows:
Iroquois
Faction name (FN): Oñgwanonsioñni ("We of the Extended House", the original autonym)
Faction homeland (FH): Oñgwanonsioñniga ("Country of Oñgwanonsioñni", by adopting the Iroquoian suffix -ga to indicate ”country”)
Faction capital (FC): Ononta'ke ("At the Hill"), main settlement of the Onondagas and the traditional seat of the grand council of the Iroquois confederacy

Sioux
FN: Ocetiyotipi Šakowin (”Seven Council Fires”), from the seven original Sioux tribes
FH: Lakota Makhoce (”Land of the Allies”, in the dialect of the prairie division)
FC: Otuhu Oju (”Place Where the Oaks Grow”), site where the seven tribes met each summer to hold council, possibly somewhere along James River in South Dakota

The next native nation that I'd regard as given here is the Ojibwe, a.k.a. Chippewa. This was not only one of the most populous tribes in North America, they were located in between the Sioux and Iroquois, and, although lesser known, they fought a two-fronts war against them and beat them both. The Ojibwe considered the Iroquois to be the greater evil, their arch-enemy, and called them Naadoweg, ”Rattlesnakes”. The Sioux were known as Naadowensiwag, ”Little Like Rattlesnakes”. A distorted adoption of the latter term is actually what gave us the word ”Sioux”. The Ojibwe referred to themselves as Anishinaabeg, but so did five other Algonquian-speaking nations (Ottawa, Potawatomi, Mississauga, Nipissing and Algonquin proper) in their various dialects, from the fact that they were once one people. The Ojibwe had closest ties with the first two of these other tribes and actually had a working alliance with them called Niswi-mishkodewin, ”Council of Three Fires”. This gives us three possible interpretations of the term Anishinaabeg and the territory they should possess in the game. In all acounts, the names should be given as follows:
Ojibwe
FN: Anishinaabeg (”Men Made of Nothing” or ”First People”)
FH: Anishinaabewaki (”Land of the Anishinaabe)
FC: Baawitigong (”Place at the Rapids”, i.e. Sault Ste. Marie)

If the native nations are to be restricted to six in number, I'd argue for the remaining ones to be, according to the points stated above, the Numic-speaking Comanche (Nʉmʉnʉʉ), the Creek Confederacy (in the Muskogean language: Vcesvlke Tvlwv-vlke) and the pan-Indian movement that gathered force (with the Shawnee etc) in Ohio during the 18^th century and brought forth a couple of the greatest Amerindian leaders of all time.

More details about that and possible emergent factions later, if these things are still open to debate.

[Quintus Hortensius Hortalus]

Thanks for your research. Right now we focus on the 1783 late campaign and so we need information for the time period 1783-1803. To help for further research I present the following map:

Only the marked region can be distributed to Native American Factions. We can not switch reasons without creating masses of startpos files or cause CTD's so every region one will stay as it is. The red ones are the Iroquois and the pink ones the Cherokee.
What's left are the turquoise regions. The northern one is right now oned by the Cheyennes (former vanilla Plains) but we can change the faction name etc. You suggested to place the Sioux there if I'm right. So my question is, which faction is more important.
The southern turquoise region is now owned by the Comanche (former Pueblos). As far as I understand things this should be left this way because the Comanche were the most important nation in the region.

In addition, we can add 2 emerging factions in the 1783 campaign, one of those are planned to be the Ojibwe (former Hurons). So there is one possible emergent faction left.

[Demokritos]

Thank you, QHH, that map and time frame is just what I needed.

Not sure that I followed the limitation of native posessions, bu the below reasoning is based on the assumption that all regions held by natives in vanilla can be given to other native nations, two regions belonging to one faction in vanilla possibly split into possessions of two native factions etc. If so, two more circles ought to have been on that map.

The region just north of the Great Lakes coloured greyish blue is held by the Hurons in vanilla, right? The power of this confederation of peoples had been broken by the Iroquois in the mid 17th century and they no longer lived near that area. Their homeland was in the area between Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario. But in the 18th century, they'd move away from their nemesis and lived more to the south of the Great Lakes, united with the remnants of the Tobacco People (Petun or Tionontati), as Wyandots. The aforementioned grey-blue region belonged to the Ojibweg (Anishinaabeg) from the start of European colonization. The Ojibweg have always been one of the most powerful native nations in NA and should be featured from the start of the game, as allies of the French, with autonyms as specified before.

The Wyandots played an important part, if I remember my sources correctly, in the formation of the coalition of natives that became known as the Western Indian Confederacy, which had roots in the pan-tribal movement that arose in the 1740s. This engaged (parts of) many nations like the Miami, Kickapoo, Mingo, Lenape and Shawnee, to mention just a few. This faction was responsible for, among other things, St. Clair's Defeat in 1791, which has been described as "the most decisive defeat in the history of the American military". It was the largest victory ever won by American Indians, showing how superior some of the woodland peoples could be when fighting with determination in their own (very modern) guerilla style in their own forests against European soldiers trained solely for open-field style battles. The territory held by this faction corresponds roughly to the one marked with the left-most red circle on the above map.
FN: Mejauchsoagan (this is a placeholder name, the Lenape word for "An Alliance", from the Lenapes being the most prominent member of this confederacy, which I haven't been able to find the real autonym for yet)
FH: Alligewincugk (this was the Lenape name of the whole country of the Ohio as far down as Wabash River, which might do for our gaming purposes here)
FC: Wacatomica (a Shawnee town that served as the capital for this confederacy)

The territory marked with the right-most red circle should be regarded as the Iroquois homeland here. The red circle in the middle is territory shared by Iroquois, Mingo, Lenape, Shawnee and some others at this time. Don't know what to do with it yet. Perhaps move the "Mejauchsoagan" etc here, but including only the Mingo, Shawnee and Lenape while the territory to the west of it goes to a Myaamia Confederacy (of Miamis, Weas, Mascoutens, Piankashaws, Wyandots etc) allied with the former.

Yes, northern turquoise-circled region should be Sioux territory, even if they ought to be closer to the Great Lakes region at this time. The Sioux were a far larger nation than the Cheyennes and played a far larger role historically than the latter, so much that they came to epitomize the American Indian with their flamboyant fashion and famous victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn. And yes, the southern turquoise-circled region ought to belong to the Comanches, even if they did not control that area all the way down to the coast, but more to the north. If there was one native people who could rival the Iroquois in fearsome reputation, it would probably be the Comanches. This people carved out an empire on the southern plains that may have been the greatest territory ever held by a native nation north of Mexico. They brushed aside the hardy Apaches from the plains and reduced the Spanish holdings in the southeast to tributary provinces from which they obtained horses, cattle and slaves more or less at will. This through becoming a full-fledged equestrian society – the first true plains culture – that fielded the finest light cavalry in the world, which could be directed into massive frontal attacks to destroy the enemy or smaller, quick hit-and-run raids for plundering given settlements as far down as the vicinity of Mexico City. No-one was safe from the Comanches. They were also difficult to catch if pursued in superior numbers: they knew how to breed horses that out-paced and out-lasted those of Euro-American stock. Part of their success also lay in their skills for stategy and trade. Centering their lives around the bison hunt, they deliberaterly built up a large scale, slave-driven production of buffalo goods and horses for the market and with these commodities, plus many captives from the raids, they traded in everything they wanted, including lots of firearms and foodstuff (carbohydrates) complementing their otherwise rather onesided diet. The latter made for a nutritional improvement and substantial population boost that enabled them to spread and reinforce their sphere of influence. When the expansion got them into contact with threats from many directions, the Comanches knew how to make the right alliances to alleviate the pressure and strengthen their positions. They also knew how to play one European power out against another to gain advantages. In this way, the Comanches put a halt on Spanish colonial expansion in the interior of North America. Their dominance in the Southwest was so clear that they were called ”the Lords of the Southern Plains”.
Principal autonyms could be:
FN: Nʉmʉnʉʉ (”The People”)
FH: Nʉmʉnʉʉ Sookobitʉ ("Comanche Earth")
FC: Puha Noobinʉʉ (this is a linguistic construction on my part, with the meaning of ”Power Hills”, based on the Comanche words puha, ”medicine power”, noobi, ”hill”, and nʉʉ indicating plural form from the fact that they held their national assemblies and grand councils near Medicine Mounds in Southwestern Oklahoma and other sites sacred to them, the English name of aforementioned place being the translation of the Comanche name of it, the real one having yet to be determined; if a descriptive name with the meaning of ”Comanche Nation Camp” will have to suffice, we might get off with a construction like Nʉmʉnʉʉ Noo, as the word noo seems to mean ”camp”)

Northern pink circle should probably stay Cherokee territory, as the most important native nation who ever lived around that area were the Cherokees. I can come back with some autonyms for them later.

The territories coloured brown on the map belonged mostly to Muskogean-speaking peoples like the Chickasaw, Choctaw and Creeks. Since the latter was the most powerful of these, the territory marked with the southern-most pink circle should belong to them. To give you some background info about this people, they ran a rather sophisticated confederacy of townships or tribal towns that functioned in a way similar to the city-states of ancient Greece. It included several different cultures and languages, but, in the confederacy that was formed in 1717 (which may have been the 3^rd of its kind among the Creeks), the Mvskokvlke (Muscogees) was the dominant group of tribal towns and the parliamentary language was therefore Mvskoke. Conquered peoples could be added to the confederacy by force, but remnants of many peoples (e.g. part of the Natchez) – survivors of plagues and wars that occurred elsewhere in the Southeast - came to join it voluntarily. This political unity may have been the most populous indigenous faction in North America. Its history is also one of the most complex and fascinating tales among the natives of this continent: some of the tribal towns trace their history back to the Moundbuilders; some have migration stories of having travelled from the south across an ocean in order to reach NA, etc. In any case, the Creeks would be a strong contender for the description of ”the most advanced native nation north of Mexico”. Contrary to most other native peoples, they knew how to fight pitched battles like the Europeans and how to lay siege to fortified settlements. The Mvskokvlke in particular seemed to have been adept at warfare. For the Kvwetv (Koweta) branch alone, the Cherokees were no match. The Creeks also stood out physically, reputedly averaging 12 inches taller than the Spanish. In the second half of the 18^th century, the English are said to have considered them their most powerful opponent. This people had one ”weakness”, however: in line with their democratic disposition which meant that no chief had absolute authority etc, the individual tvlwv (tribal town) had no obligation to follow decisions or recommendations made at federal councils, which could concern questions about war or peace. It was not easy to muster the full power of this confederacy towards one end.
The principal autonyms of the Creeks could be stated as follows:
FN: Vcesvlke Tvlwv-vlke (”Tribal Towns of the Corn Offspring”)
FH: Vnewetv (this term refers properly to the whole of North America including its inhabitants prior to the arrival of the Europeans, but for gaming purposes and want of a better alternative, it could perhaps be said to mean the first or original dominion of the Creeks)
FC: Kvwetv

The Eastern-most region coloured brown is Cherokee territory in vanilla, too, isn't it? Historically, this region was mostly held by Creeks at the time. So maybe that should be considered Creek homeland and, if all native nations are only to hold one region from the start, the Western-most region coloured brown given to the Chickasaws, which were tough cookies to break, too. But the proportions of land possessions would then be at great fault. A better idea is probably, if allowing the historical facts to be stretched a bit, to assign the right-most brown region to the Seminoles as emergent faction.

Edit: Can emergent factions emerge in any region, provided that the territory has turned "rebel" or something? If so, the Seminoles should appear in the Florida region, of course. In this way, another emergent faction could be Apaches in the left-most region coloured grey.

[Quintus Hortensius Hortalus]

Sorry if you misunderstood me but the circles on the map are what matters and I can not switch regions as this only works with Hybrid startpos. So the Iroquois and Cherokee faction will own the regions I marked.So when starting the 1783 campaign there will me 4 Native Amercian factions: Iroquois, Cherokee, Comanche and Sioux.

This means, as much as I would like to have the Western Confederacy and Creeks in the game it's from a technical standpoint not working.

Oh, and we developed a new "flag" system for the Natives, here is an example:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Could you provide symbols for the Sioux in order to create a similar flag?

[Demokritos]

Sorry if you misunderstood me but the circles on the map are what matters and I can not switch regions as this only works with Hybrid startpos. So the Iroquois and Cherokee faction will own the regions I marked.So when starting the 1783 campaign there will me 4 Native Amercian factions: Iroquois, Cherokee, Comanche and Sioux.

This means, as much as I would like to have the Western Confederacy and Creeks in the game it's from a technical standpoint not working.

Oh, and we developed a new "flag" system for the Natives, here is an example:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Could you provide symbols for the Sioux in order to create a similar flag?

Pity about that limitation for native possessions. Oh well.

CA's symbol for the Plains Indians is actually a good one for the Sioux, because that one is the modern flag for the Oglala Sioux. If I hadn't seen it, I'd suggested a symbol representing the seven original tribes in their alliance, which they referred to as the Seven Council Fires (Ochetiyotipi Sakowin) or simply the Alliance (Dakhota or Lakhota, possibly also Nakhota, depending on the dialect of the speaker). As Sioux camps were usually built with the tipies placed in a circle for spiritual or philosophical reasons, I'd find seven tipi-like figures in a circle a good symbol for them. Now, a variant of this theme is the modern one for the United Sioux in South Dakota:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Take away the letters (and colours?), and you'd have a more simplistic symbol for the Sioux than the CA copy of Oglala Sioux, which might better suit your new flag system. Besides the circle, the above flag includes another important symbol in the Sioux culture, which was the number four, based on their observation that some fundamentals in nature seemed to come in fours, like the elements (earth, air, fire and water), directions (North, East, South, and West) and seasons (spring, summer, fall and winter).

Edit: I should perhaps add that in both the above flag and the Oglala Sioux flag the number of tipi-figures represents branches of the tribe in question. So the number of things depicted on a Sioux flag should have significance. In other words, if I adopted the general design of the United Sioux flag, I'd reduce the tipi-figures to seven.

[Defender1918]

Hey everyone, I'm new to the TWC Forums So I figured I'd introduce myself really quickly so I can get straight to my idea. I was wondering if the developer's are going to address the Native American faction problem starting with the fact that the "Six nations" in the Rise of The republic mod have all the same units. It's like someone copied the native American musket-men and pasted them for each unit card. None of them have melee weapons or bow and arrows. Also, I would like to see a a different weapon employed by the native factions such as the many styles of war-clubs and lances (non-European style) the skins/uniforms also need a touch up.