Native Americans (U.S.)

Last modified: 2006-08-26 by rick wyatt
Keywords: native american | united states | heritage | end of trail | pony indian | american indian |
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• Flags with "four directions" on them
• Unusual colors
• Designer flags

See also:

• Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians of California
• Ak-Chin Indian Community of Arizona
• Arapaho Nation of Wyoming
• Barona Band of Mission Indians of California
• Bay Mills Indian Community
• Cabazon Band of Mission Indians of California
• Campo Band of Kumeyaay Indians of California
• Cherokee Nation
• Cheyenne and Arapaho of Oklahoma
• Chickasaw Nation
• Comanche Nation
• Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma
• Iroquois Confederacy
• Miccousukee Tribe of Florida
• Mohawk Indians
• Morongo Band of Mission Indians of California
• Muskogee Confederacy
• Narragansett Tribe of Rhode Island
• Navajo Nation
• Northern Cheyenne
• Ogahpah / Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma
• Oglala Sioux
• Oklahoma Miami Nation
• Ottawa Nation of Oklahoma
• Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona
• Pawnee Nation
• Penobscot Indian Nation of Maine
• Peoria Nation of Oklahoma
• Puyallup Nation of Washington
• Red Lake Ojibwe of Minnesota
• Rosebud Sioux of South Dakota
• Sac and Fox Nations of Iowa
• San Carlos Apache Tribe of Arizona
• Seminole Tribe of Florida
• Shinnecock Indian Nation of New York
• Squaxin Island of Washington
• Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians of California
• Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory of Canada
  
  
• Heritage Flags
• Don Healy's Flags of the Native Peoples of the United States
• United States of America

Flags with "four directions" on them

I have read about a flag of four stripes -- red, yellow, black, and white -- which represent the four directions (west, east, north, south) in some Native American symbolic systems. One form of this flag is the official flag of the Miccousukee Tribe in Florida. Was the flag's more general use inspired by its adoption by this one tribe, or was it the other way around? In the Miccousukee version of the flag, the order of the stripes, from top to bottom, is white, black, red, and yellow.
Perry Dane

Miccousukee Tribe image by Filip Van Laenen, 6 August 1996

American Indian Movement image by Rick Wyatt, 15 July 2001

Unusual colors

I can think of several American Indian flags with unusual colors. The Navajo Indian Nation (southwestern USA) uses a field that I think would be best described as beige. Also present on this flag are burnt-orange and brown.

The Sechelt Indians of Western Canada use a white field with a bird emblem in tan, orange, and yellow, detailed in brown.

David R. Lewellen, 29 January 1996

Designer flags

There is a Canadian flag with an image of an Indian superimposed. This is designer flag. They come in nine variations.

One has the head of an Indian. Another has the famous "End of the Trail" by Frederick Remington. Some people, especially Indians dislike this because it shows a defeated Indian and his horse, both with bowed heads. A third variation, "Pony Indian" has both Indian and pony with raised head. All three of these pics come superimposed upon either the American, Canadian or Confederate Naval Jack, yielding a total of nine different variations.

William M. Grimes-Wyatt, 29 June 1996