"Felix S. Cohen, an eminent scholar of American Indian law, described Native peoples as this country's miner's canary - the bird that miners used to carry in a small wooden cage deep into the heart of the mountains to detect methane gas. If the canary survived, the miner knew he was safe; if the canary died, the miner would know to exit the mine because poison was present. Cohen notes that 'like the miner's canary, the Indian marks the shift from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians...reflects the rise and fall in our democratic faith.' If Native peoples and cultures cannot survive into the future, then there is little hope for other cultures - for America and all of its traditions." - Walter C Fleming

Important Terminology:

Indians- a misnomer, a product of Christopher Columbus' mistaken belief that he had reached the Eas Indies
Tribe - A social group, bound by common culture and history. A tribe is also a political organization, a group of federal government as a political entity. The term tribe has also come to mean "peoples" or "nations," as in the Crow Nation, and so on.
Band - A band is a subdivision of a tribe. It is a local group of people jointly in search of subsistence and can be made up of related families.
Clan - Kinship reckoning through a line of common descent, either through the mother's side (matrilineal) or father's side (patrilineal).
Culture - Consists of beliefs, values, attitudes, and morals that a group of people holds in common.
Culture Areas - Geographic divisions of North American. When tribes share a common environment, their cultures sometimes become similiar; therefore, a culture area is a geographic region where tribes have similiar cultures.
Vacuum Domicilium - Means "empty land" - and it was the name of a doctrine saying that if there were no humans living on the continent, then it must be empty and therefore, up for grabs.
Requerimiento - (the Requirement) Issued by Pope Innocent VII to Ferdinand and Isabella, allowing monarchs to conquer Native peoples in the name of the Church in order to preserve the souls of their Native souls.
Blood Quantum - A method of determining Native American ethnicity by meeting the required amount of Native blood in one's ancestory.
Myth - Stories about the deeds and doings of supernatural being.