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Native American Heritage Month Coloring Pages
If you've ever said the word chipmunk, gone down a hill on a toboggan or poured maple syrup on pancakes, you've used a gift from Native peoples.
In the United States, November has been Native American Heritage Month since 1990. In Canada the celebration is in June, with National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21.
Jump to: Words | Foods | Games and Travel | Peoples and Stories
Words From Native Languages
Many English words come from Native languages, and a surprising number of them are animals.
Caribou
Caribou comes from the Mi’kmaq word qalipu, which means ‘snow shoveler’. The name fits, because caribou dig through deep snow with their hooves to reach the lichen underneath.
Chipmunk
Chipmunk comes from the Ojibwe word ajidamoo, which has been translated as ‘one who eats upside-down’. It's a funny name for a small striped animal that spends its day stuffing its cheeks with seeds and nuts.
Coyote
Coyote comes from coyotl, a word from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. In many Native stories he's also a famous trickster, and he's never the same twice.
Moose
Moose comes from an Algonquian word that's thought to mean ‘he strips off’. That's just what a moose does to young trees in winter, stripping off the bark and twigs to eat.
Raccoon
Raccoon comes from the Powhatan word aroughcun, which means ‘he scratches with his hands’. Raccoons feel around in streams for food, and as this one proves, they're just as happy poking through a garbage can.
Skunk
Skunk comes from an Algonquian word that's been translated as ‘he who sprays’. Skunks would rather not though, so they stamp their front feet and lift their tails first to warn you off.
Sockeye and Chinook
Two kinds of salmon have Native names. Sockeye and chinook both started out as words from the Pacific Northwest tribes.
Foods
Plenty of foods people still eat today were grown and cooked in North America long before anyone arrived from Europe.
Bison and Pemmican
For many Plains peoples the bison was food, clothing, tools and shelter all in one animal. Pemmican was a famous travel food made of dried bison meat pounded together with melted fat and berries, a bit like an early energy bar. Its name comes from the Cree word pimîhkân, which means ‘manufactured grease’.
Maple Syrup
First Nations and Haudenosaunee peoples were among the first to tap maple trees. Each spring they collected the sap and boiled it down into syrup and sugar. It takes about 40 buckets of sap to make just one bucket of syrup. Children got a treat too, because hot syrup poured on fresh snow turns chewy like candy.
Making Maple Syrup coloring pages
Strawberries
The strawberries in stores have American roots. They started as a cross between two strawberries from the Americas, one from eastern North America and one from Chile, that ended up growing side by side in a French garden in the 1700s.
The Three Sisters
Corn, beans and squash are called the Three Sisters because they grow best together. The corn stalk gives the beans something to climb, the beans feed the soil, and the big squash leaves shade the ground to keep weeds down. Many nations planted them this way, including the Haudenosaunee, Cherokee, Hopi and Zuni, and each one has its own stories about the sisters.
Games and Getting Around
Kayak
Kayak comes from qajaq, an Inuit word. Traditional kayaks have a light frame covered in sealskin, built so a hunter could slide quietly across icy water.
Lacrosse
The Haudenosaunee call lacrosse the Creator’s Game. They believe it was a gift from the Creator, meant to be played for the Creator, and some call it the medicine game because playing is thought to help heal people. Many Haudenosaunee players still carve their sticks from wood. The name lacrosse is French, for ‘the stick’.
Toboggan
Toboggan comes from an Algonquian word that reached English by way of French. The first toboggans were strong flat sleds for hauling things over snow, and zooming down a hill on one was a bonus.
Peoples and Stories
The Navajo Code Talkers
Long before the Navajo code talkers, Choctaw soldiers in World War I sent messages in their own language that the Germans couldn’t understand. By World War II, code talkers from many Native nations were doing the same thing.
Indigenous Peoples of North America
There are hundreds of Native nations in North America, each with its own languages, homelands and stories. Meet leaders like Sitting Bull and Lozen, and the animals of the Seven Sacred Teachings.
Indigenous Peoples of North America
Native American Folklore
The same animal can play very different parts in the old stories. Raven can be a creator in one tale and a trickster in the next, and Brother Bear is a teacher and guide.
Native American Folklore coloring pages