My Spirit Guide          Big Bear's Den   Image produced from the only known Shawnee image from the 18th century          My Spirit Guide 
Image of Shawnee Warrior from Osprey Men-At-Arms "American Woodland Indians" By M.G. Johnson Color Plates by R.Hook

 
   INDIANS;
     AMERICAN INDIANS;
        NATIVE AMERICANS;
           INDIGENOUS PEOPLE;
              ABORIGIONAL AMERICANS;
                 IST NATIONS;
                 What Ever You Choose to Call Them,
                      No People has So Many Others
                           Wanting to be One of Them.
"Shawnee" by David Wright                                             
  @ www.davidwrightart.com

 PLEASE START HERE!

 


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BE-ZONE'
(Shawnee Greeting)

Shawnee Chief CornstalkEuropeans and those of European dissent have often thought
that somewhere in the world must dwell a noble race,
remnants of that golden age before man became corrupted by civilization.
As reports of Indians filtered back to Europe, a distinguished French philosopher
of the late 16th Century, Michelle de Montaigne concluded that
the Noble Savage has at last been found, in
the American Indian.

"Words that import a lie, falsehood, treason, 
covetousness, envy, detraction,
were not heard among them."
Michelle de Montaigne

No Indigenous People have ever captured the imagination
of other people, all over the world, as the
American Indian.
A great many misconceptions, half truths, out and out lies,
and every once in a very great while, a few tremendously insightful truths
have been put forward about the American Indian.
Like the Huns, Mongols, Vikings, Cossacks and Zulu, the American Indian
has been honored and praised and at the same time feared and vilified. In all of history,
I know of none, other than the American Indian, that most people, everywhere, want to be.
 
This site is for everyone that wants to know about Eastern Woodland Indians
of the 18th and early 19th Centuries and, in particular, the Shawnee.
This site should be of help to Living Historians, Reenacters,
Boy Scouts earning their Indian Lore Merit Badge or with the Order of the Arrow 

SPECIAL NOTE for YOUNG READERS!!!
You will notice a lot of  links to things multiple times.
This is so you will actually click on one of them.
They are there for your edification. Also, especially with
the names of Indians, you will notice that I switch back
and forth between their name in their own language
and what they were known by among the Whites.
This is done just so you will learn both names.

ME
 My name is Shemaqua (sha-MA'-kwa) in Shawnee; Yona Aqua (yo-NA eh-KWA') in Cherokee: 'Big Bear' in the words of the Shemanese (Long Knives a.k.a. WHITES).
                                                         [ In German - Großer Bär; French - Grand Ours; Dutch - Grote Beer]
    I am of Shawnee, Cherokee, Scots, Scots-Irish, Irish, English, Welsh, German, French, and Dutch decent (1/4 of my ancestors were Shawnee and Cherokee). I am a STROKE SURVIVOR and a professional Living Historian. I  present programs on 18th and early 19th Century history, culture and crafts and portray people of the period of  mixed Indian and European decent. I am a Boy Scout instructor for the Indian Lore Merit Badge and Indian crafts in general. I try to be historically accurate, not politically correct. Native American is not an 18th Century appellation.  By the kinder people of the day 1st Nations (the modern Canadian appellation) citizens were referred to as Indians and that is the term I will use throught this site.  You will find a more complete Biography and Resume' on my ABOUT ME page.


The BEAR is a Spirit Guide.
It is a Protector of the young and TEACHER.
Learning is what BIG BEAR'S DEN is all about.

It is necessary to establish a few important and
Interesting Facts
before we get started with our discussion of the
origional inhabitants of Turtle Island, what has become known as
North America; Canada, Mexico, and the United States of America.

Interesting Fact- The term Indian comes from an English misunderstanding of a Spanish document. Columbus knew he was not in India. He actually thought he might be in islands off  Cipango(Japan). One of the Priests with Columbus referred to the people they met on those islands as "In Dios," (of God). It was the English that misunderstood the term and began calling them Indians. The rest of the world just fell in line.
Columbus
Interesting Fact - The drawing at the right is one artist's rendering of Columbus.
There is no existing drawing, painting, or sculpture of Columbus done from life.
We have no idea of what the "Discoverer of the New World" looked like.

 Interesting Amerigo VespucciFact -  How did the "New World" come to be known as "America"?
From "Word Origins - An Exploration and History of Words and Language" Wilfred Funk, Random House(c)1950 
"Amerigo Vespucci, or Americus Vespucius in Latin, ... the Florentine navigator... In the year 1503... sent his old patrons, the then ruling Medici of Italy, an account of his four alleged voyages to the New World ... His narration of the supposed voyage of 1497 was translated by a young geographer and map-maker, Martin Waldseemueller ... The young author had been so deeply impressed by the writing of Amerigo Vespucci, ... that he labeled a piece of the land America, ... The origin of the name, Americus, is Germanic...and the connotations of the name are heroism and leadership ..."

Interesting Fact - If you put the above two Interesting Facts together, American Indian means- 
                                                              "God's Heroic Leaders ."

Interesting Fact - The use of the words "alleged" and "supposed" when  I am writing of Amerigo is because, the best evidence now says that Amerigo Vespucci was a liar and never sailed to the New World. He probably sailed to North Africa or the Canary Islands, sat around for awhile, went back to Italy and reported to the
Medici's that he had mapped the New World after stealing all of the works of Columbus.

Interesting Fact - The "New World" isn't new. The first human habitation of the Southern Continent has been dated to 33,000 years ago, the Northern Continent to between 12 and 15,000 years. Although, I believe it to be much earlier than that and there is now some scientific evidence to back me up. (See National Geographic Magazine from December, 2000.) It only became 'NEW' to Europeans in 1492 CE. There is pretty good evidence that Europeans had been to the shores of the New World well before then, they just didn't see it as that big a deal. I have addressed that later in this website.

Interesting QUESTION - If all the "New World" inhabitants came across the Bering Sea "Land Bridge," how did the first people get to the Southern Continent without coming from the north??????????
See 2007 article from National Geographic News for one theory.

 
Read On !!!
You will find a lot more
Interesting Facts
throughout BIG BEAR'S DEN! 

 

Tecumseh
"We must be united
We must smoke the same pipe
We must fight each other's battles
And more than that, We must love the Great Spirit."
--Tecumseh --
-His appeal to other tribes to join his confederacy-
 

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RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERHOME RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERABOUT ME RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERLINKS RED TAIL HAWK FEATHER RECOMMENDED READING RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERBEARTRACKS BLOG RED TAIL HAWK FEATHEREMAIL RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERBEST GUEST COMMENTS
RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERWISDOM of the ELDERS RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERWARRIORS of the RAINBOW RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERALL ABOUT THE SHAWNEE RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERTURTLE ISLAND RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERSPIRTUAL COUNSELING
RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERREENACTING MADE SIMPLE RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERPORTRAYING INDIANS RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERTHE CAPTIVE CORPS
RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERSHAWNEE DICTIONARY RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERWIKTIONARY RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERWIKIPEDIA RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERSHAWNEE LINKS
**********for a complete listing of all pages  & connections to them, click RED TAIL HAWK FEATHERSITEMAP**********

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Help The Den. Buy from SADDLEBLANKET.COM also known as El Paso Saddleblanket.

If for any reason the email links throughout this site do not work you may reach me by email at shemaqua@bigbearsden.org,

snail mail me @
Shemaqua
127 - A King  Henry Way
Williamsburg, VA   
23188-1903

                                call me at 757.253.6999

                                or send up a smoke signal, use a drum, or communicate telepathically.
                                (I wouldn't count on those last three.)                                                                                                      



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