Living With the Land

The Hopi and the Desert Mesas

An information text written for this worksheet. The Hopi live on high, dry mesas in what is now northeastern Arizona. Mesas are flat-topped hills with steep sides. Some Hopi villages, such as Oraibi, have been lived in for more than 800 years. Houses are built of stone and adobe, which is mud mixed with straw. Their thick walls stay cool in the hot sun and hold warmth on cold nights. Very little rain falls, so Hopi farmers plant corn deep in sandy soil, where it can reach water left by melted snow and summer rain. Many fields are at the foot of the mesas, where rainwater runs off the rock. Corn is at the center of Hopi life, in food and in ceremonies. The Hopi Tribe has its own government today.

The Cherokee and the Southern Mountains

An information text written for this worksheet. The Cherokee homelands were in the mountains and river valleys of the Southeast, in parts of what are now Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and nearby states. The land had rich soil, warm summers and plenty of rain. Cherokee families lived in towns beside rivers and farmed corn, beans and squash in the fertile river valleys. They hunted deer in the forests and gathered nuts and berries. In the early 1820s, a Cherokee man named Sequoyah created a writing system for the Cherokee language, and soon many Cherokee could read and write it. In 1838 and 1839, the United States government forced most Cherokee people from their homelands to land in what is now Oklahoma. Thousands died on the journey, now called the Trail of Tears. Today the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the United Keetoowah Band each have their own government.