The brain is one of the most complex and magnificent organs in the human body. Our brain gives us awareness of ourselves and of our environment, processing a constant stream of sensory data. It controls our muscle movements, the secretions of our glands, and even our breathing and internal temperature. Every creative thought, feeling, and plan is developed by our brain.
After the 1960s civil rights movement led by African Americans, many Native Americans also pushed for more civil rights and renewed what many see as their original struggle to force the U.S. to keep its promises to native peoples. Today the relationship between native peoples and the rest of the U.S. remains complicated and often tense. The government, for example, still maintains agencies to deal specifically with Native Americans, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs. On its Web site, the bureau describes its mission as âthe administration and management of 55.7 million acres of land held in trust by the United States for American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives.â
Most of the written historical record about Native Americans was made by Europeans after their immigration to the Americas. Many Native Americans lived as hunter-gatherer societies, although in many groups, women carried out sophisticated cultivation of a variety of staples: maize, beans and squash.