{"id":18018,"date":"2013-05-27T22:00:02","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T02:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=18018"},"modified":"2013-05-27T22:00:02","modified_gmt":"2013-05-28T02:00:02","slug":"first-indigenous-map-of-its-kind-u-s-map-displays-our-own-names-and-locations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2013\/05\/first-indigenous-map-of-its-kind-u-s-map-displays-our-own-names-and-locations\/","title":{"rendered":"First indigenous map of its kind; U.S. map displays \u201cOur own names and locations\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo courtesy of Aaron Carapella<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Monica Brown, Tulalip News Writer<\/span><\/p>\n

Aaron Carapella, a Cherokee Indian, has taken it upon himself to create a map that shows the Tribal nations of the U.S. prior to European contact. The map is of the contiguous United States and displays the original native tribal names of roughly 595 tribes, and of that, 150 tribes are without descendants. Without descendants means that there is no one known to be alive from that tribe and are believed to be extinct.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aaron\u2019s journey to making the Native American Nations map began 14 years ago. At the age of 19, Aaron had already gained a great deal of knowledge from listening to stories from his family, elders from his tribe, and reading books on Native American history. To explain where his knowledge came from Aaron said, \u201cMy Grandparents would tell me, you\u2019re part Native American and that\u2019s part of your history. They would give me books to read about different tribes\u2019 histories, so, I grew up with a curiosity of always wanting to learn more about Native American history.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After reading the many books on Native tribes and not finding any authentic type maps which failed to accurately represent the hundreds of modern day and historical tribes, Aaron decided to start creating a map for himself that would be authentic and cultural.\u00a0 \u201cThe maps in the books were kind of cheesy, they only had maybe 50 to 100 tribes on them,\u201d said Aaron.<\/span><\/p>\n

The inspiration for the map to depict original tribal names came from a book that he was reading which explained the real names of tribes and reason they were given the names they have today.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to make a map with just tribe\u2019s given names on it. I wanted it to be accurate and from a Native perspective,\u201d said Aaron.<\/span><\/p>\n

The process to collect tribes\u2019 real names led Aaron from books, to making many phone calls to tribes across the country, asking them one seemingly simple question, what is the actual native name of your tribe?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome tribes, once contacted, wouldn\u2019t know that information,\u201d he said, but they would get him in contact with an elder or someone that would have the information he needed. \u201cEvery tribe I\u2019ve contacted, I\u2019ve noticed they are really good about getting back to you about cultural questions, they had a really good response time,\u201d said Aaron.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the map there are approximately 175 merged tribes, listed among the 595. The map displays \u00a0\u00a0what others fall short of, to make known the significant fact that is overlooked every day and that is, that tribes inhabited the entire U.S. and not just small portions of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is kind of sad that I can\u2019t find a tribe\u2019s real name because they aren\u2019t here anymore,\u201d said Aaron about learning the truth of what happened to many tribes. Some tribes were victims of genocide, some dwindled away from disease or other life threatening situations and some were merged forcefully or willingly with other tribes to make one large tribe. \u201cToday some small tribes are enumerated under larger tribes, and do not have separate sovereignty. A good example of that is the Delaware Tribe of Oklahoma who recently split from the Cherokee Nation,\u201d said Aaron explaining about how some tribes have merged.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, in general in the United states, Americans are very ignorant about Native American history and the only time they deal with Native history or reality is when tribes have enough money to fight back against injustice happening to them. In my small way, making this map is to reinforce the true history of the injustice and the genocide that occurred,\u201d Said Aaron.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aaron has not received any funding to create the map and any profit from the map sales will go towards Aaron\u2019s future map projects, which will include an in-depth look at the tribes of the states of California and Washington. A map of the First Nations in Canada is already in the works and close to being complete.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aaron is of European and Cherokee descent and can speak the Cherokee language. He has a bachelor\u2019s degree in marketing and is considering returning to school to get a master\u2019s degree in Native American studies so that he can pursue his interest in Native American history.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Native American Nations map can be purchased from his website and prices range from $89 to $199. For more information or to purchase a map visit<\/span>\u00a0http:\/\/aaron-carapella.squarespace.com\/<\/span><\/a><\/span>. Aaron can be reached through email<\/span> attribalnationsmap@gmail.com<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0and by phone at 949-415-4981.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fuente<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Monica Brown, Tulalip News Writer Aaron Carapella, a Cherokee Indian, has taken it upon himself to create a map that shows the Tribal nations..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[149,166,18,84,97],"tags":[228,229,197,357,227,350],"class_list":["post-18018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discrimination","category-government","category-history","category-statements","category-us-news","tag-colonialism","tag-economic-exploitation","tag-imperialism","tag-racism","tag-racist-oppression","tag-united-states-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/native-american-nations-e1369264410899.jpg?fit=600%2C527&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}