Pretani Associates have visited or lived with all these peoples, from the Lakota, whose language we learned, to the Tyendinaga Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, Hastings County, Ontario and the Haida of British Columbia.

North America

The Cree are one of the largest groups of ancient people who continue to live in North America today. The Cree in Canada live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, the Northwest Territories and Numavut. The Algonquin tribes who live in the United States are closely related to the Odawa and Ojibwe who mainly live in Quebec in Canada.

The Yupik, or Eskimo in English, are a collection of ancient people who inhabited and continue to inhabit the northern polar region from eastern Siberia in Russia, across to Alaska of the United States, Canada and Greenland. Some of the Yupik peoples include the Alutiiq, Central Alaskan Yupik and the Siberian Yupik. These people are related to the Inuit and Inupiat peoples.

The Coastal Salish people are a grouping of many tribes such as the Tulalips. who live on the Pacific Northwest coast, living in British Columbia, Canada and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They are one of the few ancient cultures with a patrilineal society and therefore have a patrilinear form of inheritance rather than the more common matrilineal society and matrilinear form of inheritance among the ancient peoples. Like many of these ancient tribes many would die from smallpox when the more recent peoples arrived from Europe.

The Lakota people who speak their own Lakota language are one of three Sioux tribes who currently live in North and South Dakota. A notable Lakota person of more recent times is known in English as Sitting Bull.

The Haida people live in a territory that spans the current international boundary between British Columbia, Canada and Alaska, United States and also in southeast Alaska. The Haida are known for their craftsmanship, trading skills and seamanship.

There are many other ancient peoples living in North America today, such as the Navajo, Cherokee and Iroquois Mohawk.