Telling All Americans’ Stories: Introduction to Indigenous Heritage excerpt from National Park Service There are many stories about the first people who lived on the North American continent. One tells of the Great Spirit who collected dust from the four winds to create the Comanche people. The Hopi people tell of two brothers who slashed open great swaths into the ground and sowed powerful stalks of cane so the ancient people living beneath the earth could climb above ground. The ancestors of American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians were indigenous to the lands that have since become the United States. There are many diverse tribes and ethnic groups with distinct languages, customs, and traditions. Long before Europeans, Africans, and Asians settled in North America, sovereign societies shared the continent through complex and frequently negotiated networks of alliances, confederacies, intermarriage, treaties, and trade agreements. Like most civilizations, period