The European Perception of and Impact to Native Americans The term “Native American” encompasses a multitude of cultures and people. There was not one culture but many, not one language but a diversity of languages and these languages are said to have differed as much as English and Chinese (Lord, 1996). They had different ways of living, different styles of houses and clothing, different patterns of subsistence. These people had many changes ahead of them, however, and these changes came at the impetus not of the Native Americans themselves but at the insistence of the foreigners that invaded their lands. Despite the many differences that characterized Native American cultures, there were some similarities. Indeed, when Europeans first made their way to these shores the indigenous peoples they encountered here all shared one very important thing in common. They all were at home in their respective environments and fully capable of not just surviving there but flourishing there. The Europeans, in contrast, encountered a land that they regarded as hostile and largely untenable. The reasons for the basic differences that existed between Native Americans and Europeans revolve around the environmental connectivity the Native Americans had with the lands in which they made their homes. Their lifeways, indeed even their spirituality, had evolved in accordance with the terrain, the climate, and the resources that these lands offered (Stevens, 2007). These lands shaped both men and women. Women, however, were particularly in tune to the surroundings. Although the males were responsible for hunting, it was the women of most Native American cultures that provided most of their family’s sustenance (Mann, 2006). They did so by foraging for wild plants that coul