Kentuckians Before Boone
Publication Year: 2013
" This is an account of a Native American family in central Kentucky in the year 1585. Fishes-With-Hands, his wife She-Who-Watches, and their family grind corn, make cooking pots, and build their homes while in their summer village. In autumn, they attend the funeral and mourning feast of Masked-Eyes. Then they move to their winter hunting camp, where they process nuts, make arrows, and hunt and butcher animals in preparation for the winter. Readers will soon realize that their lives and experiences in many ways parallel those of this family from Kentucky's not-so-distant past.
Published by: The University Press of Kentucky
Series: New Books for New Readers
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Title Page, Copyright
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The New Books for New Readers project was made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Kentucky Humanities Council, and the Scripps Howard Foundation through the ...
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A fascinating story lies beneath the feet of all Kentuckians. It is
the story of prehistoric Kentucky.
I wanted to share with Kentucky's new adult readers some of the story as I understand it. So I wrote about Fishes-With-Hands and his family, who lived in central Kentucky in 1585, about 150 years before Daniel Boone was born. ...
About the Author
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Picture the Past
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This book describes Indian life in central Kentucky before the settlers arrived. The story is fiction, but it is based on the facts as we know them today. We know that people we call Indians or Native Americans lived in central Kentucky for thousands of years. We know...
The Natural World
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Most of central Kentucky is covered in forest. Some of the oldest trees are so big that three people can't touch fingertips if they put their arms around a tree's trunk. Many kinds of trees grow in these forests. They are oak, chestnut, beech, black walnut, maple, yellow poplar, ash, sycamore, hickory, elm, hemlock, and pine....
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Picture in your mind's eye a cool late summer morning in prehistoric Kentucky. It's the kind of morning that signals fall is right around the corner. The sun rose just a short time ago. A thick mist is rising from the river, but it will soon be burned away. the smell of burning wood mixes with the odor of cooking corn, drying meat, tobacco smoke, and garbage....
Trade in Salt and Shell
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On this bright summer afternoon, the trading party from the village is walking northward at a brisk pace. The travelers are in high spirits. The trading trip was a success. Every step they take brings them closer to home....
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Some weeks have passed since the traders returned from their trip. This early fall day finds most of the village busy with harvest activities. The open space in front of each house is covered with ears of corn drying on mats in the warm afternoon sun. Mothers and daughters sit side by side near the drying corn....
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The harvest was a good one. The women have shelled bushels of corn and stored it away. The tobacco hangs in bunches from the rafters of every house. The marriage and harvest ceremonies have been danced for the year, so most of the villagers have moved to their winter hunting camps....
To Step Back in Time...
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The story of Fishes-With-Hands and his family shows that our lives are different in many ways from the lives of prehistoric Kentuckians. We lack their clear rivers, fresh food, and slower-paced life, while they lacked our electricity, cars, and grocery stores. But our ways of...
Glossary of New Words
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Page Count: 64
Publication Year: 2013
Series Title: New Books for New Readers