298 Nebuchadnezzar I Native Americans developed villages or pueblos, like those found in this ancient Anasazi village in Mesa Verde, Colorado These clusters of dwellings were stacked one upon another and could include 500 or more rooms used along the Alaskan coasts, and the famous domed snow igloos were common in the north-central Arctic Native communities throughout North America had a sense of kinship with the elements of their universe and showed an enormous respect for the plants, animals, and the land in their ceremonies and their practices For the most part they lived with minimal impact on their environment The mound culture, with its ruling Great Sun, nobility, and social castes, is in some ways an aberration Most Native communities were egalitarian, and the individuals, notoriously independent Father LeJeune, a French missionary on the St Lawrence River, observed in 1634 that Indians would not “endure in the least those who seem desirous of assuming superiority over others.” This egalitarianism and the ways that Native communities managed the interactions and disputes between their nations through the Iroquois Confederacy would later provide an inspiration for the United States Constitution See also Native Americans: chronologies and peoples; migration patterns of the Americas Further reading: Champagne, Duane, ed Chronology of Native North American History Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1994; Hoxie, Frederick E., ed Encyclopedia of North American Indians New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996; Nabokov, Peter, and Robert Easton Native American Architecture Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989; O’Brien, Sharon American Tribal Governments Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989; Waldman, Carl Atlas of the North American Indian New York: Facts On File, 2000; Weatherford, Jack Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched America New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1991 Kevin Daugherty Nebuchadnezzar I See Babylon, later periods Nebuchadnezzar II (late 7th century–early 6th century b.c.e.) emperor The reputation of Nebuchadnezzar II abounds in the ancient world, as he represents one of the most famous of the Near Eastern monarchs No fewer than four books of the Jewish scriptures, 10 rabbinic commentaries, six