Art of the peoples of South America, Incan culture. Traditions of the ancient Indians Unusual traditions of the countries of South America

Traditions southern America

Traditions southern America. South America is a continent that is crossed by the equator, most of which is located in South hemispheres. IN America Portuguese conquerors brought their religion, customs, architecture, language.

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Peoples South America: culture And traditions

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Interesting traditions peoples South America| Guyana

Others are no less interesting traditions peoples South America. Beloved tradition Brazilians are carnivals, in which almost the entire population of the country takes part, dancing complex and colorful dances such as samba. These dances also show the fight...

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Traditions And customs peoples South America

Rituals are the main ones traditions peoples South America. For example, in Brazil, the marriage of young people must be consecrated in the church, and at the holiday itself there must be a “sorcerer” whose task is to help the young people protect themselves from the evil eye.

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Customs And traditions peoples South America. Those who...

TO traditions peoples southern America include rituals. For example, a marriage must be sanctified by the church, but a “sorcerer” is also invited to the celebration, who protects the young from the evil eye. Legends and the famous “cycle of Indian songs” became widespread, in...

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Moral traditions And customs South America

TO customs of people South America appropriate rituals. For example: A wedding must not only include an exchange of rings, signatures and stamps in the passport, but must also be consecrated in a church. They also invite a sorcerer to the wedding...

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Traditions South America| Unknown planet

Traditions South America. Carnival of Oruro: an ancient festival of music and dance (Bolivia). Ron VanFebruary 24, 2014February 24, 2014.Top three of the best and oldest carnivals in Latin America includes the Oruro carnival (Diablada), considered the most important by the inhabitants of Bolivia...

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Traditions southern America Culture South America Indians

Impossible to describe the population South America using only criteria of ethnic origin. It is too much of an oversimplification to describe Guyanese society as one of various racial groups. Terms like Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese...

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Topic 4.2 Customs And traditions peoples South(Latin)...

Work on the topic: Traditions And customs. Chapter: Topic 4.2 Customs And traditions peoples South(Latin) America. University: VLGAFK.Cultures and ethnicities South America in postcolonial eras. Convergence processes rituals And traditions influenced by European culture.

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Indigenous people South America

Check-in South America man ended later than other continents - only 12-15 thousand years ago. It is impossible to say unambiguously how the continent was populated. Most likely, the person entered America from Asia. This happened during the Late Paleolithic - about 35...

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Peoples South America: culture And traditions

The culture of the ancient Indians. Peoples South America: culture And traditions.Customs And traditions played a huge role in the life of almost every Indian people who lived on the territory of the South American continent in ancient times.

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Interesting customs And traditions different countries - Around the World

Number of continents – 6: Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Antarctica.4. Also among the Chinese there are no custom bring flowers to the mistress of the house.20. Not in Japan traditions handshakes. There it is customary to greet each other with a polite bow.

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Population South America(7th grade) – accommodation on the mainland...

Mainland population South America. Racial composition of residents South America very complex, and this is due to the peculiarities of the history of the development of the continent. More than 250 different peoples and nationalities live here, who have been in contact with each other for many years...

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Cultures South America - abstract

The brightest representatives of civilization South America became the Incas, who created a huge Empire on the territory of modern Peru with its capital in the city of CuscoLiterature and art of countries South America. South American countries have rich traditions music.

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American culture: traditions And customs USA

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Customs southern America- articles, poems and publications

Customs southern America. Search results for articles, poems and publications in the House of the Sun. America, America- the country where the Ku Klux Klan is. America, America- They pray for money there. Why are you white people America found.

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Customs And traditions📝 peoples South America. Those who

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South America. World cults and rituals. Power and strength...

Indigenous people South America connected such rituals with sexual relations, which affected the nature of the rituals. South America- a vast territory whose indigenous population is astonishingly diverse.

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The most unusual traditions And rituals peoples of the world

South America. Another interesting greeting custom can be observed in South America. They spit on each other. Italians also have unusual traditions And customs. So, it is customary for them to throw all unnecessary things and old things out of the windows.

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Customs And traditions peoples South America. Those who...

At the moment South America- a continent with a population of more than three hundred million people, the number of which is constantly increasing. The result of such a rapid and rather bloody settlement South America– the variegated ethnic composition of the mainland.

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Geography: Customs And traditions peoples South America.

Traditions And customs northern peoples of Africa. Report on the topic customs And traditions peoples of Kuban. Please write the main ones customs And traditions different peoples.

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Customs And traditions USA - abstract

Customs And traditions USA. Due to the size of the country and the multinational “emigrant environment” of the United States, it is unlikely that it will be possible to identify any single one. Many people are confused by the American tradition place a comma between every three decimal places of whole numbers and a period...

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Ecuador: culture, national characteristics

The population of South America is more than 350 million people.
Until the end of the 15th century, South America was inhabited by Indian tribes and peoples who spoke languages such as Tipigua Rani, Quechua and Chibcha. They inhabited mainly the Central Andian Highlands (its high mountain valleys). But with the advent of Europeans (Spaniards, Portuguese), the indigenous population began to be exported to Peru and Venezuela as slaves to work on plantations and mines, and immigrants from Italy, Germany and other European countries began to settle in the countries of South America.
For the most part, the modern population is of Indian-European and Negro-European origin. In addition, large Indian peoples live in many countries of South America, for example, in Peru and Ecuador - the Quechua, and in Chile - the Araucanians.

Ethnic composition:

Indians;
Europeans;
immigrants from Asian countries;
black people.

On average, 10-30 people live per 1 km2, but the fewest people live in the Amazon rainforests and some mountainous areas of the Andes. As for densely populated areas, one such area is Pampa (it occupies the whole of Uruguay and northeast Argentina).
The official language is Spanish, but, for example, in Brazil it is Portuguese, and in Trinidad, Guyana and Tobago it is English.
Large cities: Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, Bogota, Salvador.
The population of South America professes Catholicism, Protestantism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam.

Lifespan

On average, residents of South American countries live to 65-70 years. For example, in Chile this figure is 76, in Ecuador – 71, and in Suriname – 69 years.
Despite fairly high life expectancy rates, the continent is characterized by a fairly elevated mortality rate among young people and people of pre-retirement age.
The main causes of mortality in the population: cancer, cardiovascular, infectious diseases, as well as poisoning, injuries and accidents.

Traditions and customs of the peoples of South America

Rituals are the main traditions of the peoples of South America. For example, in Brazil, the marriage of young people must be consecrated in the church, and at the holiday itself there must be a “sorcerer” whose task is to help the young people protect themselves from the evil eye.
Venezuela is famous for its main traditions - festivals, which are accompanied by dances and songs. In addition, the calendar of Venezuelans is full of various holidays, which they celebrate cheerfully and noisily.
The traditions of the inhabitants of Bolivia - the Indians living here and descendants of mixed marriages - deserve close attention (their traditions are the personification of the true traditions of South America). They express their feelings through songs and dances (popular folk dances are auchi-auchi, kueka, tinki).
Bolivians practice folk art - weaving and knitting (this has not changed at all over the past 3000 years).
Another local custom is the use of coca leaves in everyday life - it is customary to chew them, infuse them, make tea from them and season some dishes with them (in European countries, coca leaves are considered a drug, and in Bolivia they are a tonic).
If you decide to go to South America, you will make the right choice - you will be able to plunge into the mysterious life of this continent.

Customs and traditions of peoples

North America.

"The First Americans."

How and when did the diverse historical and cultural regions of North America emerge? Archaeologists have undertaken to answer this question. No centers of origin of great apes have been discovered in North America. Consequently, the indigenous population of the North American continent had to be newcomers. But where did the “first Americans” come from - the Paleo-Indians, that is, the Stone Age Indians, mammoth hunters?

Most researchers are inclined to believe that man first appeared on the American continent 25-29 thousand years ago. According to anthropologists - scientists who study the origins of man - America was inhabited by representatives of one racial type - Mongoloid. From their distant Asian ancestors, the American Indians retained blood types, among which those currently existing on the Eurasian continent are completely absent. They are distinguished by spade-shaped incisor teeth typical of Mongoloids; men rarely go bald in old age, and women almost never turn gray. The people who settled the American continent were strong, resilient and energetic.

Culture and life of the ancient population of North America.

Approximately 15-10 thousand years ago, during the Ice Age, life was in full swing around the hearths. Here archaeologists find tools made of stone and bone, as well as the bones of animals that these people ate. The “First Americans” were hunters of large, now fossilized, animals: first the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, then the deer, and the bison. Gathering edible plants supplemented their diet.

They had throwing weapons - darts and spears, bows and arrows. They knew how to use fire and build temporary shelters covered with round skins. They hunted mammoths, musk oxen, moose, bears, bison and elephants. To create tools, like their counterparts in Western Europe, they widely used bone. It was from bone that they made arrow shaft straighteners, throwing tips, and needles. They used these needles to sew fur. They made practical and comfortable fur overalls from fur, as well as suits consisting of several items: trousers, parka boots with a rounded bottom edge - a “tail”. It is this detail of the cut of the parka - a long cape, or “tail” - that testifies to the connection of the ancient Americans with the population of ancient Eurasia, in particular, the population of the Siberian Taigit - the Tungus.

In the town of Folsom in southwestern North America, archaeologists found the bones of 23 fossil bison and stone laurel-leaf throwing points. These items belonged to people who lived in North America about 15 thousand years ago. Traces of hunters of large fossil mammals - bison, horses, sloths - have been found throughout what is now the United States.

About 4 thousand years ago, the first Cocheese farmers appeared in the southwestern United States. The first experiments in cultivating corn, beans and zucchini date back to this time. At the same time, American archaic man used fish resources and edible aquatic plants. Among the household items of the Kochisi, baskets for collecting edible plants, grain grinders, knives, drills, and scrapers are known.

About 2 thousand years ago, the Cochisi farmers were replaced by Hohokam and Mogollon immigrants from Mexico. The creators of these cultures were not only hardworking farmers, but also producers of magnificent pottery, varied in shape and skillfully decorated with geometric decorations.

The dishes used in everyday life were very simple. These are bowls and vessels with a flat bottom, varying in size and shape. The painting is located on the outside of the walls of such vessels. But many ceramic vessels were made for religious purposes. For example, bowls in which sacrificial food made from cornmeal and other gifts were presented to deities were often decorated on the inside with complex geometric designs. These bowls and vessels were placed in the graves along with the dead.

Ornamental compositions on ceramic vessels consisted of complex geometric images of sacred animals and birds. Scientists have suggested that these birds and animals were revered as totems. Compositions on the inside of vessels were often inscribed in a circle or triangle and, as a rule, placed in the central part at the bottom of the vessel. The drawings were made mainly in black and red paints, which perhaps symbolized the idea of life and death.

Representatives of these cultures built irrigation structures in their fields, erected places of worship on earthen platforms, and lived in houses buried in the ground, the walls of which were lined with unfired clay bricks and the floors with wooden planks.

Around 200 AD, the creators of the Hohokam and Mogollon cultures were replaced by basket makers in the southwestern United States. They were called this because they made waterproof baskets that were shaped like pots. Basket makers cooked food in such vessels on hot stones. Basket makers lived in caves.

In the canyons of Arizona, in the valleys of the Mencos and Rio Grande del Norte rivers, in the Colorado Canyon, famous for its archaeological monuments, there lived people who were called cliff-dwellers (translated from English: Inhabitants of cliffs, rocks). Like their predecessors, the basket makers, the creators of the Cliff Dwellers culture lived in rock crevices, under rock overhangs and in caves. But there they built entire cities. Their houses made of mud brick were created not only by people, but also by nature itself; they were squeezed into rocky recesses, grew in breadth and depth, and piled on top of each other. In fact, it was one large house in which a community lived, consisting of several large families - clans. Each family had its own sanctuary, which was a round building in plan and resembled a well. The Indians called such ancestral sanctuaries kiva.

During the period 300 BC. e. - 800 AD e. In the valleys of the Ohio and Illinois rivers there lived people who learned to find native copper and process it in a cold way. They created a culture that scientists call the Adena and Hopewell cultures. In the middle reaches of the Mississippi, pre-state associations and a pre-urban culture arose. A feature of this culture was temple architecture in the form of pyramids, highly artistic metal and ceramic products.

The Aden and Hopewell cultures ceased to exist. The archaeological finds of these cultures excavated from the ground are stored in the most famous museums in the world, one of which is the Natural History Museum in New York. But as a reminder of the former greatness of these cultural traditions of ancient America, numerous mounds-temples have been preserved. They differ greatly in appearance and structure. Archaeologists have created a typology of mounds-temples of Adena-Hopewell.

Mounds - burial mounds used to be called mounds with coffins. These are peculiar burial grounds in which numerous burials were excavated. The height of such mounds does not exceed 10 meters. They are most numerous in the northern part of the Mississippi River basin. Archaeologists consider them to be the most ancient form of funerary structures of the Adenahopewell cultural tradition.

Pyramid mounds are structures on earthen platforms with geometric shapes. Obviously, the idea of building such funeral structures was born nearby, in Mexico. The dead were rarely buried inside such pyramidal architectural structures. The burials were located on the territory of special cemeteries next to them.

Garbage mounds are a special type of “shell mound”, known in the culture of the Bronze Age of Europe as places where food waste and household garbage accumulated. In Chaco Canyon, such garbage mounds are located near settlements and mark the beginning of the road in a southeast direction from Pueblo Bonito. They consist of stones, shards, ceramics and other inorganic waste. At the same time they are burial grounds. They are rectangular in shape and look like platforms.

Mounds in the shape of animals and birds are the most mysterious and interesting form of religious architecture in North America. Such mounds began to be built after 700 by the creators of the Hopewell culture. They survive in the states of Wisconsin and Ohio. Some have the outlines of a snake (405 m in length), an eagle, a bear (17 m), a fox, an elk, a bison, a jaguar, a toad (46 m). Inside these structures, archaeologists discovered secondary burials with poor grave goods. It is possible that the symbolic figures of the maunds were considered as images of totemic ancestors, into whose wombs the deceased were placed for the purpose of their subsequent resurrection.

The dead were buried in mounds, accompanied by tools and weapons. Wooden funeral masks with deer antlers were placed on the faces of the deceased. The clothes of the dead were literally strewn with river pearls and decorated with metal plates and figurines of animals and birds.

Unlike the mounds of the Adena culture, the Hopewell burial complexes were built in two stages. Around the mounds, earthen fences were erected, which had a round, rectangular or octagonal shape. Such fences could reach 500 m in diameter. Two or more such burial complexes could be connected by paths. Rectangular-shaped enclosures contained dozens of mounds. Like all monuments of this type, these were not just burial grounds, but also special tribal sanctuaries that had cult and ritual significance.

The Hopewellians (the creators of the Hopewell culture) had several types of funeral rites, among which the most common was cremation - burning corpses. But for people who had a particularly high social status, there was a different burial custom. Special burial houses were built for them in specially selected places. They were buried in shallow graves or log tombs. The floor of such a burial was compacted and an adobe platform was built. A rectangular bed was erected on a clay platform, on which the body of the deceased was placed. Nearby were objects that were subject to a special procedure of “killing” or destruction. These items were supposed to follow the deceased to the next world. Among these items were items made from obsidian, a volcanic glass brought by traders from the far west; obsidian served as an ideal material for making ritual knives. There were also jewelry made of copper and freshwater pearls, which were literally showered on the bodies of the deceased. Smoking pipes were placed in the graves. The tube itself was made in the form of a flat platform on which the image of the animal was located.

Distant descendants of the “first Americans” eventually became the ancestors of the three major indigenous groups of North America - the Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts.

Aleuts.

The Aleuts are an island people of the Pacific North - hunters of marine mammals, fishermen, and gatherers. Their life is inseparable from the sea.

The sea near the islands of the Aleutian archipelago does not freeze. The Aleuts hunted sea otters and seals, northern fur seals and sea lions, large and small whales, dolphins, sea urchins, as well as foxes, cormorants, ducks, and geese. In addition, they caught fish - cod, halibut, salmon.

As a rule, hunters united 15-20 people. The Aleuts each went out to sea in their own kayak. Its frame consisted of an elastic wooden frame - a lattice. The parts of the lattice were fastened together with whalebone. Such a frame did not bend or break under the blows of ocean waves. The outside of the kayak was covered with sea lion skin. High-speed kayaks could reach speeds of up to 10 kilometers per hour, while the kayak moved silently through the water. The carrying capacity of the kayak is up to 300 kg.

The hunter who went hunting was carefully equipped. His body was protected from the cold by a parka made of bird skins. The parka was covered with a waterproof camel made from the intestines of a seal, into the seams of which miniature bunches of red bird feathers were sewn - amulets that protect the hunter from the forces of evil during the hunt and attract prey. To hunt marine mammals, the Aleuts used harpoons with throwing planks and spears, which were called “beaver shooters.”

To escape the bad weather, the Aleuts built dwellings buried deep in the ground. The traditional housing of the Aleuts is a dugout with an entrance through a smoke hole.

They went down into the house along a log with notches.

Before the arrival of the Russians, such structures were erected from whale bones; later, fins were also used as building material. 10-40 families lived inside such a dugout. In ancient times, the Aleuts lived in large houses that accommodated even more people.

The materials for making fishing tools, weapons and utensils were stone, bone, driftwood (wood washed ashore by the sea), and grass. Men used stone and later iron daggers, women used wide, short horizontal, slightly curved slate knives (“pekulki” or “ulu”).

Using needles made from bird bones, Aleutian craftswomen sewed clothes, covers for kayaks, made leather wallets for sale, and waterproof clothing from the intestines of marine mammals.

The Aleuts were very skilled in weaving mats and baskets. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, Aleut women made baskets made using the ring weaving technique from grass and willow twigs. In ancient times, such baskets were used as bags along with bags made from the skins of sea mammals. They were woven from multi-colored grass fibers, mostly yellowish and brownish. Using a variety of colors of grass fibers, craftswomen created geometric patterns based on symbolic figures: rhombus, rectangle, triangle, zigzag.

Aleuts - both men and women - wore long, closed clothes with sleeves without a hood. Men's parkas were made from bird skins, women's from the skins of sea beavers and cats, with wool on the inside. On their feet, the Aleuts wore boots made of the skin of sea animals. The clothing was perfectly adapted to life in the conditions of the ocean tundra - the Aleutian Islands.

Since ancient times, the Aleuts have sewn unique clothing from bird skins - parkas made from hatchets. It took 300-400 skins to make a parka. The skins were removed with stockings from the bodies of the hatchets, tanned and sewn together with sinew threads.

Parkas made from bird skins were made double-sided. They could be worn outside either with feathers (in the rainy season) or with leather (the feathers pleasantly cooled the body in the pleasant season). The skins were laid out in tiers and carefully sewn together. Strips of leather painted with red paint were laid between horizontal rows of skins. Embroidery was done over strips of leather. They embroidered clothes with deer hair. Now this technology has been lost, but earlier craftswomen worked so skillfully with bone needles that there were no traces of embroidery left on the back of the leather strip. Long white deer hair, taken from under a deer's neck earring, was considered sacred and was seen as a talisman.

One of the main elements of the Aleut hunting costume were wooden visors decorated with sea lion mustaches and conical headdresses, also made of wood, worn by representatives of the clan elite.

Beliefs.

The Aleuts worshiped nature spirits in animal forms. One of these animals was the whale. Keith generally played a special role in the life of the Aleuts. Whale ribs and skulls are often found in ancient Aleutian burials. Often the skull of a deceased hunter lay between two whale ribs.

The Aleuts made mummies from the bodies of the revered dead and buried them in caves. This method of burial has been known to the Aleuts since ancient times.

American Eskimos.

Eskimos live in the American Arctic and subarctic. They inhabited a vast area from the Bering Strait to Greenland. A small group of Eskimos live in northeast Asia.

Eskimo languages: Yupik, Inupiaq, Inuktikut.

Whale hunting played a special place in the life support system. When hunting marine mammals, the Eskimos used two types of boats: kayak and umiak.

The kayak is silent and fast. Its load capacity reaches 300 kg. The hunter, sitting in it, tightly fastened the belt around his waist. If the boat capsized after colliding with an ice floe, the hunter could turn it back over with a blow of the oar without taking in any water.

The main hunting weapon of the Eskimos was a harpoon with a shooting tip.

The Eskimos settled in small groups with weak ties between them. In summer, the Eskimos' dwellings were cone-shaped buildings made of poles, covered with birch bark and bark. Winter dwellings are dugouts with one or two living quarters and a room for storing supplies at the entrance. There were special sleeping places inside the dwelling.

During hunting expeditions to the central regions of the American Arctic, the Eskimos built snow dwellings, which were called igloos. Inside the igloo there was a canopy made of skins, which served as a living chamber. in the event of a sudden snowstorm, the Eskimos buried themselves in the snow with their dogs and waited out the bad weather.

Two families often lived in an igloo. the internal space was heated by fat-pots - bowls made of soapstone with a wick floating in seal oil. Food was cooked on the fat.

Eskimo clothing was well adapted to the cold climate of the Arctic. Summer clothes were made of fur in one layer, and always with the fur facing the body. Winter in two layers, one layer with the fur facing the body, the other with the fur facing out. The clothes were made from deer fur. Men wore a short jacket with a hood made of deer or seal skin, with the fur facing the body.

In the craft, a special branch of art was bone carving, and only on walrus tusk. The handles of tools were made from it, giving them the shape of animals and people, household and religious objects. Master carvers created very realistic sculptural compositions with the participation of people and animals, as well as images of spirits. Such figures were called pelicens. Pelikens are spirits of wealth and contentment. The Eskimos wore these figures as talismans.

North American Indians.

By the time Europeans arrived, more than two thousand Indian tribes lived on the North American continent. I'll tell you about a few.

Athapaskan.

Atapaskan is the collective name of the Indians of this vast region, who belong to various tribes: Kuchin, Koyukon Tanaina, Inalik and many others. Athapaskans are hunters and fishermen. The fauna of the region is quite diverse. there were deer, caribou, moose, and many other animals, so hunting took precedence over fishing.

Housing and life.

The entrance to the house was usually facing the river, so settlements usually stretched along the shore. Houses were made from logs. The winter dwelling had a dome-shaped vault sunk into the ground, and was covered with animal skins. There was a fireplace in the center of the house. The floor was covered with branches, and the entrance was through a short dug tunnel. The main element of the interior decoration of the home was the bunk. They sat on them, slept on them, ate. The dishes were made from wood, horn, grass and birch bark.

The Athapaskans wore clothes made of well-made suede, made from deer skin devoid of fur. Suede shirts were decorated with suede fringe and deer hair embroidery. The cut of men's and women's shirts was the same. The hem most often had pointed outlines, the edge of the hem was decorated with fringe, the edges of the clothing were ornamented, and fur or fringe was left there. these were amulets.

The suit was complemented by suede pants and special shoes - moccasins.

PRAIRIE INDIANS

The territory occupied by the Great Plains Indians is located in the heart of North America. She reached out

From the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan to Texas.

Teton-Dakota, Sioux, Comanche, Kiowa, Mandan - American traders and hunters were the first to meet representatives of these Indian tribes in the developing expanses of the Great Plains.

All the tribes spoke different languages and did not understand each other. In order to communicate, they invented sign language and picture writing, the signs of which were understood by all Prairie Indians.

Hunting was mainly a male activity. The men tracked deer and elk, hiding in thickets of bushes or small forests. Most often this was an individual hunt. Collective hunting for bison in the summer.

The hunters' camp consisted of several groups, whose members were related to each other. Marriages took place between members of groups more or less distant from each other. The tribe united several camps. The inhabitants of such camps installed their portable dwellings - teepees - in a circle. Each family erected its tipi at a certain place in this ring, which was determined by the degree of participation of the family in public life.

Power was exercised by the leaders of the lower and higher echelons. Decision making was determined by agreement among the senior leaders. Leaders and veterans of war formed communities called men's unions. Men's unions were accepted taking into account the candidate's military merits. Military valor and generosity were highly valued.

The prairie Indians were excellent warriors. For example, the warlike nature and possession of horses made the Dakota tribe an aggressive people. The warriors were armed with bows and arrows.

After the arrival of Europeans, the Prairie Indians quickly mastered horse riding. The horse became an integral part of military equipment. Mobility and the speed of movement associated with it were the most important features of their culture, and it was mobility that defined opportunity for them across the vast expanses of the Great Plains.

The exploits of men were considered especially prestigious. The Indian could accumulate military<<очки>>. It was considered prestigious to boldly look an enemy in the eye, to pick up a rifle from an enemy who had fallen from the saddle, to steal an enemy’s horse, sneak into his village unnoticed, and to remove the scalp from the head of a defeated enemy.

TOMAHAWK

The antler tomahawk has served as a symbol of the valor of the male warrior throughout Indian history. A tomahawk is a hatchet with a long handle. The design of the tomahawk has undergone evolution. The most ancient form of this melee weapon was the caribou antler tomahawk. A flint point or metal blade was inserted into the short sawed-off process of such a horn. The long process served as a handle. The lower part of the handle was decorated with suede fringe. Later, the handle was made of wood, traditionally decorated with fringe, and a metal blade was inserted into the upper end. This is what the tomahawks of the steppe Indians looked like. Later, when the Prairie Indians met the Europeans, they began to present tomahawks combined with a peace pipe as gifts to the Indian leaders.

PEACE PIPE

The peace pipe is a sacred object decorated with eagle feathers, which symbolized prosperity and well-being.

The most ancient rituals in which the peace pipe was used were dedicated to the cult of fertility. The Indians gathered together and sat in a circle. The most revered person - the military leader, chief or elder - lit the sacred pipe, took a few puffs and passed it to the warrior sitting next to him. He took a few puffs and passed it on to his neighbor. So the tube went around all the ceremony participants in a circle, uniting them. Smoke rose to the sky, symbolizing thunderclouds. Participants in the ceremony called on them to rain. Rain, prosperity and peace were closely related concepts. Therefore, when the Indians concluded peace agreements and stopped hostilities, they performed a ritual similar to the ritual of making rain: they sat in a circle and lit a peace pipe. Europeans who fought with the Indians and more than once observed rituals during truce ceremonies called the sacred pipe of the Indians -<< трубку мира >>.

Housing and life

Indian life was spent in practical small tipis. A teepee is a single-family dwelling designed for year-round use. In the center of the tipi there is a fireplace, the smoke from which escapes through a smoke hole. This hole could be covered with skin in case of bad weather. The lower edge of the tire was often rolled with stones or pinned to the ground using bone or wooden pegs. In the summer it was raised to check the room. The tipi is cozy and warm in winter, but sometimes it gets a little stuffy from the smoke. A tipi is a conical structure made of poles, covered with 8-12 buffalo skins. The skins are skillfully dressed and sewn.

The outside of the tipi cover was usually decorated with paintings. It was a special form of mnemonic writing.

The drawings that covered the bottom edge of the tipi cover were drawn by women. This form of fine art was passed down from mother to daughter and was very ancient. The antiquity of the idea of painting images on the leather tires of hut-like dwellings is evidenced by the very archaic style of the drawings. The drawings are flat, there is no perspective in the compositions, the most significant images were distinguished by larger sizes. The figures of riders galloping on horses with spears, dressed in lush feather headdresses, images of foot soldiers, dogs and animals are so generally drawn that they resemble signs-symbols. These are really signs like letters of the alphabet. Tire painting itself was also a special form of patterned writing.

For example, the drawings could be read as follows:

<<…владелец типи в этом году отбил у индейцев кроу три лошади, другой год он принял участие в танце Солнца>>. During migrations, the stakes were folded into a V-shaped drag, which was pulled by a dog or horse.

Pottery was too heavy for the nomadic life of the Indians, so animal skins or stomachs were used for cooking. The skin was stretched on sticks, water was poured in and hot stones were thrown inside. Pieces of fresh meat were placed in boiling water, which did not need to be cooked for a long time. The spoons were made from bison horn, which was first steamed in water and then shaped accordingly. Such spoons were used exclusively for pouring food, as they ate with their fingers. The plates were made from growths on the trunks of elm trees.

WRITING MATERIAL

The Prairie Indians used the white surface of well-dressed bison hides as a writing material. On the surface of the skin they applied multi-figure compositions telling the military history of the tribe.

The art of tanning leather to make clothes was passed down through the female line. Fresh bison skin was stretched on the ground with the fur down. Using elk antler scrapers with an iron or stone blade, women cleared the surface of flesh. If the skin was intended for making clothing, the fur was removed. The skin was then soaked in water or buried in damp soil. After this, it was softened with oil or the surface to be treated was smeared with bison brain. Next, the remaining flesh was removed from the skin and hung over the smoke to smoke. Smoked skins took on a brown tint.

The Indians knew how to make delicious white skins that were used for ceremonial purposes. Softer elk skins were used to make clothes. Some skins were used in their raw form. Rawhide was used to make some tools: for example, rawhide belts were used to fasten ax blades to shafts.

The Indian men's costume consisted of a leather turban, sleeveless vest, suede leggings, moccasins and a buffalo skin shirt. The men's costume was complemented by a breastplate made of falcon wing bones, fastened with pieces of bison skin. This breastplate was considered a ceremonial decoration.

Women wore straight-cut knee-length shirts, leggings, and moccasins. Shirts were made by folding two bison skins, tails down. Therefore, a characteristic cape was formed in the lower part of women's shirts. The lower part of such shirts and the seams were decorated with suede fringe, which symbolized bison fur.

The leader could be recognized among his fellow tribesmen. A buffalo skin with magnificent winter wool is draped over his shoulders. The cape is decorated with owl feathers and rustling pendants. On the neck is a decoration of sixty grizzly bear claws.

The eagle feather was considered endowed with magical powers and was seen as a powerful amulet. The leader's headdress, whose feathers reached 68 cm in length, contained several dozen such feathers. The leader's hair was smoothed and covered with red dye, and rifle cartridge casings were woven into it. The leader's face was painted red.

The clothes were decorated with embroidery with porcupine quills. Personal jewelry made from bird feathers has become widespread.

Prominent warriors and leaders wore tall feather headdresses, which were often decorated with bison horns - a symbol of power.

BELIEFS AND RITUALS

The supernatural world of the Prairie Indians consisted of what they called<<вакан>>, that is, everything sacred.

Wakan is the Greatest Mystery that humanity can know. Contact between the world of people and the world of elemental creatures is carried out by professionals - shamans. Shamans have special knowledge that they can convey only through their own language, which is poorly understood by their fellow tribesmen.

Kamali means performing a ritual, that is, communicating with your helping spirits; they put on a suit made from animal skins.

The beliefs of the Indians were embodied in rituals and ceremonies that were theatrical in nature.

The Prairie Indians led a free life in the vastness of the Great Plains.

TLINKITS

The northwest coast of North America, from Yakutat in the north to the Columbia River in the south, was inhabited by numerous Indian tribes who lived a lifestyle of hunters and fishermen.

In addition to the Tlingit, the Chugach, Kwakiutl, Tsishman and other Indian tribes lived on the coast. Their villages were located along the shores of lagoons, on the banks of lakes or rivers. The houses had their entrances facing the water and were lined up in one line.

The Tlingit were skilled warriors. They dressed in armor and put wooden helmets on their heads that covered the lower part of their faces.

Hunting tools and weapons were made from stone, bone, and shells. The Tlingits were known for cold metal working - forging native copper. Copper was mainly used to make jewelry and daggers. They hunted with harpoons, arrows, and spears.

Religious views

Religious ideas were based on ideas about helping spirits. The Indians believed in the existence of patron spirits of various crafts, patron spirits of individual hunters, and personal assistant spirits of shamans. The Indians believed that after death the soul of the deceased moves into the body of an animal, which was revered as a totem.

Totem is an Indian concept that comes from an Ojibwe word recorded by European missionaries.<<ото-те-ман>>.

Crafts and art

The Indians masterfully mastered wood processing techniques. They had drills, adzes, stone axes, woodworking and other tools. They knew how to saw boards and cut figured sculptures. They made houses, canoes, work tools, sculptures, and totem poles from wood. Tlingit art is distinguished by two more features: multi-figuredness - a mechanical connection of different images in one object, and polyeikonicity - flowing, sometimes encrypted, hidden by the master, smooth transition of one image to another.

Living in the rainy and foggy climate of the sea coast, the Tlingits made special capes from grass fibers and cedar bast, which resembled ponchos. They served as a reliable shelter from the rain.

The works of monumental art included rock paintings, paintings on the walls of houses, and totem poles.

The images on the pillars are created in a style called bilateral (two-sided). The Indians of North America used the so-called skeletal style to apply drawings on ritual objects, ceramics, and also when creating rock paintings.

The modern population of South America is anthropologically very diverse. It consists of representatives of various races - American (indigenous people - Indians), Caucasoid (descendants of immigrants from), Negroid (descendants of slaves taken out), as well as numerous mixed groups - mestizos, mulattoes, Sambos. Racial mixing in the countries of South America is proceeding at a rapid pace, and new racial types are gradually emerging. Before the advent of Europeans (late 15th century), it was inhabited by various Indian tribes and peoples who spoke the languages of Quechua, Arawak, Chibcha, Tupigua Rani, etc. The population was distributed unevenly: the highland valleys of the Central Andean Highlands were most densely populated, and the lowlands of the basin were less densely populated.

With the arrival of European conquerors (and) there were fundamental changes in the ethnic structure of the continent. Thousands of Africans were imported as slaves to work in the viceroyalty's mines and sugarcane plantations along the coast and northeast. In the Central Andian Highlands, blacks for the most part disappeared into the local population; in the other two regions, their participation in ethnic processes and contribution to culture was great. A large population of mixed European-Negro and Negro-Indian origin has developed here.

After gaining independence, sharp changes in the ethnic composition occurred in, and due to the massive influx of immigrants from, and other European countries (they were attracted mainly for the development of national territories in the 2nd half of the 19th - early 20th centuries), as well as in and - due to immigration from (mainly from and). The majority of the modern population of South America is of mixed Indian-European origin, but in the northeast of the mainland the population is predominantly of Negro-European origin. In a number of countries in South America, large Indian peoples have survived: the Quechua in Peru, the Aymara in Bolivia, and the Araucanas in Chile. In addition, in the outlying regions of almost all states (for example, the north, in Brazil, the northwest, etc.) small Indian tribes and peoples speaking their own languages have also been preserved.

The official language of the vast majority of South American countries is Spanish, and that of Brazil is Portuguese. Of the Indian languages, the second official language is only Quechua in Peru. It is very unique, where the majority of the population uses the Indian language Guarani, speaking Spanish to one degree or another. In Guyana, the official language is English, in the former Suriname it is Dutch, and in French Guiana it is French. The majority of the religious population of South America is. Among the Indians, remnants of pre-Christian beliefs play a significant role; among some blacks, remnants of African cults exist.

Customs and traditions of peoples

North America.

"The First Americans."

Culture and life of the ancient population of North America.

Distant descendants of the “first Americans” eventually became the ancestors of the three major indigenous groups of North America - the Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts.

The Aleuts are an island people of the Pacific North - hunters of marine mammals, fishermen, and gatherers. Their life is inseparable from the sea.

To escape the bad weather, the Aleuts built dwellings buried deep in the ground. The traditional housing of the Aleuts is a dugout with an entrance through a smoke hole.

They went down into the house along a log with notches.

Using needles made from bird bones, Aleutian craftswomen sewed clothes, covers for kayaks, made leather wallets for sale, and waterproof clothing from the intestines of marine mammals.

One of the main elements of the Aleut hunting costume were wooden visors decorated with sea lion mustaches and conical headdresses, also made of wood, worn by representatives of the clan elite.

Beliefs.

The Aleuts made mummies from the bodies of the revered dead and buried them in caves. This method of burial has been known to the Aleuts since ancient times.

American Eskimos.

Eskimos live in the American Arctic and subarctic. They inhabited a vast area from the Bering Strait to Greenland. A small group of Eskimos live in northeast Asia.

Eskimo languages: Yupik, Inupiaq, Inuktikut.

Whale hunting played a special place in the life support system. When hunting marine mammals, the Eskimos used two types of boats: kayak and umiak.

The main hunting weapon of the Eskimos was a harpoon with a shooting tip.

Two families often lived in an igloo. the internal space was heated by fat-pots - bowls made of soapstone with a wick floating in seal oil. Food was cooked on the fat.

North American Indians.

By the time Europeans arrived, more than two thousand Indian tribes lived on the North American continent. I'll tell you about a few.

Athapaskan.

Housing and life.

The suit was complemented by suede pants and special shoes - moccasins.

PRAIRIE INDIANS

The territory occupied by the Great Plains Indians is located in the heart of North America. She reached out

From the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan to Texas.

Teton-Dakota, Sioux, Comanche, Kiowa, Mandan - American traders and hunters were the first to meet representatives of these Indian tribes in the developing expanses of the Great Plains.

Hunting was mainly a male activity. The men tracked deer and elk, hiding in thickets of bushes or small forests. Most often this was an individual hunt. Collective hunting for bison in the summer.

The prairie Indians were excellent warriors. For example, the warlike nature and possession of horses made the Dakota tribe an aggressive people. The warriors were armed with bows and arrows.

TOMAHAWK

PEACE PIPE

The peace pipe is a sacred object decorated with eagle feathers, which symbolized prosperity and well-being.

Housing and life

The outside of the tipi cover was usually decorated with paintings. It was a special form of mnemonic writing.

For example, the drawings could be read as follows:

WRITING MATERIAL

The clothes were decorated with embroidery with porcupine quills. Personal jewelry made from bird feathers has become widespread.

Prominent warriors and leaders wore tall feather headdresses, which were often decorated with bison horns - a symbol of power.

BELIEFS AND RITUALS

The supernatural world of the Prairie Indians consisted of what they called<<вакан>>, that is, everything sacred.

Kamali means performing a ritual, that is, communicating with your helping spirits; they put on a suit made from animal skins.

The beliefs of the Indians were embodied in rituals and ceremonies that were theatrical in nature.

The Prairie Indians led a free life in the vastness of the Great Plains.

TLINKITS

The northwest coast of North America, from Yakutat in the north to the Columbia River in the south, was inhabited by numerous Indian tribes who lived a lifestyle of hunters and fishermen.

The Tlingit were skilled warriors. They dressed in armor and put wooden helmets on their heads that covered the lower part of their faces.

Religious views

Totem is an Indian concept that comes from an Ojibwe word recorded by European missionaries.<<ото-те-ман>>.

Crafts and art

Living in the rainy and foggy climate of the sea coast, the Tlingits made special capes from grass fibers and cedar bast, which resembled ponchos. They served as a reliable shelter from the rain.

The works of monumental art included rock paintings, paintings on the walls of houses, and totem poles.

And she rose to a new level. The ideas of the Enlightenment turned out to be a guideline that was taken into account by their supporters and opponents during the reorganization of the school in the 17th - 18th centuries. The Enlightenment movement developed in accordance with national conditions. In North America, progressive pedagogical ideas were propagated by major legislators T. Jefferson (1743 - 1826), J. Washington (1732-1799), B. ...

in the environmental traditions of indigenous peoples. In particular, in North America camps are created according to national traditions. In the most popular of these programs, called Rediscovered, children have the opportunity to experience the traditions and reality of another people. In special games, in the process of learning folk crafts under the guidance of elders, they not only learn to appreciate other things...