Pencil drawing of an Indian village. Indian village of Ucluelet (from the book "Kli Vik", E. Carr)

Before you learn how to draw an Indian, I should tell you a little about the subject. The Indian is a red-skinned bro, so named because of the absurd mistake of Mr. Columbus (Famous, who did not even suspect that he had discovered not India at all, but America). According to generally accepted concepts, the Indian always looks thoughtful, smokes a pipe and wears a feather kokoshnik. When a stranger sets foot on their land, the Indian (slapping his palm on his lips and making sound O-O-O) runs headlong to his tribe, where they kindle and sharpen their spears and arrows. But when strangers present them with overseas gifts, the Indian buries the hatchet. Later, the leader of the tribe and the guests sit in a circle, in the most customized wigwam, and light a pipe of peace (most likely with some unusual herb, since the leader very often sees all sorts of visions prophesying evil).

The Indian is perfectly adapted to life, knows how to kill animals with his tomahawk and skin them, grow corn and make popcorn from it. An Indian woman plucks poor birds and sews dream catchers from their feathers. The female Indian is most often beautiful, judging by the cartoon Pocahontas.

Currently, there are practically no Indians left as such. A special court order was adopted to move all Indians to museums, and to build naphtha derricks, factories and clubs with poker and courtesans in their habitat. And a little later, the blacks rebelled and filled all of America. So it goes.

How to draw an Indian with a pencil step by step

Step one. To begin with, let’s designate the person’s position. Step two. We draw the elements of the face: eyes, nose, mouth, designate the plumage. Step three. Let's add hair and strokes all over the body. We'll do the same with feathers. Using shading we will create shadows. Step four. Let's erase auxiliary lines and detailing the objects. Somehow it should work out this way. You can also color with colored pencils. Besides this we also have interesting lessons, For example.

I present my translation introductory story from the book by Emily Carr (1971-1945) "Kli Vic". For this first book, Emily Carr was awarded the Governor General's Award British Columbia- quite high recognition of her literary debut. The book is a collection of stories about Emily Carr's visit to Indian settlements in the west of the North American continent, where she came to sketch at the end of the 19th century from her native Victoria, Canada. . The small size of the stories in this book reminds me of articles on a blog that this artist would most likely write if she were alive today. This story tells of Emily Carr's first visit to an Indian village, and how local residents They gave her the Indian name Klee Vik, which means Laughter.

I have alreadywrote that Emily Carr was seriously interested in Indian themes, painting Indian villages, totems, Indians. She creatively conceptualized this theme until the end of her life in her beautiful and large-scale paintings. In the book she describes her encounters with the Indians and their culture. Although I feel that she tactfully leaves out a lot from her descriptions of Indian life , her interesting and well-written stories tell us a lot about how different European and Indian civilizations were, in what ways feature, strength and weakness of each of them.

I also cannot help but note the courage and perseverance of the artist, who had to overcome many obstacles to satisfy her creative interest. She was a young girl at that time, almost a schoolgirl, but she had enough willpower to overcome the resistance of the society around her, which looked at her unusual creative activity with surprise and disapproval. She overcame difficulties physical nature, abandoning the comforts of the city and home in order to sail alone across the ocean to distant islands to unknown people who speak a foreign language. She overcame cultural obstacles by studying the Indians, their homes, and their idols (history provides an example of one such difficulty related to Indian beliefs regarding the depiction of people). Overall, these stories left me with a sense of respect that I began to feel for an extraordinary, brave, independent and very talented personality Emily Carr. I selected “Indian” paintings by the artist from different years as decoration for the article.

The missionary women were waiting for me. They sent a huge Irishman in a tiny canoe to meet me from the ship. We docked in Ucluelet shortly after sunset. Everything around was big and cold and foreign to me, a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl.

I was the only visitor to this place. The huge Irishman didn't have to look for me for long.

Indian war canoe

At this time the tide was low, and I had to go down the wet, slippery and dangling ladder into the canoe for a long time. The endless staircase swayed, and I swayed with it, and of course it made me nauseous. This made the good-natured Irishman laugh very loudly and loudly at me. Finally I reached the canoe, which tried to slip out from under my feet and bathe me in the icy water. Getting into it was even more difficult than going down the rope ladder. Finally, the Irishman laughed to his heart’s content and, with one stroke, paddled the oar, which seemed like a spoon in his hands, right under me. Exhausted, I climbed into the boat.

The Irishman took me to Toxis, which is what the Indians called the home of two women missionaries. The house stood as a fortress between the forest and the ocean. It was austere, wooden and unpainted. The windows, without curtains, gaped like black voids. When the boat buried itself in the coastal mud, the Irishman picked me up with his own hands, carried me over the mud and put me right on the porch of the house.

The door opened and one of the two missionaries came out onto the porch. From the open door I smelled the inviting smell of cooking fish. Fish was the most common food on Ucluelet.

Both women missionaries were full of dignity, but the elder of them carried herself especially dignified and upright. Both had long thin noses, on which glasses sat proudly, both were thin-lipped, but with soft and kind eyes. They were dressed in straight black dresses, buttoned up to the chin.

There were only two in the kitchen, so I had to sit on a box, drink from a deep bowl and eat from tin can. Fresh air Woke up a strong appetite in me, and I ate with pleasure.

Old village

After the meal there was a long prayer. While I was repeating her words to the missionaries in a low voice, I secretly looked out the window from which a large pine tree could be seen. She was tall and straight. One of the women noticed that I was distracted and gave me a stern look. I whispered the words “Our Father” even louder and said “Amen” with repentance in my voice.

The missionary turned away. We got up from our knees and saw that many Indians had crowded into the house. They came to look at me.

Nature's Victory (overgrown totem)

I felt so young and insignificant compared to the missionaries who towered over everyone like rocks. Among the Indian guests was their leader, who was considered a master at reading character by face. He squatted down on the bench, holding its edge with his hands and spreading his knees wide. His toes were poking out from holes in his moccasins. He looked rather comical, but the look in his black eyes was piercing and serious. He froze for a couple of seconds, peering at me, and all the Indians fell silent. Suddenly he jumped off the bench and everyone started moving. He waved his hand, muttered something in his own language, and left the house without turning around.

I asked the missionary in fear: “What did he say?”

"Not much. Just that you have no fear, that you are not arrogant, and that you like to laugh out loud."

The missionaries' house stood separately next to the long deserted sandy beach. The Indian village stood in a cluster right at the water's edge. On both sides of it, huge black and wet stones jutted straight into the ocean. The water around them bubbled and foamed.

Toxis and the village were about a mile apart. A school was built in the middle, with a forest almost close to the backyard. On Sundays this unprepossessing clapboard building proudly called itself a church. It had a pointed roof, two windows on each side, a door in the front and a barn in the back.

Indian Church

Inside it was also very modest: on the wall there was a board on which a map of the world hung, and in the corner there was a stove. The desks and benches were made of roughly hewn boards. At the entrance there was a tin tank with drinking water and an iron cup on a box.

The younger missionary was the first to enter the school and light the candles. The tide came in and she had to enter the school building from behind from the forest. Water splashed between the roots of the trees. The forest path to the deck ran between uprooted huge stumps, bushes with hard leaves and slippery green hummocks. The younger missionary was very reluctant to place her foot on this precarious ground. She was glad when she left this part of her journey and stepped onto the boards. The senior missionary apparently was not afraid of anything in life – she walked confidently with long steps, lifting her black skirt. Approaching the school, she blew on a cow's horn, calling the Indian children to school. Apparently she had powerful lungs, because the sound turned out to be very loud and drawn-out. However, despite such a good warning, the Indian children strangely did not notice it. Apparently their parents did not explain to them well what this call meant. Then the head missionary went straight to the village and personally gathered the children, going to each house.

The day after I arrived in Ucluelet, almost everyone came to school – look at me. Guests rarely came to this place. Everyone stood and read the Lord's Prayer, then the missionaries sang several church hymns in a duet. While they sang, the children looked at me with curiosity. Then the lesson began.

The missionaries wrote several letters on the board. The children immediately began to fuss , spin around and come out from behind each other’s desks to drink water. Each of them tried to make as much noise as possible by pouring water into a cup, then drink it loudly and put the cup back in place with a knock.

Since spitting on the floor was strictly prohibited at school, children had to leave the classroom and spit on the ground from the threshold. Every five minutes someone from the class came out to do this. The door creaked loudly, and the children tried to open and close it slowly so that the creaking could be heard as loudly and as long as possible. In addition to all these sounds, the children constantly sniffed – They did not know how to use handkerchiefs.

The lesson was in full swing when I decided to sneak outside to see the Indian village.
The children thought that I had also gone out to spit, but when I did not return after a few seconds, they began to excitedly spin around and look out the window for me. Some under the guise that they need to spit , They ran out onto the porch and started looking for me from there. I didn’t have time to go far and heard that there was more movement on the threshold of the school. When I turned around, I realized that I would have to sit in class until the end of the lesson. After the lesson, I tried to go out without attracting attention to myself and, bending down, ran under the windows.

Indian houses were quite strong, they were made of thick cedar planks. The houses were large, square and clustered together. Some of their parts were built from sea-hewn white trunks washed ashore. The roofs were covered with bark and spruce branches; they were pressed on top big stones. There were no streets between the houses - they stood in any direction, each separately from all the others. Howling, the wind blew strongly in the openings between them. These houses reminded me of their owners - they also stood confidently in the face of any weather and could survive the midday heat and cold rain almost without noticing them.

Indian hut

At first I was shy of the Indians. If I knocked and no one answered, I was wary of entering the always open doors. Unexpectedly for myself, I found out that the Indians, who were inside and did not answer the knock, were not at all embarrassed by my arrival: words of greeting were usually waiting for me inside. Then I learned that Indians do not knock when entering someone's house. Inside almost every dwelling, an old woman squatted on the dirt floor and weaved something. She used her bony fingers with long, curved nails like knitting needles, very quickly threading the thread into the hole and pulling it out from the other side. The hoops were usually some kind of stretched, untreated sticks. Babies were immediately crawling on the floor, because the old women were simultaneously watching over the younger children.

Inside an Indian house

Each of the large houses housed several families at the same time. Each family had its own hearth, around which personal belongings were laid out. This hearth was the real home of every family. It was dark inside the houses. The smoke came out through a hole in the ceiling, but still corroded my eyes and throat. The dirt floors were dirty.

When I set up my camp chair, it amused the Indians greatly. My sketchbook made them curious. When boats, trees, houses appeared on the paper, they began to crowd around me and discuss something loudly, poking their fingers at the drawings. I didn't understand a word.
One day, with the help of gestures and grimaces, I managed to get permission to sketch an old woman weaving a rug. She nodded contentedly, and I sat down to work. Suddenly a meowing cat jumped from somewhere above; She fell nearby on a pile of some boxes and fluttered somewhere to the side. Before the noise had time to subside, a terrible scream was heard, a pile of rugs and blankets lying nearby exploded, and from under it appeared male head. The man shouted something displeased, cutting me with his black eyes. The smile on the old woman's face disappeared. "Klatava!" - she barked (that is, “go away!”), I quickly got ready and left. Later, the old woman, seeing me on the street, called me, but I did not respond.
The senior missionary then asked me sternly: “Why didn’t you respond when Mrs. Winuk called you?”

“She was very angry and kicked me out,” I answered timidly.

“And I heard her screaming: “Klee Vik, Klee Vik, come back!”

“What does Kli Vic mean?”

"I don't know".

The door of the missionaries' house creaked, and something that looked like a lump of dirty, torn rags fell to the floor and screamed heart-rendingly.

“What is it, Mrs. Winook? I thought you couldn’t walk,” exclaimed the missionary.

The old woman crawled up to me and began stroking the hem of my skirt.

“What does Clee Vic mean, Mrs. Winook?” - asked the missionary.

Mrs. Winook stuck thumbs hands into her mouth and stretched it into a wild smile. Then she pointed at me and muttered something in her tongue. The missionary listened to her carefully and then told me: “Klee Vik is your Indian name. It means "Laughter".

Indian woman chief

The old woman was able to tell the missionary that it seemed to her husband that it was I, and not the cat, who fell on the boxes and woke him up. The missionary felt that the old woman wanted to deceive her and demanded to tell “the whole truth.” Then Mrs. Winuk admitted that among the old Indians there is a belief that the soul of the person who is being painted grows into the portrait and remains in it even when the person dies.

“Tell her that I won’t draw old people anymore,” I promised. And I myself thought that the Indians must find my unceremonious intrusion into their lives, my rude treatment of beliefs dear to them, terrible. Deep down, everything in nature holds something very precious. Big forest keeps it quiet. The sea and the air above it are preserved by the scattering cries of seagulls. Yes, yes, the forest is silent: even birds and animals are silent in its depths.

At night in Ucluelet, the Indians curl up in the silence of their homes and sleep .

Candles are lit in the missionaries' house in the evening. After eating fish and praying, the missionaries go to their beds, taking with him a tin candle. I quickly lie down on my modest bed on the floor. There are no curtains or carpet in the room, which makes it look quite gloomy even in summer.

The room is filled with dead silence. There is a black forest outside the window, but its silence holds back the turbulence of life. From my bed I look up through the window at the pine tree. It grows so close to the house that it seems to me as if it was leaning over me, protecting me with its top from other pines.

In an Indian village no one keeps a calendar. . In Toxis, every seventh day is a day off, and then the missionaries hold services in the schoolhouse, which becomes a church for the day. The cow's horn also transforms accordingly: from a school bell to a church bell.

On the day of the service, Indian women, wearing scarves on their heads, embroidered shawls around their shoulders and long wide skirts that blow in the wind, slowly walk to the church. They have difficulty sitting down at children's desks; almost every one of them sits on two seats, and still the desks must be painfully cutting into their large soft bodies.
The women sit on one side of the church. Those two or three men who come to the service sit on the other side of the church. The missionaries made sure that men wore pants to church and tucked their shirts into them. This order deters most of them.

At the beginning of the service, the missionaries deal with “troublemakers” » and then sing a church hymn, usually too low or too high. Today at this moment Entrance door suddenly swung open loudly, hitting the water tank. An old Tanuk stood in the doorway in the rays of sunrise: his shirt was untucked, his legs were bare. He entered the classroom and sat down in the front row.

Gasps of horror were heard among the women. The older missionary stopped singing, the younger one jumped an octave higher.

The woman in the back row took off her shawl. She was betrayed from hand to hand under the desks forward, crossed the aisle to the part of the class where the men sat, and stopped in the arms of Jimmy John, the nephew of the old Tanuk. Jimmy squeezed his way out of his seat and placed the shawl on his uncle's bare lap.

The senior missionary addressed the Tanuk in broken Indian language, explaining what he needed to do. In the back row, someone translated her speech in a low voice.

Proudly shaking his wildly overgrown head, the old Tanuk stood up, holding the ends of the shawl on his stomach, walked to the exit, paused at the drinking tank to leisurely drink a full mug of water, put it in its place with a roar and went out.

Defeated

The service ended, the people left, but one female figure remained in the back row. The woman hid her face in her hands. She was terribly ashamed, and she waited until everyone had gone home, so that she could then sneak out of the class alone. Among the Indians it is considered much worse for a woman to be without a shawl than for a man to be without pants. Heroic deed Tanuka's wife saved his face with the missionaries, but disgraced her among the Indians. The senior missionary patted the woman on the pink shoulder in a friendly manner and said with a smile: “You are a brave woman!”

Forgotten Totem

One day I was walking along a strip of land that belonged to no one. This land was too often covered by the ocean at high tide to allow the forest to take over. The plants did not take root in its salty soil.

In this place that belonged neither to land nor to sea,

I met an old man who was wearing nothing but a short T-shirt. He was sawing off branches from a fallen tree. The waves rushed in and tried to drag away the shavings lying around. The shavings resisted and tried to stay on the ground. Water and earth constantly played these games.

deserted shore

A fallen tree lay across no man's land - I had to climb over it. I sat down next to the Indian and we tried to talk as best I could with my poor knowledge of their language. We pointed to the sun and the sea, to the eagles in the air and the crows on the shore. We nodded at each other and laughed at our stupid conversation. I sat down on a tree, and the man continued to saw branches. He was in no hurry at all, as if , Having lived hundreds of years, he still had thousands of years of life ahead of him, which he was going to live also without rushing anywhere.There was still strength in his back and shoulders, but his teeth were already worn down to his gums. The hair hanging down to his shoulders was dirty and tangled. Life softened the old man. He enjoyed his old age the way one enjoys strawberries at the end of the berry season.

Smiling at him goodbye, I stood up and patted his hand: “All the best!” He patted my hand. When he saw that I was turning towards the forest to go around a tree, he suddenly jumped up with unexpected agility and grabbed me, shaking his head and making terrible grimaces.

“Svaava! Hiyu svaava! - he shouted.

I knew that "svaava" means "cougar"; Many of these wild and majestic cats lived in the forest.

The Indians forbade their children not only to go into the forest, but also to approach it. This warning from the old man meant that for him I was a child, ignorant of life. wildlife, which they knew so well. The Indians can teach the whites a lot about these things.

During traditional holiday in his village. The Bororo live on the Mato Grosso plateau in southwestern Brazil. The location of houses in each village is subject to strict rules (which is also typical for other primitive peoples). The social structure of society, traditions and beliefs are directly reflected in the placement of dwellings relative to each other.

So how does a Bororo village work? In the center of the village of approximately 50–100 inhabitants there is a men's house. It is the dwelling of bachelors and the gathering place of married men; Women are strictly prohibited from entering there. Woman, more precisely a girl, comes here only once in a lifetime - to propose to her future husband. The men's house is the largest hut in the village. Thus, in one of the villages its dimensions were approximately 20 × 8 m. Around the house there is a wide ring strip of uncultivated land. There is a dance area adjacent to the men's house - a fenced area of trampled, devoid of vegetation land. Along the periphery of the village are family huts where married couples and their children live. The descent of tribe members is traced through the maternal line, and after marriage the husband goes to live in his wife’s house. Therefore, women “own” the huts. Paths lead to them from the men's house, so that, when viewed from above, the Bororo village resembles the wheel of a bicycle or cart, where family houses serve as a rim, the paths to them serve as spokes, and the man's house serves as a hub.

Thus, in Bororo village there is an opposition between the center and the periphery. This is, firstly, the opposition of the masculine (center) and feminine (periphery) principles, and, secondly, the sacred (men's house and dance floor, serving, among other things, for various kinds of ceremonies) and the non-sacred, or everyday ( huts).

But that is not all. The diameter of the village divides the population into two groups - northern and southern. This division is very important in the life of the Bororo. First of all, it regulates marital relations. Each villager belongs to his mother's group (half), and can only marry a member of the other half. The division into two halves also regulates many other aspects social life. For example, a deceased member of one half is buried by members of the other and vice versa.

Finally, the population is distributed by clan (their Indian names are given on the village diagram). These are groups of families who consider themselves related on the maternal side and have a common ancestor, often mythological. Further, each group of families is divided into three groups: higher, middle and lower (1, 2 and 3 in the diagram). This division affects marital relations. Namely, the regulations oblige a man from a given group to marry a woman only from a similar group (but from a different kind).

So the structure of the village is, as it were, a book in which all the most important features of intra-tribal relationships and traditions are recorded. And in the life of the Bororo Indians it is of great importance. Some of the first Europeans to notice this were missionaries. They realized that the surest way to convert the Bororo to Christianity was to force them to leave their village and settle in another, where the houses were located in parallel rows.

The above information was collected in the early 1930s. the outstanding French ethnographer and philosopher Claude Lévi-Strauss. Even then, he wrote that the Bororo culture is one of the few in Brazil that has remained relatively independent of influence European civilization. And he wrote about a very inaccessible and mysterious place at that time - the Mato Grosso plateau.

Sources:
1) K. Levi-Strauss. 2001. Structural anthropology.
2) K. Levi-Strauss. 1994.