Life and traditions of the peoples of South America. Indian family traditions (video

The whole range of traditions of the sunny continent

The countries of South America are considered exotic among tourists. And local New Year traditions are as unusual, vibrant and original as the inhabitants of these southern countries.

On New Year's holidays, it is customary for large families to gather around the festive table, treat guests and drink magical Chilean wines, seasoned with toasts and congratulations. And later, at midnight, everyone leaves their houses and goes to admire the fireworks.

It is noteworthy that in these countries, where traditionally large families gather all generations of the family for the New Year, everyone honors the oldest members of the family. Grandmothers and aunties prepare traditional dishes. It would seem that everything is the same as ours, but the local mentality leaves its mark. And the New Year's celebration in South America takes place under the sign of the hot sun, gentle sea and summer abundance. So in all countries of the continent it is customary to swim in rivers, lakes, and public pools on the first day of the New Year. Different countries of South America decorate the festival with various “highlights” specific to their new year.

New Year in Argentina

This is how temperamental Argentines throw old and unnecessary things into the streets on New Year's Day. And on the last day of the outgoing working year, employees of institutions get rid of old documents, bills, calendars, and other paper trash. This is a kind of rite of purification and liberation. So in Buenos Aires, where there are most office buildings, sidewalks, streets around houses, and even the roadway are thickly covered with a fluffy layer of paper - just like snowdrifts. All sorts of incidents are associated with this tradition, because if you get excited, you can throw away your passport. Thus, the publishing house workers, who had become enraged, threw out the entire archive of one of the newspapers out the window.

New Year in Chile

On the eve of the New Year, Chileans go to the coast, where they celebrate the holiday, forgetting about business and worries. On New Year's holidays in Chile you can't swear; everyone tries to be as friendly as possible - even towards strangers. The local population is especially friendly during this period. It is customary to congratulate strangers you meet on the street on New Year. This makes the celebration heartwarming and joyful for everyone.

Since the population of Chile is multinational, there are some very bizarre New Year's traditions. Many ancient beliefs of the indigenous people are still revered by the inhabitants of this land. On Easter Island, for example, there is an unusual tradition - people here are looking for a “New Year’s” swallow’s egg. The one who finds it first is declared revered in these parts for a whole year. He becomes privileged, all the locals consider it an honor to invite him to visit. Such a guest brings good luck to the hosts.

The Chilean New Year's table is not complete without traditional festive dishes. The local cuisine is very hearty, aromatic, and mostly spicy. Here they drink traditional liqueurs and world-famous Chilean wines.

The most unusual New Year takes place in the small Chilean town of Talca. Since 1995, it has been customary here to celebrate the New Year at the city cemetery.

After the solemn church mass, after 23:00, the residents of Talka, together with the mayor of the city, solemnly go to the cemetery. There they visit the graves of their relatives - the city orchestra plays quiet classical music, dim lighting pours into the cemetery. A solemn and calm atmosphere reigns here. What an unusual image for the New Year!

This tradition appeared only 15 years ago, but has already swept the entire city - about 5,000 people. It was started by one family who wanted to celebrate the New Year at the grave

The Chilean Mapuche people used to celebrate the New Year on June 24th. Some unique ancient holidays of this nationality have been preserved in the country to this day. Once upon a time, on New Year's Eve (June 23), whole families of Mapuche people gathered around a large family fire and listened to stories from the older members of the family. At dawn it was customary to go to the nearest river or lake and wash there. This is how they cleansed the body and souls in order to meet the sun of the New Year renewed. The tradition of getting together with the whole family and swimming on New Year's Day has been preserved in Chile and throughout South America.

The ancient tradition of piercing the ears of six-year-old Chilean girls is a sign of their maturation.

New Year in Peru

Ancient traditions are also preserved in Peru. In the cities of Cusco or Machu Picchu, people still perform ancient Incan religious ceremonies. The Temazcal ritual is one of the most popular among tourists. A temazcal is a small wooden structure, a kind of hut, covered with fabric. It symbolizes the womb of Mother Earth. Entering Temazcal, a person seems to be born again, his spiritual aura is cleansed.

New Year in Paraguay

There are still real Indians living in the provinces of Paraguay. When the years change, the Indians open all the windows and doors in the house. They look out of windows and doors, go out into the yard and knock with dishes, the dishes break - but this is considered a good omen and promises a rich year.

New Year in Brazil

Beautiful traditions in Brazil. On New Year's Eve, the ocean beaches of Brazil are illuminated with thousands of candles. Candles stand in the sand, and at this time beautiful Brazilian women enter the water in long white dresses and throw flower petals into the ocean waves. Brazil is generally famous for the beauty of its holidays. And of course, the brightest New Year's parties take place in Rio de Janeiro. They take place right on the beaches and are accompanied by grandiose pyrotechnic shows.

Fire, in different versions, has always been part of rituals in all nations. Today, Brazilians have turned these rituals into colorful performances.

It is customary to wear white clothes at New Year's parties; white attracts good luck.

After midnight everyone runs to the ocean and jumps over the waves. You need to jump over seven waves and make a wish.

These are also echoes of pagan rituals. The goddess of the sea will help your wishes come true. All these traditions are the result of a mixture of African and Indian cultures that developed in Brazil and spread from coast to coast.

A funny tradition reigns in some Brazilian cities, for example in Sao Paolo and La Paz. On New Year's Eve it is customary to wear colored underwear. The color of the underwear symbolizes a person's wishes and hopes for the coming year. If a person expects the New Year to give him love, he wears red underwear. Yellow symbolizes wealth and career growth.

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 bison fossils 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.

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 - a military leader, chief or elder - lit a 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 bison 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 is to perform a ritual, that is, to communicate with one’s 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 ideas

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.

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...

Customs and traditions of peoples

North America.

"The First Americans."

Culture and life of the ancient population of North America.

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 as 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.

Garbage mounds are a special type of “shell mound”, known in the Bronze Age culture 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.

The Hopewellians (the creators of the Hopewell culture) had several types of funeral rites, among which the most common was cremation - the burning of 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.

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.

Aleuts - both men and women - wore long, closed clothes with sleeves without a hood. Men's parkas were made from bird skins, women's parkas were made 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 oceanic tundra - the Aleutian Islands.

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.

Atapaskan is the collective name for the Indians of this vast region, who belong to various tribes: Kuchin, Koyukon Tanaina, Inalik and many others. Athapascans 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 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.

The exploits of men were considered especially prestigious. The Indian could accumulate military >. 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

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 - >.

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:

>. During migrations, the stakes were folded into a V-shaped drag, which was pulled by a dog or horse.

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 >, that is, everything sacred.

Kamali is to perform a ritual, that is, to communicate with one’s 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 ideas

Totem is an Indian concept that comes from an Ojibwe word recorded by European missionaries.

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 - the mechanical connection of different images in one object, and polyeikonicity - the flow, 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.

Protection of projects Group I – Indians – indigenous people of South America. Ancient civilizations Indians Group II – Colonization of South America and its consequences Colonization Group III – The process of miscegenation. Geography of ethnic groups. The process of miscegenation Group IV – Customs and traditions of the peoples of South America. Customs and traditions of the peoples of South America

The indigenous people of South America are the Indians. They appeared here presumably thousands of years ago. Indian tribes were at different levels of development. They were engaged in hunting, farming, terraced slopes in the highlands, and built water pipelines. It was they who first began to grow potatoes, corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, beans. Ancient civilizations existed among the Incas (the territory of modern Peru). They built cities and powerful pyramids, processed metals, made fabrics, even performed craniotomy in the field of medicine, mummified the dead, and had knowledge of space. The development of writing is assumed (bean finds).

Consequences of colonization of the mainland. The conquest of the mainland by Spain and Portugal brought innumerable troubles to the indigenous people: the Indians were exterminated and pushed into the interior of the mainland, ancient civilizations were destroyed. But along with cruelty and greed, Europeans still contributed to the development of culture and spread Christianity.

Traditions southern America

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