The hypothesis that the Indians were descendants of the ancient Hebrews, Egyptians or Greeks has existed for centuries, but is perceived as very controversial. James Adair, an 18th-century colonist who traded with the Indians for 40 years, wrote that their language, customs and social structure were very similar to those of the Jews.
He wrote in his book, A History of the American Indians: "It is very difficult to get oneself, much less others, to change established views. I expect to be censored for contradicting generally accepted views or interfering in a debate that has agitated scholars since the discovery of America." .
In recent years, Dr. Donald Panther-Yates, who holds similar views, has faced backlash from other scientists.
There is a widely accepted scientific opinion that the Indians descended from the Mongols. A 2013 study suggests some ancient European roots. Human remains from Siberia dating back 24,000 years have been analyzed. Scientists have not identified any similarities with Asian peoples, only with European ones, while a clear connection with the American Indians has emerged. But the modern scientific community is skeptical about the idea that Indians could be descendants of ancient Middle Easterners or ancient Greeks, as Yates and other scientists have suggested.
Yates is himself a Cherokee Indian. He holds a PhD in Classical Studies and is the founder of DNA Consultants, a genetic research institute. All this allowed him to develop unique theories about the history of the American Indians and their connections with ancient cultures. DNA tests may confirm these theories.
GENETIC SIMILARITIES
Indians fall into five genetic groups known as haplotypes, each designated by letters of the alphabet: A, B, C, D and X.
In the article "Cherokee DNA Anomalies," he points out an error common in many genetic tests. "Geneticists say that A, B, C, D and X are Indian haplotypes. Therefore, they are present in all Indians. But this is the same as saying: all people walk on two legs. Therefore, if the skeleton of some creature has two legs, then it's a person. But in fact, it could be a kangaroo."
Any discrepancy with haplotypes is usually attributed to mixing of races after the colonization of America by Europeans, and not to the original genes of the Indians.
But Yates, who analyzed Cherokee DNA, concluded that such mixing cannot be explained by the admixture of European genes after 1492.
“Where then did the non-European and non-Indian genes come from?” he asks. “The level of haplogroup T in the Cherokees (26.9%) is comparable to the level of the inhabitants of Egypt (25%). Egypt is the only country where T occupies a dominant position among other mitochondrial lineages."
Yates paid particular attention to haplotype X, which is “virtually absent from Mongolia and Siberia, but common in Lebanon and Israel.”
In 2009, Liran I. Slush of the Israel Institute of Technology published a study claiming that the haplotype spread worldwide from the Galilee Hills in northern Israel and Lebanon. Yates writes: "The only people on Earth that have a high level of haplotype X, other than Indians of such tribes as the Ojibwe, are the Druze living in northern Israel and Lebanon."
CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC SIMILARITIES
Although much of the Cherokee culture has been lost, Yates notes in his book The Clans of the Cherokee that there are still legends about ancestors who sailed across the seas and spoke a language similar to ancient Greek. Some parallels can be traced between the languages of the Indians, Egyptians and Hebrew.
The prototype of the white-skinned Cherokee demigod Maui may be the Libyan leader of the fleet killed by Pharaoh Ptolemy III around 230 BC, says Yates. The word "maui" is similar to the Egyptian word meaning "seafarer" or "guide". According to legend, Maui taught the Indians all crafts and arts. He gave the name for the Cherokee chiefs "amatohi" or "moytoi," which can be translated as "sailor" or "admiral," Yates says.
He recalls a Cherokee legend about a Maui father named Tanoa. Yeats believes that Tanoa may have been of Greek origin. “Tanoa was the father of all fair-haired children, he came from a land called Atia,” he writes.
Atia may refer to Attica, the historical region surrounding the Greek capital Athens. "Atia" was a place where there are "many high temples of alabaster", one of which is very spacious, it was created as a meeting place for people and gods. Sports competitions, festivals in honor of the gods, meetings of great rulers took place there, and it was the source of wars that forced people to move overseas.
“It would be difficult to imagine a legend that more accurately reflects Greek culture,” writes Yeats. In the Hawaiian language there is a word "karoi" - entertainment, relaxation. In Greek they used almost the same word." He notes other similarities.
"According to the elders, the Cherokees, like the Hopi, in ancient times spoke a language of non-Native American origin. But then they switched to the Mohawk language to continue living with the Iroquois. Their old language seems to have included a large number of borrowings from Greek, the language of the Ptolemaic Egypt and Hebrew," he says.
Adair noted the linguistic similarities between Hebrew and the languages of the indigenous people of America.
Like Hebrew, nouns in Native American languages do not have cases or inflections, Adair writes. Another similarity is the lack of comparative and superlative degrees. "No language except Hebrew and the Native American languages has such a shortage of prepositions. The Indians and Jews do not have functional parts of speech to separate words. Therefore, they must attach certain symbols to words to overcome this deficiency," he writes. .
A LOOK FROM THE PAST
Adair is able to shed light on the culture of the Indians, which Yeats cannot do. Adair actively communicated with the Indians hundreds of years ago, when their traditions were still alive. Of course, it must be accepted that, as a foreigner, he might have misinterpreted some aspects of their culture.
"From my observations, I concluded that the American Indians are direct descendants of the Israelites. Perhaps this separation occurred when ancient Israel was a maritime power, or after they were enslaved. The latter version is the most likely," says Adair.
They have a similar tribal structure and organization of priests, as well as the custom of establishing a sacred place, he believes.
He gives one example of the similarity of customs: “According to the laws of Moses, a woman must undergo purification after traveling. Indian women also have a custom when they retire for a while from their husbands and any public affairs.”
Adair explains the absence of the custom of circumcision as follows: “The Israelites lived in the desert for 40 years and might not have returned to this painful custom if Joshua had not introduced it. The first settlers in America, faced with difficult living conditions, could have abandoned this custom and then completely forget, especially if they were accompanied on their journey by representatives of eastern pagan peoples."
The Cherokees themselves seem to have mixed feelings about Yeats's work. The Cherokee Central website published excerpts from Yates's research, but individual comments made by its readers indicate that the Cherokees are unwilling to support such theories.
Speaking of the Cherokee clan, Yates states: "Some of them professed Judaism, although the elders of the United Kituwa (Cherokee organization) vehemently deny this."
TO HOME
A study of the mitochondrial DNA of Indians from ancient burial grounds in South America has clarified the time of separation of the indigenous inhabitants of the New World from the population of Siberia. It was established that this process coincided with the last glacial maximum (17–28 thousand years ago). Scientists have been able to confirm that South American Indians are direct descendants of the first inhabitants of Beringia, who quickly reached their future homeland, moving along the Pacific coast. This movement was accompanied almost from the first steps by a sharp increase in population. But the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century led to the decline and collapse of the indigenous populations of South America.
Bayesian probability plots indicate a dramatic increase (60-fold) in effective population size (see: Effective Population Size) between 16,000 and 13,000 years ago (Figure 5). Rapid demographic growth was accompanied by the emergence of new branches. Although the authors did not conduct a special study on this subject, they hypothesize that daughter lines arose immediately after the settlement of new territories as a result of mutual isolation between closely related groups due to the appearance of geographical or even social barriers.
The first stage of the settlement of America played a major role in the formation of the modern gene pool of the indigenous South American population. However, the absence of ancient haplotypes in modern populations suggests the existence of some additional stage of depopulation, otherwise it is impossible to explain the disappearance of these variants at the present time. To get to the bottom of this, the researchers further modeled several demographic scenarios that could explain the combination of population growth during the initial stages of settlement and population decline thereafter. Most possible scenarios were discarded. For example, the assumption of a population decline during the expansion of the Incas, who pursued an active policy of relocating conquered peoples, was not confirmed. The only credible scenario explains the disappearance of ancient haplotypes by the demographic collapse of South American Indians during European colonization.
First of all, the depopulation of the indigenous population of South America may have been somewhat overestimated. If in Pampa or Patagonia the extinction of the Indians really occurred intensively, then in the Central Andes this process was not so dramatic. According to other studies, the local Indian component of the Bolivian population clearly prevailed over the components of the newcomer population (see: P. Toboada-Echalar et al., 2013. The genetic legacy of the pre-colonial period in contemporary Bolivians), and the size of the two largest groups - Aymara and Quechua - exceeds several million people. It is therefore surprising how individual gene variants could disappear from such large populations even during an episode of population decline. This would be possible somewhere in small populations of the Amazon or Tierra del Fuego, but not in the densely populated Andean region.
The second thing that deserves close attention is the absence of haplogroup D4h3 in samples from South American burial grounds. This haplogroup is convincingly associated with the first waves of migrations to South America for several reasons:
1) its habitat is associated with the Pacific coast, i.e. it overlaps the zone of the coastal route through which the first ancestors of the South American Indians arrived (Fig. 6),
2) its daughter branches are very ancient in South America (see: U. A. Perego et al., 2009. Distinctive Paleo-Indian migration routes from Beringia marked by two rare mtDNA haplogroups),
3) it was discovered in the oldest burial ground 10,000 years ago in the On Your Knees cave on the Alexander Archipelago, located close to Alaska (see: B. M. Kemp et al., 2007. Genetic analysis of early holocene skeletal remains from Alaska and its implications for the settlement of the Americas), i.e. close to the starting point of the movement of the South American Indians.
All this is quite consistent with the pattern of settlement of South America, which is given in the article under discussion. Therefore, the absence of haplogroup D4h3 in the analyzed burial grounds is very strange.
But, if these controversial issues can be left to be resolved by future researchers, then, summarizing the results of the work discussed, it must be said that the authors clarified many controversial issues of the settlement of America. The location of the ancestral homeland of all Native Americans in Eastern Beringia during the Last Glacial Maximum has been convincingly proven. Its isolation from the ancient populations of Siberia occurred in an interglacial refuge in the region of western Alaska. The origin of most South American Indians, at least in the western part of the continent, is clearly connected with the first inhabitants of Beringia. The ancestors of the South American Indians were most likely the first group of indigenous people in the Americas to leave the Alaskan refuge as soon as possible. The exit from the Beringian ancestral home was almost immediately accompanied by a powerful population growth. European colonization led to an episode of demographic decline, although its extent in the case of the Andean mountains requires further clarification. Taken together, these results provided invaluable information about the past of the indigenous people of America.
Victor Kreker
Indian origin theory
When the Spaniards first met the native population of the New World, they decided that they were Indians and called them Indians.
For some Indians, the word "indios" sounds like an insult. But here’s how one of the leaders of the American Indian Movement (AMI), now known as a Hollywood actor (Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers” and Michael Mann’s “The Last of the Mohicans”), Russell Means, interprets this word:
“The word “Indian” is a corruption of the Spanish words “In Dios” - “from God, with God.” Columbus wrote in his diary: “la gente indio” - “people from God.” So I prefer to be called an Indian, not Native American."
There are many versions of the origin of the Indians.
The famous defender of the Indians, Bartolomeo de Las Casas, ranked them among the descendants of the ten tribes expelled from Israel. Enrico Martinez assured that the Indians came from Latvia. Antonio Kalancha tried to prove that these were descendants of the Tatars. Some believed that the Indians were descendants of the Egyptians and Phoenicians, as well as some European tribes that settled North America through Iceland and Greenland. There are Sumerian, Malay and Berber versions.
The remains of great apes have not been found in America. But Florentino Ameghino adhered to the point of view that separate groups of people arose independently, independently of one another. According to Professor Agassiz, there were eight such cradles of humanity. In 1884, Ameghino compiled a table of American Indian ancestors, which he divided into tetraprotogomo, triprotogomo, diprotogomo and, finally, protogomo. The Czech Vojtech Fritsch tried to prove with the help of excavations, not only that some of the Indians are autochthonous (autochthon is an indigenous inhabitant), but that all humanity and all mammals come from South America. He assured that the first man, together with various representatives of the animal world, left the New World and populated the Old.
I think that his version is partly worthy of attention, given that America was the birthplace of the first horses and camels.
I will not consider such versions as Atlantis and the continent of Mu, which, in my opinion, have more fantastic origins than scientific ones.
The main and official version is considered to be the Asian origin of the Indians - the settlement of America through the Bering Isthmus 20-30 thousand years ago. According to it, Indians are classified as the American branch of the Mongoloid race.
Anthropological kinship with the Indians is found among some Tibetan tribes (“... the most ancient Mongoloids were distinguished, if we extrapolate the physical type of American Indians to them, by the almost complete absence of epicanthus (skin covering the fold of the upper eyelid and lacrimal), relatively dark skin, strong protrusion of the nose, but their hair was as black, coarse and straight as the Siberian Mongoloids... Within the framework of the presented concept, it was assumed that populations similar, or even identical, to the American Indians had survived to the present day and lived somewhere in remote, isolated areas of Inner Asia." ). In addition to the Tibetans, some other Tibeto-Chinese peoples were also considered, occasionally falling into the orbit of anthropological study.
Much in common is found between the Indians and the Kets (Siberian people in the Krasnoyarsk Territory) and also with the peoples of the North Caucasus, who are closest to the Kets both linguistically and anthropologically (Chechens, Ingush, Lezgins, and many others).
Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev also calls the Paleo-Asian peoples - the Chukchi and Koryaks - Americanoids.
Many linguists include the Athapaskan group of languages (Apaches, Navajo, Athapaskan, Tlingit) in the Sino-Caucasian macrofamily, to which the Kets and some peoples of the North Caucasus belong.
The oldest skull found in Alaska (Vorona site), according to anthropologists, harmoniously combines Caucasian and Mongoloid features.
In this article I put forward my version of the settlement of America in two versions.
I always wondered how it happened that Neanderthals disappeared 40-30 thousand years ago, and at the same time the settlement of America began? Modern science believes that Neanderthals became extinct and disappeared to God knows where, and does not answer where Cro-Magnon man came from.
Are we really going to be guided by the same principles that guided the church for many centuries in persecuting astronomers and Darwinists? Look, for example, at what the famous Russian scientist L.N. writes. Gumilyov: “...After the Ice Age, Neanderthal people appeared with a huge head and a strong, stocky body. Under circumstances unknown to us, the Neanderthals disappeared and were replaced by people of the modern type - “reasonable people.” In Palestine, material traces of the collision of two types of people have been preserved: reasonable and Neanderthal. In the Shil and Tabun caves on Mount Carmel, remains of crosses of two species were discovered. It is difficult to imagine the conditions of this hybrid, especially considering that Neanderthals were cannibals. In any case, the new mixed species turned out to be unviable."
Firstly, Neanderthal in Latin sounds like Homo Sapiens, that is, “reasonable man,” while Cro-Magnon Homo Sapiens Modernes or Homo Sapiens Sapiens, which means “modern reasonable man” or “twice intelligent man.”
Secondly, the soldiers of the colonial troops had offspring from such cannibals as Papuans, Hawaiians and Caribs.
Moreover, I believe that absolutely all races of modern humans descended from Neanderthals. Scientists testify to the presence of Mongoloid, Negroid and Caucasoid features in Americanoids and puzzle over how this could happen.
I put forward two parallel versions.
Version one.
About 30-40 thousand years ago, and maybe earlier, the Neanderthal partially left the Old World, transformed and returned as a Cro-Magnon man to his historical homeland. The transformation took place thanks to the climatic conditions of the new permanent residence.
Here the theory of dormant genes played a role, since it was a new race, it relatively quickly acquired new anthropological features, be it a Negroid or a Mongoloid.
If we consider this version, then the first wave were the ancestors of the Negroids, then the Caucasians and then the Mongoloids. The most recent wave, in my opinion, were the ancestors of the Caucasians. (Here we mean not Europeans, but an independent North Caucasian race. After all, the typical representatives of the North Caucasus have not much fewer distinctive features from Caucasians than Caucasians and Negroids.) In this case, one must take into account the fact that throughout all this time on the territory of the Old Light humanity developed independently, mixing with newly arrived emigrants from the east. Hence the cult of sand painting, which in ancient times was widespread in many parts of the world, and today exists only among Tibetan monks in the form of a mandala. But there are an infinite number of such examples: sacred ocher, Chinese culture of the Shang-Yin era, myths about the structure of the universe, the Tree of the World, the Great Dragon, pyramids and mounds, and much more. Most likely, American emigrants settled the “New Old World”, dissolving into local races whose ancestors did not leave their homeland. In this case, the newcomers adopted the languages of the natives and dissolved in them linguistically, as, for example, the Germanic-Russians and the Turkic-Bulgarians among the Slavic tribes they conquered, whose language survived thanks to the presence of writing, while neither the Turks nor the Germans had it.
For example, the ancient languages of the Americans may have been supplanted by Aryan languages during the period of the spread of the Vedas. Particularly isolated peoples, such as the Siberian Kets, living in remote areas of Western Siberia, and the North Caucasian Vainakhs, partially retained a morphology that is distantly related, but is most closely related to some Indian language groups. A.G. Karimullin finds more than two hundred common words between the Turkic languages and the languages of the Sioux Indians.
In that case, we are all a little Indian.
Version two.
This version takes into account the fact that Cro-Magnon is an independent branch of humanity.
About 40 thousand years ago, and maybe even earlier, the remnants of Neanderthal tribes from the territory of northern Europe, Siberia and India, pressed by Cro-Magnons (Caucasians), went east for herds of mammoths and giant bison. The settlement proceeded through Kamchatka and the Bering Isthmus. Over the course of several millennia, Neanderthals populated the entire New World from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Having penetrated the territory of modern America, it was already Americanus Neandertalius, who was already slightly different from the usual Neanderthal. Through natural mixing with previous waves, the blood began to renew itself, which contributed to a slight anthropological change.
For example, even when visually examining the skulls of Neanderthals, we find in some of them separate parts that resemble the skull of a modern person. For comparison, I present in illustrative material two skulls that most likely belonged to the same family and were found in the same cave. (see Fig. 4)
One has a more straightened forehead, but a jaw characteristic of a Neanderthal, the other has a better defined chin, but the forehead is more sloping, and the brow ridges are more pronounced.
So, elementary heredity could have worked in changing the appearance. As well as natural selection of more adapted traits.
But first of all, I want to dwell on two, in my opinion, significant factors that influenced the anthropology of the first Americans.
1. The abundance of animals and hunting contributed to the change in appearance.
Hunting in open space, where fast and long running was important, led to changes in the skeleton.
Also, collective hunting required loud command signs in the form of clear vowel sounds. We know that the structure of the speech apparatus in apes made it possible to pronounce only vowel sounds in the throat, since their speech apparatus had a flat upper palate, a close larynx and an underdeveloped alveolus. Neanderthals had a lower larynx, but the alveoli were not large enough for sounds like "r". And the vowel sounds, thanks to the pharynx not as distant as that of the Cro-Magnon, were louder and guttural. From this we can conclude that the languages of American Neanderthal hunters developed on the basis of guttural vowel sounds. It is noteworthy that in Indian languages, as well as in Chinese, there are almost no growling sounds, but a huge number of hissing and vowels. Indians, like Tibetans, are famous for their throat singing. All this partly confirms the construction in both of them of a speech apparatus close to that of the Neanderthals.
The development of the skeleton and speech apparatus significantly changed the appearance of the first
Americans.
2. The development of the species was also influenced by the theory of “rejuvenation of the species,” which I discuss in detail in the article “Evolution.”
These, in my opinion, are the two main factors that contributed to the rapid, instantaneous, from an evolutionary point of view, anthropological development of the Neanderthals. It is possible that at that time in America such religious cults as the cult of the Sun and fire worship were emerging, followed by the cremation of the dead, which, in fact, partially explains the virtual absence of remains of the first American Neanderthals.
Be that as it may, after thousands of years, the first settlers began to arrive in America - Caucasians (I mean the ancestors of the Caucasians, and not the European race at all), who mixed with the local population, forming the Neanderthal-Caucasian race.
The third wave of emigration over several thousand years was the ancestors of modern Mongoloids and Paleo-Asians.
My hypothesis has a right to exist, since I have a number of so far indirect, but obvious evidence.
At that time, the indigenous people of America were not only a distinct race, but also a completely different branch of humanity, remaining the first proto-race.
If we look at old photographs from the 19th century, many American Indians have obvious Neanderthal features. Sloping forehead, pronounced brow ridges, straight long nose, wide cheekbones and a wide, massive lower jaw. The eye line is much higher than the middle of the face, unlike the Cro-Magnon standard. In a Cro-Magnon, the distance from the nose to the line of the mouth occupies one third of the distance from the nose to the chin, and in most purebred Indians this line is in the middle. As an example, here are a few photos:
- a portrait of a typical North American Indian from the Cheyenne tribe - Wolf Cloak.
- photo from the magazine "GEO" - reconstruction of the face of a Neanderthal, front and profile.
- photo of a Nez Perce Indian taken in the last century.
The similarities are obvious.
In addition, the Indians, as the first protorace, did not have such huge differences between the sexes as among Caucasians or Negroids. In men, there is no hair or weak hair on the face and body; the hair on the head grows as long as in women. Women generally have small breasts, men have small penises. Both have sloping shoulders, miniature palms and feet.
About 10-4 thousand years ago, the second wave of emigrants began to arrive in the New World. These were typical Cro-Magnons - new races of Caucasoids and Mongoloids. They were Caucasians from Western Siberia and Mongoloids from East Asia. The mixing took place in the most bizarre way. To such an extent that representatives of one small tribe (about 500 people) could have completely different racial anthropological features - from obvious Asians to typical Caucasians.
Most likely, the emigrants dissolved among the native population, leaving their mark both in culture and in genetics. Since the Cro-Magnon emigrants, as a new species of man, had newer genetics, Neanderthal traits were slowly replaced by Asian and Caucasian ones. Moreover, this happened in a fairly short period of time. Therefore, when comparing modern American Indians with their ancestors, we notice more Asian and European features in the former (see photo).
The Indians, in turn, are divided into several anthropological races, each of which carries the traits of their dominant ancestors. The Indian-Mongoloid type is quite widespread among Indian tribes on the northwest coast of the Pacific Ocean (I provide photos of the Tlingit Indians in illustrations). But there are no particularly clear racial boundaries among Indian tribes. If the Mayans are closer to the Caucasians, then the Aztecs have more Mongoloid features. This also applies to small tribes such as the Apaches. The great thing about Indian culture is that for thousands of years individuality has been encouraged in every possible way, so that it is this trait that significantly distinguishes the Indians from their Mongoloid brothers.
Regardless of these categories, Native American skin color ranged from dark brown, copper red, to almost white. The hair could be wavy and brown, such as that of the famous Lakota warrior Crazy Horse.
If you haven't looked at the photos, take a look.
It's no secret that the indigenous inhabitants of North America are the Indians, who settled here long before the arrival of the white man. The first European to meet the Indians was the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus. He also called the unfamiliar people “Indians” because he believed that his ships had reached India. European colonization, which began in these lands after the discovery of Columbus, forced the indigenous population of America to leave their native lands and flee west to the Pacific coast. However, the colonialists moved further into the mainland every year. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the US leadership bought up the lands of the indigenous population for next to nothing and resettled the Indians on reservations. Today, about 4 million people live on reservations. Because the American government turns a blind eye to the unsanitary conditions, disease, poverty and crime that prevail on reservations, the descendants of North American Indians are forced to live in difficult conditions, deprived of basic amenities and decent medical care.
Origin of the Indians
No remains of great apes or prehistoric humans have yet been found in any country in North America. This fact suggests that the first modern people came to America from outside. Recent studies show that the indigenous peoples of North America belong to the Mongoloid race and are genetically closest to the inhabitants of Altai, Siberia and Mongolia.
History of Indian settlement in America
During the last ice age, a wave of emigration from Eurasia to North America began. The settlers moved along a narrow isthmus that was once located on the site of the Bering Strait. Most likely, two large groups of settlers arrived in America several hundred years apart. The second group came to the continent no later than 9000 BC. e., since around this time the glacier began to retreat, the level of the Arctic Ocean rose, and the isthmus between North America and Siberia disappeared under water. In general, researchers have not come to a consensus regarding the exact time of settlement of America.
In ancient times, the glacier covered almost the entire territory of modern Canada, therefore, in order not to remain in the middle of a snowy desert, settlers from Asia had to move for a long time along the bed of the Mackenzie River. Ultimately, they reached the modern border of the United States and Canada, where the climate was much milder and more fertile.
After this, some of the settlers turned east - to the Atlantic Ocean; part - to the west - to the Pacific Ocean; and the rest moved south into the territory of modern Mexico, Texas and Arizona.
Classification of Indian tribes
indian village The settlers quickly settled into their new place and gradually began to lose the cultural and everyday habits of their Asian ancestors. Each of the migrant groups began to acquire its own traits and characteristics that distinguished them from each other. This was due to the differences in climatic conditions in which these peoples lived. Already in the Archaic period, several main groups of North American Indians emerged:
- southwestern;
- eastern;
- inhabitants of the Great Plains and prairies;
- Californian;
- northwestern
Southwestern group
Indian tribes living in the southwest of the continent (Utah, Arizona) were distinguished by the highest level of development of culture and technology. The peoples who lived here included:
- The Pueblo are one of the most advanced indigenous peoples in North America;
- The Anasazi are a culture related to the Pueblos.
- Apaches and Navajos, who settled in the 14th-15th centuries on lands abandoned by the Pueblos.
During the Archaic era, the southwest of North America was a fertile region with a mild and humid climate, which allowed the Pueblos who settled here to successfully engage in agriculture. They succeeded not only in growing various crops, but also in building complex irrigation systems. Livestock farming was limited to raising turkeys. Also, the inhabitants of the southwest managed to tame the dog.
The Indians of the southwest borrowed many cultural achievements and inventions from their neighbors - the Mayans and Toltecs. Borrowings can be traced in architectural traditions, everyday life and religious views.
The Pueblo people settled primarily on the plains, where large settlements were built. In addition to residential buildings, the pueblos built fortresses, palaces and temples. Archaeological finds indicate a very high level of crafts. Researchers discovered here a lot of jewelry, mirrors inlaid with precious stones, magnificent ceramics, stone and metal utensils.
Close to the Pueblos, the Anasazi culture lived not on the plains, but in the mountains. At first, the Indians settled in natural caves, and then began to carve complex residential and religious complexes into the rocks.
Representatives of both cultures were distinguished by high artistic taste. The walls of the dwellings were decorated with beautifully executed images, and the clothes of the Pueblo and Anasazi people were decorated with a large number of beads made of stone, metal, bone and shells. Ancient craftsmen introduced an element of aesthetics into even the simplest things: wicker baskets, sandals, axes.
One of the main elements of the religious life of the Indians of the southwest was the cult of ancestors. People of that time treated with special reverence objects that could belong to a semi-mythical ancestor - smoking pipes, jewelry, staves, etc. Each clan worshiped its ancestor - an animal, spirit or cultural hero. Since in the southwest the transition from maternal to paternal clan occurred quite quickly, patriarchy formed here early. Men belonging to the same clan began to create their own secret societies and unions. Such unions celebrated religious ceremonies dedicated to their ancestors.
The climate in the southwest gradually changed, becoming increasingly arid and hot. Local residents had to make every effort to obtain water for their fields. However, even the best engineering and hydraulic solutions did not help them. At the beginning of the 14th century, the Great Drought began, affecting not only the North American continent, but also Europe. The Pueblos and Anasazis began to move to regions with a more favorable climate, and the Navajos and Apaches came to their lands, adopting the culture and way of life of their predecessors.
Eastern group
Tribes belonging to the eastern group lived in the Great Lakes region, as well as in a vast territory from Nebraska to Ohio. These tribes included:
- The Caddo peoples, whose descendants now live on a reservation in Oklahoma;
- Catawba, forced to a reservation in South Carolina in the 19th century;
- The Iroquois are one of the most highly developed, numerous and aggressive tribal unions in the region;
- The Hurons, most of whom now live in Canada - on the Lorette reservation, and many others.
These peoples began with the highly developed Mississippian culture, which existed from the 8th to the 16th centuries. The tribes that were part of it built cities and fortresses, created huge funeral complexes and constantly fought with their neighbors. The presence of temples and tombs indicates that this group of tribes has complex ideas about the afterlife and the structure of the Universe. People expressed their ideas in symbols: images of spiders, eyes, warriors, falcons, skulls and palms. Particular attention was paid to funeral ceremonies and preparation of the deceased for eternal life. The results of archaeological excavations suggest a certain death cult that existed in this region. It is associated not only with the splendor of the burials of local leaders and priests, but also with bloody sacrifices, often practiced by representatives of the Mississippian culture. Trade cults were of particular importance for the inhabitants of the east, ensuring good luck in hunting and fishing.
Also, representatives of the eastern tribes worshiped their totems - ancestors from the animal world. Images of totem animals were applied to homes, clothing and weapons. The most revered animal in eastern North America was the bear. But individual tribes could also honor other animals: birds of prey, wolves, foxes or turtles.
The most famous archaeological site left behind by the Eastern Indians is the mound complex of Cahokia, one of the largest cities in the region.
City image Apparently, the tribes living in eastern North America had a complex social structure. The main role in the life of the tribe was played by leaders and priests. Among noble persons there was a kind of vassalage that determined the social hierarchy in Western Europe. The leaders of the richest and most developed cities subjugated the heads of smaller and poorer settlements.
The east of North America at that time was covered with dense forest, which determined the range of main occupations of the Indians from this group. The tribes lived mainly by hunting. In addition, agriculture began to develop here quite quickly, although not at the same pace as in the southwest.
Residents of the east managed to establish trade with neighboring peoples. Particularly close connections were established with the inhabitants of modern Mexico. The mutual influence of the two cultures can be seen in architecture and some traditions.
Even before the arrival of Europeans, Mississippian culture began to decline. Obviously, due to the sharp increase in population, local residents began to lack land and resources. Also, the disappearance of this crop may be associated with the Great Drought. Many local residents began to leave their homes, and those who remained stopped building luxurious castles and temples. The culture in this region has become significantly coarser and simplified.
People of the Great Plains and Prairies
Between the arid southwest and the forested east lay a long strip of prairie and plains. It stretched from Canada all the way to Mexico. In ancient times, the peoples who lived here led a predominantly nomadic lifestyle, but over time they began to master agriculture, build long-term dwellings and gradually move to settled life. The following tribes lived on the Great Plains:
- Sioux people now living in Nebraska, the Dakotas, and southern Canada;
- Iowa, resettled on reservations in Kansas and Oklahoma in the first half of the 19th century;
- The Omaha are a tribe that barely survived the smallpox epidemic that broke out in the 18th century.
For a long time, Indians inhabited only the eastern part of the prairies, where several large rivers flowed, including the Rio Grande and Red River. Here they farmed corn and beans and hunted bison. After Europeans brought horses to North America, the lifestyle of the local population changed greatly. The prairie Indians partially returned to nomadism. Now they could move quickly over long distances and follow herds of bison.
In addition to the leader, the council, which included the heads of clans, played an important role in the life of the tribe. They decided all the key issues and were responsible for conducting some religious rituals. However, the real leaders of the tribes were not the chiefs and elders, but the sorcerers. Weather conditions, the number of bison, hunting results and much more depended on them. The Prairie Indians believed that every tree, stream, and animal contained a spirit. In order to achieve good luck or avoid getting into trouble, one had to be able to negotiate with such spirits and share the spoils with them.
It was the appearance of a resident of the Great Plains that formed the basis for the image of a typical North American Indian, popularized in media culture.
California group
Indians of California Some of the Asian settlers heading to the southwest decided not to stay on the plains of Arizona and Utah, but continued west until they hit the Pacific coast. The place where the nomads came seemed truly heavenly: a warm ocean full of fish and edible shellfish; an abundance of fruit and game. On the one hand, the mild climate of California allowed the settlers to live without needing anything and contributed to population growth, but on the other hand, the greenhouse living conditions negatively affected the level of culture and everyday skills of the local Indians. Unlike their neighbors, they never began to engage in agriculture and domestication of animals, did not mine metals and limited themselves to building only light huts. The mythology of the California Indians also cannot be called developed. Ideas about the structure of the universe and the afterlife were very vague and meager. Also, local residents practiced primitive shamanism, which mainly boiled down to simple witchcraft.
The following tribes lived in California:
- the Modocs, whose descendants have been on a reservation in Oregon since the early 20th century;
- The Klamaths, who now live on one of the California reservations, and many other smaller tribes.
In the middle of the 19th century, a white man came to California, and most of the Indians living here were exterminated.
Northwestern group
North of California, in the territory of modern Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Canada, lived Indians with a completely different way of life. These included:
- The Tsimshian, now living in the United States and Canada;
- The Blackfoots are a fairly numerous tribe, whose descendants live in Montana and Alberta;
- The Salish are a tribe of whalers now found in Washington and Oregon.
The climate on these lands was harsh and unsuitable for agriculture. For a long time, the northern United States and Canada were occupied by the glacier, but as it retreated, people settled these lands and adapted to the new conditions.
Lakota Indians in traditional and western clothes Unlike their southern neighbors, local residents wisely managed the natural resources given to them. Therefore, the northwest became one of the richest and most developed regions on the mainland. The tribes living here have achieved great success in whaling, fishing, walrus hunting and animal husbandry. Archaeological finds indicate a very high cultural level of the Indians of the northwest. They skillfully tanned hides, carved wood, made boats and traded with their neighbors.
The Indians of the northwest lived in wooden log houses made of cedar logs. These houses were richly decorated with images of totem animals and mosaics made of shells and stone.
The worldview of the local residents was based on totemism. The social hierarchy was built depending on a person’s belonging to one or another clan. The ancestor animals of the largest clans were the raven, whale, wolf and beaver. In the north-west, shamanism was highly developed and there was a whole set of complex cult rituals, with the help of which one could turn to spirits, send damage to an enemy, heal the sick, or get good luck in a hunt. In addition, among the Indians of the northwest, ideas about the reincarnation of ancestors are common.
Since the main source of wealth and food for the Indians of the northwest was the ocean, the Great Drought of the 13th-14th centuries had no impact on their daily life. The region continued to develop and prosper until Europeans arrived here.
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