American Indian culture

1. The origins of Indian culture.

The high cultures of the original Americans and all their remarkable successes, both in the material and spiritual fields, arose on the basis of original development.

The first culture that had already developed in America (which existed approximately 15 thousand years BC) - the Folsom culture, named after the place where its traces were found, does not differ in too noticeable progress compared with the Late Paleolithic culture of the inhabitants of the Sandia Cave. The center of the Folsom culture was the North American southwest (New Mexico). However, traces of this culture have been found throughout almost the entire territory of what is now the United States. These are mostly flint spearheads that Folsom hunters used to kill bison.

The first agricultural crop in America was the Cocheese culture. At this time, three or three and a half thousand years ago, corn was first grown. It compensated the Indians of pre-Columbian America for the lack of all other types of grain that the Old World possessed. And at the same time, the inhabitants of another part of North America, the region of the Great Lakes, are for the first time, still using a cold method, trying to process metal. At first it was copper, which the Indians found in its pure form. Meanwhile, the Indian population of the subarctic regions of North America (present-day Canada and Alaska) still remains at the level of a primitive culture, the basis of which is exclusively hunting for large animals (now it is mainly caribou) and fishing.

Following the first North American agricultural culture, the Cochisi culture, on both coasts of North America, the history of this part of the New World included the culture of shell heaps, or rather kitchen heaps. Indian fishermen who lived here many, many hundreds of years ago threw food scraps, bone needles, knives and other tools, often made from shells, into this landfill (hence the second name of the culture). And now such heaps of shells for Americanists are a rich, valuable evidence of the life of the Indians of that time.

Directly beyond the Cochise in the southwest of North America, a new agricultural culture arose, which was also based on the cultivation of corn - the culture of basket makers - “basket makers” (approximately 200 BC - 400 AD). It got its name from special type waterproof baskets shaped like pots that “basket makers” wove to cook porridge-like food in. The “basket makers” still lived in caves. But inside these caves they were already building real houses. The main habitat of these Indians was Arizona. Here, especially in Dead Man Canyon, numerous traces of them have been found in various caves. The Basket Maker tree near Fall Creek in southern Colorado can be dated (with some variation) to 242, 268, 308, and 330 CE. e.

In the era when the “basket makers” culture was living out its life in the North American southwest, a new culture was emerging, the culture of the inhabitants of rock cities, who built their “cities” under the natural sheer walls of sandstone or tuff, or in the deep river canyons of the North American southwest, or, finally, right in the rocks. Their houses, in the construction of which extensively used caves created by nature itself, grew horizontally and vertically, squeezed into the recesses of the rocks and piled on top of each other. Adobes, bricks dried in the sun, were usually used to build walls. We find such settlements in the North American southwest in the canyons of several large rivers. In these Indian cities, next to the rectangular living quarters, we always find round buildings. These are sanctuaries that were called beer by the Indians. They were also a kind of “men's clubs”. Although they were built exclusively by women, they were forbidden to enter these temples.

The builders of these settlements in the cliffs and deep Colorado canyons did not build a city, but one large house. Each room was built close to the other, cell to cell, and all together they represented a gigantic structure, similar to a honeycomb and numbering several dozen, or even hundreds of residential premises and sanctuaries. For example, the house-city of Pueblo Bonito in Chaca Canyon had 650 living quarters and 20 sanctuaries, or kivas. This semicircular house-city, within the walls of which one could accommodate all the inhabitants of a small Czech town, was the largest structure in all of pre-Columbian North America.

The large number of sanctuaries (kivas) in each of these house-cities testifies to an important fact: the development of agriculture here went hand in hand with the development of religion. None of the rock cities has its own agora, some kind of gathering point for solving public issues. However, each of them has dozens of temples.

After several centuries, these people leave their amazing cities, carved into the rocks or hidden under the cliffs of the southwestern canyons, and move - literally - closer to the sun. They build their new settlements (we now call them pueblos, just like the house-cities in the river canyons) on flat, steep hills called mesa (mesa is Spanish for “table”). New pueblos are also growing like a honeycomb. The inhabitants of such pueblos, regardless of their linguistic affiliation, we usually call by the common name Pueblo Indians. This is the last, highest stage in the development of pre-Columbian cultures of North America. The Pueblo Indians are the indirect heirs of the inhabitants of the rock cities, as well as representatives of much less known agricultural cultures - the Hohokam and the Mogollon.

However, the level of development of agriculture among the Pueblo Indians is immeasurably higher than that of their predecessors. They built extensive irrigation systems, which were of great importance in this rather arid area. The main agricultural crop was still corn (they grew more than ten varieties of it), in addition, pumpkin, red peppers, lettuce, beans, and tobacco were grown. The fields were cultivated with a wooden hoe. Along with this, the Pueblo Indians domesticated dogs and bred turtles. Hunting became for them only additional source food. They hunted deer, and more often, now completely extinct animals, a little reminiscent of the South American llama. Hunting was one of the men's activities. Men also wove and made weapons. Women cultivated the fields. The construction of dwellings was also exclusively a woman's task. The Pueblo Indians were excellent potters, although, like all other American Indian groups, they were not familiar with the potter's wheel before the arrival of the first Europeans. Men and women were engaged in the production of ceramics together.

In the pueblo, women played a significant role. During the era of the first Spaniards, matriarchy completely prevailed in almost all Indian tribes. Cultivated lands were shared and distributed equally among women - heads of families. After the wedding, the husband moved into his wife's house, but only as a guest. The “divorce” was carried out without any difficulties. After the severance of marital ties, the husband had to leave the house. The children remained with their mother.

The inhabitants of each pueblo were divided into a number of clan groups. They were usually named after some animal or plant. And all members of the clan considered this totem to be their ancient ancestor. Several clan groups made up a phratry - a clan association that also bore the name of an animal or plant. Gathering in phratries, Pueblo residents performed religious ceremonies, during which the entire life cycle of a particular totemic animal, for example an antelope, was usually depicted. Religion occupied an exceptional place in the life of the Pueblo Indians. Religious ideas were inextricably linked with agricultural skills. When a mother had a baby, the first thing she did was smear the newborn's mouth with cornmeal gruel. With the same gruel, my father painted sacred signs on all the walls of the house. In the same way, all other important events in life in the minds of the Pueblo Indian were associated with corn. The main deities were considered the sun and mother earth. A significant role was played by jointly celebrated religious rites - ritual dances. The most important of them was the so-called snake dance - a ritual act of worship of snakes - the legendary ancestors of the Indians. The priests danced with a rattlesnake in their teeth. At the end of the ceremony, the women sprinkled the rattlesnakes with corn kernels.

The so-called Kachina was and still is of particular importance to the Pueblo Indians. This is something like a dance drama, which was performed in ritual masks depicting certain deities. Miniature reproductions of these deities are “children's kachinas” - dolls. Receiving such dolls as a gift, Indian children had to learn in advance to recognize the characters of ritual dances.

All religious ceremonies were performed either in the pueblo square or in the kiva. Inside the sanctuary there was a kind of altar with images of totem animals of one or another phratry. For example, in the “snake kiva” the main decoration was a curtain with the hollow bodies of snakes made of fabric sewn to it. During the ritual, the priest, who was behind the veil, inserted his hand into the body of such a snake, forcing it to move.

Until the middle of the 19th century, the inhabitants of the Pueblos of the North American southwest did not come into close contact with whites and thus retained without significant changes the characteristic features of their culture, which over the past six to eight centuries has not undergone any qualitative changes.

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John Manchip White, a famous historian, describes in detail the life and customs of the North American Indian tribes. You will follow the difficult path of their nomadism, learn about how they hunted and cultivated the land, taught and raised children, and said goodbye to their relatives forever. White's book is an inexhaustible source for studying the cultural heritage of a people who, despite all the difficulties, managed to preserve their national identity.

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The given introductory fragment of the book Indians of North America. Life, religion, culture (D. M. White) provided by our book partner - the company liters.

Hunters

Our excursion into the history of the American Indians, dating back about 30,000 years, clearly shows the inconsistency of the simplified popular image of the Indian, which was created by Hollywood and the show “In the Wild West”. At the same time that Europe was following its historical path through the rise and fall of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome and the Middle Ages, diverse and distinctive cultures arose and developed in North America, in no way inferior to the Celtic and Saxon.

However, by 1500 AD. e. the ancient Indian cultures of the east and southwest were in decline and were going through a stage of fundamental change. The heyday of Indian culture in its original, so to speak, untouched form has passed. The Europeans were quite surprised to find deep cultural traditions among the local indigenous population, rooted in the distant past, which, however, were in a state of decline. Later, the Americans will try to present the Indian only as a savage, since, firstly, his way of life was alien and incomprehensible to the white settlers, and secondly, it was beneficial for them to denigrate the native inhabitants of America in order to have a justification for displacing the Indians from their lands and the actual destruction of the Indian lifestyle. However, in our time, such tricks no longer work. It should be admitted that the fictitious and implanted image of the Indian had nothing in common with reality: he was not a dark nomad, but a master with a high original culture, who in his time reached undeniable heights in art, crafts, architecture, and agriculture. Europeans arrived in America when Indian culture was at the lowest point of its cycle; and who knows what new heights it would have reached in its development, when the “swing” would have gone up, without the intervention of Europeans?

When Europeans arrived in the New World 500 years ago, it was completely impossible to form a clear picture of the life of the Indians, even if at that time they were familiar with all the modern scientific and technical achievements of anthropology. The picture was too complex and diverse. If today the surviving 263 Indian tribes, including the smallest ones, speak 50–100 languages, then 200 years ago there were about 600 tribes speaking at least 300 languages.

It may seem that the study and classification of Indian languages ​​can serve as a good basis for the corresponding classification of Indian tribes and nationalities. However, a careful study of the languages ​​of the North American Indians only complicates the task, since communication between certain tribes took place in these languages ​​many years ago, and much has changed since then, especially since all this is also influenced by various factors associated with the development of cultures.

However, it can be assumed that there were several main linguistic groups associated with the corresponding groups of the ancient indigenous people of the United States and Canada, which were later distributed by them throughout the North American continent. Linguistic specialists do not have a unified methodology for identifying the main language groups and their exact names. There are several approaches, so in order not to go into the intricacies of this very complex topic, we will limit ourselves to designating the most common language groups (see map on page 51).

The main language groups are: Athabaskan (or Athabaskan), spoken mainly in Canada and with an offshoot in the southwestern United States; Algonquin, covering the entire continent from west to east; Hokan Sioux, or Siouan, common in the southeastern and central regions of the United States. Three smaller groups can also be noted: the Eskimo-Aleutian, covering the Arctic regions of Canada; the Californian-Pacific, common in areas of the West Coast of the Pacific Ocean, and the Uto-Aztec, covering the most remote desert regions of the western United States. The above division into six language groups is, of course, very general and deliberately simplified. It cannot convey the complexity of linguistic diversity and interweaving; These groups also include a number of subgroups: Muskogean, which includes a number of important languages ​​found in the southwest; the Caddoan, covering the southern regions of the Plains and North and South Dakota; Shoshone, common in the territory of the Uto-Aztecan group. The amazing diversity of Indian languages ​​is evidenced by the fact that the few Pueblo Indians living in New Mexico today speak three different languages: Tanoan, Keresan and Zuni. At the same time, the Tanoan language is divided, in turn, into three more: Tiwa, Tewa and Tova, and the Keresan language is divided into Western Keresan and Eastern Keresan.

It is not surprising that such a situation complicated verbal communication between neighboring tribes, even those related to each other. During meetings, one had to communicate in sign language, as if a Bolivian had to communicate with a Bulgarian, or a Norwegian with a Nigerian. At the same time, the Indian sign language was very fast, complex and succinct, which made a strong impression on white travelers. Linguistic diversity also influenced cultural differences, which prevented the Indians from uniting in the fight against white Americans. To the factor of small numbers and fragmentation of individual tribes was added the factor of the language barrier between them.

Let us, however, leave aside the language problem, which causes many difficulties even for specialists, and return to the five regions that we have identified as the main areas of ancient cultures. Let us remember that these were: southwest; the eastern forest zone, which included the Great Lakes region, as well as the northeast and southeast; Great Plains and Prairie region; California and Great Basin region; northwest and adjacent plateaus. Let's consider how Indian tribes developed in these areas in the period after the discovery of America by Columbus.

Again, it should be noted that there are several points of view and methods on the issue of identifying the main areas where Indian tribes were located and the impact of ancient cultures on their formation and development. Thus, the outstanding anthropologist K. Wissler twice proposed various versions of his own classification: in 1914 and 1938 Such luminaries as A.L. also offered their options. Kroeber and H.E. Driver.

The number of main areas of distribution of cultures, especially significant for the development of Indian tribes, varied at different times from seven to seventeen. Kroeber, in particular, believed that there were seven main regions, and they, in turn, were further subdivided into no less than 84 smaller regions, which once again shows how diverse the Indian tribes were, how vast in scope, although and with varying densities, they were scattered throughout the continent and how complex and diverse the relationship between them was. The diagram given in this book on p. 54, simplified; its main advantage is that it can be worked with and is easy to perceive by eye. I have tried to indicate some of the most important tribes, a number of which no longer exist today. Of course, taking into account the fact that there were about six hundred tribes, this list cannot claim to be complete and exhaustive. These tribes are descendants of the ancient inhabitants of America, but it is extremely difficult to trace the direct line of connection of a particular tribe with its ancestors. In addition, only one of the Indian languages ​​had a written language. It was the language of the Cherokee tribe; Thanks to the efforts of an outstanding representative of this tribe, Sequoia, the Cherokee alphabet was created, which, along with other monuments of Cherokee writing, became available in the early 20s. XIX century Sequoyah was a fur and fur trader; he graduated from a missionary school. As a result of the accident he was injured. He will forever remain in history as one of the outstanding representatives of Indian culture.

Thus, no monuments of Indian writing have survived, with the exception of the above; This was also accompanied by the constant movement of many tribes across the continent, which often led to the mixing of different tribes and complicated the identification of the line of their cultural kinship and traditions. Only in those areas where tribes lived a sedentary life for a long time is it possible to trace who was the direct ancestor of a particular tribe. So, if we take the southwest, which was characterized mainly by sedentary life, it can be assumed with a high degree of probability that the current Pima and Papago Indians are direct descendants of the ancient people of the Hohokam culture, and most of today’s Pueblo Indians are descendants of the people of the Anasazi culture. However, even in the settled southwest, it is often very difficult to clearly trace such a connection.

So, let us present our proposed scheme for the settlement of Indian tribes in the five main regions of the North American continent, excluding the Arctic regions and Mexico (but in no way downplaying the importance of the latter).

1. Southwest

Main tribes:

Pima, Papago, Hopi, Pueblo Indians, Maricopa. Later, Navajos, Apaches and Yaquis appeared here.

2. Forest zone of the east

a) Tribes of the Eastern Algonquian linguistic group:

Abnaki, Penobscot, Mohican, Pennacock, Massachusetts, Wampanoag, Narragansett, Pequot, Delaware, Powhatan.

b) Confederation (or Union, League) of Iroquois tribes:

Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Mohawk. Later the Tuscaroras joined.

c) Tribes of the Central Algonquian linguistic group:

Ojibway, or Chippewa, Ottawa, Menominee, Santee, Dakota, Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo, Winnebago, Potawatomi, Illinois, Miami.

d) Tribes of the southeast (“Five Civilized Tribes”):

Creeks, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Cherokees and Seminoles; also Caddo, Natchez (Natche), Kupawa.

3. Great Plains region

Main tribes:

Blackfoot, Piegan, Cree, Acin or Gros Ventre, Assiniboine, Crow, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Shoshone, Ute, Gosute, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Pawnee, Ponca, Omaha, Iowa, Kansa, Missouri, Kiowa, Osage, Comanche.

Sioux-speaking tribes:

group of Eastern Sioux (Dakota) tribes:

Mvdecantons, Wapecutons, Sissetons, Wapetons.

Plains Sioux Tribal Group (Tetons and Lakotas):

Oglala, Brule, Sans Arc, Blackfoot, Miniconjou, Ochenonpe.

Wiciela Sioux or Nakot Tribal Group:

Yanktons and Yanktonai.

4. California and Great Basin region

Main tribes:

Shushwaps, Lillooes, Selish and Kootenays (flatheads), Yakima, Coeur d'Alenes, Nez Perce, Bannocks, Paiutes, Shoshone, Utes, Chemukhevs, Walapai, Havasupai, Mohave, Yavapai, Yuma, Cocops, Yurok, Wiyots, Wintuns, Yuchis, Pomo, Yana, Maidu, Patwin, Miwok, Costanyu, Salinan, Yokut, Shumashi.

5. Northwest

Main tribes:

Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Haila, Bela Kula, Hilsuk, Nootka, Makah, Quinolt, Chinook, Tilamook, Kulapua, Klamath, Karok, Shasta.

About 100 tribes out of the known six hundred are listed here. Some of them were very numerous and occupied an impressive territory; others, on the contrary, were few in number and were content with a very modest territory. At the same time, direct dependence did not always exist. There were often cases when small tribes moved (roamed) over a very vast territory, while large ones led a sedentary life on a small piece of land with an area of ​​only a few square kilometers. So, if in the Plains region there were about 100,000 Indians, that is, the average population density was approximately 3 people per 1 sq. km, then in the areas of the north-west a similar number was squeezed into a small strip of the Pacific coast, and the average density was 30–35 people per 1 sq. km. km. Tribes of the Eastern Algonquian linguistic group who lived on Atlantic coast, also numbered about 100,000 people with an average density of 12–15 people per 1 sq. km. According to available data, 750,000–1,000,000 Indians lived in pre-Columbian America. Moreover, the majority avoided the barren, windswept central regions and tried to settle along the ocean coast - both in the east and in the west: after all, the waters of the oceans, as well as the rivers flowing into them, were full of fish, so necessary for food. Even those who lived in the central regions of the continent tried to stay, for the same reason, close to rivers and reservoirs. One of the many communities that lived in the central regions were the Pueblo Indians of the southwest. They tried to settle along the Rio Grande and its tributaries, which were then wider and deeper than they are now. This anciently populated area was home to about 35,000 people and recorded the highest average population density on the North American continent - 45 people per 1 square meter. km.

Regardless of where the Indian lived and what tribe he belonged to, he had an occupation that captivated him completely. It was a hunt.

The life of the Indians depended almost entirely on food production, and its main source was hunting. The hunting instinct was passed on to the Indians from generation to generation from distant ancestors who hunted in the vast expanses of Siberia. It was this instinct that led ancient hunters to the North American continent, where, despite climate change, there was always a vast territory replete with inexhaustible reserves of potential hunting trophies.

Indians were not vegetarians. Although they included fish and vegetables in their diet, the main role in it was played by high-protein food - meat, which was obtained by hunting a wide variety of animals: both large, medium and small. Although, as we will see in the next chapter, the Indians had agricultural skills, they never mastered the art of domesticating and breeding domestic animals to the same extent as the Europeans. It was only a century ago that white Americans taught them to raise goats, sheep and cattle; however, it must be said that the Indians learned all this quickly and well and today are good livestock breeders and shepherds. But in most cases, even in times new history, after the death of several agricultural crops, the life and survival of entire tribes depended almost entirely on hunting.

An Indian tribe was usually divided into several detachments, which each hunted in their own territory, so that the tribe gathered in its entirety either in case of war or on religious holidays. Each detachment had its own structure and its own commanders; Contacts between groups of the same tribe were so rare that sometimes Indians of different groups spoke different languages ​​and dialects. The size of the detachment was usually 100–150 people, but it was often smaller. When the number of the detachment began to grow and reached what was considered a critical point of 200 people, the detachment was divided into smaller ones, since it was difficult to feed many people. Several families, led by a young man with a strong character and leadership abilities, separated, formed their own detachment and set off to seek their fortune. In this way, the clan was divided: some relatives remained, some left. Sometimes this happened with the blessing of elders, sometimes as a result of a quarrel or civil strife.

Hunters played a major role in the new community. Wissler calculated from historical data that a community of 100 people required a minimum of 1.8 kg of meat per day for each person. To obtain this amount of meat, a group of the best hunters in the community, consisting of 5-10 people, had to kill four deer or one deer every day, or three to four elk or two bison every week. This was a very difficult task. As Wissler notes in this regard, “the Indian had no time to idle.” It is not surprising that Indian boys learned to use miniature bows and arrows from childhood, and their first toys were knives and spears, which they were taught to use from the moment they began to walk. The hunter, who had a keen eye, a steady hand and was easy-going, occupied a leading position in the community.

It was hunting that shaped the character of the American Indian and gave him unique originality and identity. Of course, not all Indians were the same. The Indian, who led a sedentary lifestyle and was engaged in agriculture, differed from his fellow nomad, who spent most of his life in the saddle, both in his outlook on life and in his temperament. Ruth Benedict, in her famous work Patterns of Culture, applied the concepts of Nietzsche and Spengler to the Indians, dividing them into two types, each most associated with one of the two principles formulated by these philosophers. Those who are characterized by the “Apollo” principle are cool-headed, self-controlled, disciplined, independent, and are “cold, sober-minded people of a classical cultural disposition.” Others, characterized by a “Faustian”, according to Spengler’s definition (and by Nietzsche – “Dionysian”) principle, are hot, passionate, restless, aggressive, acting impulsively and intuitively and never leaving their world of dreams and illusions, which is for them the most important component of real life, “people of a romantic nature, full of hot, living energy.” People of the "Apollo" origin rarely resort to stimulants of any kind, if at all; “Faustians,” on the contrary, willingly use narcotic substances and other stimulants in order to maintain the ecstatic energy level they require.

The life and everyday life of a hunter affected both the bearers of the “classical” Apollonian and the “romantic” Faustian principles. The life of a hunter, full of difficulties and tension, feeling the constant burden of responsibility for the livelihoods of his fellow tribesmen, had a very strong influence on the character of the Indians, developing seriousness and concentration, if not gloom and isolation. The hunt contained not only moments of joy and abundance, but also nervous and physical tension, isolation, sometimes loneliness, isolation from loved ones, and work until complete exhaustion. Pursuing wild animals on foot (horses, as we have already said, appeared later), not for pleasure, but for the livelihood of fellow tribesmen, represented a heavy psychological burden of responsibility. You only have to look at a photograph of any Indian taken before 1890 to see this. At the same time, hunting was not an ordinary mechanical work: it was considered a noble and very respected business, worthy of a real man. Hunting contributed to the development of very important and useful qualities among the Indians - endurance, tranquility, patience and endurance that were supernatural in the eyes of others, and, finally, an amazing feeling of complete unity with nature in all its complexity and diversity. For a successful hunt, it was necessary to subtly sense nature and unravel its deepest secrets. It was the many years of hunting throughout almost his entire life that sharpened and consolidated all the above-mentioned qualities in the Indian, developing in him truly phenomenal sensitivity, intuition and flair.

Most tribes chose places for camps and settlements so that it was convenient to hunt. Even those tribes that were engaged in agriculture tried to settle in places where there were many animals that could be hunted. They usually hunted in the vicinity of their settlements, and when the number of animals in the area decreased significantly, this became a signal that they needed to look for a new place of residence. Some tribes constantly followed herds or large groups of animals, just as today's Laplanders follow herds of reindeer. Others made large hunting trips, leaving their permanent settlements for a while. Such expeditions were planned with extreme care. When the crops from the fields were collected and stored in storage, almost all the inhabitants of the settlement took part in this hunting expedition, which could last weeks or even months. On the march they moved very evenly and orderly, in marching order. The roles were clearly distributed: there were scouts, porters, as well as a vanguard and a rearguard. When they reached the hunting territory, where animals rested and reproduced during the period low season, the strictest internal regulations came into effect. Complete silence was to be observed, and anyone who spooked the animal or attempted to clumsily pursue it was severely punished by the tribal law enforcement. While the men hunted according to a carefully developed plan in advance, women and children collected fruits, berries and roots. When a sufficient number of animals were hunted, the necessary preparations of meat and skins were made, all this was packed, like all hunting supplies, and the people set off on the return journey to their permanent settlement. Here, both the dwellings and food storage pits were put in order before their arrival and prepared for the winter by the part of the tribe remaining at home. Thus, conditions were created to calmly spend the winter and relax during the winter.

Before the advent of the horse, all such transitions were carried out on foot. But even with its appearance, not every Indian had a horse: only rich tribes had large herds of horses. In most tribes, horses were used in turns. However, even before the appearance of the horse, the Indians invented a number of convenient devices that were very helpful on the road. Ever since the days of Siberian hunters, who had to hunt in arctic regions with harsh winter climates, the ancient Indians used sleds and sleds, toboggans and snowshoes, which were either made from a single piece of wood or the upper part was attached with leather straps to a base of wood or bone. The sled was moved either by dragging or with the help of several dogs harnessed to a sled. Dogs were the only domesticated animal domesticated by the Indians. However, the statement that they were tamed is most likely an exaggeration: most likely, wild dogs themselves came to man and, figuratively speaking, tamed him themselves. On cold winter nights, seeing the lights of the Indian camp, they went to people in search of warmth, food, shelter and communication. In the countries of the Old World, dogs have been known to man since ancient times (for example, several breeds were developed by the Egyptians and Assyrians); in the New World they have served man since 5000 BC. e. The largest and strongest breeds are found among the Eskimos and Northern Algonquian tribes; these are, in particular, huskies and other breeds of sled dogs of the Arctic regions. The further south you go, the smaller the rock was. For example, the Mexican Chiahua and Hairless Mexican dogs belong to the category of almost dwarf dogs. The hairless Mexican has, for some reason, a very high body temperature, so in Mexico it is specially fattened and used as a delicacy. There is no doubt that North American dogs are mixed breeds with wolves and coyotes, the Indians often deliberately keeping wolves and dogs together from a very early age in order to improve the breed. Native American children were often given baby wolves and coyotes as gifts so that the children would grow up with them and tame them.

Like the ancient Mexicans (as well as the Romans and Greeks), North American Indians used dogs for food, although usually for ritual purposes. Sometimes dogs acted as objects of religious worship; they were solemnly sacrificed and buried, observing all the rules of the religious ceremony. However, in most cases the dog was a working animal. It was often used as a draft force: it was harnessed either to a sled with a load, or to a drag - a device for transporting cargo made from wooden poles.

Later, a horse was harnessed to this device; The French, when they first saw this device, gave it the name travois. The wheel was brought to America by Europeans; the active use of this most important technical innovation, along with others, greatly helped them in conquering the entire continent. The principle of the wheel was also discovered in ancient Mexico by some unknown genius inventor; however, the significance of this discovery was not understood and it was used only in the manufacture of children's toys.

Before the advent of the horse, lifting and carrying loads was carried out by people themselves. The Indians were familiar with devices for carrying loads on the back; they also knew how to carry a load on their heads and used a special lining made from a piece of cloth or a piece of clothing, which they placed on their heads under a jug of water. The weight was tied with a special twine at the base, and a cloth ribbon was wrapped around the forehead - this supporting device has been known in the southwest since the period of the “basket workers”; it subsequently became widely used throughout the continent.

One of the methods of transportation used by the Indians, which can really be called their “highlight” or, as sportsmen say, “crown,” is movement on the water using canoes, various fishing boats and other numerous varieties of small ships and boats. And on the lakes, and on the rivers, and on the waters of the ocean, one could see entire flotillas of skillfully made and decorated oared ships on which the Indians moved. Some of them were made of reeds, like the ancient Egyptian ships made of papyrus. Others were sewn from leather, or hollowed out from a tree trunk, or made through a complex and highly skilled process. However, the best boats of their kind were Eskimo kayaks and umyaks made from Eskimo skins. The Ojibways who lived on Lake Superior built a 4.5 m long canoe in two weeks of hard work; men did the main and heaviest work with wood, and women did the stitching and plating. The top of the canoe was covered with birch bark; the ribs, props, oarsmen's seats and gunwales were made of white cedar, the floor was laid with pieces of cedar; the seams were sewn together with pine roots, and the gaps were filled with pine resin. Such boats were quite light - they could be carried from river to river or across rapids. Men sometimes had to carry the canoe long distances to the water. Thus, in the upper part of New York State there was the famous Great Road, which consisted of two main routes along which boats were dragged between Hudson Bay, the Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes region. These light boats could be used for other purposes. For example, they were placed above the smoke hole of houses to prevent rain from getting inside. Nevertheless, these boats pale in comparison to the creations of the masters of the northwest, who were considered one of the most outstanding shipbuilders Ancient world. The Haida Indians built ships 21 m long that could carry up to 3 tons of cargo and up to 60 people. They were carved from one huge red cedar trunk and decorated with both carved and painted designs; they were steered with the help of elegant decorated oars.

Two such powerful vessels could be connected by a wooden deck; in this case they were used as one warship. A flotilla of such ships, moving at full speed, was a very impressive sight.

Canoes were used not only for travel, trading and fishing, but also for hunting in order to get closer to prey. In those areas where deer, elk and deer lived, they often had to be pursued by moving through the water. Even buffalo hunters in the southwest tried to get closer to the herds using wide rivers.

Maral, elk, deer, reindeer and bison were the largest animals hunted at that time, and their meat was also the most delicious and juicy. However, only Indians who lived in the northern regions bordering the glacier could hunt them. It was very difficult to defeat these large, 2.5 m tall animals, although the Indians knew the techniques of ancient hunters who had to deal with woolly mammoths and mastodons twice as large. As for the bison (Bison antiquus), which was found in abundance then, but has now disappeared, it was a giant, almost as big as a mammoth, and the bison that has survived to this day, belonging to the species Bison bison, is taller than the average Indian and has the same powerful and massive build as the related bull. These large animals could move quickly and tirelessly across ice, snow and the expanses of the tundra, and it took a lot of perseverance and endurance to catch up with them.

Let's complete our consideration of large animals with a bear - an animal even wilder and more dangerous than the above. All Indians treated the bear with great respect. The grizzly bear (Ursus Ferox), which lived in the Rocky Mountains, was a giant, 3 m tall and weighing 360 kg. He was able to drag a 450-kilogram bison carcass into his cave. The polar bear living in the Arctic regions had the same impressive dimensions. Although the other two types of bears - brown and black - were almost small in size compared to the previous ones, they also possessed such qualities as resourcefulness and intelligence, constant readiness to fight, as well as enormous strength. Having killed a bear while hunting, the Indian performed a whole ritual over the slain animal: he asked for its forgiveness, inserted a pipe of tobacco into its mouth, called him (or her) grandfather or grandmother and tried in every possible way to appease the spirit of the dead animal. Hunters of large animals were completely dependent on the movement of herds of these animals and were forced to relentlessly follow them. At the same time, smaller animals were also hunted, including deer, antelope and wild goat. If today a hunter-athlete, armed with a rapid-fire rifle with a telescopic sight, considers these animals an almost elusive target, then it may seem simply incredible that an Indian of those times could catch up and kill them, moving only on foot. In North America, there were three species of deer that lived in large numbers in Canada and the United States, and none of them were large in size. This is a common, or Virginia, deer; mixed (hybrid) type deer; black tailed deer. Among the antelopes there is an antelope with straight horns, reminiscent of tines or pitchforks in shape; and the most famous variety of wild goat is the big-horned goat argali, the horns of which reach a length of about 2 m each and are wrapped in dense circles on both sides of the head.

The Indians also hunted other animals necessary for subsistence. Some were used for meat, others were valued for their fur and were used to make clothing and various items. household items. Wolves were mainly used for these purposes (in North America there were five main species: gray, white, mottled or spotted, marsupial and black); coyotes, or steppe wolves, foxes, including northern (polar) foxes, wolverines, raccoons. Many other animals were also used - it’s impossible to list them all. Let us name, for example, the hare, wild rabbit, weasel, ermine, mink, marten, badger, skunk, squirrel, bag rat, prairie dog, marmot, beaver, porcupine, as well as rat and mouse. Many different fragments of famous Indian outfits were made from them. Also worth mentioning are the marine mammals caught by fishermen on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts: whales, walruses, killer whales, sea lions, dolphins and sea otters.

Types of hunting weapons

What weapons did the Indians hunt with? Taking into account the fact that we are talking about the Stone Age period, when all the tools were made by hand, we can say that the Indians created a very diverse arsenal, consisting of quite skillfully made samples.

The Indians initially knew how to skillfully handle stone. Arrow and spear tips, axes and maces (clubs) were made from it. In ancient times, types of stone suitable for this purpose were used in great demand and trade in such types of stone was carried out over very large areas. Black obsidian, which was mined only in the southwest, was brought to the Mississippi Valley; brown flint from western Tennessee was transported thousands of kilometers from the mining site; flint mined in the Amarillo region of Texas was also shipped to locations farther away in both the west and east.

The art of making flint tools is one of the oldest in the world. The projectile points used by hunters from the Clovis, Folsom and Scotsbluff cultures are as good as those made in the 19th century, with a tradition going back 30,000 years. Flint tools have been made all over the world at all times: they came to this both independently and as a result of the contact of different cultures. In any case, the North American Indians achieved a high level of skill in this. They knew how to break off several fragments from the main part of the stone using another stone or an antler hammer. They also knew how to give these fragments the necessary shape and how to further refine the working edge of the products through gentle pressure using softer bone tools. At the final stage, sharpening and grinding were carried out, for which sand, sandstone and other grinding materials were used. In the northwest, shark skin was used in large quantities, which was a kind of analogue of today's sandpaper.

When the tips, scrapers, axes with and without a notch (the latter are called celts by archaeologists) were ready, they were either mounted on the shaft and handle using a specially prepared hollow, or simply attached using straps made of leather or tendons. Sometimes the tips were secured with resin. Each tribe had its own favorite method of making tools. In the north, for example, in addition to stone, they used the bones of fish and seals or the antlers of deer, deer and deer; after soaking this raw material in water, it became more pliable and easier to work with.

The main weapons of the Indians were spears of various types. The tip, made of flint or bone, was carefully sharpened and then fired over the fire of a camp fire. The discovery of the possibility of using a spear as a throwing weapon was of great importance: for this they began to use a smaller dart, as well as a spear thrower - atlatl, with which a dart could be thrown with greater force and over a greater distance. The atlatl (the word is Aztec) was a short piece of wood with a flint or bone socket at the end into which a spear or javelin was inserted; it acted as a lever that gave the spear and dart significant acceleration. Of course, it took a lot of time and effort to learn how to skillfully wield such weapons, but the Indians mastered and improved their weapons with no less tenacity than the whites - their Colts and derringers.

No one knows exactly when bows and arrows began to be used in the New World. In the Old World they were known around 5000 BC. e., but appeared in America no earlier than 500 AD. e. How the onion got here and which tribes were the first to use it remains a mystery that, apparently, remains unsolvable. In any case, the invention of the bow was of great importance and represented the same leap in the development of weapons as the transition from horse to tank. The "firepower" of the Indian, which for 30,000 years had been reduced to the spear and javelin, was greatly enhanced. Soon the Indians, like their “colleagues” in the Old World, were already skillfully making bows from the hardest and at the same time flexible types of wood, such as ash, yew and mulberry, using hot fire ashes to give the bow the necessary shape. Again, in different areas, onions were made with their own specifics characteristic of a given area. In many places the bow was strengthened by inlaying fragments of bone or sinew; tendons or twisted fiber were used both as material for the bowstring, and also to strengthen the bow both at the places where the bowstring is attached and in the middle. Each tribe made arrows in its own way, using wood or reeds and adding eagle, hawk, buzzard or turkey feathers to the arrows. A skilled archer could hit a moving target at a distance of 46 meters; one white American saw with his own eyes how, during an archery competition, an Indian fired eight arrows in a row at such a speed that the first of them had not yet managed to fall to the ground by the time the last one took off. The Indians of the plains, rushing at full gallop to the left side of the bison, hit it with their small, less than 1 m in height, bows directly in the heart, while staying on the horse only with the help of their legs.

A number of tribes also used other methods of hunting. Thus, the Cherokees and Iroquois used a tube about 2.5 m long for hunting in the forests and swamps, from which a small poisoned arrow with feathers made of tartar was blown; Louisiana tribes used a device called bola, which was a string or twine with pear-shaped “weights” attached to it. Some hunters knew how to catch aerial birds by swimming up to them underwater and breathing through a reed sticking out of the water, or by swimming among them, wearing a model of a bird made from a pumpkin on their heads.

In a number of cases, almost the entire tribe took part in the hunt. Thus, in the Great Basin region, women and children took an active part in hunting American hares with nets when there were too many of them. Hunters of the “basket makers” period were skilled craftsmen in weaving such nets. One of the nets, discovered in White Dog Cave (Black Mesa Mountain), was 73 m long, about 1 m wide and weighed about 13 kg. If the twine skillfully tied in knots were woven, its length would be 6.5 km. Such a net was stretched along the mouth of the canyon, driving prey into it with the help of dogs. The "basket makers" mummified the dog and buried it with its owner, so that it would accompany him and serve him in the other world as well as in this one.

The Indians very skillfully used all kinds of hunting traps and baits. They dug camouflaged pit traps and also hung bait traps on tree branches. The tribes joined forces to drive large herds of animals to where they became easy prey. In the previous chapter, we already talked in detail about how Stone Age hunters drove bison to the edge of a gorge and forced them to jump down. The Indian hunter learned to sense the terrain as well as the animal he was hunting. When chasing a deer, the hunter dressed himself in its skin and “put on” its head with antlers in order to blend in with the herd. He did exactly the same thing when hunting a bison, and in a similar way he camouflaged a horse if he hunted on horseback. The Indians were also excellent at reproducing the sounds made by animals and birds, including mating calls and the cries of cubs and chicks.

The Indians were not only excellent hunters, but also no less skilled fishermen. Like today's fishermen, they often fished simply for pleasure, which allowed them to concentrate, be alone with themselves, and feel a special connection and closeness to nature. Since ancient times, Great Lakes anglers have used rods and lines very similar to those used today; they made beautiful floats and spinning rods that today would decorate any store selling fishing tackle and accessories. The Indians also used a technique known to all boys today: they lowered their hand with an open palm into a mountain river and held it motionless until a fish crashed into it, and then it could be caught. On both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, lobsters, crabs, oysters, clams and sea anemones were regularly caught and feasted on.

For large-scale fishing, the Indians skillfully built dams, ponds, and artificial shallows; they also skillfully made fish pens from reeds and willow twigs. Trapped fish were hit with spears, clubs and arrows, and were also caught using baskets. A purse seine woven from climbing plants was used; it took a lot of people to fish this way. Some tribes of the southeast used a special plant that was non-poisonous, but had a narcotic effect on fish; The roots of the plant were thrown into the water to “put to sleep” the fish.

In any hunt, the process of dividing the spoils played a very important role, no less than the hunt itself. This was taken very seriously, and tribal and clan traditions played a big role here. The carcasses of smaller animals were delivered to the settlement - and there they were divided, and the carcasses of large animals were divided and butchered right on the spot. The best parts of the carcass went to the one who killed the animal, which was determined by a special mark on the arrow in the animal’s body, and the remaining parts went to those who helped him. Part of the spoils was set aside for people who held a special position in the tribe, as well as for religious ceremonies. The animals were skinned and the cut meat was placed in special skin bags, reminiscent of today's canvas bags, which early French settlers gave them their name parfleches. The hunters delivered the parflesh (on their backs or on drags) to the intermediate camp, and from there to the main settlement. Often women and children came to the place where the spoils were originally deposited to help deliver them faster. Both the processing of carcasses and the delivery of meat had to be done skillfully and quickly so that the meat did not spoil. If there was too much meat, then a tribal feast was held, and the remaining meat was dried and made into a food concentrate, a kind of “canned food”, which was called pemmican.

We must not forget about one more factor that played a big role in the life of the Indians: rain. In Hollywood films the weather is always clear and sunny, as if the Indians and cowboys live in some idyllic country, but in real life the rains were a real curse for both the Indians and cowboys. The latter suffered especially from them, since they had to be in the open air in any weather. To avoid illness (and many cowboys suffered from an “occupational” disease due to dampness - inflammation of the joints), they constantly carried improvised raincoats, capes, and sometimes large umbrellas. As for the Indians, rain could spoil fresh supplies of meat, as well as bow strings, make spears slippery, leather clothes hard and tough, ruin skins, and also wet tent dwellings and belongings through and through, as a result of which they became covered with mold. Therefore, in order to have a complete understanding of the life of the Indians, one should be able to imagine their life not only in clear, but also in bad weather.

The appearance of a horse

The appearance of the horse made not only hunting and everything connected with it more successful, but also made their life in general much easier for the Indians.

The times when your feet bled until you bled during tedious long marches are a thing of the past. K. Wissler wrote in this regard: “The appearance of this new means of transportation made more changes in the life of the Indians than the invention of the car today... Their horizons expanded, life became much more varied and interesting, brought new experiences and impressions; got more free time; finally, the spread of occupations associated with a sedentary lifestyle has slowed down.”

Unfortunately, although this event made it possible to obtain food over a much larger area than before, and also brought a fresh spirit to life, making it more interesting and varied, it also had serious negative side effects. Now, during one hunting season, the tribe could easily cover a distance of 800 km, while previously they were able to cover a distance 10 times less. Such mobility led to an increase in invasions into the territories of neighboring tribes and, as a result, to an increase in hostility and civil strife. The tribes, which had previously been warlike and engaged in robbery, now became even more aggressive. This event prompted a number of tribes engaged in agriculture to abandon this occupation requiring painstaking work and care; gripped by the rage of “horse fever,” they took to the high road and began the path of robbery and robbery. However, the worst thing was that the most dissolute and unbridled tribes, in which the destructive, “Faustian” principle prevailed, began to violently and frantically exterminate the bison only in order to give vent to their destructive energy, so to speak, for pleasure. This senseless slaughter seriously reduced the population and significantly undermined the most important source of food for the Indians.

It really was a fever, one might even say a kind of insanity! The Indians, especially those living on the plains, literally lost their heads over horses. And if in 1650 they had only a very small number of these animals at their disposal, then twenty years later it increased sharply. The Spaniards brought horses to North America: in 1540, the Viceroy of New Spain allowed Vázquez de Coronado and his detachment to cross the Rio Grande and carry out an armed raid through the uncharted territory that lay north of Mexico. Coronado hoped to find the fabulous “seven cities of Cibola,” where palaces and even houses were supposedly made of gold, and their wealth could be compared with the wealth of the Inca Empire recently conquered by the Spaniards. Coronado did not find Cibola because she simply did not exist.

Coronado's campaign was accompanied by heavy fighting; he and his party had to endure all the hardships of strenuous and difficult marches until they reached the territory of modern Kansas. From there, Coronado returned to Mexico City, having been fatally injured when he was kicked by a horse.

Perhaps some of the horses from Coronado's detachment ran away and remained on the prairies. The same thing probably happened during the new campaigns of the Spaniards, who led respectively Camuscado in 1581, Espeyo in 1581–1582. and Castanha de Coca in 1590–1591. But most of all horses appeared on North American territory as a result of the major campaign of Juan de Oñate in 1598, during which the province of New Mexico was finally formed with its capital in Santa Fe.

End of introductory fragment.

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF RUSSIA

Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education

"Kostroma State Technological University"

(FSBEI HPE “KSTU”; KSTU)

Test

in Cultural Studies

on the topic: “The way of life of the ancient Indians: traditions, rites, rituals and holidays”

Performed

Mochalova Olga Radmirovna

1st year student

Kostroma 2014-2015

Work plan

Introduction

1. Indians and their way of life

2. Traditions of the ancient Indians

2.1 Life traditions

2.2 All children are our children

2.3 Natural Indian parenthood

3. American Indian Rituals

4. Rituals and customs of the ancient Mayan Indians

4.1 Cruel customs of the Indians

4.2 Indian bath rituals

5. Indian holidays

Conclusion

Bibliography

INconducting

Of course, the theme of Indians and cowboys has attracted boys at all times! Their traditional battle cry could be heard at one time in every courtyard. Bright colors, serious, confident faces of Indian warriors, beautiful strong horses - this is the atmosphere, alluring with its exoticism. And of course, the theme of the Indians has firmly established itself on the wide screen! Gojko Mitic is a cinema legend, thanks to this outstanding actor the world learned many stories from the life of the Indians, about the enmity between the red brothers and the pale-faced ones!

And if we talk about culture, then there is no doubt that the Indians have always been distinguished by unity with nature, a deep understanding of the laws of the universe and harmony... It is not for nothing that legends about the Mayan tribe still live. Modern man, despite all his progressive technology, has not been able to approach the level of understanding of the processes occurring in nature, to the extent that these patterns were understood by ancient tribes.

And what connects children all over the world with Indians? Chocolate, popcorn, chewing gum and the ability to run freely with battle cries across any space! All of the listed delicacies were invented by the Indians: popcorn - having discovered the ability to “self-explode” in maize grains, chewing gum from the juice of Hevea (rubber), and the word “chocolate” was first heard from the lips of the Mayan tribe.

Despite such funny inventions, the eyes of an Indian are always sad, they are a sad people, and even when looking through photos in search engines you will rarely find a smiling representative of the indigenous population of America. But incredible natural depth and an amazing desire to preserve their history - this can be found in any Indian.

Many nationalities in the modern world are gradually losing their traditions. Many of us do not know the history of our families. The efforts of folklorists to piece by piece reconstruct holiday scenarios, songs, epics, legends, folk recipes “go into the sand”: things don’t go beyond writing books and conversations, traditions don’t return to everyday life.

And the look of an Indian from any portrait or photograph speaks of his pride in his great people, because his greatness is in the knowledge, in the fact that, in spite of everything, they pass on to their grandchildren and thus preserve every action and skill.

1. Indians and their way of life

Indians are the general name for the indigenous population of America (with the exception of Eskimos and Aleuts). The name arose from the erroneous idea of ​​the first European navigators (Christopher Columbus and others) of the late 15th century, who considered the transatlantic lands they discovered to be India. According to their anthropological type, Indians belong to the Americanoid race. The total approximate number of Indians in America is over 30 million people. (estimated mid-1960s).

About history: According to genetic research at the University of Michigan, the ancestors of modern Indians and Eskimos moved to America from Northeast Asia through the so-called “Beringian Bridge” - an ancient wide isthmus between America and Asia on the site of the present Bering Strait, which disappeared more than 12 thousand years ago. years ago. The migration continued between 70 thousand years BC. e. and 12 thousand years BC. and had several waves independent from each other. The level of culture of the first settlers corresponded to the Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic cultures of the Old World. The settlement of Indians across both continents and their exploration of new lands lasted for many millennia.

Before European colonization (began in the 16th century), most tribes of North and South America were at various stages of the communal clan system: some were dominated by the maternal clan (Iroquois, Muscogee, Hopi, many tribes of the Amazon basin, etc.), while others were formed by the paternal clan (tribes of the northwest and southwest of North America, many tribes of South America). Some peoples were at various stages of transition from tribal to class society. The Indians of Central and South America (Aztecs, Mayans, Incas) already lived in class societies.

2. Traditions of the ancient Indians

Indians are settled throughout South and North America, from Alaska to Argentina, some of them live on reservations (example: the Navajo tribe), some are full citizens of the country (Mayans, 80% of the population of Guatemala), and others are still They live in the Amazon jungle (Guarani) and have no connection with civilization. Therefore, everyone’s way of life is different, but the traditions of raising children and relationships with adults are surprisingly preserved.

The Indians of North America are mostly Catholics and Protestants, the Indians of Latin America are mostly Catholics. For most Indians in South and Central America, pre-Hispanic beliefs were inextricably fused with Christianity. Many Indians maintain traditional cults. Nowadays, as a rule, these are theatrical performances accompanied by dancing in masks, including during Catholic and Protestant holidays.

Each tribe has its own dialects, many speak two languages, their own and English, but some tribes do not even have their own written language, so the most respected adults and beloved children in the tribe are the elders. They teach wisdom, preserve and tell stories and legends, know the intricacies of any craft - weaving carpets, making dishes, fishing and hunting. They monitor the observance of all rituals, and in wild tribes even the daily routine.

2.1 Life traditions

The Indians have preserved the tradition of sitting down, forming a circle, and sharing with everyone what is in their hearts. Some tribes gather in a circle on certain days, while others daily share everything that happened during the day, ask for advice, tell stories and sing.

Since childhood, a song is like air for an Indian; they can talk to nature through songs, express their emotions and convey the history of an entire people. There are ritual songs, holiday songs, and everyone in the Cofan tribe has their own song.

The same “figWam” that Sharik drew on the stove from the cartoon “Prostokvashino” and which we build when playing Indians is actually not a wigwam, but a portable tipi dwelling used by steppe nomads.

A wigwam is a hut on a frame, covered with straw. Visually, this dwelling looks like a large haystack and is traditional for the Indians of North America. The tribes of the Amazon live in such wigwams or houses on stilts, covered with straw or leaves. Indian peoples on US reservations, for example, the Navajo tribes, who are closer to civilization, live in houses similar to our ordinary Russian log cabins or mud huts.

Let me point out that wigwams are usually built by women and children. In wild tribes, almost all work in the village is considered feminine - cooking, sewing, raising children, all agricultural work, searching for firewood. The man's task is to hunt, to learn military skills every day in order to confidently use a spear, a bow and a pipe with poisonous arrows. Because the necklace of jaguar fangs is a document, the only document of the Indians living in the jungle, certifying his fearlessness. Only boys become shamans; the shaman teaches many in the village and passes on his knowledge, but after his death, one of his young patients becomes a shaman, and not a student, because it is believed that along with the healing energy, all the knowledge of the shaman is transferred to the patient.

The main food is what is obtained by hunting, and in families that engage in farming, the main dishes are potatoes, porridge, rice, chicken, turkey and, naturally, all types of legumes, favorite dishes are pumpkin and corn. Sweet maple syrups and dried wild berries occupy a special place in the Indian diet.

Indian life ritual tradition

2.2 All children are our children

Attitudes towards strangers vary among tribes, but “whites” are definitely unwelcome guests for all Indians. As for inter-tribal and clan relations, for example, for the Kofans, the concept of their own and other people’s children does not exist at all. Kofan parents take the name of their firstborn and use it until their wedding. Then they take the name of the next children who are not yet married. Studying family relationships in this case becomes a rather difficult task.

2.3 Natural Indian Parenting

Even those Indian women who live in large cities adhere to the natural course of childbirth. More often they give birth at home, sometimes in the presence of an obstetrician or in a hospital, observing the basic principles of natural childbirth - without caesarean section, stimulants and anesthesia. Tribes where the standard of living does not allow giving birth with the help of an obstetrician, much less in a hospital, childbirth takes place in the sand or in water, often a woman gives birth alone. Indians feel great affection for children and take great care of them. According to people who have studied Indian morals and customs for a long time, “the best character traits of Indians are revealed in the attitude of parents towards children.”

From birth, children are present during any parental activity; the baby is carried in a scarf, a manta (a special sling for carrying not only children, but also food, any things), or in a portable crib made of wood or reed made by the father.

According to the researchers, some tribes did not allow children to drink colostrum and gave breastfeeding only when a steady flow of milk appeared. Children always have access to milk; at any time of the day or night they are not denied feeding and drink their mother’s milk until the milk runs out. Even if an Indian woman has given birth to several children over the course of several years, the older ones are not weaned.

Indian women rarely punish their children, but they introduce them to work early, believing that there is no better way to learn about life. From an early age, children are taught that being noisy and loud is very bad, and that they must respect their elders. Therefore, Indian children are not capricious, not loud and not whiny, very independent and friendly.

Nothing is forbidden to children, and adults are so confident in them that nothing happens to children. The relationship between parents and children is so close that they are truly one. The kids themselves know what they need, and Indian parents allow them to get it and taste life, to live in unity with nature and its laws.

Now Indian “natural parenthood” is a whole science that gained popularity in America and Europe in the 70s. Jean Ledloff, who made an expedition to Indian tribes, was so amazed by what she saw that she devoted her entire life to studying Indian “methods” of raising children, wrote the book “How to Raise a Happy Child” and became the founder of the so-called “natural parenting”.

Before Ledloff, Dr. Benjamin Spock reigned in the world of pedagogy, everyone read his works and “raised children according to Spock” ​​- they fed by the hour, talked about the lack of connection between the child’s health and the type of feeding, did not spoil him, followed a daily routine, prohibited and restricted the child from many things , believing that a child should have authorities. The new theory of Jean Ledloff has turned upside down the idea that one needs to be strict and restrained with a child, wean him early, not indulge his whims, and set his own, adult rules. Ledloff watched the Indians and saw that everything was the opposite for them, and there were no happier children.

3. American Indian Rituals

The origins of American Indian holidays are lost and have come down to us in scattered ideas.

Most of the holidays celebrated by the Indians were directly related to religious rites and traditions. Animalism and totemism were widespread among the American Indians, that is, the belief in the animation of the surrounding world and natural phenomena and the worship of a sacred totem animal - each tribe has its own.

That is why all holidays were timed to coincide with some special state of nature. Most often, such states were the days of the spring and autumn equinox, the days of the solstice, the full moon and the new moon. Thus, it is known that the Indians celebrated the holiday of the rebirth of the world, similar to the Christian Christmas - December 25, after the end of the solstice, when the sunny day increases. This countdown of the new year was associated with the “living” sun, which, sinking low to the ground, could be eaten by spirits.

Each tribe had its own totem animal - a patron. Celebrations were also held in honor. Each such holiday had a structure, rituals, and traditions.

In essence, this is not even a holiday, but a day when the necessary rituals were performed.

The main character of any ritual was the shaman. He performed ceremonies, communicated with spirits, and drove out evil forces. He was also a doctor: it was believed that human illness is the result of bad thoughts and actions that attract evil beings to oneself, into the human body.

To heal a patient means to expel evil from the body along with those bad spirits that have settled there.

Unfortunately, the culture of the American Indians, along with their holiday traditions, has not reached us in full.

Violent changes were introduced into it by the Spanish conquistadors, who began the conquest of America in 1700.

Over time, traditions were increasingly exposed to the influence of other cultures - English, Dutch, Spanish.

Those pitiful remnants of the once integral and beautiful culture of the indigenous population of America have reached our time only thanks to recreation - territories assigned to the former masters of the continent.

4. Rituals and customs of the ancient Mayan Indians

Despite the fact that the Mayan civilization disappeared centuries before the arrival of the conquistadors, information about some Mayan religious customs still survives to this day. This happened thanks to the Indians of Yucatan, who were close to the Mayans and managed to preserve the most important customs of the Indians. Information recorded by pioneers in the mid-16th century has allowed scientists today to get an idea of ​​all the major customs of the ancient Mayans and other tribes of America, such as the Aztecs and Incas. Most of the ancient customs of America that have survived to this day are of a religious nature. For example, it is known that the beliefs of the late Mayans included “baptism”.

Imagine how surprised the Catholic missionaries were when they observed these Indian customs with their own eyes. As in the Old World customs established thousands of years ago, the Indians sprinkled water on the child, giving him a name. Diego de Landa, in his works “People and Gods of the Maya,” wrote that the priest held a child in his arms, like a Catholic bishop. In addition, Mayan customs included ceremonies for absolution and communion. During such services, bread was shared among all participants in the ritual. The Spaniards, who were the first to arrive on the lands of America, were greatly surprised by the presence of crosses in the attributes of the religion of the Mayans and their descendants. Marriages were blessed with similar crosses. By the way, a man and a woman were not allowed to live without a blessing; the only exceptions were widows and widowers. Modern Mayans inherited much of the Old World culture. The Spaniards, who settled side by side with the descendants of the ancient Mayans and saw with their own eyes the customs of the Indians, described some of the most significant celebrations. So, May 16th is the day of blessing of water. In Catholic Europe, this day is celebrated as St. John, who was the patron saint of the water element. March 8 in Indian religion is the birthday of the mother of the White God.

4.1 Cruel customs of the Indians

While in Christian beliefs it is the birthday of the Virgin Mary. The Mayan religion says that the White God was born on December 25th, which needs no explanation. The first settlers and researchers of the Mayan civilization noted the passion of the descendants of the ancient Indians for cleanliness and incense. So in Mayan cities and villages, almost every day was accompanied by an abundance of all kinds of smells, from fragrant herbs to exotic fruits and flowers. And important Indian customs and ceremonies were always accompanied by preliminary cleanings, symbolizing the cleansing and preparation of the soul for the celebration.

4.2 Indian bath rituals

Hygiene was not alien to the ancient Indians. Moreover, various Indian tribes (sometimes even neighboring ones) were at completely different stages of cultural and social development. However, the culture of one form or another of the steam bath existed among almost all indigenous peoples of Central and North America: the highly developed tribes of the Mayans and Aztecs, the slightly less developed Mixtecs and Zapotecs. The first mention of ancient Indian baths dates back to 900 BC.

The Indians used these baths not only for direct washing, but also for ritual sacraments and consecrations, as well as therapeutic and preventive procedures: the sick were cured in the steam baths, childbirth took place, etc.

Baths for Indian tribes became a fairly common social phenomenon. During the construction of palace complexes, Indian architects always allocated space for the arrangement of baths. Also, almost every Indian settlement had a “city public bathhouse,” and sometimes mini-baths were equipped by individual families for private use.

After Columbus's discovery of a new continent and the active expansion of the Spanish conquistadors into uncharted lands, the colonialists actively began to instill their cultural values ​​into the indigenous population of America. Changes also affected baths - newcomers from the old continent could hardly understand the tribes’ craving for bath rituals. And in Europe itself in the Middle Ages they did not actively monitor their own hygiene; on the contrary, they practically refused to bathe (the Spanish queen was proud of the fact that she allowed her body to be “desecrated” with water only twice in her life - the first time at birth, the second time before own wedding). And bodily joys were not approved in a society that cultivated, first of all, the purity of the soul, not the flesh.

In addition, the active imposition of Christianity implied a fight against all manifestations of paganism, and the colonialists believed that baths were one of the places where the aborigines worshiped local gods and idols. The Indians, in their bath rituals and sacraments, often used incense, special “sounding shells,” and medicinal herbs. There were special prayers and chants taking place.

All this led to the conquistadors introducing a strict ban on baths (including the death penalty), but they were unable to completely eradicate these rituals and customs. After some time, baths again became a normal phenomenon in colonial America, and Europe, wiser in terms of cleanliness and hygiene, even began to adopt bath traditions.

In the language of the ancient Mayan Nahuatl Indians, the word “temazcal” means “hot stones” (“hot steam from the stones”). It should be noted that the natives also called the Indian patroness of treatment and health Temazcaltietl.

The Indian bathhouse was built from rough volcanic stones and, as a rule, had the shape of a smooth truncated cone with a diameter of about 3 meters at the base, so that several people could easily fit in it. The height of the cone was at the level of average human height. A narrow window was left in the roof to draw in smoke. The entrance to the bathhouse was usually located on the south side, and it was quite narrow and closed with a reed “door” in order to economically expend the generated heat.

Inside, at the opposite end from the entrance, there was a stove that gave quite acceptable heat. Steam, similar to a Russian bath, was formed after splashing a small amount of water from a special jug onto the stove or the heated stones of the wall against which the stove stood. The water in the jug was infused with medicinal herbs.

Over time, exposure to steam led to profuse sweating. The Indians also used brooms made from corn leaves. Rich Indians and leaders often used the services of special bath attendants: often these were dwarfs or hunchbacks, who, due to their small stature, could freely wield brooms and other attributes of bath rituals in a fairly low room. It was also considered chic of those times to use people of the opposite sex as steamers (and mostly only men took steamers). The sweat was washed off with water from jugs, and ablution took place on a special mat.

The Indians believed that the unification of the spiritual energies of all participants in the bath ceremony contributed to the creation of a single powerful energy channel for communication with the gods. Through this channel, an exchange of energies took place - everything negative was given out, positive and positive things were received, secret knowledge and secrets of the gods were revealed.

Anyone who visited a temazcal was considered born again. Indeed, three conditions inherent in the mother's womb remain there: the temazcal is dark, warm and humid.

5. HolidaysIndians

Ritual holidays of the American Indians are associated with the most important events in the life of each member of the tribe (birth, maturity, wedding and death), with animals and birds, as well as dedicated to agriculture and various crops.

Celebrations associated with puberty and initiation into men and women are especially solemn and impressive. Among modern Navajos and Apaches, the process of entry into adulthood for boys and girls lasts four days. The girls are specially dressed up to look like the beautiful Turquoise Woman. They prepare cornmeal and take part in horse racing. Both boys and girls dance together with the characters wearing masks of the gods, and at the end of the festive dance they themselves put on masks. Throughout the fourth day of the festival, the entire tribe participates in non-stop chants that continue throughout the day.

Of all the ritual holidays for the Indians, the most important were the rituals associated with animals and birds. If, during a ritual dance, an Indian was decorated with feathers or fur of a bird or animal that was considered sacred to his family, then, by coming into contact with this sacred creature, he seemed to let its spirit inside himself and thus strengthen his inner strength.

Unlike the whites, the Indians, like all primitive peoples, considered themselves inferior beings compared to animals and birds, since they are faster and sharper, they have sharper hearing and a more developed sense of danger.

Holidays associated with agriculture and various crops are characterized by the fact that the Indians considered the plant world to be as much a part of nature as the animal world. Like people, nature around us was born, flourished, withered and died. These phases corresponded to spring, summer, autumn and winter. Each of them was marked by holidays dedicated to it.

Special rituals were dedicated to plowing the land, sowing it with seeds, their successful ripening and harvesting. Special rituals were performed to bring rain, ward off drought, and ensure a rich harvest and minimal losses during harvesting. Typically, each major crop had its own holiday: Pumpkin Festival, Bean Festival, Acorn Festival, Strawberry Festival.

The most important of all agricultural rituals was the Corn Festival, accompanied by the Corn Dance. The Indians deified corn. When addressed, she was called “mother” and “father.” A number of holidays were dedicated to her: the Festival of Freshly Harvested Corn, the Festival of Green Corn, the Festival of Young Corn, the Festival of Ripe Corn.

If the Corn Dance was the main ritual of the agricultural tribes, then among the hunters of the plains region the main and obligatory ritual was the Sun Dance. It was a very spectacular and complex ritual, carried out everywhere from Manitoba (a province in Canada) in the north to Texas in the south.

Very often it not only lasted four days, but it was also preceded by four days of preparation. In most cases, the Sun Dance was combined with the Bison Dance, since it was the buffalo hunt that was the main source of food for the Indians.

North American Indians also have a New Year’s tradition of celebrating this holiday with a large group, lighting a huge bonfire in the center of the village. All residents dance, holding sticks with feathers in their hands. At some point the feathers are set on fire and there is general rejoicing. Immediately after this, 16 men bring out a large red ball and lift it to the top of the pillar. This is considered a symbol of the birth of a new sun - the coming of the New Year.

Conclusion

We see that ancient Indian tribes have existed since ancient times. They do not change their customs and traditions, which do not allow their unusual life to fade away. Even in our real life There are some everyday traditions, such as raising children and celebrating the New Year. I know that the ancient Mayan tribes that have survived to this day still live in wigwams and their food preferences remain unchanged.

Bibliography

1. http://indianculture.ru/

2. https://ru.wikipedia.org/

3. http://www.liveinternet.ru/

4. http://holidays-mira.rf /

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Indian culture. Contribution of the indigenous population of America to world culture::: I.A. Zolotarevskaya

The United States of America is a multinational country, its population has a unique ethnic past. As you know, in addition to the Americans, the dominant nation, peoples and ethnic groups such as blacks, Mexicans of the southwestern United States, people from Asian countries, as well as descendants of the indigenous population of North America - Indians and Eskimos live here. The American nation, which arose on an English basis, absorbed the most diverse ethnic elements in language and culture. Immigrants from Holland, France, Spain, Scandinavian countries and German states participated in its creation. The so-called late immigration attracted residents of eastern and southeastern Europe, as well as people from Asia and Latin America. All of them contributed to modern American culture, investing their labor, knowledge, traditions, the wealth of their languages, folklore, and treasures of spiritual culture into its development.

And now in all areas of the life of the American people, in their industrial and cultural activities, one can see evidence of the unique origin of the modern population of the United States. Let's take a map of the country. It is replete with the names of cities, rivers, mountains, sounding in all languages ​​of the world. Various national influences can be easily detected in many areas of the life of the American people. Ukrainian immigrants in the 19th century. they brought with them high-yielding varieties of wheat, previously unknown in America; immigrants from Southern Europe developed viticulture in the United States, and the Swiss developed first-class cheese production. American cuisine also represents the tastes of many nations.

Various national traditions are also intertwined in the spiritual culture of the people - in literature, art, and folklore.

The same diversity is found in US architecture. In Florida and especially in the southwest of the country, Spanish influence is noticeable. In the southwest, where Spanish common along with English and where a large number of inhabitants are Mexicans, cities and rural towns differ little from the cities and villages of Mexico. In Louisiana, plantation owners' homes are often designed in the style of French buildings of the past. New Orleans also retains some traces of French architecture.

The largest cities in the USA are characterized by national quarters - Italian, Chinese, Russian Hill in San Francisco, etc.

Forced to live in conditions of segregation, the poor of Italian, Slavic origin, Puerto Ricans, Chinese and others retain their native language and many customs of their homeland, and this is also reflected in the appearance of American cities. In the “Russian” quarter of New York Harlem there are signs in Russian, Orthodox churches have been built; New York's Chinatown amazes with the abundance of advertising in Chinese, Chinese bazaars, shops, restaurants; In San Francisco, home to the largest population of people of Chinese descent, many Chinatown residents wear traditional Chinese clothing. The Chinatown in this city has its own telephone exchange with Chinese telephone operators. The emergence of special neighborhoods for immigrant groups belonging to the so-called undesirables is caused by a system of national and racial discrimination that has a political and economic basis. The division of the working population of multinational America along national and racial lines fuels national discord, increases competition in the labor market and weakens the class positions of the American proletariat, which is diverse in origin.

The country's wealth was formed from the national achievements of a wide variety of peoples. But these peoples were far from being in an equal position. The system of national oppression, the division of workers along racial and national lines through unequal wages for equal work, infringement of civil rights, the introduction of segregation for national groups and everyday discrimination hinders the natural development of the American nation, interferes with social progress, and prevents the complete fusion of ethnic groups included in American nation. The existence of national neighborhoods in large cities and ethnically separate areas in remote areas of the country is explained not only by the youth of the American nation, the American state, but above all by this policy of dividing the people by skin color and national origin. The spiritual isolation of individual ethnic groups within the American nation itself that arises as a result of such a policy causes enormous damage to the political and cultural development of the peoples of America.

The situation of the indigenous population of North America - Indians and Eskimos - is very indicative in this regard. These peoples made a great contribution to the creation of North American states and to the development of the culture of the USA and Canada. But to this day they are among the most disenfranchised and oppressed sections of the population of these countries. The American lawyer Felix Cohen said this very figuratively: “Just as a canary in a mine indicates by its behavior that the air is being poisoned by a poisonous gas, so the Indian, by his position, reflects a change in our political atmosphere. Our treatment of Indians, more than other national minorities, reflects the rise and fall of our democracy."

From the moment they arrived on American soil, conquerors and settlers encountered local inhabitants - the Indians. European colonists had a contradictory relationship with them.

True, the indigenous population of North America was never particularly numerous and inhabited mainly the coasts of rivers and lakes - places most favorable for hunting, fishing and agriculture - their main branches of economy. The European colonizers of North America rushed first of all to these lands, already developed and populated by Indians. The Indian economy and hunting and slash-and-burn extensive agriculture, which prevailed among the tribes of North America, required large areas of land. Not wanting to take this into account, the colonial authorities demanded more and more concessions from the Indians, forcing the Indian tribes to sell “surplus” land for next to nothing. The Europeans encroached not on free lands, as many bourgeois historians claim, but on lands vitally needed by the local population.

“During the entire period of colonization,” William Foster wrote in the preface to G. Aptheker’s work on the history of the American people, “the indigenous inhabitants of America - the Indians - were subjected to brutal robbery and extermination by white invaders of different nationalities. Various governors and generals believed that the Indians had no reason to claim the lands of their homeland and that whites had no reason to feel remorse for committing wild robberies and the most brutal murders of the aborigines. But the Indians resisted extremely skillfully and selflessly. One of the most significant moments in our national history there was a struggle of the Indian people in defense of their homeland - a heroic but hopeless struggle. The Indians carried on this selfless struggle until the second half of the 19th century, producing many outstanding fighters. The resistance of the Indians was all the more remarkable because they fought, despite the fact that they were small in number, were at a lower level of social development, and had only relatively primitive weapons.” The conquest and colonization of the North American continent brought physical death to many Indian tribes. At the same time, the dominance of Europeans had a negative impact on the state of the original culture of that part of the Indians who endured the unequal struggle with the colonialists. And although very little remains of the traditional culture of the Indian population of the United States at present, we must not forget how much of what was created by them even before the arrival of Europeans in America was subsequently adopted by the colonists and firmly entered into the culture and life of the peoples of not only America, but and other parts of the world.

First of all, at first it was difficult for the settlers to develop the land of the American continent without the help of the Indians. Hence the need for business and cultural exchange with Indian peoples. And although the Indians in the 16th-17th centuries. stood at a much lower stage of development than European settlers, the spiritual and especially material values ​​created by the indigenous population of North America provided a tremendous service to the colonists and subsequently to the Americans.

Behind Lately In the ethnographic literature of the United States, a voice is raised in defense of Indian culture. Several works have appeared directly devoted to the cultural achievements of Indian peoples, which were adopted by European settlers and entered modern American culture.

“Communication with the Indians,” wrote the American ethnographer Irving Hallowell, “influenced our speech, our economic life, clothing, sports and entertainment, some local religious cults, methods of treating diseases, folk and concert music, the novel, the short story.” , poetry, drama, and even some aspects of our psychology, as well as one of the social sciences - ethnography."

The Indians, as Hallowell rightly noted, left a certain imprint on the American nation. At the origins of its origin, during the colonial period, the knowledge of Indians in various areas of life was readily accepted by European settlers, since without many of them they simply would not have been able to stay on American soil. “From the Indians, the colonial powers received not only their lands and wealth,” says the famous American historian G. Aptheker, “but also skill and technology, without which the colonial enterprise would have ended in failure.” “Much of the Indian contribution was through voluntary acts of assistance,” he continues. Let us turn to a well-known example of such voluntary assistance, which G. Apteker talks about. It is known that Thanksgiving Day, one of the national holidays in the United States, is associated with the first corn harvest obtained by the Puritans of the New Plymouth colony. The wheat that the colonists brought with them was not accepted. The settlers faced imminent death from starvation if the local Indians had not taught them how to cultivate corn and showed them how to care for the crops.

They not only taught the colonists to grow corn, but also pointed out the most suitable fertilizer for local conditions from fish heads. As you know, corn has forever occupied a strong place in American agriculture and in their diet. The widespread use of corn is evidenced by the many dishes that American housewives can prepare from it.

Being a very productive crop, corn played an important role in raising the country's prosperity. About 92% of corn grown in the United States is used to feed livestock. 2/3 of the country's farms sow corn. The so-called maize belt is the region most favorable for growing corn (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and parts of Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Missouri adjacent to these states), and is also the main area for pig breeding and cattle feeding.

European colonists, and after them the Americans, owe the Indians of North America their acquaintance with melons, cucumbers, sunflowers, legumes and other useful plants. And now bean dishes: canned beans with meat, canned bean soups and others are considered an original part of American cuisine.

It is also worth mentioning maple sap and maple sugar here. The colonists also learned how to extract maple sap from the Indians. The collection of maple sap in some areas of the United States and eastern Canada has been a rural holiday since colonial times, where the entire area gathers to enjoy maple sugar candies in the same way as the Indians of the northeastern part of America do now. For both Canadian farmers and Indians, this custom is a pleasant tribute to the past. Now the production of maple sugar in eastern Canada is on a large scale, and local farmers satisfy a significant part of their sugar needs from maple sugar.

In the adaptation of European settlers to the new conditions of the American continent, the labor skills developed by the local population played a paramount role. This applies to hunting, fishing, methods of preparing and preserving food supplies. As you know, the tribes of the northwest coast created a high fishing culture, which brought them to one of the first places in terms of development among other North American tribes. Their experience, as well as their labor, is used by fishing companies in the USA and Canada. Indians are hired with their boats and sent to the most dangerous and hopeless places. It is believed that “an Indian will get fish where no one else will get it.” This saying has a very real basis.

The colonists adopted an ingenious way of preserving meat and berries for future use from the Indians in the form of pemmican. Indians of the northern forests and prairies have long prepared pemmican for long expeditions or for the winter. Meat and berries were dried, ground into powder, and mixed with fat. This highly nutritious mixture lasts a long time and is convenient on the go. Pemmican occupies an important place in the canning industry of the USA and Canada.

Taking the Indians first of all for the most necessary things, European settlers could not help but turn to Indian clothing. The inhabitants of the border, who were in approximately the same conditions as the Indians, as a rule, preferred the comfortable and more accessible clothing of the forest tribes made of suede and skins, leggings and moccasins to the European ones. True, the colonists made their own amendments to the cut of clothing and, under their influence, the Indians themselves began to develop caftans made of the same suede with sewn-in sleeves. Moccasins lasted the longest. Later, slightly modified moccasins became an indispensable accessory of American lumberjacks. Spanish colonists from the southwestern colonies appreciated the art of Pueblo and Navajo weavers. Capes and fabrics made from them with wonderful ornaments were famous both among the local Indians and in the Spanish colonies. Skilled weavers were kidnapped, extracting considerable income from their labor.

At first, the colonists also used Indian pottery. Not long ago, American archaeologists established that the inhabitants of the Virginia colony (XVII century) exchanged pottery from the Indians, and they adapted to the tastes of buyers and sculpted it according to the European model. Residents of the western Spanish colonies for a long time used dishes made by the Pueblo Indians. These products were works of art in terms of perfection of form and beauty of ornament.

It must be said that Indian labor was used much more widely in the Spanish colonies of North America than in the eastern colonies of the British and French. The Spaniards dealt with more developed peoples of an ancient agricultural culture, who had long been sedentary. They widely used the labor of these Indians in agriculture, in silver and lead mines, as well as in the construction of forts, missions and residential buildings.

The Spanish settlers adopted some silver mining techniques from the Indians of this area. But most of all, they benefited from the experience of local tribes in farming in the arid climate of southwestern North America. Native American influences were also evident in the colonial architecture of the area. Experts find that the buildings erected by the hands of Indian craftsmen ennobled the lush and heavy architecture of the Spaniards of the colonial period, giving the missions and other buildings of the early colonial period a strict outline.

Currently, architects in the United States are eagerly turning to Indian forms, creating official and residential buildings in the style of Pueblo Indian buildings.

The role of Indian medicine, which provided invaluable services to the colonists, deserves special mention. It is easy to imagine that, finding themselves in new conditions, without medicines or medical care, the poor people of England, Ireland, and the German states, who were just freeing themselves from the shackles of medieval superstitions, could not help but be captivated by the magical techniques of Indian healers. But, of course, not these techniques, but positive knowledge, accumulated by traditional medicine, from the very first years of European colonization contributed to the well-deserved respect enjoyed by Indian healers and the Indian pharmacopoeia. The state of medicine in the colonies for a long time left much to be desired. According to the Governor of Virginia Berkeley (70s of the 17th century), in the first year of his reign, every fifth person died from malaria. After Peruvian balsam was brought to the colony, which became known in Spain from the Indians in the middle of the 17th century, mortality from this disease in Virginia completely ceased.

In 1738, a certain John Tennet was awarded by the Virginia authorities for the treatment of pleurisy according to a recipe he took from the Seneca Indians. Even in the 19th century. Indian healers, as well as doctors who treated with herbs according to Indian recipes, enjoyed great confidence from their patients.

In 1836, the Indian Physician's Pharmacopoeia was published in Cincinnati. At that time, other books were also published introducing the methods of treatment and remedies used by the Indians (“Indian Health Directory”, “North American Indian Doctor and the Essence of the Method of Treatment and Prevention of Diseases According to the Indians”, etc.). The undeniable achievements of Indian folk medicine have entered world science and medical practice (see article by A. I. Drobmsky in this collection),

IN American literature There was always an “Indian” theme in one form or another. It is no exaggeration to say that without the “Indian” novels of Fenimore Cooper, Mine Reid and others, she would have been much poorer. At the same time, through literature, images of Indian mythology, folklore, and everyday life penetrated into life and into the ideas of Americans and other peoples.

American literature reflected two main trends in attitudes towards Indians. One of them, the dominant one, sanctified the colonialist policy of the country's ruling circles and was clearly racist in nature. The other, democratic, reflected a sympathetic attitude towards the indigenous population. It was either romantic, which was typical of earlier authors who admired or were touched by the high moral qualities of the persecuted people, or tried to show the Indian peoples in a more realistic way.

It is hardly necessary to dwell here on reactionary literature, which did not bring anything positive into the life of America, but only deepened racial prejudices, misanthropic sentiments and disrespect for the peoples of our culture.

As for works of a romantic nature that played a positive role in awakening sympathetic interest in the Indians, these include, for example, the poems of Philippe Freneau (1752-1832), a participant in the French Revolution and the War of Independence. Freneau gives the image of a majestic Indian, alien to the bustle of European civilization, living in the great past.

Close in this regard to Freneau is the poet of a later time, who became famous for his poem “The Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Longfellow (1807-1882). His “Song of Hiawatha” was translated into many languages ​​and introduced readers for the first time to the poetic world of Indian mythology. Through “Hiawatha,” world literature adopted these images, expanding the range of humanity’s ideas about the Indians, their spiritual world, and some customs that were previously little known. But an even more earthly image of an indigenous inhabitant of the American forests was given by the wonderful American writer Fenimore Cooper. His Indians are not so majestic, not so elatedly heroic, they are already people of flesh and blood, and not the symbols of Freneau and Longfellow.

Cooper's novels appeared during the years when interest in Indians was extremely great. Suffice it to say that only in the decade 1824-1834. In the USA, about 40 novels on Indian themes and about 30 plays were published, some of which were adaptations of Cooper’s novels. Some were attracted to the Indians by their extraordinary will to win and proud courage, while others were amazed and frightened by their fearlessness. Regardless of how they aroused feelings among different sections of American society, the Indians were equally interesting to everyone. During these same years, reflecting the point of view of the ruling classes, various kinds of literature appeared, throwing mud at the Indian peoples, painting the Indians as some kind of monsters who, for the sake of general peace, must be mercilessly destroyed.

Cooper's novels, as a rule, run counter to this muddy stream of slander, designed to justify the exterminatory Indian policies of those years. Not being free from a biased attitude towards the events of colonial times, Fenimore Cooper endowed the best qualities of those Indians who got along with the “whites”, or more precisely, with the British (but not with the French). Cooper's Indians are not only warlike, but also generous, they are wise, full of a stoic attitude towards life, the Indian is always an excellent hunter, he is skilled in his crafts, he knows how to be loyal and sacrifice himself. For the first time, it was Fenimore Cooper who spoke about the inhabitants of the border. They adopted the Indian way of life because they found it reasonable, comfortable and more humane than life in the so-called civilized society. It is known that the Indians willingly accepted into the tribe those who wanted to settle with them. The Seminoles became so close to the blacks who fled from the plantations of the South that they entered into a long war with the Americans, defending their new fellow tribesmen. All eastern tribes had a large number of mestizos in their midst - the result of mixed marriages in the early colonial period, when there were still few European women in the colonies, as well as the “adoption” by the tribes of European traders, residents of the colonies and later Americans from the eastern states, for some reason seeking refuge with the Indians.

In the 19th century Indian tribes moved to reservations across the Mississippi made Indian Territory the political and cultural center for all local Indians and the small white population who lived on the reservations (Bureau of Indian Affairs agents, traders, ranchers who settled on Indian land, and others). The emergence of writing in their native language among some tribes played a big role in this. The need for writing itself may indicate the degree of cultural development of some Indian peoples. And the fact that this was precisely the need is evidenced by the fact that the first creator of the syllabic alphabet, which best corresponded to the grammatical structure of Indian languages, was the mestizo teal Sequoia. He served for some time in the American army, had the opportunity to experience the benefits of literacy, and, although he himself could neither read nor write in English, he set out to create an alphabet for his people in their native language. For several years he worked on compiling an alphabet and finally presented his invention to the tribal council - syllabic icons carved from birch bark. His young daughter helped her father by reading and composing words from birch bark signs before the council of elders. The council harmonized Sequoia's efforts and the entire tribe - old and young, men and women - enthusiastically began to learn to read and write. Very soon, the Cherokees became universally literate, followed by other eastern tribes - the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasawas, Seminoles, who have since received the nickname civilized.

Thanks to their efforts, Indian Territory, which was until the mid-19th century. the extreme limit of American possessions in North America (remember that Texas was annexed by the United States only in 1845, and Arizona, New Mexico and other southwestern territories were seized from Mexico in 1848), did not lag behind in many respects other regions of the country. And in this, newspapers and magazines published by the Creeks, Cherokees, and then other Indians played a big role. The newspapers, published in one of the Indian and English languages, reported not only local news, prices for grain, livestock, but also covered the international situation. Moreover, they all contained a literary page introducing literary novelties and cultural life outside Indian Territory.

For America at that time, especially for its border territories, such loving relationship the commitment to printing that the Indians, who had only recently mastered writing, showed was unprecedented.

With the division of common lands in Indian Territory and subsequent events, Indian newspapers ceased to exist. Intensified forced assimilation of Indians, carried out until the 1930s, contributed to the fact that the Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes almost completely switched to English language. Now very few people of the older generation can read or write in one of the languages ​​of the Five Tribes, although in everyday life spoken language in their native language continues to be maintained even among Indians living in cities. In eastern Oklahoma, where the largest number of Cherokees live, tourists are sold an 1896 issue of the Cherokee Lawyer as a souvenir.

Indian themes have appeared in the works of American artists since colonial times. Sketches of travelers and colonists who became interested in the life of a people unfamiliar to them appeared in Europe already in the 16th century. Lemoine and Challot, colonists of the Huguenot colony of Carolina, left humanity with the most valuable everyday drawings with text - now almost the only material reminder of the disappeared Timukwa tribes.

George Catlin. "Three Famous Warriors"

In 1735, the artist Gustavus Hesselius created a series of portraits of the leaders of the Delaware tribe. In the first half of the 19th century. another, more extensive series of portraits of famous Indian leaders was conceived and made. They came to Washington to pose for artists. Reproductions of 120 portraits were included in McKenney and Hall's three-volume history of American Indian tribes. In the 19th century artists often went to the West in search of material, and many of them - Müller, Kurtz, Kathleen, Bodmer and others left valuable ethnographic sketches and documentary paintings. Catlin's works, which were subsequently published in his book on the American Indians, translated into many European languages, became most famous at this time. Catlin was not only an artist, but also an educator. He sought to acquaint as wide a circle of people as possible with the life of the tribes that he happened to see. The artist organized an exhibition of his paintings and toured the eastern cities of the United States with it. The exhibition, which he called “Indian Gallery,” was a kind of traveling museum.

Henry Cross."Sitting Bull" - a portrait of the leader and medicine man of the Hunk Papa tribe

In addition to paintings, there were also various ethnographic exhibits - clothing, smoking pipes, feather headdresses, bead jewelry and other items. There was even a life-size Crow Indian tent and mannequins representing different tribes of Indians. While demonstrating the exhibits, the artist talked about the life of the Indians and their customs. Soon Europe also became acquainted with the Indian Gallery.

Another artist, Henry Cross, visited the tribes of the Far West and Southwest of the United States in 1860, making more than 100 portraits. They are housed at the Wisconsin State Historical Society. Reproductions of these portraits, equipped scientific commentary, published by the Society in 1948.

It is impossible not to mention the work of another artist - Wright, who painted a series of paintings reflecting the defeat of the Sioux Indians in the 90s of the 19th century. The uprising of the Sioux-Dakots, which took place under the slogan of a return to the old life, the expectation of an Indian messiah who should save the Indians from oppression inflicted by whites, ended in a terrible massacre of the Dakotas. The punitive forces spared neither men, women, nor children. The bloodless tribe was driven into reservations at gunpoint. The massacre of the Sioux Indians caused outrage among the advanced strata of American society. The artist Wright depicted the “Dance of the Spirit” - a ritual associated with the messianic movement of the Indians, scenes of executions. Ethnographer and historian James Mooney placed these truthful drawings in his large book about the Sioux Indian Uprising, thus expressing his protest against the “Indian” policies of the US government.

All of the above works have great educational value. Reflecting the attentive, respectful attitude of the best part of the American intelligentsia towards the Indians and their culture, they were an excellent response to the slander of the yellow press, detective literature, pseudo-historical novels, evil and stupid caricatures that poison the consciousness of Americans with racial prejudices.

The Indians, their history and culture have been a constant object of scientific interest in the United States. Ethnography, anthropology and archeology arise here primarily as sciences dealing with the past and present of the indigenous population of America and, first of all, the indigenous population of the United States. The US government needed systematic knowledge about the Indians, their settlement, customs, legal norms, and religious beliefs for the further implementation of “Indian” policy.

For this purpose, the Bureau of American Ethnology was created in 1879 at the Smithsonian Institution, almost the only scientific institution that depended directly on the US government, and not on private individuals. It was headed by Major John Powell, who had previously headed the Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region. In his previous post, Major Powell, a geologist by training, did a great job of systematizing Indian languages ​​and created their first reasonable classification. Under his leadership, a series of publications on the archeology and ethnography of North America was published, which laid the foundation for further research. Gradually, other scientific centers emerged in the United States, also initially focusing on the study of the indigenous population of America. American studies is being created as a comprehensive science.

For applied American ethnography, modern Indian society is a kind of laboratory. In this “laboratory”, some ethnographers and sociologists, working on a specific social order, study the processes of so-called acculturation and assimilation, the mechanics of the forced transfer of society from the state of the primitive communal system to the conditions of the capitalist system. The conclusions obtained from Indian material can be used in the study of societies in the sphere of US interests.

But the Indians are not only an object of research or a kind of guinea pig in this unique scientific laboratory that is the reservation. They understand perfectly well the purposes for which people come to them, who is talking to them - a friend or a cold observer. It is not without reason that complaints about the secrecy of Indians and their reluctance to let outsiders into their inner world often appear in ethnographic literature. Ethnographers who were able to actually show sympathy for the Indians, help them in some way, or simply respect their customs, moods, and needs always meet with complete understanding and effective assistance in field practice.

Some American ethnographers, united by sympathy for the oppressed peoples and, above all, for the most disadvantaged peoples of their country, call themselves supporters of active ethnography and contrast their work with applied ethnography. Active ethnographers strive to combine the study of Indians with actual assistance to the people with whom they work. This assistance is expressed in various forms - in establishing medical care, school affairs, in creating craft organizations, in explaining the advantages of advanced agricultural methods, etc. A very important aspect in the activities of ethnographers is their work to establish the former boundaries of Indian tribes. This work is connected with the Indians filing claims against the US government, demanding payment of money under old treaties. The Indian Claims Commission, created in 1946, is overwhelmed with such cases because most tribes have still not received the amounts due to them for the lands sold to the US government. The fact that Indian tribes, through their lawyers, invite ethnographers to help them restore justice means undoubted trust in those selfless scientists who give their work and knowledge for the benefit of the oppressed. And all these efforts are not in vain. Many American ethnographers write with respect and gratitude about the Indians, who willingly restore, together with the researcher, a picture of the past of their tribe.

A historical example of collaboration between Indian intellectuals and a progressive researcher is the work of Henry Morgan on the Tonawanda Reservation (Seneca Indians). The CUTA Indians can justly be proud that the reconstruction of Iroquois society brought G. JI. Morgan to the world-historical discovery of the universality of the tribal system. It is known that Morgan began studying the Iroquois under the influence of his friend General Eli Parker, an Iroquois by nationality. The Iroquois of the Seneca tribe, to which Parker belonged, not only helped the great scientist, but, appreciating his friendly, deep interest in Indian culture, accepted Morgan into the tribe (1847). And in the future, the Iroquois themselves continued to participate in the restoration of the social history of their people: a descendant of Eli Parker, Arthur Parker, is engaged in ethnography and the history of the tribe (he wrote an interesting book about the life of Eli Parker, a man of brilliant mind and great knowledge, an associate of General Grant):

One can name quite a few other names of ethnographers and archaeologists of Indian origin who devoted themselves to the study of the indigenous population of America, including a specialist on the Indians of the southwest, E. Dozier; the founder of the National Congress of American Indians, an employee of the Bureau of Indians and the author of books and articles on the modern situation of American Indians, Darcy McNickle (Flathead tribe from the Selish language family); expert on Oklahoma Indians, historian and ethnographer Muriel Wright, who traces her origins to the Choctaw tribe, as well as many others. In the 1930s, the now deceased ethnographer A. Finney, originally a Sahaptin Indian, was trained in graduate school at Leningrad University.

The history of colonization in North America was a history of Europeans taking over lands belonging to the continent's indigenous people. And yet, throughout the history of the colonization of North America, the Indians many times showed generosity towards the colonists who needed their help.

It is safe to say that the colonial wars were largely fought by Indian tribes. The colonialists incited discord between tribes, forcing them to fight for other people's interests, and sought the support of the strongest tribal alliances to destroy their rivals in the colonization of North America. The role of the Iroquois League in the Anglo-French wars is known. “If we lose the Iroquois, we are lost,” the secretary of the Pennsylvania colony wrote to England in 1702, when it was rumored that the Iroquois League wished to side with the French.

And later in the War of Independence, the British tried with all their might to use the Indians in the fight against the young American nation. In turn, the Americans tried to enlist the support of local tribes or at least achieve their neutrality. Even in the war between the North and the South, the Indian tribes continued to play, albeit to a more limited extent, the same role as allies of the various contending parties.

From the Indians, the settlers borrowed a new method of waging war, the scattered system. During the War of Independence, he was destined to play a huge role in the colonies gaining independence. The loose system was also used by the revolutionary people of France during the Great French Revolution.

The eastern “civilized” tribes provided an invaluable service to the United States, with the help of which the territory beyond the Mississippi was developed and some prairie tribes were “pacified.” The participation of a number of tribes in the war between the North and the South on the side of the northerners is another example of the undoubted contribution of the Indians to the creation of a modern state. And the US government itself to some extent owes its origin to the Indians. The idea of ​​federal states was borrowed by Benjamin Franklin from the structure of the Iroquois Union.

The attitude towards the Indians and their culture changes as the US state grows, as the productive forces develop, as American capitalism develops. At the beginning of colonization, in terms of their ability to master the natural resources of the continent, settlers from Europe did not differ so sharply from the indigenous population of America; at least at first, they simply adopted many of the cultural achievements of the Indians in ready-made form. Subsequently, with the development of American capitalism, the achievements of Indian culture are lost among new forms of material life, undoubtedly more highly developed, and the Indian origins of many of these new forms are forgotten.

The less the Indians were considered in the economic and political sphere, the more disdainful the official attitude towards the Indian and his spiritual culture became. Slander against the Indians, their mental abilities and ability to work, treating them as inferior beings whose culture does not need to be taken into account were required to justify the policy of segregation that the United States began to pursue in the 19th century. in relation to Indian peoples. From about the 30s of the 19th century. Indians began to be resettled on reservations on lands that, for some reason, were not in the sight of capitalist entrepreneurs. First, the most advanced tribes from the eastern states of the country were subjected to this fate, who were gradually resettled across the Mississippi, then, after the war between the North and the South, after long resistance, the tribes of the prairies and the Far West were confined to reservations. Until the 1930s, Indians did not have the right to leave the reservations without permission from the authorities, no matter how difficult the living conditions were there. As a rule, the least suitable lands for agriculture in remote areas of the country were allocated for reservations.

It was especially difficult for the hunting tribes evicted to areas devoid of game. Lacking farming skills, many tribes could subsist only on meager rations given to them by the state as a debt for the lands acquired from the Indians. The Indians were under triple supervision - soldiers, Indian Bureau employees and various missionaries church talk. Indian Bureau employees (agents) and missionaries had to not only keep the Indians in obedience, but, in accordance with the new course in US Indian policy, promote their speedy assimilation. The assimilation of the Indians, the destruction of their original culture and, first of all, communal land use were necessary when the main funds of the so-called free lands in the country were exhausted, while the Indians still had quite significant possessions; in addition, on the lands transferred to the Indian tribes, “while the rivers flowed and the grass grew,” as the treaties said, minerals began to be found, so that they represented doubly tempting prey. “The whites set as their goal not only the complete conquest and economic enslavement of the Indians, but in many countries the complete destruction of their culture and their physical extermination. In the United States and Canada, this struggle for the destruction of the Indians and their entire social structure was carried out by insidious methods, methods of the complete elimination of Indian social institutions and the forced assimilation of the surviving Indian population... This principle was used by the US government as the basis for the 1887 law on Indian reservations.” - this is how William Foster characterized US policy towards the Indians, analyzing the events of the late 19th century.

The 1887 law that W. Foster talks about was adopted when, according to a prominent US official, “the prevailing belief was that as a result of assimilation and extinction, the Indians would disappear and their lands should be transferred to the whites.” Indeed, at the end of the 19th century. in the United States, the Indian population barely exceeded 200 thousand - the result of wars of extermination, hunger strikes on reservations and epidemic diseases. And now, approximately fifty years after the Indians were forcibly isolated from American society, confining them to reservations, they began, again against the desire of the Indians, who had somehow adapted to the new conditions, to “open” these reservations for Americans to settle in them. This measure is being carried out supposedly to save the Indians and their culture from complete destruction.

The massive “opening” of reservations affected primarily the agricultural tribes of the Indian Territory. These were peoples who received the nickname civilized because they had a written language in their native language. They were promised American citizenship. However, obtaining citizenship rights was associated with a number of conditions. On the path to achieving equality, which the Indians were talking about a lot in those years, there was an indispensable condition for the abolition of communal land use, the division of communal lands into small plots, which were transferred first to temporary (for 25 years) and then to full private ownership of the heads of families. The surplus that was formed after such a division and which, as a rule, represented the most convenient lands, went to the state fund and was put on sale. As a result, local Indians found themselves disunited - their plots interspersed with the possessions of American farmers, oil mines, railroad plots, etc. At the same time, tribal governance was abolished in Indian Territory, which further contributed to the destruction of ethnic communities. Very few of the Indians in the former Indian Territory became farmers. Even if they had the skills to do so, the Indians did not have the means to farm at a level that would help them withstand capitalist competition. And very soon, most of the owners, despite the ban on selling land for 25 years, parted with their land, which passed to oil and railway companies, into the hands of sales agents, etc.

The same fate befell many Native American groups throughout the country, especially in the Midwest and other areas of intense industrial and agricultural development.

The dispossession of Indians throughout America proceeded at such a rapid pace that by 1930 the entire Indian population faced the prospect of complete impoverishment. In just over 40 years, 21 million acres of fertile or mineral-rich land were taken from the Indians through the 1887 law. Land divisions by 1934 had been made on 118 reservations. The Indians, robbed once again, went to work in local factories, worked as laborers, were hired under contracts for seasonal harvesting work, in a word, they led the same lifestyle as the poorest sections of the American population. The only difference was that with even greater poverty, they were even more powerless, often did not speak English, and their ambiguous position as wards of the US government put them under the complete control of the Indian Bureau.

Simultaneously with the economic attack on the Indians, with the destruction of the Indian community and tribe that helped the Indians stick together, there was an attack on the original culture of the Indian peoples.

Native language, customs, religious beliefs Indians were banned. Missionaries actively eradicated “pagan” morals. The government adopted a special school education program. Children were torn away from their families and sent to special boarding schools located far from the reservation. Everything that connected little Indians with their people was banned - songs, dances, national clothes, religion. Teaching in Indian schools was conducted exclusively in English, so that children forgot their native speech. Children from different tribes were collected in boarding schools so that they could not communicate with each other in any Indian language and inevitably resorted to English. Indian youth received knowledge that was difficult to find application on the reservation to which they returned. A small stratum of Indian intelligentsia emerged, alien to both Indians and whites. Many never found their place in life, which naturally aroused a feeling of protest among the Indians towards such methods of assimilation, which brought confusion and demoralization into their midst. But some of the Indian intelligentsia that emerged during these years subsequently faithfully served their people in the role in which the Indians were allowed to act (teachers, Indian Bureau employees, preachers, etc.).

In general, all the efforts of the US ruling circles in the field of Indian policy in the 19th - early 20th centuries. were aimed at destroying Indian culture, dividing the Indians, demoralizing them and, consequently, reducing their ability to resist to a minimum. The Indians responded to this with uprisings, as well as protests of a different nature, expressed in various religious movements, in the emergence of teachings about the rejection of European culture, the secret practice of old or renewed cults prohibited by the church (the messianic movement of 1812-1814 and the Tecumseh uprising, Dance of the Spirit in 1890 and the uprising of the Sioux Indians, etc.). The Indians continued to live their spiritual lives. And this to some extent helped the Indian peoples resist absorption by the dominant nation.

By the beginning of the 20th century. at least the external forms of manifestation of any serious resistance of the Indians were eliminated. Large tribes were settled on separate, distant reservations (Iroquois, Sioux, etc.) and placed with Indians of other language groups. The system of measures for forced assimilation, which included the intensive work of many religious missions, boarding schools, strict bans on traditional activities, customs, entertainment in their native language, etc., acted steadily for several decades and literally threw the Indians out of the framework of the primitive communal system into the modern one. capitalist society, where they found themselves among the most disadvantaged part of the population.

The US government, under public pressure, was eventually forced to take action to save them from extinction. Under President Franklin Roosevelt, the Indian Bureau was headed by John Collier. Together with other progressive-minded public figures, he tried to renew the composition of the Bureau with the help of ethnographers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, including from among the Indian intelligentsia, and with their help to overcome the traditional US policy aimed at oppression, robbery and spiritual enslavement indigenous population of the country. Public organizations such as the Association of American Indian Affairs and others warmly supported the line adopted by Collier and his associates, and actively participated in the preparation of reforms to improve the situation of the Indians and Eskimos. In 1934-1936. Several laws were passed, known as the Indian Reorganization Act, which provided for the introduction of self-government in Indian societies, the creation of production and marketing cooperatives, changes in the school system, and the protection of Indian property. However, these reforms were of a dual nature. On the one hand, they contributed to the partial restoration of the economic basis of the Indians’ existence: the government prohibited further plundering of reservation lands; the organization of production and marketing cooperatives helped them partly get rid of the buyers - the sovereign owners of the reservation; a special department under the Bureau of Indian Affairs was supposed to revive Indian crafts and thereby open up a new source of income for the Indians.

Reforms in the education system reflected changes in the government's Indian policies. The Indian Bureau moved from boarding schools to creating schools on reservations. The curriculum itself is changing, the emphasis is on teaching subjects that are necessary for a resident of an Indian reservation, industrial training is being introduced (lessons in home economics, weaving for girls, agricultural technology, studying tractors and other agricultural machines for boys, etc.). The Indians, who were literally disappearing from poverty and unemployment, were also provided with some material support. Under the Civil Conservation Corps, which was in charge of public works (draining swamps, improving soils, building roads, etc.), special units were created from among the Indians, who had the opportunity to earn a little money.

These reforms, no matter how insignificant they were, helped the Indian tribes to some extent during the years of terrible crisis and depression that reigned in the country. But they also had another side, reflecting a slightly different view of the indigenous population of the country compared to the past. Weakened, scattered groups of Indians, at various stages of assimilation, have long ceased to pose a threat to the well-being of the ruling classes of the United States. Now it was possible to remember their “exotic” culture. At this stage, it is no longer an object of persecution, but to some extent of conservation and development of its individual forms. Laws 1934-1936 in essence, they artificially restored the tribal organization where it was no longer connected with the social structure of the new Indian society. The forms of primitive communal relations were either completely destroyed, as among the Indians of Oklahoma (or the Pima Indians in Arizona), or gradually died out, as among the Western Indian peoples living in isolated areas of the country (Navajos, Pueblo Indians, Semnolls of Florida, etc.). The Indians were once again forced into an artificial organization of society, turning them back, encouraging the revival of old customs, cultivating national narrow-mindedness and preventing the unification of the Indian working masses with the working people of all America. It was on this side of the laws of 1934-1936. and was the main focus of the Indian Bureau. By offering the Indians, who had long lost the forms of primitive communal relations and lived in the same way as the surrounding rural poor of Oklahoma and other areas, to again create tribes, the government placed the Indians under double control. Now the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs was supplemented by the supervision of the “chiefs,” the “tribal council.” This new administrative elite was dependent on the Bureau and had to act on its orders, receiving for this all the benefits from the laws of the 30s (irrigated land, advantageous places in cooperation, etc.).

Currently in the United States there are 600 thousand people who consider themselves Indians and Eskimos, i.e. almost as many as there were Indians and Eskimos in the territory of what is now the United States at the time of European colonization.

It is believed that by the time of European colonization, approximately 800 thousand Indians and Eskimos lived in what is now the United States. By the end of the 19th century. as a result of extermination wars, famines and diseases, the number of Indians in the country fell to 200 thousand. The relatively large increase in the Indian population with the constant “erosion” of Indian communities due to the assimilation of some Indians and their departure from the “Indian” way of life is primarily explained by the cessation of the physical extermination of Indians , which lasted until the end of the 19th century. In addition, some improvement in living conditions for some Indians who have received qualifications associated with cooperatives also plays a role; the creation of normal hygienic conditions in some reservations, the fight of the medical community against infectious and social diseases.

Most Indians continue to live on reservations, to which many are primarily tied to land, which is not subject to taxes in accordance with US Indian law. Often, being Americans both by occupation and by whole way of life, Indians do not leave the reservation so as not to lose their piece of land - a refuge in case of loss of work. That is why among the inhabitants of the reservations one can find groups of varying degrees of “assimilation” - from the Americanized Iroquois of New York State in their way of life to the very original Seminoles of Florida who preserve many forms of material and spiritual culture of the past. Both of them live on reservations, but the former treat the reservation as a home to which they return from work, for example, in the construction of skyscrapers in large cities in the United States and even Europe, while the Seminoles actually still retain great isolation and adhere to old customs that sharply distinguish them from other Americans.

A significant number of Indians live in small communities among the rest of the country's population. These are the Oklahoma Indians. And although they live in cities or on farms interspersed with other residents of the state, they have developed some kind of special kind of autonomy, in which, being completely American by occupation, they retain “tribal” management, have their own medical and educational institutions and public organizations.

All of the listed groups of Indians, associated with a particular tribe, reservation, land on a reservation, or leading the lifestyle of ordinary American farmers or city workers, are united by a common historical fate and modern situation. And although the Indians in the past were ethnically diverse and were at different stages of the primitive communal system, the conditions of economic and national oppression in which they have to live now force them to stick together, no matter how different the position of individual Indian groups. And forced measures of assimilation, carried out through a variety of channels, naturally evoke a desire to preserve their customs, their world, which neither a missionary, nor an Indian Bureau official, nor an idle tourist can invade. That is why it is necessary to distinguish between those forms of culture that the Indians preserve for themselves as a symbol of their existence as a special ethnic group, and ostentatious ones, created specifically for the needs of commercial demand.

The interest in Indian culture now being shown in the United States is directed primarily at the past, at remnants that have become obsolete or preserved due to the uneven development of certain regions of the country. There is always an element of attraction in the display and popularization of Indian culture. And without this element it was hardly possible to attract money to organize all the various exhibitions, fairs, and handicraft workshops. Commercial interest lies in many endeavors related to the “revival” of Indian traditions in art and crafts.

For many Indians today, not only tribal organization, but most customs are about as alien as they are for “white” Americans. For financial reasons, these Indians are forced to reproduce something with which they have no organic connection. For peoples who have preserved their original culture more than others, reproducing holidays and rituals for the amusement of a bored public hurts their sense of pride and belittles their human dignity.

In some cases, they try to overcome all these unpleasant features of the commercial approach to the old culture of the Indians, giving the “fairs” and festivals as scientific and educational a character as possible. Ethnographers play a big role in this.

In Oklahoma, in the town of Anadarko - in the center of one of the most “Indian” states in the country - an open-air museum has been created. It features life-size dwellings of various tribes in central North America. The construction and decoration of the dwellings was carried out with the help of ethnographers and Indians from the relevant tribes. Every year in August, the museum's management organizes fairs where Indians show their rituals, dances, and demonstrate national clothes and jewelry. Here artisans introduce their crafts to those interested, and experts tell children Indian legends and fairy tales.

In New Mexico, the site of the same fair is the city of Gallup. Also in August, Indians from the western regions of the country and tourists come here. For the latter, hotels and restaurants are open, and special bulletins are published informing about the procedure for the celebration, as well as some of the customs of the local Indians. Magnificent parades, rodeos, dances, and reenactments of historical scenes follow each other for four days. These spectacles come in different qualities.

Celebrations of a smaller scale - the "Buffalo Dance" of the Prairie Indians, the "Snake Dance" of the Hopi, the Night Hawk Rite of the Eastern Teal and many other festivals of a commercial nature, like the fairs described above, give a very far from the truth idea of ​​​​the old customs of the various tribes, but they all entered into American everyday life just like the “French” and “Italian” carnivals in New Orleans, the Mexican festivals in San Antonio, the singing festivals of Norwegian Americans, New Year's processions in the Chinatowns of New York and San Francisco etc.

There is a point of view that in the United States, part of the Indian population is developing a “pan-Indian” culture, which combines cultural elements of different tribes. Indeed, over the past decades one can observe a certain blurring of the lines between tribes. Cohabitation of multilingual tribes on the same reservation and frequent intermarriages lead to constant cultural exchange.

In modern conditions (highways and railways, etc.), Indians easily communicate with each other, attend festivals of their friends and participate in rituals and dances of tribes of a different culture and language. Therefore, festivals, dances, songs, costumes lose their ethnic address.

The activities of the American Native Church, which includes Indians of various tribes and whose cult is not associated with any particular tribe, also helps to strengthen inter-tribal ties.

Some American ethnographers, noting the erasure of tribal lines, see this not so much as the preservation of old Indian customs, but as a stage in the process of assimilation of Indians by Americans. This is a completely acceptable assumption, since where the Indian population is particularly diverse in its ethnic composition, tribal differences are erased quite quickly, but at the same time, external differences between the Indian and non-Indian populations are gradually lost. The rapprochement of Indians from different tribes occurs with the help of the English language, since the vast majority of Indians have either completely forgotten their native language or are bilingual. In addition, basically all Indians, to one degree or another, accepted modern American culture and, above all, its material forms. However, almost everywhere Indians retain their national identity. The need to defend their economic interests in the face of the US government, the struggle for equal rights binds US citizens of Indian descent much stronger than belonging to the Native American Church or common celebrations.

And yet, the modern Indian population of the United States is increasingly participating in the social and cultural life of the country. Moreover, a number of areas of culture and art in the present-day United States are experiencing a certain influence from the Indians, who enrich American culture by introducing into it some of their traditions, their talent, and their creative work. “The United States is one of those countries in the Western Hemisphere in which there are very few Indians, and yet what a huge gap would exist in the culture of the United States if it were not for the Indian element!” wrote William Foster in his work “An Outline of the Political History of America.” ". And if a few decades ago, in all its policies, the United States proceeded from the fact that Indians are “a dying race and a dying culture,” now the growth of the Indian population, and at the same time the growth of its activity in the social, political and cultural life of the country Even the most ardent supporters of the forced assimilation of Indians cannot deny.

If earlier, during the years of colonization of America and in the early days of the existence of the United States, this influence was direct and manifested itself mainly in the production of material goods, then with the increasing development of capitalist relations, Indian influence penetrates into American culture through channels such as science and art. , literature and even entertainment. In modern life, this indirect influence has a very unique character. While continuing to influence the culture of the dominant nation, the original culture of Indian groups encounters all sorts of obstacles to its own development. The ruling classes of the United States strive to give the remaining forms of national culture of the Indian peoples a one-sided character that is beneficial from the point of view of capitalist entrepreneurship. The fight against this tendency is of paramount importance for the Indians and is associated with an attempt to defend the right to their own culture. Intertwined here are the desire of the Indians to create national cultural values ​​at a new stage, the persistent need to defend their right to independence in creativity and the persistent struggle for the opportunity to develop their crafts and use the natural resources available on the reservations for the benefit of their people.

From this point of view, let us look at some of the still remaining forms of the original culture of the Indian peoples of the United States. These primarily include painting, which has achieved certain successes and undoubted recognition.

R.Henry. Indian Girl from Santa Clara

Without taking upon ourselves the task of characterizing the ancient art of Indian tribes, we will only say that it developed in several directions. The Indians of the northwestern coast covered wooden utensils and ritual carved objects with paints; the prairie Indians painted the tires of their dwellings - tents (teepees), cloaks, shields with pictographic signs that reported the exploits of their owners. The southwestern tribes had interesting “mound” designs made of colored sand, which were created in witchcraft rituals and were immediately destroyed as soon as the ritual ended. The drawings were symbolic and very complex. Many tribes knew the art of artistic modeling (smoking pipes, images of animals, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic vessels were made from clay), as well as stone carving. The tribes of the northwestern coast of North America created a very sophisticated art of carving wood, bone, horn, and jade. Things for ritual and everyday purposes were decorated by Indian craftsmen equally carefully and with great skill.

G.Stewart. Indian Chief Tayendangea

But many of these forms did not receive further development. They are used very speculatively by contemporary American artists, who seek in them support and justification for modernist trends in painting. Experiencing a crisis of ideas, the dominant bourgeois culture turns to archaic forms, distorts them, perverting their original meaning, artificially tearing them away from the environment that once nourished them. The complex designs of the Northwestern Indians are interpreted as the ancient rationale for modern abstractionism and other formalist movements in painting and sculpture. Interest in the artistic traditions of Indian peoples is not aimed at developing these traditions in relation to the needs of the Indians of today, but at serving the aesthetic culture.

The movement for the restoration of Indian culture that began in the 1920s was marked by the opening of a number of art schools for gifted Indians. Talented young men from the Kiowa tribe already in 1928 received high praise for their work at an international exhibition in Prague. Since then, paintings by Indian artists, frescoes, and wall paintings have decorated museums, residential buildings, and US government agencies. But the creativity of masters of Indian origin is artificially directed in the direction that pleases ruling classes. First of all, it is far from modern in its themes, and in its manner of execution it is conventional. Canonized forms dominate, attracting with their exoticism. Often these forms are even loosely related to Indian traditions. Thus, at the art school in Santa Fe, created specifically for the Indians, they developed techniques and style taken from Persian miniatures.

Very often, the creations of Indian masters are beautiful, despite the forms canonized by commercial demand. But they have two significant drawbacks - limited funds and narrow topic. The Indian artist sometimes creates powerful paintings, full of tragedy or bucolic charm. But they are usually turned to the past, show the exotic side of Indian life, and are conventional, just like the conventional manner in which they are created.

How can an Indian live by making art? asked Allan Houser, an Apache instructor at an Indian school in Brigham City, Utah. And he answers this question himself. “Practical experience and broader education stimulate the artist to create a creative work. But the facts discourage him. He learns that well-paid commercial art is a competitor to creative art, which often brings nothing but starvation."

And yet, many experts believe that the creations of Indian artists are the only thing that is now valuable in modern US painting. Talent, even entangled in the conventions of form and impoverished in theme, is capable of creating significant things. But all the more necessary for Indians is freedom of creativity, which alone can help create an original art that is at the same time organically connected with modern reality.

Lloyd Kiva, of teal descent, stated at a conference on Indian arts and crafts: "The future of Indian art lies in the future, not in the past - let's stop looking back for standards for Indian artistic production." Lloyd Keave's words perfectly reflect the situation in which the art of American Indian peoples finds itself, and testify to the urgent need to free themselves from stylization and find soil for the development of realistic forms of fine art.

In the development of handicrafts on Indian reservations, perhaps, ancient traditions and new needs and tastes of craftsmen were most successfully combined. Here, less than in any other area, representatives of bourgeois American culture could look for material for themselves. And interference in the artistic crafts of the Indians is limited mainly by the demand and tastes of the market. This is also difficult, but such interference did not manage to disfigure the natural path of development of this interesting and promising branch of activity of the Indian population of the United States.

It is interesting to note that American ethnographers, who are directly involved with the Indians in their research work, are taking a large part in the revival and development of artistic crafts.

Let's look at this in more detail. In 1935, under the Indian Bureau in accordance with the laws of 1934-4936. The Department of Indian Arts and Crafts was created. Many ethnographers and archaeologists have worked and are now working with the Indian Bureau, traveling to reservations, exploring the possibilities of creating or restoring artistic crafts that were prohibited during the years of forced assimilation. At the same time, through public organizations, progressive-minded ethnographers make the work of the Bureau public and thereby force it to carry out activities useful for the Indians. Largely thanks to this work of the scientific community, in many parts of the country where Indians live, as well as in museums, the production of original items of Indian craft and art has been organized.

The circle of Indian artisans is quite wide; many Indian reservations or villages, where a number of people of Indian origin live, have cooperative workshops. The Cherokees of North Carolina achieved a high art of wood carving. It has been here since the 80s of the 19th century. There is a craft school in which classes for artistic crafts were created more than 20 years ago, first weaving, then making pottery. Then the talented self-taught Going Bek Chiloski led the wood sculpture class. This art is learned not only by children, but also by adults. The Indians invited Chilosky's former student, Amanda Crow, who studied art history in Chicago, as a teacher. The Penobscots also continue old traditions in the crafts: they produce canoes for sale. On the Navajo reservation, they weave carpets for sale, for which this people were famous back in colonial times. The Pueblo Indians are famous for their pottery making. At one time this art fell into decline. Now women from the Pueblo Indian tribes are once again engaged in the production of pottery, distinguished by high quality and beautiful ornamentation.

The fate of jewelry among the Pueblo Indians and Navajos, who are rightfully considered the best craftsmen in this field, is interesting.

The Indians adopted this art from the Spanish settlers and very soon surpassed their teachers, becoming the main suppliers of silver jewelry in the Spanish colonies of southwestern North America. They decorated silver items - buckles, pendants, necklaces - with turquoise. Now the production of jewelry occupies one of the first places among Indian crafts in terms of production volume.

But still, successes in the revival and development of crafts are reduced to a minimum due to difficulties in marketing the products of artisans.

More than once, progressive American ethnographers raised their voices against the dominance of shopkeepers who profit from Indian artisans. The creation of trading cooperatives helps to combat these predators that infest reservations to some extent, but it is difficult to get rid of them completely.

It is equally important to find a market for Indian crafts. At the Conference on Indian Crafts and Arts in Tucson (1959), ethnographers convincingly argued how narrow markets and low wages for artisans hampered the further development of newly revived crafts. “Navaja rugs became of much better quality and sold well. But the wages of the weavers are so low that they will soon stop weaving... Weaving obviously cannot find a place in non-Indian culture.

Pottery is also in decline. As you know, there is no wide market for well-decorated ceramics, but it is open for cheap and flashy ashtrays...” Concluding this sad review of the state of the art, Royal Hessrick, head of the department of Western American art at the Denver Art Museum, stated: “The real pitfalls for Indian craft products are: mismanagement, sporadic production, weak advertising, or failure to understand the changing whims of society.” Dependence on the skushtik, on private benefactors and, finally, on the taste of the public, which has been spoiled for many years by commercial advertising, are sufficient obstacles for economically weak handicraft industries. In order for the American consumer to want to purchase rather expensive handmade products, rather than prefer them to cheap mass-produced fakes, it is necessary that he not only have the means for this, but also understand their value. In this regard, the role of museums, popular science literature, and scientific advertising is very great. Explanatory work is carried out by the progressive ethnographic community through museums and exhibitions, although, as the Americans themselves note, this is far from sufficient. And yet, Indian handicrafts penetrate into the life of Americans, certainly enriching it, although they occupy a small place in it.

As for the development of more productive types of production, the situation is even worse on Indian reservations.

Only if the Indians preserve the land and natural resources contained in the depths of the reservations, and with the economic development of the reservations, can we expect the preservation of the cultural traditions of the Indian peoples.

But this condition, necessary for the further development of Indian ethnic communities, is not met in a capitalist state. Along with admiring Indian antiquity and preserving customs that retard the growth of Indian class consciousness, everything is being done to destroy the very basis of the existence of Indian groups and take away their land.

The Indians continue to be the subject of various administrative experiments. If you trace the history of the “Indian” policy of the United States, it will first of all turn out to be closely connected with the land issue. The emergence of reservations was caused primarily by the demand of the states to seize convenient lands from the Indians; The division of common lands and the transfer of land into private ownership, which began in the 1880s, “freed up” millions of hectares of land for American oil and other companies, as well as for capitalist agriculture. Acts of recent years - the so-called Termination Act of 1953 and the Relocation Act - also entail further alienation of Indian lands. Before stating the nature of these laws, it should be remembered that the lands of the Indians on reservations are not subject to taxes, and this is one of the advantages for which the Indians naturally fight and because of which many choose to remain on the reservations.

Ellen Neal (Kwakiutl Tribe, British Columbia, Canada) - wood carver

What is the first of these acts? He transferred reservations in some states from the federal government to the state governments. Officially, this meant that the Indians of these states no longer needed government tutelage, i.e., they rose one more step towards achieving full citizenship. However, the Indians reacted negatively to this measure. “The Indians protested,” wrote Nancy Lurie in a review of the current state of the “Indian” problem, “accurately predicting not only that law and order would suffer damage (the states were unlikely to want to take on new responsibility for the Indians living on lands not taxed tax), but also that agitation will begin for the taxation of Indian lands." “Most Indians are poor,” continues Lurie, “before they can get their land to yield any income, if at all possible, they will lose it through taxation.” And although Congress decided to carry out such measures on all reservations, completely freeing the Indians from the special protection of the federal government (by December 1961, a small number of Indian groups had already been subjected to this new experiment), the Termination Act was suspended due to the protest of the Indians, who were well aware that by implementing the Termination Act, they would fall under the power of the states, and therefore completely dependent on the interests of local capitalist entrepreneurs, whose actions are even more difficult for the public to control than the actions of the Indian Bureau.

As for the act of relocating Indians, that is, moving them from the poorest reservations to cities, it has the same economic basis. As mentioned earlier, some land on reservations is still communally owned.

Lands under forest or rich in mineral resources, pastures are profitable for the Indian poor to exploit together, on a cooperative basis. Thanks to measures taken during the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, technical intelligentsia appeared in Indian communities on reservations who could help create the economic base of the Indian economy based on the natural resources available on the reservations. This initiative of the Indian tribes is nipped in the bud.

The Indians are allowed to develop only those industries that cannot seriously compete with American companies and do not affect the natural resources in which capitalists are interested. But, as a rule, the Indians are not given the opportunity to use the natural resources available on the reservations for the benefit of their people. Once mineral resources are discovered on a reservation that could be exploited by the reservation's residents, the government either gives the land to an industrial company or requisitions or purchases it for the government. The Indians are being deprived of everything that can bring any serious income. This was the case with the Alaska Indians, who decided to independently develop forest resources on their reservations and build a pulp mill on a cooperative basis - their economic initiative was immediately stopped, and forest areas were taken away. On the Papago Reservation (Arizona), rich in gold, silver, lead and other minerals, Indians are not accepted for well-paid jobs in mines owned by large industrial companies. There are many such examples - they all indicate that the ruling classes are not interested in truly improving the well-being of the Indian population.

Despite repeated assurances that the lands and natural resources of the reservation would no longer be plundered, the US government in 1955 decided to abolish one of the most important regulations for preserving the economic base of Indian groups, effectively completely depriving the Indian tribes of any trace of independence. From now on, the Indian has the right to sell his share of land, forests, etc., without the permission of the tribal council. Thus, a new loophole was opened for further robbery of the Indians. From 1948 to 1957, under this act alone, they lost more than 3 million acres of land with timber, water and other resources that could have contributed to raising the prosperity of the reservations.

It is clear that in this state of affairs, reservations find themselves among the disaster areas where people languish from the inability to apply their knowledge and their strength. Instead of helping the Indians develop productive agriculture, forestry, mining, and developing handicrafts on a large scale, a new way out of the situation was invented - relocation, voluntary resettlement to cities.

And until 1952 (the year the relocation law was issued), Indians left the reservations for temporary work in the city or on plantations.

Labor contractors even preferred Indians for seasonal work, since they were not members of trade unions, were completely defenseless and therefore were content with reduced pay. In addition, they were not eager to stay employed and returned to the reservations. Contractors transported teal from Oklahoma to Arkansas for the cotton harvest. Every year, thousands of Indians from British Columbia (Canada), as well as the states of Montana and Idaho, were hired to pick hops in the Yakima Valley. This work requires a lot of labor and is poorly paid. 35% of the Mi'kmaq tribe (maritime provinces of Canada) go to Maine (USA) to harvest potatoes.

Iroquois from reservations in Canada and the United States constantly go to rural work and logging, and in the post-war years an increasing number of Iroquois work in industry, mainly in construction.

Ojibwe Indians from the Lac du Flambeau Reservation make up 80% of the workers at the local factory. It is interesting to note that the majority of Indians working at the plant are women.

Most of the self-employed Indian population in British Columbia works in the fishing industry.

This indicates the process of proletarianization of part of the Indian population that began several decades ago.

Forced assimilation, carried out before the laws of the 30s of the 20th century, was suspended with the introduction of the Reorganization Act. The implementation of certain measures that temporarily stopped the theft of land on reservations, the development of handicrafts, and the restoration of social ties between people of Indian origin contributed to the rise of national feelings among the Indians. At the same time, the introduction of Indians to the culture of the dominant nation did not stop. They increasingly became Americans in their way of life, perceiving as much as possible the material achievements of modern society, mastering modern knowledge, especially the practical knowledge necessary to raise their standard of living.

Over the past decade, a lot has changed in the situation of Indians. The Second World War caused activity among the American Indian population unprecedented in the last 50-60 years. Many volunteered for the front. The Indians fought in the most difficult sectors of the war, served as signalmen and pilots, showing considerable courage. During these years, quite a few men and women left the reservations and worked in factories, mines, and plantations side by side with workers of other national origins. Both war veterans and workers returned to the reservations after the war as changed people. They were no longer so afraid of life in the city; they learned not only the hostility of stupid officials and ordinary people, but also the solidarity of American workers.

It was after the Second World War, which contributed to the awakening of all colonial, oppressed peoples, that the Indians of the United States rebelled against the dictates of officials, protested against the theft of the natural resources of reservations, raised their voices in defense of their right to develop their own economy, receive an equal education with others, and the right to stand on a par with by all the peoples of the country and cease to be an object of charity, the right to decide their own fate, the fate of their culture.

In these new conditions, the emergence of the relocation law was greeted by the Indian public as another gross violation of their human rights. The implementation of measures related to the relocation act brought new complications to the Indians, instead of improving their economic situation.

If for most of the settlers, living and working in the city seemed like a temporary measure that should help improve their skills and gain new knowledge for application on the reservation, where many wanted to return, then the Indian Bureau, which deals with relocation, will see it as the final solution to the “Indian problem.” The migrants are helped in finding a job, the Indian Bureau gives loans and finds housing. And as soon as the Indian family has found shelter, and the head of the family has found work, the Indian Bureau relieves itself of responsibility for the fate of the settlers, although, as a rule, they find themselves in a difficult situation. Indians who do not have qualifications are given the most difficult and low-paid jobs, most often temporary ones, which they quickly lose. Skilled workers also don't last long because often, lacking the money to pay union dues, they lack union protection and are the first to be fired. Having lost the support of the Indian Bureau and not being entitled to unemployment benefits due to not having lived in a given city for long enough, the Indians cannot return home, since they are usually settled as far as possible from the reservation.

Thus, instead of real help, they are thrown into the cities, where they end up among the most distressed part of the population.

The relocation program, like the already mentioned act of ending the US government’s “trusteeship” of Indian tribes, is an expression of a policy of forced assimilation brought to life by economic and political reasons. Indian lands on reservations and the natural wealth stored in the depths of these lands continue to attract the interest of capitalist companies. The alienation of land is facilitated by the further destruction of the Indian community, the reduction of self-government and the sovereignty of the councils of Indian tribes to zero.

To please vested interests, the indigenous population of the United States is subjected to continuous experiments and is forced to obey laws that contradict each other. He is either dragged back into the past, or forcibly dragged into the very thick of capitalist society. No matter how various reforms are carried out, the Indians do not have the opportunity to independently decide their fate.

W. 3. Foster. At the dawn of American history. Preface to the book by G. Aptheker “The History of the American People. Colonial era". M., 196Í, p. 8.

Yu. P. Averkieva, E. E. B l o m k v i s t. Modern population of Canada. "Peoples of America", vol. I. M., 1959, p. 538.

Yu. P. Averkieva. Indians of the northwest coast of North America. The Peoples of America, vol. I, p. 342.

See the article “Two Scientific Meetings in Washington” about Noel Hume’s report “The Pottery of the Virginia Indians” at the regular conference on the ethnic history of American Indians. “Owl. ethnography", 1959, No. 4, p. 132.

I. W. Powell. Indian Linguistic families of America North of Mexico (7th Annual report Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington, 1891).

Contributions to North American Ethnology. Department of Interior U.S. Geographical & Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, vol. I-VII, IX.

See Yu. Averkiev. The service value of ethnography in the USA. “Bulletin of the History of World Culture”, 1959, No. 4, pp. 67-74; G. M a c g r e g o r. Ethnography in US government agencies. "Bulletin of the History of World Culture", 1959, No. 4, pp. 75-85.

A. Parker. The life of general Ely S. Parker. Buffalo. New York, 1919.

Yu. P. Averkieva, E. E. B l o m k v i s. Indians of the northeastern and lake regions of the USA (Iroquois and Algonquins). The Peoples of America, vol. I, p. 217.

Oliver la Farge, ed. The changing Indian. Norman, 1942.

Yu. P. Averkieva, I. A. 3 o l o t a r e v s k a i . The current situation of the Indians and Eskimos of North America. The Peoples of America, vol. I, p. 342.

The Indian in modern America, p. 68.

New abstracts:

Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus

Minsk State Linguistic University

Essay

In the discipline "Culturology"

On the topic

American Indian culture

Performed:

Student of group 207z

Lapshina Anna Sergeevna

PLAN

INTRODUCTION -……………………………………………………………………………….3

1. The origins of Indian culture………………………………………………………4

2. Indian mounds……………………………………………………8

3. Prairie Indians……………………………………………………………......12

4. Indian groups from Alaska to Florida…………………………..16

5. Languages ​​of North American Indians………………………......31

C onclusion -………………………………………………………………......25

List of sources and literature used………………….29

INTRODUCTION

Indians are the general name for the indigenous population of America (with the exception of Eskimos and Aleuts). The name arose from the erroneous idea of ​​the first European navigators, who considered the transatlantic lands they discovered to be India.

Scientists began to be interested in the Indians as soon as they first came into contact with the Europeans. Around the middle of the 19th century, a new scientific discipline arose - America - the science of history, as well as the material and spiritual culture of the Indians.

The object of this work is the American Indians, the subject is their culture.

The purpose of this work is to study the culture of the American Indians. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve a number of problems:

Explore the origins of Indian culture;

To study such a phenomenon of Indian culture as maunds;

Explore the culture of the Prairie Indians;

Explore the cultural characteristics of Indian groups from Alaska to Florida;

Explore the languages ​​of North American Indians and show the role they played in the development of modern languages.

While working on the topic, I encountered a problem in the literature on this topic. There is extremely little material in Russian. Of course, most of the material has not been translated from English. This indicates that domestic cultural studies has little interest in the culture of the US Indians (there is much more literature on modern US culture). The greatest help in preparing this work was provided to me by the historical and ethnographic reference book “Peoples of the World,” edited by Yu.V. Bromley, as well as the book by Indian culture researcher Miroslav Stingle, “Indians Without Tomahawks.”

1. Origins of Indian culture.

The high cultures of the original Americans and all their wonderful achievements, both in the material and spiritual fields, arose on the basis of original development.

The first culture that had already developed in America (which existed approximately 15 thousand years BC) - the Folsom culture, named after the place where its traces were found, does not differ in too noticeable progress compared with the Late Paleolithic culture of the inhabitants of the Sandia Cave. The center of the Folsom culture was the North American southwest (New Mexico). However, traces of this culture have been found throughout almost the entire territory of what is now the United States. These are mostly flint spearheads that Folsom hunters used to kill bison.

The first agricultural crop in America was the Cocheese culture. At this time, three or three and a half thousand years ago, the first people began to grow corn. It compensated the Indians of pre-Columbian America for the lack of all other types of grain that the Old World possessed. And at the same time, the inhabitants of another part of North America, the region of the Great Lakes, are for the first time, for now using a cold method, trying to process metal. At first it was copper, which the Indians found in its pure form. Meanwhile, the Indian population of the subarctic regions of North America (present-day Canada and Alaska) still remains at the level of a primitive culture, the basis of which is exclusively hunting for large animals (now it is mainly caribou) and fishing.

Following the first North American agricultural culture - the Cochisi culture - on both coasts of North America, the culture of shell heaps, or rather kitchen heaps, entered the history of this part of the New World. Indian fishermen who lived here many, many hundreds of years ago threw food scraps, bone needles, knives and other tools, often made from shells, into this landfill (hence the second name of the culture). And today such heaps of shells for the Americans are a rich, valuable evidence of the life of the Indians of that time.

Directly beyond the Cochise in the southwest of North America, a new agricultural culture arose, which was also based on the cultivation of corn - the culture of basket makers - “basket makers” (approximately 200 BC - 400 AD). It gets its name from a special type of waterproof, pot-shaped basket that “basket makers” wove to cook porridge-like food in. The “basket workers” still lived in the caves. But inside these holes they were already building real houses. The main habitat of these Indians was Arizona. Here, especially in Dead Man Canyon, numerous traces of them were found in various caves. The Basket Maker tree near Fall Creek in southern Colorado can be dated (with some variation) to 242, 268, 308, and 330 CE. e.

In the era when the “basket makers” culture was living out its life in the North American southwest, a new culture was emerging, the culture of the inhabitants of rock cities, who built their “cities” under the natural steep walls of rock or tuff, or in the deep river canyons of the North American southwest, or, finally, right in the rocks. Their houses, in the construction of which they made extensive use of caverns created by nature itself, grew horizontally and vertically, squeezed into the recesses of the rocks and piled on top of each other. Adobes, bricks dried in the sun, were usually used to build walls. We find such settlements in the North American southwest in the canyons of several large rivers. In these Indian cities, next to the rectangular living quarters, we always find round buildings. These are sanctuaries that were called beer by the Indians. They were also a kind of “men's clubs”. Although they were built exclusively by women, they were forbidden to enter these temples.

The builders of these settlements in the cliffs and deep Colorado canyons did not build a city, but one large house. Each room was built close to the other, cell to cell, and all together they represented a gigantic structure, similar to a honeycomb and numbering several dozen, or even hundreds of residential premises and sanctuaries. For example, the house-city of Pueblo Bonito in Chaca Canyon had 650 living quarters and 20 sanctuaries, or kivas. This semicircular house-city, within the walls of which one could accommodate all the inhabitants of a small Czech town, was the largest structure in all of pre-Columbian North America.

The large number of sanctuaries (kivas) in each of these house-cities testifies to an important fact: the development of agriculture here went hand in hand with the development of religion. None of the rock cities has its own agora, a kind of gathering point for resolving public issues. However, each of them has dozens of temples.

After several centuries, these people leave their amazing cities, carved into the rocks or hidden under the cliffs of the southwestern canyons, and move - literally - closer to the sun. They build their new settlements (we now call them pueblos, just like the house-cities in river canyons) on flat, steep hills called mesa (mesa is Spanish for “table”). New pueblos are also growing like a honeycomb. The inhabitants of such pueblos, regardless of their linguistic affiliation, we usually call by the common name Pueblo Indians. This is the last, highest stage in the development of pre-Columbian cultures of North America. The Pueblo Indians are the indirect heirs of the inhabitants of the rock cities, as well as representatives of much less known agricultural cultures - the Hohokam and the Mogollon.

However, the level of development of agriculture among the Pueblo Indians is immeasurably higher than that of their predecessors. They built extensive irrigation systems, which were of great importance in this rather arid area. The main agricultural crop was still corn (they grew more than ten varieties of it), in addition, pumpkin, red pepper, lettuce, beans, and tobacco were grown. The fields were cultivated with a wooden hoe. Along with this, the Pueblo Indians domesticated dogs and bred turtles. Hunting became for them only an additional source of food. They hunted deer, and more often, now completely extinct animals, a little reminiscent of the South American llama. Hunting was one of the men's activities. Men also wove and made weapons. Women cultivated the fields. (C) Information published on the site
The construction of dwellings was also exclusively a woman's task. The Pueblo Indians were remarkable potters, although, like all other groups of American Indians, they were not familiar with the potter's wheel before the arrival of the first Europeans. Men and women were engaged in the production of ceramics together.

In the pueblo, women played a significant role. During the era of the advent of the first Spaniards, matriarchy completely prevailed in almost all Indian tribes. Cultivated lands were shared and distributed equally among women - heads of families. After the wedding, the husband moved into his wife’s house, but only as a guest. The “divorce” was carried out without any difficulties. After the severance of marital ties, the husband had to leave the house. The children remained with their mother.

The inhabitants of each pueblo were divided into a number of clan groups. They were usually named after some animal or plant. And all members of the clan considered this totem to be their ancient ancestor. Several clan groups made up a phratry - a clan association that also bore the name of an animal or plant. Gathering in phratries, Pueblo residents performed religious ceremonies, during which the entire life cycle of a particular totem animal, for example an antelope, was usually depicted. Religion occupied an exceptional place in the life of the Pueblo Indians. Religious ideas were inextricably linked with agricultural skills. When a mother had a child, the first thing she did was smear the newborn’s mouth with cornmeal gruel. With the same gruel, my father painted sacred signs on all the walls of the house. In the same way, all other important events in life in the minds of the Pueblo Indian were associated with corn. The main deities were considered the sun and mother earth. (C) Information published on the site
A significant role was played by jointly celebrated religious rites - ritual dances. The most important of them was the so-called snake dance - a ritual act of worship of snakes - the legendary ancestors of the Indians. The priests danced with a rattlesnake in their teeth. At the end of the ceremony, the women sprinkled the rattlesnakes with corn kernels.

The so-called Kachina was and still is of particular importance to the Pueblo Indians. This is something like a dance drama, which was performed in ritual masks depicting certain deities. Miniature reproductions of these deities are “children's kachinas” - dolls. Receiving such dolls as a gift, Indian children had to learn in advance to recognize the characters of ritual dances.

All religious ceremonies were performed either in the pueblo square or in the kiva. Inside the sanctuary there was a kind of altar with images of totem animals of one or another phratry. For example, in the “snake kiva” the main decoration was a curtain with the hollow bodies of snakes made of fabric sewn to it. During the ritual, the priest, who was behind the veil, inserted his hand into the body of such a snake, forcing it to move.

Until the middle of the 19th century, the inhabitants of the Pueblos of the North American southwest did not come into close contact with whites and thus retained without significant changes the characteristic features of their culture, which over the past six to eight centuries has not undergone any qualitative changes.

2. Indian mrounds.

In eastern North America we are faced with one of the most important and at the same time most striking problems in the history of the North American Indians. In the scientific literature, it received the laconic designation maunda, which some of our translators are trying to translate with the word “mounds”.

In general terms, maunds are very heterogeneous earthen mounds and ruins of various structures made of clay or stone. Some mounds were indeed mounds. These ancient burials have the shape of a circle, sometimes an ellipse. But their heights are very different. We find such burial mounds, for example, in North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and other states.

Other maunds are simply earthen mounds on which a wooden temple or sanctuary was erected. Among these temple maunds belongs probably the most famous group of maunds, discovered by an archaeologist Warren Moorheed in 1925 near Etowah, Georgia.

Another type of maunda is a step-shaped earthen pyramid. This is the largest mound of Cahokia near the Mississippi River. This largest pyramid in North America has a base area of ​​350 X 210 meters and reaches a height of 30 meters.

But perhaps the most interesting group are the figured mounds, which we encounter in the states of Wisconsin, Ohio and a number of other places in the USA. These are the remains of very extensive structures, the outlines of which reproduce in enormous magnification the contours of the body of some animal. So, in Ohio we know two mounds that resemble the body of a snake. One of them is more than 300 meters long. The “body” of this snake structure bends several times and ends in a giant spiral.

"Crocodile Mound", found near the village of Licking in Wisconsin, up to 60 meters long, depicts, as its name suggests, an American crocodile (alligator). The Great Mound in South Dakota reproduces the outline of a turtle. And near Crawford, in the same Wisconsin, more than a hundred years ago, a group of six mounds was discovered, depicting giant birds with outstretched wings.

It can be assumed that the birthplace of the builders of these amazing figured mounds was the state of Wisconsin. In the dissertation of Ch. Pay “Figured mounds of Wisconsin culture” we find a complete list of all known to science mounds of this type. These include 24 bird mounds, 11 deer mounds, 16 rabbit mounds, 20 bear mounds, etc. In total, Pay has registered 483 mounds in the state of Wisconsin alone! Obviously, when constructing figured mounds, the ancient inhabitants of America reproduced in them the image of their totemic ancestors.

But researchers, and not only them, were very interested in the question of what was the purpose of all these gigantic structures. Indeed, to create many of them, a huge number of workers were required. So, for example, for the construction of the already mentioned Cahokia mound in the state of Illinois, it was required - according to exact calculations - no less than 634,355 cubic meters of land. And this in an era that did not even know a simple shovel.

It is impossible to give a single answer to the question about the purpose of mounds, if only because, as we see, they cannot be brought to one common denominator. Burial mounds were simply cemeteries for ancient North Americans. Mounds depicting birds, deer and bison understandably served religious purposes. Others (for example, the Ohio Mound Ancient, which is a five-kilometer rampart) were very likely fortresses.

The oldest types of mounds are, of course, grave mounds. They first appeared in North America about three thousand years ago. Their creators were carriers of the so-called Adena culture, which received its name from one of the most famous burial mounds, which was discovered in the Adena cemetery of a large landowner and governor of Ohio T. Worthington, located near the city of Chillicothe. The people of the Aden culture were literally obsessed with worshiping their dead. In their honor they built these mounds, some quite high; for example, Grave Creek Mound in the Virginia city, now even called Moundsville, reaches 25 meters in height. However, we know very little about Aden culture. Agriculture in North America was just in its infancy, and social stratification among the bearers of the Aden culture was also in its infancy.

The traditions of the Aden culture are being developed by a new culture - the Hopewell culture, whose representatives not only build giant tombstones, but also erect maunds, clearly intended for religious rites. Such is the octagonal mound in the city of Newark (Ohio), which local residents turned into a golf course.

Hopewell society is gradually stratified into the privileged and the unprivileged. As evidenced by ritual maunds, religion plays a major role in this culture, and those who lead religious rites - the priests - are especially prominent.

The Hopewell culture disappears from the history of ancient Mississippi and Ohio in the middle of the first millennium AD. It is being replaced by a new, strong, incomparably more progressive culture, which we call by the name of the river, in the basin of which we encounter its traces especially often, the Mississippi culture. It is this culture that builds in this part of North America, on the one hand, giant temple mounds, and on the other, earthen step pyramids. The Mississippian culture is undoubtedly the pinnacle of cultural development of the pre-Columbian Indians of North America in the eastern and central part of what is now the United States. In the southwest, in the area of ​​Pueblo culture, an independent, unique, and equally important for understanding the nature of individual stages of development, process of the formation of secondary cultures is taking place.

After all, the people of the Mississippian culture erected not only individual - even gigantic - mounds, but also located them in real cities, the most famous of which - Cahokia - was located in the neighborhood of present-day St. Louis. This city had at least 30,000 inhabitants, that is, it was the largest known settlement of the pre-Columbian Indians of North America. Cahokia (like other cities of this culture) was surrounded by a five-meter high wooden fence. A huge earthen mound towered over the city, on top of which stood the main sanctuary of Cahokia. There were a hundred other mounds throughout the city. On some of them there were also temples, on others the luxurious dwellings of the city rulers were built. Those who did not have the honor of living on the maunds, ordinary Cahokians, lived in countless huts in the city itself and outside its walls. They grew corn and beans in gardens near their homes. They fished and hunted water birds - swans, geese and ducks. The Cahokians also created beautiful examples of pottery, and made knives and spear points from copper.

Managing the city required good organization. To build giant mounds, of course, it was necessary to gather thousands, and possibly tens of thousands of workers and purposefully direct their work. In society, the nobility had already clearly emerged here - secular and spiritual - settling in the literal sense of the word higher than the common people who huddled at the foot of the master's mounds. This actual class stratification of Mississippian society extended to the afterlife. In one of the Cahokia mounds the skeleton of some high-ranking deceased was found, resting on a bed of 12,000 pearls and shells. The dead man was accompanied on his final journey by countless gifts, especially beautifully polished stones, and in addition by six men, quite understandably his servants. They were killed when their master died. Not far from the grave of this high-ranking person, in a common pit, lay the skeletons of fifty-three women, probably the wives of the buried person, also apparently killed when their husband died.

The inhabitants of Cahokia and other similar "mound cities" of central, eastern, and especially southeastern North America would, in all likelihood, very quickly come to the creation of real city-states. The appearance of whites and other reasons, which we do not yet know for sure, prevented this. In any case, these cities and the entire culture of Mississippi are the highest levels of cultural development achieved in pre-Columbian times in this part of North America.

We find bronze tools and weapons in mounds only as an exception. In more ancient tomb mounds, stone tools (arrowheads, stone hatchets, clubs, hammers) are more often found. The ceramics that we find in individual mounds are unique in each of them. But nowhere does it reach the level known to us from the pre-Columbian pueblos or from the products of the inhabitants of the rock cities.

Of the metals, mound builders used copper, and later, occasionally, gold. Typical finds in mounds are also stone and sometimes clay pipes, very similar to modern ones. In each group of mounds, disks made of large shells and memorial plaques decorated with shells are also often found. On these plaques, as well as on rare copper plaques (from the so-called Etowah culture of Georgia), we find stylized images that closely resemble those of Mexico.

3 . Prairie Indians.

Many Indian tribes lived across the vast territory of North America. North American Indians are often divided according to their linguistic groups.

The main linguistic groups of North America can be considered: Athabaskan (or Athabaskan), whose tribes now live mainly in the northwest, mainly in Canada; Algonquin - probably the most numerous (eastern part of North America), and Iroquois, which, in addition to the six Iroquois nationalities, also included Cherokees, Hurons and other tribes. In the southeast of what is now the United States, representatives of the Iroquoian language group were neighbored by tribes belonging to the Muskogean language group (for example, Choctaws, Chick-Saws, Florida Seminoles, etc.). In the west, in Oregon, Wyoming, Montana and parts of Colorado, Texas and New Mexico, there lived many tribes of the Shoshone language group. But the most famous linguistic group is made up of 68 tribes that speak Sioux languages ​​- languages ​​that were the native speech of most Indian tribes living on the American prairies.

At the beginning of the 16th century, when the first Europeans appeared in North America, there were approximately 400 Indian tribes. Oddly enough, the prairie Indians we will talk about did not live on the prairies at that time. The boundless, vast steppes were inaccessible to the Indian. The Indians lived only in the extreme east of the prairies, in the modern American states of Nebraska, North and South Dakota, along large rivers where corn and beans could be cultivated. There were no Indians in the rest of the prairie territory at that time. Only after the Indians, who lived outside the prairies until the 16th century and obtained their food either by hunting (for example, the Kiowa, Comanche tribes) or primitive agriculture (the Cheyennes on the Red River in North Dakota), received a bloody horse from the whites, the prairies opened up their expanses among them.

The word "prairie" means "large grassy plain." The French word aptly describes the character of the prairies. Indeed, these endless rolling plains were covered with one type of vegetation, the real queen of the prairie - the so-called "buffalo grass." The North American prairies stretch between the Mississippi River in the east and the Rocky Mountains in the west. In the north, the prairies reached the middle part of what is now Canada, and in the south - almost to the Gulf of Mexico. And this huge space was populated by an Indian who took possession of a horse in just a few years, already in the post-Columbian era. Only then was the prairie, or, as he is also called, steppe, Indian born. Consequently, the Prairie Indian culture is the youngest Native American culture in North America.

Which Indian tribes can be considered true steppe nomads? First of all, the tribes of the Sioux linguistic group. By the way, Sioux is a contraction of the word nedowessioux, which arose from the distorted Ojibwe Nadowe-Is-Iw, which meant “snakes”, “reptiles”. The Ojibwe used this abusive nickname for the warlike Indians of the prairies. The Sioux belonged to the large linguistic family in the northern part of the prairies, along with other tribes: the Mandans and Hidatsas, the Crow Indians and the Assi-Noboins, then the Iowas, Missouris, Othos, Osages and especially the famous Dakotas. It must be borne in mind that not a single Indian tribe in North America called itself “Sioux.” Those whom the Europeans awarded with this name, distorted by the French, called themselves Dakota - “allies.” In addition to the Sioux-speaking tribes, many other tribes belonging to other linguistic groups lived on the prairies, for example, the Cheyenne, Atsina, Arapaho and three tribes of the so-called “Blackfoot” (Siksika, Kainah and Piegan), belonging to the Algonquin language group, famous Comanche - to the Shoshone linguistic group, etc.

The whole life of the prairie Indians was connected with two animals. Firstly, with bison. He gave them meat, from which they also prepared a kind of “canned food” (ᴨȇmmikan). The Indians made cone-shaped tents - teepees - from buffalo skins, and sewed clothes and shoes.

While the Indians did not have horses, the bison was a desirable but very difficult prey for them. They hunted bison in the following way: in the middle of summer, large corrals were built into which the bison were driven, and then they were killed there. The main weapon of the pre-Columbian Indians was a bow made of horn or hardwood. In addition, the prairie Indians used long spears with stone tips when hunting.

In 1541, when the first Spanish expedition, the expedition of de Soto, appeared in what is now eastern Arkansas, the Indians were most impressed not so much by the amazing white-skinned people as by the horses. The Indians immediately realized how useful they would be for hunting bison. And indeed, soon the Indians acquired horses: either they bought them, or traded them, or kidnapped them. Many horses escaped from Spanish cattle ranches and ran wild on the prairies. They began to be called mustangs. The horse increased the productivity of bison hunting. The Indians overtook herds of bison on horseback, these tanks of the prairies. They surrounded and killed. As a result, the Indians gradually abandon their previous way of life and become nomads. When at the beginning of the 19th century the whites “discovered” the prairie Indians, they already owned herds of thousands of horses and all the prairies.

Already at the first meeting, the steppe Indians amazed the whites with their attire. All clothing for men and women was made from tanned buffalo hides. The main everyday attire of a man was a loincloth and special “gaiters” - leggings covering his legs above the ankles. Men and women wore moccasins richly decorated with porcupine quills. The ankle boots, connected to moccasins, resembled waist-high boots that hugged the leg. Women wore long straight robes made of suede. War shirts decorated with scalps were worn only by the leaders and the most famous warriors of the tribe. This ceremonial outfit also included a cloak, which often depicted the exploits of its owner. But the most magnificent decoration of the prairie Indians was a headband with eagle heads. Each bird's face in the bandage meant some courageous act of the person wearing this decoration. The feathers were colored differently and trimmed in a special way. Each shade of color, each notch had its own strictly defined meaning. So in those days, headbands were a kind of order ribbons. Warriors also decorated themselves with necklaces made from grizzly bear claws.

While leaders, as a rule, did not have any significant power, sorcerers and shamans were highly respected. Their main responsibility was communication with spirits, which allowed them to heal the sick, lead religious rituals, predict the future, ward off bad weather, etc. Their main “working tools” were, as usual, a shaman’s tambourine and a rattle. The sorcerer prepares for his “profession” even before he is born. For example, the Dakotas believe that before birth, the sorcerer lives in heaven among thunder, from which he acquires his knowledge. Thunder gives the chosen one of the spirits an indication when, at what time, he should become a shaman.

Based on the sorcerer’s dream or vision, it was also determined which substances should be included in the “witch’s bundle” - the “sacred knot.” The “witch’s bundle,” which accompanied the prairie Indian literally all his life, consisted of bird skin, colored pebbles, tobacco leaves and many other, sometimes very unusual objects, which the shaman recognized as having magical properties. The prairie Indian always carried these amulets, hidden in a leather pouch, with him. The Indians believed that the shaman was the bearer of that comprehensive supernatural magical power, which in the Hidatsa language was called Xupa, among the Dakotas - Wakonda, among the tribes of the Algonquian linguistic group - Manito (Manido). From Manito, some authors of “novels about Indians” made the supreme god of the prairie Indians or some kind of “Great Spirit”. The Indians, of course, did not know any supreme god and did not call upon them to help them. Reports about him in the writings of the first Europeans who visited the prairies are erroneous and reflect the monotheistic ideas of Christianity. The prairie Indians revered Mother Earth, mighty thunder, and especially the sun. The largest religious celebration of the prairie Indians, the “sun dance,” was also dedicated to the sun, for which the entire tribe gathered every summer.

Magical power (for example, manito), according to the ideas of the prairie Indians, could be found in a bird, fish, tree, grass, flower or blade of grass. Communication with this mysterious force could take place either in complete solitude or in a dream. For such communication it was necessary to cleanse oneself physically - for this the Indian took a long bath and fasted for a whole week - and spiritually, which was achieved by complete detachment from people. Visions visited prairie Indians most often during puberty. In the life of an Indian, dreams played an exceptional role. Women, having seen ornaments in their dreams, decorated their tippets and elegant belts with them. For young men, future warriors of the prairies (for example, among the Omaha), a “divine dream” often foreshadowed a change in their entire previous life.

This is how the prairie Indians lived - between sleep and reality. However, they did not live that long. The actual prairie culture is born - we repeat - only when the Indians, who until then lived only on the outskirts of endless green grassy plains, acquire a horse, that is, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. And by the end of the next century, this youngest of the North American Indian cultures is dying. It is being replaced by a completely new culture - the culture of the “white man”.

4 . Indian groups ot Alaska to Florida.

Northwestern Indians. In northern Canada, in the very vast territory of the American subarctic, we find Indian tribes belonging to two large linguistic families - Algonquian and Athapaskan, and the Athapaskan tribes roam mainly in the western half of this wide subarctic zone between the Yukon and Mackenzie rivers; the Algonquian tribes, who came here earlier, inhabit the eastern half of this region, the lands lying east and southeast of Hudson Bay.

Both of them, the subarctic Algonquins and Athabaskans, were engaged in hunting. Before the arrival of the Europeans, they were not familiar with agriculture at all. They lived in tents, usually made of tree bark. As a rule, they did not stay in one place for long. In bark canoes they navigated the great rivers and lakes of Canada. In winter, they moved on sleds (which they call toboggans), pulled by dog ​​sleds, or on wide skis. They hunted with a bow and arrow.
The pride of the northern Indians was their skillful traps. In addition to hunting caribou and fur-bearing animals, they fished in the countless rivers and lakes of their cold country. Despite the unfavorable natural conditions, some tribes of the American north and especially related tribes that lived on the shores of the Great American Lakes (for example, the Chipwai) were quite numerous. Chipwai was one of the first to receive firearms from European traders. With his help, they forced their Indian neighbors - tribes known as Dog Ribs and Hares - to leave their original homeland and go far from it. Nowadays, dog ribs live in the territory between the Great Slave and Great Bear lakes. The Slave Lake area is also home to excellent fishermen and excellent caribou hunters - the Slave Indians. Their dwellings, like those of most northern Indians, are cone-shaped tents made of tree bark. Only a particularly rich Indian could afford a tent made of caribou skins. Indian tribes also live here - beavers, takulli and taltans. The similar natural conditions in which the subarctic Indians and Eskimos live contributed to the fact that in some features of their lives these Indians are very reminiscent of the Eskimos.

In terms of their culture, the Indians of the American subarctic are also close to the tribes living on the American-Canadian border in the area of ​​Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron and others. We could call them “Rice Indians,” since wild water rice played a significant role in the economy of the Great Lakes Indians. Many tribes, most notably the Menominee, collected rich harvests from the rice lakes. The Sioux, who also once lived near the rice lakes, put their designation for water rice (xing) into several local names (for example, in the name of the local state of Wisconsin). Tribes speaking Algonquian languages ​​penetrated further east, beyond the Great Lakes, reaching the ocean coast. Let us mention at least the Canadian Mi'kmaq fishermen who live on the Atlantic coast in Nova Scotia.

On the opposite, Pacific coast of North America, in the northwest of what is now the United States, in the Canadian province of British Columbia and in the southwest of Alaska, the third main Indian group of North America lived and still lives, which we will simply call the Northwestern Indians. They inhabited the Pacific coast of Alaska, Canada and the USA, distinguished by its special northern beauty, its countless islands and islets, the shores of its fjords and sea straits. Against the backdrop of these magnificent natural scenery, more than fifty different Indian tribes lived and live. In the north - in southwestern Alaska - mainly Indians from the Tlingit tribe, in British Columbia - the Bela Kula, Tsimshian and especially the best wood carvers in America - the Haida Indians inhabiting the Queen Charlotte Islands. Then we meet here the whale hunters - the Nootka tribe, and in the south, on the border of the American states of Washington and Oregon, the Chinook tribe, endowed with remarkable commercial abilities, which first began the exchange of goods with the whites, who sailed here quite often and for quite a long time on their large ships.

The fifty northwestern tribes are not linguistically related. These tribes belong to several different linguistic groups. For example, the Haida and Tlingit Indians belong to the Athapaskan language family. What all these tribes have in common is the main source of food - fishing. Especially high seas fishing. Of all the Indians of the three Americas - North, Central and South - the Northwestern Indians are most closely associated with the sea. They caught cod, flounder and the fish they valued most - salmon. They caught him with both nets and tops. In addition, the Northwestern Indians hunted sea otters, seals, and even whales in large boats. They compensated for the lack of plant food by collecting seaweed, berries, and root vegetables. Agriculture, with the exception of tobacco cultivation, was unknown to them. In addition to the sea and rivers, these Indians had another wealth - forests. These Indians knew how to process wood very well. They not only built wooden houses and boats, but also carved ritual masks and other ritual objects from wood, including totem poles, the cat’s homeland was here. On the many hundreds of carved pillars that the Northwestern Indians dug into the ground next to their houses, they depicted their “totemic ancestors” - ravens, eagles, whales and deceased chiefs.

The Indians of the northwest also became famous for their textiles. The raw material they used was dog hair (in the south) or mountain goat hair (in the north). The most famous product of Tlingit and Kwakiutl weavers are capes - the so-called chilkats. Sample designs were made for Indian women by their husbands. Women only transferred these drawings onto fabric. These capes, as a rule, also depicted totem animals.

With Chilkat capes and totem poles, the Northwestern Indians erected an eternal monument not only to their original art, but also to their social system. Recall that the Northwestern Indians were wealthier than the vast majority of other Indian groups in North America. But this wealth no longer belonged to everyone. For the first time in North America, a private owner appears here, whose property is inherited only by his own descendants, and not by the tribe as a whole. This is how a hereditary nobility is gradually formed - leaders and shamans. Among this clan elite, marriages are concluded only between nobles. Wealth leads to the emergence of exchange. Among the Northwestern Indians it is widely developed. Even “money” is invented (plates made of pure copper become the means of payment). Finally, another characteristic feature of the already decaying tribal society was the existence of primitive slavery. For the sake of acquiring slaves, wars were fought, and very bloody ones, although main goal was to capture the enemy and turn him into a slave. The main weapons were a bow, arrows and a wooden spear with a copper tip. A wooden helmet covered his head. Sometimes wooden planks protected other parts of the body.

California Indians. Further south we will find a different independent group population. Let's call them California Indians. These same “Californians” live in the North American state of Oregon and even in northwestern Mexico. This group consists of many numerically small Indian tribes. The California Indians belonged and still belong to the least developed part of the North American aboriginal population.

California is home to more than five dozen different tribes belonging to many linguistic families. With the exception of a few of the southernmost tribes, no group of Californians knew agriculture. Most of them were gatherers. During the long, hot California summer, they collected chestnuts, pine nuts, roots, various forest fruits, and wild oats. Hunting was of much less importance to these Indians. On the ocean coast, Californians collected shellfish and, of course, also caught fish. However, the main food product for the Californian tribes was the common acorn.

If the Indians of central and southern California lived by collecting acorns, then the inhabitants of northern California and Oregon, belonging to the Klamath and Modoc tribes, collected the seeds of yellow lilies, from which they also prepared flour. The collection of lilies, which was carried out by women in these tribes, was carried out directly from boats.

In the pre-Columbian era, California Indians lived primarily in dugouts. Their clothes were also simple. Before contact with the bloody whites, the men of many local tribes walked completely naked, others wore a short loincloth made of deerskin. Women were also satisfied with the same bandage. These Indians also cooked their food extremely simply. They warmed porridge and soups in waterproof baskets, lowering hot stones into them. The Indians are the best basket makers in all of America, and products from the Pomo Indians are considered especially valuable souvenirs. Pottery making flourished here. California Indians also processed stone, plant fibers, bird waste, and especially sea ​​shells, which were legal tender in California.

The Californians are among those Indians in North America who suffered most from the penetration of the white man. Since they lived on or near the coast, they became acquainted with the Europeans much earlier than other tribes of the American West. Formally, California belonged to Spain during the colonial era, but the main role here was played by missionaries, first the Jesuits and then the Franciscans. The latter founded a number of permanent missions in California, under which were tens of thousands of Indians who lived as semi-slaves and worked on plantations.

Southwestern Indians. The American state of Arizona is adjacent to California, and the state of New Mexico is adjacent to Arizona. Both states are inhabited by the so-called Southwestern Indians. This geographically unified territory is home to two culturally significantly different Indian groups. The first includes, first of all, the Navajo tribe - now the largest Indian nation of one hundred thousand in the United States, living more or less isolated in the largest of the modern Indian reservations. Their neighbors, the Apaches, are close relatives of the Navajos. Back in the 12th century, these Athapascan-speaking tribes lived in the northwestern part of what is now Canada. Under the pressure of ever new waves of settlers, they retreated and were pushed several thousand kilometers to the south.

East American Indians. Let's move on to the inhabitants of the east of the modern United States. At the time of the arrival of the first Europeans, these were, as in Canada, mainly the various tribes of the Algonquian linguistic group: Nobspots, Illinois, Miami, Pikapu, distinguished during Tecumseh's rebellion, and, finally, the Mohicans.

The Algonquin tribes have always played a prominent role in the history of the northeastern part of the North American continent. After all, to this day the names of the Algonquin tribes and other Algonquin names are borne by dozens of cities and even states in the United States, starting from Manhattan in New York and ending with the famous resort of Miami in Florida. The names Chicago, Mississippi, Missouri, etc. are also taken from the Algonquian languages.

Of Algonquian origin and most of the Indian words that people generally know, from tomahawk to wampum, wigwam, squaw, moccasin, toboggan, etc.

Of the Algonquian tribes of the American east, living south of the Iroquois, the Delawares deserve special attention. The Algonquian Delawares also belonged to the first North American Indian tribes, which, even before the arrival of the whites, created own system letters. This letter was pictographic. Among the Delaware literary works, the “Walam Olum” (“Red Record”) stands out, containing a statement of the main Algonquian legends from the creation of the world and the flood (we encounter a story about it among many Indian tribes of all the Americas) until the arrival of the Indians to the Delaware River. The chronicle is written in 184 characters on tree bark.

Along with the Delawares, members of the so-called Powhatan Confederacy, which united in the 16th and XVII centuries Algonquian tribes of what is now Virginia. The Americans named this confederation after the supreme leader of the union of Virginia tribes, Powhatan, during whose reign extensive relations were first established between the Algonquin Indians of Virginia and British settlers. The Powhatan Confederacy was then so strong that the British were forced to own initiative recognize (a completely exceptional case in the history of colonial America) Powhatan's right to own Virginia and, as a symbol of recognition, they even sent him a royal crown from London. Later, London received Powhatan's daughter, the beautiful Pocahontas, whom the Indian ruler married off to a British nobleman. The charming “princess” Pocahontas aroused admiration in the social circles of London. A few years later, the Indian princess fell ill with tuberculosis and died. With the death of the beautiful Pocahontas, the truce between the Virginia Algonquian tribes and the English ended. The warriors of the confederacy, led by the now new ruler - Oᴨcankanuh, participated in many battles, but ultimately the alliance of Algonquian tribes was defeated, and the Powwhatan Confederacy disintegrated.

Another Algonquian tribe inhabiting this part of the present-day United States, the Shawnee, distinguished itself in the fight against the colonialists. The famous leader Tecumseh, probably the most outstanding hero of the liberation struggle of the North American Indians, also came from the Shawnee tribe.

In the southeast, off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and inland, mainly along the lower Mississippi River, we find an important group of Indian tribes, which the Americans sometimes designate as the Southeast Indians. The first French and English who visited the American southeast met these tribes, which belonged primarily to the Muskogean linguistic group (Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and others). It was not by chance that they attracted the attention of the first Europeans. The southeastern Indians received food from well-cultivated fields, on which they grew corn, beans, pumpkins and tobacco. They collected mushrooms and chestnuts, turtle and bird eggs. They lived in large, beautifully built villages surrounded by fences. In the center of such a “city” (consisting of several dozen so-called “long houses”) there was a square where the “town hall” and three more “administrative buildings” were located. This central square, “a kind of Indian “agora,” played a significant role in the life of the “city” of the southeastern Indians. All important meetings took place here, public religious ceremonies took place, and above all a ritual festival called the “Green Corn Dance” and lasting four, and sometimes even eight days.

In addition to the agricultural tribes of the Muskogean linguistic group, the first whites who appeared in the southeast discovered other linguistically distinct tribes, for example, the Timukwa tribe in Florida, the Chitimacha in modern Louisiana and others. It can be assumed that the Indians of these tribes are descendants of the indigenous Indian population of the south-east. east, which was defeated by the Muskogean aliens.

The Natches were sharply different from the rest of the Indians of North America. They were seen as the embodiment of the ancient ideal of beauty, brought to the New World. The Natches really cared about theirs appearance, about the harmonious development of the body. The babies' heads were skillfully deformed, their hairstyles were taken care of, etc.

Residents of Natch cities lived in beautiful quadrangular houses. Next to the cities were the carefully cultivated fields of these wonderful farmers. Above each city towered two artificial earthen mounds, which the Americans call mounds. On the first of them was the main city sanctuary, where the sacred eternal fire was maintained, on the other - a luxurious dwelling " Big sun" This was the ruler of the Natchas, his worship, his exclusive rights - all this especially interested the first French settlers. Among no other group, no other tribe of North American Indians do we find such “kings” or “rulers.” The big sun reminds us much more of the Inca of South American Tawantinsuyu. According to the Natchas, their supreme ruler was the blood brother of the Sun. Therefore, every day before dawn, the ruler left the luxurious house on the mound to show his divine brother the path that he should walk across the sky, from east to west. However, the Big Sun, in fact, himself was a god for the Indians. His cult was supported by priests. There are real priests here, not sorcerers or shamans. After death, the Big Sun returned to heaven to take care of the well-being of his people from there. And yet the death of every Big Sun was a genuine “national tragedy.” Many Indian men killed their wives and children, and often themselves, in order to accompany the Big Sun on the way to the afterlife and serve him there, as on earth. And vice versa - if an heir was born to the ruling Big Sun, all the natches began to look for babies of the same age among their children, so that when they grew up they could serve their highly respected peer. During his lifetime, the Big Sun led all the activities of the Natchas. He - and no longer the tribal council - made laws and was, in fact, the owner of all movable and immovable property of the Natches, lord over their life and death. True, he was helped by a certain advisory body composed of local leaders. In addition, the Big Sun appointed all the main leaders of the tribe: two military leaders, two ambassadors who, at the command of the Big Sun, declared wars and made peace, four organizers of the festivities and, finally, two kind of “misters of public works.”

The Natch ruler was distinguished from other high-ranking officials by a real “royal crown.” It was made from the most beautiful skins of the best swans. The Big Sun received his subjects, reclining on a bed covered with deer skins and drowning in pillows made of bird down. In addition to the ruling Big Sun, in the country of Natchas this title was also borne by the sons of his sister. The remaining members of the royal family were called Little Suns... Finally, the Natchas had two more social groups - the middle and lower nobility. On the other side of the public barrier stood ordinary members of the Natch tribe. Compared to the nobility, the Michmichgupi were in an unenviable position. For example, not only the Big Sun, but any of the group of Small Suns could impose an unappealable death sentence on anyone who stinks, which was immediately carried out, even if the unfortunate convict was completely innocent. This also applied to the suns’ own wives or husbands, except in cases where these women themselves belonged to a sacred family.

In the first quarter of the 18th century, as a result of three so-called Natchi wars, the French completely exterminated this tribe. But we can still make an assumption: the Natches probably inherited the traditions of the mysterious “mound builders,” primarily carriers of the famous Mississippian culture. However, since the eighteenth century, the “mounds” of the Natchas, on which the palaces of the Great Sun and the sanctuary of the eternal flame stood, belong to the past just like the mounds of the Mississippian culture.

The next, largest southeastern tribe experienced the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which were so unfavorable for the Indians. Neither the Europeans nor the white Americans managed to completely destroy it. We will, however, speak especially about these Cherokee Indians and their fates. Now let us just recall that the Cherokees originally inhabited what is now Virginia, both Carolinas, Georgia, eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama and belonged to the Iroquois linguistic group.

The Iroquois are one of the most significant groups of Indian tribes living in the east of North America, but also as an Indian group, using the example of which the prominent ethnographer, the largest researcher of the social structure of the Indians Lewis Henry Morgan showed the history of development public relations in a primitive society. That is why for us, for our book, the Iroquois are an example of the social organization of North American Indians.

In the pre-Columbian era, the Iroquois lived in a number of current US states - in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York State, around the Great Lakes - Ontario and Erie - and along the banks of the St. Lawrence River. They were settled farmers, growing corn, tobacco, legumes, pumpkins, sunflowers, and also engaged in fishing and hunting. The Iroquois hunted deer, elk, otters and beavers. They made clothes from animal skins. They were familiar with the processing of copper, which was used to make knives. The pottery wheel was unknown to them, but the Iroquois pottery art can be called developed. The Iroquois lived in villages surrounded by front gardens. The village consisted of several dozen so-called “long houses”. The household was the basic unit of Iroquois social organization. Individual families lived in the premises of these houses.

The highest form of social organization was the Union (League) of the Iroquois - a confederation of five Iroquois tribes: Onondaga, Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida and Seneca. Each tribe within the confederation was independent. The Confederation was led by a League council of 50 sachems - representatives, a kind of deputies, of all tribes of the League. There was no supreme, much less hereditary, ruler, but there were two equal military leaders. In the League Council, all important issues were resolved on the basis of unanimity.

The smallest social unit of the Iroquois was the ovachira, whose members - the inhabitants of the same "long house" - traced their descent from the same ancestor. Women played a more important role in the life of the longhouse than men. Each ovachira was headed by the eldest woman. She also elected a new sechem from among the men of the “long house” when the previous one died. After her choice was approved by all women, the name of the new sechem was announced. After being presented with deer antlers, a symbol of power, the new sechem officially assumed his “office.” The role of women in Iroquois society was also explained by the fact that the fields were cultivated almost without the participation of men. Several Ovachira made up the Iroquois clan. The tribe included from three to eight clans. Several clans of one tribe united into a phratry. The clans of one phratry were called fraternal, the clans of different phratries of the same tribe were considered to be cousins. Marriage between members of the clan and phratry was strictly prohibited.

Each clan had its own name, derived from a totem animal (for example, the Tuscarora tribe had eight clans: Gray Wolf, Bear, Big Turtle, Beaver, Yellow Wolf, Sandpiper, Eel, Little Turtle). These eight clans, united into two phratries, formed a tribe. And such a scheme of social organization was characteristic of almost all American Indians.

5 . North American Indian languages.

The languages ​​of the North American Indian tribes, especially those belonging to the Algonquian language family, have enriched our vocabulary with a variety of expressions. Most of them, of course, entered the English language. For example, a number of place names in what is now the United States and Canada are of Indian origin. Of the 48 states (not counting Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands), half - exactly 23 - have Indian names: for example, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Alabama, Delaware, Kansas, Oklahoma, etc. etc. All the most important North American lakes also still bear their original, pre-Columbian names: Huron, Erie, Ontario, Oneida, Seneca, Winnie, the famous Michigan and others. And rivers too. The Potomac River, which flows right under the windows of the White House, and the Ohio, and the Wabash, and the “father of waters” - the Mississippi - have Indian names.

And now we will reveal the “dictionary” of the most famous Indian words.

The word "tomahawk", like most other names for "Indian objects", comes from the Algonquian languages. The tomahawk clearly entered the world dictionary through the first English clubs in Virginia (at the beginning of the 17th century. The predecessor of the real tomahawk, as the first Europeans recognized it, even in the post-Columbian era, was a wooden club with a stone head. However, soon after the first contacts with the whites, these stone weapons were replaced by real “tomahawks”, which had a bronze or more often an iron cap.

Wampum. Wampums were strings with bone or stone beads strung on them, but more often by “wampums” we mean wide belts to which such strings of multi-colored beads were attached. Belts among the Algonquins and especially among the Iroquois decorated clothing, served as a currency unit, and most importantly, with their help various important messages were conveyed.

The next famous object of Indian life is the peace pipe, or calumet. This name was given to the peace pipe by French travelers who noticed its resemblance to a pipe or reed pipe. The Peace Pipe played an important role in the social life of many North American Indian groups. It was smoked by members of the “parliament” - the tribal council; smoking a peace pipe formed the basis of many religious rituals, especially among the prairie Indians, etc.

Peyote, or ᴨȇyote, is a small cactus. It was used during ritual, ecstatic dances. The “dance of the spirits” was entirely related to the previous use of the drug ᴨȇyotl. (C) Information published on the site
This is how the new Indian religion Ghost-Dance Religion arose. Nowadays the former Ghost-Dance Religion of North American Indians is called the National American Church or the Church of the American Natives. The teachings of this Indian religious society are a mixture of Christian ideas and belief in various supernatural beings of old Indian beliefs.

Pemikan is also a product of the culture of the Indians of North America. The word itself comes from the Creek language and roughly means "reprocessed fat." Pemikan serves as a high-calorie and surprisingly long-storable food supply, that is, as some kind of Indian “canned food”.

Scalp. The Indians had a cruel military custom, according to which the skin and hair were removed from the head of a killed enemy (and sometimes even from the head of a living prisoner). So, the scalp served as proof that the enemy had been killed or neutralized, and therefore it was considered a highly respected evidence of courage, a valuable war trophy. In addition, the scalper was convinced that by scalping the enemy, he was also taking away from him that “universal magical life force,” which, according to legend, was located precisely in the hair.

The next widely known word is squaw. It comes from the Narra-Ganset language and simply means “woman.” For example, a very popular combination of the Indian and English words Squaw-valley together means “Valley of Women.” Americans clearly love such compounds, and we find Squaw-flower (flower), Squaw-fish (fish), etc. in their language.

The tipi (the word comes from the Dakota language) is a pyramidal tent made of buffalo skins, found among all prairie tribes. A tipi is an ordinary house of a prairie Indian. Several dozen conical tipis made up the village. The leather walls of the tipi were decorated with drawings. The tent had special devices, with the help of which it was possible to regulate air circulation and, above all, remove smoke from the tent. Each tipi also had a fireplace. Another North American Indian dwelling, the wigwam, is often confused with the tipi. This word comes from the Algonquian languages ​​of the Indian population of the east of what is now the United States and simply means “building.” While teepees were not very different from one another, the wigwams of individual Algonquian tribes were quite heterogeneous. Here, the different climatic conditions of the North American east, the availability of different building materials, etc. played a role. The basis of the wigwam was a frame cut from wooden poles and covered with the material that the builders had at hand.

Sign language. It allowed the Indians of the North American prairies, who spoke dozens of different dialects and even belonged to different language groups (not just the so-called Sioux family of languages), to understand each other. The news that the prairie Indian wanted to communicate to a member of another tribe was conveyed using gestures of one or both hands. These gestures, movements, the exact meaning of which every Indian knew not only on the prairies, but also in their neighborhood, helped convey rather complex information to their partner. Even agreements between individual tribes, representatives of which did not understand each other, were concluded through sign language.

CONCLUSION

Indians are the only original inhabitants of the entire western half of our planet. When the first Europeans arrived in the New World in 1492, this gigantic continent was by no means uninhabited. It was inhabited by peculiar, amazing people.

In Central America and in the Andean region, at the time of European colonization, there was a highly developed artistic culture, destroyed by the conquerors (see Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, Mixtecs, Olmec culture, Zapotecs, Toltecs) .

The art of numerous tribes that were at the stage of the primitive communal system was closely connected with everyday life and material production; it reflected the observations of hunters, fishermen and farmers, embodied their mythological ideas and the wealth of ornamental imagination.

The types of Indian dwellings are varied: canopies, screens, domed huts (wigwams), conical tents (teepees of the prairie Indians of Canada and the USA) made of poles covered with branches, leaves, mats, skins, etc.; clay or stone huts in the mountainous regions of South America; communal dwellings - clapboard houses in northwestern North America; bark-covered frame “longhouses” in the Great Lakes region; stone or adobe village houses (pueblos) in southwestern North America. Wood carving, especially rich on the northwestern coast of North America (polychrome totem and grave poles with interweaving real and fantastic images), is also found among a number of South American tribes. Weaving, weaving, embroidery, and making jewelry from raw materials, ceramic and wooden utensils, and figurines were widespread. The paintings include fantastic images, rich geometric patterns, military and hunting scenes (drawings of prairie Indians on tipis, tambourines, shields, bison skins).

Studying the life of the Indians helps us take a new look at the present and future of America. Because it is among the Indians that the most distant past meets the most remarkable and rosy future of the continent.

LIST OF REFERENCES USED

1. Cultural studies. Textbook for students of higher educational institutions. Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix Publishing House, 1998. - 576 p.

2. Peoples of the world: historical and ethnographic reference book / Ch. ed. Yu.V. Bromley. Ed. board: S.A. Arutyunov, S.I. Brook, T.A. Zhdanko and others - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1988. - 624 p.

3. Stingle. M. Indians without tomahawks / http://www.bibliotekar.ru/ maya/tom/index.htm

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