This week, we have shared a lot of culture abroad. Now, let us read more on this topic of The Red Indians- their life; food and shelter, religion, languages they use daily and also art and culture. Sounds interesting, rite?
American Indians is a broad term for a member of any of the natives of the Western Hemisphere, except the Eskimos and Aleuts. Their ancestors were nomadic hunters.
The North American Indians or the Red Indians (as they are better known) lived in the United States long before Columbus. Several tribes of American Indians lived in the area between the Canadian border and what is now the state of Florida. Among the several tribes, some of them were peace loving and some others were warlike. The Sioux tribe belongs to this latter category. The word Sioux means enemy. Some of them were hunters and some others were fishermen. Some preferred to be seed-gatherers in the arid deserts of the west and lived in caves and rock shelters.
Food and shelter
The North American Indians lived on maize, beans, dried meat, peppers, tomatoes and groundnuts. They also hunted buffalo and bison. Did you know that they were the first to gather rubber and grow tobacco? They were also probably the first to built blocks of flats.
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ReligionReligion was very important to the Indians and they worshipped different gods. Each tribe had a totem (an emblem), embodying the spirit of their clan. Their “doctor” was the shaman, or a religious doctor, who treated diseases with herbal remedies. They believed in life after death and that they would go to the “happy hunting ground” after death. This is the Shaman: .jpg) Art and cultureThe Indians were very skilled in stitching and embroidery. They were also experts in making baskets, jewellery, beadwork and pottery. They were also very good in making musical instruments, as they enjoyed music and considered it an important aspect of their life. They made drums, flutes, pipes, rattles and castanets from bone and cane. .jpg) .jpg) LanguagesThe different languages of the North American Indians were intricate and diverse. Frequently it happened that when two people belonging to different tribes met, they would have to resort to sign language to make themselves understood. The Indians did not write, but used drawings for written communication. Unlike us, we have to use both. They would write on animal hides. When the Europeans settled in America, there were already over a million Indians in North America. With the arrival of the new settlers, there arose clashes between the new Americans and the Indians. While the new settlers kept pushing the Indians further and further into the West, the government tried to draw treaty after treaty. Every time a treaty failed, there followed small but savage wars between the old and the new settlers. Gradually things changed for the worse for the Indians. External pressures such as the new way of living that influenced their new generations left them witnessing a fall in their traditional way of living. .jpg) |
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