The Indians, who belong to a separate American race, are the native population of America. They have inhabited the whole New World since the beginning of time and still live there. Despite the countless genocides, colonization and other persecutions against them that were carried out by Europeans, they occupy a very significant place in each of the states of this part of the world. Below in the article we will consider what constitutes and in what figures the indigenous population of America is calculated. Photos of various sub-races and representatives of various tribes will help to more clearly understand this topic.
Habitat and abundance
The New World aborigines lived here in prehistoric times, but today, in fact, little has changed for them. They unite in separate communities, continue to preach their religious dogmas and follow the traditions of their ancestors. Some representatives of the native American race assimilate with the Europeans and fully adopt their way of life. Thus, you can meet a pure Indian or mestizo in any country in the northern, southern or central part of Novaya Zemlya. The total "Native American" population of America is 48 million people. Of these, 14 million live in Peru, 10.1 million in Mexico, 6 million in Bolivia. The following countries are Guatemala and Ecuador - 5.4 and 3.4 million, respectively. 2.5 million Indians can be found in the United States, but in Canada they are half as much - 1.2 million. Oddly enough, in the vastness of Brazil and Argentina, such huge powers, there are not so many Indians preserved. The indigenous population of America in these places is estimated at thousands and amounts to 700,000 and 600,000, respectively.
History of the appearance of the tribes
According to scientists, representatives of the American race, despite all their differences from any other known to us, moved to their continent from Eurasia. For many millennia (about 70-12 millennia BC), the Indians came to the New World along the so-called Bering Bridge, on the site of which the Bering Strait is now located . Then the indigenous population of America gradually developed a new continent, starting from Alaska and ending with the southern shores of present-day Argentina. After America was mastered by them, each individual tribe began to develop in its own direction. The general trends that were observed in them were as follows. The Indians of South America honored the maternal gender. Residents of the northern part of the continent were content with patriarchy. In the Caribbean, there has been a tendency towards a transition to class society.
A few words about biology
From a genetic point of view, the indigenous population of America, as mentioned above, is not at all one of these lands. Scientists consider Altai to be the ancestral home of the Indians, from where they came from their colonies in the distant, distant times, in order to develop new lands. The fact is that 25 thousand years ago it was possible to get from America to Siberia by land, moreover, most likely, people considered all these lands to be a single continent. So the inhabitants of our territories gradually settled in the northern part of Eurasia, and then moved to the Western Hemisphere, where they turned into Indians. The researchers came to this conclusion due to the fact that in the Altai natives the type of the Y chromosome is identical in its mutations with the chromosome of the American Indian.
Northern tribes
We will not touch the tribes of the Aleuts and Eskimos, which occupy the subarctic zone of the continent, since this is a completely different racial family. The indigenous population of North America occupied the territory of present-day Canada with the United States, ranging from eternal glaciers to the Gulf of Mexico. There are many different cultures that we now list:
- The North Indians who settled in the upper part of Canada are the Algonkin and Atapascan tribes. They hunted caribou deer, and also engaged in fishing.
- Northwest tribes - Tlingit, Haida, Salish, Wakashi. We were engaged in fishing, as well as sea hunting.
- California Indians are famous collectors of acorns. Also engaged in ordinary hunting and fishing.
- The Woodland Indians occupied the entire eastern part of the modern United States. The indigenous population of North America here was represented by the tribes of Cries, Algonquins, Iroquois. These people traded in settled agriculture.
- Great Plains Indians are famous hunters of wild bison. There are innumerable tribes, among which we will name only a few: caddo, crow, osage, mandanas, arikara, kaiova, apaches, wichita and many others.
- In the south of North America, the Pueblo, Navajo and Pima tribes lived. These lands were considered the most developed, since the natives were engaged in agriculture, using the method of artificial irrigation, and part-time livestock were raised.
Caribbean
It is generally accepted that the indigenous population of Central America was the most developed. It was in this part of the continent that the most complicated at that time slash-fire and irrigated farming systems developed. Of course, irrigation was widely used by the tribes of this region, which allowed them to be content not with the simplest crops, but with the fruits of plants such as maize, legumes, sunflowers, pumpkin, agave, cocoa, and cotton. Here, tobacco was also grown. The indigenous population of Latin America on these lands was also engaged in cattle breeding (Indians also lived in the Andes). Mostly llamas were used here. We also note that metallurgy began to be mastered here, and the primitive communal system was already moving to the class, turning into a slave state. Among the tribes that lived in the Caribbean are the Aztecs, Mishtecs, Mayans, Purepecha, Totonaki and Zapotec.
South America
Compared with the Aztec, Totonaki and others, the indigenous population of South America was not so much developed. An exception can only be the Inca Empire, which was located in the Andes and was inhabited by the Indians of the same name. In the territory of modern Brazil, there were tribes who were engaged in the hoe type of agriculture, and also hunted local birds, mammals. Among them are Arawaki, Tupi-Guarani. The territory of Argentina was occupied by guanaco horse hunters. On Tierra del Fuego, the Yaman tribes lived, she and alakaluf. They led a nomadic lifestyle, very primitive in comparison with their relatives, and engaged in fishing.
Inca Empire
This is the greatest association of the Indians, which existed in the 11-13th centuries in the territory of modern Colombia, Peru and Chile. Before the arrival of Europeans, local residents already had their own administrative division. The empire consisted of four parts - Chinchaysuyu, Kolasuyu, Antisuyu and Kuntisuyu, and each of them, in turn, was divided into provinces. The Inca Empire had its own statehood and laws, which were mainly presented in the form of punishments for certain atrocities. The country's governance system was most likely tyrannical-totalitarian. In this state there was also an army, there was a certain social system, over the lower layers of which control was exercised. The main achievement of the Incas is considered their giant highway. The roads they built on the slopes of the Andes reached 25 thousand kilometers in length. To move on them used llamas as pack animals.
Traditions and Cultural Development
The culture of the native population of America is mainly their communication languages, many of which are still not completely decipherable. The fact is that each tribe had not just its own dialect, but its own autonomous language, which sounded only in spoken language, did not have a written language. The first alphabet in America appeared only in 1826 under the leadership of the leader of the Cherokee tribe, the Indian Sequoia. Until that moment, the aborigines of the continent used pictographic signs, and if you had to communicate with representatives of other settlements, then they used gestures, body movements and facial expressions.
Deities of the Indians
Despite the huge number of tribes that lived in different climatic conditions and regions, the beliefs of the indigenous population of America were very simple, and you can combine them into one whole. Most of the tribes of North America believed that the deity is a certain plane, which is located far in the ocean. According to their legends, their ancestors lived on this plane. And those who committed sin or showed negligence fell off of it into a yawning void. In Central America, deities were given the appearance of animals, most often birds. Wise Inca tribes often considered the prototypes of the people who created the world and everything in it to be their gods.
Modern religious views of the Indians
Nowadays, the indigenous people of the American continent no longer adhere to those religious traditions that were characteristic of their ancestors. Most of the population of North America now professes Protestantism and its varieties. Indians and mestizos, who live in Mexico and the southern part of the continent, almost all adhere to strict Catholicism. Some of them become Jews. Only a few are still based on the views of their ancestors, and they keep this knowledge in great secrecy from the white population.
Mythological aspect
Initially, all the tales, legends and other folk compositions that belonged to the Indians could tell us about their lives, about life, about how to get food. These peoples sang birds, wild mammals and predators, their brothers and parents. A little later, mythology acquired a slightly different character. The Indians appeared myths about the creation of the world, which are very similar to our biblical. It is noteworthy that in many stories of American indigenous peoples there is a certain deity - a Woman with braids. She is at the same time the personification of life and death, food and war, land and water. She does not have a name, but references to her power are found in almost all ancient Native American sources.
Conclusion
We have already mentioned above that the so-called Native American population of America is 48 million, according to official figures. These are people who are registered in their country, who belong to the colonial society. If we take into account those Indians who still live in tribes, then the figure will be much larger. According to unofficial data, more than 60,000 representatives of the native American race live in America, which are found both in Alaska and in Tierra del Fuego.