Indigenous population of America: size, culture and religion

Indians, who belong to a separate American race, are the native population of America. They have inhabited the entire territory of the New World since the beginning of time and have lived there ever since. Despite countless genocides, colonizations and other persecutions against them, which were made 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 look at what constitutes and in what numbers the native population of America is estimated. Photos of various sub-races and representatives of various tribes will make it possible to understand this topic more clearly.

Habitat and abundance

The aborigines of the New World lived here in prehistoric times, but in our days, 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 are assimilated with Europeans and completely adopt their way of life. Thus, it is possible to meet a pure Indian or a half-breed in any country of the northern, southern or central part of Novaya Zemlya. The total "Indian" population of America is 48 million people. Of these, 14 million live in Peru, 10.1 million in Mexico, 6 million in Bolivia. The next countries are Guatemala and Ecuador - 5.4 and 3.4 million people respectively. 2.5 million Indians can be found in the US, but in Canada there are half of them - 1.2 million. Strangely enough, in the expanses of Brazil and Argentina, so huge powers, the Indians remained not so much already. The indigenous population of America in these places is already estimated in thousands and amounts to 700,000 and 600,000 people, respectively.

History of the appearance of tribes

According to scientists, representatives of the Americanic race, despite all their differences from any other known to us, migrated to their continent from Eurasia. For many millennia (approximately 70-12 millennium BC), the Indians came to the New World along the so-called Beringian bridge, on the site of which the Bering Strait now stands . Then it was not the native population of America that gradually developed a new continent, beginning with Alaska and ending with the southern shores of present-day Argentina. After America was mastered by them, each separate tribe began to develop in its direction. The general trends that were observed in them were as follows. Indians of South America honored the maternal race. The inhabitants of the Northern part of the continent were content with the patriarchy. In the Caribbean tribes, there was a trend towards a class society.

A few words about biology

From the genetic point of view, the native population of America, as already mentioned above, is not so for these lands. The ancestral home of the Indians is considered by scientists to be Altai, from where they left their colonies in distant, distant times, in order to master new lands. The fact is that 25 thousand years ago from Siberia to America could be reached by land, moreover, probably, people considered all these lands as a single continent. So the inhabitants of our territories gradually settled along 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 aborigines, the Y-chromosome type is identical in its mutations with the chromosome of the American Indian.

Northern tribes

The tribes of the Aleuts and Eskimos, which occupy the subarctic zone of the continent, we will not touch, since this is a completely different racial family. The indigenous population of North America occupied the territory of present Canada with the United States, from eternal glaciers to the Gulf of Mexico. There are many different cultures that we now list:

• The northern Indians, who settled in the upper part of Canada, are the Algonkin and Athapask tribes. They hunted a deer-caribou, and also engaged in fishing.
• North-western tribes - Tlingit, Haida, Salish, Wakashi. Engaged in fishing, as well as sea hunting.
• The Californian Indians are well-known collectors of acorns. They also engaged in ordinary hunting and fishing.
• Indians Woodland occupied the entire eastern part of the modern US. The indigenous population of North America here was represented by tribes screaming, Algonquin, Iroquois. These people traded in settled agriculture.
• The Indians of the Great Plains are famous hunters for wild buffalo. There are an uncountable number of tribes, among which we will name only a few: caddo, crou, oseiji, mandana, arikara, kiowa, apache, uichita and many others.
• In the south of North America, the Pueblo, Navajo and Pima tribes lived. These lands were considered to be the most developed, since the aborigines here engaged in farming, using the method of artificial irrigation, and concurrently bred livestock.

The Caribbean

It is believed that the indigenous population of Central America was the most developed. It was in this part of the continent that the most intractable slash-and-burn and irrigated farming systems developed at that time. Of course, the tribes of this region used irrigation widely, which allowed them to be content not with the simplest cereal crops, but with the fruits of such plants as maize, legumes, sunflower, pumpkin, agave, cocoa, cotton. They also grew tobacco. The indigenous population of Latin America on these lands also engaged in cattle breeding (similarly the Indians lived in the Andes). In the course there were mainly lamas. Also note that here they began to master metallurgy, and the primitive communal system was already passing to the class structure, it was turned into a slave state. Among the tribes that lived in the Caribbean, you can name the Aztecs, Mishtecs, Maya, Purepecha, Totonaki and Zapotec.

South America

Compared with the Aztec tribes, Totonacs and others, the indigenous population of South America was not so highly developed. The only exception is the Inca Empire, which was located in the Andes and was inhabited by the same-named Indians. On the territory of modern Brazil lived tribes that were engaged in the hoe type of farming, and also hunted local birds, mammals. Among them you can call Arawak, Tupi-Guarani. The territory of Argentina was occupied by horse hunters on the guanaco. The Tierra del Fuego was inhabited by the tribes of Yamana, she and Alakaluph. They led a nomadic way of life, very primitive in comparison with their relatives, and engaged in fishing.

Empire of the Incas

This is the greatest association of Indians that existed in the 11th and 13th centuries on the territory of present-day Colombia, Peru and Chile. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, local residents already had their own administrative division. The empire consisted of four parts - Chinchaysuyu, Kolasuyu, Antisuiu and Kuntisuyu, and each of them, in turn, was divided into provinces. The Inca Empire had its own statehood and laws, which were mostly represented as punishments for certain atrocities. The system of governing the country they had, most likely, despotic-totalitarian. In this state there was also an army, there was a certain social order, over which the lower layers of it were controlled. The main achievement of the Incas are their giant highways. The roads they built on the slopes of the Andes, in length, reached 25 thousand kilometers. To move around them, Lamas were used as pack animals.

Traditions and cultural development

The culture of the indigenous population of America is mainly their languages of communication, many of which are still not completely deciphered. The fact is that each tribe had not just its dialect, but its autonomous language, which sounded only in oral speech, did not have writing at the same time. The first alphabet in America appeared only in 1826 under the leadership of the leader of the Cherokee tribe, the Indian Sequoia. Until then, the aborigines of the continent used pictographic signs, and if they had to communicate with representatives of other settlements, then they used gestures, gestures and facial expressions.

Deities of the Indians

Despite the huge number of tribes that lived in different climates and regions, the beliefs of the indigenous population of America were very simple, and they can be combined into one. Most of the tribes of North America believed that the deity is a kind of plane that is far away in the ocean. According to their legends, their ancestors lived on this plane. And those who committed a sin or showed imprudence fell from it into a gaping void. In Central America, the deities were given the appearance of animals, most often birds. Wise tribes of the Incas often considered their gods prototypes of people who created the world and everything that is in it.

Modern religious views of the Indians

Nowadays, the natives of the American continent no longer adhere to the 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 life, about life, about the ways of obtaining food. These peoples sang birds, wild mammals and predators, their brothers and parents. A little later, mythology acquired a somewhat different character. The Indians had myths about the creation of the world, which are very similar to our biblical ones. It is noteworthy that in many stories of American indigenous peoples there is a certain deity - a Woman with braids. It 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 Indian sources.

Conclusion

We have already mentioned above that the so-called Indian population of America is 48 million, according to official data. These are the people who are registered in their country, which belong to the colonial society. If we take into account those Indians who still live in tribes, then the figure will be much greater. According to unofficial data, in America there are more than 60 000 representatives of the native Americanic race that occur both in Alaska and in Tierra del Fuego.