Indians, who belong to a separate Americanoid race, are the indigenous population of America. They inhabited the territory of the entire New World from the beginning of time and still live there. Despite the countless genocides, colonizations and other persecutions against them, which 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 numbers the indigenous population of America is calculated. Photos of various subraces and representatives of certain tribes will help to understand this topic more clearly.
Habitat and abundance
The natives of the New World 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 original American race assimilate with Europeans and completely adopt themlife. Thus, you can meet a pure Indian or mestizo in any country in 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 USA, but in Canada there are half as many - 1.2 million. Oddly enough, in the vastness of Brazil and Argentina, such huge powers, there are not so many Indians left. The indigenous population of America in these places is already in the thousands and amounts to 700,000 and 600,000 people, respectively.
The history of the emergence of tribes
According to scientists, representatives of the Americanoid race, despite all their differences from any other known to us, moved to their continent from Eurasia. For many millennia (approximately 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. At that time, the non-indigenous population of America gradually mastered the 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 tendencies observed among them were as follows. The Indians of South America honored the maternal race. The inhabitants of the northern part of the continent were content with patriarchy. The tribes of the Caribbeanbasin, there was a trend towards a transition to a class society.
A few words about biology
From a genetic point of view, the indigenous population of America, as mentioned above, is not such for these lands at all. Scientists consider Altai to be the ancestral home of the Indians, from where they came out with 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 Siberia to America by land, moreover, people probably considered all these lands to be a single continent. So the inhabitants of our lands 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 the type of Y-chromosome in the natives of Altai is identical in its mutations with the chromosome of the American Indian.
Northern tribes
The tribes of the Aleuts and Eskimos, who 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-day Canada with the United States, starting from the eternal glaciers and ending with the Gulf of Mexico. Many different cultures developed there, which we will now list:
- The northern Indians who settled the upper part of Canada are the Algonquian and Athabaskan tribes. They hunted caribou and also fished.
- Northwestern tribes - Tlingit, Haida, Salish, Wakashi. engaged in fishingfish, as well as sea hunting.
- California Indians are famous acorn gatherers. They also engaged in ordinary hunting and fishing.
- Woodland Indians occupied the entire eastern part of the modern USA. The indigenous population of North America here was represented by the Creek, Algonquin, and Iroquois tribes. These people were engaged in settled agriculture.
- The Indians of the Great Plains are famous hunters of wild bison. There are countless tribes here, of which we will name just a few: Caddo, Crow, Osage, Mandan, Arikara, Kiowa, Apache, Wichita and many others.
- Pueblo, Navajo and Pima tribes lived in the south of North America. These lands were considered the most developed, as the natives were engaged in farming here, using the method of artificial irrigation, and part-time raising livestock.
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 complex slash-and-burn and irrigated farming systems developed at that time. Of course, the tribes of this region widely used irrigation, which allowed them to be content not with the simplest grain crops, but with the fruits of such plants as maize, legumes, sunflowers, pumpkins, agaves, cocoa, and cotton. Tobacco was also grown here. The indigenous population of Latin America on these lands was also engaged in cattle breeding (similarly, the Indians lived in the Andes). In the course there were mainly llamas. We also note that here they began to mastermetallurgy, and the primitive communal system was already moving to a class system, turning into a slave-owning state. Tribes that lived in the Caribbean include the Aztec, Mixtec, Maya, Purépecha, Totonac, and Zapotec.
South America
Compared to the tribes of the Aztecs, Totonacs and others, the indigenous population of South America was not so highly developed. The only exception can be the Inca Empire, which was located in the Andes and was inhabited by the Indians of the same name. On the territory of modern Brazil, tribes lived who were engaged in hoe-type agriculture, and also hunted local birds and mammals. Among them are Arawaks, Tupi-Guarani. The territory of Argentina was occupied by mounted guanaco hunters. Tierra del Fuego was inhabited by the tribes of Yaman, She and Alakaluf. They led a nomadic life, very primitive compared to their relatives, and were engaged in fishing.
Inca Empire
This is the greatest association of Indians that existed in the 11th-13th centuries in what is now 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. Their system of government was, most likely, despotic-totalitarian. In this state alsothere was an army, there was a certain social system, over the lower layers of which control was carried out. The main achievement of the Incas is their giant highways. The roads they built on the slopes of the Andes reached 25 thousand kilometers in length. Llamas were used as pack animals to move around them.
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 decipherable. The fact is that each tribe had not just its own dialect, but its own autonomous language, which sounded only in oral speech, but 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 Sequoyah Indian. Up to this point, the natives of the continent used pictographic signs, and if they had to communicate with representatives of other settlements, 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 they can be combined into one. Most of the tribes of North America believed that the deity is a kind of plane that is located far in the ocean. According to their legends, their ancestors lived on this plane. And those who committed a sin or showed negligence fell off it into a gaping void. In Central America, deities were given the appearance of animals, most often birds. the wisethe Inca tribes often considered their gods to be the prototypes of people who created the world and everything in it.
Modern Indian Religious Views
Today, the indigenous people 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. The 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 a huge secret from the white population.
Mythological aspect
Initially, all fairy tales, legends and other folk writings that belonged to the Indians could tell us about their life, about life, about ways of obtaining food. These peoples sang of birds, wild mammals and predators, their brothers and parents. A little later, mythology acquired a slightly different character. The Indians have created 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 people there is a certain deity - the Woman with Braids. She is both the personification of life and death, food and war, earth and water. She has no 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 Americais 48 million, according to official figures. These are the people who are registered in their own 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 higher. According to unofficial data, over 60,000 representatives of the native American race live in America, which are found both in Alaska and Tierra del Fuego.
