2. The 'Kombai' Tribes usually live in treehouses 30 feet to 100 feet above the ground. These homes, which offer views above the dense jungle, are built as a means of defence against raiding parties. They also enable the Kombai to avoid sorcerers and insects, and to keep cool.
3. The Kombai are hunter-gatherers, moving from place to place during long treks in search of food. They eat cassowary birds, riflebirds, wild pigs, grasshoppers, tree kangaroos and snakes. However, their main protein comes from the larvae of the Capricorn beetle, also coined the 'sago grub'.
They also eat biscuit-like concoctions called sago, which are made from the pulp of the sago tree. The pulp is turned into flour and then baked or steamed. It is supplemented with green bananas, cucumbers, mushrooms, fruits and berries. Palm leaves and ferns make up their diet as well. The Kombai cook with hot stones.
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| 4. The 'Kombai' are Short and muscular in appearance, many of the male tribesmen wear a sago thorn pushed through the septum of their nose. They wear leaves or small penis gourds, both as adornment and to protect their genitals. These are worn particularly during feasts, although some groups of the Kombai wear a hornbill head instead of a gourd. |
5. There are 4,000 or so members of the Kombai, most of whom live in isolated family homesteads in tree houses. As well as providing an escape from the heat and mosquitoes, the tree houses probably originated as their height is a defence against flooding during heavy rains as well as offering protection in times of conflict.
6. Cannibalism is still believed to take place, though rarely, among the Kombai and only ever in the context of kakhua - male witches, who in the Kombai's belief, are responsible for the deaths of many tribal members. Those accused of being witches are said to be killed, baked and eaten in the belief that the practice will free the spirit of the victim killed by the male witch.
Suri Tribe - Ethiopia
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"In the plains of south-western Ethiopia where the Suri herd their highly-prized cattle, competition for land is always fierce and armed raids an everyday reality."
7. Suri villages range between 40 and 2,500 people. Village decisions are made by an assembly of the men, though women make their views known in advance of the debates. Village discussions are led by elders and the komoru - a ritual chief. The korumus all come from the same clan and are chosen by consensus.
8. Each household is run by a woman. The women have their own fields and dispose of the proceeds as they wish. Money they make from selling beer and grain can be used to buy goats, which they then trade for cattle.
9.The men of the village are divided by 'age-set': children, young men (tegay), junior elders (rora) and senior elders (bara). Each set has its role. Children start helping with the cattle when they're about eight years old. The tegay age-set are unmarried and not yet known as warriors. They do the herding and earn the right to become young elders by their stick fighting and care of the cattle. Initiation ceremonies for those moving into the next age-set only happen every 20 or 30 years. The initiation ritual for the group becoming rora is particularly violent; the candidates are insulted by the elders, given menial tasks, starved and sometimes even whipped until they bleed.
10. Cattle are enormously important to the Suri. They bring status; when two Suri meet they'll ask each other how many cows they have. Cows are a store of wealth to be traded, and a source of milk and blood. Bleeding a cow is more efficient than slaughtering it for meat, and blood can be drawn during the dry season when there's less milk. An animal can be bled once a month, from the jugular.
11. The average man owns between 30 and 40 cows. In order to marry, he needs about 60 cows to give to his wife's family. Suri men will fight to the death to protect their herd, and some risk their lives to steal from other tribes.
12. These days, the Suri are used to tourists visiting their villages but they have a very low opinion of their behaviour. It's offensive, for instance, that people take pictures without asking permission and the Suri insist on being paid a fee. 'They must be people who don't know how to behave,' one Suri told an anthropologist. 'Do they want us to be their children, or what? This photography business comes from your country. Give us a car and we'll go and take pictures of you.'
13. The Suri have some extremely painful rituals, including lip plates, scarification and dangerous stickfighting. Some anthropologists see these as a kind of controlled violence to get young Suris used to feeling pain and seeing blood. These are, after all, people who live in a volatile, hostile world, under constant threat from their enemies around them.
14. No one knows why lip plates were first used. One theory goes that it was meant to discourage slavers from taking the women. It's undoubtedly painful. Once a girl reaches a certain age, her lower incisors are knocked out and her bottom lip is pierced and stretched until it can hold the clay plate.
15. As well as lip plates, the girls of the village mark their bodies permanently by scarification. The skin is lifted with a thorn then sliced with a razor blade, leaving a flap of skin which will eventually scar. The men, meanwhile, scar their bodies to show they've killed someone from an enemy tribe. There are particular meanings assigned to these scars. One group, for instance, cuts a horseshoe shape on their right arm to indicate they've killed a man, and on their left if for a woman.
16. When it comes to religious beliefs, the Suri have a sky god, Tuma, an abstract divine force. There is no real veneration of the earth or earth spirits.
17. Stick fighting is part martial art, part ritual, part sport. It's seriously dangerous. 'If you get hit in the stomach it can kill you,' says Bargalu, Bruce's host. That's not to mention the danger if someone in the crowd decides to use their gun.
18. Traditionally the stick fights were a place where young men could prove themselves to the girls and find a wife. But they're more than just a meeting place. Dongas get young men used to the bloodshed they'll face from the Nyangatom and other tribes, and provide the schooling a young man needs to fight for his tribe's survival.
19. The dozen or so tribal groups in this part of southern Ethiopia are locked in mutual hostility. Fuelled by a steady supply of semi automatic weapons, the violence only gets worse.
20. The Suri's traditional enemies are the Nyangatom who, ten years ago, drove them from some of their traditional lands in a bloody conflict that has led to many deaths. Other enemies include the 70,000 Toposa, who live along the border with Sudan and often team up with the Nyangatom to raid Suri cattle and drive them off contested pastures
21. Though hundreds of people have died in the conflicts in the region, the state authorities rarely provide any kind of formal justice. It's a measure of how widespread weapons are that these days, an AK-47 is often part of the 'bride price' a man gives his new wife's family.
Adi Tribe - Himalayas
"The Adi are justly proud of their history. The Himalayan hill tribe's reputation as fierce warriors, and the inhospitable terrain in which they live, have ensured the survival of Adi culture for centuries. But change is coming fast as technology, ideas - and beliefs - from outside start to take hold in even the most remote Adi villages."
22. The Adi are subsistence farmers who live in the foothills of the Himalayas in the far north east of India. Even today, many of the tribe have never met a European - their home is in Arunachal Pradesh which, until recently, was the only Indian state which was closed to foreigners.
23. The Adi enjoy considerable control over their own affairs and development and benefit from state government initiatives set up to preserve tribal culture. Yet globalization and the lure of the modern world is increasingly having an impact on the Adi and the other tribes of Arunachal Pradesh.
24. The Adi live in a wild and beautiful area. There are more than 500 species of orchid here; elephants, tigers and leopards live in the abundant forest, along with the white-browed gibbon, civets, the sloth bear, the Himalayan black bear, the red panda and many species of deer. The 100,000-strong Adi are one of 25 major tribes who live in the state, along with a number of sub-tribes.
25. The name Adi means 'hill man'. The tribe divides into two main divisions - the Bogum and Onai - each of which is subdivided. There is a highly developed system of democracy and all major decisions in a village are taken by the Kebang (village council) only after full consultation with all members of the tribe.
26. Adi will eat most birds and animals and even some insects. One species of beetle is especially sought after - but only if it can be eaten alive! Squirrels and other rodents - including rats - are a favourite dish and are an important part of traditional feasts.
27. he Adi breed an animal called a mithun, a forest-dwelling herbivore which is a cross between a water buffalo and a cow. However, these animals are usually only slaughtered during festivals. The rest of the time, the mithun wander the forest unrestricted. Their owners know each animal's identity, and a man's wealth is judged by the number of mithuns he has.
28. Both men and woman wear their hair closely cropped, and polygamy (having multiple partners) is still practised.
29. Boys and men have a dormitory club in the village called Moshup and, in some villages, the girls have a separate club called Raseng. These dormitories used to be where young Adi would learn about their traditions and duties, but most children now attend government schools.
30. The curriculum they study ignores the intricacies of tribal knowledge and culture, and this is having an increasing impact on the self-esteem and identity of the young Adis. Today, few young Adi want to work in the fields in the same way as previous generations.
31. The Adi still practice animism, or spirit-based religion, which is officially recognised by the state. Their main god is Dionyi-Polo (which roughly translates as 'Sun-Moon'), the eye of the world; there is also a host of other spirits and deities.
32. Most villages have a resident shaman known as a miri. In daily life, Adi distinguish between two different kinds of illness: natural and supernatural. By looking at set of leaves or the liver of a dead chicken a miri divines the nature of the illness. They believe the spirits can easily be offended, and must be placated with offerings and incantations to avoid disease and illness.
33. In spring, the Adi hold the Aran festival. The village men disappear for several days into the jungle to hunt for game, placating the spirits before they start with offerings of apong, the millet beer, and prayers.
34. On their return, food is prepared while a huge gallows is built so a mithun can be sacrificed. The ceremony is brutal; the animal is hauled up a slope by a rope fastened around its neck. To ensure that the spirits makes it a prosperous year, with a good harvest and lots of pigs, chickens and cattle, everyone in the village takes part. Nothing is wasted: all the flesh from the mithun is divided between the villagers.
35. These days, Buddhist and Christian missionaries are influencing more and more Adi - particularly the young people - despite the remoteness of the areas in which they live. Though the government has a policy of banning them from Arunachal Pradesh, Indian missionaries have made their way to the area in the guise of teachers and administrators.
36. "Young folk are more interested in the modern way of dancing and singing," says one miri. "The young people dance in a different way because of the movies. They watch television when they visit other villages. That's why their style of singing and dancing has changed."
37. Apong, the millet beer brewed in every house, is also a staple. Alcohol consumption is also changing, to whisky, rum and beer in place of traditional apong.
38. The Adi villages are changing now as the electricity gradually makes its way into the Himalayan foothills, easing the burden of these hard-working farmers by providing light and power, but further eroding Adi culture by bringing in TV soap operas and Bollywood movies.
The Babongo Tribe - Gabon
"The Babongo of Gabon used to be known, derogatively, as pygmies. They're still treated as second-class citizens by their neighbours. But their expertise and knowledge of the forests is unique and their use of Iboga, a powerful hallucinogenic which lies at the heart of Babongo culture, makes them famous throughout Gabon."
39. The Gabon forest is hot, humid, and the air is thick with insects. Malaria and dengi fever are endemic. This is the home of some of the world's most endangered species, from gorilla to forest elephant.
40. Camps are made up of six to eight huts, housing up to 20 people at any one time. The traditional huts are called tudi, and made entirely from material gathered from the forest. The basic structure is a bent sapling, overlaid with flat wide leaves for waterproofing.
41. When the Babongo lived a nomadic life moving through the forest, this is what they would have used - a hut like this takes just half a day to make. These days they also build huts of mud, to a design adopted from their neighbours the Mitsogo tribe.
42. he men's hut is central to the Babongo's beliefs. Its structure stands for the human body, with a carved pole at the front representing the physical parts of man, the screened area at the back the spiritual. Only initiated men can go here. The entrance is intentionally low, so that you bow your head as you enter.
43. The Babongo have always been hunter-gatherers, and lived entirely from the forest. Hunting goes on all year round though it's generally easier in the rainy season, when the animals' whereabouts are more predictable. It's generally the men who hunt, and tactics differ across Gabon. In Lastoursville and Lebamba, for example, men and women together hunt communally with nets.
44. Small game are trapped using wire snares. Bows and arrows are still used for larger prey, the arrows tipped with poison from seed pods gathered in the forest then pounded to a fine paste. But these days the Babongo also hunt with guns, often loaned (with bullets) from Bantu neighbours in return for a portion of the valuable bush meat they catch. That includes gorilla, and elephant if it can be found.
45. It's the women who grow maize, manioc and potatoes in small patches cleared from the forest. With the children they forage for food including crabs, a real delicacy, and catch armadillos by smoking them out of their burrows.
46. As for many traditional hunter-gatherers, just three to four hours' work a day can often provide for basic needs. The rest of the time is spent just hanging out, playing with the children, grooming each other, telling stories, smoking and sleeping.
47. The Babongo believe they were the first people on earth. They share the forest with the Macoi, ambivalent spirit figures at once malevolent and benign. Drumming calls them from the forest, and they must be appeased at every turn - there's a ritual for every action, and countless forms of ceremony.
48. When a person dies, for instance, the Babongo believe their spirit will linger in the village and cause harm. The village must be cleansed through drumming, dancing and ritual. The women wash the body indoors and wrap it in a cloth. Then the men carry it to the graveyard in the forest for burial. The women paint their faces white with kaolin to symbolise purification, and dance and sing to put the dead person's spirit to rest. After three days and three nights of mourning, the funeral is declared over.
49. The Babongo follow Bwiti, an animistic religion based on a belief in spirits which started in the forests thousands of years ago. More recently Bwiti, influenced in curious ways by Christianity, has become one of Gabon's official religions - there are Bwiti churches, ceremonies and initiations in the capital, Libreville, and the first President was an initiate.
50. The Babongo cultivate the drug Iboga for their ceremonies, and worship it as the source of spiritual knowledge. Some Bwiti scholars believe it is the Tree of Knowledge from the Garden of Eden.
51. When Bwiti shamans eat Iboga, they are granted the power to see the future, heal the sick and speak with the dead. The Babongo use it as a stimulant before hunting and during initiation ceremonies. They believe that Iboga frees your soul to leave your body and go on a great journey, to speak with the spirits of animals and plants.
52. As well as influencing religious belief across Gabon, Iboga is also of increasing interest to Western medicine. One of its active ingredients, ibogain, has been used to treat heroin addicts, alcoholics and people who have been traumatised in childhood. Advocates say its particular powerful effects allow those who take it to move on from their previous lives and habits.
The Darhad - Mongolia
"The Mongolian nomads of the Darhad valley are some of the most self-sufficient people in the world. Across the steppes and mountains of the Darhad Valley, they move huge herds of sheep, goats, cattle, yaks and camels, relying on their tough little horses. It's a harsh and spectacular place, and a gruelling life."
53. The Darhad valley is in northern Mongolia, just south of Russian Siberia. Ringed with mountains, it's a land of extremes. The winter pastures around Lake Hovsgol for instance support both camels and reindeer. The short summers get as hot as 30C and during the six-month winter, temperatures can drop to -54C.
54. There are still about 10,000 nomadic herders in the region. Life has been much harder since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, when the collapse of the Socialist system brought widespread poverty. Since then, tough winters and droughts and the lure of jobs in the city have hastened the decline of herder numbers.
55. The Darhad people live in gers - also known by the Russian word yurt. They are portable wooden-framed huts, covered in canvas or felt. The herders can put one up or take it down in under an hour.
56. he ger is always set up so the door faces south, out of the fierce north winds. The left side of the ger is the men's area where the leather bag for fermenting mare's milk is kept, along with the horse tackle, bed and storage bags. The women's area is on the right of the door, and that's where meals are made. In the middle of the ger, right under the roof vent, is the fire or, more often nowadays, a stove. The fire is sacred: never stamped out, never put out with water, and never used to burn rubbish.
57. Mongolians are known for their hospitality and welcome. As well as a warm fire, there is always tea and bread on offer for visitors. Anyone can enter anybody else's ger but there are some rules. For instance, it is bad manners to knock on the brightly-painted wooden door. Instead, if you're visiting, you shout "Hold the dog!" to announce your arrival. It's also bad luck to step on the doorframe - that would be like stepping on the owner.
58. Meat and milk are the mainstay of the herders' diet and animals are treated with respect and care. The proper way to slaughter sheep and goats is to make an incision in the chest cavity, reach in and break the aorta. That way, nothing is lost - even the blood from intestines is boiled and eaten.
59. Milk is turned into 'white foods' in summer, like fermented mare's milk, wine distilled from cow's milk yogurt and cheese curd. In a land without refrigerators, sheep and goats are eaten in the summer, since they are small enough to consume before they can spoil. Cattle, camels and horses are eaten in the winter, when natural refrigeration allows for them to be eaten without waste.
60. The Darhad year revolves around finding pasture for the herds, which can mean moving four to six times a year. Come the first weeks of October, Autumn migration begins. The families pack up the gers in their fall pastures and head eastward over the 10,000-foot Khoridal Saridag mountains.
61. The smallest children and the very old are carried in warmly insulated boxes, slung across the backs of specially chosen oxen. In March they return over the high passes. The spring migration in particular can be very hard, given the risk of sudden blizzards in the mountains; young and vulnerable animals weakened by the tough winters are sometimes lost in the extreme conditions.
62. For two days in July, the Darhad families from across the valley meet in the little town of Renchinlumbe to celebrate the festival of Naadam. At the heart of the festival are the 'Three Manly Games' which together test the wisdom, courage and strength of the competitors.
63. The first of the Manly Games is archery - though these days, women and children have archery events too. The second is wrestling. It's a nine-round knock-out competition, there's no time limit on the matches, and the prize is a horse or other livestock.
64. From the 1930s on, Mongolia's Communist government banned both Buddhism and the practice of shamanism. Although hundreds of Buddhist monasteries were destroyed and monks killed and imprisoned, shamanism and Buddhism survived. Living far from the government authorities and towns, people continued to practice secretly an amalgam of Buddhism and shamanism in their everyday lives. In the Darhad Valley, shamanism is the dominant religion.
65. Across the steppes and mountains, you can see clear signs of the spiritual beliefs of the Darhad people. Shrines called ovoos stand by the roadside, tied with bright blue flags. To mark an offering to the spirits of the area, passers-by stop and circle the shrine three times (for the present, the past and the future) and drink vodka, or throw cigarettes or sweets in the air to please the spirits.
66. It's the shaman who communicates with the spirits. Beating a large drum, dancing and chanting, he puts himself into a trance. The spirits advise him, for instance, on future migrations or plans.
The Sanema Tribe - Venezuela
"In the largest jungle in the world lives a tribe whose traditional way of life is slowly fading away. The age-old way of life for the Sanema is changing and ancient balances between man and nature are thrown awry."
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67. The Sanema are a branch of the Yanomami tribe who live in the tropical rain forest on both sides of the Venezuelan and Brazilian border, on the watershed between the Orinoco and the Amazon rivers.
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68. Until recently they were nomadic hunters, and shifting cultivators, living off what they caught in the forest. But in recent times most of them have settled in villages. This decision to stay in one place is undermining their most fundamental traditions.
69. The intrusion of the outside world into Sanema life is having irreversible effects. Contact with the outside world has brought new diseases to which they have no immunity. In turn, this has helped destabalise traditional medical practises and led to an increased reliance on western goods and medicine.
70. The need for these new medicines has encouraged the Sanema to leave their semi-nomadic lifestyles, and settle in permanent villages near to medical posts and clinics. Along with their dependency on another tribal group, the Ye'kwana, it has meant a fundamental shift in the lives of the Sanema.
71. Strictly speaking, there are no headmen in Sanema society, though the most powerful shamans are respected by all. Decisions are made by consensus. Equally, no one person owns land; it belongs to the whole group, though you own the things that you produce from the land
72. A person's status is measured not by their possessions, but by their generosity.
73. First marriages tend to be arranged to secure family alliances and social networks. Securing the assistance of a new son in law in the hearth group is a major consideration for parents arranging the marriage of their daughter.
74. Sanema women marry young, often before puberty, though marriage won't be consummated for some years. Men can have as many as five or six wives though this is increasingly rare. Most later marriages are entered into by personal choice and 'love matches' are usual.
75. Within the village, women make the meals, look after the children, tend crops and gather wild food from the forest. They produce the village's cotton, pots and baskets.
76. he fire has to burn continuously; it's the women's responsibility to gather and chop wood to tend it, helped by their sons in law who have to work for their parents in law for several years as bride service.
77. The men's work is to hunt for peccary (a kind of wild pig), monkeys, jungle fowl, anteater and occassionally armadillo. Tapir - a large herbivore - is the prize catch. The hunters tip their arrows with poison harvested from forest plants, and hang bones and feathers above their hearth believing it strengthens their arms.
78. Hunters gain prestige by sharing out the game they catch between their relatives and friends. Those who don't share will not be successful in the hunt and are despised for their meanness.
79. Traditionally, the Sanema moved through the forest finding game then moving their camps on to allow animal stocks to recover so there was always plenty of food to be had. Now game animals are scarce around the village. It takes several days' walking to reach the good hunting grounds.
80. One Sanema villager sees it this way: “Our grandparents caught a lot of animals because they dreamt with the animal spirits. For example, they dreamed of the tapir spirit, and the next day they caught a tapir. But now the outsiders have come and told us, to stop dealing with the spirits. So we catch fewer animals than our grandparents.”
81. The Sanema believe in a dream world inhabited by the spirits of everything around them. The trees, the animals, the rocks, the water all have a spirit. Some can be used to heal, others to bring disaster and death. The shaman's dreams are as much part of reality as their waking life. It's in his dreams that the spirits visit him and may foretell the future.
82. Four out of five Sanema men are practicing shamans. Anyone can be initiated but it requires intense training and not everyone has the strength. The women usually just watch. Some don't even like to enter the spirit world in case they expose their children to attack from evil spirits.
83. The shaman's chief work is to dispel the evil spirits they believe cause illnesses, but they have other practises, including sorcery directed against enemies. To induce a trance they take a powerful hallucinogenic drug, sakona, made from the dried sap of the virola tree. It brings visions of the shaman's particular spirit guides, or hekul a - bright miniature demon. The Sanema believe the hekula enter the chest of the shaman and string up their hammock between his ribs. Each one has a particular song. When the shaman chants it is the voices of these spirits which can be heard.
84. “There is the tortoise spirit, the armadillo spirit, the frog spirit, the anteater spirit,” explains a Sanema shaman. “I know all the spirits. The tortoise spirit is small, but very old, his voice is not clear. But in your dream, you will know it is the tortoise speaking, and you will see the spirit... It is the spirits that give you your song.”
85. Hekula spirits are not just benevolent, the shaman must work to control them. A powerful shaman in control of many Hekula spirits can cure a variety of diseases.
The Nyangatom Tribe - Ethiopia
"The Nyangatom are some of the most feared warriors in the Omo Valley, locked in bloody feuds with the tribes that surround them."
86. The Nyangatom live in the dry, semi-desert lands of south-west Ethiopia and southern Sudan, where their lives revolve around their herds of zebu cattle and raising crops including sorghum, maize and tobacco. They face serious competition for access to scarce water and grazing resources. Ongoing droughts have made the situation worse.
87. Despite these problems, the Nyangatom have grown in recent years. One estimate suggests the tribe’s numbers have almost tripled over the last three decades to about 14,000, partly due to the activities of Swedish missionaries who provided health care and relief supplies until they left in 2002.
88. Today the Nyangatom face new issues. Their lands lie within the Omo National Park, created by the Ethiopian government in 1966 and the Nyangatom fear that their rights to grazing and water will be restricted as they have often been in the past.l
89. The Omo Valley is a patchwork of many different tribes. Two of them, the Nyangatom and the Toposa, arrived in the Valley from northern Uganda about 150 years ago. Their common origin unites them in the face of their many enemies, including the Turkana to the south and the Suri and Baale to the north.
90. The Suri insult the Nyangatom by referring to them as the Bume ('the smelly ones') - although their tribal name is actually a corruption of another insult. They were once referred to derisively as Elephant-eaters (nyam-atom), which they turned against their enemies by a clever pun, transforming it into Nyang-atom (literally 'yellow guns').
91. the Nyangatom are famous among the tribes for their storytelling and singing. The favourite animals of the young men of the tribe are called song cows and song bulls; in ceremonies and during fights with neighbouring tribes, the tribe sing about them. You can hear these cattle songs sung by children round the village and they're picked up and copied by other groups throughout the region.
92. When these warriors kill an enemy, they scar their upper body to release the bad blood.
93. The main form of social organisation is by generation-set. The men of one generation-set father the men and women of the next. Each generation is given a name. The very earliest ancestors are called the Founders; their sons were the Wild Dogs, then the Zebras, the Tortoises, the Mountains and so on. The oldest generation-set still living now are called the Elephants; then Ostriches and the Antelopes; or the Birds
94. Fathers and sons always socialise separately. The Elders remain in the village, while the job of the boys is to herd the goats, who browse on bushes round the village; and the women milk the livestock.
Native American Indians - USA, Canada, Alaska
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95. "American Indians," "Native Americans," and "First Nations people" are synonyms. They all refer to the same people. "Indigenous people" is a broader term that refers to any culture that lived in a place first. So Native Americans are all indigenous people, but not all indigenous people are Native Americans. For example, native African cultures are also indigenous.
96. Their legends say that they were created from earth, water and stars. DNA says they came from Siberia to what is now Alaska, Canada and US, through a land bridge called Behringia, about 15,000 years ago.
97. The Native Americans were often called Red Skins. The name traces its roots in Columbus' voyages, when the navigator met the Caribbean natives with an odd red color of the skin.
98. The Red Skins were not an ethnic group, but many tribes and ethnicities with different life styles, over 300 in both Americas. Some were hunters or fishermen, others cultivated the land. They were rather tall (the average height was 1.75 m or 5 ft and 10 in), with robust and muscular bodies, with a light brunette skin, dark and straight hair, and well marked cheek bones. The chin was strong, the nose aquiline, the lips were thin and the sharp black eyes were sunk in the sockets.
99. The Indian man was hunter and warrior, while women took care of the children, cultivated and harvested crops, grounded grains for making flour and maintained the tents. The main crops of the Amerindians were corn, squash and bean, but all the tribes collected forest products.
100. In bison hunting tribes, women helped cutting the animals and bringing the meat into the camp, then with its processing for being consumed later. In Apaches tribes, even if men helped in agriculture, women knew best how to do it, with all the required works, prays and flooding technology.
101. Women also mounted and dismounted the tents, which were usually used for two years; the Indian woman was respected and had many rights; even today in some tribes (like Hopi) the woman is the owner of all material goods.
102. Each family was led by the oldest woman. The council of the elder women chose the new chief.
103. The Indian tribes were in constant war one against the other, except when making alliances between various tribes. As the best way of reaching personal glory was the abundance of war trophies, all young men were eager to start the warrior pathway.
104. The weapons were a bow with arrows, a stone or bone knife, the tomahawk (an ax with a stone cut blade) plus a mace provided with a stone ball, a club resembling a sword and a shield made of wood or bark.
105. Before a war expedition, the warriors celebrated a feast, a worshiping war dance and rite, destined to check what will be the result of the projected campaign.
106. The tomahawk was the symbol of the war, wielding it meant the hostilities had started, while burying it meant there was a peace accord, confirmed by smoking "calumet", the pipe of peace.
107. The religion of the Red Skins varied; for some, Sun was the supreme god, others worshiped the goddess of death; others believed in an immaterial and almighty god, called Manitu. Most tribes believed in the power of the dreams, considered revelations made by gods.
108. In the Indian society, there were the shamen,
specially endowed people, which had supernatural dreams and visions; to activate this capacity, they devoted themselves to magic dances, rites and ceremonies invoking the spirits; when the exhausted shaman, excited by tiredness and hallucinogen substances fell in trance, the Indians believed a spirit had entered him, and all the shaman said was considered the voice of the gods.
109. Pueblo of New Mexico made multilevel adobe houses, as a protection against the scorching heat of the desert. Sometines, the adobe huts were built in natural grottoes. Wichita made grass huts. Maka and Hopi made wooden huts. Pajute made twig huts. Navajo made houses of tree trunks, while Diegueno huts were made of straw sheaves. In Pima, the straw sheaves huts were covered with clay.
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