INDIAN WITHOUT Tomahawk
Studying the life of this nation will help us take a fresh look at the present and the future of America.
What is the shape of the original inhabitants of America? Although various environmental conditions of individual regions of the continent have left their imprint on those or other groups, we can easily find a lot of common, shared by all “Indian identity, bring them closer to the Mongoloid peoples of Asia. Stocky figure, short legs and a long arms, small hands and feet, underdeveloped eyebrow arches. The large nose (often, especially in the north, called as the eagle nose). Quite a big mouth. Eyes are usually brown. Hair is black, straight, thick.
However, as in Asia, the Americas had the many variations of this basic Mongoloid type. This basic type of American Indians often do not correspond to individuals, but also large ethnic groups. For example, the Indians of south Argentina and steppe zones of North America is much higher than average growth, and in the jungles of Venezuela live pygmy tribes. Markedly different from the bulk of the Indians of the so-called old American groups (eg, Botocudo). These “Paleo-Americans’ skin color is much darker than the other groups of Indians. Incidentally, the color of the skin. We used to hear that the Indians are redskin. In fact, the skin is not red, but, rather, yellow-brown. The North American Indians had a habit to rub their faces and bodies with red ocher for a special occasion. So, apparently, the first white settlers, called them redskins! Anthropologists identify three main groups of Indians: North American, South American and Central American, differing in height, skin color and other characteristics.
Soon after the Europeans first came into contact with the Indians, they became interesting to science. First, only superficially. But about the middle of XIX century, emerging new scientific discipline – American studies. In general, the science of history, as well as material and spiritual culture of the Indians. Some people think of American Section of Ethnography. However, American studies is not limited to ethnography, it also includes the study anthropological, linguistic, archaeological and especially – historical. Even early American have tried to make their research work with known system. First of all, they tried to implement the classification of native inhabitants of America, based on the principle of linguistic identity. It soon became clear that this is a labor of Sisyphus.
Indian languages are beginning to be studied systematically in the United States.
Classification of Indian Languages was engaged more than one generation of Americanists. It should be noted Franz Boas and the great French scientist Paul Rivet, and a number of North Americans (from our contemporaries, and M. Swadesh M. Greenberg).
Language is connected with writing. Now, in fact, all have their own written language, Indian tribes uses Latin. Among those features of language which it is not too consistent. (An example would be based on the difference tones of Mexican Zapotec language, where the pitch of individual syllables have to denote different additional characters before or after the syllable, or syllabary of North Cherokee, where more than 80 syllables of alphabet denoted by Latin letters, so the letter “a” is denoted by the syllable ‘go’.)
But the problem of linguistic affiliation of separate Indian tribes – is just one of the first questions that suggest themselves when we begin to study the Indians. But such “Indian problems” set. Problems of the complex and fascinating. They are something and tries to illuminate this book. And the highlight, in accordance with the truth. Tell how to live and live the Indians – the Indians without the Tomahawks.