Native Americans
The first people to inhabit the Americas were the Indians. Their settlements ranged across the Western Hemisphere and were built on many of the sites where modern cities now rise. They hunted deer, buffalo, and other game and cultivated land where today crops are still grown. Their hunters, warriors, and traders used paths now followed by roads and railroads. Indian words dot the map of the United States. Twenty-seven states and large numbers of cities, towns, rivers, and lakes bear names from the languages of the first Americans.
Native American farmers were the first in the world to domesticate potatoes, tomatoes, and many other food plants that help feed the peoples of the world today. ...
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greatly reduced in numbers and largely displaced. In Central and South America a large percentage of the modern population is of mixed Indian and European ancestry, and in the Caribbean and parts of South America a portion of the population is of mixed American Indian and African descent.
belong to the American Indian geographic race. Characteristics include medium skin pigmentation, straight black hair, sparse body hair, and a very low frequency of male pattern balding. In addition to a marked absence of blood type B and the Rh- negative blood type among , several other characteristics of their blood types set them apart from the Mongoloid peoples, with whom they were sometimes classed in the past.
Where Did The Indians Come From?
Like the white settlers, the first Indians were immigrants. Anthropologists say they came from northeastern Asia. They resembled the early Mongoloid people of that region. Nobody knows when or how they came. They probably arrived when ice sheets ...
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out different ways of life.
Since the Indians depended upon nature, they studied its ways. They knew the habits of the animals. They found out which plants were nourishing and which poisonous. They knew signs that foretold the turning of the seasons and the changes in the weather.
They had no science to explain nature, and they believed the sun, rain, and other forces were controlled by spirits. In religion they worshiped animals, plants, the sun, rain, and wind. In ceremonies and prayers they tried to gain the favor of these gods.
Indians of the Eastern Forests
The Indians who made their homes in the eastern part of North America had a region with plentiful rainfall. Forests ...
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Native Americans. (2008, October 17). Retrieved December 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Native-Americans/91590
"Native Americans." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 17 Oct. 2008. Web. 23 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Native-Americans/91590>
"Native Americans." Essayworld.com. October 17, 2008. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Native-Americans/91590.
"Native Americans." Essayworld.com. October 17, 2008. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Native-Americans/91590.
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