TAINOS CULTURE: Tai·nos (tìno) noun plural Taino or  Tai·nos are members of an Arawak people of the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas who became extinct under Spanish colonization during the 16th century.  The language of this people is also call Taino. Although most of the historians sustain that Tainos people were exterminated by Spaniards by the 17th cent., today in Borinquen (Puerto Rico) exist a Taino reservation with natives from that area. There are also people who claim to be Tainos in the Dominican Republic. These are the people who welcomed Columbus in 1492.

CHOROTEGA CULTURE: The Chorotegas from Nicaragua, northern Costa Rica and southern Honduras were an ancient civilization that developed high skills in pottery and rock carving. The National Museum of Costa Rica contains many artifacts of this ancient culture and it is believed that Nicoya, an ancient Chorotega city was once very active on international native commerce.  This area on Central America was a meeting point of various pre-columbian cultures. The museum contains artifacts with a high Mayan and Aztec influences as other artifact with high influences coming from the Incas and other cultures from Perú and other places in South America.

OLMECS CULTURE: Olmecs settled (1500 B.C.) on the Gulf coast of Mexico and soon developed the first civilization in the western hemisphere. Temple cities and huge stone sculpture date from 1200 B.C.. A rudimentary calendar and writing system existed. Olmec religion, centering on a jaguar god, and art forms influenced all later Meso-American cultures. Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, 1998.

MAYAN CULTURE: Mayas. 1  a. A member of a Mesoamerican Indian people inhabiting southeast Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, whose civilization reached its height around A.D. 300-900. The Maya are noted for their architecture and city planning, their mathematics and calendar, and their hieroglyphic writing system. b. A modern-day descendant of this people. 2.   Any of the Mayan languages, especially Quiché and Yucatec. There are million of Mayan Indians in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica. Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, 1998.

TOLTECS CULTURE: Toltecs (Nahuatl, = master builders), was an indigenous civilization of Mexico, probably with ancient links to the Mixtec and Zapotec. The Toltec warrior aristocracy gained ascendancy in the valley of Mexico after the fall (900) of Teotihuacán, making their own capital at Tollán (Tula). Masters of architecture and the arts, they were advanced workers of stone and smelters of metals, had a calendary system, and are said to have discovered the intoxicant pulque. Their religion, centering on the god Quetzalcoatl, incorporated human sacrifice, sun worship, and a sacred ball game. The Toltec dominated the Maya (11th–13th cent.) until nomadic Chichimec peoples destroyed their empire, opening the way for the Aztec. Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, 1998.

TEOTIHUACAN CULTURE: Teotihuacán, was an ancient commercial and religious center, 30 mi (48 km) NE of Mexico City, of an influential civilization that flourished between A.D. 300 and 900. The largest and most impressive urban site of ancient America, it is laid out in a grid and dominated by the Pyramid of the Sun. Other notable buildings include the Pyramid of the Moon and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl. The people of Teotihuacán brought sculpture, ceramics, the carving of stylized stone masks, and mural painting to a high degree of refinement. Their designs indicate a complex religious system. At its peak the city's population was over 100,000.  Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, (C)1998.

MIXTECS CULTURE: Mixtecs, are indigenous people of SW Mexico who speak a language of the Otomian stock. Important from ancient times, the Mixtec seem to have had an advanced culture before the coming of the Toltec. They began spreading southward about 900 and by the 14th cent. overshadowed their rivals the Zapotec. Excelling in stonework and metalwork, wood carving, and pottery decoration, the Mixtec strongly influenced other Mexican. There are about 500,000 Mixtec-speaking people in Mexico today.  Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, (C)1998.

ZAPOTECS CULTURE: Zapotecs, (zä´pe-tèk) are indigenous people of S Mexico whose language is often placed in the Macro-Otomanguean division. They had no traditions or migration legends, but believed themselves born directly from rocks, trees, and jaguars. The early Zapotec were agricultural city-dwellers whose religion involved ancestor worship and a cult of the dead. A high civilization flourished some 2,000 years ago at their religious center at Mitla and city of Monte Albán. Their arts, architecture, writing, mathematics, and calendar suggest links with the Olmec, Maya, and Toltec. About 1300 the Mixtec took their cities, but the Zapotec remained autonomous until the arrival of the Spanish by allying with the Aztec. The Zapotec number c.350,000; their culture blends native and Spanish elements.  Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, (C)1998.

TOTONAC CULTURE: Totonac, Cempoala center was the first city visited by Cortéz and his party on their expedition to the Aztec Empire. Cempoala was know as Totonacapan in it was the home to perhaps as many as 100,000 residents. Cempoala was situated on a densely populated flood plain southeast of el Tajín and boasted such advance features as a highly developed flood-control and irrigation systems. By the time of Cortéz arrival, El Totonacapan had became a client state of the Aztec Empire and eagerly made common cause with the Spanish invaders.

AZTEC CULTURE: Aztecs, were indigenous people dominating central Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest (16th cent.), with a Nahuatlan language of the Uto-Aztecan stock. Until the founding of their capital, Tenochtitlán (c.1325), the Aztec were a poor nomadic tribe in the valley of Mexico. In the 15th cent. they became powerful, subjugating the Huastec to the north and the Mixtec and Zapotec to the south, and achieving a composite civilization based on a Toltec and Mixteca-Puebla heritage. Engineering, architecture, art, mathematics, astronomy, sculpture, weaving, metalwork, music, and picture writing were highly developed; agriculture and trade flourished. The nobility, priesthood, military, and merchant castes predominated. War captives were sacrificed to the many Aztec gods, including the god of war, Huitzilopochti. In 1519, when Cortés arrived, many subject peoples willingly joined the Spanish against the Aztecs. Cortés captured Montezuma, who was subsequently murdered, and razed Tenochtitlán.  Excellent Pictures by Philip Baird, (C)1998.

HUICHOL TRIBE: The Huichols are a hearty and enduring people numbering about 18,000, most of which live in the Jalisco and Nayarit, two rugged and mountainous states in North Central Mexico. They are descendents of the Aztecs and are related to their Uto-Aztecan speaking cousin, the Hopi of Arizona. They are representatives of a pre-Columbian shamanic tradition which is still functioning according to the ceremonies of their remote past.

TARAHUMARA TRIBE: The Tarahumara Indians inhabit the Sierra Madre Mountains of the State of Chihuahua in Northwest Mexico. Their territory centers in the upper Rio Urique drainage, and covers approximately 5,000 square miles. Modern population estimates range between 40,000-50,000.

OTOMI TRIBE: Otomí, or Hña-hñu, people make up the fifth largest indigenous ethnic group in Mexico. Otomí communities can be found across Central Mexico from Michoacán in the west to Veracruz in the east. In prehispanic times, the center of Otomí culture was located at Xilotepec in what is now the State of México.

Picture Collection on Mexico and Central America (C) Clive Ruggles, UL

LATIN AMERICAN INDIGENOUS ORGANIZATIONS

 

NORTH AMERICAN MAIN CULTURES:

CANADA FIRST NATIONS: The histories of the First Nations peoples are fundamentally connected to the physical identity of Canada. The vastness and variety of Canada's climates, ecology, vegetation, fauna, and landforms separate, join, and define ancient peoples, as implicitly as cultural or linguistic divisions. Canada is surrounded north, east, and west with coastline and since the last ice age Canada has consisted of several distinct forest regions. Adaptability is the essential component for survival within these demanding environments. Historic geographical models and population estimates are supplemented by oral histories, archaeological and anthropological evidence to derive knowledge of First Nations dwellings, food sources, and technology. Understanding how a people survived within their environment provides a greater insight into their history.

MOUNDS BUILDERS CULTURE: Mound Builders, were people who built mounds in E central North America, concentrating in the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, from the early 6th cent. to historic times. Probably ancestors of Native Americans found in that region by Europeans, they were politically diverse and developed distinct cultures. Artifacts indicate fine stone carving, pottery making, and weaving, as well as widespread trade in copper, mica, and obsidian. The mounds vary in size (1–100 acres/0.4–40 hectares), shape (geometric or animal effigy, e.g., Serpent Mound in Ohio), and purpose (burial, fortress, or totem.

ANAZASI CULTURE: A·na·sa·zi (ä´ne-sä¹zê) noun plural Anasazi were a group of Native American people inhabiting southern Colorado and Utah and northern New Mexico and Arizona from about A.D. 100 and whose descendants are the present-day Pueblo peoples. Anasazi culture includes an early Basket Maker phase and a later Pueblo phase marked by the construction of cliff dwellings and by expert craftsmanship in weaving and pottery.

HOHOKAM CULTURE: Hohokam, was an ancient agricultural culture of S Arizona (c.300–1200 A.D.). The Hohokam are noted for their extensive irrigation systems but also built sunken ball-courts, pyramidal mounds, and other structures similar to those of central Mexico. Most archaeologists believe that Hohokam culture evolved from local antecedents, although they did trade with more southerly groups. Their fate and possible ancestry of the Pima and Tohono O'Odham (Papago) is widely disputed

MOGOLLON CULTURE: Mogollon (mo´ge-yon¹) noun. A Native American culture flourishing from the 2nd century B.C. to the 13th century A.D. in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico, especially noted for its development of pottery.

FREMONT CULTURE: Fremont is the name given to diverse groups of Native Americans that inhabited the western Colorado Plateau and the eastern Great Basin from 400 A.D. to 1350 A.D. Fremont Indians lived along streambeds and raised their families in this desolate land several hundred years longer than the descendents of European emigrants have lived in America. The barren, semi-arid land where the Fremont Indians lived contains areas of spectacular beauty.

SALADO INDIANS: The Salado Culture represents a mixture of Mogollon, Hohokam and Anasazi peoples. The Hohokam and Mogollon had already been interacting in this area for some time, but it was not until the first influx of Anasazi peoples, probably originating from the Little Colorado area, that this mixture of peoples began to develop its own distinct character. This occured around 1100 AD, and is evidenced in the appearance at this time of black-on-white pottery types.

500 NATIONS: (Indian Tribes Map) The first people to discover the New World, or Western Hemisphere, are believed to have walked across a “land bridge” from Siberia to Alaska, an isthmus since broken by the Bering Strait. From Alaska, these ancestors of the Native Americans spread through what became known as North, Central, and South America. Anthropologists have placed these crossings at between 18,000 and 14,000 B.C., but evidence found in 1967 near Puebla, Mex., indicates people may have reached there as early as 35,000-40,000 years ago. Excellent Pictures on North American Natives

At first, these people were hunters, using flint weapons and tools. In Mexico, about 7000-6000 B.C., they founded farming cultures and developed crops, such as corn and squash. Eventually, they created complex civilizations—the Olmec, Toltec, Aztec, and Maya and, in South America, the Inca. Carbon-14 tests show that humans lived about 8000 B.C. near what are now Front Royal, VA, Kanawha, WV, and Dutchess Quarry, NY. The Hopewell Culture, based on farming, flourished about 1000 B.C.; remains of it are seen today in large mounds in Ohio and other states.

On the other hand, Native Americans believe on the Creation of the World and the Indian people.  Many not different stories of the creation of Indian people are handle down to the new generations.  Native Americans do not believe in the Bering Strait theory and even some of us consider that theory very offensive. 

Norsemen (Norwegian Vikings sailing out of Iceland and Greenland) are credited by most scholars with being the first Europeans to discover America, with at least 5 voyages occurring about A.D. 1000 to areas they called Helluland, Markland, Vinland—possibly what are known today as Labrador, Nova Scotia or Newfoundland, and New England.
Indian Tribes in United States and Canada

HAWAIIAN NATIVE PEOPLE: To understand Hawaiian native history and culture, one must understand the greater Polynesian phenomenon. Hawaii is the apex of the Polynesian Triangle, a region of the Pacific Ocean anchored by three island groups: Hawaii, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Aotearoa (New Zealand). The many island cultures within the Polynesian Triangle share similar languages derived from a proto-Malayo-Polynesian language used in Southeast Asia 5000 years ago. Polynesians also share fundamentally similar cultural traditions, arts, religion, sciences. Anthropologists believe that all Polynesians have a common connection to a single proto-culture established in the South Pacific by migrant Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) people.