A. Social and Political Organization

B. Food

C. Clothing and Adornment

D. Housing and Construction

E. Trade and Transportation

F. Recreation and Entertainment

G. Religion and Folklore

H. Warfare

I. Languages

J. Crafts and the Arts

K. Music and Dance

A. Social and Political Organization

Social organization among Native Americans, as among peoples throughout the world, is based largely on the family.

Some Native American societies emphasize the economic cooperation of husband and wife, others that of adult brothers and sisters.

As among various other peoples, men's work has been largely separate from women's work. Women usually took responsibility for the care of young children and the home, and for the cultivation of plants, while men frequently hunted, traveled for trade, or worked as laborers.

Native American societies also parallel societies elsewhere in that their size and complexity are affected by the economic potential of their environment. Accordingly, the smallest societies are found in regions that are poor in food resources.

Examples include the Cree and the Athapaskan-language peoples of the Canadian Subarctic, the Paiute of the Nevada desert, and the Ona and Yahgan of Tierra del Fuego. Among these peoples, two or three couples and their children often lived together, hunting, fishing, gathering plant foods, and moving camp several times a year to take advantage of seasonal foods in different localities.

During the season when food was most available, usually summer, these small groups would gather together, with several hundred people spending a few weeks in feasting, trading, and visiting.

When agriculture is possible, communities have been larger, from one or two hundred to thousands of people.

In most of what is now the United States, people lived in villages and formed a loosely organized alliance with nearby villages. The alliance and each village were governed by councils; village councils usually consisted of representatives from each family, and the alliance council was made up of representatives from the villages. The council selected a man or, in some areas (especially the North American Southeast), sometimes a woman to act as chief-that is, to preside over the council and act as principal liaison in dealing with other groups.

Often the chief was selected from a family that trained its children for leadership. In many areas families in the villages were linked together in clans-that is, groups believed to be descended from one ancestral couple.

Clans usually owned resources such as agricultural plots and fishing stations; they allotted these as needed to member families and protected their members.

Similar societies became common in the Tropical Forest culture area of South America.

In pre-Columbian times in Mesoamerica and the Andes of South America, kingdoms that had hundreds of thousands of subjects and empires with millions of subjects were established. These societies were stratified, with a large lower class of farmers, miners, and craft workers; a middle class of merchants and officials; and an upper class of rulers who maintained armies and a priesthood.

In many of these states, children were educated in formal schools; most children were trained to follow their parents' occupations, but talented youth might be selected for more suitable work. Citizens supported the state religion, although in the empires local religious observances were sometimes permitted to coexist with the state religion. War captives and debtors often became slaves.

The Inca state in Peru was tightly organized and controlled, moving persons and even whole villages around the empire to meet its needs.

In Mesoamerican kingdoms, on the other hand, clanlike local groups were generally allowed limited power.

On first encountering Native American societies, Europeans frequently did not understand their organization, which differed in various ways from European types of social organization; subsequently, the native organization was modified by the British or Spanish conquerors. In North America, Europeans failed to recognize the respect and power accorded to women of the Iroquois, Creek, and a number of other peoples. Among the Iroquois, for example, women made the final decisions in major areas of government.

In California, Europeans who saw the local upper class living in thatch houses and wearing little clothing failed to understand that the region's native communities had different social classes and highly organized ownership of property.

Many descriptions of indigenous societies were written after wars between Europeans and Native Americans and epidemics of diseases brought by Europeans had severely reduced native populations and disrupted their societies.

Other accounts were written with a particular bias, to support an author's ideas of how humans ought to live. Thus, many false stereotypes of Native Americans and their societies became common.

B. Food

Since at least 2000 BC, most Native Americans have lived by agriculture.

Maize was the most common grain, but certain grainlike plants were also popular, notably amaranth in Mesoamerica and quinoa in the Andes. Several varieties of beans and squash were grown alongside maize; many varieties of potato were cultivated in the Andes; and manioc, a tropical tuber, was raised in the Tropical Forest area of South America. All these plants, as well as peanuts, chili peppers, cotton, cacao (chocolate), avocados, and many others, were domesticated and developed as crops by Native Americans.

Livestock was less important to Native Americans than to peoples on other continents. In the Andes guinea pigs were bred for meat and llamas for transport and meat, and in Mesoamerica turkeys were domesticated.

Protein was often obtained from plants, especially beans. Maize-growing peoples obtained calcium by soaking maize in a lime solution as a step in preparing it to eat. Throughout the Americas additional protein was obtained from fish and game animals, especially deer.

Outside Mesoamerica and the Andes, in many Native American communities game ranges were regularly burned to improve pasture, thereby maintaining favorable conditions for deer and, on the Plains, for bison.

In Mesoamerica and Peru, land was too valuable to pasture animals; instead, land was cultivated, intensively irrigated, and, in mountain regions, terraced.

Hunting and fishing techniques were highly developed by Native Americans, particularly in regions not suited to agriculture. Traps of all kinds were common.

Plains peoples relied on corrals hidden under bluffs or in ravines; herds of bison were driven into the corrals, where they were easily slaughtered. Inuit and Subarctic groups drove caribou into corrals, or they ambushed them in mountain passes or river fords. Guanacos were similarly hunted in the South American Pampas.

Fish were usually taken in nets or weir traps (where a fence or enclosure is set in a waterway to catch fish), except in the Northwest Pacific Coast area, where tons of salmon could be speared at the river rapids.

Techniques of food preparation have varied according to the type of food and the culture area. In maize-growing regions, tortillas remain common, as does a similar flat bread of manioc flour in the Tropical Forest.

Techniques of drying foods, including meats, have always been important.

In pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica and the Andes, nobles indulged in elaborate feasts of richly prepared dishes.

C. Clothing and Adornment

In their traditional clothing Native Americans differed from Europeans in that they placed less importance on completely covering the body.

The peoples of warm climates, in California and the Tropical Forest, for example, often did not bother with much clothing except at festivals; then they adorned themselves with flowers and paint, and often with intricate feather headdresses.

In Mesoamerica and Peru, men wore a breechcloth and a cloak knotted over one shoulder, and women wore a skirt and a loose blouse; these garments were woven of cotton or, in Peru, sometimes of fine vicuña (a relative of the llama) wool.

North American hunting peoples made garments of well-tanned deer, elk, or caribou skin; a common style was a tunic, longer for women than for men, with detachable sleeves and leggings.

Northwest Pacific Coast peoples wore rain cloaks of woven cedar fiber.

In the Arctic, the Inuit and Aleuts wore parkas, pants, and boots of caribou or, when needed, of waterproof fish skin.

Except in Canada and Alaska, where parkas and coats were worn, Native Americans in cold weather usually wrapped themselves in robes, cloaks, or ponchos.

D. Housing and Construction

Modes of shelter, like food, show adaptation to environment.

Some houses that appear simple, such as the Inuit iglu or the Florida Seminole chikee, are quite sophisticated: The iglu (Inuit for "house"), usually made of hide or sod over a wood or whalebone frame, is a dome with a sunken entrance that traps heat indoors but allows ventilation; the chikee, naturally air-conditioned, consists of a thatch roof over an open platform.

The tepee of the Plains peoples constitutes efficient housing for people who must move camp to hunt; tepees are easily portable and quickly erected or taken down, and an inner liner hung from midway up the tepee allows ventilation without drafts, so that the enclosed space is comfortable even in winter.

Some peoples in cold climates that were well supplied with wood, such as the peoples of Tierra del Fuego and the Subarctic Athapaskan-language peoples, relied on windbreaks with good fires in front, rather than on tents.

Many other peoples, including some Athapaskan tribes as well as Inuit, Californians, Intermountain peoples, and early Southwesterners, spent cold weather in dome-shaped houses that were sunk well into the ground for insulation.

Plains farming peoples, including the Pawnee and Mandan, built aboveground dome houses insulated with earth applied over pole frames.

The Navajo hogan, a round log-house banked with earth, is similar.

Mesoamerican and Andean peoples constructed buildings of stone and cement as well as of wood and adobe.

Public buildings and the houses of the upper class were usually built on raised-earth platforms, with a large number of rooms arranged around atria and courtyards.

In cities and in the Pueblo towns of the Southwest, multistoried apartment blocks were built.

E. Trade and Transportation

To all Native Americans, trade was an important economic activity.

The early empire of Teotihuacán in Mexico was founded on the manufacture and export of blades of obsidian, a natural volcanic glass that made the best stone knives.

Several centuries later, the Aztecs organized their conquests by sending merchants into other kingdoms to develop trade, act as spies, and help plan conquest if the foreign ruler failed to give favorable terms to Aztec trade.

In the Inca Empire excellent highways were built over difficult mountain terrain in order to move quantities of local specialty products in pack trains of llamas. Trade was also conducted by sea along South America and around Mexico and the Caribbean.

Much sea trade was carried in large sailing rafts or, in the Caribbean, in canoes made from huge logs.

Trade goods in Mesoamerica and the Andes included foodstuffs, manufactured items such as cloth, knives, and pottery, and luxuries such as jewelry, brilliant tropical bird feathers, and chocolate. Both medicinal and hallucinogenic drugs were widely traded. Goods were bought and sold in large open markets in towns and cities.

Outside the kingdoms of Mesoamerica and the Andes, trade was often carried on by traveling parties who were received in each village by its chief, who supervised business as the people gathered around the trader. In many areas, including California and the Eastern Woodlands, small shells or shell beads-called wampum in the Eastern Woodlands-were used as money.

Because traders carried their goods on their backs or in canoes, trade goods were usually relatively light, small items. Furs and bright-colored feathers were valued in trade nearly everywhere.

In western North America dried salmon, fish oil, and fine baskets were major trade products, and in eastern North America expertly tanned deer hides, copper, catlinite pipe-bowl stone, pearls, and conch shells were widely traded.

F. Recreation and Entertainment

The games and other recreational activities of Native Americans have had much in common with those of peoples elsewhere.

Children traditionally played with dolls and with miniature figures and implements, imitating adult activities; in groups they played tag, the one who was "it" often pretending to be a jaguar or similar animal.

Youths and adults played games with balls-rubber balls in Mesoamerica and northern South America, hide or fiber balls elsewhere.

The Mesoamerican ball game called tlatchtli was somewhat similar to basketball in that it was played in a rectangular court and had the goal of knocking a hard ball through a stone hoop high on the court wall; players, however, were not allowed to use their hands, but only body parts such as the hips and knees. In Mesoamerica these ball games often were seen as rituals of cosmic significance.

Lacrosse was popular in the eastern region of North America and eventually was adopted by European settlers.

In southern South America a game was played that resembled field hockey.

Chunkey, a kind of bowling with a stone disk instead of a ball, was a favorite in the Midwest.

Hoop-and-pole, in which players throw sticks at a rolling hoop, was played throughout most of the Americas.

Guessing games, with the players trying to guess where a token piece is hidden, continue to be popular among the Native Americans of North America, but are not common in South America; players usually sing and beat a rhythm, trying to confuse their opponents.

In both North and South America games of chance using dice are still played, and the Aztecs of earlier times had a board game similar to the modern game of Parcheesi.

Competitions-in foot racing, wrestling, archery, and, after the Spanish invasions, horse racing-were generally popular, as were variants of snow snake, in which a smooth stick is slid along a course.

Minor amusements that are still popular include cat's cradle, in which a symbolic string figure is constructed on the player's fingers, and the use of tops and swings.

G. Religion and Folklore

Native American religious beliefs and practices display great diversity. As among other peoples, educated and philosophical persons may hold beliefs that differ from those of most people living in the same community; this was also true in the past.

The Mexican and Andean nations, the peoples of the North American Southwest and Southeast, and some Northwest Pacific Coast peoples had full-time religious leaders as well as shrines or temple buildings.

Peoples of other areas had part-time priests and generally lacked permanent temples. Part-time priests and shamans (faith healers, who often also used medicinal plants to cure) learned to conduct ceremonies by apprenticing themselves to older practitioners; in the larger nations priests were trained in schools attached to the temples.

In some regions religious leaders formed fraternal orders to train initiates and share knowledge; examples include the Ojibwa of the Eastern Woodlands and the Pawnee of the Plains.

Most Native Americans believe that in the universe there exists an Almighty-a spiritual force that is the source of all life. The Almighty of Native American belief is not pictured as a man in the sky; rather, it is believed to be formless and to exist throughout the universe.

The sun is viewed as a manifestation of the power of the Almighty, and Europeans often thought Native Americans were worshipping the sun, when, in fact, they were addressing prayers to the Almighty, of which the sun was a sign and symbol.

In many areas of the Americas, the Almighty was recognized in several aspects: as light and life-power, focused in the sun; as fertility and strength, centered in the earth; as wisdom and the power of earthly rulers, observed in creatures such as the jaguar, the bear, or snakes.

In most places in the Americas, religious devotees enhanced their ability to perceive aspects of the Almighty, sometimes by using hallucinogenic plants, or sometimes by fasting and singing prayers until they achieved a spiritual vision.

In northern and western North America, most boys and many girls were sent out alone to fast and pray until they thought they saw a spirit that promised to help them achieve the power to succeed in adult life.

Shamans among the Inuit, along the Northwest Coast, in South America, and in some other areas went into trances, believing that their souls could then battle evil spirits or search the earth for the wandering souls of sick patients.

Most Native American peoples have myths in which a time is described when the earth was not as it now appears, and during which it became transformed by the actions of legendary persons, or animals who spoke with humans.

Unlike many Europeans, Native Americans tend not to consider humans entirely different from animals and plants; instead, they often believe that other beings are like humans and that all are dependent on the life-giving power of the Almighty.

Some Native American myths, such as the myth of Lone Man (of the Plains people known as the Mandan), describe a wise leader who teaches the arts of life to the people; others, such as the California-Intermountain myths about Coyote, describe foolishly clever antics.

Native Americans generally have shown less interest in an afterlife than have Christians. Native Americans have traditionally tended to assume that the souls of the dead go to another part of the universe, where they have a pleasant existence carrying on everyday activities. Souls of unhappy or evil persons might stay around their former homes, causing misfortunes.

Many Native American peoples have celebrated an annual memorial service for deceased relatives; in Latin America this observance later became fused with the Christian All Souls' Day. Both private prayer and public rituals are common among Native Americans. Individuals regularly give thanks to the Almighty; communities gather for symbolic dances, processions, and feasts.

The Sun Dance of the Plains peoples is an annual summer assembly at which a thousand or more people meet to fast and pray together, praising and beseeching the blessings of the Almighty.

The Pueblos of the Southwest, like the Iroquois of the Eastern Woodlands, continue to observe a yearly cycle of festivals: In spring they pray for good crops; in autumn they celebrate the harvests (for an example of a recurring festival, see Snake Dance).

Various tribes used certain ritual objects (such as the long-stemmed pipe used by priests in North America to blow tobacco-smoke incense) to symbolize the power of the Almighty; when displayed, these objects reminded people to cease quarrels and remember moral obligations.

The folktales of Native Americans, as well as their myths, frequently express ideas about the nature of humans, other creatures, and the universe.

Among the Mexican nations, detailed historical records are maintained; elsewhere, in general, no sharp distinction was drawn between history and legend.

Many Native American folktales are fables, pointing out a moral; others are simply exciting or amusing stories. Translations of Native American stories and myths-like descriptions of native religious beliefs and ceremonies-seldom capture the full Native American meaning; a nonnative reader is rarely aware of the background of ideas that native listeners bring to a story or ceremony.

- See also the Native American Religions chapter & Manitou -

H. Warfare

The common stereotype that Native Americans were extremely warlike arose because, when Europeans first came into contact with them, the Native Americans were usually defending their homelands, either against European invaders or against other native peoples supported by European invaders.

Archaeological evidence of fortifications, destroyed towns, and people killed in battle indicates, however, that wars between Native American groups did take place before the European invasions.

Most Native Americans fought in small groups, relying on surprise to give them victory.

The large nations of Mexico and Peru sometimes relied on surprise attacks by armies, but their soldiers also fought in disciplined ranks.

The Aztecs fought formal battles called "flower wars" with neighboring peoples; the purpose was to capture men for sacrifice (the Aztecs believed that the sun would weaken if it were not fed with human blood).

Other native peoples, including many in present United States territory, conducted war raids to obtain captives, but these captives were used as slaves, rather than as victims for sacrifice.

Some Native American battles were fought for revenge.

The most common cause of war between Native American groups was probably to defend or enlarge tribal territory.

Before the Spanish colonizations, warfare was conducted on foot or from canoes.

Both the Mexican and the Andean nations, as well as smaller Native American groups, employed hand-to-hand combat with clubs, battle-axes, and daggers, as well as close-range combat with javelins hurled with great force from spear-thrower boards (known as atlatls). Bows and arrows were used in attacks, and fire arrows were used against thatched-house villages.

When the Spanish brought riding horses to the New World, native peoples in both North and South America developed techniques of raiding from horseback.

See also Wars, Battles & Massacres:
- Battle of Point Pleasant - Battle of the Fallen Timbers - Battle of the Little Bighorn - Battle of Tippecanoe - Beaver Wars - Black Hawk War - French and Indian War - Gnadenhutten Massacre - Indian Wars - King George's War - King William's War - Lord Dunmore's War - Pontiac's War - Queen Anne's War - Seminole Wars - Wounded Knee -

I. Languages

About a thousand distinct languages are presently spoken by native peoples in North and South America, and hundreds more have become extinct since first European contact.

In many areas, among them the Intermountain and Plateau regions of North America, people often spoke not only their native language but also the languages of groups with whom they had frequent contact.

In various cases one language served as a common language for a multilingual region; examples include Tucano (western Amazon area) and Quechua (Andean region).

Some regions had a traders' language or pidgin, a simplified language or mixture of several languages, helpful to traders of different native languages; among these were Chinook Jargon (Pacific Coast, North America), Mobilian (United States, Southeast), and lingua geral (Brazil).

Linguists have grouped many of the Native American languages into roughly 180 families, but many other languages have no known relatives; scholars differ in proposing more distant relationships among families.

Grammatical traits, sound systems, and word formation often vary from family to family, but families in a given region often influence one another.

- See the Native American Languages chapter -

J. Crafts and the Arts

Distinctive craft needs and artistic styles characterize each culture area of the Americas. Nearly all the major technologies known in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the 16th century were known also to Native Americans before European contact, but these technologies were not always used in the same way.

For example, although the Andean nations had superb metallurgists, they made few metal tools (people used stone tools for most tasks); instead they applied their skills to creating magnificent ornaments.

In architecture, the Maya built a few true (known as keystone) arches, but for roofing their buildings, Maya architects preferred not the true arch but the narrow corbeled vault

1. Stonework

The earliest American art known to archaeologists is flint knapping, or the chipping of stone. Between about 9000 and 6000 BC, stone spear and dart points of sharp beauty, such as the Folsom and Eden points, were produced with great skill. Although flint knapping eventually declined somewhat in other culture areas, in Mesoamerica the art of chipping flint and, especially, obsidian continued to be highly prized.

In the Late Archaic period, after 3000 BC, the pecking and grinding (rather than chipping) of stone developed into art. In the region that is now the eastern United States lovely small sculptures, particularly of birds, were made as weights for spear-thrower boards.

Between about 1500 and 400 BC in Mesoamerica, the Olmec made small ornaments of semiprecious stones, as well as fine naturalistic and in-the-round stone sculptures that were close to or larger than life size. Jade was a favorite stone of the Olmec, and it continued to be carved throughout Mesoamerican prehistory.

Northwest Coast Haida carvings in argillite and recent Inuit soapstone carvings are examples of the continuing expression of Native American art through stone.

In architecture, the pre-Hispanic Andean nations developed stone masonry to a high degree, fitting smoothed stone blocks together so expertly that no mortar was needed for walls that have stood for more than a thousand years.

The Mesoamerican peoples also built in stone, and they preferred to cover their buildings in stucco plaster and adorn them with murals.

2. Pottery

The earliest pottery in the Americas was made about 3500 BC. By 2000 BC several known styles of ceramics had emerged, and in the wares of the following centuries everyday cooking pottery can be distinguished from fine serving pieces.

Among outstanding styles are the Maya vessels painted with scenes of royalty and mythology; the molded vessels of the Moche culture of Peru, reproducing objects and scenes from daily life as well as images from mythology; and the pottery of the Pueblos of the Southwest culture area, painted in geometric or stylized naturalistic designs.

3. Basketry

Ever since its beginnings as an Archaic-period art form in the Americas (by about 8000 BC or perhaps earlier), basketry continued to develop, reaching its finest levels of achievement in western North America. There, baskets became a true art form, prized as objects of wealth when of highest quality.

In most parts of the Americas several basketry techniques were known, among them weaving, twining, and coiling; decorative techniques included embroidery and the use of bright feathers, shells, and beads.

4. Weaving

Throughout the Americas weaving of one kind or another was practiced, but the craft reached its highest development in the Andean nations. In ancient South America twining seems to have been in use earlier than true weaving, and this early technique continued in use in both North and South America for bags, belts, and other items.

Almost as widespread as twining was the use of the backstrap loom, in which the tension on the threads is maintained as the weaver leans against a strap attached to the lower ends of the warp threads (the upper ends are attached to a hanging bar). On this simple loom a skilled weaver can make extremely fine, although narrow, textiles.

Heddle looms appeared in Peru after about 2000 BC, allowing wider cloth to be woven (a heddle is a mechanism that raises and lowers the warp threads in the pattern required). Peruvian weavers, using cotton as well as llama and vicuña wool, produced some of the finest textiles known, from filmy gauzes to double-faced brocades.

Into their fabrics Native American weavers sometimes wove feathers or ornaments of precious metal, shell, or beads. The Aztec emperor and the Inca wore cloaks completely covered by brilliant feathers of rare birds, or by gold.

5. Metalworking

In North America, in the upper Midwest, copper had been beaten into knives, awls, and other tools in the Late Archaic period (around 2000 BC), and since that time it had been used for small tools and ornaments. The use of copper in this region, however, was not true metallurgy, because the metal was hammered from pure deposits rather than smelted from ore.

The earliest metallurgy in the Americas was practiced in Peru about 900 BC, and this technology spread into Mesoamerica, probably from South America, after about AD 900.

Over the intervening centuries a variety of techniques developed, among them alloying, gilding, casting, the lost-wax process, soldering, and filigree work. Iron was never smelted, but bronze came into use after about AD 1000. Thus, copper and, much later, bronze were the metals used when metal tools were made; more effort, however, was put into developing the working of precious metals-gold and silver-than into making tools.

The best-known recent Native American metalwork is that of Navajo and Hopi silversmiths; their craft began when they adopted Mexican silver-working techniques in the mid-19th century.

6. Work in Other Materials

Among hunting peoples leather was used extensively for clothing, tents, shields, and containers (quivers, baby carriers, food storage, sheaths, ritual paraphernalia).

In North America leather clothing was often embroidered with dyed porcupine quills. After European trade began, quill embroidery gave way to decoration with glass beads.

Native Americans in eastern North America copied embroidery designs of the French, and they substituted silk threads for quills and moose hair.

Wood carving was a widespread craft among Native Americans. The peoples of the Northwest Pacific Coast developed a truly distinctive art style in their wood carvings, with variations from tribe to tribe; the most famous examples of this style are its totem poles, tall logs carved and painted to represent the noted ancestors of a clan and figures from mythology.

Bark was employed in several Native American crafts. In northeastern North America it was used for roofing, canoes, and containers; along the Northwest Coast, shredded cedar bark was woven into rain capes and ornaments; in South America bark was beaten in a felting process into a kind of cloth; and in Mexico bark pulp was made into paper.

Among Southwestern peoples such as the Navajo, Pueblo, and Yumans, pollen, pulverized charcoal and sandstone, and other colored powdery materials are distributed over a ground of sand to create symbolic sand paintings that are used in healing rites and then destroyed (see Music and Dance).

In the 20th century a number of Native American artists in Canada and the United States have adopted tempera, watercolor, and oil painting, using both traditional imagery and modern Western styles. The peoples of the Northwest Coast and the Inuit have also adapted traditional pictorial styles to printmaking.

- See also Pre-Columbian Art & Architecture -

K. Music and Dance

In North America six distinctive musical styles or regions have been recognized: Inuit and Northwest Coast; California and nearby Arizona; the Great Basin; Athapaskan; Plains and Pueblo; and Eastern Woodland.

The music of northern Mexico has much in common with that of western Arizona; farther south, however, in the regions of the Mesoamerican and Andean civilizations, complex musical cultures existed. Little information has been preserved about the music of these civilizations, and whatever remains of the original styles survived the Spanish conquest principally in the form of highly complex and varied blends of native and assimilated Spanish elements.

Elsewhere in South America the music of the native peoples, like that of North America, was relatively insulated from nonnative influence; the South American music, however, has been less extensively studied than that of North America.

1. Instruments and Vocal Styles

Among the persisting native musical styles of the Americas, singing is the dominant form of musical expression, with instrumental music serving primarily as rhythmic accompaniment.

Exceptions occur, notably the North American love songs played by men on flutes. The native peoples of South America tend to use a softer singing voice than those of North America, whereas a tense vocal production is characteristic east of the Rocky Mountains.

Throughout the Americas the principal instruments have been drums and rattles (shaken in the hand or worn on the body), as well as flutes and whistles.

In Mesoamerica and the Andes, greater variety exists. Besides rattles and drums, the pre-Hispanic ensembles of the Aztecs are known to have included double and triple flutes; trumpets played in harmony in pairs; rasps; and the slit-drum (known as the teponaztli, a resonant, carved hollowed log struck with a stick). In Panama and the Andes, panpipes continue to be played in harmony.

Instruments have often had ritual or religious significance; among some Brazilian tribes, for example, women must not view the men's flutes. In North America the tambourinelike frame drum, and in South America the maraca rattle, were frequently played by shamans.

2. Inuit and Northwest Pacific Coast

The Inuit and the peoples of the Northwest Pacific Coast use more complex rhythms than are common elsewhere in North America, and on the Northwest Pacific Coast, songs may have more complex musical forms and may use exceptionally small melodic intervals (a semitone or smaller).

Northwest Pacific Coast dance dramas are lengthy, elaborate productions with magnificent costumes and tricky props, and the songs for these dramas are carefully taught and rehearsed.

Inuit dance and costumes are simpler, possibly because their communities are smaller, and the dances often feature men using the forceful movements of harpooning while women sing accompaniment.

- see also Inuit Drum Dance -

3. California and the Great Basin

The singing of the Native Americans of California and the Great Basin is produced by a more relaxed throat than that of other North American musical areas. The melodies and texts, however, are like those found elsewhere in North America in that the songs are short (although they may be repeated or combined into series) and the texts are often brief sentences. Such texts tend to refer to myths, events, or emotions, rather than telling stories, and sections of text may alternate with song sections sung to meaningless syllables. Listeners must know the background to appreciate the poetry and meaning of a song.

Both social dances and costumed ritual dances are found in the Great Basin and in California, where they are more elaborate.

Some California (and western Arizona, particularly Yuman) music is characterized by a rise in pitch in the middle section of a song. Songs of the Great Basin often have a structure consisting of paired phrases.

4. Athapaskan Music

The music of the Athapaskan peoples-those of northwestern Canada and Alaska as well as the Navajo and Apache of the Southwest-is characterized by melodies that have a wide range and an arc-shaped contour, and by frequent changes in meter; falsetto singing is prized.

Costumed ritual dances are unusual except among the Apache, who, like the Navajo, have been influenced by the Pueblos. Much Navajo music belongs to healing rituals designed to restore patients to harmony by seating them in beautiful sand paintings while they listen to poetic songs.

5. Plains and Pueblo Music

The music of the Great Plains is the best known of the Native American styles of North America and is the source of the musical styles heard at present-day powwows (social gatherings, often intertribal, featuring Native American dancing).

Singing is in a tense, pulsating, forceful style; men's voices are preferred, although a high range and falsetto are valued. Melodic ranges are wide, and the typical melodic contour is terrace-shaped-beginning high, and descending as the song progresses.

Plains music is often produced by a group of men sitting around a large double-headed drum, singing in unison and drumming with drumsticks (at powwows, the group itself is called a drum).

In Plains dancing, men usually dance solo with bent body (several may dance at once, independently), but there are also ritual dances with symbolic steps and social round dances for couples.

The Pueblos add some lower-voiced music; they make more use of chorus, and they perform elaborate costumed ritual dances (often with clowns that entertain between serious dances).

6. Eastern Woodland Styles

Eastern Woodland music resembles Plains music, but it tends to have narrower melodic ranges, and Eastern singing makes use of polyphony (multipart music) as well as forms that are antiphonal (with alternating choruses) and responsorial (with alternating solo and chorus).

Dances include men's solos, as well as ritual dances and social round dances. In the Stomp Dance of the Southeast, a snakelike line of dancers follows a leader who calls out in song and is answered by the followers.

7. Mexico and the Andes

Almost no archaeological evidence exists for prehistoric music in the Americas; all that is known from pre-Hispanic civilizations is a few preserved instruments (such as panpipes and ocarinas in Peru) and painted or carved scenes of musicians and dancers.

In Mexico and Peru at the point of European contact, the nobles and the temple personnel maintained professional performers. In Mexico officials organized rituals for each month, with hundreds of richly costumed, carefully rehearsed dancers and musicians.

Responsorial singing was practiced; sophisticated scales and chords were apparently used, and compositions seem to have been formally structured, with variety in melody and in combinations of meters.

Secular dramas with professional actors were also produced, and bards composed epics.

The harps, fiddles, and guitars found in the Native American music of present-day Mexico and Peru were adopted from the Spanish.

8. Other South American Areas

Elsewhere in South America, indigenous music was relatively unaffected by European music. The pentatonic (five-note) scale of the Incas spread to some other regions, but earlier scales of three or four notes also survived.

Polyphonic singing, characterized by various voices and melodies, developed in some areas, notably in Patagonia.

Flutes are still sometimes played in harmony, and the music of some Tropical Forest peoples is often a complex combination of voices, percussion, and flutes.