I.

Introduction

Native Americans of Middle and South America, indigenous peoples of Middle America (Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies) and South America. Native Americans were the first humans to inhabit these regions, arriving thousands of years before European explorers laid claim to the “New World.”

The story of Native Americans begins in the ancient past. Scientists believe that the first human settlers of the Americas migrated from northeastern Asia during the last ice age, which ended 10,000 years ago. Whereas today the waters of the Bering Strait separate Asia and North America, during the ice age sea levels were much lower, and a wide land bridge, called Beringia, connected the continents. Anthropologists believe one or more waves of people crossed this bridge to North America, and through countless generations, eventually made their way down to Central America and across the Isthmus of Panama into South America.

In what in evolutionary terms was a brief flash of time, the descendants of those first migrants adapted to nearly every environment throughout Middle and South America, from the temperate highlands of Mexico and tropical rain forest of the Amazon Basin to the grassy pampas of Argentina and frigid islands of southernmost Chile. In Middle America and in the Andes mountains of South America, Native Americans began to grow maize (corn), beans, squash, and many other crops. As agriculture and food production intensified, populations soared, eventually developing into great states and empires of immense size, wealth, and complexity. The largest and best known of these were the Maya civilization, the Aztec Empire, and the Inca Empire. Other important civilizations included the Olmec, Teotihuacán, Toltec, and Zapotec cultures of Middle America; and the Chavín, Moche, Nazca, Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco), and Chimú cultures of the Andes.

When Italian-Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492, he thought he had reached islands off the eastern coast of Asia, which was then known as the Indies. Perhaps because of this belief, he called the villagers who greeted him indios, which later became the English word Indian. During the colonial period in Spanish-speaking Middle and South America, many indigenous peoples came to detest the name indio because it was accompanied by their subjugation and maltreatment at the hands of European conquerors. Although the use of indio persists to the present, anthropologists today generally use the term indigenous peoples when referring to the native inhabitants of Latin America and their ancestors; some also use the English terms Indian or Native American in scholarly writing. Like their counterparts in North America, the indigenous peoples themselves prefer to be identified by their specific tribal name, such as Huichol, Maya, Ynomamö, or Aymara. This article uses the terms Native Americans, indigenous peoples, and native peoples interchangeably when referring generally to the indigenous inhabitants of Middle and South America.

Intermarriage between Native Americans and Europeans began almost immediately from the time of European conquest. The children of these unions became known as mestizos. Mestizos now constitute a large proportion of the population in many Latin American countries, including Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. It is often very difficult to distinguish people who are of pure indigenous ancestry from those who are mestizo. In fact, the classification of people as indigenous is usually more of a cultural distinction than a biological one, counting only those people who have not yet abandoned their indigenous ways of life. Today, the majority of indigenous people in Middle and South America live in villages away from urban areas.

This article divides its discussion of Native Americans into three main parts. The Culture Areas section describes indigenous cultures and ways of life, primarily as they existed before European contact, in seven geographic regions. The History section chronicles the earliest migrations to Middle and South America, the rise of civilizations, the European conquests, and the modern history of indigenous groups. The Native Americans Today section discusses many of the political, social, and cultural issues that indigenous people face in contemporary Middle and South America.

For a discussion of the indigenous peoples of North America, see Native Americans of North America.

II.

Culture Areas

In anthropology, the term culture refers to a society or group of people with shared beliefs, customs, practices, and social behaviors. When European explorers began arriving in Middle and South America in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, hundreds of indigenous cultures existed across the land, from present-day Mexico to the southern tip of South America. The people of these diverse cultures had, over the centuries, developed ways of life well suited to the physical environment in which they lived.

To study these diverse cultures in a meaningful way, many anthropologists divide Middle and South America into different culture areas, distinct geographic regions whose inhabitants shared many cultural traits. The concept of culture areas assumes that geography and culture are intimately connected, and that cultures are best understood by reference to their environment. For example, a principal reason why complex states arose in Mesoamerica and the central Andes is the higher food productivity these regions had compared to other areas, which was due in part to the richness of the soil, rainfall patterns, and temperature. Intensive agriculture produced enough food to support large, dense populations, and with greater numbers of people there arose a corresponding need for more complex social and political systems.

However, neither a perfect nor totally predictable correlation exists between geographic areas and the societal types or cultural traits found within them. For example, if we follow the culture area concept too blindly we might tend to think of Mesoamerica as a place where only states or empires existed in ancient times. The fact is that there existed isolated groups, especially near the northern and southern boundaries of Mesoamerica, that never went beyond the village level of sociopolitical organization. Thus, culture areas provide a way of studying the general characteristics of people in a large geographic area, but at the risk of overlooking some of the details of cultural variability in that area.

This article divides Middle and South America into seven culture areas. These are Mesoamerica, the Caribbean and Northern Andes, the Central and Southern Andes, the Amazon Basin, the Brazilian Highlands, the Gran Chaco, and Southern South America.

A.

Mesoamerica

This section gives a broad overview of the Mesoamerica culture area. For a more detailed treatment, see Mesoamerica.

A.1.

Land and Habitat

The Mesoamerica culture area stretches from present-day central Mexico southeast through much of Central America. It includes the Yucatán Peninsula; all of Belize, Guatemala, and El Salvador; and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. The primary geographic features of Mesoamerica include a lowland belt of tropical rain forest that runs along the Gulf of Mexico, and a cooler, drier highland belt parallel to it. Within the highland belt are the central Mexican highlands, including the Valley of Mexico; the southern Mexican highlands, including the Valley of Oaxaca; and the hills and valleys of the southeastern highlands of Guatemala.

No major rivers are found in Mesoamerica, in contrast to other areas of the world where early civilizations arose. Ample rainfall occurs throughout the region, however. A line that snakes across central Mexico near the Tropic of Cancer forms the northern boundary of Mesoamerica; north of this line rainfall sharply declines and the climate is much drier. The ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica all arose and developed in the area between this line and the Guatemalan highlands far to the south. Rich volcanic soils are found throughout much of the region.

A.2.

People and Languages

Mesoamerica was a great melting pot, home to many peoples and interrelated cultures. In the centuries before European contact, it was the most densely populated region in the Americas. Nearly 40 distinct indigenous languages were spoken in Mesoamerica, including dialects of the following language families and stocks: Chinantecan, Manguean, Mayan, Mixe-Zoquean, Mixtecan, Otomian, Popolocan, Tequistlatecan, Tlapanecan, Totonacan, Uto-Aztecan, and Zapotecan.

The best-known Mesoamerican cultures include—in roughly sequential order from 1500 bc to the Spanish conquest of Mexico in ad 1519—the Olmec, Zapotec, Teotihuacán, Maya, Toltec, and Aztec. Civilizations would flourish for a time, sometimes in tandem, and then decline as other cultures rose to dominance. Great cities were built and inhabited by successive groups, then abandoned. Forms of art and religion developed and shared by earlier groups profoundly influenced cultures that followed.

A.3.

Early Peoples

The human history of Mesoamerica reaches back many thousands of years. The first inhabitants of the region were nomadic hunter-gatherers, whose ancestors are believed to have migrated from Asia. Stone spearpoints found with ancient animal remains, including mammoth, provide evidence that early Mesoamericans hunted large game for at least part of their diet. By about 8000 bc, at the beginning of what is known as the Archaic period, Mesoamericans began to make numerous specialized tools and ceremonial objects, and they hunted a wide variety of game, including pronghorn antelope, rabbits, and gophers. They were expert foragers and harvested fruits, nuts, and the seeds of wild plants.

Drawing on their extensive knowledge of edible wild plants, Archaic Mesoamericans gradually learned to cultivate a variety of food crops, including maize (see Corn). Precisely when farming began in Mesoamerica is unknown, but agriculture had become widespread in the region by 4000 bc. Over time, Mesoamerican peoples came to rely on farming as their primary food source, and they settled in permanent villages. By about 2000 bc, many peoples of Mesoamerica were living principally on varieties of maize, beans, and squash. Intensive agriculture supported large populations and complex societies began to develop.

After about 1500 bc Mesoamericans began to build ceremonial pyramids and temples in the larger towns, and these settlements grew into religious and political centers. As towns grew in size, Mesoamerican tribes became increasingly complex, and fixed classes of priests, bureaucrats, merchants, and craftspeople emerged. Some towns had many thousands of citizens; empires with millions of subjects were established. Agricultural wealth fostered a network of trade. Merchants in urban centers sold tools, cloth, and luxury items imported over long land and sea routes. Great heights were achieved in the arts and sciences. Ancient Mesoamericans developed systems of writing and highly accurate calendars based on their astronomical observations.

A.4.

Diet and Subsistence

Agriculture provided the principal source of food throughout Mesoamerica, with the variety of crops increasing toward the south. The main staple everywhere was maize, but other crops were important as well, especially beans and squash. Eaten together, maize, beans, and squash offered a diet rich in vegetable protein and carbohydrates.

Mesoamerican farmers cultivated many other plant species. Among the better known are tomatoes, sweet potatoes, chili peppers, tobacco, cotton, and peanuts. Lesser-known plants include amaranth, bottle gourd, and a type of edible cactus called prickly pear. The sap of the century plant, a species of agave, was fermented to make alcoholic beverages, including a drink called pulque. A plant called manioc (also known as cassava or yucca), was used, among other things, to make tapioca. Mesoamerican peoples also exploited many native fruits, including papayas, avocados, and cacao (to make chocolate). Fruit-producing trees were frequently planted in high concentrations in and around Mesoamerican cities.

In the tropical lowlands, Mesoamericans practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, in which areas of jungle were cleared and burned to make fields for crops. When the soil was depleted and crop yields declined, the plots were abandoned and new ones were cleared. In some highland areas, particularly in the Valley of Mexico, the people constructed irrigation systems and established gardens on artificially made islands, known as chinampas, in lakes and swampy areas. Wild plants, game, and domesticated animals, including dogs, turkeys, ducks, geese, and quail, were also used as food in various areas. Fish and shellfish were eaten along the coasts.

A.5.

Social and Political Organization

During the long Archaic period, which lasted until about 2000 bc, small villages of extended families were at the center of Mesoamerican society. Village resources were generally shared, and permanent social classes did not exist. Families directed the growing of corn and other village work, and most adult villagers were capable of performing all the tasks required to sustain life.

As agriculture became more intensive and efficient, and helped to ensure a stable food supply, Mesoamerican village life became more diverse. New gods that could assure bountiful crops—including deities believed to control rainfall, flooding, or fertility—grew in importance. At the same time, knowledge of various crafts—including weaving, basketry, and pottery—expanded, and a specialization of labor slowly emerged.

The first signs of social stratification in Mesoamerica appeared shortly after 1000 bc. At Olmec sites in the swampy rain forests of eastern Mexico, for example, the ancient architecture signals the beginning of a division of society into elite and commoner groups. The sites contain a complex of plazas, pyramids, courts for sacred ball games, and temples, which were used for prayer and religious ceremonies, as well as finely built stone dwellings for the upper classes. These sites mark the beginning of an evolutionary sequence characterized by ever larger, more complex, and more stratified societies in Mesoamerica.

As settlements grew larger, Mesoamerican societies became increasingly stratified according to social rank. The ranks of these societies typically included a large lower class of farmers, miners, and craftspeople; a middle class of merchants and government officials; and an upper class of priestly elites who directed religious and political life and maintained armies. In many of these societies, 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.

A.6.

Settlement and Housing

Although Mesoamerica contained many impressive cities, most of the area’s population was rural. The region encompassed thousands of communities, ranging from small villages of perhaps 100 people to great urban centers such as Tenochtitlán, an Aztec city that—at its peak—was home to an estimated 200,000 people. Several hundred localities large enough to be called cities by modern standards emerged in Mesoamerica, although some of them served mainly as religious centers for a rural population living near them; their principal inhabitants were priests who gathered there to fast and purify themselves before important ceremonies.

In agricultural settlements, people typically lived in single-room round or rectangular huts made with poles covered by thatch or sometimes grass. In some areas homes were constructed of sun-dried adobe bricks or wattle and daub (interwoven twigs plastered with clay). Roofs were frequently gabled for protection against the heavy downpours that occurred every year during the rainy season. Each residence usually had a cooking hearth, storage pit, and workshop area where pottery and tools were made.

Mesoamerican cities often covered large areas. At their centers were great plazas surrounded by massive public buildings, including flat-topped pyramids, palaces, sanctuaries, monasteries, temples, baths, dance platforms, reviewing stands, bridges, terraces, and astronomical observatories. There were also ball courts, on which a game roughly resembling modern basketball and soccer was played for ceremonial purposes. Near the center of cities were the large stone houses and walled compounds of wealthy elites; the common people and the poor lived on the outskirts, often in single-room structures with earthen floors. By ad 200 in the city of Teotihuacán, many commoners were living in a new type of structure in Mesoamerica—one-story apartment buildings that could house up to 100 people.

Buildings in the cities were large and impressive, although rarely were they spacious enough inside to hold more than a few dozen people. The buildings often had façades crafted from stone and gleaming stucco. Sometimes the façades were elaborately carved with abstract geometric designs and with both stylized and naturalistic masks and figures of birds, humans, and other animals. The towering pyramids, made of mounds of earth and rubble faced with stone, were topped by temples, reached by steep flights of steps.

A.7.

Transportation

Since Mesoamericans did not domesticate draft animals or use wheeled vehicles, most loads transported between settlements were carried on the backs of people. In the low-lying jungles of present-day Guatemala, Belize, and southeastern Mexico, the Maya built roads paved with stones, called sacbe, between some of the major cities. However, transport and travel throughout most of ancient Mesoamerica was carried out on rough trails that crisscrossed the vast area. Porters with backpacks carried loads of commodities such as maize, beans, cotton, feather ornaments, animal skins, and firewood, from rural areas to the cities. In some areas, including Lake Texcoco in central Mexico, canoes were used for transport and travel. The Maya carried trade goods along coasts and rivers in large dugout canoes.

Official messages were frequently carried between settlements by runners working in relays. These trained athletes, similar to the chasquis used by the Inca Empire in South America, could cover several hundred kilometers in a single day. Rulers and other elites were often carried by teams of men on fancy mats known as litters.

A.8.

Clothing and Ornamentation

Mesoamerican clothing was varied and colorful. Cloth was woven from cotton and from the fiber of the agave plant. In the warm tropical lowlands, there was little need for elaborate clothing. Among the Maya, men wore a woven loincloth; women wore an outer dress fashioned from a single piece of cloth with holes cut in it for the head and arms, as well as a loincloth undergarment beneath. In cooler weather, both sexes wrapped a heavier square cloth around their shoulders.

The clothing of highland people was similar to that worn in the lowlands. Among the Aztec, for example, men wore a loincloth and—given the cooler temperatures—often added a cape for warmth. Women wore ankle-length dresses fastened at the waist with embroidered belts. Over their dresses, they wore hip-length blouses.

Clothing and decoration reflected a person’s social status. Commoners wore simple garments. The clothing of priests and members of the nobility was much more elaborate, including robes made from jaguar skins, feathers, or cotton; elaborate necklaces; and ornaments of copper, gold, jade, and turquoise. They wore jeweled plugs in their earlobes, lips, and noses, and large headdresses made of brilliant quetzal feathers placed on woven frames. Warriors had their own costumes, including carved masks that depicted jaguars, fish, and reptiles.

It was fashionable among Mayan nobles to have an elongated head, which was produced by compressing an infant’s head between two boards. The Maya also considered it beautiful to have crossed eyes—an effect that was achieved by hanging a ball of wax on a string in front of a child’s face until the child’s eyes became permanently crossed.

A.9.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

As farming peoples, Mesoamericans frequently worshiped the forces of nature as gods, including agricultural deities. Most of the elaborate rituals and ceremonies conducted by Mesoamerican priests were intended to secure the goodwill and support of these gods. Among some groups. human sacrifice was used to appease the gods. Rulers were seen as religious leaders who served as intermediaries between humans and the gods, or spiritual forces. As a result, the civil and religious aspects of life in Mesoamerica were often inseparable. See also Pre-Columbian Religions.

The complex religion of the Maya included belief in a supreme god, called Hunab Ku. This deity was seen as too remote from humans to have any effect on their daily activities. His son, a sky deity called Itzamna, was believed to be the god who gave humans food, medicine, and the art of writing. Numerous other deities—including the gods of rain, maize, war, medicine, wind, death, Moon, and Sun—were thought to control the specific affairs of humans. These deities all had a dual aspect: they could bring good things to humans, such as rain, a plentiful harvest, or peace, but they could also bring harm, such as drought, famine, or war. Many rituals and ceremonies performed by the Maya, including human sacrifices, were intended to secure favorable treatment from these gods.

Among the people of Teotihuacán, religious ceremonies included sacrifices of birds, flowers, dogs, and sometimes humans, to feed hungry gods and keep them strong. Doing so was necessary, they believed, to continue life and keep the world in harmony. A principal deity was Quetzalcoatl, also known as the Plumed, or Feathered, Serpent, a beneficial god who was frequently locked in combat with evil gods.

The Aztec worshipped a pantheon of gods, including more than 60 major deities and numerous lesser spirits. The ancient deity Quetzalcoatl, among others, was revered, but the principal god was the Aztecs' own, Huitzilopochtli, the god of war and of the Sun. The gods were ranked in importance, and each one had its own cult and special hierarchies of priests. Many Aztec ceremonies entailed sacrificing human victims to the gods, whose strength needed perpetual renewal with human blood. Sacrificial victims, sometimes large numbers at once, were led up the steps of pyramids to temples on top, where their hearts were cut out and their heads impaled on skull racks; others were flayed, and their skins were worn by priests. Victims were usually war captives, although Aztecs themselves sometimes volunteered for important sacrificial rituals.

A.10.

Arts and Sciences

Mesoamericans produced arts and crafts of great refinement and sophistication. Many Mesoamerican societies had full-time craftspeople and urban laborers. These workers built cities filled with monumental architecture, remarkable sculptures, and brilliantly painted murals. Mesoamerican arts also included painted scenes on pottery; carving in jade and other precious stones; feather and stone mosaics; basketry, textiles, and featherwork; and metalwork, a technology that arrived in Mesoamerica from South America sometime before ad 1000. They also fashioned elaborate painted books, or codices, that opened up as a long, continuous sheets of paper. Colorfully painted with hieroglyphs (a pictorial form of writing), human figures, and images of gods, these books were collections of religious lore and rituals for study by priests and their apprentices.

The intellectual and scientific accomplishments of Mesoamerica surpassed those of any other region in the Americas before European contact. The ancient Olmec, among other peoples of the period, devised a system of writing and a calendar based on astronomical observations. Later groups built on these accomplishments to achieve great heights, including the Maya, Zapotec, and the people of Teotihuacán. For example, during the Classic period of the Maya (about ad 300 to 900), the highest stage of Mayan civilization, Mayan philosophers and mathematicians developed a highly accurate calendric system. They recorded this system using a complex form of hieroglyphic writing, which was carved on stele, or stone slabs, up to 9 m (30 ft) high. The Maya conceived of the concept of zero, an advanced mathematical concept, centuries before the symbol for zero was used by Hindu mathematicians in India. Mayan astronomers carefully observed the heavens and worked out the movements of celestial bodies and the recurrences of eclipses.

A.11.

Post-Contact History

The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in Mesoamerica, sailing from settlements in the Caribbean in the early 1500s. Rumors of a wealthy, advanced civilization in what is now Mexico soon reached the Spanish, and in 1519 the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés set sail from Cuba in search of gold and new lands to colonize. When Cortés landed near present-day Veracruz in eastern Mexico, the Aztec Empire was still intact, and its rule extended across much of Mesoamerica. Marching with indigenous allies who had been subjugated by the Aztecs, Cortés advanced on the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in central Mexico. By 1521 Cortés and his small army had conquered the empire. The Spaniards seized the Aztecs’ gold and other treasures and razed Tenochtitlán, which became the foundation of Mexico City, capital of the Spanish province of New Spain.

From Mexico City other Spanish explorers and soldiers extended Spain’s power to the south. As the Spanish pushed into new areas, they exposed indigenous peoples to smallpox and other European diseases, and many perished. In the 1520s Pedro de Alvarado conquered Guatemala, and between 1527 and 1546 Francisco de Montejo and his son conquered the declining Mayan cities in the Yucatán Peninsula. From 1540 on, the Spanish also pushed north. As Spaniards claimed military control of Mesoamerica, they leveled temples and used the stones to build Roman Catholic churches, burned indigenous books as idolatrous, and enslaved many native people to work under harsh conditions in fields and mines. As a result of starvation, overwork, occupational hazards, and disease, the indigenous population of Mesoamerica plummeted. The Spanish crown abolished the harshest forms of forced labor in the early 18th century, and the indigenous population gradually increased; most indigenous peoples survived as peasants governed by Spanish overlords.

After Mexico achieved independence from Spain in 1821, indigenous peoples came under Mexican rule. Forced by extreme poverty, many native inhabitants continued to work for Mexican landowners. The Mexican Revolution of 1910 set in motion reforms that eventually returned thousands of hectares of land to indigenous peoples and gave them access to schooling and medical services. Today, most of the population living within the Mesoamerican culture area is mestizo, people of mixed Spanish and Native American descent. Despite efforts of the colonizers to stamp out indigenous culture, many traditional ways of life continued, mostly in modified form. The mixing of Spanish and indigenous cultural practices—including language, food, religion, clothing, and music—have made Mexico, Guatemala, and other modern nation-states of the area the vibrant, fascinating places they are today.

B.

Caribbean and Northern Andes

B.1.

Land and Habitat

The Caribbean and Northern Andes culture area is a tropical region that extends over a huge area between the Tropic of Cancer and the equator. In the north lie the Antilles islands, which run in a chain from the larger islands of Cuba and Hispaniola down through the tiny volcanic islands of the Lesser Antilles to Trinidad and Tobago. The western part of the area includes the rugged volcanic uplands of Central America to the south of Mesoamerica, from Honduras through Panama. The southern part of the area lies in South America and includes the northern Andes and adjacent coasts of Ecuador and Colombia, as well as the mountains of northern Venezuela and extensive savanna grasslands north of the Orinoco River.

Although the volcanic soils of the Lesser Antilles and Central America are rich and well watered, the Caribbean and Northern Andes culture area generally lacks extensive areas of land suitable for agriculture. Rainfall is heavy throughout the Antilles and Central America, and increases to even greater amounts along the Pacific coast of Colombia and Ecuador, where extensive mangrove swamps are found. In general, human settlement was sparsest in these swampy areas and in the llanos, a Spanish term for the savannas of Venezuela and Colombia. Throughout the rest of the culture area, the development of agriculture in prehistoric times allowed larger populations. However, compared to Mesoamerican and Central Andean peoples, native groups were confined to relatively smaller and more isolated local habitats.

B.2.

People and Languages

At the time of European contact the larger indigenous groups of the Caribbean and Northern Andes culture area included the Ciboney, Taíno (Island Arawak), and Carib, of the Antilles islands; the Jicaque, Kuna, Lenca, Miskito (Mosquito), and Cuna-Cueva, of Central America; the Chibcha (Muisca), San Agustín, Pasto, Esmeralda, Manta, and Colorado, of the Andes and coastal regions of Colombia and Ecuador; and the Tairona, Kogi, Goajiro, Caquetío, Motilones, Paez, and Warrau, of the Caribbean coast and highlands of Colombia and Venezuela. Major language families included Arawakan, Cariban, Chibchan, and Paezan. The last two language groups were confined to smaller regions of the culture area, whereas the Arawakan and Cariban languages extended beyond the culture area to include northern areas of the Amazon Basin.

B.3.

Early Peoples

Judging from archaeological excavations at sites in Colombia and Venezuela, hunter-gatherer groups reached the southern part of the Caribbean and Northern Andes culture area by some 12,000 years ago. For example, at Tequendama rock shelter in the Colombian highlands, human occupation dating to this time period includes stone tools and hearths found in association with the remains of deer, rabbit, armadillo, and guinea pig. An even earlier date of 13,000 years ago has been claimed for a mastodon kill at the site of Taima-Taima along the Venezuela coast, but the evidence for this claim is controversial. By 10,000 years ago, it is likely that humans were dispersed throughout most of the mainland area. The Caribbean islands were apparently inhabited much later; the earliest evidence of human settlement there traces to only 5,000 to 6,000 years ago.

The origin of agriculture in the Caribbean and Northern Andes culture area is uncertain. Current evidence suggests that important food crops such as maize (corn), beans, squash, and potatoes were first domesticated in Mesoamerica and the central Andes, and that people living between these regions probably received these crops through trade, rather than domesticating the wild plants themselves. There is direct evidence for maize cultivation by about 2300 bc at the Real Alto site on the southwest coast of Ecuador. It is possible, however, that people of the northern Andes domesticated manioc, a starchy root. By about 1100 bc people at the Malambo site on the Caribbean coast of Colombia had developed clay griddles called budares, which are associated with the processing of manioc. At the site of Momil in northern Colombia, maize grinding stones replaced budares around 100 bc, suggesting that maize had replaced manioc as a staple by that time. In the Caribbean islands, manioc cultivation probably began around 250 bc, after agricultural peoples in northern Venezuela had begun migrating to the Lesser Antilles.

B.4.

Diet and Subsistence

Most of the people throughout the central and northern parts of the Caribbean and Northern Andes culture area practiced small-scale irrigation farming. Crops were watered by canals or by flooding. In the highland areas, the Chibcha and other peoples grew nutritious and productive crops, such as maize, potatoes, and quinoa (a high-protein grain), that supported large numbers of people. In the moist lowlands, the staple crop was manioc. Other foods of the lowlands and middle altitudes included tropical fruits, yams, sweet potatoes, beans, peanuts, and maize. In the Santa Marta mountain range in northern Colombia, the Tairona exploited resources at a variety of altitudes. They fished from the Caribbean Sea, built extensive rock-faced terraces to make steep land suitable for farming, and planted fruit trees in the tropical forest to supplement a diet already rich in proteins and carbohydrates.

Most peoples hunted and fished to supplement farming. The primary hunting weapon was the bow and arrow. To paralyze or kill their prey, hunters tipped their arrows with poison derived from rotted animals rather than with the plant poisons used in other parts of South America. For fishing, men used nets and hooks; they also placed poisons in the water to stun fish, which were then easily collected from the surface.

B.5.

Social and Political Organization

By about 1000 ad the Caribbean and Northern Andean peoples had developed a way of life centered around towns and cities, whose populations usually did not exceed several thousand people. Most societies were chiefdoms, or groups in which people were divided into at least two main strata, or classes: a chiefly elite and non-chiefly commoners. A person’s social rank was determined at birth by the class of his or her family. Local chiefs ruled towns and tribes, some of which were grouped into confederations with tens of thousands of subjects. The chief lived a life of idleness and luxury. He lived with several wives in the largest residence in town, was waited on by servants, and was carried around in a litter (a fancy seat or mat carried by teams of men). In some areas the chief had the power of life and death over his subjects, and at his death, some of his wives, concubines, and slaves might be sacrificed. The largest chiefdoms were those of the Chibcha, who formed the largest and most highly developed society between Mexico and Peru. Chibcha culture developed after ad 1200 and flourished until the arrival of the Spaniards in 1537. The largest Chibcha cities were located near the present-day cities of Bogotá and Tunja in Colombia.

B.6.

Warfare

The Caribbean and Northern Andean peoples were renowned as fierce warriors. As with the Aztec, male warriors captured in battle were taken back to the victors’ settlements, where they were killed and their bodies were eaten. The heads of such captives often were kept as trophies that enhanced the prestige of the men who had captured them. Captured women were not usually killed, instead serving their captors as wives and servants in the household. Children captured in battle, on the other hand, met the same fate as the men. They were sacrificed to the gods and their bodies were eaten. The Taíno people were peaceful compared to others in the Caribbean, but their peace was disrupted by invasions of the more warlike Carib from Venezuela.

B.7.

Settlement and Housing

Similar to the two-level system of social ranking, the settlement systems of the Caribbean and Northern Andes culture area consisted usually of two types of settlements—larger towns, ruled by local chiefs, whose population numbered at most in the several thousands, and smaller rural sites where several hundred or fewer people lived. In the cool mountains of the northern Andes, people generally lived in small, dispersed villages and in scattered homes made of stone or of a wickerwork frame plastered with mud. In lower, tropical areas, people lived in larger towns that were sometimes surrounded by palisades (fences) to provide protection from enemies. Lowland houses were generally made of poles and thatch (plant material used as roofing) and were open-sided to allow air to pass through the structure. Houses were usually arranged around a central plaza containing a temple and the home of the chief and nobles. Many towns had roads paved with stone.

B.8.

Transportation

The dugout canoe was the primary means of transportation for Caribbean island peoples and for those on the mainland who lived near rivers or the sea. Coastal peoples around the Caribbean were expert navigators and traveled in large, elaborately ornamented, seagoing canoes that were equipped with sails. There was a regular sea trade among the islands of the Caribbean and between the Caribbean and South America, as well as along the eastern coast of Central America. Elsewhere, people transported goods on their backs, making use of trails, roads, and bridges that threaded through the mountains. To the south, in the Central and Southern Andes culture area, llamas were used for transportation, but these animals could not be adapted to the warmer rainy climates of the Caribbean and Northern Andes culture area.

B.9.

Clothing and Ornamentation

Clothing differed according to region. Most of the people wove cotton on backstrap looms, a type of loom in which the warps (vertical strands) are strung between two sticks. One stick was attached to a fixed object, such as a post or roof beam, while the other end was attached to the weaver’s back with a leather or cloth strap. By leaning against the strap, the weaver could maintain tension on the warps as she or he wove in the wefts (horizontal strands). In the hot tropical lowlands, women wore apronlike garments around the waist, while the men wore breechcloths. In the cool highlands and middle altitudes of Colombia and Ecuador, people supplemented wraparounds and breechcloths with sleeveless tunics, capes, and blankets.

Peoples of highland Colombia, such as the Tairona, produced beautiful gold-and-copper ornaments and religious objects using the lost-wax technique. The artisan would mold a beeswax core in the shape of an animal or a human, enclose this figure in clay, and then pour molten gold mixed with copper through a hole in the clay. The molten metal replaced the wax, which melted away. After the metal had cooled the clay was broken away to reveal the object.

B.10.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

Religion centered on temple cults that were led by priests of the chiefly class. The priests made offerings to deities represented by idols, acting as mediators between the gods and the people to ensure that the society’s needs (such as agricultural fertility and success in trade and war) were met. Among the principal deities of the mainland societies was the jaguar, the most feared and awe-inspiring animal of tropical rainforests given its tendency to prey on humans. Religious practices involved a sophisticated understanding of the cycles of the Moon and the Sun, including knowledge of the solstices and equinoxes as well as the length of the solar year. Human sacrifices to the gods were common. When a chief died, he was either buried with sacrificial victims—who included his wives and servants—or his body was desiccated (dried out) and placed on display in temples.

The Taíno, an Arawakan-speaking tribe who inhabited Hispaniola and Cuba, had neither priests nor temples. People were thought to be in individual communication with their own guardian spirit, which was represented by an idol in their house and was given offerings of food and valuables. The power of the guardian spirit varied with the importance of the person. The chief’s spirit was the most powerful of all.

B.11.

Post-Contact History

In 1492 the Spanish, led by Christopher Columbus, arrived on a small island in the Bahamas, where they encountered the Taíno. During the same expedition Columbus and his crew explored parts of Cuba and Hispaniola. Although initial relations between native peoples and the Spanish were friendly, relations deteriorated when, in subsequent expeditions to the Americas, Columbus enslaved indigenous peoples as laborers and Spanish settlers raided their villages in search of gold and other riches.

Drawn by reports of gold and wealth, Spaniards flocked to the Caribbean. Although they themselves were fierce warriors, the Spaniards were horrified by the cannibalism of the native inhabitants, and they regarded their religious practices as heathen and uncivilized. The Spaniards thus found ample justification to enslave them, kill them, and stamp out their religions and cultures. For example, after their first landing in 1514 along the northern coast of Colombia, the Spaniards proceeded to burn most of the Tairona towns and kill many of their inhabitants. Even the native people who escaped this onslaught were not free from disaster, as immense numbers of them died from diseases introduced by the Europeans, such as smallpox. After a few decades, there were so few native people left that the Spanish began to import slaves from Africa. Although most of the indigenous groups of the Caribbean are now extinct, many Central American and Northern Andean indigenous groups—especially smaller-scale societies such as the Miskito of Nicaragua and the Colorado of Ecuador—have survived and prospered to modern times.

C.

Central and Southern Andes

C.1.

Land and Habitat

The Central and Southern Andes culture area extends from northernmost Peru down to south central Chile. Except for the narrow shore that lies along its entire western coast, most of the area is dominated by the high peaks of the Andes. In western Peru and Bolivia these peaks run in two great chains, or cordilleras, that are situated roughly 200 km (120 mi) apart. The highest peaks soar more than 6,100 m (20,000 ft) above sea level. Between the two cordilleras lies a series of high plains at elevations of 3,600 to 4,000 m (12,000 to 13,000 ft) that is known as the puna in Peru and the Altiplano in Bolivia. In Peru three major rivers—the Marañón, the Mantaro, and the Urubamba—cross through the mountains before descending into the Amazon Basin. Farther to the south, the Andean chains come closer together as they extend down into Chile and the westernmost edge of Argentina.

Composed primarily of recently eroded materials, the soils of the puna and river basins of highland Peru are rich, and rainfall here is moderate. The adjacent coast, on the other hand, receives almost no rain at all and is one of the driest deserts in the world. However, human habitation was possible here, in a series of some 50 narrow river valleys whose headwaters are in the nearby Andes. An even more hostile place for human habitation was the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, which receives rainfall only two to four times a century.

C.2.

People and Languages

The central Andes were home to some of the greatest civilizations in South America. In northern Peru between 1000 bc and ad 1532, a series of spectacularly accomplished cultures developed, including the Chavín (see Chavín de Huantar), Vicús, Moche (Mochica), Recuay, and Chimú. Farther south in Peru and Bolivia, during the same period, the equally impressive Paracas, Nazca, Huari (Wari), and Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco) cultures developed. Beginning in the mid-1400s, the Incas built a powerful empire of extraordinary wealth and complexity, which spanned a vast region from Chile to Ecuador (see Inca Empire). Important groups in the southern Andes prior to European contact included the Atacameños, Diaguitas, and Araucanians (Mapuche, Huilliche, and Picunche). Major language groups in Peru were Quechua (the official language of the Inca), Aymaran, Muchic, and Uru, while those of Chile included Atacama, Diaguita, and Araucanian. Today, Quechua and Aymará are still widely spoken; indigenous people who speak these languages are called Quechua and Aymara Indians, respectively.

C.3.

Early Peoples

The archaeological site of Monte Verde in southern Chile, dating to 12,500 years ago, is the earliest well-documented site of human settlement in the Americas. Buried under sediments by the boggy conditions along a creek bed, this small settlement was home to perhaps 20 to 30 people. Archaeologists excavating the site found the preserved remains of a great variety of plants (both food and medicinal), the wood foundations of what appeared to be permanent dwellings, wooden implements of various kinds, stone tools, hearths, and a human footprint. Although animal remains at the site indicate that the inhabitants hunted mastodon and prehistoric llamas, the people of Monte Verde appear to have relied more heavily on plants that were gathered during various seasons of the year from places as far as 65 km (40 mi) away.

There are many other important sites of early human habitation in this culture area. Among them are Tagua-Tagua on the coast of Chile, Viscachani in highland Bolivia, and Quebrada Jaguay, Pachamachay Cave, Lauricocha Cave, and Guitarrero Cave in the Peruvian Andes. At the Guitarrero Cave site, archaeologists have found some of the oldest evidence of cultivated plants anywhere in the Americas. The remains of these plants, dated to as early as 7,000 years ago, include several Andean tubers and fruits such as oca, ulluco, pacae, and lucuma, as well as two varieties of beans and the chili pepper.

C.4.

Diet and Subsistence

The people of the Central and Southern Andes culture area ate a rich variety of domesticated plant foods. On the Andean coast, these included maize, beans, squash, chili peppers, peanuts, sweet potatoes, manioc, avocados, and papayas, as well as lesser-known plants such as achira, cherimoya, guava, guanábana, pacay, and algarroba bean. The domesticated crops of the Andean highlands included quinoa, a high-protein grain, and a host of tubers, or root crops, such as potato, oca, ulluco, maca, and mashua, all of which grow well at higher elevations. Aside from North American groups that domesticated the wild turkey, the people of the central and southern Andes were the only Native Americans to domesticate animals before European contact. They used the llama for transportation, the alpaca for meat and wool, and the cuy, or guinea pig, for meat. The manure of llamas, alpacas, and birds was used for fertilizer.

On the steep-sided slopes of Andean river basins, the Inca and their predecessors constructed flat, rock-faced terraces to extend the area available to grow crops. There was not always enough rainfall to water the crops, however, so the Inca engineered canals to bring water to fields that were often far above the river valley bottoms. Irrigation and farming were much easier to accomplish in the low valleys of the Peruvian coast. There, the remains of canal systems and ancient field lines indicate that the prehistoric inhabitants of this area farmed every irrigable part of the valley floor, as well as flatter parts of the adjacent desert areas, to support their burgeoning populations.

C.5.

Social and Political Organization

In the central Andes, as in Middle America, a highly efficient system of agriculture permitted the growth of a large, dense population and the rise of complex political systems such as states and empires. Food surpluses released large numbers of people from agricultural labor, allowing them to work in government, the military, religious institutions, and art. With centralized state authorities to plan construction and direct masses of laborers, societies could undertake huge public projects, such as the construction of irrigation systems, roads, bridges, forts, and temples.

State societies such as the Moche, Huari, Tiwanaku, Chimú, and Inca had at least three social classes. These included a small group of ruling elite, larger numbers of administrative officials positioned throughout the state, and huge numbers of people who belonged to a commoner class. The Moche state, which flourished on the northern coast of Peru from about ad 100 to 800, was apparently structured as a three-tier hierarchy. At the top were a supreme ruler and an elite group of warrior priests who were believed to be invested with supernatural powers. Beneath them were social and occupational classes of state officials, healers, architects, engineers, and lesser religious officials. At the lowest level was the mass of the population, which produced the food, served in the army, and provided labor for the construction of public works. The population of the Moche state may have reached 650,000 people by ad 450.

The Inca Empire, with an estimated 6 million to 11 million people at its height, was by far the largest and most highly centralized civilization in South America before the arrival of Europeans. It was ruled by an emperor who inherited his office and was thought to be a direct descendant of the sun god. The empire was divided into four quarters, each led by one of the emperor’s relatives. Each quarter was subdivided into smaller provinces or districts ruled by a governor. Below the governors was a descending hierarchy of local officials in charge of 10,000, 5,000, 1,000, 100, or 10 people. Officials used knotted strings called quipus (pronounced KEE-pooz) to keep accurate records on such matters as population, the number of men in the army, the quantities of corn or potatoes in the storehouse, and the size of herds of alpacas and llamas.

In the southern Andes, social and political systems were considerably less developed than in the central Andes. The large state centers were absent and the population was less dense. In the Atacama Desert, one of the world’s driest regions, small, isolated groups of Atacameños inhabited a narrow coastal strip and a few watered oases. South of them, Diaguita farmers and herders lived in autonomous towns. The mild valleys of central Chile were more favorable for farming and supported a large population of Araucanians. Rather than being concentrated in towns or cities, however, the population was spread out among small, autonomous hamlets.

C.6.

Warfare

Most Andean states expanded their political boundaries by conquering neighboring populations. Paintings on Moche pottery, for example, depict bloody battles between the state army and warriors from provincial valleys. Following the defeat of a group, Moche warriors removed their captives’ clothing and tied their hands behind their backs. Then the captives were marched across the desert to be presented to the warrior priest before being sacrificed and dismembered.

Because the Spanish conquerors actually engaged in battles with the Inca, and described their tactics in detail, much is known about Inca warfare and the nature of its army. Estimates of the army’s size range from 70,000 men, at the start of the empire around ad 1438, to some 250,000 men a few years later during the Inca conquest of northern Peru. The army was organized in squadrons of men who specialized in the use of different kinds of weapons, including slings, bows and arrows, dart throwers, clubs, and spears. On most occasions, Inca generals sent emissaries to the enemy prior to a battle in an attempt to achieve a bloodless conquest. If diplomacy failed, the first soldiers to engage the enemy were the squadrons of slingers, who attacked from long range. As the two armies got nearer to each other, the bowmen and dart throwers attacked. Finally, the squadrons specializing in the use of clubs and short spears engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand fighting.

C.7.

Settlement and Housing

Settlements of commoners in the Central and Southern Andes culture area consisted of densely packed, multiroomed dwellings. In the highlands, dwellings were made of stone with gabled (peaked) roofs to protect against rain. In contrast, dwellings on the rainless coast were simple wattle-and-daub structures, consisting of mud plastered over stick-and-mat frames, with flat roofs to protect against sun, wind, and blowing sand. In Andean states, there were at least three different sizes of settlements: a primary city, or capital; smaller cities that served as administrative centers; and smaller towns, villages, and hamlets where most of the people lived. Capital sites ranged in size from about 5 to 20 sq km (2 to 8 sq mi), and contained palaces surrounded by high-walled compounds, plazas where state ceremonies were held, and religious structures. Chan Chan, the capital city of the Chimú kingdom (12th to 15th century), had a population of at least 25,000 people.

With an estimated population of 100,000, the Inca capital city of Cuzco was the largest urban center of South America prior to European contact. The Incas built magnificent palaces, temples, and forts of stone blocks sculpted to fit together so precisely that no mortar was necessary. The religious focus of the city was the Cori Cancha (meaning “Golden Enclosure”) where life-sized golden llamas and maize plants were placed along with the idols of conquered populations. The Spaniards called this building the Temple of the Sun. Arranged around the main plaza of Cuzco were temples, public buildings, and the palace compounds of the emperor and the descendants of deceased emperors. The entire city was laid out in the shape of a giant puma whose head was formed by the hilltop site of Sacsahuaman, ancient South America’s greatest stone fortress.

C.8.

Transportation

Throughout most of the Central and Southern Andes culture area, llamas were used as the principal means of transport. They were able to carry loads of up to 32 kg (70 lb). Moche traders used caravans of these pack animals to carry goods along rock-lined roads. At regular intervals along the roads, small settlements served as stopping places.

The most remarkable Andean road system belonged to that of the Inca Empire. The Capac Ñan, or Royal Road, consisted of two principal routes, a coastal and a highland one, that ran the length of the empire. These routes were connected by a great number of secondary roads that ran between coast and highlands. Suspension bridges made of rope were used to cross the more dangerous Andean rivers, such as the Apurímac near Cuzco, and on adjacent canyon slopes the main route of travel often was nothing more than a narrow trail. As much as possible, however, the Inca built their highways across higher puna flatlands to permit efficient travel by state functionaries, the army, and the runners (called chasquis), who carried the quipu-string messages. The total length of the Inca highway system is estimated at more than 23,000 km (14,000 mi).

C.9.

Clothing and Ornamentation

Throughout the coast and highlands, men wore breechcloths, wraparound kilts, and shirts, adding a shawl (or poncho) when temperatures were cooler. Women wore wraparound dresses and shawls that were secured on the chest with a large pin called a tupu. In the warmer coastal climate, clothing was generally was made of cotton; in the cooler highlands most garments were made of alpaca wool, although cotton and llama wool were also used. Elite people wore more elaborate clothing decorated with gold, silver, and semiprecious stones. The elite also wore jewelry known as earplugs. These consisted of decorated disks 7.5 to 10 cm (3 to 4 in) in diameter, with an attached metal tube that was placed through a perforation in their earlobes. Ultimately, the weight of the plugs stretched the lobes so much that the Spaniards dubbed the higher-class Inca orejones, or “long ears.” In the service of such elite needs, miners of precious metals and stones were needed as well as fulltime artisans who were expert at smelting and working the metals to make the jewelry and other ornamentation.

C.10.

Arts and Crafts

Among the earliest evidence of art in the Central and Southern Andes culture area are 13 decorated gourds from the ancient site of Huaca Prieta, on the northern coast of Peru. These gourds, which are dated to about 2000 bc, feature intricate geometric designs, including stylized human faces that were burned into their exterior surfaces, a technique called pyrography. Simple woven cotton textiles also were found at Huaca Prieta, one of which depicts a condor with a fish in its stomach.

Pottery making in the Central and Southern Andes culture area began around 1800 bc, and ceramic vessels quickly became one of the principal forms of Andean artistic expression. For example, the Chavín culture (about 900 bc to 200 bc) is well known for its 'stirrup spout' vessels. These vessels have a spherical base topped by an inverted U-shaped tube—similar to an upside-down stirrup from a saddle—to which a vertical spout is attached. The Moche continued the stirrup spout vessel tradition begun in Chavín times and also made a variety of other vessel forms. They painted or modeled pottery depicting almost every aspect of their culture, including their daily life, religious beliefs, and political system. These pots have provided scholars with important clues about Moche clothing, social statuses, ceremonies, and the roles of rulers and warriors in the formation and maintenance of the Moche state.

On the southern coast of Peru, the Nazca (200 bc to ad 600) were expert textile weavers, continuing a tradition of weaving that had begun with their predecessors, the Paracas, shortly after 1000 bc. Wool from llamas, alpacas, and possibly vicuñas, along with cotton, was employed in the production of tapestries, brocades, laces, embroidery, and braided work. The textiles were decorated with multicolored designs, sometimes showing as many as 190 different hues in a single fabric. Textiles were used for elaborate turbans, togas, and other articles of clothing and for wrapping of corpses in mummy bundles.

By the time the Inca state emerged in the mid-15th century, cloth had assumed a central role in Andean society and was among the most valued of all items. The state used textiles to clothe army soldiers in fine garments, to reward citizens for meritorious service, and as symbolic items in important rites and ceremonies. Inca women, and less commonly men, spun cotton and wool and wove textiles using the traditional Andean backstrap loom. Scholars have estimated that it could take a weaver as long as 500 hours to make a single poncho.

In pottery making, the Inca built on centuries-old Andean traditions, but they were also great innovators. Their best-known pottery form, the aryballoid jar, appears to have no precursors in pre-Inca Peru. An aryballoid jar has a wide, roughly spherical base with handles on each side, a long, narrow neck, and a flat, flaring rim. To carry the jars, ropes were placed through the handles and around a person’s head or body. In metallurgy, the Inca worked gold and silver, as well as alloys of copper-gold, copper-silver, copper-tin-bronze, and gold-silver-copper. Only the ruling elite, such as the Inca emperor and nobility, could use objects made from precious metals. Gold and silver objects, such as figurines of llamas, alpacas, and humans, were also used as offerings in the Inca ritual of child sacrifice.

See also Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture: Central Andean Area.

C.11.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

The complex societies in the Central and Southern Andes culture area practiced temple-oriented religions that focused on a variety of gods, including those identified with the Sun, the Moon, and figures that combined—often in intimidating and monstrous fashion—features that were both human and animal. For example, the main religious figure of Chavín culture is shown with a human face and body, but has long, Medusa-like snake hair writhing out of the top of its head, and its fingers and toes have the talons of a predatory animal. Judging from the iconography on stone tablets, Chavín priests ingested the hallucinogenic San Pedro cactus in the belief that it would make them turn temporarily into jaguars.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Inca religion was the sacrifice of children on high Andean peaks, a ritual called Capac Hucha or Capacocha (Quechua for “royal obligation”). Among other reasons, children were sacrificed to commemorate festivals, to promote the fertility of the empire’s cultivated lands, and to appease the gods. Because of the dry, cold conditions on the summits of peaks that rise above 5,200 m (17,000 ft), where the sacrifices took place, archaeologists have sometimes discovered the extremely well-preserved bodies of sacrificial victims.

C.12.

Post-Contact History

Although the Inca army was the largest and best fighting force in all of South America—perhaps in all of the Americas—it was defeated by a few hundred Spanish soldiers led by the conquistador Francisco Pizarro. This was accomplished primarily through treachery. In 1532, at a peaceful meeting with the Inca, Pizarro and his soldiers seized the emperor Atahualpa and killed most of the other leaders of the empire. Pizarro held Atahualpa prisoner to force the payment of a vast ransom in gold and silver, then killed him in 1533 after amassing an incredible fortune. With the head of its totalitarian political and religious institutions suddenly gone, the empire was helpless before the newcomers. There was no clear rule concerning the emperor’s successor, and three years passed before the Incas could organize an effective opposition. By that time it was too late, and the entrenched Spaniards suppressed the revolt. A large part of the population withdrew to less accessible regions in the interior and founded a new Inca state that lasted another 40 years; but in 1572, it too was destroyed, and Inca power was at an end.

Despite the Spanish conquest—which introduced European culture, intermarriage, and diseases such as smallpox—the indigenous people of the highland areas of the central and southern Andes survived and flourished to modern times. Today, there are about the same number of indigenous people in this region as there were on the eve of the conquest in 1532. Indigenous people of the central and southern Andes primarily speak Quechua or Aymara, wear homespun and other traditional clothing, and practice small-scale farming and a pastoral way of life.

D.

Amazon Basin

D.1.

Land and Habitat

The Amazon Basin culture area is defined by the Amazon River Basin, which contains the world’s largest tropical rain forest. Covering an estimated 7 million sq km (2.7 million sq mi), this area accounts for slightly more than 40 percent of the South American continent’s landmass. With temperatures that rarely go below 27°C (80°F) and heavy rains throughout the year, the Amazon Basin is a hothouse of animal and plant species. For example, there are 3,000 fish species, more than 100 species of New World monkeys, and 5,000 species of trees. The Amazon River, measuring 6,400 km (4,000 mi) long, is the second longest river in the world, and together with its principal tributaries—the Xingú, Tapajós, Negro, Madeira, Napo, and Ucayali rivers—it accounts for one-fifth of all the fresh water that flows into the oceans.

Ninety-eight percent of the basin consists of land away from the rivers. Called the terra firme, this land has nutrient-poor soils because torrential rainfall leaches out the minerals. In contrast to the terra firme, the remaining 2 percent of the Amazon Basin’s landmass is exceptionally productive. Called the várzea, this land consists of the levee banks alongside the main channel of the Amazon River. Each year, during the period of maximum flood, the river deposits massive amounts of nutrient-rich silt that flows down out of the eroding Andes.

D.2.

People and Languages

Among the better-known indigenous groups of the terra firme part of the basin are the Yanomami (comprising the Ynomamö, Yanomam, Ninam, and Sanema), Waiwai, Makiritare, Cubeo, of the northern basin; the Desana, Shuar (formerly Jívaro), Conibo, Shipibo, and Amahuaca, of the eastern basin; and the Machiguenga, Mundurucú, Kayapó, and Tupinambá, of the southern basin. At the time of Spanish and Portuguese contact in the 1540s, the best-known várzea groups were the Tapajós and the Omagua. Major language groups included Arawakan, Cariban, Panoan, and Tupian (which included the Tupí-Guaraní language family), but at least 100 separate, mutually unintelligible languages were spoken throughout the vast area of the Amazon Basin.

D.3.

Early Peoples

The most important site of early human settlement in the Amazon Basin is Caverna da Pedra Pintada (Cave of the Painted Rock). It is located near the modern city of Santarém, Brazil, near the mouth of the Tapajós River. Evidence of human occupation here comes from cave-wall paintings and from objects found in the lowest levels of the cave, including stone tools, projectile points, red paint pigments, and fossilized animal bones and fruit seeds. These remains, dated to various times between 11,200 and 9,800 years ago, suggest that the cave inhabitants were hunter-gatherers who ate a rich and varied diet that included fruits, Brazil nuts, fish, tortoises, mussels, snakes, birds, and larger land mammals. Caverna da Pedra Pintada demonstrates that the earliest human migrants successfully adapted to the tropical forest environment.

Between 4,000 and 2,000 years ago, people living along the rivers of the Amazon Basin established ways of life similar to those of indigenous peoples in the Amazon today. As before, fishing and hunting were important for subsistence, but now the cultivation of root crops provided an important addition to the diet.

D.4.

Diet and Subsistence

People adapted to the poor soils of the terra firme by practicing slash-and-burn agriculture. This farming method involves clearing a small section of the rain forest by cutting down trees and other vegetation, then burning them to release nutrients to the soil. Farming is then possible on the land for about three years, after which the land must be abandoned and a new area of forest cleared.

Of the many plants raised by indigenous Amazon groups, manioc (cassava) provided the most food. It contains a starch, tapioca, which was extracted from the roots of the plant and baked into cakes. Another important root crop was the sweet potato, which was boiled whole. Maize, beans, squash, peppers, peanuts, cotton, tobacco, arrowroot were also cultivated. In other spots, wild plants supplied important quantities of edible fruits and nuts, including palm fruits, cashews, and Brazil nuts.

In many areas, fish were plentiful and served as the main food; they were caught with nets, by poisoning the water in streams, or by shooting them with arrows. In other regions, peccaries, tapirs, monkeys, armadillos, caimans, manatees, turtles, and deer were numerous enough to become important parts of the diet. Birds and other animals were hunted with spears, bows and arrows, and blowguns. Darts used with blowguns were tipped with poison made from certain vines; the best known of these poisons was curare.

D.5.

Social and Political Organization

Because food productivity was relatively limited on terre firme soils, most cultures of the Amazon Basin were village-level societies. In contrast to the large chiefdoms and states of the Andes, these societies consisted of isolated, politically autonomous settlements ranging in size from 100 to 500 people. All people were born with the same social status, but they could achieve higher status depending on their individual talents. The usual leader of a village society was a headman, whose charisma and prowess in societal activities made him “first among equals.” Headmen were often also shamans (religious leaders and healers) who performed various rites. In the Amazon várzea, greater agricultural productivity along the riverbanks supported the development of two large chiefdom societies, the Tapajós and the Omagua. Each of these societies included dozens of settlements, populations of many thousands of people, and powerful chiefs.

D.6.

Warfare

Warfare and raiding were common among indigenous groups in the Amazon Basin, although the nature of warfare varied widely. For example, the Mundurucú of the southern Amazon Basin carried out long-distance warfare. Every year large groups of men traveled more than 1,000 km (600 mi) from their territory in the headwaters of the Xingú River, to raid villages near its confluence with the Amazon River. The Mundurucú killed large numbers of people and cut off their victims’ heads. They brought the heads home as trophies used to magically enhance hunting success. Warfare among the Ynomamö of the northern Amazon Basin, on the other hand, involved small numbers of deaths and long-running feuds between villages. These feuds meant that villages had to continually establish political alliances, however shaky, with other villages. Conflict among the Ynomamö ran along a scale of violence. In its most benign form, conflict consisted of chest and kidney pounding between pairs of men. At the other end of the spectrum, on occasion the Ynomamö practiced a treacherous trick called nohomori, in which they invited their neighbors over for a feast but killed as many of them as possible shortly after their arrival.

The Shuar of the western Amazon Basin were known as fierce warriors and became famous for their practice of preserving and shrinking their victims’ heads. Upon attacking a local household and killing one or more of its occupants, the Shuar immediately cut off their victims’ heads. The face and hair were peeled from the skull, then boiled, dried, and heated until the head had shrunken down to the size of a human fist. These heads, called tsantsas, were kept as trophies that were believed to have magical powers and bring good fortune. In the late 19th century, demand by European tourists and curio collectors created a brisk trade in shrunken heads, which for a time actually encouraged the Shuar to kill their enemies. In the early 20th century, to curb the problem, the governments of Ecuador and Peru outlawed trading in human heads.

D.7.

Settlement and Housing

The houses of the Amazon Basin were usually made of a framework of poles or logs covered with palm thatch. They ranged in size from small lean-tos used for a single family to huge, vaultlike structures up to 60 m (200 ft) long that sheltered large groups of people. In the hotter areas the houses had no walls. Villagers often slept in hammocks suspended in the air, in part to avoid poisonous insects and snakes on the ground beneath. Many indigenous people in the Amazon Basin still live much in this manner today.

The layout of villages varied widely throughout the Amazon Basin. Mundurucú villages consisted of a circular distribution of houses around a clearing. All of the men lived in a large, open-sided structure on the western edge of the circle, while the women, girls, and young boys lived in smaller enclosed dwellings around the rest of the clearing. The open sides of the men’s house reflected the Mundurucú belief that men should be dominant and in control of everyone else in the village. Ynomamö villages, in contrast, consisted of a single circular structure called a shabono that contained about 125 people and surrounded a large plaza. Because of the constant threat of surprise attacks by nearby villages, the outer walls were constructed of closely spaced poles to provide protection against arrows. Shuar settlements were single household dwellings containing one man, his several wives, and their children. Like the Ynomamö structures, the walls were built with closely spaced poles for protection against attack. Further security was provided by dry ditches around the settlement, which were filled with sharpened sticks designed to wound or kill unwary attackers.

D.8.

Transportation

The dugout canoe was the principal means of transportation for people living along or near rivers and streams. Canoes varied in size and quality. The várzea chiefdoms—the Tapajós and the Omagua—built large, sturdy canoes for long-distance war expeditions up and down the Amazon River. On one occasion, the Spaniards counted as many as 8,000 warriors in 130 canoes (equal to about 60 men per canoe), which were paddled out to attack the intruding Europeans. On the other hand, the Ynomamö built far less reliable canoes, reflecting the fact that they lived far from rivers and, like other terre firme groups, traveled mostly on foot.

D.9.

Clothing and Ornamentation

In the warm, humid climate of the Amazon Basin, most indigenous groups wore little or no clothing. Among groups that wore clothing, garments were made of cotton or plant fibers and usually consisted of a small breechcloth for men and a short wraparound skirt for women. Amazonian people often painted or tattooed parts of their body, including their arms, legs, torso, and face. Ynomamö women placed sticks in their perforated ear lobes, and Kayapó men wore large wooden plugs in their lower lip. The Kayapó and other groups of the southern Amazon made large headdresses of brilliantly colored feathers from tropical birds to wear during ceremonial activities.

D.10.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

Religion for Amazonian peoples centered around multiple spirits, many of which were believed to have great influence on people. Those of the rivers and bush were considered evil and were feared and shunned. Some of the spirits were celestial beings, identified with the Sun, Moon, stars, sky, and clouds, but they were mythical in nature and were generally considered to have little connection with everyday life. Many Amazonian peoples believed in a multilayered cosmos. For example, according to Ynomamö belief, the cosmos has four levels. The topmost layer is duku kä misi, the “tender layer,” where all things on Earth were created, and which now lies empty. Below this is hedu kä misi, the “sky layer,” a place similar to Earth where Ynomamö souls go after death. The Earth layer, hei kä misi (“this layer”), is where the Ynomamö and all other humans live. The lowest layer is called hei tä bebi, the “bottom layer.” Nothing is found here except one village structure, or shabono, which came crashing down long ago when a piece of the sky layer broke off and fell through the Earth layer. Some Ynomamö came down with it, but since only their shabano and garden fell with them, and not the forest in which they hunt, they are thought to have turned into cannibalistic monsters.

Shamans, who were believed to have close contact with the supernatural world, conducted the ceremonies, rituals, and healing in most Amazon Basin societies. Shamans often ingested hallucinogenic substances to aid them in their activities. One role of the shaman was the acquisition of magical darts to use against enemies or other undesirables. The shaman hurled these invisible darts—called caui, hekura, and tsentsak, respectively, by the Mundurucú, Ynomamö, and Shuar—out away from their settlements to catch stray enemies by surprise and cause them illness and death. In their healing activities, shamans were responsible for sucking these darts out from the skin of people in their own group.

D.11.

Post-Contact History

Although Europeans may have sighted the Amazon delta region in 1500, exploration of the river did not begin until decades later. In 1541 and 1542 Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana and a crew of some 50 men navigated the entire length of the river over a period of eight months, encountering the Omagua and other peoples. Lured by rumors of cinnamon and gold, the Spaniards moved eastward from the Andes and founded small forest settlements. Meanwhile, the Portuguese, beginning in the early 17th century, slowly settled the Amazon Basin moving westward from the eastern coast of Brazil. Both the Spanish and Portuguese enslaved or coerced indigenous groups to search for gold or perform other labor. However, the Europeans found the Amazon peoples harder to subdue than Andean highland groups. In contrast to the top-heavy state apparatus of the Inca Empire, the Amazon Basin was divided into hundreds of small societies, which could not be collectively conquered in a single stroke. In addition, the Europeans also usually met with fierce resistance; the Shuar, for example, destroyed a number of European settlements in eastern Ecuador in 1599. Many Amazon Basin peoples were protected by nearly impenetrable jungle and if attacked, could move their villages further into the jungle.

As the European presence increased, however, serious epidemics of disease wiped out large numbers of indigenous peoples. The Omagua and Tapajós, who lived along the main channel of the Amazon River, nearly became extinct. By the 20th century the indigenous population of the Amazon Basin had been reduced to a mere 10 to 15 percent of its size prior to European contact. In the past century, as urban Latin American countries have experienced massive population growth, more and more nonindigenous people have moved into the Amazon Basin in search of better places to live. Corporations and individuals have also sought to exploit the precious resources of the rain forest, including gold, oil, and iron. These encroachments continue to imperil Amazonian peoples by reducing forest habitat and spreading disease.

E.

Brazilian Highlands

E.1.

Land and Habitat

Covering most of southern and southeastern Brazil, the Brazilian Highlands are the eroded remnants of mountains that existed millions of years ago. The climate is subtropical, meaning there is less rainfall here and temperatures, while still warm year-round, are generally not as hot as in the tropical lowlands of the Amazon Basin. The northern inland part of the highlands is called the caatinga (a Tupí word meaning “white forest”) because of the grayish-white color the forests take on during the dry season. The caatinga is the driest area in Brazil, receiving light to moderate rainfall. Most indigenous people in the Brazilian Highlands lived in the southern inland part of the highlands, a vast sandstone plateau called the mato grosso. Although rainfall is moderate to heavy here, the soil consists of heavily eroded, nutrient-poor clays that mainly support grassy savannas. Thicker vegetation grows here as well, but it is confined to narrow forests that grow along the banks of rivers that crisscross the area. In eastern Brazil, the narrow coastal plain receives moderate rainfall throughout the year, and is more suitable for intensive agriculture than either of the inland areas.

E.2.

People and Languages

At the time of European contact major indigenous groups of the Brazilian Highlands culture area included the Krahó, Apinayé, Shavante, Akwé-Shavante, Sherente, Bororo, southern Kayapó, Guayakí (Aché), Kaingang, Guaraní, and Tupinambá. Major language groups included Ge and Tupian; the most widespread of the Tupian language families was Tupí-Guaraní. When Europeans arrived in Brazil in 1500, the Tupinambá occupied nearly the entire Atlantic coast of Brazil, as well as some inland areas. Ge-speaking groups lived in the interior, south of the jungles of the Amazon Basin.

E.3.

Early Peoples

Of the small number of early human settlements found to date in the Brazilian Highlands, the most interesting is Pedra Furada rock shelter, located near the São Francisco River in the heart of the northern caatinga. Discovered in the early 1970s and noted for its beautiful multicolored pictographs, which are clearly prehistoric in date, this site is nevertheless controversial because of claims made by its principal excavator that stone tools dating from 14,300 to more than 48,000 years ago were found in its lowest levels. During a visit to the site in the late 1990s, a group of archaeologists examined these “tools” and concluded they were more likely to be naturally formed rocks that had been washed by rainfall off the top of a cliff above the site. However, other materials recovered from Pedra Furada—hearths that contain charcoal, animal bones, wood, and plant remains—provide good evidence of human occupation of the site between 10,400 and 6,150 years ago.

E.4.

Diet and Subsistence

The arid, relatively unproductive soils of the Brazilian Highlands supported limited slash-and-burn agriculture based on manioc, sweet potatoes, and maize (see corn). The major portion of the diet was provided by hunting and gathering. Among the animals hunted were birds, rabbits, armadillos, peccaries, deer, and tapirs. Wild plant foods included palm fruits, pine nuts, and seeds from various plants. Insect larvae and wild honey were both considered delicacies.

E.5.

Social and Political Organization

Most cultures of the Brazilian Highlands were egalitarian, village-level societies similar to those of the Amazon Basin, usually consisting of hundreds of people. Yet many villages had complex social systems. For example, the Ge-speaking peoples (Kayapó, Sherente, and Bororo) of the southern highlands divided their villages in two halves, called moieties, which were further divided into a complex system of clans, age grades, and gender groups. The moieties were often structured so that a person could only marry someone of the opposite moiety. Kayapó men and women were divided into a series of seven age grades, or categories, that reflected the differing responsibilities and statuses of people throughout their lives. The youngest age grade included small children and the oldest included people who were more than 45 years of age and had grandchildren.

E.6.

Warfare

Warfare was common among most indigenous groups of the Brazilian Highlands. The Tupinambá were among the fiercest warriors and engaged in cannibalism as a form of revenge against their enemies. Before an attack, villagers checked the necessary omens, prepared themselves with magical rites, then fell on their enemies with flaming arrows and clubs. Captured warriors were brought back to the village, where they were mocked and jeered. They made no attempt to escape because the rules of war dictated that they would be killed by the people of their home village if they attempted to return there. The ultimate fate of captives was always the same. Sooner or later the captors prepared an elaborate feast, the captive was decorated and led out to join in the singing and dancing, an executioner killed him with a special club, and he was eaten in a cannibalistic banquet.

Ge-speaking peoples also undertook wars for vengeance or the continuation of traditional feuds, but they did not take prisoners or eat their enemies. Instead, a man who had killed an enemy was required to go into seclusion and observe ritual food restrictions for 10 to 30 days. At the end of this period, the man took a ceremonial bath and his heroic exploit was announced to the village from a central plaza.

E.7.

Settlement and Housing

Many villages in the western Brazilian Highlands had separate housing for women and men. Women and children lived in thatched houses around a central plaza, while the men lived in a separate structure in the middle of the plaza. The houses around the circle were further grouped according to moiety and clan affiliation. As recently as the late 19th century, many Brazilian Highlands peoples lived in villages only during the times of the year when food was plentiful. During the dry season, they would break up into smaller bands that trekked in search of game far from the village.

E.8.

Transportation

In contrast to the extensive waterways of the Amazon Basin, the Brazilian Highlands have fewer major rivers. Thus, highland peoples did not use canoes much, although both men and women were excellent swimmers and easily crossed most rivers. Most people lived on the savannas away from the rivers and transported loads by foot on roads and trails. The Ge-speaking peoples of the southern highlands constructed roadways that extended out in straight lines up to 16 km (10 mi) from their villages. Smaller roads were used to travel to nearby farming plots and hunting grounds. The larger roads were used for a favorite game of Ge peoples—relay racing with heavy logs, in which the two moieties competed against each other. Each contestant sprinted with a heavy log on his shoulder until he was worn out, then passed it on to a teammate.

E.9.

Clothing and Ornamentation

In the warm climate of the Brazilian Highlands, most people wore minimal clothing. Both men and women decorated themselves on the arms, legs, and chest with dyes from native plants called genipa and urucú. Many individuals wore earplugs, as well as labrets, or ornaments worn through a pierced lower lip. The Bororo attached bird feathers to their arms with a sticky resin, although this was done not as a decoration but to cure sores. Like the people of the Amazon Basin, men commonly wore fancy feather headdresses.

E.10.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

Religious systems throughout the Brazilian Highlands were oriented especially toward prayers or supplications to the gods, such as the Sun and the Moon. Villagers prayed for rain, for plentiful harvests, and for success in hunting. For example, the Kaingang believed in a “Master of the Animals” spirit who controlled the number of game animals and could take offense if the men overhunted these animals. The Kaingang also had a ceremony of the dead that took place when the maize crop had ripened. Among other purposes, the ceremony served to sever connections between the dead and the living so the spirits of the dead could not harm people. Shamans were less common among most of the highland groups, in contrast to many Amazonian groups.

E.11.

Post-Contact History

The Portuguese, led by Pedro Álvares Cabral, arrived on the eastern coast of Brazil in 1500. At first the Portuguese made only a half-hearted attempt at colonization, using Brazil principally as a source of brazilwood, which supplied a red dye, and as a way station for trade. But in the mid-1500s colonization increased, the Tupinambá villages were captured one by one, and the native inhabitants were enslaved and put to work on coastal sugar plantations. In a few decades, Native Americans who did not die of European diseases and forced labor fled to the interior and largely disappeared from the coastal areas occupied by the Portuguese. Slave raids on indigenous groups encouraged them to flee all the faster, and soon African slaves imported by the Portuguese outnumbered the Native Americans on the plantations.

Many indigenous peoples have nearly disappeared from the Brazilian Highlands since the beginning of the 20th century. For example, the Apinayé, Sherente and Shavante were estimated to number 12,000 people in the early 19th century, but European diseases and contact had reduced their numbers to a few hundred by the mid-20th century. Because the poor land in the interior is generally unattractive to the nonindigenous population, scattered indigenous groups still live along the western edges of the Brazilian Highlands.

F.

Gran Chaco

F.1.

Land and Habitat

The Gran Chaco culture area corresponds with the Gran Chaco (or simply Chaco) region in south central South America, which encompasses part of Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. It is one of the most challenging environments for human occupation in South America. Summer temperatures are hotter here than anywhere else on the continent. Although rainfall is low, it occurs in such copious amounts during the summer that the three main rivers of the area—the Pilcomayo, Bermejo, and Salado—flood their banks and create large swampy areas. During the dry winter season, temperatures drop so low that tropical vegetation does not thrive. Such seasonal extremes of rainfall and temperature favor mostly cacti and deep-rooted scrub vegetation, which grow in scattered thickets across the grassy savannas.

F.2.

People and Languages

A number of indigenous groups occupied the Gran Chaco at the time of European contact, including the Chiriguano, Zamuco, Chamacoco, Tapieté, Guana, Mbayá, Chané, Angaité, and Lengua, in the north; and the Lule, Vilela, Macá, Pilagá, Mataco, Mocoví, and Abipón, in the south. The main language groups from north to south included Zamucoan, Matacoan, Lule-Vilelan, Mascoian, and Guaicuruan.

F.3.

Early Peoples

Almost no archaeological research has been done in the Gran Chaco. It is possible, however, that human occupation here began around 11,000 years ago, which is the date of the earliest human settlement found on the pampas (grassy plains) of northern Argentina, just to the south of the Gran Chaco.

F.4.

Diet and Subsistence

People throughout most of the Gran Chaco relied on wild plant foods as their main food source, although they supplemented their diet with very limited farming. Plant foods included beans from the pods of the algarroba, or honey mesquite tree, as well as cactus fruits, wild rice, and tubers. As in the Brazilian Highlands, honey and insect larvae were also part of the diet. In the grasslands of the eastern and southern parts of the Chaco, people hunted peccaries, deer, guanacos, rheas (South American ostriches), and numerous smaller animals. Fishing supplemented the diet of people throughout the Chaco, and was especially important for those who lived near the Pilcomayo, Bermejo, and Salado rivers. After the flooding rivers receded at the start of the dry season, it was relatively easy for people to catch the fish stranded in the remaining swamps and lagoons, using baskets, harpoons, bows and arrows, and other techniques.

Women and men usually had different responsibilities for obtaining food. Women primarily gathered fruits, roots, seeds, and algarroba beans, while men collected palm fruits, nuts, and honey. Men had responsibility for hunting. In addition to using spears and bows and arrows to hunt game, men used a weapon called a bola, which consisted of two or three grooved stones tied to a strong rawhide cord. When the bola was thrown at the legs of a running animal, it wound around them and tripped the animal, making it an easy victim for the arrows and clubs of the hunters.

F.5.

Social and Political Organization

Most indigenous groups in the Gran Chaco were band societies that moved frequently to search for food. The leader of each band was a headman, who rose to this position by virtue of his age, wisdom, and survival skills. Ranging up to 200 people in size, many bands were large enough to permit marriage between the members of the same band. Smaller bands required individuals to marry outside of the band. Both boys and girls underwent puberty rites to mark their passage into adulthood. To gain full status as hunters and warriors, boys were required to go through painful rites that involved the extraction of blood from their genitals. Girls’ puberty rites were accompanied by dancing and singing and could last as long as a month. During this initiation, the girls had to live in isolation from the rest of the group and observe dietary restrictions.

F.6.

Warfare

Chacoan groups fought frequently. The main causes of conflict were trespassing onto another group’s territory to obtain food, revenge for killings and witchcraft, and the desire to capture women and children for one’s own band. In ritual dances prior to a raid, warriors worked themselves into a frenzy to aid in the success of the raid. Warriors usually took the heads or scalps of killed enemies to bring back to camp as war trophies.

F.7.

Settlement and Housing

Since most Chacoan groups moved frequently in search of limited and scattered food supplies, they relied on simple houses such as pole-and-thatch windbreaks or lean-tos. Although scarcer materials like poles might be carried from camp to camp, it was usually an easy matter to quickly construct a temporary dwelling from materials available near the campsite. Larger groups often constructed long communal huts on opposite sides of a wide walkway or plaza. The decision about where to construct a camp involved how well it could be defended from enemies as well as the proximity of water and food supplies.

F.8.

Transportation

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the people of the Gran Chaco relied almost entirely on foot travel, transporting material possessions on their backs. In spite of the importance of fishing, most groups lacked any form of water transport other than the simplest rafts or skin tubs used as ferries. Groups in the central Chaco, between the Pilcomayo and Bermejo rivers, acquired horses soon after the arrival the Spanish in the 16th century. Like the Indians of the North American plains and those of the Argentine pampas, the Chacoan horse people quickly expanded the areas in which they sought out food, and began moving south and west of the Pilcomayo-Bermejo area to raid Spanish settlements located on the edge of their territory. Although they had earlier relied on hunting and limited agriculture for food, these newly mounted groups eventually focused almost entirely on hunting. Guanacos, deer, peccaries, and rheas could be surrounded by horsemen much more easily than in the days before the horse, when hunters had to approach animals stealthily on foot. With horses to carry large loads from one camp to another, people could also own and carry more material possessions than before. Settlements continued to be temporary, however, because grazing horses tended to use up pastures quickly, requiring groups to travel greater distances than in pre-horse days to find new sources of grass.

F.9.

Clothing and Ornamentation

During the periods of colder weather, Chacoan people wore cloaks made of otter, deer, or fox skins, with the fur side worn against the body for greater warmth. Cloaks were decorated on the outside with painted black-and-red designs. People who lived in the foothills of the Andes, along the northwestern edge of the Chaco, wore clothing made from llama and alpaca wool. Women in the central Chaco wore simple knee-length skirts made of animal skins with the fur scraped off. To protect the feet during the hot summertime or when crossing a patch of thorns, various groups wore wooden sandals or animal-hide moccasins. Where the cactus and thorn thickets were worst, people used deer-hide leggings to protect their legs.

Many of the Chacoan people wore some sort of headgear. This usually consisted of a single feather from a rhea or egret, but for special occasions could involve much fancier arrangements of feathers, toucan beaks, and snail shells placed in woven caps. Both men and women wore large earplugs that were placed in their pierced ear lobes. Shamans of the Lengua people attached mirrors to these earplugs in an effort to see the reflections of spirits. Lengua people also inserted a semicircular piece of wood in a hole in their lower lip, which made it look as if they had a second tongue (this custom led the Spanish to call them Lengua, a Spanish word meaning “tongue”). Chacoan people variously wore necklaces, pendants, armlets, bracelets, as well as ornaments around their waists and legs. Women throughout the Gran Chaco decorated their faces, breasts, and arms with tattooed designs.

F.10.

Religious Beliefs and Practices

Chacoan peoples did not believe in a supreme being. Many, however, felt that celestial bodies such as the Sun and the Moon could affect individual humans. The most widespread belief was that settlements were surrounded by evil spirits. These spirits could bring about great harm unless they were effectively controlled not only by adult members of the group, but also by shamans. To protect themselves against these spirits, people would chant, shake gourd rattles, whip bullroarers (a kind of noisemaker) around in the air, blow on whistles, and perform ritual dances. They also wore amulets and scarred the body with special designs as forms of protection. In spite of these measures, people believed that shamans from hostile enemies were capable of causing illness or other bodily harm by sending the spirits into their bodies. The only way people could be cured, according to traditional belief, was by having their own shaman suck the evil spirits out of the body.

F.11.

Post-Contact History

The Gran Chaco has long been a route of travel between the Bolivian Andes and the coastal regions of Uruguay and southern Brazil. The first known European to enter the area was a shipwrecked Portuguese sailor named Alejo García, who crossed the northern Chaco with a group of Guaraní people sometime between 1521 and 1526. He made it as far as the high Andes of southern Bolivia, near modern Sucre, but was killed by native inhabitants upon returning to the Atlantic Coast.

Except in the far northwest, very few indigenous people of the Gran Chaco retain any semblance of their traditional culture. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries white populations gradually pushed into the peripheries of the Chaco, resulting either in the assimilation of native populations or in their outright disappearance.

G.

Southern South America

G.1.

Land and Habitat

The Southern South America culture area is characterized by great extremes of environment and climate. It extends from a point just south of the Tropic of Capricorn, at 23° south latitude, to the tip of South America some 3,500 km (2,200 mi) to the south. The cold, rain-drenched Tierra del Fuego archipelago (chain of islands) lies at the southern extreme of the continent. It consists of a large main island, sometimes called Tierra del Fuego Island, and many smaller islands. Glaciers in this area reach down to sea level, and the channels of the archipelago are dotted with icebergs. On the southwestern side of the continent, the islands of the rainy Chilean archipelago contain dense stands of beech and coniferous trees, which kept the indigenous inhabitants of the